WWR (un)Conference Reflection - Resilience: Memory, Challenge, and Protest

The Womxn Who Rock “Ofrendas for the Future” (un)Conference, was an incredibly fascinating event to watch. Now more than ever connection is important; In a time where we’ve been away from each other for so long, in which ever-present issues are at the forefront of our minds, it has never, in my lifetime, been so great a strain just to have to experience all that is the world today. Classes, as much as we can talk and see each other’s faces online, do not offer the same reprieve of the conference’s sense of community and love for others. The altars that were presented make the message of memory and resilience clearer than ever. I think a lot about protests and privilege, this week more than usual, and I think, for all the community, love, memory, dancing and connection I could discuss continuing in this post, I’d prefer to discuss the parallels of the black lives matter protests occurring now. This peaceful protest is, in the most powerful of ways, a resilience practice. Like the defiant challenge of Beyoncé in Lemonade, protests like these ask us to be strong for ourselves and others. Like the ofrendas and altars, we saw during the webinar, this protest is also a call to remember those we have lost. They ask us, in the same spirit that brings leadership and attendees to WWR, to come together for a cause, a universal love, and a movement bigger than ourselves. They remind us that, despite the division, despite the unsanctioned violence by anarchists and police, despite all that we, and especially black people and protesters, have been made to suffer, there will always be far more that unites than divides us. We need only the resilience to reveal it.