A side-effect of studying the law is the contraction of the world into a constellation of rules. Yet a system of ordering does not translate automatically to justice, and justice will never be a captive of law. Time is the true crier for the forms of justice we hope will come into existence.
Some days, I trudge on with uncertainty, my first instinct being quick to rush into the law’s defense. Ridiculous, I know.
To be still able to see the majesty of the law is a privilege—even to the point of foolishness. Trauma collects into oceans of grief. Pool a nation’s worth of hunger and raise a generation into suffering and you get a boiling sea. It is difficult to talk of rules, of procedure, of wisdom and logic in the face of violence that moves with a swift and heavy hand.
Adherents of ‘natural law’ will be quick to disagree on this point, but as a contract drawn up across time, liberating the law from its entanglements with power means taking ownership of the ability to reimagine it. What would it mean to recast the rules that bind us? What would the world look like if there were moral and material equity and justice? Hence, the imperative to topple statues, flood the streets and challenge the frightening world where might is currency.
I want to continue believing that our greatest chance at survival is to see to it that a just world comes out of this shitstorm. The law, cold and hard as it is, had a reverse effect on me: it allowed me to ease into the idea that a softer world could come into existence. (But that is a conversation for another time.)
I settle into poking the walls for now. Pushing bit by bit, testing the limits of the space I find myself in.
All this, while moving between past and promise.
While learning to swim as the people prophesize the flood.
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