Things Change So Quickly
A Microcosm: My Little Corner of the World, 2020–2024
It might be surprising to people in other parts of the country, but it was possible for a minute to think that Louisiana State University — the flagship university of this very conservative state — was taking an inspirationally progressive turn.
In 2020, the university library was renamed, removing the name of a former university president who resisted integration. Committees were formed to review the names of other buildings, and the suggest renaming projects as needed. Identity-focused organizations were invited to regular planning meetings with university administrators.
As an active executive committee member of the LSU LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Caucus, I felt close to the action. Well, if not action, then at least the drudgery of early-morning meetings.
But all of this changed quickly. By the end of 2021, the building-renaming committees were disbanded, the library (to this day) has never been renamed and remains a complaint among funders and state legislatures.¹
And those meetings with the university administrators? Yes, those definitely stopped. In fact, as of early 2024, one would be hard pressed to find any mention of Diversity, Equity or Inclusion on the LSU’s website. The university’s Division of Inclusion, Civil Rights & Title IX became Division of Engagement, Civil Rights and Title IX. And things have been moving in this direction ever since. Everyone I know who works in areas considered “DEI” are gone, or are expecting to be gone soon.
The difference between 2020 and 2024 at LSU couldn’t be starker.
A Macrocosm: A Few Examples of How Things Change Quickly in Very Big Ways
The last few years at LSU have been instructive. Things change quickly. It matters who is in which positions of power. Nothing is settled. Things can always get worse.
Since the national election earlier this month, I’ve been revisiting some books that discuss how quickly things can change.
Kim Ghattas, in her book, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivary That Unravelled Cultures, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East, starts with the question, “What happened?” In a short period of time Iran changed completely. The revolution of 1979 could have gone any number of ways, but it went the way of repression and theocracy. And it went that way very fast.
I’ve also revisited Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. The graphic novel tells the story of the authors life in post-revoluation Iran (she was 10 in 1979).
One of the powerful insights from both Ghattas and Satrapi (at least for our purposes here) is their observation of how quickly individuals picked up these changes, internalized them, and lived them.
Thinking about the uptake, by “ordinary” people, of sudden changes at the governmental level, I’ve also been spending time with Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–1945.
Mayer spent a year in “typical” German town, interviewing 10 former Nazis about their lives, their views of Nazism, and how they think about their own decisions to join the Party.
The later parts of the book are influenced by Freudian concepts of family relations, and leave me a little confused. But the first part of the book is chilling for its insights. Former Nazis talk about joining because it felt natural. Everyone else they knew were joining. It didn’t seem like a big deal. They didn’t know anyone personally who was being hurt.
Living a Life We Can Be Proud of Later
But of course, not everyone falls in line. We have plenty of examples of anti-Nazis in Germany.
Satropi wrote her graphic memoir, in part, because she doesn’t “want those Iranaians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.”²
Likewise, Ghattas writes that she ultimately has hope in the future.
My journey across time and space was both humbling and exhilarating, as it reminded me of the incrediable power of those who continue their relentless, courageous fight for more freedoms, more tolerance, more light. Beyond the headlines about war and death, the region is alive with music, art, books, theatre, social entrepreneurship, advocacy, libraries, cafes, bookshops, poetry, and so much more as old and young push to relaim space for cultural expression and freedom of expression. Their defiance is a source of hope, their steadiness congagious.³
Finding The Things That Won’t Change, and Building Those Connections
I’m afraid the US will soon be seeing something comparable to Iran in 1979, or Germany in the 1930s. It won’t be exactly the same, and our resistance won’t look exactly the same. It will be up to us to figure out how to live as the world changes quickly around us.
As I brace for this, I’m thinking about the things that won’t change. I’m building stronger relationships with the people closest to me. I’m focusing more time growing the bonds — with family, both bio and chosen; with people in my own town — that will ground me in the turbulent times to come.
As a trans person, a parent, a librarian, and a genererally-curious-and-open-minded person, I’m concerned for the future. My biggest hope right now is that we don’t fall too quickly in line with a future we don’t want. Let’s build the connections we want, and live a life we can be proud of when we look back from the other side.
[1] LSU Library, the unimaginative “interim” name of the main library at LSU is in nationally-recognized poor condition. One could argue that leavening the former university president’s name on it would have been a stronger statement.
[2] This is from the Introduction to the 2002 edition.
[3]p. 331
