Rising by Elizabeth Rush

Author:Elizabeth Rush
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781571319708
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2018-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

Eventually I tell Samuel that I cannot continue our professional relationship and I tell him why. First he says, “Oh my god.” Then he says, “I had no idea.” Followed by, “I don’t remember.” And then, “I had no further intentions.” He says, “I love my family.” And, “Let me know when you get over it.” The words spill out of him fast like floodwater.

He can’t stop talking, so I invent a student knocking on my door and hang up. I don’t present at the National Academy of Sciences. I don’t take the senior fellowship. I don’t coauthor an article with him. When I put down my cell phone, I realize I have been shaking. It doesn’t keep me from writing every trite word Samuel said on a succession of neon sticky notes that I immediately affix to the wall above my desk. Didn’t I wish to somehow help him see what others could not; didn’t I wish to introduce him to the most vulnerable living along our drowning coast; but didn’t I flee, when I felt my body threatened?

For months, I fear I have failed Alvin and all of the other people I interviewed in the panhandle. That by walking away from Samuel I was also walking away from the occasion to get their voices heard. But the more I learn about risk, the more I know that fleeing is wise. It is something we ought to help each other do. In my case, it was easy enough. The immediate repercussions were few, aside from a handful of missed professional opportunities and a feeling of guilt at not having done more. My position and my privilege guaranteed my recovery. So many of those living along the damp fringes of our country do not share this sense of security. For now, when they flee from risk, it is less clear who or what will catch them.

I am done dreaming the earth undrowned; it is no longer a useful skill. Because what is happening in the Tanyard is happening to every denizen of the United States, every citizen of the world, even as it is affecting the most vulnerable among us first. James Baldwin wrote the following words about the murder of Emmett Till: “It’s a terrible delusion to think that any part of this republic can be safe as long as . . . members of it are as menaced as they are. The reality I am trying to get at is that the humanity of this submerged population is equal to the humanity of anyone else, equal to yours, equal to that of your child.” “Submerged”: Baldwin’s metaphor has turned literal in the decades since he wrote it. His words remind me that our collective security will be arrived at, should it come at all, as a result of our ability to reckon with our country’s history and how it has left so very many bodies unjustly exposed to risks that only continue to mount. “Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford,” he continues.

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