Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020
First, we should mourn. We have lost RBG. A towering intellect, a careful and considered legal strategist, and a firebrand on the bench. But we have also lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A woman, mother, grandmother, friend, colleague, and wife. Someone who leaves behind a distinct imprint on American history is still, in the end, a person. She can never be replaced.
And so, we should mourn her loss. She is worth our tears, our rage, and our sadness.
Her work is our work. While Ruth Bader Ginsburg achieved a singular kind of fame, she always saw her work as a community effort with a deep history and many hands contributing. In 1971, when she wrote the legal brief for Reed vs. Reed, she listed feminist lawyer Dorothy Kenyon and queer Black theorist Pauli Murray as her co-authors, giving credit to those who had come before her and forged the legal strategy she was bringing to bear. She saw herself as the latest in a long line of people battling for liberation.
There is still work to be done, and thankfully, there are individuals and organizations, large and small, who are continuing that work today. If you're receiving this email, you are one of those people — doing the work, supporting the work, engaging in the struggle that started long ago and will continue. Take a minute and sit with that: RBG believed that the work of building a more just society is shared. I think she would want us all to remember, especially today, our own place in that work.
We're in this together. I remember the moment in December 2016 at a holiday party held in the shadow of the election when I first heard the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent collar. It felt like such a graceful gesture — at once respectful and defiant — that I wanted to capture it and give it as a gift to friends and family who were looking for some kind of hope. I worked with my friend Caitlin Kuhwald to create a little enamel pin: a tiny talisman to wear as a reminder to keep fighting for what is right. When my company opened our online store a few months later to raise money for causes that we thought RBG would appreciate, I sent one of the pins to Justice Ginsburg at her Supreme Court address. Four days later, there was a lovely little note from her in my mailbox. In these days of email and tweets, that typewritten note on her letterhead meant the world to me. It means even more today.
Over the past four years, I've been struck by how often people write to tell me how meaningful they find their Dissent Collar jewelry. I think this symbol that RBG created means something more than dissent; it means community. It means we are in this together, side by side, ready to work, to be inspired by great figures like RBG, and to be inspiring ourselves.
Please take care of yourself in this moment. Mourn the way you need to mourn. And then let's get to work together.
