The Wonder Chronicles: 15
Democratic Representative Cori Bush is pictured on the House floor protesting U.S. military aid to Israel during President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. on March 7, 2024. Photo: Alex Wong via Newsweek
This is part of a running series. Read the previous Wonder Chronicle: On Birthdays
What a wonder to behold a radical!
“All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid…AIPAC, I am coming to tear your kingdom down,” Rep. Cori Bush vowed on Tuesday night in a concession speech that she turned into a victory for the free and unafraid.
I have lived in the U.S. for 24 years and I have never heard a politician here so resolutely call out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The pro-Israel lobby poured $8.5 million to defeat Bush and then boasted that “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”
Radical, as in end the genocide. Bush, a co-founder of the Congressional caucus that has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, is a staunch supporter of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian in Congress.
Radical, as in unbossed and unbought–the through line connecting the first Black woman elected to the Congress, Shirley Chisholm, (who was also the first Black woman to run for president in the U.S.) to the first Black woman from Missouri elected to that Congress, Cori Bush.
Radical, as in truth teller of lived experience in a sea of lawmakers whose lives are too comfortable and too detached.
The majority of lawmakers are too rich to understand hunger or poverty, and are too comfortable to even imagine either. Bush knew the sharpness of hunger and the pain of the under-resourced.
“It’s one thing to know that I can’t eat today, but I’m making sure my children eat. It’s another thing — it does something to your mind — when you know not only am I not eating today, I don’t know how I’m going to eat next week,” she said in an interview shortly after being elected.
Radical, as in knowing that being poor is expensive.
Bush tweeted about shopping at thrift shops in order to afford business attire for Capitol Hill, as she awaited her first paycheck. She was a single mother of two children in 2020 who gave up her health insurance to run for office and left full-time work as an ordained pastor and nurse.
Radical, as in being on the right side of justice: Bush joined thousands who protested the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014. Wesley Bell, the AIPAC-backed Democrat who defeated her in Tuesday’s primary, became the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney in 2018 and promised Michael Brown’s mother that he would file charges, but then chose not to pursue an indictment in 2020.
Radical, as in blasting through stigma and shame: Bush has shared her experiences of rape and abortion.
Rep. Cori Bush leaves a processing area after being arrested for demonstrating in support of abortion rights in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington on July 19, 2022 (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Radical, as in Angela Davis’ words: “If we are not afraid to adopt a revolutionary stance—if, indeed, we wish to be radical in our quest for change—then we must get to the root of our oppression. After all, radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’”
Be radical. Unroot all that oppresses you!
My goal: that you are found by wonder.
My wish: that you intensely live.
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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. She is editing an anthology on menopause called Bloody Hell! And Other Stories: Adventures in Menopause from Across the Personal and Political Spectrum. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
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Thank you, Mona!! An important part of the "plan" is to make us all afraid to raise our voices, protest, and be enraged. Cori is our mentor; she teaches us that fighting for justice means taking risks and sometimes those risks mean you lose your job. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. The US has pointed fingers at other countries who police their populace and crack down on freedom of speech but hopefully it's becoming clearer to all that the US has always been masters at this game. Hopefully we will continue to see Cori rise in her power and strength and she will feel supported by those of us who believe in her vision.