How useful it is, in the age of our phones — as our lives, our world, our education, our reality — that our intellectuals can traverse the screen with a bit of the ineffable, potent enough to slow us down. Raquel Willis does not compete for attention. She does her work, and if you start to pay attention along the way, all the better. (Not to mention: what took you so long?)
In a world where anyone can garner a following, and anything can become public, the role of “public figure” is no longer synonymous with having something to say. Willis, though, is different, having caught attention for her words for decades. First, as a journalist, where she won a GLAAD Media award for her “Trans Obituaries Project,” and, increasingly, as a public speaker and activist. Attention, obviously, does not always equal respect: In 2017, she was midway through her speech at the Washington, D.C.’s Women’s March — “As we commit to build this movement of resistance and liberation, no one can be an afterthought anymore. We must hold each other in love and accountability…” — when her mic was suddenly cut off.
The summer of 2020 was a flashpoint in collective social justice movements, bringing widespread, institutional magazine.
