The past two hours have been a whirlwind. Emotions are running high. I've cried at least three times.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death was inevitable. At 87 years old, with a long history of cancer and an ongoing battle, we all knew her death was a matter of time. But, as with everyone and everything we care about, the knowledge of an incoming loss doesn't dampen that loss in the slightest.
She inspired and continues to inspire me to advocate for myself and for others. She was one of the best of us. You should know some things about her if you don't already.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg lost her mother the day before her high school graduation.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the daughter of a suffragette and seemed to carry the fighting spirit of her mother as if it was genetic.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg enrolled in Harvard Law School at 23 years old with a one-year-old daughter. She was one of nine women in a class of 500 students.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her eight female classmates were invited to dinner with the Dean of Harvard Law. He asked them why they were at Harvard Law and why they were "taking the place of a man."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for the same career opportunities as men, working her way up from law clerk to a professor to the co-founder of the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU. By 1976, she had argued six sex discrimination cases before the Supreme Court, and out of those, she won five.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke tradition in 2000 following a five-to-four Supreme Court decision to shut down a recount of the vote in Florida during the close-cut Bush vs. Gore election.
She wrote, "I dissent" instead of "I respectfully dissent." Those simple words hammered against what she saw as an entirely unjust, undemocratic act.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one of only four women to have ever served on the Supreme Court.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought cancer five times before she passed.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a champion for America. She was a champion for me.
She was one of the last strings of hope that I was holding onto as 2020 has progressively taken several turns for the worst.
It's hard to find the words to type her accomplishments and to convey in less than one thousand words how meaningful, how symbolic she became. She fought. She was not silent. She forged on despite the obstacles she faced as a Jewish woman during the 20th century and beyond.
It's hard to imagine what the next few months will look like.
We near a contentious, aggressive election. The Black Lives Matter movement continues to demand justice from officials who turn their cheek to those who they promised to serve. The pandemic rages on, taking thousands upon thousands of lives. Now we have to contend with the absent seat of yet another Supreme Court Justice.
Over time, some things will improve and some things will worsen.
We control what we can. We dissent respectfully when a decision calls for respect. Otherwise, we simply dissent.
Most of all, we must forge on. It's what the notorious RBG would have wanted.
ABC News. "'I Dissent': The Two Words That Turned Ruth Bader Ginsburg into an Icon." ABC News, ABC News, 19 Sept. 2020, www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-19/ruth-bader-ginsburg-notorious-rbg-us-supreme-court-justice-dead/11256624.
