Through the Looking Glass: Faultlines, Broken Systems, and Radical Care

It’s been a week since the world took a sharp turn—when the faultlines of our systems stopped pretending they were anything but gaping chasms. For most of my life, the slow slide toward authoritarianism felt like a creeping shadow—something you knew was there but could convince yourself was just a trick of the light. But now? Now it’s out in the open. No subtlety. No pretense. Just raw, unfiltered power grabbing and cruelty, holding eye contact and daring us to flinch.

It’s a little like falling through the looking glass, only to find there’s no whimsical tea party waiting on the other side—just all the worst parts of our system reflected back at us. We can’t pretend anymore that the brokenness of the world was ever hidden. It was always there, a cracked foundation poorly covered by cheap wallpaper. But now the subtext is gone. It’s all text, bold and underlined.

Seeing the Faultlines in a Broken System

Authoritarianism doesn’t arrive fully formed. It creeps in slowly, disguised as “security,” “tradition,” or “freedom.” What’s happening now—despite this loud, brash unveiling—isn’t new. It’s the logical progression of decades (centuries?) of exploitation, exclusion, and oppression. It’s a world designed to protect power for the few while leaving everyone else to scramble for what’s left. What we’re witnessing isn’t the fire starting—it’s the smoldering finally erupting into flames.

I’m in the U.S., working as a professor, and this week has been one of the hardest I can remember (of years of hard weeks). My students—international students, students of color, LGBTQ+ students, students from other marginalized groups—are terrified. And so am I. We’re navigating a tidal wave of uncertainty, not knowing which communities will face the next wave of attacks. I’ve always understood my lab and my classroom as a space of care and growth, but it’s hard to feel secure when the world outside feels like it’s cracking apart.

Choosing Care When Disconnection Feels Inevitable

The disconnection I’ve felt this week isn’t just my own—it’s something I see in the people around me. My students are worried about their safety, their futures, their families, their communities. And they have every right to be. They know what it feels like to be scapegoated, to be targeted by systems that never had their well-being in mind. For them, this isn’t a shocking turn of events. It’s a continuation of what they’ve always known. But now, the rest of us can see it too.

The people I’ve been leaning on this week are the ones who have lived this reality all along. Marginalized folks, especially those living at the intersections of multiple oppressions, have been navigating this dystopia long before it made front-page news. And now, as the rest of us wake up to the nightmare, they’re still here—organizing, holding space, and caring for one another.

But this care cannot be selfish. It can’t stop at our own fears or personal struggles. True care demands that we keep looking outward, toward the people who have been fighting this fight for decades. They’ve seen how oppression weaves its threads through every crack in the system. They understand that none of this exists in isolation—every faultline is connected to another. If we put on blinders and focus only on our own piece of the puzzle, we risk missing the bigger picture. The only way through this is together—by connecting, by seeing, by refusing to turn away. Care must be a bridge, not a wall.

And that’s what I keep coming back to: care. If there’s one thing this week has taught me, it’s that care isn’t just a soft, quiet thing. It’s powerful. Radical. It’s showing up for your people when the world tells you to look away. It’s holding space for fear and anger—but also for moments of joy, laughter, and connection. It’s knowing the faultlines won’t disappear overnight—but refusing to let them isolate us from one another.

Right now, the mirror is shattered, and we can’t look away from what’s been exposed. Take care of yourselves and your communities.

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