"Sharpen your knives. Buck up. Think about telling the stories that matter. You have that power," said my editor at my magazine internship in Cleveland on the morning of Nov. 6. He had walked into our morning meeting with fire blazing in his eyes as we all sat with permanent frowns and sad creases down our faces. 

A room of journalists committed to the truth facing the aftermath of the racism, misogyny and lies that underpinned Donald Trump’s campaign and sweeping victory in the 2024 presidential election was not the ideal place to be at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.

But like many of my peers, I was already getting fired up early that morning. Beyond the first ten minutes after I learned of Trump’s win when I rushed to the bathroom to get sick, I lifted my head from my bathroom sink and have not put it down since.  

The words of Maya Angelou swirl in my brain:

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Angelou’s poem and book "Still I Rise" were published in 1978. The verses swell with her words about the dignity and resilience of marginalized people, specifically the beauty of Blackness and Black womanhood. 

She repeats "I rise" ten times in the poem. She is begging you to see your strength reflected in her own. 

I have an uncle obsessed with the meditations of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. On the morning of Nov. 6, he sent me an episode from a podcast called "The Daily Stoic" titled "Your duty remains the same." The host, Dan Jones, said, "The consequences and the costs and the stakes can change… And these election results may well have done that, but the obligation remains. The duty remains."

Jones quoted Aurelius, "Whatever anyone does or says, for my part I’m bound to the good."

I am forever tethered to the goodness of the world. And the age old adage "the pen is mightier than the sword" has never felt more true. We still have our voices and we cannot despair to the point of losing them. I call on my colleagues, indeed all of you, to scream and kick and fight for what you know to be true even if you feel defeated in this moment. 

I am a white middle-class girl from the suburbs… But still I also rise. And as we go through the next four years, mine and your duty remains the same. In the words of my editor who grasped onto whatever inspiration he could find: "buck up." 

So as we head into Trump's presidency filled with uncertainty and mourning for what could have been, "buck up" will be my mantra. And, I hope you -- fellow journalists and fellow citizens -- will join me in rising above the burdens you carry and continue to use your voice for the common good, whether here at CSU, in your local neighborhood, Cleveland or beyond.