Letter by Kyle Tibbs Jones
Illustrations by Holy Moly
3/10/26
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Published in Issue No. 13
Dear Readers,
This letter is killing me.
I’ve written it 10 times, and I keep starting over. I’m sitting at my dining room table, trying with all my heart and every brain cell I have left to string meaningful words together. A couple of years ago, if I had told you that while writing this letter I couldn’t stop crying, you might have called me … melodramatic? Maybe you see me that way now. Either way, I am a hardcore feeler. I’m also a fighter. So here goes.
Almost everyone I know is hurt by the world right now. The pervasive cruelty and corruption of our nation’s authoritarian administration, the slow-reveal of depraved crimes against children and the long-term criminal coverup that is the Epstein files, our unhinged president bringing us closer and closer to catastrophe every day, a rogue Department of Homeland Security and ICE waging war on immigrants and U.S. citizens, and now enormous warehouses being readied for God knows what.
We are tempted to say, “Our democracy has failed.”
But what we must first say is this … in the United States of America, democracy has never applied to everyone. Not to Native Americans, people of color, women, the LGBTQ+, children, immigrants, the poor, or anyone the rich and powerful have deemed less than. The great democratic experiment has never worked for all. Still, this current and extreme attack on human rights and freedoms chills us to the bone.
Illustration by Holy Moly
In January, I flew to Washington, D.C., to take part in Democracy Forward’s “Together for Democracy” summit. For two days, I was surrounded by some of our brightest minds and most astute thinkers. And when it was over and I was making my way home thinking about what I had learned — I realized that every speaker at the conference had basically delivered the same message. I will do my best to summarize here.
Things are going to get worse before they get better. Will it take us two years, five years, 10 years to get through this? No one knows for sure. For those of us who continue to believe in the best of America, who continue to resist authoritarianism … when we make our way through this mess (and we will make our way through …) WE will be the founders of a new America. And in that new America, we’ll have the opportunity to build a true democracy for all, finally. Immediately we must begin working on that future America. Some have framed it as a “third reconstruction.”
When I first heard it put that way, I was floored.
So yes, the extreme weight of building a better America and better world in the middle of pandemonium is overwhelming. And, y’all, it’s OK to cry. We cry. We wipe our tears. And then we get busy. Some of us organize, some of us march, some of us talk with family and neighbors and friends, some of us donate to mutual aid groups. An older person recently told me that her blood pressure was through the roof, and that she was worried about getting “too worked up about all of this.” We agreed that her best contribution was prayer — deep meditative prayer for goodness and love to prevail.
Love. We must move forward and together with love. And there’s something every single one of us can do. If your family and friends provide support, gather them up. If you fly solo, let The Bitter Southerner be your community. We are here. We want to be helpful, to provide thoughtful insight, to look for solutions.
In this issue, we placed ourselves in Tennessee, so we could look in the mirror that is the United States. What we found in that reflection is what we’ve known all along. We’re all the same, and we’re all worried about what’s happening to our country. On our cover and in our feature story, someone with firm roots in Tennessee: the brilliant songwriter, and a hero of mine, Ms. Gillian Welch. We photographed Gillian at the Frist Art Museum in February, and on that same day, I fell in love with the work of Nashville artist Yanira Vissepó. Two of her pieces included in the museum’s all-women exhibition “In Her Place” are shared here. Carla Hall has penned our “Letter from Home” about her childhood home in Nashville. Tayari Jones’ excerpt from her new hit novel, Kin, begins at Ruby Falls just outside of Chattanooga and a few miles down the road from Ben Mims’ experience at Little Debbie Snack Cake world headquarters. Lindsey Tramuta writes from Paris about what it’s like to leave America, and I interview Memphis-native Ainsley Durose, a pastry chef living in Paris, as she speaks to the same thing. In fact, more than one contributor and storyline connects us to Paris and the UK and Berlin. Isn’t that the Bitter Southerner way? We start out in Tennessee, and we end up all around the world?
The truth is that Bitter Southerner readers everywhere want better. This issue is for all of us.
Forward, together, and with lots of emotion,
— Kyle
Kyle Tibbs Jones
Co-Founder & Editor,
The Bitter Southerner
Illustration by Holy Moly
