The Responsibility of the Free

Tomorrow morning I will leave for San Diego. I will get on a plane (mostly) easily and fly over three thousand miles away from my home and no one can tell me I can’t. No one can question me at a border and no one can deny me this trip.
That is not true for Yoani Sanchez, a blogger from Cuba who has used her words for far greater purpose than I. And yet, despite being awarded an International Blogger Activist by the very people at BlogHer that I am traveling to see, Yoani may not be able to attend with me.
What Yoani does with her words is so important that the people from BlogHer wanted to recognize her for it. But her government says no.
That’s hard for me to comprehend and impossible for me to accept.
When I saw this post from Catherine, a blogger that I adore for what she does with her words, I knew I had to say something.
If I have learned nothing from these women I admire it is this:  our words have power and when we see something that needs attention, it is incumbent upon us to use our words to speak out.

So read this, it is the simple version of what is going on and it is explained by Catherine and her friend Ana far better than I could do on my own. Read this and then use your voice to help Yoani come in person for the recognition she so clearly deserves. Because the only thing you need to know is that there is an injustice being done and our words may help to stop it-even if just for today.

From Catherine and Ana: (If you write a post, please add it to this blog hop, at Latism. You can also help by tweeting and retweeting all the messages with the #YoaniBlogHer hashtag. Ana tells me that Yoani goes tomorrow for a final answer on whether she’ll be allowed out of the country. Please blog/tweet/holler tonight and tomorrow. Let’s be heard.)