The General's Briefing
The National Sacrificial Bargain: 60 Years in Two Months, History Repeating, and Why We Have to Build Our Own
In this episode of The General's Briefing, The Griot gets personal. Hilerie Lind, PhD candidate, program manager, mother of two boys with disabilities, and founder of The Griot Collective, shares what it actually looks like when national policy becomes personal devastation. Her exemption from the federal return to office mandate was denied. She was told to relocate to Washington DC or resign. With two disabled sons at home and a life built in Atlanta, that was not a choice. That was a forced exit. And she is not the only one. Since January 2025, the Trump administration has cut 272,000 federal employees, terminated 2,300 NIH grants, slashed Black business contracts by $5 billion, eliminated DEI infrastructure, and dismantled disparate impact liability, the legal tool that allowed Black people to challenge policies that harmed us even when no one wrote down that they meant to. The New York Times called it "How Trump Upended 60 Years of Civil Rights in Two Months." CNN called it "the biggest rollback since Reconstruction." Kimberlé Crenshaw called it "erecting public lynchings for the very idea of Black participation in civil society." The Griot calls it what her dissertation calls it: the Sacrificial Bargain operating at a national scale.
