Ever since Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary last week, his supporters have been exhorted constantly, “Don’t mourn, organize!” We heard this a lot, too, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump to the presidency, as well as in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s defeat. The expression comes from a telegram from labor hero Joe Hill, close to the time of his death, to International Workers of the World (IWW) leader Big Bill Haywood. Jacobin reprinted it on the one hundredth anniversary of Hill’s death (along with another great letter on how the American labor movement needed to follow the Swedish example and organize women):

Goodbye Bill: I die like a true rebel. Don’t waste any time mourning — organize! It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.

It’s a splendid telegram, but the phrase has become overused and often feels gratingly insensitive and crude, the political equivalent of motivational speaking. Who could disagree with the sentiment that we have to keep fighting, or with the exhortation that we must do so? But nonetheless, the phrase can, in a time of sadness, make you want to smack someone. It is emotionally tone-deaf, perhaps a bit of silly machismo. We do need to mourn, and we also need to organize.