Lots of food for thought here! Just found you and this article after seeing you referenced on decolonizemyself IG.
I took suffer from executive dysfunction and I've been completely burned out and physically sick for months. I keep going, thought I feel like I've hit a point where I did everything I could with "friends" and family. I appreciate those who did little only recently and didn't speak out when I did, and I'm willing to gently point them to crucial info like BIPOC-written resources, but I'm starting to accept that there will be those who will never speak up.
In that category I even have former friends who, many years ago when I went to uni, were my gateway into leftist thought. People who were the first to hand me Chomsky and talk of things like direct democracy. People who were the first to tell me of apartheid walls in Palestine. How they're silent now and how they've abandoned their activism is something I'll never digest. But there's no time for despair over what was lost when there was so much gained. There's a new community to build and I'm committed to it. I feel safe in a community probably for the first time in my life.
Am so happy to hear that you’ve found community now. It is so disheartening to see those who we thought were committed to the same radical politics stay silent or say “it’s complicated.” There’s grief there to move through.
Shitload of grief! I keep reminding myself grief is radical. It's a feeling and experience that has the potential to profoundly change and (re)charge us. There's a good reason why grief is so pathologised and silenced in the West, it's because it's so transformative.
One of the things I regret the most is not meeting my family members where they were, instead of where I thought they should be. So, like you, I feel like this is important and something I am trying to get better at.
I also think that if we expect Israel to "forgive" or the US to stop just doing whatever they want etc, then we also need to try to do that in our personal lives. We need to practice radical forgiveness, radical empathy etc and unlearn colonialism and white supremacy that lives in our minds.
And thank you for the book suggestions! I haven't heard of any of these :)
So glad I could offer some book recs. And ooooffff yes that radical empathy goes both ways when it comes to those of us who aren’t actively impacted by what is happening.
Loved this post! I've been posting about Palestine on my Instagram and attempting to stay educated, but I did share the AI generated image when I saw multiple close friends do it; once I considered how it could actually harm the cause, I felt pretty guilty. This helped me take that guilt away. And two people I'm pretty close to who helped me enter the world of activism and awareness of things like white supremacy & capitalism are definitely people who are meeting me where I'm at. I can say for a fact, them not shaming me and accepting me where I'm at as well as encouraging me, has been the exact support I need to continue growing in this field.
I really appreciate this! I made a couple comments in my Instagram close friends about the utility of focusing on people sharing the AI images and resonate with wanting to create the space for people to show up imperfectly.
I fully agree with you, Margeaux. Also, maybe they've been getting their news from mainstream media, and have been down that rabbit hole until something changed for them.
Something I did during COVID was not take sides. I knew people on both sides who were so adamant about their pov, and it was dividing friends and families. When the subject came up, I would tell people that my relationships are more important to me than their opinions of being vaccinated.
I totally agree. I wondered “why now?” as well AND I don’t believe shaming is sustainable. Also I love the memoir recs!
Lots of food for thought here! Just found you and this article after seeing you referenced on decolonizemyself IG.
I took suffer from executive dysfunction and I've been completely burned out and physically sick for months. I keep going, thought I feel like I've hit a point where I did everything I could with "friends" and family. I appreciate those who did little only recently and didn't speak out when I did, and I'm willing to gently point them to crucial info like BIPOC-written resources, but I'm starting to accept that there will be those who will never speak up.
In that category I even have former friends who, many years ago when I went to uni, were my gateway into leftist thought. People who were the first to hand me Chomsky and talk of things like direct democracy. People who were the first to tell me of apartheid walls in Palestine. How they're silent now and how they've abandoned their activism is something I'll never digest. But there's no time for despair over what was lost when there was so much gained. There's a new community to build and I'm committed to it. I feel safe in a community probably for the first time in my life.
Thank you for the lovely writing!
Am so happy to hear that you’ve found community now. It is so disheartening to see those who we thought were committed to the same radical politics stay silent or say “it’s complicated.” There’s grief there to move through.
Shitload of grief! I keep reminding myself grief is radical. It's a feeling and experience that has the potential to profoundly change and (re)charge us. There's a good reason why grief is so pathologised and silenced in the West, it's because it's so transformative.
One of the things I regret the most is not meeting my family members where they were, instead of where I thought they should be. So, like you, I feel like this is important and something I am trying to get better at.
I also think that if we expect Israel to "forgive" or the US to stop just doing whatever they want etc, then we also need to try to do that in our personal lives. We need to practice radical forgiveness, radical empathy etc and unlearn colonialism and white supremacy that lives in our minds.
And thank you for the book suggestions! I haven't heard of any of these :)
So glad I could offer some book recs. And ooooffff yes that radical empathy goes both ways when it comes to those of us who aren’t actively impacted by what is happening.
Loved this post! I've been posting about Palestine on my Instagram and attempting to stay educated, but I did share the AI generated image when I saw multiple close friends do it; once I considered how it could actually harm the cause, I felt pretty guilty. This helped me take that guilt away. And two people I'm pretty close to who helped me enter the world of activism and awareness of things like white supremacy & capitalism are definitely people who are meeting me where I'm at. I can say for a fact, them not shaming me and accepting me where I'm at as well as encouraging me, has been the exact support I need to continue growing in this field.
I really appreciate this! I made a couple comments in my Instagram close friends about the utility of focusing on people sharing the AI images and resonate with wanting to create the space for people to show up imperfectly.
Important reflections 🙏🏻 (and so many good book recs, thanks for sharing!)
Thank you for this 🫶
I fully agree with you, Margeaux. Also, maybe they've been getting their news from mainstream media, and have been down that rabbit hole until something changed for them.
Something I did during COVID was not take sides. I knew people on both sides who were so adamant about their pov, and it was dividing friends and families. When the subject came up, I would tell people that my relationships are more important to me than their opinions of being vaccinated.