#nonviolence
This guy is awesome.
I went to a high school where I was one of three black kids in my whole graduating class. On a regular basis, I experienced antiblack (+ antiqueer) violence in the hallways, in the bathroom, in the lunchroom, and sometimes even in my “safe space” that was theater.
I still hear the matronizing misogynoir of the white teachers who instructed me to cover myself up with jackets because my budding hips and breasts made my clothes “too tight” which “violated the dress code.”
I still feel the hands that grabbed at my hair, poked, touched, and reduced my black body to a spectacle of curiosity and cruelty.
I still catch a certain tightness in my throat when I remember the upperclassmen who asked if I had a “thug side” or why I didn’t talk ghetto “like other black girls.”
Though I did not know who Pauli Murray, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, or bell hooks were at the time, my parents, aunties, godmothers, and elders taught me the resistance work of Sidney Poitier, the ancestral healing of Maya Angelou, the self-determination of Malcolm X, and the love language of Martin Luther King Jr.
In this time of heightened segregationist violence, antiqueer legislation, and imperialist politics and proxy wars, we are all in search of moving castles that bring us peace and a sense of belonging. While the waterways of decolonization are filled with growing pains, sorrow, healing, and wrath there are also rivers that overflow with a love that celebrates our existence.
There is no perfect solution to combating violence in any form, but in an ecosystem of white supremacy, we would be fools to reduce Protect Black Women to a battle cry and not recognize it as a declaration of love.
i’m not jealous, i’m territorial. jealous is when you want something that’s not yours. territorial is protecting what’s already yours.
unknown
A NOTE ON #VALENTINESDAY & every day:
When I was a kid, my parents would say, “I love you so whole in the world.” It became the family mantra when saying “I love you.” My mother just texted it to my sister and me, and added, “Maybe it has a metaphorical meaning.” For three decades I’ve received and heard and said that line “I love you so whole in the world” without a second thought or further contemplation. When my mother slowed it down enough today to ask me pause, to consider the metaphor, I felt the phrase so wholly and holy.
There is so much importance in loving each other and ourselves wholly and whole. Unconditional love towards the self and each other is a key in unlocking the fear that ultimately manifests as violence and oppression. The myriad overt violence and oppressions in the last week alone have been - like all those before - unconscionable. So much of it - I can only assume - a result of perpetrators of said violence not feeling whole, or seeing the holy whole in others.
Today is a powerful day. It’s a day that began as a liturgical celebration of Christian saints with various legends and narratives surrounding its origins in the early Roman Empire. It’s become a day propagated by consumerism to tell us how we should be loved or how to love or who to love. And it’s also a day that the V-Day movement has turned into a global campaign to end sexual violence worldwide.
There are so many ways the world asks today to take shape. As if love - itself - can even be defined or contained. As if love - itself - can even be measured or sized. Even the notion of that which is “whole” - how too can even that be defined?
And yet, the notion of loving something so whole in the world - of loving it fully and entirely - feels like another key in unleashing the myriad fears that again and again separate us and perpetuate violence, in all unjust forms.
Regarding the devastating fire impacting Houston’s Muslim community this week, a friend noted how exhausting it is for the Muslim community - locally and at large - to have to convince others they are human. And I think about how again and again that happens with every marginalized body and voice. That #BlackLivesMatter came out of that very injustice and pain. That again and again this happens and still still still it must stop immediately immediately now.
And so, today, and every every every day - may we love each other and ourselves so whole in the world.
Happy February 14 - in whatever incarnation you choose to hold it.
Being told by a white dude that he doesn’t want to hang out at your friend’s house anymore because of a time a fight almost broke out in defense of a woman who’d been hit by her boyfriend.
Knowing that for that white dude, that fight and his own safety were important and the reason for the fight was not, even after the fact.
Wishing that there were more dudes willing to fight abusive boyfriends, even when they’ve been friends with those abusive boyfriends, that there were more dudes willing to step up in support of Black women.
Saying this out loud, that you wish someone had been willing to start a fight for you in the same situation, that you’re proud of the guy that came in swinging, and not being understood.
ALTStory time:
Who defined the concept of “Intelligence?” Humans. This is all perfectly fine—except for the fact—that we didn’t start with kindness or compassion first. The notion was weaponized almost immediately.
I was never a bully myself. I was a BIGbully.
A major part of that equation was being a victim of bullying for a very long time. Plus, I followed the example set by most adults, movies, and shows. We are very cruel to one another, and often worse to ourselves.
You can’t “fix” bullying with more bullying.
Once you make a conscious effort to eliminate abusive vocabulary from your daily use, you’ll readily observe it everywhere in every community. Ground up kinda thing.
So we either have to agree that bullying is excellent, gun violence is happiness, murder is joy, war is love. Or we can slowly unlearn and work at changing our culture of violence.
I won’t force you. All I can do is ask.
“A conquered population is schooled in nonviolence through its relationship with a power structure that has claimed a monopoly on the right to use violence.”— “How Nonviolence Protects the State” by Peter Gilderloos (via smarmyanarchist)
Με αφορμή το post της @pasta-flora με το quote του Θανάση, περί βίας, και ύστερα από το ψάξιμο του @ilios-erebus, μπορείτε να διαβάσετε το παρακάτω:
“Πώς η μη-βία προστατεύει το κράτος” - Peter Gerderloos
(eng. “How nonviolence protects the state”)
Σε ελληνικά:
https://www.scribd.com/document/399461750/%CE%A0%CF%8E%CF%82-%CE%B7-%CE%9C%CE%B7-%CE%92%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CE%A0%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B5%CF%8D%CE%B5%CE%B9-%CE%A4%CE%BF-%CE%9A%CF%81%CE%AC%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%82
και αγγλικά:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state
