#I reflect upon the trans support group the other night when I had asked about dating tips and everyone said to use the internet

[oglegoggle]

I’m stressed by my work schedule. Thankfully I get paid on Friday and can hopefully deal with the speeding ticket issue. I know my dearest friend is also stressed by their work schedule. I feel so distant from them. I want to spend time with them and do activities with them in the evenings when they get home from work but they’re usually more interested in playing video games or staring at the internet than actively engaging with me. I had brought up to them that I feel distant from them and they said they’re trying to distance from me so it’ll hurt less when I leave in a few weeks. It… was an emotionally confusing response, like why did they ask me to stay longer if they’re just going to distance from me? I feel stuck in a place where I’m desperately trying to connect with someone I care very dearly for and like they want to connect with me but just can’t, doesn’t want me to go despite knowing that they can’t be present in my life the way I need. I kinda feel like my brain is being ripped in half again. I hope that things will be easier when their work schedule lightens up. But just the same I don’t quite know how to handle the growing stress of my own work schedule when I don’t even really want to be here where I increasingly feel ignored. The ambient sounds of the city stress me. The grinding gears of capitalism stress me. The long work hours and irregular schedule that doesn’t respect the one fucking day of the week I requested to always have off stresses me. I want so much to be out in the woods again. I stay because of them. I would stay as long as they want me to. But I just wish they would act like they actually want to spend time with me if they want me to stay.

[andysnorwayaffairs]

Final Project

Pt 1; a perfect ending. feeling a rush of shared excitement - finally! just like me!

warmth, embraced, a queer kind of friendship. we sat in the grass and talked about how our lives were growing up, how our queerness was realized and how it affected the way we walk in the world. our stories are so similar yet so, so different. miles and miles of time away, you announce to your friends that you’re probably maybe gay. you start a spark in their minds, and soon after you’re deemed the trail blazer of coming out. you are brave, do you know it? you were the person who i wished for. so desperate for approval from others, and not meeting anyone like you, i took it upon myself to starve my queerness, the differentness, the part of me that i knew i could definitely be hated for. and i can’t stand the thought of being hated. and a part of me hated myself for who i was. i was taught that i couldn’t love like that, that it wasn’t *real*, that anything other than normal is impossible, wrong, destructive. so i listened, and i believed them. not completely, that is also true. that’s why i never stopped immersing myself in online queer culture, why i desperately searched for any sign of queerness in the online personas i followed and in the fiction that i read. we talked about this too, how we’d entrench ourselves in media and later realize that we were part of the group we were so obsessed with. finally... just like me

you opened your heart so quickly - your friends, they tell me that they’re so happy that you’ve met me. you open a window into your life and lend a hand to help me hop in. i see how you love others, and how they love you. we run through the lawn of a backyard riddled with ripe fruit and laugh like children at how sweet the juice is. we share a meal and spend hours talking about nothing and everything. i sometimes stop and listen to the chatter, and i feel complete warmth even when i cannot understand what is being said. we read the cards i brought and i learn how each of you sees love. i see the way you interact with your loved ones, the way you so deeply care to spend time with them. letting go, giggling in giddy joy, acting like absolute fools. finally, just like me

cried a farewell last night

thank you for offering me a bizarre, unfair amount of kindness

thank you for showing me a glimpse of your life, your entire world

thank you for extending a hand in friendship, in solidarity

thank you for being my friend

I feel like my time here, my glimpse into another person’s life, feels like a glimpse into an alternate timeline. A timeline in which I accepted myself from the beginning. A timeline in which I told a friend about my crush on Jen from Buzzfeed. A timeline when I refused to normalize myself, refused to uphold the boundaries that were unfairly placed on me. A timeline when I was brave. A timeline when I stopped being so damn scared. A timeline when I realized that my friends would still stay friends with me, and those who didn’t want to, I should let go of anyways. There will always be people who don’t match up with your values, your energies, your being. I won’t lie to myself and say that it wouldn’t hurt like a bitch, but it’s a hard fact of life that homophobes, transphobes, racists, xenophobes, ie bigots exist and there will be always be bullies and people who don’t care about you, who WANT to put you down, who want to hurt you. In a world of power, there will be those with some and those without. I was given a small window into my friend’s life and saw a life pathway built around friendships who learn and grow right alongside you. I’ve always thought about that – what if? What if I let go earlier? In my timeline, the forces around me were not as kind to me. I was told queerness was ugly, so utterly upside down. I didn’t have anyone to tell me otherwise. Perhaps if I had a positive role model to tell me that it WAS okay, that it was beautiful and wonderful. Perhaps if I had a friend like them in my life who was the first to come out and encouraged others by simply living their life the way THEY want to, perhaps I would have had the courage to do so earlier. I can’t change the past.

But I can think about how the events of my past shaped my present, and how my present shapes my future. Thank God - I DID let go! There’s no race to live your truth, but oh god it feels so good to do it NOW. I’m so thankful that I found the bravery these people I know now have embraced so many years ago. I feel like my own person, like an entire human soul. I don’t feel the need to please anyone. This queer experience, of finding yourself and maybe even fearing yourself, but, ultimately, coming to love yourself despite dominant society failing you, that is a queer experience. Regardless of any experience, something we all share is having to live in a world that ultimately does not accept us, does not want us.

An ode to knowing that although things are different here, and that there’s no possible way that I could have had a similar timeline just simply because of how different our spheres and worlds are... despite this, despite the fear and self hate and internal violence I was forced into because of the life I was born into, despite all of this, I was still able to find myself and love myself and find others who love me for my whole humanness.

There’s a lot of work to be done in the world, for our lives and our safety and our happiness. I think the friends I’ve met here are doing that work. Through their love for each other and thus their refusal to conform, to stay quiet, to accept the norms in place.

Meeting this special friend may have been completely chance, but I believe fate had a little bit to do with it too. To give me this window, to let me see what beauty it is to allow a person to be themselves. The sooner, the better.

____ DISCUSSION

Pt 3:

It’s funny to see how these ppl’s reflections of their lives fit in line with exactly what we discussed through our readings and class discussions. Norway may be progressive in law, but not necessarily in practice. Each of the queer people I asked this about, or asked them to speak about their queer experience, expressed frustration at there not being much of a strong queer community here, and how they still experienced everyday oppression (you may call these micro aggressions).

Nordic model of inclusion + welfare, making this a space where it is looked down upon to discriminate for someone’s sexuality

A different relationship to Christianity

In the U.S., I grew up in a heavily queerphobic, heavily strict and monitored environment where I was even monitoring myself, reprimanding myself for all of the gay content I was consuming but allowing myself to keep doing it because I was “outside” of the community and thus could not be associated with it or have to think of the consequences.

In middle school I was fully aware that I had strong crushes on gay female celebrities but was petrified of sharing that information with anyone.

I shut myself down immediately, but continued to consume gay, lgbt, and trans media for years and years after, allowing myself to do this because I could convince myself that I was just “a straight girl” who was a big fan of the community.

After coming to college and experiencing true freedom from the expectations and values placed on me, it took me less than three days to come to the realization that I was in fact, extremely not straight. It took me 6 more months to fully feel comfortable admitting to myself and claiming the label that I was gay. It took me another year to “come out” to all of my friends and folx I really cared about.

-talk about how this is a divide between my experience and the experiences of the friends I made here. L & their friends came out when they were extremely young, in middle school actually. Our timelines diverge here.

Only recently, I began to make friends on the shared experience of our queerness. Meeting my close friends now, sharing intimate + tender moments. Loving each other and supporting one another the way family might do. A queer kind of love shared in these emotional bonds. A kind of love I had not experienced before my full acceptance and life as a queer person. Tender, radical love.

Meeting L, sharing on our experience of being queer and trans. And not to say that their life in Norway is so much better. The Nordic model may allow for some general acceptance, but queerphobia still has its roots in other malicious ways. Many of L’s friends still don’t use their pronouns. A is called the slur version of the word lesbian, and she recognizes that being a lesbian is not favorable to society. She wants to be a prof of gender studies at her uni but told me that since there is already one queer person on staff, she’ll never be hired on.

M telling me about how even tho queer ppl are accepted on the outside, and in the law, in practice, not so much.

-A telling me that people hate lesbians

-in Norwegian, the word for lesbian is also really similar to the slur, “fucking lesbian”

CONNECTION TO THE FIRST ARTICLE WE READ

Norway’s state feminism and inclusion of queerness is heteronormative, only assimilating those that fit into the family, hetero model (thinking to naked sculpture park, extremely family oriented)

Same sex has to still be straight – family, private, culturally straight.

[lastsonlost]

Aziz? redemption ?

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

God, I love being white,” said Louis C.K.

“Here’s how great it is to be white,” the comedian went on: “I could get in a time machine, and go to any time, and it would be fucking awesome when I get there. That is exclusively a white privilege.”

The bit, part of his 2008 special Chewed Up, was emblematic of C.K.’s approach: poking fun at the inequalities of American society, while simultaneously acknowledging the ways they benefited him.

Contrast that with a set he performed in December 2018, a little over a year after he admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent. During the December appearance, apparently at a comedy club on Long Island, C.K. joked that Asian men are “all women” and poked fun at school shooting survivors and gender-nonconforming teenagers, according to BuzzFeed News.

“They tell you what to call them,” he complained of teens who use the pronouns they/them. “Oh, OK. You should address me as ‘there’ because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother’s cunt.”

Imagine thinking the best way to resurrect your career after admitting to sexual misconduct is to mock trans people and Parkland gun violence survivors.

2018, during which his standup special and the wide release of his film I Love You, Daddy were canceled, seems to have wrought a change in C.K. Where once his comedy offered a fresh look at established power structures, he now seems set on ranting about kids today and their pronoun choices.

Fellow comedian Aziz Ansari has followed a similar trajectory. He once decried sexual harassment in his act — and addressed the issue in a nuanced way on his show Master of None. But in 2017, a woman told the website Babe.net that he had pressured her for sex — Ansari said he had believed everything that happened between them was “completely consensual,” and that he was “surprised and concerned” by her account. 

After the incident, his comedy took on a different tone: In a fall 2018 appearance, he made fun of online debates about cultural appropriation and complained that nowadays, “everyone weighs in on everything,” according to the New Yorker.

The bigotry in C.K.’s set is disturbing, especially coming from someone who seemed at one time to have a relatively clear understanding of how power works in America. But what is also striking about C.K. and Ansari’s post-#MeToo material is its banality. Before they were publicly accused, these men wrestled with thorny questions of identity and power in ways that, while not always satisfying, were usually thought-provoking. After the allegations, they began parroting tired complaints about political correctness.

Of the many people accused of sexual misconduct as part of the #MeToo movement, C.K. and Ansari seemed like they might be uniquely equipped to reckon with the allegations against them, perhaps even adding something to the public conversation around #MeToo. Instead, they have retreated into boring and offensive stereotypes, perhaps playing to those who never thought they did anything wrong.

We’re all worse off for their decision, missing out on the art C.K. and Ansari might have created if they’d been willing to really face their accusations, and robbed of the opportunity to see two intelligent and thoughtful men really wrestle with the implications of #MeToo. In a time when more and more of the accused mull their comebacks, it’s natural to wonder what real redemption — complete with an acknowledgment of harm and a commitment to atonement — might look like. Apparently, Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari will not be the ones to show us.

Louis C.K. used to talk about violence against women. Now he makes fun of genderqueer teens.

Before #MeToo, Louis C.K. was beloved by many for his often self-lacerating comedy. In his standup and on the autobiographical FX show Louie, he portrayed himself as a sad-sack weirdo disturbed by his own sexual urges — he once called himself a “prisoner” of “sexual perversion.”

C.K.’s work could be offensive, as when he complained that he missed being able to use a homophobic slur (and claimed, unconvincingly, that the way he used it had nothing to do with homophobia). But some hailed his comedy as feminist, and he showed a remarkable ability to mine humor from the dangers and biases women face — a difficult feat for a male comic.

“How do women still go out with guys when you consider that there is no greater threat to women than men?” he asked in a 2013 special. “We’re the number one threat to women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women.”

But C.K. was also the subject of long-simmering sexual misconduct rumors — and in November 2017, four women told the New York Times that he had masturbated in front of them or asked them to watch him masturbate (a fifth said that he masturbated while on a phone call with her).

In a move that remains unusual among men accused as part of #MeToo, C.K. admitted to the allegations against him. “These stories are true,” he said in a statement to the New York Times.

“I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want,” he added. “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”

But as many have pointed out, the listening didn’t last very long. C.K. was back onstage in September 2018, less than a year after his pledge to step back. In an October appearance at the West Side Comedy Club in New York, he addressed the fallout from his sexual misconduct revelations, saying he’d been to “hell and back” and that he’d “lost $35 million in an hour.”

While many were critical of C.K.’s comeback attempt, West Side Comedy Club host AMarie Castillo told the comedy website LaughSpin that the comic “was so genuine and reflected on how weird his year was” in his October appearance. “Sounds to me he is owning up, acknowledging, and trying to figure it out,” she said.

But in a December set, he didn’t sound much like someone trying to figure anything out. In audio posted on YouTube, apparently from an appearance at the Governor’s Comedy Club on Long Island on December 16, C.K. poked fun at gender-nonconforming youth, Parkland school shooting survivors, and Asian men, among other groups. (The club was unable to confirm to BuzzFeed that C.K. was there that night, though multiple people posted on Instagram that they had seen him perform there.)

“You know why Asian guys have small dicks,” he said at one point, according to Patrick Smith and Amber Jamieson of BuzzFeed. “’Cause they’re women. They’re not dudes. They’re all women. All Asians are women.”

C.K. also said he thought it was ridiculous that the term “retarded” was now viewed as inappropriate, Smith and Jamieson reported. When some listeners appeared shocked, he responded, “Fuck it, what are you going to take away, my birthday? My life is over, I don’t give a shit.”

C.K. has not responded to a request for comment from Vox.

Aziz Ansari once included a sexual harassment storyline on his show. Now he’s complaining about Twitter outrage.

Ansari’s comedy has always been more lighthearted than C.K.’s, but he hasn’t shied away from difficult topics. In a 2015 Netflix special filmed at New York’s Madison Square Garden, he asked women in the audience to raise their hands if they’d ever been followed by a “creepy dude,” according to Eren Orbey at the New Yorker.

“Yeah, that’s way too many people,” he said when hands went up. “That should not be happening.”

The second season of his Netflix show, Master of None, also included a storyline about sexual misconduct. Ansari’s character, Dev, teams up with celebrity chef Jeff Pastore (Bobby Cannavale) for a show called Best Food Friends. But Dev is forced to make a choice when a female crew member reveals that Chef Jeff repeatedly harassed her. The episode, which aired before #MeToo gained steam in fall 2017, felt true to life, as Isha Aran pointed out at Splinter, “from the fears victims face in going public to the misogynist skepticism they’re met with when they share their stories.”

But in January 2018, a woman going by the name Grace told the website Babe.net that Ansari had repeatedly pressured her for sex while the two were on a date. She called it “by far the worst experience with a man I’ve ever had.”

“We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual,” Ansari said in a statement on the allegations last January. “The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned.”

“I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture,” Ansari concluded, presumably referring to #MeToo. “It is necessary and long overdue.”

By fall 2018, however, his tone sounded different. In a Connecticut stop on his “Working Out New Material” comeback tour, he complained about Twitter users debating whether a teenager’s prom dress constituted cultural appropriation, according to Orbey.

“Everyone weighs in on everything,” he said. “They don’t know anything. People don’t wanna just say, ‘I don’t know.’”

He also decried “the destructive performativity of Internet activism and the fickle, ever-changing standards of political correctness,” according to Orbey. He compared left-wing Twitter users to Trump supporters (“at least with the Trump people,” he said, “I kinda know where they stand”) and accused them of competing with one another in a game of “Progressive Candy Crush.”

“One might have hoped that, nearly a year later, [Ansari] could find a way to reckon with one of the movement’s messiest lessons: that even men who wish to serve as allies of women can, intentionally or not, hurt them in private,” Orbey wrote. “Instead, like other men who have reëmerged in recent months, he seems to have channelled his experience into a diffuse bitterness.”

Ansari has not responded to Vox’s request for comment.

If C.K. and Ansari can’t reckon with the allegations against them, can anyone?

Allegations of sexual misconduct against C.K. and Ansari hit fans hard in part because of the thoughtful nature of their comedy — these were supposed to be the good guys.

The accusations prompted fans and critics to reevaluate both men’s work. At Splinter, Aran notes that despite its sexual harassment storyline, Master of None’s second season displays some underlying misogyny. Dev’s relationship with love interest Francesca, in particular, sends the message “that a woman’s initial reluctance can be chipped away at, that indifference is a wall to be torn down.”

C.K., meanwhile, had been telling masturbation jokes for years. As Melena Ryzik, Cara Buckley, and Jodi Kantor reported at the New York Times, “he rose to fame in part by appearing to be candid about his flaws and sexual hang-ups, discussing and miming masturbation extensively in his act — an exaggerated riff that some of the women feel may have served as a cover for real misconduct.” His film I Love You, Daddy, which was initially scheduled for release in November 2017, dealt with a relationship between a famous filmmaker and a 17-year-old girl.

And C.K.’s December set does recall some of his earlier work — the man who complained about teens today and their pronouns is clearly the same one, for instance, who expressed nostalgia for a time when he could use homophobic slurs without being criticized.

Still, C.K. and Ansari were somewhat unusual as male entertainers willing to delve into issues of power and privilege and talk about the ways men hurt women.

That’s what makes their current material so surprising. Ansari and C.K. aren’t just avoiding the subject of #MeToo — they’re going in the opposite direction, complaining about political correctness and outrage culture when their comedy once sent the message that women were absolutely right to be outraged.

Their new work is reactionary — crude jokes about Asian men wouldn’t be out of place at a Trump rally — and it’s dated. C.K.’s complaints about they/them pronouns aren’t just offensive; they’re also tired, well-worn platitudes parroted by everyone from psychologist Jordan Peterson to TV host Piers Morgan. C.K. may think his new material is edgy, but his rant about young people today sounds like it could come from Grandpa Simpson.

Some have speculated that C.K. is consciously courting a more right-leaning audience with his new material after losing the trust of his previous fans, and it’s certainly possible that he and Ansari are pivoting to please the people who were eager to explain away the allegations against them — those who think sexual misconduct only matters if it rises to the level of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, or who believe that men who are accused deserve swift and unconditional forgiveness.

Whatever the case, the trajectories of C.K. and Ansari are doubly disappointing — first, because men whose work had a feminist bent were accused of hurting women, and second, because they let those accusations destroy the nuanced social awareness their earlier work displayed. Apparently, C.K. and Ansari were only interested in challenging the status quo when they remained unchallenged — once women spoke out against them, they performed the comedic equivalent of packing up their toys and going home.

That’s sad for all of us. We don’t get to see the comedy these men could have created if they’d wanted to face, rather than flee from, our current moment in history. And we don’t get to see two thoughtful entertainers bring their talents to bear on a project that matters to all of us — figuring out what it should look like for men accused as part of #MeToo to apologize, atone, and move forward.

Ever since the #MeToo movement gained mainstream attention in 2017, there’s been a lot of talk about what accused men can do to redeem themselves. Now, more than a year in, it’s certainly possible to imagine some of the accused truly reckoning with their pasts — Dan Harmon’s apology for sexually harassing a writer on his show offers a view of what that might look like. But it’s hard to hold out much hope for such a reckoning on a large scale when two men who seemed like they, of all people, might be able to look deeply at their own behavior have instead chosen to pander to those who would excuse them.

______________________

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

[bayardboy]

Open Letter to Sunrise 3.13

“To Fellow Leaders: Sometime in my journey in Sunrise you impacted the way I move in this space, and I thank you for it. As someone who holds a title with weight I wanted to address my beliefs and role in the hub, especially as we head into the next stage of our course to win a livable future, together. I present my story of self, in hopes that I will hear yours one day!” - me, march 2021

OPEN LETTER TO ALL MEMBERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP OF SUNRISEPDX

March 13, 2021.

Hello Sunrise Hub Members; Hello my friends,

My primary purpose in this letter is to write the things I do not say, so you will know me better.

For those who skim, here’s the layout: First, my identities; Second, my roles; Third, my beliefs (including many quotes); Fourth, my observations; Fifth, cited sources. This is how I processed these thoughts; I encourage you to also reflect on your core tenants, in a way that’s most fruitful for you.

I am feeling called to write this letter because lately, many things are going unsaid. I don’t know if all of you are aware, but I have autism, and I don’t pick up on nuanced social signals. I’ve described it as, “when people tell me their story, I cannot read between the lines, unless I have read another book that tells me what may be within their pen.” However, I can tell something is amiss, because people have stopped talking to me without being explicitly asked to. There are many reasons this could be occurring. This silence is something I can hear, and something I want to highlight.

             I will first be clear about myself. My communication style is direct, and as honest as the English language can be (which is not very, speaking from experience). If you feel a strong emotion by reading this letter, please let me know and I’d love to have any length of conversation about your reflection.

             First, my identities: I am a white trans man, an educated youth, and a musician. I like to live my life in beats. I forget how big I am and that it is easier in this identity to intimidate people. I have been pushed to hold leadership my entire life, including girlscouts, theater troupes, camp counseling all ages, and many other privileged programs, but I would rather be sharing in a group of people. I live in the SunriseHaus because I have been financially independent since I was 18 and I love the culture of being working-class, except for capitalism’s burden. I was raised poorer than my younger siblings, in a majority-white Oregon town, which shaped my understandings about belongings and care. I like to joke around, and I don’t like when people are instructed how to show up. We should be here as our fullest selves.

             Second, my role: when I joined Sunrise, we had five hub Coordinators and weekly in-person meetings. When we locked down, a lot of the nuanced energies from being in person (which again, I do not read, but I can sense when they are awry) dissipated entirely and people moved away from online space.

             I was at my friend’s apartment on MLK on the first night of the grieving of George Floyd. We heard the people amassing on the boulevard, and we jumped up to join them. I realized quickly my earplugs wouldn’t be enough to keep me sensible in this crowd. An impressive Black man on a motorcycle drove into the mob to give instructions. I pressed close to hear him, devastated when he rode away. I began to shake with misunderstanding; in that moment, I knew I wouldn’t be of help to anyone. So I rode home, called everyone I knew, and figured out ways to support from home: water bottles, NLG numbers, jail support, bullying politicians, changing the public dominant narrative online, redistributing money, cleaning up after Riot Ribs… employing a diversity of tactics, outside of being frontline, excepting daytime rallies... in this work I do not understand the trauma of my peers from this summer, and I will not pretend I do.

Because of the way I showed up in online spaces (consistent, healthy, and truthful), I felt comfortable stepping into the trainings team co-coordinator role, then realized what I was actually doing was in the realm of Hub Coordination. It was a natural step to take on that title because of my focuses and my skillset, both things that were informed re: my identities. In the endnotes is a description of the Hub Coordinator roles that were drawn when Pauline and I transitioned in.[i]

             I’m learning that hub Coordination has a quality called, “soft power”. Defined by Wikipedia, “in politics, soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce (contrast hard power). In other words, soft power involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power includes culture, political values, and foreign policies.”[ii] This is an inescapable component of having organizers who are core tenants to the hub, as well as a community of friends who respect each other.

Also, Slack culture as a community has been severely shaped by the fact that some are very comfortable online, in writing, and others are not.[iii] As our community is also afraid of hard power, all our decisions in the last six months have been made by influence. I am very comfortable writing and therefore I am addressing that I know I wield more power.

             Is soft power problematic? It depends upon how it is wielded. There are hubs that operate and benefit without hub Coordinators. If I am ever asked to step down from this role, I will. Honestly, I’d rather be wholeheartedly focused on recruitment and relationship building. But what I’ve been hearing from our JEAO assessments[iv] is that we actually need more processes to bring leaders into soft power, to ensure that everyone has the equipment this work is asked for by our society. These are processes I am familiar with, but I also know that my understanding of leadership is inherently oppressive re: my identities and how I have been raised to interact with these constructs. Even though I’ll make mistakes and frustrate people, I will continue to show up everyday in the process of unlearning.

             Third, my beliefs: Because I wield this soft power, I need to be open about the way I encounter this work. If we interact often, these are the core tenants informing my words and movements.

1.       I believe in the complete abolition of the settler-colonial state, partnered with a societal reimagining and restructuring co-created by the most oppressed peoples of this nation-state.[v]

“As prison abolitionists, grassroots organizers, and practitioners of transformative justice, our vision for 2018 is one of clear-eyes awareness and discussion of the horrors of the prison system – and the action that awareness demands. As a society, we have long turned away from any social concern that overwhelms us. Whether it’s war, climate change, or the prison-industrial complex, Americans have been conditioned to simply look away from profound harms. Years of this practice have now left us with endless wars, dying oceans, and millions of people in bondage and oppressively policed. It is time for a thorough and unflinching examination of what our society has wrought and what we have become. It is time to envision and create alternatives to the hellish conditions our society has brought into being.” Mariame Kaba, “A Jailbreak of the Imagination: Seeing Prisons for What They Are and Demanding Transformation”. Truthout, May 2018.

“So, what might a Green New Deal built with rather than for Indigenous peoples look like? It would look like honoring what came before: the treaties, the tribes, the rivers from which we drink, the air we breathe, the land where we plant and gather our food and to which we return when our time is up. And by finally honoring these things – which have always been there, but which this country has ever respected or protected – we might build something Green and New.” Julian Brave Noisecat, “Green New Bingo Hall,” Winning the Green New Deal. Sunrise Movement, Simon&Schuster Paperbacks, 2020. p.124

2.       I believe in a complete just transition[vi] of our economic and power systems lead by social and racial justice reform and community building.

“Environmental justice isn’t a free-floating term. It was originally used by Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific-Islander organizers to rebel against exploitative, unsustainable farming practices, fossil fuel plants, toxic waste dumps, destruction of natural landscapes they call home, and more. The harsh truth is that these communities have been organizing against environmental degradation from the beginning—white environmentalists just didn’t notice because the campaign message wasn’t flagged as pro-environment.” Rachel Levelle, “Confronting the Whiteness of Environmentalism”, 350pdx website, June 2017.

3.       I believe nonviolent civil disobedience is the primary tactic I must personally implement to be an accomplice in the accomplishment of the previous two goals.[vii]

“Peace is not something which exists independently of us, nor is war. It is true that certain individuals – political leaders, policymakers, army generals – do have particularly grave responsibilities in respect to peace. However, these people do not come from nowhere. They are not born and brought up in outer space. Like us, they were nourished by their mother’s milk and affection. They are members of our own human family and have been nurtured within the society which we as individuals have helped create. Peace in the world thus depends on peace in the hearts of individuals. This in turn depends on us all practicing ethics by disciplining our response to negative thoughts and emotions, and developing basic spiritual qualities.” Dalai Lama, “Peace and Disarmament”, Ethics for a New Millennium. Riverhead Books, New York 1999. p.203.

“Either [white people] accept that they have inherited this house of white supremacy, built by their forebears and willed to them, and they are now responsible for paying the taxes on that inheritance, or the status quo continues. I hope they will become radicalized by this moment and begin to fight fiercely for racial justice; but more than that, I hope they start at home, in their own minds and hearts. As I tell my students: a white person rushing to do racial justice work without first understanding the impacts, uses, and deceptions of their own whiteness is like an untrained person rushing into the ER to help the nurses and doctors—therein probably lies more harm than good.” Salvala Trepczynski, Black and Brown People Have Been Protesting for Centuries. It's White People Who Are Responsible for What Happens Next. Time Magazine website, June 2020.

             Fourth, my observations: The people who are called to this work know how to LOVE. Deeply, wholly, truly. We fight in love and we sing in love. We create amazing, beautiful projects together. I believe that we are called into this future together. We love the earth and all its peoples together.

             We do not extend that LOVE to ourselves. I take strong issue with the way people who are called to this work, approach this work. We create deadlines, overwork ourselves, and create stress that is mostly meaningless. We can be self-centric and self-serving in our immediate interests, but forgo food, water, and sleep in those moments. We replicate capitalist culture in determining value of projects and styles of work. We need to make better praxis of asking questions as we go, taking patience in our work and our bodies. It’s not our fault this is how we’ve been trained; but it’s our responsibility to resist echoing the structures that harm us.

             I am neutrally confused that we are afraid to take power as we position ourselves directly next to it. We have done the good work to recognize our voice as widely affluent, time-consuming, and progressive. This is a sound the State WANTS to capture, wrangle and blur in complacency. This dynamic is something we encounter so often in electoral organizing especially. Still working through this one, and the way it shows up in our lack of decision-making processes.[viii]

Subconsciously, we are adherent to the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing, which I think is a massive benefit to our partnerships and ourselves.[ix] We are also learning actively how to be representative and reflective of constructive allyship to people we cannot serve in our space.

             I am proud of how many teenagers and parents are in our hub. I am saddened by how often fighting for a livable future causes stress and burnout. This can be a joyous, relieving act: if we do not replicate the school systems that oppress us all, particularly Black youth; if we do not replicate the demands made of people with children, particularly by their workplaces. We should be working intentionally to create a safe, spiritual place to encounter these terrifying truths with patience and heart. We should be asking more direct questions of what will make this work enjoyable.

We don’t sing together lately, because singing to our screen is weirder than singing to our friends. I am anxious for the day we can lift our voices and spirits together again.[x]

I am EXCITED! to know YOU! And I hope YOU! Are equally excited to know ME!

I take responsibility both for my acts and their underlying motives. I own any contradictions.

We will be smiling in the end,

Mikhaila “Micah” Bishop (he/him) SunrisePDX Hub Coordinator text me with anything.

[i] Hub Coordinator roles

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

[iii] White Supremacy Cultural Traits: Worship of the Written Word is number 5.

[iv] JEAO assessments: #3, Structure

[v] LandBack Manifesto, 8toAbolition

[vi] https://www.ojta.org/just-transition-principles

[vii] Bayard Rustin’s Letters are currently building my understanding of what this means.

[viii] Offering Boston’s decision making guidelines, which also did not totally exist? Our issues are replicable.

[ix] Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing

[x] https://soundcloud.com/sunrisemvmt