#marginalization

[the-perihelion]

There are subtexts to be read into Murderbot — that its experience is a coming-out narrative, that it mirrors the lives of trans people, immigrants, those on the autism spectrum or anyone else who feels the need to hide some essential part of themselves from a population that either threatens or can't possibly understand them. Or both. And I get all of that because every one of those reads is right. It's the wonder of the character — that something so alien can be so human. That everyone who has ever had to hide in a crowded room, avert their eyes from power, cocoon themselves in media for comfort or lie to survive can relate. It's powerful to see that on the page. It's moving to ride around in the head of something that is so strong and so vulnerable, so murder-y and so frightened, all at the same time.

[alethianightsong]

"The prince with a thousand enemies" quote hits different when you're marginalized

The full quote is like 80% despair and 20% hope. Basically, God says to the semi-divine Prince of Rabbits "everything in this world wants to catch and kill you. But while you are powerless, you are not helpless. Run fast, hide well, warn and help others like you and you will never be erased from this earth." El-ahrairah is not given weapons but tools to help him and his people survive (claws to dig havens, ears to listen, legs to run, feet to thump and warn). And despite how hard it is for him to survive, despite all his enemies, he is still noble, admirable and possessing dignity. He is a Prince.

[rainbowpopeworld]

I really enjoyed hearing Hozier talk about the lyrics of Take Me to Church. Especially the “whole sea”/Holy See and the double entendre of “deathless death” bits.

I did laugh when he first said he thought the song lyrics were humorous. 😅 This song is many things but funny was not one that came to mind. Maybe if I had heard it spoken first, it would have felt differently. Also I’ve only watched the video once but it definitely didn’t seem humorous 😓

[edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb]

if azula needs redeeming, why wasnt she?

i read this analysis of Azuko? Zukla? idk but a critique of their sibling dynamic, particularly within the context of doomed siblings, and tho i don’t agree with it, it’s a testament to its writer that there’s innate value in carving out my thoughts from their own.

so a lot of my disagreement boils down to the fact that the way the analysis construed zuko & azula, from characterizing them as doomed siblings, to the way azula’s breakdown is framed, is a problem of taste and inferences, and how these interpretive elements can be incongruent with technical aspects like intent, convention, medium, or the functional mechanics of art overall.

firstly, i think its very important to highlight that while elite art is holistic and multifaceted, it is doubly focused and premeditated, and its constituents all occupy a purpose and position within it, as they are narrative elements first and foremost. which complicates things when creation and consumption are both such human, evocative processes, but i think looking at the rudimentary layers of a story are the north stars in subjective landscapes like this. and most salient of these, is the story’s anti-colonial roots, centering indigeneity explicitly, and the cultural, spiritual and earthly relationships therein, with the main conflict being restoring the dignity and autonomy of the subjugated, alongside the internal work and opposition that are necessitated in doing so. everything stems from that, and though there is complexity and nuance therein, and the story itself is immensely liberal in execution, it is also ultimately a good vs bad narrative, which it has every right to be, bc colonialism is bad, and colonialists are bad.

therefore, atla inherently adheres to convention, and has a preestablished idealistic framework. to illustrate this, it utilizes two central characters, both encapsulations of the dualistic nature of oppressor and the oppressed, and navigated thusly as foils to one another. zuko is thereby, the deuteragonist, and the depth or lack thereof, of his environment are equally conditioned by his position, as the confines of the kid’s tv medium, serialization as well as narrative structuring itself, craft him. kill your darlings and all that lol.

however, these positionalities, while abiding convention, are not binary, and while conclusive, they are not absolutist. zuko for example, is antithetical to a Madonna, stressed by him even having a redemption to realize, and azula too is done an injustice by any reduction to a whore / imperfect victim archetype. this compartmentalization, is luckily ill-fitting in accommodating their totality, and doesn’t incorporate the fact that consequence, in avatar, is not a condemnation of personhood, but a retaliation to action, and has mangled indiscriminately, with azula’s case actually, being the reclamation of principles and in-world intentionality.

to begin with, zuko, while most recognized for his redemption, is not functionally the redemptive character™, he’s an example of the sacrifice, sincerity and labor that are inherent to anti-colonial action facilitated by an absconding oppressor, of the inborn empathy and active resistance that are needed for a system to change, and how you don’t just get there through platitudes or amicability. those thematic niceties are ofc inherent to his story bc he’s fleshed out and the things that inspired him thusly are too, but that emotional and relational floweriness is a consequence of his actions, not their driving force (being embraced by imperial idolization, by his royal family, was not fulfilling), what drove him is a fundamental and intrinsic ideological disdain for the imperialist war machine — it was ultimately, an abstraction of self – by acting in service of others, which unlike letting imperialist standards (e.g. chauvinism and parasitism and “honor”) puppeteer him as an instrument of violence, is ironically, an act of true autonomy and discernment. deriving your value from mutualism and earning one’s stature, instead of asserting yourself on others and letting corrosive and paternalistic worldviews (and by extension the selfishness & self absorption i.e “honor” innate to that) rule your destiny.

azula, however, is meant to be an inversion of that, is meant to reflect what happens when you reject morality or connection, instead letting control and superiority entrap you. she is explicitly a cautionary tale, which also comes with its own oversights and inelegant implications, but she likewise, greatly exemplifies the internal decay and loneliness inherent to alienating yourself through cruelty and stratification. and is it not possible then that a girl who has valued herself by what she can inflict on others, would then have the very sanctity of existence warped at no longer being able to dominate, no longer deemed the ideal? is infection not a thing that savages, before it spreads? in this way, azula is poignant.

as the more intimate face of imperialism, she is humanized in her parasitism, but it is not used to soften her behavior, nor is it used to hand her redemption. it is not smth that she is owed for the very coincidence of her birth or blood, its earned, and she did not earn nor want it.

so when a character that suggested the utter evisceration of marginalized groups, and thereafter tried to murder a personification of colonial survivor’s guilt and endangered practices, is consequently left to mourn her superiority, just as her father before her, its smth we sympathize with within reasonable boundaries. when her brother, who she abused, doesn’t martyr himself to azula’s interiority, instead laboring towards his own destiny and happiness, rather than the genesis of azula’s redemption, that is not inconsistency, it’s peace. its making peace despite the fact that some would rather rot in the entrails of imperialism than afford its victims value, would rather hurt others, and in turn themselves, than embrace healing and progress

— (plus inflicting his values may not in fact heal, when healing is not inherently uniform, and growing is not innately moralistic).

now, there’s a whole nurture vs nature angle to this as well and these ontological arguments are often touchy, yes zuko had ursa and iroh. yes zuko was forced to challenge his preconceptions, but zuko wasn’t diametric to these things, and the supplementations he did receive were always compensatory. zuko was deemed genetically inferior by ozai and thusly ostracized, hence ursa’s gentle partiality, zuko was then mutilated and exiled, and naturally needed supervision, which was provided by an overseer who mirrored his disgrace. if denied these safeguards zuko would’ve been denied even palliative care, whereas azula was perceived as needing none when she was revered positionally and familialy.

yes being pit against zuko was toxic and destructive but its not at all equivocal to the outright abuse zuko suffered. ofc the threat of it was implicit but those who abet or orbit abusers are not inherently under threat, and i think azula is characterized similarly. it's not fear that colors her outburst against ozai, nor coerces her silence, its entitlement and a sanctifying of hierarchies: “i deserve to be by your side.” - it’s respect that earns her silence and it’s the promise of respect that goads her acquiescence, the prospect of accumulation. this is ofc not a healthy mindset to have bc azula hinges her value on perfection, performance and status, and it's evident how the pressure of that collapsed her, but it was a pressure she had embraced before. it was her adeptness that ozai latched onto, and before the inviolability of it was challenged, azula took advantage of her nature, she weaponized it, and it was that eagerness that ozai exploited.

as viewers we process this as the objectification it is, but its reality, is a systemic natured dehumanization, ingrained in any culture that seeks to mechanize its constituents (which is all societies actually. we are all complicit). ozai thinks he is honing her as did his father and his colonialist forefathers prior, and herein is not abuse in the conventional sense, but rather a tradition of commodification that extricates skill and hegemonizes personhood, it’s an existential death necessitated by imperialism. it’s the death of agency. azula embraced this necrotic philosophy until she was confronted with the consequences of her rot, and *that’s* what she got. consequences. of which she was spared throughout.

it was never personal.

sure we get glimpses of her humanity, her vulnerability, but they’re paltry and muddied too by an undercurrent of duplicitousness. azula flaunts zuko’s impending demise, yet later, includes him in her outings. azula relishes zuko’s mutilation, but also fetches him from the beach house. she falsely welcomes zuko back, then implores he join her sincerely. and azula shares her pain from ursa yet spurns softness still, from MaiKo’s juvenile fondness to ursa’s own guiding attempts. azula is ceaselessly cruel to zuko, then spontaneously benevolent to him once he has seemingly subsumed the apparatus of colonialism. and gives him credit for killing the avatar, yet shows a sly inclination of his revival. this isn’t to insinuate that azula is ontologically evil or that she’s an unnuanced, mono-faceted individual. and she was a child. yet zuko’s youth didn’t spare him from the grotesque terrors of death and alienation, and it didn’t temper her perpetual antagonism and bloodlust, she is demonstrably self-serving, and this is evidenced throughout.

this is not to shame her in her passivity, nor an expectation that she martyr herself or even commiserate with her brother. rather, her downfall is a reaping of autonomy, made subject to the tendency of one’s active leanings. in which the choice of her sibling abuse exacerbated her societal abuse, all festering, foremost, the abuse of her own soul.

so, relatedly, is it not possible that a character of her cunning, who emotionally degraded her own sibling while gleefully championing his attempted imprisonment, before graduating to attempted murder by preparing to electrocute him while he was enfeebled on the ship, then later tried to kill aang, tried to kill katara, gloated abt intending to kill zuko at the air temple, injured iroh while making her escape from the gaang + zuko. also endangered and coerced ty lee into joining her, imprisoned mai, nearly killed zuko as he tried to save katara (which was likely her intent, or at least meant to cripple zuko’s composure — dishonoring the agni kai) — need i go on. azula’s benevolence is conditional, and consistently transactional, and so is it not possible then that she gauged zuko’s swaying allegiances against her own armaments - when faced with iroh, a waterbending master, an earthbending master with groundbreaking abilities (>_-), and the literal avatar, after observing their – plus aang’s growth, and having been cornered before, then decided rather, that having another asset, puppet, contingency plan, in her pocket wouldn’t hurt.

maybe she was being benevolent, or maybe, azula, who too sat in liberated territory and was gifted a chance for growth and morality, rejected that chance over the value therein, tenderized for extraction, parasitizing instead. maybe azula too, was acting in the imperialist tradition of exploitation. maybe she holds the capacity for compassion and care — which we have gleaned regardless — but the tangentials and hypotheticals of the world are often not what is actualized, and they are not a thing that can be affected. empathy is an active pursuit, and it is mutualistic, provisional — and so there is not a ‘who’ of azula’s redemption, but a what, the ‘what’ that is to be influenced. the personalization of one’s own form, of an internal receptiveness to commiserate with. bc as is, azula is merely a husk of colonialism, and being a husk of colonialism is meant to be sad, its deliberately tragic, unflinchingly pitiable. disorienting. life shattering. that’s what you’re meant to feel, it is not an inadvertence of zuko’s arc, and it is not a coincidence of the narrative.

she is a trajectory within herself, and her fate is a whole within itself. just as zuko labors towards rectifying his nation bc he needs to, bc there is value in dismantling colonialism, not bc the imperialists are owed it, but bc everyone else is. zuko also watches, not with apathy or boredom as his sister implodes at this, but with pity, with grief, bc azula manipulated herself a bed of corpses, and it is not him who must choose not to lie in it. when healing is intentional, is active, and zuko has chosen to heal. when azula cannot be handheld and shielded from her war crimes and systemic violence bc she wasn’t hugged enough as a child. zuko too lost a core sense of support mournfully young, and moreover at many points in his development journey, but the inclination that told him to speak up in the war room is doubly the same inclination that told him to afford jin affection, or help the earth kingdom family, and save his crew member in the storm, despite this very vulnerability catalyzing his banishment.

azula had friends and she had adoration and she had paternalistic validation, but contentment is unattainable when accumulation is your driving force. and the only thing left to cannibalize is yourself. with this, azula’s downfall was not only inevitable, it was natural, foretold even. and just as iroh doesn’t adhere to whatever deficits were sewn unwittingly into ozai, nor is it demanded — it also isn’t azula’s fallibilities that now damn her. azula isn’t the “bad sibling”, devoid of nuance, she’s the bad person™. despite it all.

katara has ptsd and toph is blind, sokka is a non-bender and zuko was deemed handicapped then maimed thereafter, instability is not azula’s punishment, its an externalization of her decay, and its meant to be unrelenting and all-encompassing, because abstraction and objectification are totalitarian afflictions. likewise, her condemnation is not a consequence of gender marginalization, tho the undertones of spoilt brat tropes and somehow unconventional, inevitably crazed women sully our palates. we taste bias even where it perishes, even as the fire nation is seemingly meritocratic, and unabashed, imperfect girls are idealized story-wide. from toph to azula herself, who may be conflated for a sanist archetype, yet challenges gender roles and infantilization in her prowess and militancy, as she’s sterile and calculating and impassive, where zuko is feeble and undermined, aimless, emotional. she is far beyond any trope, contrivance or embellishment, and doesn’t flourish or encumber zuko’s arc, as he equally isn’t made to for her’s.

azula is a force beyond zuko, until she can no longer deny him, and azula haunts zuko until she doesn’t, until her own crossroads loom, her contrived dualism of failure or victor, aggressor and victim. and she is forced then to reckon with loss. azula’s end is not a reductionism at hands other than her own, her fall is not zuko’s win, nor does the show frame it gloriously, there is no joy in her misery, no minimization of her tragedy, from the score to the tone, in her chilling, animalistic pules, azula languishes in her self-destruction, and it is one entirely independent of zuko. with this, we are shown azula’s nuance, the unthinking allyship she inspired, yet the coercion and dereliction it veiled. the camaraderie and kindness she offered, to warn zuko against visiting iroh, to credit him unduly, yet the threat it masked, to stay unadulterated, to stay unctuous. the vilification she detested, and yet the love she scorned for its fragility and irrepressibility. ursa doesn’t confirm azula’s worst fears, ironically, sadistically, any love she may have held haunts her, is nearly derisory. impossible.

and while no debate exists that ursa neglected azula, or that she failed her duty to nurture and cater her parenting to azula’s needs and interiority, the factors that complicated that, such as ozai’s own domineering hold, alienated mother and child from any means of cultivating real love, and thusly the influences azula did ingest were brutality, unchallenged in nature, entirely singular. it’s a self-flagellation, a ritualistic and sustained self alienation, amputating any vulnerability, all perceived pluralities.

so azula, despite not consistently having her perspective expressed, still encompasses the products of colonial rearing, and its destructiveness isn’t meant to be contested, sugarcoated, not with others and not with the self. fascism has denied us azula the person, and that may be a consequence of format, but it isn’t a consequence of the narrative. nor realism. we are meant to acknowledge azula’s complexities in the intentionality of their artful crafting, while not undermining that architects of oppression still bleed. one can see themselves in azula’s struggles, in the humanity of her endeavors, while not decontextualizing the tenets of her positionality, while not undermining that every character that claimed their redemption, did so by choosing another, by loving.

and azula’s journey to love, to embracing her own humanity, is a journey solely her own. this isn’t to say that she doesn’t deserve support or guidance or love or care, but that’s not the point. that wasn’t the intent of her character, and that wasn’t the thematic priority of the show. it's an extrapolation. bc some ppl suck and that’s ok. and there are ppl you cannot help and that is ok. and sometimes the ppl you love will suffer, and that has to be ok. bc sometimes you choose yourself, sometimes you choose what you can, and that is ok. it is okay to grow, and it is ok to move on. that’s the point. it is ok to spit out the poison. forgive any tactlessness therein, but it’s a tough pill, and its meant to have an aftertaste.

however, it's not cynicism that one is meant to internalize, and it's not intended to inspire fatalism either, although the symbology of azula’s toxicity is excised, the human struggles she encapsulated remain, the intimacy of our empathy persists, and it will color the fire nation’s vices and pitfalls. bc when one can’t just will away indoctrination, as we saw with both azula and zuko, and even still with paku or toph’s parents, as hierarchies are intersectional and multifaceted, and in the trials of decolonization there will thusly be azulas’, but there will also be zukos’, and pakus’, and sokkas’. all with their very intimate, equally human complexes to confront, unravel and rectify. just as there sit your perspectives, as there too exist my own influences.

and while zuko may merely be a beneficiary of the prevailing zeitgeist (tho imperialism explicitly requires non-consent lol), where azula once functioned, and he may be no more ontologically owed redemption than azula, or deserving love over her, when in the forever-war of subjugation, it isn’t abt ontology or criteria, nor logicisms or hypotheticals, its abt action. so zuko tries. and that resistance, that anti-colonial praxis, is a good start, it’s the most meaningful start. zuko isn’t king, or redeemed, bc he’s genetically “good”, its bc he tries. that’s the point. not how efficient he is or how proficiently he embodies apparatus.

reparation. that’s. the point. the triumph of resistance juxtaposing the tragedy of complacency. bc nothing is immutable, and so nothing is too far gone.

.

.

Besides… it’s only a kid’s show heh.

[boof-chamber]

we happen upon a fellow human being, beat down, tormented, suffering in agony, and we think, “poor thing, hope someone helps them out,” then go on with our day as normal. it’s not our responsibility to help or even to care. the mere expectation that we should care for and about anyone we’re not legally obligated to is seen as exceedingly unfair. caring for and about others is a burden, thankless drudgery, a job someone else should get paid to do for us, someone who is qualified with the proper training and credentials.

those who find themselves in desperate need of others to care for and about them will eventually come to find out that it’s no one’s job to help them or care. so no one does. but everyone they encounter is fully confident that there’s someone, somewhere, whose job it is to do something to help. this unshakable faith that the markets provide an adequate substitute for human social connection allows them to go on with their day, free from any burdensome sense of responsibility toward their fellow human being.

[panicdeleter]

Living in the world with a marginalized body, whatever form that takes, fucking sucks. Going through the world and interacting with your environment on a daily basis and not a singe part of it is made for you, with you in mind as the primary focus. Store shelving, seating, fucking sidewalks. You have to cultivate an increased awareness of yourself, how you present to others, how you navigate, where you can even go, where you can shop, what you can buy. The extra energy involved in doing all of that physical and mental labor, experiencing those discomforts, that unpleasantness, those pains, stolen from you by your environment, the design standards of the world constructed around us.

[textk4kira]

Csigender, straight aces exist and can date, have sex, get married, be homophobic, be transphobic. They are cisheteronormative. Bisexuals can't ever be straight and experience homophobia even when passing as straight. Cisgender, straight aces are literally straight and comparing bisexuals to straight people is BIPHOBIC.

HSSD has an exception for asexuals. HSSD is the SUDDEN loss of sexual attraction that CAUSES DISTRESS and is used primarily to diagnose men with erectile dysfunction. It is not conversion therapy to be prescribed viagra. Secondly, cisgender straight aces have not alwaysbeen included iin the LGBT community. In AVEN, people were exrperssing disgust at David Jay lumping aces in the community back in the early 2000s. So

No, excluding people is not a form of marginalization. Are women marginalized BY LGBT PEOPLE for excluding them from LGBT resourcse? No. Cisgender, straight aces are not marginalized by LGBT peopel for being excluded. Religious trauma is not an LGBT specific issue. You ahve still yet to list a single LGBT specific resource cisgender, straight people need.

LGBT support is not an LGBT resource. Feminists are allied wth the LGBT community but are not inherently a part of it. Cisgender,straight women still aren't queer just because theyre allied. You have yet to name a SINGLE tangible resource cisgender, straight aces need from Lesbian Gay Bi Trans people that they do not get from the ace community or aro community

No, address it. Do you think cisgender straight women who are not ace deserve LGBT resources if they are raped for not being sexually attracted to their rapist?

I'm literally trans. Comparing the exclusion of CISGENDER straight peple to that of trans poeple is transphobic.

Hello anon,

I have already addressed the points you made previously, and I will not waste time addressing you further. I will be turning off anonymous asks, for the time being.

If you would like to perpetuate ace/arophobia, you should have enough courage to do so off anon.

I am only posting this to highlight the ace/arophobia that exists within the lgbtqia+ community.

Sincerely,

A disabled, trans gray-aroace person.

[theropoda]

i can understand hating and wanting violence on people who voted for him but actively punching down.... oppressing them in the ways they're marginalized is crazy.... it's like if a person of color is homophpbic to a white gay and that white gay called them a racist slur in response (Which. Happens too often uhhh) Idk if im wording it it's like.. I get the anger but are you seriously fucking being racist about it??????

[osokasstuff]

when marginalized group says "we experience erasure" and society replies with "no you don't! you're just rare/less visible/decentralized and separated from each other/less interesting/etc." it's literally a description of erasure.

even if said group actually is [pt: is] statistically rare (and this statistics isn't understated because of erasure), remember that there's approximately 8 billion people. even 0.01% (1 per 10,000) is 800 thousand people. which is a lot. even small percentages become huge numbers when the total is 8 fucking billion [pt: 8 fucking billion]. (and even if there are only couple of individuals, or even only one individual with such experience in the world, they still deserve to be seen).

erasure as oppressive tool works exactly like this. make everyone believe that marginalized group is actually very small and rare, so there's no need to take their existence into account. make the group less visible and when this group is brought up, say something like "so, they're not here. we shouldn't take them into account because they're not here. we don't make harm them because they're not here to be harmed." (let's drop the fact that they're probably not here because you haven't taken them into account). make the group decentralized and separated to make them less visible/invisible. make the group seem not interesting so other people wouldn't want to learn about them because it's boring.

erasure and invisibility extend to themselves as well.

[tobeabatman]

Ask fat people (especially fat women) whether they think fat people are treated worse on avarage than thin people.

Even if the person is not a part of fat liberation, they’ll most likely say yes.

Then someone will tell me ”fat people aren’t oppressed!” What do you think oppression is then if it’s not about a group of humans systematically being treated worse on avarage than other humans?

As a fat person, every single fat content creator I know has gotten harrassed for their weight, including me (and I have less than 2000 followers on Instagram). That coupled with the multiple research papers saying for example how doctors are more likely to view fat patients as lazy, or how children are more likely to pick thin dolls rather than fat dolls and describe them as pretty (the doll experiment but instead of racism they looked for discrimination based on weight), all creates a story of oppression.

If your only excuse for why fat people can’t be oppressed is the fact that fat people can ”become thin” you have the wrong idea of what oppression is. Oppression isn’t about possibilities, oppression is that a bunch of people are told that their harrassment will end as soon as they change the way they are. Queer people weren’t less oppressed when conversion therapy was (and still is in some places) believed to be able to make people not queer (saying this as a queer person myself).

Or if your excuse for why fat people can’t be oppressed is an example fat activists (including those like me who are a part of other minorities) can prove happens to fat people, you just aren’t listening.

[intersexfairy]

privilege is something bestowed upon you by an outside force; it's not something to feel guilty for. you can't control how other people treat you. but using that privilege to help others is something you do have power over.

that means taking that privilege and not just turning it into a weapon against oppression, but into a tool to support those harmed. you have the power to speak up and take action. you have the power to uplift the voices of people facing oppression. you even have the power to step back and take care of yourself, which allows you to better help others.

that kind of power isn't something to feel guilty over. and even when you're wrong, guilt helps no one. it just makes you feel bad. it can drive you to make other people carry the burden of your guilt. it harms your ability to be there for others, and the cause at large.

lay down the guilt, pick up your power, and use it to make all of our lives better. mind you, that includes your own; when marginalized people are free, all of us are.

[boof-chamber]

i'm tired of being blamed for being exploited by other people.

like when i was trafficked - the reason that shit is so common and widespread - despite the way the public acts like it's a big deal and they super duper hate it and give so many huge big shits about this crime of exploitation - and the reason traffickers know they can get away with it is because they specifically target people who they know no one gives a shit about. they know that if we tried to get anyone to help us, we'd find out that human trafficking is not really that big of a deal after all.

at first i was very careful about what i said to people because i was afraid they'd call the cops and make everything far worse. as it turns out, i could have walked through any government agency or any service nonprofit full of mandated reporters saying "hi, i am a trafficking victim, hello? can someone help me please?" and no one would even look up from their paperwork. they’d hate me just for creating the expectation that they should give a shit.

people only care about hypothetical victims. the sort of perfect victims that they want to save, that they'd be seen as heroes for saving.

not people like us. and by "like us" i mean real human beings who cannot or will not harden ourselves to better tolerate the conditions of this fucked up society.

and since there is no legit treatment for the deep psychic pain that comes from seeing all this heinous shit that happens around us and to us day after day - we use drugs.

they hate us for not adjusting to the horrors.

that is why we are "marginalized." we are banished. and to deprive human beings of social connection is violence. it's like taking a fish out of water and leaving it to suffocate in the air. when we deprived of belonging, the same is going on for us, but it happens so much slower. the torment can last for decades.

that is what really causes "mental illness." it's not some "chemical imbalance" or "malfunction" in our brains. it's severe prolonged alienation. when we are harmed in the most fucked up ways imaginable, the people around us act like everything is normal. they want us to believe that everything is normal. that we are in the wrong for feeling hurt when they hurt us. that is where trauma comes from.

we are blamed for having been vulnerable in the first place. the real crime is to reveal vulnerability to a society that values competition as a virtue, and instills a "duty to exploit." there are no rewards for those who pass up an opportunity to take advantage of another's vulnerability.

and when people are marginalized in the way that people who use drugs are marginalized, they feel powerless, hopeless, that there is nothing better on the horizon. we see the way the "respectable upstanding community members" live, the way they treat one another like shit, step on toes, backstab, lie, manipulate - anything it takes to get ahead, no matter how it may hurt anyone else - we see them rewarded for this, again and again. that's all we ever see and that is all we know. and so we treat our own the same way.

but the thing is, the impact of all that duplicitous behavior doesn't hit those more powerful and privileged MFers the same way. they are cushioned by their relative "respectability."

for us though, it is pretty devastating. and there will be no one to feel sorry for us or make us whole again. because we can't be "made whole" with anything that can be bought or sold. material security can make things easier for us, of course, but the entire reason for our suffering in the first place is that we can't or won't harden - even in a comfy house with a nice car and adorable shoes, we will still have to see and know everything we know, and we will still feel the pain of believing there is nothing we can do, or nothing we should do - there will always be this void, gnawing at us, no matter how hard we try to fulfill the obligations that are supposed to make us deserving of a place of respect in this society.

because the human part of us won't go away. it's that fish, suffocating on the shore, fighting to breathe. the fish isn't gonna be able to breathe any better with a new car or cute shoes. the fish needs water or it will continued to suffer until it dies.

and for us, it is social connection. that's what we are deprived of. humans are social animals. our species has only survived as long as we have through interdependence - as in, "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability” - genuine bonds of trust and care for the safety and well-being of our fellow humans.

this shit we've got going on here - it's anti-human. we were never meant to live like this. it only feels like a burden to care about others because we are forced to keep plugging along, doing the shit we have to do for our own survival. and all those things we gotta do are things that uphold and maintain the anti-human system. we are told that we cannot do anything about the other shit, it's not our problem, we need to focus on our own survival. and that's why it feels so overwhelming and burdensome to care about other people's struggles. that's why we are supposed to believe that self-care means "accepting the things we cannot change."

they are telling us to purge ourselves of our remaining humanness. stop caring. because caring - it's not really just some warm fuzzy feeling or the pain of putting ourselves in others' shoes - it's meant to drive us to act. and that's why it hurts. we feel the drive but can't act. we are convinced that we can't, that there's nothing we can do.

social connection - deep genuine bonds with other humans - are as essential to our survival as food, water, and air. we are starving, and the pain of empathy is hunger pangs that we are being told to just ignore.

the only thing that will make it not hurt so bad is solidarity. to learn how to trust and be trusted. to realize the power that comes from knowing that we have people, we belong, and our people have got our back no matter what, and we got theirs too. that it’s never a burden to look out for one another. it is what we do. it is why we are here and it is as good for us as it is for whichever one of us is in need. we all have needs, and we will all need a bit more at times. and we all have the capacity to meet those needs for one another. we do not lose anything by doing that for one another. it is our purpose. it’s the reason we are alive. it’s the reason we want to be alive.

when we are isolated, it is a lot more devastating to be betrayed or exploited, but when you've got a community of people who not only care, but will also catch you when you fall - it doesn't hurt so bad. you can move forward. shit happens, but it ain't a big deal because you never have to go through any of it alone.

that's it.

[rootbeermilktm]

was in a room full of white people talking about privilege and a man asks me “what do i do with my privilege?” and i answered “first listen to marginalized people then do what they tell you to” and he and another white person immediately made a face and said “hmmmmm, nooooooo”. the only other woman in the room then jumped in from her side bar to say “hang on, what was the take?” and was there to back me, but i had to defend myself to explain that ur supposed to listen to marginalized people to know how to use your privilege to help them and also actively seek out that course of action all while these people were stuck on the idea of you shouldn’t just do whatever someone tells you to. now im staring into the abyss thinking about how they already failed step one of yk, listen.

[raffaellopalandri]

The Multifaceted Diamond of Freedom: Liberation, Transcendence, and Philosophical Inquiry - Part 1

One of my readers, Michael Xue, asked me yesterday in a comment to expand my analysis of freedom, looking at it also from the perspective of Liberation Theology and Christian Mysticism. Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com The concept of freedom, a cornerstone of human aspiration and philosophical inquiry, occupies a particularly intricate and often paradoxical position within the landscape of…

[thejhambs]

I'm not a 19 year old anymore, and honestly have very little patience for black and white thinking now. I think actions and intent matter way more than like... having the correct language to be acceptable to the in group, and honestly, most people treat their politics and their values like a clique that's only for the people who use the correct words.

It's a bit insane to me, bc they'll be hostile to good people bc these good people have somehow bad skills in language, and on the other side, they'll be cosying up with predators who know what to say and how to say it. I have no patience for it. I simply dgaf. If I see someone participate in that kind of thinking, I assume they're either young, stupid, or straight up evil. All three are types of people I'd like to stay the hell away from, LOL.