News flash: The world is broken.
Its crazy these days how the only place you need to go for most news is Facebook. And in the past week my feed has been full. Full of people I admire who are on this Earth fighting the brokneess with everything they have posting about tragedy, hurt, brokenness, ugliness... and also about courage, love, community, strength and action. I've been quiet. No post about the amazing woman who shared her incredibly courageous statment with the world, or about her perpetrators ignorant dad who screams rape culture. No post about the lives lost in Orlando. I have a lot of feelings. And thoughts. But I have no words.
I cant wrap my mind around the fact that the amazing letter this woman wrote encaptualtes so very well the experience of countless women across the country and even more across the globe. She said it all so perfectly. And in her perfect explanation of the bull shit that is our world I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with how big and strong and invasive rape culture is. How much it has affected me and all the people I know in my life. How much work it will take to teach my sweet nephews something different, and eventually my own kids and even how much work it takes for me to shift the ways its gotten in my bones. How much body shaming, slut shaming, patriarchy, talking down to, relationship expectations, innocent parenting, etc, etc, etc, that we sometimes don't even notice feeds the disgusting culture that leads to Brock Turner only getting three months in prison, his father saying he cant eat steak and the life of pain and triggers and healing that courageous, brave, strong, wonderful, amazing woman whose name I do not know has ahead of her. I love her. I love her so much for writing those things. I want to hug her. And then I want to scream with all the other women in the world about how screwed up of a world this is. How mad I am that we have to have conversations about a friends option of staying at someones house she didn't know that well or getting in an uber alone and being afraid because shes had a couple drinks. Its every where. And I am so mad about it.
Saturday we went to the Pride parade in Boston. Felt joy and pride and celebration of all the love in the world. Because love is so so freaking good. Then we woke up to the worst news. And I looked into my sweet roomate's eyes and saw how deeply this thing hurt. It took me a while to wrap my mind around it. I couldn't read everything, I couldn't watch videos, I felt the same sort of resistance that I did to reading Brock Turner's dads statement. And I know that actually I could have I just didn't want to and avoiding the real is something that I hate. But I was afraid it would knock me down. So many people read it all, watched it all and kept standing, though shakey. And I wiped tears and hugged people tight who were just barely standing still, but I couldn't read it myself. I'm overwhelmed by the conversations I've had, the "it was amazing to not worry about who was homophobic there", the gross responses Bob is reading as he summarizes the Catholic response, the fear in people's eyes, the way this hits so close to home and just imagining these families who lost their loved ones- so young, in the most horrible way. I'm mad. I'm mad that these shootings keep happening. That while this one shakes us in hard, new and the same ways it's not alone, it's not rare, and while none of us can even comprehend how someone could kill so many people- we also should be able to. When there is hate everywhere. And there are guns so easily accesible. And violence and power struggles and toxic masculinity. Something has got to change. And we keep saying that, over and over and over again.
I started writing this two weeks ago. And today there is more violence. More pain. More loss. And still so few words. My privelege screams in my ear. White. Heterosexual. Cisgender. Middle Class. Educated. Etc. Etc. Etc. How many times have I been stopped and how many times have I not even gotten a ticket? How many times has it even crossed my mind that I could lose my life in a moment like this. NEVER. My privelege stops me in my tracks and I feel scared to speak- afraid of messing up, knowing that I dont get it. I will never get it. But I also know that silence is lethal. And I and we cannot be silent. Because I and we ARE THE OPRESSORS. We are the ones that keep these horrible systems in place. We are the ones who can continue to be stopped by cops without fear. Continue to be naive of the fear and trauma and pain and loss and extreme injustice that our siblings our experiencing everyday. Today I want to hug everyone I pass. I want to tell them I love them. I want ot tell them we are family and we must stand together and protect each other and we must protect our black siblings, our LGBTQ siblings, all of our siblings who are marginalized and opressed every single day. I dont know what to do. And I am humbled by my not knowing. I am looking to people around me for wisdom and feel so grateful for all the wisdom there is in the community of people who make up my facebook feed. So many people finding words for things that I cannot, so many people searching for answers, so many people trying to hold their privelege at the very forefront of their view and do something about how incredibly screwed up this country is.
I will keep trying. I will keep listening. I will keep looking to people who know more. I will look at myself. I will educate myself. I will share words and knowledge and hopefully I will create spaces for these conversations. Hopefully I will embody what I believe. Hopefully I will be surrounded by people who can tell me when I mess up. Hopefully I will find more answers, more action steps, more words.
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