Dear friends,
Are you ok?
What have you done to make the world safer for your neighbors?
I'm not OK, though I know I will be in time. The death of Heather Heyer in C-ville has hit me harder than expected. I'll be OK, in a while.
Are you ok?
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I'm not doing great. Starting to have nightmares about my family being killed. Currently powering through the workday.
ReplyDeleteYou often ask what folks have done to make the world safer for their neighbors, and I don't usually answer because I feel like the question prioritizes direct action and confrontation and things that get labeled and recognized as politics. But it's unfair to put those connotations on you. That's my baggage.
My everyday work to make the world safer for my neighbors is largely focused around prioritizing social interaction and expenditure of emotional capital towards the benefit of people more directly vulnerable than myself (most people).
I am keeping in touch and maintaining a friendship with my ex-co-worker who is currently with her family in India, so that she has a social group to return to when she comes back for grad school in the fall. Also because I like her and want her to be my friend, but, frankly, that's true of most people--I like people and I like having friends! So I'm deliberately focusing on the people mentioned in this post.
A black coworker expressed an interest in being introduced to larp, and I'm working with her and a local lady organizer of color to see if there's an event we can schedule that would work well for her.
Also at work, I found out that some co-workers have been breaking minor protocol in a particular way, and blame for it has fallen on another black coworker (who was uninvolved), so I'm confronting those co-workers to get them to stop.
On a personal level, I am continuing to engage in therapy to do my best to ensure that I am safe for my neighbors.
I'm sorry if I've made you feel that way, Adam McConnaughey.
ReplyDeleteThe actions you've described are very good ones! My guess is direct confrontation will not make for a safer world, and making a safer world in small, direct ways is probably a lot better!
I guess not, as I realize that I'm obsessively checking the news/social media, but I couldn't tell you what for.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, Patty Kirsch.
ReplyDeleteDoes it help to know I've been doing that, on and off, for ... a while?
Probably not.
How can I help?
I'm generally not okay in one way or another, but that has become so common that it's my new baseline. I done really know what "good" or "great" feels like anymore. My daily level is "okay, I guess".
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols I don't know. I think that's the most maddening part of all of this... But what do I do? Is this actually helpful or does it just makes me feel like I Did Something?
ReplyDeleteone thing I do, Patty Kirsch, is to give money. Today, that was the estate of Heather Heyer. Not much, but a small amount.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me feel a little better, and it is definitely something. To Adam's point, it's even fairly apolitical.
I keep thinking I should go back to the WH and protest, but .... I'm not sure what that's going to do.
But, I don't know what others should do or how. Everything is a mess.
ReplyDelete