Drawing lines
/I want to make it clear where I stand so I’m just going to put this up front:
Black lives matter.
I’ve been watching the coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests on social media for the last few weeks. This movement is a long time in coming, and I really hope the momentum keeps up and leads to substantial changes. When I was younger, I probably would have expounded about the racism and corruption in the police, but as a white person, my lived experience is irrelevant. There are many people whose voices need to be heard above mine about this matter, so I've mostly been keeping quiet and trying to amplify those whose perspectives need to be centered here. And thinking. And learning.
Police brutality and racism is a global problem, not just an American one (a particular example of Canadian police brutality is the “starlight tours” in Saskatoon), and the racist origins of policing in the United States and Canada are well documented. More people have come to the realization that racism and brutality is a feature, not a bug, of the police, and are calling for the institution to be defunded and/or abolished; one particularly illuminating read is Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop, written by a former California officer. Halifax and Nova Scotia have their own shameful history and ongoing issues regarding racism; read about Africville or the Shelburne Riots.
Even if you can't participate in protests, there are many organizations worth donating to; locally there’s the Africville Museum and the Black Lives Matter Solidarity Fund NS.
There are a few other positions I've taken a similarly hard line on. As a queer person, supporting LGBTQ rights is pretty much a non-negotiable point with me, but with a certain author making headlines for her anti-trans viewpoints, I want to make sure this is said: Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are who they say they are, and people don't have to experience dysphoria or transition medically to be trans. Trans-exclusive radical feminism or gender critical feminism (which one former member of the movement now says is a cult) has always struck me as counterproductive, with such obsessive vitriol toward a small and vulnerable group.
I also hate seeing disabled people infantilized and patronized. Maybe this comes from my own perspective as a neurodivergent person, but anytime I see someone talk to a disabled person in a slow, loud or sing-song voice, it irritates the fuck out of me. It’s pretty much the socially acceptable version of calling someone the r-word. Not to mention the assumption that disabled people are somehow “pure” or “innocent”, or should be grateful to have the little bits of charity and pity they receive instead of actual respect.
There’s a part of me that thinks it’s inevitable that I’ll eventually alienate anyone that bothers to get close to me. I've been able to keep that feeling at bay for a while (as I've said many times on this blog, the meds help), but I remember being really consumed by that thought right after my last year at university about 15 years ago, and when I started getting really depressed about 4 years ago (the year of a five month unemployment and getting turned down for a job I interviewed for only to be hired doing the exact same job through a temp agency.)
I'm still a little wary of intruding on people's lives, but a lot of the time I find I'm not reaching out first because I'm just tired and don't really have much to talk about. I've also been feeling this way about blogging for a while, especially with more important things happening in the news.
It actually feels good not to worry about making sure a post is ready by the end of a specific date. As much as I like writing, particularly the part where I'm actually losing myself in the process, deadlines were never my thing. I think I was more drawn to the idea of writing as a career back when I was fresh out of university, working in outsourced call centre jobs, and trying to use that as a refuge from my reality.
I'm fine with my current life, though. I have a good job that allows me to live comfortably. I have my own space to live, and the ability to have alone time and be myself. I have friends and family.
Even when I withdraw a bit and the feeling of simultaneously being too much and not enough resurfaces.
