One of the reasons that I don’t feel particularly compelled to go back and forth with people in the comments—online or otherwise—is that it’s clear to me the process of writing is not a reflective exercise for a lot of people. That it is purely a mechanical one of emotion to output.
But for me, as a writer, the process of writing—even an internet comment—is a process of deep reflection. The decision to write, why am I writing, to whom am I writing. The process of writing in itself is an invitation for reflection, of editing it, is an invitation for reflection. Sometimes the writing of it makes me realize it’s not worth saying.
And it’s clear to me that, for some people, it’s not that at all. And I often don’t feel compelled to engage in a fight, because a lot of times people are confessing to you some of the most damning things about themselves, with the belief that they have invited you to some sort of debate.
For example, with my last video, some of you told me—a person you do not know—that what emotionally comforts your spirit in a time of anguish and pain is relishing in the suffering of other people.
What am I going to say about or to you that is more of an indictment of your character than that? That what gives you a dopamine hit, what releases the tension from your jaw, is mocking the victims of genocide.
I’mma tell you, the best read I got ain’t got nothing on how you just ate yourself up in my comments.
And I think that’s why, no matter how nastily it’s framed, it seldom has the ability to move me one way or another. And it almost feels unfair to go back and forth with someone who lacks that much critical thinking.
I say that not in, like, an intellectual superiority way. I actually think critical thinking is a profoundly emotional exercise. It is about the ability to sit with information that challenges you. It is about realizing that things from people you trusted—teachers, parents, family, church—might have been wrong or incomplete.
Your very sense of self might be propped up on something that you learn to be factually incorrect. And that is a very vulnerable way to move through the world. And I think critical thinking is about being able to ride the emotional wave of that.
…[S]o many people are using [TikTok] to emotionally regulate. That putting your work out into the world invites you to become other peoples’ diary that they should be keeping. And so, i’s just fascinating to watch that people think they’ve really got you.
I think that shit is depraved. I truly, truly think that shit is depraved.
In my lowest moment, if I’m the type of person who finds some sort of relief in mocking the victims of genocide, I feel like I’m already spiritually dead.
I don’t know what I can do about stoping the country from taking my physical life, but I absolutely won’t let it take my spiritual one.
I will not have imperalism become integral to my sense of self. I think that is a spiritual death.
I’m not saying it’s not a human reaction. Human beings are doing it. And if human beings are doing it, it means I am capable of it, too.
I just think that that is a very depraved thing to admit about yourself. Truly. Like some of you volunteered to tell me that you wouldn’t even be the n*****s that Harriet shot, because at least they had the courage to leave the plantation in the first place. Some of you would have been soothed, just by knowing there were slaves who were worse than you.
And I think, for me, if I cannot have my freedom, I will not substitute somebody else’s suffering for that. That’s not worth it to me.
And I don’t think there is anything I can say about that behaviour that is worse than what you already know about that behaviour.