Tag: political is personal

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What happens if I change this

“if I cannot have my freedom, I will not substitute somebody else’s suffering for that.”

Ryan Ken is by far one of my favourite people on the internet. Ryan has an incredible combination of compassion and intelligence that is wrapped up in a singularly unique POV. This makes their tweets and TikToks super, super engaging. I always stop when Ryan’s work comes across my FYP, because I am always guaranteed to either learn something or to laugh (often both).

I saw this TikTok of Ryan’s land on my screen tonight. I was so taken by it, I had to inscribe it in full. I don’t know what comments exactly prompted Ryan to make this video.

However, what it touched on for me is meme I’ve seen in the past day or two. Zionists are making fun of a Palestinian boy in Gaza who was recorded sleeping on his mother’s grave because he missed her so terribly. It is an absolutely gut-wrenching video. To know that there are heartless people in the world who could mock a child for mourning his dead mother is, as Ryan says, absolutely depraved.

Here is the text of Ryan’s video:

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.

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What happens if I change this

that old saying is new again

If it isn’t obvious to you in today’s world, I really don’t know how to explain that your own happiness and liberation will always be tied to that of others.

I saw this on a TikTok comment this morning and it sums up my feelings about both Trump voters and Zionists:

I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

Apparently that saying above is an old one, according to the commenter who wrote it. But it does feel awfully new and real.

I don’t think the problem is just that what used to be called “civil society” is lacking in empathy. I think it’s the post-covid crumbling of societal norms, the emboldenment of hateful leaders, the spread of misinformation that supports a lack of critical thinking, AND the widespread lack of empathy.

As writer Ryan Ken tweeted:

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What happens if I change this

The male gaze no longer matters

If you are a woman who has obsessed over her food, body, and weight, there is one tiny blessing that has come out of this American presidential election. And it is the deep, irrefutable knowledge about men simply do not give a fuck about you.

In this current patriarchal system, so many of us turned to dieting and other forms of disordered eating because we wanted the safety and cachet of thinness. We wanted to secure the social capital that goes along with having an ideal body. We wanted others to like and admire us, and we wanted the fellas to love and fuck us. So job #1 along the way was manipulating the body to be as socially acceptable as possible.

But what this election shows us is that men’s opinion of us could not be any lower.

So why would we continue to try to manipulate our bodies to please them, when they have so much contempt for our bodies in the first place?

Men do not care about your health, your access to health care, your bodily autonomy, or your ability to control when and whether or not you get pregnant. They do not care about your ability to leave your husband (and I do mean husband). They do not care about your ability to access affordable childcare. They do not care if you or your partner or your children or your loved ones are trans. They do not care about you at all.

So why would you continue to centre their opinions of you and your body?

Sure, sure, #NotAllMen and all that. And certainly not specific, individual men who genuinely pull their weight in the household, practice emotional intelligence, buy their partners tampons and chocolate once a month, and other green flags.

But truly: how much can the male gaze continue to matter to you when your body means so little to the men who feed the objectifying powers of the male gaze?

It’s time to unlearn that bullshit.

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What happens if I change this

My election night coping strategy

I’ve been super sick this past week, hence the scant posts. Arriving back on the blog now on election day in the U.S. I’ve decided to allow myself one very simple coping mechanism to get through the coverage tonight and whatever is going to unfold in the next few days: looking away. I will titrate the coverage as much as I can tolerate and then allow myself the luxury of looking away. I will remember that all these people are going to die one day, and I will allow myself to be comforted by the thought.

Is it a Zen approach (e.g. “I can’t control the outcome of this election”) or just denial (“AAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”?)

I think it’s more like a suppression of the knowledge that our own federal elections are coming up in Canada soon, and if the pundits are to be believed, we’ll be getting our own version of Trump Lite up here. At that point, I won’t be able to look away.

So maybe it’s just that I’m getting ready to fight.

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What happens if I change this

Small actions to counter the rage

Things are getting so much worse in northern Gaza. It feels disgusting to scroll past social media posts about active suffering there interspersed with tips for Halloween crafts.

I can’t take the cognitive dissonance anymore. So I’ve decided I’m going to write an email every day to my MP, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister as one way to channel my rage and anguish. Here’s a bit of what I sent them today:

As you know, in the past three weeks, Israel has stepped up its wanton violence against civilians in the region. 640 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza in the past 17 days, 33 of them in the past day. With the assault on the Jabalia refugee camp, it very much appears as though Israel is attempting to empty northern Gaza of any Palestinians. 

Every day, I ask myself: how is this war making Israel any safer?

Canada has always prided itself on its role as a global peacemaker. As Bob Rae himself has said, the political aspirations of the Palestinians will only ever be solved through diplomatic means, not military ones. Where is Canada now, in a region that disparately needs peace?

I also:

  • signed this petition
  • signed up to receive news from Jewish Voice for Peace and Independent Jewish Voices Canada. I am so aware of the ongoing need to counter rising anti-Semitism; plus I want to stay tuned in not just to Palestinian voices, but progressive, anti-Zionist voices of Jewish folks, too. (The Israeli media I follow doesn’t always make room for that, with the mighty exception of Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy.)*
  • used the money from the cancellation of mini getaway to make a donation to World Central Kitchen

I just need to take one small action every day to stave off absolutely going mad at the horrors of the world.

*If you have a Toronto Public Library card, you can read Haaretz and other newspapers from the Middle East for free using the PressReader service.

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What happens if I change this

What it takes to lose your own humanity

There are almost no words to describe the horror of Israel’s bombing of a tent area for displaced persons at Al Aqsa Hospital in the north of Gaza a couple of days ago. Even the US State Department described the incident as “horrific.”

I do not know how the population of Gaza will psychologically handle the aftermath of this last year+ of war. With so many people being killed, injured and disappeared, undoubtedly the repercussions will last decades. It’s much the same, I imagine, as with histories of Jewish trauma, which research shows has moved through generations epigenetically.

Sometimes when I see or read the responses of Israelis to the ongoing violence happening to Gazans, I try to put myself in their shoes. Generally, their first reply to the horrors their country has committed is to say something along the lines of, “Do you know what Hamas did on October 7th?”

For some folks, I believe this is the trauma talking. Sometimes when I am able to pause and just sit with that question for a moment, I can tune in to that person’s rage or grief or sense of righteousness. It is and was quite genuinely an assault on the national psyche of Israel, and for many Jewish people around the world. I try to grasp the feeling of this was never supposed to happen here. This was never supposed to happen again. I have compassion for the individual people still reverberating from that trauma.

The Israelis and Jews around the globe who have responded to the ceaseless violence in Gaza (and the West Bank and Lebanon) by saying never again applies to those places, too give me hope. Their compassion, vulnerability, and humanity is one tiny beacon of beautiful light in a despairing darkness.

But more often than not, the “what about October 7th?!” response to the horrors in Gaza comes embedded in an sense of revenge detached from basic humanity. It is not just a thirst for revenge. It is an entitlement to harm. I find this incredibly disturbing.

The glee at attacking innocents is revolting. It’s scary to see and hear IDF soliders and Israeli citizens using, framing all Gazans as animals, or all Palestinians as terrorists. The blindness to history repeating itself is baffling.

I really wonder how much you have to detach your own self from your own humanity in order to detach others from their humanity.

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What happens if I change this

It gets worse before it gets better

So Israel is now attacking LITERAL UN PEACEKEEPERS who have been stationed for FIFTY YEARS in the area between Lebanon and Israel.

With each fresh attack on civilians in Gaza, I have wondered, “will this one be the tipping point?” When slews of innocent lives have been lost, or hospitals have been attacked, or actual refugee camps have been torched, I have wondered if things have gotten bad enough that the international community will now come to its senses. Obviously, we are not there yet.

But with Israel undermining the UN, injuring peacekeepers and verbally attacking the UN Secretary General personally, I do wonder if Netanyahu is hoisting himself on his own petard.

UN member states now HAVE to sit up and pay attention to the war crimes Israel is committing because it is contravening decades-old global agreements that are harming non-Palestinians.

We’ve been completely fine for Palestinians simply searching for food to be killed. But the international community won’t be fine with Israeli aggression on, again, PEOPLE LITERALLY STATIONED IN AN AREA TO MAINTAIN PEACE.

My only hope is that by drawing other nations into Israeli’s use of force, the international community will begin to appropriately respond. We need an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and proper peace process to be put in place. From what I understand by various statements this year from the King of Jordan, Israel’s neighbours are prepared to discuss a framework for peace talks. But who in Israel’s current government is at all interested in peace?

As Diana Buttu wrote recently, “Israeli policies are premised on the idea that what cannot be achieved through force can only be achieved through more force.”

I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But how many more children have to die before the situation is deemed bad enough to do something about it?