|
|
|
PATRONS!
This week's newsletter is all about the protests and how I've been feeling. I have, however, been doing a TON of work. The co-op has a lot going on with Greenpeace (this week I put Doug's excellent advice into practice on the Planet4 Github repo), with the public sector program We Are Open is working on, with a couple non-profits funded through Catalyst...
|
I wonder if that's backwards? Should I be talking to YOU about feelings and the others about work? I've been feeling very vulnerable lately, and as a result I have been failing at writing. I started applying for a Bitch Media residency, but didn't finish....I haven't been paying attention to social media, Patreon or my open source contributions. I haven't had the brain space.
|
|
Maybe I'm antifa
|
|
|
|
I'm not sugarcoating anything, so buckle up for...whatever comes out. I finally got some sleep last night and sleep is an essential component to my badassery. Without sleep I am raw and fragile and ruminating and stressy af. I haven't been sleeping much.
|
Many of my American friends are in the streets now. Some are staying home. All of them have been oscillating between narratives that are floating around – some true and right, some manipulated, some clickbate, some outright egregious. People forced to learn a massive amount of historical and social context, mass media doing its best to sow confusion.
|
The Germans around me are horrified, they have been asking me if I’m ok. They know all too well what excessive force can lead to. With few exceptions, my friends and family here are East Germans. We have been discussing the polarization of American society for a long time.
|
I live in a place where fascism is fresh in the minds of people my age, where my friends remember what it was like when the wall came down, and what it was like before that. I live in a place, am the member of communities, where fascism is met swiftly with a body check and condemnation. Once, I was stopped by police on the street here, and within 45 seconds two citizens had come to my side to ensure that the police were not harassing me. If the police are anywhere, antifa is there too.
|
I was 12 years old when I started going to punk shows. I was 12 and a half when I began to consider myself antifa and doodled it on my notebooks. It was next to the symbol for anarchy. I have a chaos symbol tattooed on my back. Someone once asked me if it was an avocado.
|
|
Maybe I'm doing the work
|
|
|
|
I’m not ok, actually. The degree of incredulity I’ve been feeling in 2020 outpaces the shock and disgust I felt in 2016, when Trump became president. Call me a bleeding heart liberal if you want, but I just don’t see myself as so very separate from the rest of my species. I do not understand racism, though I understand my privilege. I do not understand so much of what other people see as a reason to hate. And I wonder if the US is a failed state.
|
|
As I've watched Black Lives Matter movement grow, I've felt solidarity and helplessness. The past couple of weeks, I've been losing it. Until my city also had a demo, and I spent Saturday marching in a crowd wearing black. Until I started reading Beyond the Pale, which I bought last year but hadn't started (more books/educators here). Until I donated to 70 bail bonds and Black Lives Matter. Until I asked my co-op members to sign up for this anti-racist class with me. Until I got some sleep.
|
|
Maybe I need help?
|
|
I am trying hard to be accepting of my needs during this emotionally turbulent. I hope you are too. Hit reply. I haven't heard from you in a while. Or show the planet or this newsletter some love by donating below or sharing out there in the world.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
