The Personal Is Political
I’d planned to write something for today about the satire. That’s going to have to wait, really – so two weeks from now, if you want a post about the satire in Goidelic tradition, stop back by. In the meantime though, I’ve something else churning in my gut that needs to be said, especially with Biden’s announcement that he won’t be pursuing re-election. It’s a time of transition, of change, of uncertainty. And there are a lot of people who are despairing at the state of American politics. People who are new (read: in the last 50 or so years) to this terrible churn, where the political system is clearly rigged and it seems like nothing we do can – or will – matter.
Welcome to the party, my friends. It’s the worst party ever hosted, and the only way to make it through is to band together. And it isn’t new.
The Black Panther Party in the 60’s banded together against police brutality. They established entirely controversial (I really need a sarcasm font here) programs such as Free Breakfast for Children, community health-care clinics, and educational opportunities. Armed, they also challenged cops in Oakland who were brutalizing the African-American communities under the guise of preserving the peace. They weren’t perfect, they weren’t the vision of everything good in the world, the party was made of humans who do human things. But they were banding together to try to keep each other safe, because they knew there was a need. They’d experienced it first-hand.
If the beating of Rodney King surprised you? You weren’t paying attention to the behavior of the cops toward communities of color early enough. If you’re just now realizing that Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered by the FBI in an attempt to counter the Black Panther Party in Chicago? You’ve fallen victim to government propaganda and rewriting of history by the people responsible for targeted murder. If you’ve never heard of the Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921? Blame an educational system that has sold you a pack of whitewashed lies.
Go further back. Back to the treatment of the First Nations peoples here on Turtle Island. Boarding Schools, which started in the 17th century in the US, were years of torture and attempted genocide that forcibly separated children from their parents, beat the children (the ones who survived) until they stopped using their own languages, and forced American culture on them instead of their own. “Kill the Indian and save the man” was the slogan they liked. Again, the establishment moved to forcibly exterminate communities. How about the treaties made between First Nations people and the US Government, ignored and broken time and again for no reason other than greed? If you want an absolutely heart-rending (but simultaneously hopeful) look at that, check out the Netflix documentary “Lakota Nation vs. the United States.” There’s an organization called MMIW/P – Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/People – now, that exists because so often the murders of Indigenous Peoples aren’t even recorded properly, much less investigated.
So many times over the last few centuries, communities of color have come together with the goal of bettering themselves. Of creating stability for their community, for their families and friends. Education. Wealth. Stability. Health care. Safety. These are things that most people grow up thinking comprise the American Dream. But when communities of color reach for those things, historically they’ve been murdered by the government, their communities rocked by grief and torn apart or slaughtered.
And now here we are. Now everyone is threatened, all together. It isn’t “just” (it should have been enough that any community was treated this way, but apparently it isn’t enough, and so here we are) communities of color any more, it’s all communities. And for those who are new to the fight, those who are just starting to see how bad it is when your rights are unfairly curtailed by the government, this can seem insurmountable. It’s easy to despair. It’s easy to see so much bad on all sides in power. It’s easy to give up and think that you can’t do anything. It all seems so pointless.
In 2003, there was a rather hilarious web series based on the Halo games called Red vs. Blue. Two teams were trapped in a dead-end canyon, tasked with killing the other team for control of a canyon that had no strategic value to the overall war effort. Hilarity ensued as characters from the game came to life and started questioning their purpose – and why they were in a dead-end canyon. In the end, did anything even matter? (And was Donut’s armor really light red? We all know it was pink.)
It would be easy to apply this to today’s politics – particularly in the USA. Especially the part about being trapped in a blind canyon, with both sides in different colored armor but mostly functioning the same. It would be so easy to make the argument that everything is pointless, that who you vote for doesn’t matter, that both sides are terrible and that nothing you do can matter on an individual level. So easy.
Please don’t do that.
Whether you’ve been fighting the good fight for years or months or weeks or days – don’t give up now that you see the Powers That Be have trapped us all in a blind canyon with no way out. Instead, do the radical things that you can do.
March. Protest. Join an Indigenous-led organization to support and fight for the Rights of Nature. Recycle. Let your garden yard grow wild to feed the pollinators. Donate to a local charity that helps survivors of domestic violence. Find your community and support them, whatever that looks like – whether that’s online community or in-person. Listen to voices of color, both locally and at the state and national levels. Be kind. Decolonize. Be anti-racist. Be anti-bigot. Be an ally, however that looks to you. Read an article on the Tulsa Race Massacre. Educate yourself. Do fact-checking before posting that hilarious meme. Call your senator and tell her to actively oppose any policy decisions made that support Project 2025. Remind them that you are watching. Join a call chain for your local Representatives. Speak up.
AND vote.
Do all the things you can, remember that no one can do all the things which is why we work together, AND vote. Even if you think it doesn’t matter. Even if you think it won’t matter. Even if you’re right. Commit to building supportive community. You may need to help a transgender person get to a refuge state. That Dad Hug you offer at the Pride Parade may remind a suicidal teen that not everyone in the world wants them dead. That High School Spanish you break out to help someone who speaks no English ask for something from a clerk might be the thing that reminds them that they really are welcome here. The eggs you share with a friend might be the reason they eat this week. AND VOTE.
Because the real counter to this capitalist hellscape in which we find ourselves isn’t voting, it’s healthy communities. Friends for social support, friends to help us when times are hard, friends to pitch in when we need it. Chosen family. Families of purpose. People we can call at 2am when our roof is leaking and the power’s out, so we can get shelter. All the things that American Individualism seeks to stamp out in us, all the things that the government has tried to destroy since its inception.
Be rebellious. Be radical. Be supportive of your friends, your family. Choose wisely. Support freedoms. And most of all, Be Excellent To Each Other.