in the light of interbeing
In these intense, fraught times, I don't believe in neutrality.
Because I believe in interbeing, I believe in the necessity to bear witness. That silence is complicity. As I've learned from a lot of teachers and thinkers in my life, neutrality and indifference are often the harbingers of the loss of your own humanity.
If you're familiar with the work of Hannah Arendt, you can probably understand how I see the connection between neutrality and the banality of evil (her term, not mine).
For a more recent example of the harm of neutrality and seeing both sides, see Daniel Maté's response to America's Vulnerability Expert. The video is online and it's a masterclass. I knew plenty before I watched it, and I learned plenty more.
So in these intense, fraught times, I choose not to be neutral or indifferent.
(My studies of history have always affirmed that neutrality is an illusion anyway.)
Because the opposite of neutrality is LOVE.
Though if you're living in a standard Western capitalist patriarchal mindset—which is often subconscious, and is by definition also colonized and white supremacist—you might think that the opposite of neutrality is a polarized, us vs them, good vs bad, hero vs enemy mindset.
Because Western culture is addicted to binaries.
But it's not. The opposite of indifference is LOVE.
So, it's alarming how many people choose neutrality.
I don't. I believe in love.
You've probably already read Aaron Bushnell's final words posted online:
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."
This is true about current events, but it's always been true about everything. If you don't know or don't care that Black voters in the US are still heavily, constantly disenfranchised, you wouldn't have cared about Jim Crow.
If your knowledge of American history before WW2 doesn't include that the US denied visas for tens of thousands of Jews, you probably don't care about antisemitism now.
For me, bearing witness is not just the willingness to see, but equally what you DO in light of that knowledge.
And I mean that very literally:
Interbeing—both bearing witness and acting on it—is illumination. What you do in that light is the opportunity to LIVE in that light. Interbeing is being a LIVING LIGHT.
No one does it perfectly, but we all have countless opportunities to contribute our own light. My allyship has some primary forms:
~ Amplifying relevant voices. For me, IG is the easiest platform to do this. My stories and highlights have plenty of relevant perspectives. If you're only tuned into mainstream news, you're missing a LOT.
~ Meaningful actions: I've participated in the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) for nearly 15 years. Imperfectly, because I'm human. There are plenty of resources online, if you want to learn more
For their short list of companies most important to boycott, see here.
~ Similarly, I have divested from businesses, organizations, and people who are going on with life as usual, with zero acknowledgement of genocides and their own complicity. Imperfectly, of course, because I'm human.
~ I've unsubscribed from a lot of email lists.
~ And if you know the history of how apartheid ended in South Africa, you'll understand why I've disengaged—a boycott of sorts—from many "spiritual" teachers and "conscious" spaces.
Specifically to women, I've disengaged from those who have soooo many memes to post about how they're the "witches who didn't burn," but never actually address their actual complicity in genocide, climate change, and the many other ways they've contributed to the world on fire.
Likewise, I've declined collaborations with people who refrain from addressing the realities of the world.
(Mind you, I was too young at the time to understand the end of apartheid. Studying history has taught me the importance of these choices.)
Amidst the intensity of the present, I often think about future conversations with my goddaughter.
Currently, she's so young that the only things that really register for her are snacks and naps.
But I know that in 10-15 years, she'll have a lot of pointed questions about this time in history.
I'll have lots to share with her. That my experiences at protests are rarely captured in photos. That I constantly despaired at the lack of compassion or even care from most people. That I was especially disgusted at the indifference from people in leadership or people with big platforms. That "oneness" was much more commodity that meaningful action.
By then, when collective consciousness has caught up to these unfathomable atrocities, people will finally admit what they're unwilling to say now. And, I have no doubt that many people will embellish their own history, or invent it, for the sake of being deemed ethical in the future.
I know that in those conversations, I'll caution her to consider carefully. Because many, many adults will be lying to her by that point—denying that they clung to neutrality amidst the constant livestreams of bombed hospitals, bulldozed bodies, and famine victims.
And I'll include myself as someone to consider warily. I want to be someone who is always working to be worthy of her trust and esteem, which means I'll gladly share my choices, my work of non-neutrality, for her to assess.
I hope to impart to her the importance of looking beyond convenient, curated words and declarations. That actions—or lack thereof—matter more.
You show who you are in everything you do, and in everything you DON'T do. Right now and always.
In light,
S.
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she / they