what are the stories beyond the story that racism reproduces?

24 Apr 2019

on page 68 of pleasure activism, dr. alexis pauline gumbs (someone i am obsessed with) wrote something that prompted a question for me that i think is important:

what are the stories beyond the story racism reproduces?

since finishing pleasure activism, i’ve been thinking a lot about the point of the work so many people i know are doing. most of my close friends are doing liberation in one way or another. and i think one way to frame that work is that it’s about dismantling oppression. it’s about deconstructing global systems that have gotten really powerful and infiltrated people, societies, and the planet.

but i think another way to frame is that we are trying to get free so that we can be together more / more together.

two one of my favorite frames for healing are re-membering and integration. the point of healing is so that we can remember who we (singular and plural, objective and subjective) are. the point of healing is to bring all the pieces of us (individual and collective) back together (see tikkun olam).

so, for me, the point of my transformational work is to make it more possible for us, across all of the false lines of identity that have been created to divide, to be together.

i think i’m writing all this out because, thinking back to the question above, i love the stories that prove it’s possible to be together. the stories where people use their agency to choose each other across lines (because the lines are made up) in advance of a world that supports those choice.

idk. i know some folks might think that makes me a sellout. but i know what’s true for me is that solo-identity work and spaces (only black, only queer, only men) are only and always a pitstop on the road to where we’re actually trying to go.

shrug so sue me.

words / writing / post-processing
330w / 12min / 5min