find your role

When I started this work, I promised myself I would not become reactive. I would not perform outrage for the sake of performing outrage, nor would I perform my grief. I would not speak unnecessarily on things I did not know enough about, and I would not speak for the sake of hearing my own voice, when other voices might matter more.

But there is a difference between being reactive and being responsive.

There are times for nuance and complexity, and there are times for hard lines that hold our collective humanity. This is a time for the latter.

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First, let me state clearly my values in this space. I am unapologetically against genocide and apartheid states in all of their forms.

I bear witness to the profound and inhumane suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza by the state of Israel, supported financially and politically by the West.

I name and recognize the many truths of bodies and systems that are laid bare in this particular moment – the Islamophobia, the anti-Semitism, the colonization. 

I hold tenderly the grief of the people who are in pain – Palestinian, Jewish, Israeli, and others – and also hold unquestionably the Palestinian right to self-determination and freedom from Israeli occupation.

We are witnessing acute and immediate trauma, as well as generational and sociological traumas. We are witnessing crimes against humanity.

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This month has been a month of studying. I’ve put some time and money into the things I do not know, the things in which I am a little too afraid to engage alone. Most of it has to do with power. We have so many examples of wielding power badly — of abuses, of genocides, of relentless traumas. What does it mean to steward power well? How do we engage with our own individual and inherent power when we are overwhelmed, frozen, or grieving?

The first step is naming where we have agency and choice. The second step is choosing one to do. The third step is doing it.

In my own practice, I refer back to Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem at least once a year and almost always in crises. I find it a reassuring guidepost when I’m feeling the stirrings of the “but what can I DO??” paralysis — when the overwhelm, the horror, and the outrage have nowhere to go. I encourage you to use it to find your role and choose one thing to do to support Palestinians. If you need some specific ideas, see Iyer’s post.

Name your agency, choose one step, do it.

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Sometimes choice is a luxury. Sometimes it is an imperative.

 As we witness a cycle of horror unfold, we turn towards. We do what we must do to care for ourselves and our people, and we also turn back towards to bear witness.

When people are grieving, we sit with them in their grief.

When people are murdered, we carry their stories. 

And when a state commits genocide against its people, we do not look away.

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until next time.

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ps – I have postponed this week’s Boy Math workshop. It felt deeply inappropriate to try to market something in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. I appreciate your understanding.