a practice

Speak the name of colonial oppression.

Whisper it to yourself first, if you must practice once or twice. Let the words become a little less unfamiliar on your tongue. Do not wait to become comfortable, but let the unfamiliarity propel you to be brave and speak it loudly. Understand why your voice matters.

Make the phone call, every day. 

Read, so you learn that the unfamiliarity has been fed to you. Learn that this colonial pattern is just that — a pattern, common, simple to identify and recognize once you can see it. Study other patterns — of power and domination, of money and information as their currency, of international intercultural resistances, of indigenous decolonization movements, of the keffiyah and of embroidered histories. Name the patterns, and choose which ones you will contribute to, which ones you will dismantle. Do not wait to become comfortable.

Recognize that the complexity — of two oppressed groups pitted against each other — is also a colonial pattern, a grab for power when power has been wielded against. Trauma does not justify a genocide. Learn the needling voice of yours, so you are not tempted.

Understand the interrelatedness of this complex system. Understand that colonialism justifies white supremacy justifies patriarchy justifies capitalism justifies colonialism.

Many truths exist here. One does not negate the other; rather, they fractal into and about each other.

Name what you know to be true, and put it into practice.

And when you falter, ask for help.

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until next time.