Abolish Your Inner Cop

A line that my dear loving friend Michael (tambo & barista QUEEN but most important a musical soul), often reminds of with that simple sentence that we all have work to be done, inside and with every choice we consciously and unconsciously make.

I like to consider myself someone who pursues knowledge, and in my time in college I was met with a lot of people who questioned my choice to switch my major to Women and Gender studies. I know, now more than ever, that it was the right decision to FOLLOW MY HEART.

The professor, who opened my eyes, was Dr. Zinga Fraser, though the person who ignited the flame and first introduced this concept to me was an upperclassman, Shannon. They founded the intersectional feminism club within my high school and it was through that I first learned what "intersectionality" and "the waves of feminism".

Dr. Fraser was the first professor to expose the systems which pervade literally every aspect of our life, from our time of conception to our current existence.

As NoName eloquently tweeted over the summer, we are ALL factory babies.

Those who have read 1984 can probably see the parallels.

We are indoctrinated from birth with the idea that we need to preserve childhood because the rest of our lives will be spent, slaves to the machine.

The capitalist machine, the patriarchal machine, the white supremacist machine.

The machine in which we are all knowing or unknowing cogs.

And the machine that we inevitably perpetuate because we are dependent on said machine for our basic needs.

There is a reason there was a 3.9 trillion dollar transfer of capital between the "lower" classes and "upper" classes, and it is because corporations are aware of the dependency. They are aware of how to prey upon those who need to prioritize cost and accessibility over ethics, and those who do not have the time or the means to find locally sourced products. To live in an industrialized metropolitan is to resign yourself to the machine (to be elaborated on).

(For those in Bkn I have found pockets where you can support community, feel free to hit me up if interested)

In order for there to be visceral, actionable change, means that there also needs to be abolition of the idea that our singular choices as individuals don't matter, because they do.

As said in Mulan by the emperor (but I'm sure there are ancient origins) -

"A single grain of rice can tip the scales."

I am not trying to say that corporations are not the perpetrators and those who are in power are not at fault, because they are on the large scale. I am trying to convey that our actions as individuals have impacts greater than we realize.

It is within community that there is power, it is because of that the System targets mutual aid, and always has. During the Civil Rights Movement in the 70s, what the gov realized they needed to target was the efforts towards mutual aid. They understood that if The People United collectively, and began taking care of each other, that they would see that the government is obsolete and that it is a form of mass population control. I do not mean to undermine the good that exists, because duality is in everything, and I myself benefit off of the government. I am also aware of the immense, and intense harm that it continually perpetuates in order to maintain its control and power.

We are all oppressed, some moreso than others. We are all victims of the systems that we fight so hard against - to varying degrees based on arbitrary "differences" and traits that we are socialized to think set us apart. But we have one thing in common, and that is our humanity.

I have been struggling with a "career" choice, and am at a crossroads as to "what I should be doing next". I've been returning to the communities that have raised me with love, and trying to figure out where I can provide the most help, growth, and change. I am not sure where my travels will take me, but I want to make the journey that has led me here worthwhile to more than simply myself.

I have been personally boycotting corporations whenever possible, opting to only spend what I do on small businesses, whether that be choosing to go to a beauty store or local pharmacy rather than a CVS, choosing a family run business over McDonalds, and I have not frequented Amazon since May. I am aware those choices are ones made from a place of privilege. I am blessed with the means to make those decisions (though I am not, I accrued CC debt during the grieving period of my father and am currently living off the grace of my mother, but she is kind and takes care of my basic needs which I am very thankful for).

It is important to also remember that we are all privileged, just as we are all oppressed. We all have more than someone else, even if we do not personally know the someone else. It is not our job to take care of everyone, and that is not what I am trying to share with this either.

I just want to encourage you to stop and make more thoughtful, considerate choices everyday.

Something that I found to be inspiring is crowd-sharing. When I was younger, I used to be the kind of friend who would organize my friends friends and coordinate gifts, where people would collectively give $5-10 and with enough of us, we got more expensive things together than we could ever alone. With this same idea, crowd-sharing also looks like your friends sharing their streaming service or access (Costco, BJ's, etc) with you.

There is power in sharing, just as there is power in knowledge.

We need to come together and share our resources, whether that be knowledge, understanding, compassion, food, shelter, access, time…to truly embody community.

Right now I am not in a place where I have my own food or shelter to offer, and I do not even have very much money to share at this time. What I can share at this time is my thoughts, ideas, and perspective. I do not think I am better, or that I am in a place to tell people what I think they should be doing. Autonomy is a beautiful thing and all I want to do is encourage everyone and anyone reading this to look within yourselves. To face the experiences and trials and tribulations that have brought you to this point. To think of all the lessons that life has explicitly and implicitly taught you.

Our inner cops don't always take the form of outward discrimination, but rather the feelings of anxiety, fear, distrust. Everything we have ever experienced, has had an effect on us - and it resurfaces when we least expect, or in ways that we aren't even aware.

An example of this for me is that I can only really fluidly share my thoughts through typing out and long winded explanations of things which are scattered with big words that I learned through my time in formalized education. It is a result of learning essays, synthesizing knowledge & all of the reading I did when I was younger. Now that I am aware of this, I am attempting to utilize the skill that life had provided, to openly communicate the lessons that I have learned in conjunction with how they can be applied to the larger world as well.

I do not know if this will gift you anything you needed, I hope that it does.

Today is Thursday, which means it is church. I will see those of you who share that time, there <3

Love, hugs, blessings.

❤️🌱✡️