how do we turn on the light?

love is adrenaline, a roar of crowd-shout noise

anger is movement, bare feet pounding up molten rock

pride is folly, head lowered, fists raised

and then our children march up the mountain, teeth bared

and then our children hold hands so tightly and don't let go

and don't let go

keep not letting go until there's no more hand to hold

anger is adrenaline, a scream of earth-heat rage

pride is movement, bare feet refusing to turn around

love is folly, face raised, hand empty

this is not a fun little game for you to trot around flipping off cops and making light of a situation you were never effected by. it is not your chance to have a little bit of adventure in the middle of a quarantine. i am speaking as an author and i am telling you to stop fucking making this about katniss or harry potter or whatever - you can be shaped by media, sure, but this is not and has never been about you roleplaying your favorite action heroes. this is not another “disaster of 2020″. this is not a quirky instagram post, it’s not a chance for you to meet up with your friends, it’s not a tactic to get your tiktok trending.

this is about racial injustice. this is about the entire system that is built on that injustice and grows fat on that injustice. don’t get distracted. the police force is not the only systemically racist organization.

Colourful Suki

consider not owning an Alexa/Google Home or at least keeping it unplugged when it’s not in use. yes, the AI is shit but don’t be lulled into a false sense of security – the microphone works just fine and has been shown to record and send out your data even when the corp promises it isn’t!

that Amazon doorbell is constantly recording video and using it in who knows what unethical ways, including - this is verified - sharing it with ICE. owning one directly endangers your neighbors who aren’t consenting to this surveillance!

consider not using Google for everything – try an anti-tracking search engine like Duck Duck Go even if you have to resort to Google after. we can’t get a better search engine until we train it with use!

consider replacing Chrome on your phone and laptop with Brave, a browser built literally on the exact same software (Chromium) but which not only rips out allllll the bloaty tracking Google adds in, it also attempts to block a lot of the tracking that giant websites like Facebook do on every single web page you visit (even if you aren’t logged into Facebook). it runs literally identically to Chrome, only faster.

like basically as an individual you can start taking back control of your data by learning who steals what and how, and taking steps to curtail that theft.

consider checking the permissions of the apps in your phone. Facebook and others routinely steal your contact lists and even your text message and call history, and part of what they do with this info is to build highly detailed “ghost profiles” on your friends who have never been on facebook in the first place and don’t know they’re being surveilled through your phone.

resist the urge to give into apathy! there are things that can be done, and it is worth it to take back even a bit of your private life. we don’t have to just cave to the capitalist surveillance state.