I don't know most things

You think you're staying "informed" by doomscrolling through your social feeds 24/7? That's exactly what they want. It's literally designed to keep you angry, scrolling, and - most importantly - doing absolutely fucking nothing.

HERE'S WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU:

It's OKAY to edit your feeds so you don't see that shit when you're just trying to exist

You do NOT have to consume the world's suffering every second of every day to be a "good activist" - and by the way? You're not even getting "informed" by scrolling. You need to actually look up real articles OFF of social media to understand what's happening

Hitting like and share isn't activism. Sorry. It just isn't.

You wanna actually do something?

Learn your neighbors' names. ACTUALLY TALK TO THEM about what's happening

Join your school board and ask them face-to-face why they're against queer education

Stand up to your racist uncle instead of "keeping the peace" (peace for WHO exactly?)

Find out what abortion rights groups are ALREADY DOING in your area instead of reinventing the wheel

Join an actually inclusive church (you know, like Jesus would've wanted) and see what they're ALREADY DOING to make the world better

And for fuck's sake, stop saying "oh I don't talk about politics" - YOUR SILENCE IS POLITICAL

NEWSFLASH: You don't have to start the fucking underground railroad by yourself. That shit ALREADY EXISTS - you just never had to use it before. Lucky you. So volunteer if you're a safe person, at whatever level works for you:

Send money

Show up in person

Pack supplies

Make pamphlets

Whatever you can do

Not everything's gonna get you in the history books and you know what? IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

And here's something else that matters: Going to trauma therapy - REAL trauma therapy with a therapist informed in decolonization practices - is a RADICAL ACT. If you have the means to do it, DO IT. Healing yourself is part of the work too.

AND LISTEN UP BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT: IT'S OKAY THAT IT TOOK YOU THIS LONG IT'S OKAY THAT YOU'RE STARTING SMALL IT'S OKAY THAT YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING

NO ONE EVER PUNISHED THEMSELVES INTO SUCCESS.

You grew up with some racist/sexist views? Yeah, most of us did. You can't get stuck there. There's too much at stake. It's time to deconstruct. It's time to do the work.

But scrolling and sharing posts while feeling guilty? That's not the work. That's what they want you to think the work is.

When I tried to talk about these things with other people, they always rationalized it away. (I told my dad once that my caseworker was reading my e-mails as I wrote them, demonstrating extreme disrespect for my privacy, and he said, “Well, she’s probably making sure you don’t use the internet to goof off.” I was 22 years old.)

 People tend to mock the idea that telling an adult when to go to bed, when to eat, etc., is a human rights violation, even though they would find it outrageous and absurd if anyone came into their lives to do the same thing to them.

These men just stole the personal information of everyone in America AND control the Treasury. Link to article.

Akash Bobba

Edward Coristine

Luke Farritor

Gautier Cole Killian

Gavin Kliger

Ethan Shaotran

In one of my quilt groups a member posted some pictures of how she made ruffled aprons for her granddaughters, and then was stumped on what to make for her grandsons. Oh, she thought, custom pillows!

Gentle reader, I saw red. The backstory here is that quilters are overwhelmingly white retired women, and they (or at least the ones who join FB quilting groups) tend to have some VERY old-fashioned views on men and women and girls and boys. (Lots of posts like "what ideas do you have for boy quilts?" and the comments will be full of pictures of quilts with tractors on them.) So I thought, I guess the message here is that girls are supposed to be working in the kitchen while the boys lounge around on their fancy pillows waiting to be served. I was ready to let her have it in the comments and risk getting booted from the group. But first I looked in the comments to see how the post was being received.

I was blown away by the comments. Comment after comment saying things like, "those are lovely, I make aprons for all my grandsons and they love to wear them when they help out in the kitchen!" "I made custom aprons for all my sons, and then more for their sons when they got old enough! They all love them!"

Then, after all these comments, here comes OP with one of her own: "I think next year I'll make custom pillows for my granddaughters and ruffled aprons for my grandsons." My comment: "That's a great idea!"

Sometimes people surprise you.

just need a little nudge, not

a flamethrower.

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