RESUSCITATION 

Nothing. NOTHING makes me angrier.

And some variation of it keeps being said in my classes repeatedly as if this is a known fact. Specifically people repeatedly assert that Americans are the laziest society ever, that our essential characteristic as a culture is laziness.

I need to prepare a memorized response to this so I can go the fuck off every time I hear it.

It’s not that I’m angry at the people who are saying it. I’m angry that they are so thoroughly convinced of it and that they will continue to parrot it because it’s such a blatant and perfect example of people being taught to participate in their own oppression.

We as a society can’t have a reasonable discussion about the value of hard work anymore, because that concept itself is so horribly perverted.

Work is valuable when it builds your community. Work is valuable when it builds a future for your children and their children. When it builds your relationship to the place you live, your home. When it feeds you, feeds others, is a tangible way of life that weaves your place in a community of other people, when it serves others. Work is valuable when it is for people.

Building is valuable. Serving is valuable.

But for most of us “work” is just the sacrifice of the majority of our waking hours to making a destructive, inhuman machine of profit run. Many people drive far away from their homes to work. They do things that do not benefit their communities. They interact with people who are not their friends. People’s jobs are often completely severed from both the place they live in and the people they live alongside, and often they will never see any good they do for anyone.

The deliberate equivocation of the kind of work that making a vegetable garden is and the kind of work that being a cashier at Wal-Mart is is malicious. There is virtue in working hard for each other. That’s what work is supposed to be for. But we cannot and should not let companies and corporations appropriate this and make us see doing the utmost to serve them as a high virtue. Hard work itself is not a virtue. It has no moral component. Working as part of a community that helps one another is good and fulfilling, but in many ways that has been deliberately taken from us.

Our lack of complete psychological devotion to our capitalist way of life is not some kind of sin, it’s not a character flaw, it’s not something to be overcome. The activities and tendencies that supposedly make us “lazy” are our efforts to stay human in a world that strips us as completely as it can from community.

We are expected to give more and more and more to our jobs and less and less to our humanity. Our work schedules weaken our social ties and our abilities to devote time to cultivating ourselves and our homes and our lives. The more time we spend at work, the less time we can spend with friends, with neighbors, at home, in our yards, gardening, raising families, thinking about life.

We are not lazy and we desperately need to learn how to be lazy or things will keep getting worse!!!

He already knew how to fight with Water Tribe weapons/regalia:

Then, in what’s likely the first Earth Kingdom village he’s ever visited, he learned how to fight with the Warriors of Kyoshi:

When he reached the Northern Air Temple, he was able to tap into the philosophy of the airbenders and realize that the best way to win a battle is to avoid face-to-face confrontation by instead using creative means (and the sky) to take down your opponent:

And finally, when he reached the Fire Nation, Piandao taught him how to forge a unique weapon and hone his swordsmanship:

Sokka learned all four non-bending styles!

Really puts Iroh’s quote into a different context:

We’re all having “hard conversations” about racism, police brutality, and #BlackLivesMatter I hope. 

You’ve probably noticed that detractors often use the same “racist talking points” in response. Here’s a researched and sourced guide to help you answer, for the times you may get stuck.

Feel free to save these images and share them!

a prison abolitionist,

a harm reductionist,

for decriminilization,

and giving the land back

shit, i don’t know. we need prisons as prisons are to A) withhold certain people from harming their communities, B) punish certain people, C) kill certain people.

uh, i guess i can kind of answer this. the criminal justice system still exists. why don’t we just leave those people in charge? they’re not cops! and we should definitely let people who have committed non-violent offenses go. drug charges are stupid.

ok, i feel a little more confident answering this. we need to change the prison model for the better and follow the example of countries with restorative justice practices. incarcerated people need better access to healthcare and education, as well as access to opportunifies post-prison so that they are less likely to face reincarceration.

wait. if we’re abolishing the police for upholding white supremacy and terrorizing marginalized communities, we need to abolish a lot of shit. restorative justice sounds cool, i agree with that guy above. but shouldn’t these efforts be run by the communities affected? wasn’t the problem a white supremacist state? wasn’t the goal community terrorism? wasn’t the power taken out of our hands, especially the hands of people being systematically criminalized? i think i have things to read about.

anyway, whatever your conclusion: here are some things to read about.

darkness matters: on the surveillance of blackness by simone brown

are prisons obsolete? by angela davis

the law is a white dog by colin dayan

gendering the carceral state: african american women, history, and the criminal justice system by kali n gross and cheryl d hicks

“indigenous space and decolonizing prison abolition” from the final straw radio podcast (this is an episode of a podcast featuring ni frontiers ni prison, an indigenous prison abolitionist group)

migra! a history of the us border control by kelly lyle hernandez

disability incarcerated by liat ben-moshe and allison c carey

queer (in)justice by joey l mogul, andrea j ritchie, and kay whitlock

crazy in america: the hidden tragedy of our criminalized mentally ill by mary beth pfeiffer

inventing the savage: the social construction of native american criminality by luana ross

criminal justice facts posted by the sentencing project

is prison necessary? an article featuring ruth wilson gilmore & explaining prison abolition to children who were very good at asking “but what about [x]?” questions

and here’s an FAQ about prison abolition by people against prisons aotearoa

and then another collection of links by the marshall project.