Kneeling Man and Seated Woman Embracing (Study for The Kiss and/or Fulfillment)

Look. I’m not trying to be rude, but I am gonna be real.

You saying you’ve lost faith in “humanity” isn’t worth shit. It doesn’t challenge anything, it doesn’t mean anything. Statements like this evaporate the very nature of oppression and dissolve who is oppressor/beneficiary and who is oppressed. The continuous occurrence of black people being killed by white police isn’t some ubiquitous urgency for which all of “humanity” is at fault. White supremacy, white privilege, a virulently anti black economical/social/political system is at fault and all those who validate it, at any time, are at fault.

And honestly, who the fuck are you to declare that you’ve lost faith in humanity? There are many amazing people from Toni Morrison to Cornel West to Angela Davis to Harry Belafonte who have seen the absolute worst American domestic (and foreign, if we’re being real) terrorism has had to offer and they live with hope in their hearts and revolution on their minds everyday. You don’t get to dismiss the amazing work of my elders and the youth of my community because you lost faith. And you don’t get to come into my inbox and bombarde me with your reactionary garbage when you can’t even locate systems at fault and would prefer to lazily dredge up vague concepts like “humanity”. If we don’t have hope, we have nothing. No praxis. Angela Davis has spoken on this topic many times before. About how those who discuss the world as a perpetually stagnant place and throw their hands in defeat are counteractive to any revolutionary thought.

One of her most relevant quotes. “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”

Do I have “faith” in the system? Absolutely not. But I do have faith in the resilience of my people and all oppressed people by Empire, whether we’re talking Pakistan, Mexico, the Congo, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq and beyond. I have faith in the abundance in domestic and transnational solidarity, coalition building and activism that comes from tragedies and injustice. And yes, these are the positives amongst “humanity” which you collectively condemn.