skeleton flower

First because this keeps getting used as a way to harm people perceived as lacking empathy due to disorders like Autism and PTSD.

Second because the more severe forms of chronic emotional detachment tend to produce a lack of action in general rather than antagonism. (Ex: What is currently called Schizoid Personality Disorder.) 

Third because allegedly neurotypical people - especially the ones I have known who pride themselves on being exceptionally empathic - seem to have no problem shutting off their empathy whenever they pass a homeless person on the street. 

A culture that emphasizes empathy for the sake of empathy is one that prioritizes deception and performance over sincerity and solidarity. It ironically creates the very emotional façade that people attribute specifically to the unemphatic. 

Demonstrations organized by Indigenous women to confront Bolsonaro’s policies, in both April and August 2019

In the northeastern state of Maranhão, which was already seeing rapid deforestation, invasions of indigenous reserves by land grabbers have spiked since Bolsonaro took office, said indigenous women at this year’s April encampment.

“When this government started, we immediately felt threatened because the farmers, the loggers thought that they can encroach [on our land] and do whatever they want because he [Bolsonaro] allows them to invade our land,” without punishment, explained Cintia Maria Santana da Silva, a leader of the Guajajara/Tenetehara indigenous group from the Araribóia Reserve.

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In the Governador Indigenous Reserve, also in Maranhão state, the Gavião people have likewise seen an upsurge in illegal invasions and deforestation since Bolsonaro took office, said indigenous leader Maria Helena Gavião.

“I think that [ruralist] people are feeling more well represented by this government, so they are not ashamed anymore of entering indigenous areas,” Gavião explained. She doesn’t feel Bolsonaro is doing “anything good” for indigenous peoples, but the worst thing he has said so far is that “not one centimeter of land will be demarcated for indigenous reserves.”

“This is an affront to us, this is a violation of our rights.… This government is anti-indigenous. We are not happy with him, with what he has been doing,” the Gavião leader said.

At least 14 cases of illegal invasions of indigenous lands occurred in Brazil from January to March 2019, mostly in the Amazon, a jump of 150 percent since Bolsonaro took power, according to a report released by NGO Amazon Watch in late April, citing statistics gathered by Conselho Indigenista Missionário, the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), a monitoring group that is part of the Catholic church.

According to Amazon Watch, these encroachments can be linked to “the virulently anti-indigenous rhetoric emanating from Brasília, signaling a much more serious and widespread assault on natives lands and lives in times to come.”

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Indigenous women are rising fast into leadership positions in Brazil. Among the most prominently heard nationally and internationally are Joênia Wapichana, the first indigenous woman ever elected to the Brazilian Congress, who took office in January; and Sônia Guajajara, the leader of the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil, the National Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). But countless other native women are on the frontlines defending their native homelands. Canoé, Silva and Gavião are good examples; all are land defenders in their Amazonian ancestral territories.

During this year’s late April annual gathering of indigenous groups in Brasilia, called the Free Land Encampment, indigenous women from a wide range of ethnic groups, with homes in the Amazon and elsewhere, criticized changes that Bolsonaro has made to longstanding policies, including the indigenous land demarcation process and the availability of health services.

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“The policies adopted by the current government… violate all our rights and aim to destroy us,” Maria Eva Canoé, a leader of the Canoé indigenous group from Northern Rondônia state, told Mongabay during the indigenous encampment.

“But we are strong, we are resistant. And we are here in this… the 15th encampment, to show to the government, and to all society, that we are alive, that we are resisting to exist,” said the 51-year-old teacher, who is a member of the council of the Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).

The COIAB representative believes that all of Bolsonaro’s new measures “are bad” but the worst is the land-demarcation power handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture. “Why is it the worst? Because acting this way no indigenous people… will have demarcated land anymore,” Canoé said, adding that indigenous peoples are not invaders. “In the past they lost their land and now they are claiming what belongs to them by right.”

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There will be a first ever march by indigenous women in Brasilia on August 9-12, under the theme “Territory, Our Body, Our Spirit.” It will be held in conjunction and solidarity with the Marcha das Margaridas (Daisies’ March) led by women rural workers annually since 2010.

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She’s an older, polite, maternal (white, middle class) woman who just happened to have enough money to buy a spare house, and is renting it to top up her pension. She reads The Guardian and asks after my family and does the occasional repair when necessary. She’s not one of those evil landlords.

She also just repeatedly lied to our faces about our contracts to try to get us to forfeit most of the rights we have as tenants. She also visits frequently, criticising how we live and reminding us that our home belongs to her. She also condescendingly and unnecessarily explains to us how boilers and washing machines and carpets work.

She explains to us how renting works.

She explains it with an indulgent smile, like a grandmother talking to a child, as if she’s being terribly patient about correcting our misunderstandings.

And she lies.

She lies because as much as she wants to convince us, everyone else, and even herself that she’s a good person, our entire relationship is based on the power she holds over us. She uses her wealth and position in society to extort payment from us, who have nowhere to live. We sacrifice to her the majority of the income we spend our lives earning, just so we can have a roof over our heads. But any time we don’t show proper deference to her, she could have us out on the street in weeks or months. We’d lose our home, because to her it is merely an asset which in no way belongs to us, the people who live there.

Today she repeatedly lied to us about our contract, and about the law, because she wanted us to have the minimum legal power possible. If I didn’t organise with a local tenants’ union, I wouldn’t have known my rights. And if I didn’t have the security of being a member of that union behind me, I never would have had the guts to challenge her. My housemate had no idea she was lying, and would have trusted her, signing away what few rights we had under the law.

As part of this tenants’ union, I’m always fighting with the worst landlords - the ones who keep people living in squalor, the ones with a dozen properties, the ones who are violent and abusive. But today has reminded me that even the “nice” landlords are still scum.

A genuinely good person who has enough spare money to buy a spare house (which is a lot of money! they wouldn’t need more!) would just let people who need a home live there, not bleed them of their income for the privilege of a warm place to sleep.

Never trust a landlord.

But more importantly, join a tenants’ union, and take back the power they hold over you. It was one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done.

In London, I recommend London Renters Union.

In Scotland: Living Rent.

In the rest of the UK: ACORN.

Nationwide

Homes for All / Hogares Para Todxs [national org, unsure of locals]

California

Tenants Together [statewide]

Alameda Renters Coalition

Berkeley Tenants Union

Center for Community Advocacy [Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties] 

Los Angeles Tenants Union

Isla Vista Tenants Union

Oakland Tenants Union

Pasadena Tenants Union

South Pasadena Tenants Union

San Francisco Tenants Union

Mountain View Tenants Coalition

San Diego Tenants United

Santa Cruz Tenants Association

Protect Culver City Renters

Glendale Tenants Union

Sacramento Tenants Union

Colorado

Colorado Springs Tenants Union

Florida

Miami Tenants Union

Palm Beach County Tenants Union

Georgia

Housing Justice League [Atlanta]

Iowa

Ames Tenants Union

Iowa City Tenants Union

Illinois

Autonomous Tenants Union [Chicago]

Metropolitan Tenants Organization [Chicago]

Indiana

Bloomington Solidarity Network

Louisiana

New Orleans Renters Union

Massachusetts

City Life / Vida Urbana [Jamaica Plain]

Tenant and Housing Association of Worcester

 Springfield: No One Leaves

Minnesota

InquilinXs UnidXs por Justicia (Tenants United for Justice) [Minneapolis]

Mississippi

Cooperation Jackson

Nebraska

Lincoln Tenant Action

Omaha Tenants United

New York

United Tenants of Albany

Crown Heights Tenants Union [Brooklyn]

New Settlement Apartments – Community Action for Safe Apartments [Bronx]

The Greater Syracuse Tenants Network

Oregon

Portland Tenants United

Southern Oregon Tenants Union [Jackson County]

Springfield / Eugene Tenant Association

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Tenants Union

Pittsburgh Tenants Union

Texas

Texas Tenants Union [Dallas]

Houston Tenants Union

Tenants Union of San Antonio

Virginia

New River Tenants Union [Christianburg]

Washington

Tacoma Tenants Organizing Committee

Tenants Union of Washington State [statewide]

Washington, D.C.