Her death was preventable. It was murder by a cruel bureaucracy that reduces people's lives into a finite quantity in which people are expected to eat, drink, piss, shit, bathe, and generally maintain existence. It was murder by a system that will pay for people to be trapped in nursing homes, where staff, even the most caring staff in the world, cannot possibly provide competent, personalized care for each individual. It was murder by a society that values the lives of the most able, self-sufficient people above all else.

This is what I do what I do. I work every day to make sure that people can live in their own homes with the tools and supports they need. Because this is the consequence of trapping people in institutions. People. Die.

I am sad. I am heartbroken. I am enraged. Jean McWherter Flynn was kind, she was funny, and always had a word of advice. She should've had so much more life.

I think most BLM activist are agnostic to property destruction and self-defense. They neither use them as tactics nor judge the whenm they occur. Very few I have met think of either in moral terms.

I say this because there are folks on the right who take BLM's support of uprisings and defense of Black people who burn down aspects of anti-Black oppression as proof that we seek to use violence to change society. This assertion is then used to justify violence against us by the police and other agents of the state.

There are also folks in the middle [Liberals who are not really leftists] who respond to the right by saying that BLM is nonviolent in hopes to distinguish us from groups that prepare to meet Nazi and fascist violence with violence. They do this without understanding 1. that many BLM folks have more in common with raucous antifa Black Blocs than we do with liberal dems 2. This good protestor/bad protestor language justifies state violence against groups branded "antifa" (I mean, we are all anti-facist) -which, once normalized, will justify state violence against BLM.

Lastly, folks on the left sometimes label BLM as nonviolent in order to elide our position with the liberals and to say that our ultimate theory of change is to win over the hearts of our oppressor. They use their vocal "strategy of violence" as a badge of righteousness covering up their nonstrategic adventurism or dangerous militarism.

I would argue that seeing violence vs. nonviolence in stark moral terms tends to support the state. It either doesn't account for the ways capitalist loving upper-middle class white peaceniks rely on state-violence for their security and material interests or equates resistance to state-oppression and genocide with genocide [thus justifying the state killing resistors as bad guys killing bad guys.]. At the same time, refusing to condemn violence as a strategy [rather than a tactic] often leads to supporting genocidal regimes who happen to have once been opponents of U.S. Imperialism. Lack of nuisance in our political understandings can literally get folks killed.

It should not require you or your loved ones experiencing something horrible for you to listen to folks who are naming what is really going on. Start listening to folks who are steeped in this work who have always been focused on ending violence & saving lives.

Start by discussing, analyzing, unpacking, and addressing ableism, racism, classism, sexism, transmisia, ageism, etc., inherent in society and systems of education, medicine, policing, etc. Discuss capitalist, legal, & other incentivization of institutionalization of all forms. Command & control and comply-or-die attitudes & tactics could be ended while we are at it.

Also discuss & find ways to address and end the root causes of intra-community violence/harm. If you have not started discussing the cycles of harm in your communities and about building your own systems to address interpersonal harm, you are contributing to this crisis.

Honesty and dreaming will help you find the keys that will eventually set us all free.

Many people have written extensively on this. Start with Mariame Kaba if you are at a loss for where to begin. I write about this from the disability justice lens in the forthcoming #ResistanceaAndHope Anthology (h/t Alice Wong) & am trying to write about it in a book chapter now (but academia...-__-).

Also, for what it’s worth, taxpayers are paying for those lawsuits and settlements. No accountability there either. So in a very morbid and literal sense: the joke’s on us.

the right: here's my pamphlet on who is and is not a human, take ten and give one to all your friends, if you want to hear more hit me up any time

He says, “if it makes you feel better...I’m working a total of almost 17 hours today.” He then describes the combo of overnights and regular shifts.

Capitalism: where not only do millennials work hard, we joke about how my 12 hour work day wasn’t actually that long - and I almost feel bad for complaining about it.

40 hours a week should be enough to live on. Period. People are driving themselves to exhaustion for a system that will replace them as soon as they falter.

(Also - there are many people who can’t work 40 hours a week & they should still be able to afford a good life. And folks who would like to work more, but can’t afford to lose benefits. Etc. The whole system needs to change.)

I do not have to allow the fragility of others to overwhelm me and snatch my energy.

I do not have to assure or affirm the beckys and the toms.

I do not have to labor in white spaces- search committees, task forces, and orientations.

I do not have to say thank you, when I have nothing to be thankful for.

I do not have to say “sorry,” when I have nothing to be sorry for.

I do not have to abandon my queerness in an advising appointment, workshop, or interview.

I do not have to let them touch my hair or any article of my clothing.

I do not have to answer their foolish questions, or entertain them...or educate them even.

I do not have to equate the success of white folks (and the Black and brown folks committed to whiteness) to my personal worth.

I do not have to shake your hands or gift you with one of my most energizing smiles.

I do not have to wallow in your achievements- achievements rooted in mediocrity.

I do not have to like you, or even pretend to like you.

I do not have to respond to you when you misgender me.

I do not have to look up when you call me by the name of one of my Black colleagues.

I do not have to do your job for you because you lack the capacity to do it for yourself.

I do not have to choose myself last.

I do not have to be your motivational token.

I do not have to settle for diversity and representation, when the objective is liberation.

I do not have to prove a damn thing to you.

I do not have to.

I don’t...

because you can't take my joy away.

Feel free to add more in the comments.

If the system refuses to provide accommodations, get it on the record and immediately follow up with disability rights attorneys in your area who can put more pressure on the system to follow the law.

#DisabilitySolidarity

*whatever that accommodation is, you also are responsible for providing during client communication as well pursuant to federal law.

Masculine folx, dismissing your privilege just because it doesn’t look and feel like cismen’s doesn’t mean you don’t have it - yes, we can agree it isn’t the same. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have proximity to privilege. Stop dismissing “street harassment” of femme folks, as if it isn’t violence. I recently read a post where someone said “l know we don’t experience street harassment like femme folks but that’s it” - as if street harassment isn’t an indicator of violence and the realities of that fear literally has people planning on their routes for safety on a daily basis.

Don’t be dismissive and say “not me” - it isn’t helpful and you diminish your ability to truly access your potential to lean into and understand your allyship. Yes, finding out you have privilege is hella uncomfortable and rather than saying “it ain’t the same” - how about asking how can l use my privilege as a masculine person to reshape others experiences with masculinity - it doesn’t absolve you from privilege but understanding the nuances of privilege is a start.

Love,
A masculine person over the “not me” shenanigans

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