Cynicism is a tool

Last week I wrote about righteous rage and how when expressed and channeled it can be an effective force for change. This week I want to add another layer….

Because I’m noticing within myself a tendency towards despair and hopelessness. How even my activism looks a lot like going through the motions - scrambling with no direction, hustling with lack of purpose, doing something just for the sake of doing something. But this kind of mindless action is not much different than apathetic passivity. It is neither accountable to our shared future nor effective in generating change.

“Cynicism is a tool used to keep us unorganized” says our friends at Working Families Party. Rooted in distrust, cynicism moves us away from each other and our shared goals. It is an immobilizing veil that prevents us from seeing and experiencing our collective potential. And it is a weapon by systems of power to keep us stuck.

The salve for this condition of course is to get organized - to move towards one another, to find each other in shared values and visions, to practice new expressions of mutual care and to return to our true nature - one that is already connected and interdependent.

Remembering who we are and who we are to each other is how we live into hope and move towards change.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @WorkingFamilies

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1. This moment beckons revolutionary movement governance that is swift yet collaborative, deliberate yet boldly creative, and undaunted by the specter of failure. Indigenous leadership for transformative climate action [click to tweet]

2. “Fit to serve” in the way it’s being used in the Fetterman-Oz race is premised on a deep-rooted ableist definition of health that labels disability as invalidating. Why Fetterman's Senate campaign is a teaching moment greater than this election. [click to tweet]

3. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, state-level litigation and legislation has become the new frontlines for reproductive rights and access. Here’s the status of abortion bans state by state. [click to tweet]

4. It isn’t identity politics that have caused fractures and immobilization in our movements, but rather, a phenomenon known as elite capture. Confronting the “Elite Capture” of identity politics in our movement space. [click to tweet]

5. The heat is on: Early voting in the midterms has started. MAGA candidates are running strong. It’s time for the big October election push. [click to tweet]

The best way to honor Indigenous People’s Day is to honor it 365 days per year. Here are some practices to keep it going:

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The “standard business practice” of land acknowledgments is not enough. At its worst, a land acknowledgment may make someone feel like they’ve done their part, and that Native history—and past and present identity—fit into a neat little box. Dr Len Necefer encourages us to check ourselves with this question Is what I’m doing positively impacting the social, economic, or political standing of Native communities? If the answer is no, then we’ve got more work to do.

LANDBACK. LANDBACK is the reclamation of everything that has ben stolen from the original peoples. It is a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands. Currently, there are LANDBACK battles being fought all across Turtle Island, to the north and the South. Support NDN Collective in their efforts to continue the legacy of landback.

GIVE SHUUMI. Shuumi means gift in the Ohlone language Chochenyo. The Shuumi Land Tax is a voluntary annual contribution that non-Indigenous people living on the Confederated Villages of Lisjan’s territory can make to support the critical work of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. You can also participate in the Honor Tax Project as a way of “recognizing and respecting the sovereignty of Native Nations.”

Art by @nativesvote

The blatant ableism by the media and the right around gubernatorial candidate John Fetterman’s access needs tells us a lot about where the mainstream is at with regards to ableism. Ableism is based on the belief that there is a “correct” and “normal” way in which our mind and bodies should function, and anyone who is different is inferior. Which of course brings up critical questions like “normal” for whom? But what we don’t talk about so much is how living through the lens of ableism is limiting and how “disabled wisdom is the key to our survival and expansion.” In the upcoming book “The Future Is Disabled’, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha imagines a world oriented around care and safety. Here’s what she has to say about disabled wisdom:

“At the core of my work and life is the belief that disabled wisdom is the key to our survival and expansion. Crip genius is what will keep us all alive and bring us home to the just and survivable future we all need. If we have a chance in hell of getting there”.

Get the book!

Art by @jackandbec

“Survivance”… names the conjunction between resistance and survival – calling attention to the fact that not only have Indigenous peoples survived the genocidal ambitions of settler colonialism, but have continued to enliven their cultures in fluid, critical and generative ways. The term thus resists the static overtones of “survival” and instead emphasises the ways in which Indigenous peoples have created counter-poses/positions to those that are marked out for them by the settler-state through stereotypes, popular culture and national mythology.”

Decolonialdictionary.wordpress.com

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