When I first started this era of my public discourse, I was inspired by the need to discuss power and how we wield it. I was in the middle of being involved in church, but unknowingly, on my way out of showing up to that venue.
For a lot of reasons, I can see how the abuse of power has become the common thread of my public and personal work.
I just ran across this video (embedded immediately below) about how this country is on a roll to having an oligarchy like Russia is. I can see that. Hopefully it will not happen or be run like an organized crime family or a gang.
This country will never be a monarchy as I hear many talking about, because those who benefit from the power and wealth this worldwide system affords them do not want to be ruled. They want to share in the power. It reminds me of the much-lauded Suffragettes. They didn’t seem to want voting power for everyone. They seemed to want it in the same plantation dynamic in which they were swimming. Given modern feminism and many "solutions" dominated by whiteness, that seems to be the model - white on top and in charge. It plays out in some marginalized groups as well with the current systemic power class and its minions on top and in charge if they can make it happen. #PoorUs
That is one of the secrets of the founding of this country. They are fine to keep the inequity in place. They just want to share in the power. For example, they don’t mind the Business Roundtable meeting regularly to decide how they will continue their rulership of the US and other partners in the world. This dynamic started with the robber barons of the industrial age. They have no intention of having a monarch.
How we use our power, both individually and collectively is important. I know that I will be talking about these dynamics until my last breath. I accept it as part of my life path. The hardest part of it is how the crack down happens on those who threaten (perceived or otherwise) the power class(es). With that much power, their perceptions become other people's realities. For every area and scale of human activity there is a power class. Many people are trying to figure out how to speak truth to power in all of these corners of influence, power and administration.
This video talks about one of rarely addressed ways that people behave with power. This is one of the dynamics that one can abuse even if they don’t see themselves in the power class(es), but it is one of the abuses that too many of us mimic.
Reposted from @eroticsofliberation - “when we desire to reap the benefits of an emotional bond with someone without showing up to the difficult but necessary task of acknowledging, addressing & unlearning the societal dynamics that affect their relationship to their sense of self as well as the relationship between the one another, we are not ready to be in relationship with this person. that dynamic mirrors the one we have with our home, planet Earth: an exploitative, extractive dynamic that doesn’t care about reciprocity nor mutuality. we need to change that. and that starts with our relationships (we can’t be abolitionists AND conflict avoidant y’all).”
Extract from my zine linked in 🔗 about TJ and how that informs our relationships.
Like everything else, structures deeply impact our relationships. In poly spaces in berlin, I’m always appalled by the lack of understanding (or willful ignorance) on how social positions deeply inform our relationship to love. Not everyone has access to resources and the biggest resource we have is love and care.
Wanting to engage with someone for how they look but not working or building capacity for the consequences of how they look is mind boggling !
Many practice avoidance for a lot of reasons. Like most things, it can be abused. There is a difference between how toys are used and how tactics/tools are used.
Is avoidance being used by you in good faith?
How do you have a share in the abuse of power?
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