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Kwanzaa 2024: Umoja / Unity
Dec. 26th, 2024 10:13 amHabari gani?
I wanted to write about Kwanzaa this year, but between the move and the inconsistent motivation I decided I'd better not risk it. I got discouraged a few times throughout the process, and couldn't think of a productive way to express that I needed support instead. Still, the Seven Principles have been on my mind a lot lately and I needed somewhere to write about it. This will do.
When Trump 1.0 happened, I realized that our institutions will not save us or give us the kind of life we deserve as sapient creatures. The seed that only we could save ourselves had been planted, but then buried under a whole lot of fear, anger, despair, and numbing. I spent years in a marijuana-fueled stupor I'm still coming out of. I could have done a bit more active learning about what it takes to build a community but I buckled. I have to admit this to myself. And I have to admit that I'm still shaky getting to my feet again. I want to be able to handle myself, but...the world is the world. The spirit is willing, but it's weak too.
Now that we're staring down the barrel of a second administration, it feels like the seed has taken root and sprouted. We will have to be our own saviors. We will have to keep carrying the fire of our potential on our own, until we build a place for it worthy of us. We'll have to figure out how to come together, how to build and rebuild, how to adapt and change with a rapidly-shifting world, a rapidly-warming planet.
But when I look around at our shared spaces I still see the ghosts of the white-hot anger that permeated Twitter eight years ago. In many ways we're still in this place where we're reacting to outrage and grievance instead of taking a moment, thinking about our best path forward, and executing it. We're not building the world as we wish it to be, we're building the world that the other side doesn't want. I'm not sure we realize how different those two worlds are.
It comes down to a matter of intention, to me. Right now it feels like we're acting from a place of anger and spite -- which are valid emotions to feel right now, but not particularly productive ones to build a foundation of community on. Think of the places that have been built on the back of fighting against other people, how toxic and shitty and stressful they inevitably are. Why do we want that for our future society, the places where we meet to resist the short-sighted, profit-driven march to extinction?
We have to bring a different energy to our work this time around. Anger IS fuel, but like any highly-flammable source we must work with it very carefully unless it burns out of control. It's a useful tool; the things that make us angry can teach us what avenues of injustice we wish to fight in, and maybe even the best way to do that. But we can't use our anger to burn down all of our institutions and expect better ones to naturally spring up in their place. We can't keep living as these fire elementals, burning everything around us because we can't actually control or direct our anger properly.
Right now, I think it's that lack of control and perspective destroying any sense of unity we could build before we even have a chance to build it. I get it, because I've been stewing in these juices too, you know? I feel helpless and overwhelmed. The problems we face are way bigger than any one rabbit can manage. The only way I could think to keep functioning was to find some way of disengaging, of burying the feelings I had because there was just no healthy outlet for it. But that's just as destructive to the idea of unity, too. OK, so I'm now blowing up. But I'm frozen in place, unable to do anything useful for myself or the people around me. I'm still unable to reach out to others, to comfort and soothe them, to give us all a chance to rally.
I'm seeing Unity as an active principle coming into 2025. Without the desire to come together, without a fundamental believe that we're better when we help each other, we won't be able to hold our communities together under the stresses of life. We've trapped ourselves into looking for reasons to disengage with people. Eventually, we have to accept our shared fate and connection with all life. As difficult a thought as it is, the same things that threaten my way of life threaten that of the Trump voter. We both need, want, deserve the same things, even if our perspectives are so wildly different.
I realize there are limits to this philosophy, and I'm not recommending that we all just hug it out. I don't feel safe allowing any Trump voter into any community I want to build. But does that mean anyone who considers themselves Republican is also persona non grata? Where are the lines?
I don't know if there's any one right answer to that. I think we all have to come to terms with the things we will and won't accept, and draw our boundaries there. But we should also learn to respect the perspective of others and where they've come to draw their boundaries. We can learn from each other's differences, and even learn from the discomfort that comes from exploring them.
There will always be a bit of a tension between how permissive we are as individuals and groups, and how protective we are of that nebulous idea of "identity". But I think fundamentally, any good community will need to have an ethos that looks to include as many people under the banner of their values as possible. When we begin to hold the values of our community as an unmoving standard, all we're going to find are people who don't measure up.
For me, right now, unity is accepting people as they are with the expectation they'll do the same for me. It's looking for ways to connect with others, strengthen those connections, and celebrate the many bonds we share. Just allowing myself to be a part of something, to work alongside someone instead of against or for them. I want to develop a mindset of generosity, of active and instinctual sharing.
I wanted to write about Kwanzaa this year, but between the move and the inconsistent motivation I decided I'd better not risk it. I got discouraged a few times throughout the process, and couldn't think of a productive way to express that I needed support instead. Still, the Seven Principles have been on my mind a lot lately and I needed somewhere to write about it. This will do.
When Trump 1.0 happened, I realized that our institutions will not save us or give us the kind of life we deserve as sapient creatures. The seed that only we could save ourselves had been planted, but then buried under a whole lot of fear, anger, despair, and numbing. I spent years in a marijuana-fueled stupor I'm still coming out of. I could have done a bit more active learning about what it takes to build a community but I buckled. I have to admit this to myself. And I have to admit that I'm still shaky getting to my feet again. I want to be able to handle myself, but...the world is the world. The spirit is willing, but it's weak too.
Now that we're staring down the barrel of a second administration, it feels like the seed has taken root and sprouted. We will have to be our own saviors. We will have to keep carrying the fire of our potential on our own, until we build a place for it worthy of us. We'll have to figure out how to come together, how to build and rebuild, how to adapt and change with a rapidly-shifting world, a rapidly-warming planet.
But when I look around at our shared spaces I still see the ghosts of the white-hot anger that permeated Twitter eight years ago. In many ways we're still in this place where we're reacting to outrage and grievance instead of taking a moment, thinking about our best path forward, and executing it. We're not building the world as we wish it to be, we're building the world that the other side doesn't want. I'm not sure we realize how different those two worlds are.
It comes down to a matter of intention, to me. Right now it feels like we're acting from a place of anger and spite -- which are valid emotions to feel right now, but not particularly productive ones to build a foundation of community on. Think of the places that have been built on the back of fighting against other people, how toxic and shitty and stressful they inevitably are. Why do we want that for our future society, the places where we meet to resist the short-sighted, profit-driven march to extinction?
We have to bring a different energy to our work this time around. Anger IS fuel, but like any highly-flammable source we must work with it very carefully unless it burns out of control. It's a useful tool; the things that make us angry can teach us what avenues of injustice we wish to fight in, and maybe even the best way to do that. But we can't use our anger to burn down all of our institutions and expect better ones to naturally spring up in their place. We can't keep living as these fire elementals, burning everything around us because we can't actually control or direct our anger properly.
Right now, I think it's that lack of control and perspective destroying any sense of unity we could build before we even have a chance to build it. I get it, because I've been stewing in these juices too, you know? I feel helpless and overwhelmed. The problems we face are way bigger than any one rabbit can manage. The only way I could think to keep functioning was to find some way of disengaging, of burying the feelings I had because there was just no healthy outlet for it. But that's just as destructive to the idea of unity, too. OK, so I'm now blowing up. But I'm frozen in place, unable to do anything useful for myself or the people around me. I'm still unable to reach out to others, to comfort and soothe them, to give us all a chance to rally.
I'm seeing Unity as an active principle coming into 2025. Without the desire to come together, without a fundamental believe that we're better when we help each other, we won't be able to hold our communities together under the stresses of life. We've trapped ourselves into looking for reasons to disengage with people. Eventually, we have to accept our shared fate and connection with all life. As difficult a thought as it is, the same things that threaten my way of life threaten that of the Trump voter. We both need, want, deserve the same things, even if our perspectives are so wildly different.
I realize there are limits to this philosophy, and I'm not recommending that we all just hug it out. I don't feel safe allowing any Trump voter into any community I want to build. But does that mean anyone who considers themselves Republican is also persona non grata? Where are the lines?
I don't know if there's any one right answer to that. I think we all have to come to terms with the things we will and won't accept, and draw our boundaries there. But we should also learn to respect the perspective of others and where they've come to draw their boundaries. We can learn from each other's differences, and even learn from the discomfort that comes from exploring them.
There will always be a bit of a tension between how permissive we are as individuals and groups, and how protective we are of that nebulous idea of "identity". But I think fundamentally, any good community will need to have an ethos that looks to include as many people under the banner of their values as possible. When we begin to hold the values of our community as an unmoving standard, all we're going to find are people who don't measure up.
For me, right now, unity is accepting people as they are with the expectation they'll do the same for me. It's looking for ways to connect with others, strengthen those connections, and celebrate the many bonds we share. Just allowing myself to be a part of something, to work alongside someone instead of against or for them. I want to develop a mindset of generosity, of active and instinctual sharing.
