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I'VE BEEN STUCK IN THE BINARY THIS WEEK ...
confused and frustrated amid the discourse on whether to maintain connection with people who use 'civil discourse' that dehumanizes others, or to dehumanize them in return. It seems to be a major pitfall of our online world, one that can spill over into our real-life interactions, that we have to choose one or the other, and divide ourselves in the name of values.
My own experience with centering on values tells me that the answer is not a binary one. Instead, I think it comforts a human need for safety and certainty, this illusion that we can decide, one way or another, if any human being deserves to be treated as one.
One night, feeling at a loss for what to do with the turmoil in my heart and mind, I opened a book (almost always the best solution for me) and read this quote from James Baldwin: "Love is the only reality, the only terror, and the only hope."
Sometimes the most immediate truths are, contradictorily, ones that prompt lingering questions. What does Baldwin mean when he says that 'love is the only terror'? In the context of what I've been grappling with, I think it means that it can be terrifying to surrender to love when we are so accustomed to the addictive delusion of control.
There are so many ways we disconnect from one another, and justify that disconnection. And then there are those that predicate one's goodness on your ability to ‘rise above’ and uphold a relationship with a person who is dehumanizing you. I think that both are dishonest. I think the terror of love is that it exists even when we put very necessary - sometimes imperative - boundaries between ourselves and those who harm us. We're told that it doesn't, that love disappears, when we speak up for ourselves and our fellow humans, and thus we are shamed for our lack of love, our lack of brotherhood. But I think this is a story told to keep power in the hands of some.
Over the weekend, I gave a sigh of relief to see Roxane Gay's column in the Sunday Opinion (gift link), where she wrote on the different meanings of 'civility.' According to those in power in the United States, "To be uncivil means pointing out hypocrisies and misinformation. It means accurately acknowledging what people have said, with ample documentation and holding them accountable for their words and deeds." But, she goes on to write, "...the notion of two groups - civil and not - is predicated on the idea that we're all playing by the same rules, and we're standing on equal footing, untroubled by the inequities and bigotries of the world."
Her words reminded me that different definitions of the same concept can be manipulated by the people using them. Justice, for example, in the mind of one person might mean committing great harm against others. Even justice as a system of accountability can result in further violence, death, and dehumanization. At times, the harm done in the world can be so wild and vast, it's hard to hold onto any sense of what justice could or would look like. But in that case, like love, the difficulty of holding something so incomprehensible becomes too terrifying, and the system of power thrives on our fear.
In "a world where working for decency and fairness and equity can be seen as incivility," Gay writes, "calling for civility is about exerting power. It is a way of reminding the powerless that they exist at the will of those in power and should act accordingly. It is a demand for control."
Amid all of this unrest, I kept thinking about my mother, who left her body behind almost twelve years ago. She is the person on earth who caused me the most harm, so when she died, I couldn't justify my grief in a traditional sense. I was gutted, but when asked if we had been very close, I had to say no because I couldn't say, in any concise or convenient way, that she had terrorized me. Her death had created a boundary - it had removed a future in which she could continue to harm me. But somehow, I also had less power than ever to keep her out of my life. Her death had taken my future's pain and left me with my past's, which crashed over me in waves.
In this way, I became the future of our broken and tattered relationship. Her impact on me continues through my actions, my experiences in the world, how I choose to heal, how I parent, how I grapple with my flaws. In doing so, I've come to the very circular conclusion that harm and violence can obscure love, but nothing can destroy it. Perhaps that makes love a 'terror,' in Baldwin's definition, as well.
I believe that one of our tasks, in being human, is to experience love's endless constancy, within and around the separations that we manufacture between human beings. This does not involve a call for blanket 'forgiveness' or a demand that we engage with those who cause harm through words or actions. Instead, it's a reminder that there is something truly meaningful and valuable behind the many confusing ways that abusive people and systems attempt to control and manipulate us with fear and dismissal.
Omar El Akkad clarified this specific issue for me last week as I finished, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, in which he writes, "To be accused of speaking too loudly about one injustice but not others by someone who doesn’t care about any of them is to be told, simply, to keep quiet."
He goes on to write that walking away from any aspect of a system that dehumanizes, "is not nihilism, it’s not cynicism, it’s not doing nothing – it’s a form of engagement more honest, more soul-affirming, than anything the system was ever prepared to offer.”
The amazing thing about GFJ is that it's proof of this concept. We imagined something different, against all that had come before, and it exists because of everyone who participates and engages with it. We launched in 2010 with a simple framework: we're a job posting website. The fees for posting jobs sustain our labor and provide an initial point of connection...but there is abundant wealth beyond the bottom line: the heart of GFJ is the community that comes together because you rightfully believe that we do in the world - in work and in life - matters.
The next part of our work at GFJ is to introduce a community element that goes beyond the practice of our weekly newsletter. We want everyone on the other end of the line - our 80,000 subscribers - to feel the magic of connection and know that you are not alone . . . not just because Tay and Dor are listening . . . but because there is a whole arena full of people, all around the planet, who are bolstered by meaning, kinship, and connection.
While we have visions for how it could play out, we also know that our strength is in the creativity and character of our entire GFJ community. Help us shape what these tools will look like.
In connection,
Dor + Tay
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