After taking a look in the mirror and having a conversation with my reflection, it’s been decided that this blog is going to be more honest. I’ve realised that my motivations for starting this blog and where it’s ended up aren’t lining up. I want to welcome you to my “re-branding”.
I don’t mean that in a change in style but rather attitude. I’ve been calling myself an activist, an educator, an overall academic for years. While in real life I embody what I say, I havent been as open and honest about it through my blog. Through my posts. I originally started this with the goal of connecting with like minded, brilliant people who I could continue to expand with. What I want most is community that fosters a love of knowledge.
Foundation
Growing up above average in reading nurtured my love of learning. Though it started off with an all consuming need for fiction, particularly that with an underdog that rose to power or fame (you can thank my black upbringing in a predominantly white suburban area), it quickly shifted to nonfiction. I wanted to learn more about the world around me.
While I can appreciate, acknowledge the types of opportunities I was awarded because of my social-economic standing, it wasn’t a shield for racism. So here I stand before you now, in all my naked glory, as an anti-racism activist and a fighter of human rights (especially minority and womens rights). Just because I’m an underdog, doesn’t mean I won’t bare my teeth and bite; I want to be able to arm you all with knowledge in order to bare your own teeth safely and successfully.
Everything Starts With a Healthy Foundation.
By a healthy foundation I mean restructuring your thoughts about reading. Literacy and literacy comprehension are massively important. There’s a reason that Nobility was the only ones properly educated; uneducated masses are easier to control. It’s important to be able to read and ascertain your own thoughts, opinions and stances without relying on anyone else’s say. Start to think about why you hate reading so much (being forced, long boring passages in school, uninteresting material). Have you thought about the fact you can read comments on social media posts or the reviews of a game. Start with things you enjoy and build your way up.
Because once this foundation is laid, it’s time for you to start taking a harder look at the wider world around you. Remove the narrowminded narrative and think of the whole. Complacency isn’t allowed here.
The Frame
With the foundation laid down, I want you to start really looking into what you think fosters a better world. For me, its less focus on the monetary and more on communities. I want a world where everyone can flourish, simply because they deserve to. I can already see where I’m going to lose some of you, assuming I already haven’t. And if you’re still here ask yourself this:
What truly is money and how do you define time?
Both money and time are made up human constructs, they fall outside of a natural order. Time can easily be broken into day and night, but don’t capitalist societies deem it as a measure of productivity? What better way to reward productivity than with a monetary incentive? Yet what determines how much money you get for the time you spent? Societies view on the job you do. With this we could dive into how financial hierarchy leads to class separation and eventually into disasterous economic/social failure; I mean take a look at the state of the world around you now. Money has lead to the decline and erasure of complete societies. This isn’t my point though.
Find Your Passion
This is the point. To find your passion and spur your desire for knowledge. If you’re still here I hope your passion is similar to mine: anti-racism and freedom for everyone.
My passions aren’t just stuck in writing, but art as well. You can infuse activisim with other passions of yours and get your message across beautifully. You hear rappers rhyme about their communities. Cartoonists portraying political boofonery. Poets bringing attention to sociatal injustices. Sciences and the arts go hand in had with making the world a better, more emphathetic place.
Making Your House a Home
It might seem like we skipped steps but your passion already included the plumbing, electrical and landscaping. With this brief introduction on how I’m deconstructing and becoming more radical, I hope your given the push as well. To make you feel more at home, I want to gift you resources. Some of my favorite educators and thought provokers to decorate your shelves. I hope you find them as useful as I have, as I’ve started down this journey years ago. For now I will leave you with one young, beautiful mind:
Ismatu Gwendolyn – Threadings . radicalization in real time; shes working on fostering change within herself and her communities. Think of this as a sort of public facing journal, where she shares her thoughts, think pieces and additional material.
Honestly I wanted to add more resources to this particular post, but I want to include more book sources but they are currently packed up for now. Mostly I just want to say thank you for staying through my re-branding, thoughts on the matter and for the future knowlege we’ll share.
Until we talk again!
