There was a point in time where I'd think folks would be too “socially aware”, too “woke”. Where folks would take their newly gained understanding of sociological issues and almost with the fervor of the Apostle Paul, persecute those who didn't know better. After that, I understood more and got to a point where I understood the very valid and righteous anger people wielded. I became one of them. Then I began to understand past that to some extent when I realized nothing was changing. Currently, I'm starting to look back at all of the previous things with a more critical lens. Almost full circle but deviating in a different direction with a large amount more grace and empathy. What I experienced were the beginnings of wanting change but were not places to stay in and where I see a lot of us get stuck. In other words, we weren’t and aren’t woke enough.
This last "limitations" opinion piece is probably one that's sat in the back of my mind the longest. What finally made me decide to write this was after endless engagements with folks that are on the same side as me, I was feeling hopeless that things wouldn't get better. I had moved past a point in my activism of effectively yelling at folks socialized from white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, Christianity, etc. and couldn’t see why other folks hadn’t moved past that point. It all eventually felt counterproductive and not really the motivator for change that I thought it was. I didn’t yet understand the space of disingenuity I was existing in.
I watched a video a few years ago (https://youtu.be/SpmnfPV0ipg) where a well-to-do black woman was talking to a licensed professional about men and their issues with high income women. The issue is fairly cliche at this point. Men's assumed provider position in society causes adverse behavior if they don't have the understanding that there's nothing wrong with a woman earning more. Even for men that do have the understanding, will still show the cracks of that societal pressure. She understood that to some extent and how toxic it is to men's mental health. Her analysis stopped there however and it turned a quick conversation into an almost hour long one with some unfortunate sniping back and forth. The very thing I had been noticing in conversations with online.
I began to see the lack of empathy behind the understanding and more of an individualist frustration from that understanding or in other words: If I can do better so can you. Understanding that men are put into a positions that they can't always fulfill is one thing. Wanting to dive deeper into that turmoil for the sake of another is a different undertaking and it is something I see women who clearly don't like patriarchy and know why it's bad for them, not really invest in. More often than not, they earnestly do not care about that side of things outside of how it affects them and they place the burden on men to figure that out on their own. Which is a tall order for a group of folks generally privileged by patriarchy. In most cases, I don’t blame them, in fact most men aren’t coming with a level of self-work to actually have that good faith conversation. Then you see the conversation with men who are already doing the work.
Throughout the video, Professor Odi attempts to get the young lady to understand that just getting over patriarchy for men isn't that easy and that patriarchy is so deeply ingrained that it comes out in so many different ways that women may not even think about. A lot of her responses were tied into a very individualistic and capitalistic mindset of self-help and self-worth. That she didn't care about all that because she could take care of herself, but not realizing that men often deal with women who uphold patriarchy and will remain guarded in their sense of being a failed patriarch even if it doesn’t make logical sense because of those women. She individualized so much that she couldn't properly empathize with any of her previous partners in a way that they may have needed to be empathized with. She didn't not take seriously the toxicity of patriarchy for men and thus made herself an unsafe space for her partners in a similar (but not the same) way they were for her.
It's very understandable for marginalized folks to actually ignore the plights of the groups that cause them harm. However, this is a very retribution focused way of moving. We want to get back at those that hurt us, but we don't realize that that very idea is counter productive to whatever movement or progress we're fighting for. In a previous article (https://medium.com/@infernalmist92/the-limitations-of-the-gender-wars-9a464f8b9834), I pointed out how the gender wars gets in the way of more substantial conversations, but I think the video reaffirmed why they get in the way. People are deeply and grievously hurt and a good portion of what we see in this world are reactions to the pain caused by the conditions and hierarchies set up before we even got here. That pain fuels the anger, the cynicism, apathy, and nihilism that we see everyday. From those aware and those not. Especially for those not.
Now I have to set a disclaimer. I'm not here to downplay the copious amounts of harm caused by systems and hierarchies. By no means am I attempting to diminish any of the harm that's already been done by folks underneath those systems and hierarchies. But at what point does your activism evolve from hating your oppressor to hating oppression? What I end up mostly seeing is just a pained hate of a collective of individuals and not the things that molded them. While I’m mostly fine with folks getting their shit off, when it becomes all we are willing to talk about, it becomes harmful in its own way. We'd rather vent out the frustrations at other people rather than do the work to become good advocates for our issues. Mainly aiming those frustrations at bad faith actors who don't really care anyways and rely on disingenuous forms of engagement. There's no critical analysis or self-awareness in these instances. There’s no dialogue in investigating the humanity of the person you’re talking to. It's just vaguely wanting to hurt back someone that represents what hurt you. There’s no schadenfreude, just spilled guts.
Dehumanization is a corrosive poison to progress no matter what shape it takes. It creates a destructive us/them mental hierarchy that just stalls any growth even if effectively there's very little power within that hierarchy. When we don't develop a proper love ethic, we leave room for the worst of our human instincts and survival responses to become the foothold of our activism. This isn't me saying that everyone's cut out or patient enough to be on the front lines of these conversations but we need to be more willing to analyze and recognize when we aren’t. Being willing to disengage if we know we aren’t coming at something with the best of intentions or aren’t willing to put our own needs to the side for a moment of empathy is going to be extremely important going forward. People broadly are way too hurt to productively engage in a lot of cases. The cyclical nature of pain and harm regardless of the volume and power are not going to break the cycles of patriarchy, capitalism, racism etc. If anything those societal ills feed off the maladapted yet justified anger and keeps them around a little bit longer and act as food for those who haven’t gained that awareness. Grace, Love, Empathy and embodying the fact that at the end of the day we are all victims to these systems is the ultimate form of Social Awareness.