Closing out #BlackHistoryMonth with some unpopular, yet factual opinions.
*Everyone focuses on MLK. But truly, Malcolm Shabazz X was the one. The true visionary.
*WEB Dubois was not a revolutionary. He was for maintaining white status quo that left Black people to figure it out for themselves.
*We do not discuss Betty Hill enough, whose activism single-handedly kept white racism and segregation from infiltrating the free state of California, specifically Los Angeles, in the early 1900s.
Malcolm is indeed the more visionary of the two. The key difference is that Martin was at the finish line, but Martin’s deep comprehension of nonviolence was seen by Malcolm as correct only after his hajj.
I see a parallel in derad. My greatest allies are those who I helped guide out of darkness. They know how the adversary thinks as they too thought that way but they also recognize adversaries are not enemies.
(If this opinion is naive, please mock me.)
My error in not being clear.
I’m not the best communicator.
The “finish line” is Understanding why and how compassion defeats hate.
James Baldwin once remarked that Martin was special in that he had an insight that lead him to embrace nonviolence the deep and sincere way he did.
Audre Lorde commented the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
At root, pain is the tool useless to destroy hate. Pain underlies bigotry & hate.
The root questions are the choice to inflict pain on others and self and the choice to view all humans as equally human, even me, even you.
Hate and bigotry are merely pain lying and suggesting a way around the “and self” part.
Pain is a damned good liar with an amazing marketing department but pain is also unintelligent, unimaginative, boring and predictable.
Hate inflicts pain on others to feel better. Never works.
Hate plus dehumanization is bigotry.
Specifically, bigotry is the choice to inflict pain on others and send, and attempting to end run the “and self” part by designating some cohort of humans as not fully human or not human.
And bigotry moves laterally quite easily.
One who can hate one human can hate all humans, including themselves.
Tragic that these people in pain keep listening to pain’s lies, but hate and pain addle the brain.
Hate makes one cognitively impaired. Easier to deceive.
(500char limit is good to force me to be brief except when I need the extra words)
@Aphrodite aaaaaah. I see. Okay. My fault for not catching it the first time.
Still on the fence on the nonviolence, as Malcolm was. I know he felt different after his trip to hajj, specially about matter of capitalism being the root of most antiblackness. But as of now, I have yet to see any nonviolent moments… actually work for the long term.
Sometimes, turn the other cheek maybe mean “stay silent in the face of abuse.” So. Still on the fence. lol.
I’m cognizant that my experiences as an ethnically ambiguous (my IMDb page has my photo) trans woman colour my experience, but in a deep irony, since embracing nonviolence (mainly because I can’t throw a punch or kick, so I leaned into it as the Taoists would suggest) I’ve no longer been perceived as a target or a mark.
I know how to not need to dodge bullets, as Lily and Lana suggested in The Matrix, though in my case it’s a family tradition going back to WWI.
It is helpful to look at those who throw slurs like rubber grenades, revelling in watching many flee, with confusion and curiosity why they throw the prop.
Such persons live by the script, but life is improv and I’m ok at those games.
I leave no opening for them to claim victimhood.
Nonviolence ain’t passive. It’s disciplined and focused. And it freaks out those who only know violence.
@Aphrodite so my question then is, since we deal in duality, do you think it’s possible to hold the strength and discipline of stoicism, but also make it clear (forgive my hip hop euphemisms) that shit will pop off it you take it there? lol.
Because I see your vision. But there are other people who don’t. And in those moments, sometimes choices must be made.
I half-joke that I’m compassionate because hate is so much work.
Similarly I’m not stoic. I emote quite easily. I throw false tells at the poker table, for example.
If one lacks hate inside them, no discipline is necessary either way.
Besides, when pain is no longer one’s only weapon, one has access to entire arsenals that is otherwise inaccessible.
Having one’s weapons in one’s heart and head instead of one’s hand gives advantages, at least according to JMS.
(i’m a B5 fan)
Taoism teaches active non-action. Wu Wei. Sun Tzu teaches how to achieve victory without firing a shot.
The greatest example of this is The Empty Fort Strategy. I use it tactically.
In the face of threat, I keep my zen. This confuses. This baffles. This terrifies my adversaries into Knowing that I have backup.
It’s advanced strategy and risky, but what tactic isn’t.
Helps that they can’t think outside of pain’s boundaries. ;)
@Aphrodite funny that these concepts are coming up in a book I’m reading now. Taoism and Buddhist approaches to “stillness.” And discipline.
Gonna have to look up the empty fort theory, but it sounds like exactly what I think it is. lol.
It’s one of The Thirty-Six Stratagems.
Kongming, in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, just sat chillin’ like a villain, sipping tea and noshing when an enemy army approached.
The attacking general freaked out.
Kongming, greatest strategist of the age, wouldn’t be sipping tea like it’s nbd is he didn’t have a horde up his sleeve, logically.
General noped out. Kept his forces marching, burning through resources.
Kongming won without firing a shot.
Ericka Simone
Aphrodite (recharging)