By Chris Crass (June 17, 2016)
To all the members of the rebel alliance against the empire of white supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchy, I love you.
When I was a teenager at an anti-war protest, a right wing jackadoodle got in my face and called me a “pinko, commie, insert homophobic word, n word loving, Jew loving, insert racist word for Latino/a – loving, insert racist word for Arabs and Muslims – loving, insert misogynistic word”.
And in that moment I thought, “Yes, he just made me a list of all the kinds of people I need to search out and join with – people of color, Leftists, women, LGBTQ, Jews, Arabs, Muslims, unionists, men who don’t conform to patriarchal masculinity, and all the people who love them. These are my people, this is the rebel alliance I have been looking for. And together we will make collective liberation vibrant and real.”
Our pain, our grieving, our outrage, our depression, our tender humanity, this is our capacity to feel the world and the people we love. This is also our capacity to radically transform the world for justice, equity and liberation for all.
I love you and am so thankful to have joined with you all to make another world possible.
Beautiful. I love it. Count me in for kindness twice. Can we also be nice to the hater? That person needs a hug.