Ancestors

Toot

Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-21 at 23:52

Hello, little PSA and maybe wisdom from someone who works in the social justice mines:

1. Just knowing about something isn't the same as activism. Knowing about bad stuff happening without having a plan to tackle it results in feelings of overwhelm, helplessness and cynicism, which are often barriers to actually taking action. Anger and outrage burn brightly and can jumpstart you but they are usually short-lived emotions that are hard to sustain over a long period of time (and even if so, are extremely exhausting). I'm not saying you need to stick your head in the sand, but there is some stuff where the broad idea is enough and you absolutely do not need to read the details or daily updates about it.

2. You do not and will not have the energy to take action on every single thing, it is not possible. Therefore be really strategic about where you spend your energy - where will your voice/action have the most impact because of your influence, power, privilege, position etc. Best actions are low effort + high impact, worst actions are high effort + low impact. What is effortful and impactful is going to look very different for different people, so there will be some actions and causes that maybe isn't a great idea for you to pursue.

3. Social justice has always been and will always be a long-term project. I really disagree with posts being like "how can you lead a regular life while this is happening". In fact it is essential to lead a regular life and have joy, community, connection, art - this is also what you're fighting for everyone to have! You depriving yourself from the good things in life doesn't actually help anyone.

You also cannot pour from an empty cup, and so you must refill your cup regularly. The sum of a lifetime of sustained actions will be a lot greater than a couple of years of intense activity then intense burnout/sickness because you simply cannot keep going. Burnout and unprocessed trauma can also wreak havoc in groups and networks too, so by ensuring you take care of yourself you're not inadvertently passing some of this to other people.

4. Check your ego at the door. This is not about you and being the best ally, a morally perfect person, a martyr or saviour or anything like that. We are all cleaning a giant pile of shit together while the shit machine generates more shit, and the hope is maybe one day everything won't be covered in shit, but in the meantime removing some of it is still worthwhile, even if we can't remove all of it. You're doing cleaning work - essential, important, but definitely not glamorous.

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Descendants

Written by Joanna Holman on 2025-01-22 at 00:49

@frabjousday this is all so important. It’s worried me that some of the action from movements I support lately has sometimes felt like it’s sliding a bit too into shaming and disrupting random non-complicit people for having normal lives rather than achieving useful things for victims of injustice

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Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-22 at 01:00

@joannaholman yeah, this is a mix of point 3 & 4. When we are burnt out because we're not getting our needs met, activism becomes a way to prove worthiness/status/morality. Or its despair from a feeling that no one is doing enough because high effort actions are so low impact. Rather than building connections and creating support structures it can easily devolve into in-fighting (see also: many many leftie circles)

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Written by Cassandrich on 2025-01-22 at 04:55

@frabjousday Re: (1) the most important thing is to understand enough that you don't get in the way of or undermine folks who do know the whole thing and who have the capacity for action on it.

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Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-22 at 04:57

@dalias great point!

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Written by Ida loves Earth on 2025-01-22 at 14:43

@frabjousday 🤗wise words! Really difficult sometimes but very important. It's also important to hold the positive vision of the world we want to build...

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Written by Dan Fixes Coin-Ops on 2025-01-22 at 15:38

@frabjousday god DAMN is this a good post

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Written by Stacey Cornelius on 2025-01-22 at 19:28

@frabjousday This is brilliant. Thank you.

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Written by Callisto on 2025-01-23 at 00:27

@frabjousday The other day, someone on here reframed "pour from an empty cup," as instead, "you can't boil an empty kettle."

Pouring from an empty cup results in nothing happening. Trying to boil an empty kettle will ruin the kettle, then the stove, then it will burn your house down if you keep trying to do it.

Or the concept that when we run out of spoons, we reach for knives.

People who haven't experienced it need to know how harmful it is to try to keep going when you have nothing.

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Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-23 at 01:09

@callisto 💯

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Written by ClaraBlackInk on 2025-01-23 at 03:22

@callisto @frabjousday The analogy works well.

I think people underestimate the harm because it is possible to push yourself if absolutely necessary but absolutely necessary should be saved for actual life or death adjacent situations. Tapping into that regularly is not a strategy for success, it's for survival purposes.

There's a bit of extra wiggle room but it's not meant to be utilized regularly and afterwards there's often a difficult recovery, not always back to full health.

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Written by gahlord on 2025-01-23 at 05:32

@frabjousday May I quote this in a couple places if that’s ok? How do prefer being credited?

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Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-23 at 15:47

@gahlord well as a result of going slightly viral I now have a substack

https://badartnewsletter.substack.com/p/unsolicited-advice-from-the-social?r=28866

But if you don't enjoy that version of the post as much I'm happy to be credited as @frabjousday

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Written by gahlord on 2025-01-23 at 17:44

@frabjousday thanks!

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