I have been on a journey of learning. I am watching what is happening in the world and am feeling so confused about how we got here. So, I did whatever good nerd does when they are confused: research.
I have been researching my own biases and questioning my thoughts. I have looked into policies and finding the roots of how they got to be so self serving for only CIS-white males. I have been questioning what I have been watching, reposting, and rolling my eyes at. I took a deep dive into what entitlement means. It is so damn exhausting.
I took this upon myself because I couldn’t understand why it’s been such a debate to end racism/sexism/ableism/homophobia aka all the ism and ists!! But the world outside of the system is lonely because most people don’t recognize they are living in it or what it means.
Have you heard of the sociological imagination? Probably not unless you took a sociology class or were friends with me when I first learned about this CUZ let me tell you, I did not shut up about this. The sociological imagination is the intersections of biology, history, and structure. Biology meaning the self and your experiences, history is what is happening in the world at the moment, and structure is the overarching systems that keep things in place.
For example:
You (biology) are driving a car. You have been distracted lately because your job (the structure) is talking about layoffs due to COVID (history, this moment in time).
That makes sense right? All of these things relate to one another. It is called an the “sociological imagination” because you have to THINK and IMAGINE how all of this is interconnected. This is not something that you just know and think consciously. Even if you think you are not participating, you absolutely are. You cannot escape it because it literally builds the fabric of society. Your history, biographies, and structures that you subscribe to build the person you are, connect you with the people in your social group, and define and outlines how you think.
The lonely part happens when you start questioning these things. People don’t want you to disrupt their comforts. They want everything to be just the way it was so they do not have to face the uncomfortable realities in our world.
Here I am learning and growing but leaving people behind because of my thinking because people are offended that I am disrupting the very fabric of their existence. I am that powerful and not because I necessarily chose to be but because it is so engrained in us. I recently saw this post in instagram talking about rest and how Americans don’t like rest but value “grind”. This educator got attacked for saying that people need rest because she is promoting kids being lazy?! What!
This is what keeps happening with the news: people speak alternatives to the way of American life and it explodes to insults and violence.
I’ll give you another example:
The day of Breoanna Taylor’s hearings I saw a news article with Black folx hugging and smiling from ABC. I read the headline and looked at the picture and something felt off and wrong. I thought there is no way that this is what people wanted, why would this “credible” news source show me this? Because the system wants to keep you where you are. Comfortable and happy to ignoring how well the system is working. This is racism. This says Black folx don’t get to be angry about the decision that is made and we the media will skew the viewers thinking to show that you are happy. LIES. But then protests erupt saying that in fact, no we are not satisfied with the lack of justice, the media paints them as criminals. You participate in the overarching narrative of the system if you agree with the media. Period.
So what am I going to do up here on my lonely soapbox:
I am no longer forgiving comments like “aw you’re so pretty for a Mexican” or “why did you cut your hair like that? Are you gay?”. I no longer accept that my friends get caught up in microaggressions like being Asian but treated as if you’re white (you MAY NOT and WILL NOT erase her experiences any longer) or my Black friends hearing that their bodies don’t matter from our government. You do not get to erase us for your ease of comfort anymore. I see outside the system.
It’s lonely when you don’t believe the news everyone else believes, when you don’t think a racist meme is funny anymore, when you decide to protest instead of go to brunch, when you decide to have really hard conversations with family or friends that don’t see things like you do. It’s not that you or I are alone in are thinking but you just don’t buy into this world’s systems anymore. All the normal was a construct and it wasn’t real. You recognize that these systems do not serve you but are built to serve a group of people who want to pretend as if your problems don’t exist because they don’t happen to them.
Sam Cooke — A change is gonna come — 1963 — YouTube
I am going to leave you with this beautiful tune from one of my favorite singers. I believe a change is coming but it’s just going to take more of us that are willing to be lonely. Please vote.
Love,
AC
Originally published at http://thislatinalefthome.com on September 27, 2020.
