Well, there’s a lot of hate around at the moment. I’ve experienced it both online and in the streets that should be safe, & I’m hearing about & seeing accounts of a lot of it. Too much of it (any is too much but it feels like there’s a global upswell of it, both close to home and afar). People in most places seem emboldened in a bad way by the actions / inactions of politicans, by far right ‘cult leaders’ like Andrew Tit and Just Kidding Growling, by Doodled Grump & cronies, by the actions of hapless, greedy, small-minded “leaders” who have influence (but shouldn’t) on the lives of many. People seem emboldened to spew violent words at minoritised people, be physically aggressive (or worse), to jump ship on inclusive practice, to attempt to re-write history to erase black, trans, non-binary, bisexual and other equally important lives who should not & will not be erased, to stand by permissively & endorse hate as it occurs, to refuse to help, to treat humans as expendable & without value, to consider genocide acceptable or even support it, to question whether equal human rights are even a worthwhile thing to pursue. It is appalling.
Some people seem to be pursuing hate like it will be the ‘holy grail’ that keeps them powerful / immortal / young / in-charge. It is grotesque. It is frankly, pretty evil. I don’t believe in evil in binary fashion but we’re definitely revisiting a dark side of humanity & not in any kind of movie-chic way. Just grim, malevolent, dangerous, & making ripples & tsunamis of real-world-impacting Bad happen. Of course – there are also people out there making incredible ripples of good, and this must be remembered, celebrated, encouraged, and kept going through mutual support and inspiration! But what’s happening needs acknowledging.
That was heavy. Here’s a clip of Once More With Feeling from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, singing ‘what can’t we face if we’re together’, for a little uplift:
More ranting: And then there is the in-fighting: again both in person and online, but I think worse online (depending where you look). A gross occurence of the modern age where our ability to engage online, often with strangers, is multifold, instantanous, divorced from reality, & someone’s humanity may seem a far-away fiction/hard to imagine / empathise with, & typed words & ‘meta-mojis’ are mostly what is seen: not the person typing them. Plus the ability to write back & forth pretty instantly, without the presencing quality of, well, presence.
People who essentially want the same things, can become downright Cruel to each other, because of not going about them in exactly the same way, not using the same words to describe them, not fulfilling a checklist of one individual’s idea of the ‘perfect way’ to make progress amidst a situation where frankly, it’s a huge mess, and we all need to chip in, give each other hope, and do our bit. I think people are pretty activated, often isolated, which is a shame, because encouraging & kind words can still be pretty powerful, even if you don’t know the person writing them, & I think we could be doing better by each other. Some people are, sometimes. It doesn’t take much to write kind or thoughtful words, especially to people who share important values with you. Come on humans – stop being disappointing and start treating each other more like humans! That said, I’m not saying you should be ‘calm & sweet’ (ugh) if somebody is being abusive or hateful at you: anger & protecting yourself (& your community) can be an important part of a response & staying safe/sane. Excuse the rant & vagueries. These are hard times. I don’t want to regret this post by being specific but I do want to say something.
Here’s another Buffy clip because, songs are medicine & I love Buffy, especially the musical episode. Obviously, spoilers! This is ‘Walk Through The Fire’.
Part of my experience around making this post is that yesterday, meta banned me (personal & business pages – self employed people will know how impactful this is) from facebook & instagram. I imagine this is because of my main activities lately: sharing trans rights petitions in lots of groups, advertising my LGBTQIA+ choir, sharing some videos containing political satire or LGBTQIA+ history. I don’t do much else online lately so pretty likely to be one of those! What an era. In many ways I’m relieved to be dissociated from meta, but there’s huge impact on my businesses, how I run them, my ability to reach out to my communities, sources of sharing information & mutual support & conducting activism as a disabled person. Sigh. Maybe time to find new ways, we’ll see. A related PSA – this means if you’re trying to contact me on social media, it won’t get through right now. I might get back on, I might not: please contact me by email to be sure of getting through, thank you. hannahrose@getbrightonsinging.com
I do think that, for every thoughtless, aggressive person acting like a bigot, there are way more kind, community oriented people doing their best. It just may not always be easy to feel or remember this as acts of aggression (in person or online) can make such a loud impression. I’m here to remind you there are lots of people out there rooting for equality, safety, & a much better situation than these that we collectively find ourselves in.
Because I can’t share them on socials any more, here’s a couple of hopefully hopeful / expressive things.
Not On My Watch, a song I wrote a couple of weeks ago, to cope with what I’ve been seeing, experiencing, observing in the world. Much of it was recorded straight into a laptop without a mic so it’s quite rough, though I’ve done my best to ‘master’ it and tidy it up. I hope it moves / inspires / does something for you. It starts dark and ends hopeful.
A petition in support of trans & non-binary people’s rights in the UK. For any ‘petition sceptics’, no I don’t think one petition will fix ‘it all’, but I do think that consistent acts of dissent show governments how citizens are responding, and while we still have a democracy/votes, this will impact their decisions: whether because of genuine human care about impact, or the grimmer realities of their ‘how do we win votes’ mindsets; as well as influencing public opinion, showing solidarity to each other, inspiring each other with hope & to act etc.
I think all steps towards progess make an impact, and with this petition we can send a strong message that can be a part of that. The “gender critical” transphobic movement & current political climate is doing & has done unacceptable harm to trans & non-binary people, as well as to the LGBTQIA+ community, cisgender women, disabled people, & other communities, & is part of a wider picture that is, frankly, fascism, and harming many intersecting identities. I think we all have a duty to do what small or big things that we can. This petition is one of the things I can do. We need at least 10,000 signatures by the end of August to send the government a message that we see that what they are doing is wrong, we are as vocal as the transphobic, anti-human-rights GC groups, and our community will stick together and not back down. Hope is never silent.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/712741
Please sign and share.
Thanks for listening to my rant! I hope that you’re having a positive week, and that the people around you this week, in person and online, are kind to you and respectful. I also acknowledge that the words I write and the way I write them, is not perfect & will never be perfect for everyone. However I think we can probably assume that if we want the same things (equal rights, safety, dignity for all, & other words to describe these & related important sentiments), we can let semantics go for the most part (language matters yes, but using that fact to drive wedges between people who want the same things, does not help our cause!) and support each other in working towards a common goal, in each of our unique ways.
Kind wishes, Hannah-Rose (they/she)
We have fallen into the place where everything is music - Rumi 