#for real there's need to be a word for the Whites upholding the delusion of assuming everything going wrong is because of the big bad Jews💀

[papirouge]

those people are mentally deranged

[asscrackcreed]

breaking down this fic for no reason other than im bored - i stopped at chapter 24 i cant do this in one go so maybe a part 1

its such a white perspective clearly because malik doesnt come home from a party and after panicking that his mums gonna kill him she doesnt say anything and ??? idk the fact that they drink they’re not religious in any way shape or form despite the fact that religions especially islam have a heavy cultural impact so theres no excuse as to why hes a complete atheist. ik this fic was made in 2014 but damn these ppl hate muslims fr we never get rep in fics??? anyways altaïr is a complete homophobe and has a little flirty banter with des but thats his cousin ? uhm. des is like ‘no dont be homophobic’ and then says ‘nvm ur not relevant enough to be cancelled’ thats just chapter 1 btw

malik has a blog where he shits on altaïr and he made it after accidentally sleeping with him because uhm he has nothing better to do… this is so OOC even if altaïr is a complete homophobe and misogynist i cant see malik make an anonymous blog and everything to call out his immorality… PURELY for his immorality its not like a tumblr blog he made sassbadgers just to shit on altaïr… and then he has a moment where he responds to an altaïr stan, she says hey women are made for men and malik was like i dont believe in any religions so im not responding to that but thats an L for you anyways cuz wtf

ok but islam literally says that women are humans and shouldnt be treated like sexual objects wtf do u mean ? this is a basic principle? youre mum is muslim? hello.?

HE WAS BORN WHERE.

then he continues to laugh at said delusion fan for thinking shes married to altaïr… i know ppl like that are real… but this adds nothing to the story and given 2014 the whole ‘women getting involved in my gay ship’ drives me insane

this series does not have to be 75 chapters btw its full of fillers and irrelevant shit like why do i need to read about malik getting on the bus texting kadar for giggles idgaf

altaïr likes christmas but hes not religious my man ur dad was muslim and ur family did nothing to uphold that? huh? are they all islamophobes?

why does malik keep referring to altaïr as Mr Ibn-La’Ahad if he has no respect for him why is he addressing this guy appropriately just call him a bitch and get it over with

malik in this fic is a pretentious bitch. stop using big words just cuss him out and go taking so much time just to tell me kadar cant read big words - chapter 6 btw

leonardo and malik being roommates is cute tho i’ll give them that - at some point leo has a crush on malik i think to stir the tea but it doesnt work because… they’re too alike in this fic? they finish each other’s sentences type of alike not every gay man needs to date each other fuck sake

WHY IS MALIK TELLING KADAR ABOUT HIS SEX LIFE IS THAT NORMAL… I DONT TELL NAT ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT I DO EW and why does kadar keep asking ‘when are u gonna tell mum’ this really really really fucking annoys me as someone with a religious mum can kadar stfu shit like coming out to someone who doesnt seem alright with it is practically dangerous?????

yk how ppl said altaïr was aloof for not catching on al mualims evil plans - yeah they seemed to really fucking run with this trope good god hes so dumb its pissing me off this isnt altaïr - he says hes not bothered to take care of his stock shares or whatever ??? the source of their grandmas wealth HUH… tf do u mean ik its pre development altaïr but he wasnt neglecting responsibilities he was just a huge fucking asshole that fucked up cuz of his ego so what is going on here

im not reading this shit theres SOOOOOO many convos and NOOOOOOTTHIIINNGGG HAPPPEENNNIIIIINNGGGG

so altaïr thinks the writer behind sassbadger is a woman and is tryna flirt with ‘her’ its funny and i like it tbh but shit drags so slowly ffs

ig they’re falling in love but altaïr and malik message eachother about how maliks being nicer to him… but the reason is so dumb ‘because u purposefully make videos for ppl to laugh at u how can u be okay with that?’ what. isnt he homophobic and misogynistic what are u talking about. how is that a reason to be nicer either shit on him or stfu

also it doesnt make sense if u dont like someone esp because of their morals then… u wouldn’t interact with them on a happy social level i dont like that maliks already like bantering with him

Malik: Hey

Leo: Hey!

Malik: Sex?

Leo: Weren’t u meant to be studying

Malik: Well Im not

maybe im nitpicking rn but man the sex is so awkward like no foreplay? no setting the mood? the little convos dont make sense like if hes asking for sex hes clearly not… gonna study…? like what this author is so OOC with everyone

DES EZIO MALIK AND INTERNET PPL KEEP TELLING HIM TO STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE AND HIS RESPONSE IS ‘im not gay! i dont like gays! keep ur dick away from me!’ wheres the critical altaïr gone this isn’t fun to read the writing itself isnt bad its just like… so much and so little happening at the same time why dont you tell me how hes so afraid of being gay instead of telling me ezio is an ‘ally’

why did they make maria thorpe… posh? is it cuz shes british?

if altaïr and malik are falling in love in chapter 15 wtf is gonna happen for the other 60 chapters ???

altaïr slept with claudias friends ? that feels weird uhm

also i forgot to say malik ended up moving in with leo or smth and then he was like no im going home i didnt quite pick up why maybe i was scrolling too fast but do u see what i mean? so much stalling that adds nothing to the story

the world building was going well it was really interesting seeing how the family works idk why they villanised giovanni but yk whatever william miles was a shit dad and des ran away to his grandma who cut william out of the will and giovanni took williams side cuz des was ‘being a lazy boy’ so he got cut out too and despite the auditores being rich and having 4 production companies to their name they’re still assholes who treat des like shit except for ezio and claudia now altaïr wants justice

see? going well interesting story so why tf are they making altaïr exotic and saying he knows 10 languages ffs - ‘English, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Russian, enough Finnish to ask directions and very little Korean.’ i wonder why they’re all (but two) european languages… what does he need to do with all those languages tf how exotic

ok so uhm altaïr fought ezio cuz of the whole des thing uhm very counterproductive but now they have matching lips scars. this is so silly thats the only word i can think ezio wasnt even involved with des’ situation even ezios like wtf are u attacking me for i… is this the only way altaïr could get a scar? tf

again kadar doesnt need to tell his brother hes gonna masturbate tf is wrong with this author

kadar liking a muslim girl is nice tho

??? ITS RAMADAN? YOU CANT HAVE SEX IT BREAKS THE FAST… if it was during the night it’d be fine just have a shower asap but i mean. COME ON.

ik altaïrs not religious but he eats ham…

how does the author know all these words… wdym ‘surah’ dont tell me the authors muslim

whys altaïr fighting ezio AGAIN weve established it doesnt help anything

[vajranam]

Path Of Renounciation

Song of the Mahamudra (Tilopa's Song to Naropa)

byTilopa

English version by Lex Hixon

Mahamudra, the royal way, is free

from every word and sacred symbol.

For you alone, beloved Naropa,

this wonderful song springs forth from Tilopa

as spontaneous friendship that never ends.

The completely open nature

of all dimensions and events

is a rainbow always occurring

yet never grasped.

The way of Mahamudra

creates no closure.

No strenuous mental effort

can encounter this wide open way.

The effortless freedom of awareness

moves naturally along it.

As space is always freshly appearing

and never filled,

so the mind is without limits

and ever aware.

Gazing with sheer awareness

into sheer awareness,

habitual, abstract structures melt

into the fruitful springtime of Buddhahood.

White clouds that drift through blue sky,

changing shape constantly,

have no root, no foundation, no dwelling;

nor do changing patterns of thought

that float through the sky of mind.

When the formless expanse of awareness

comes clearly into view,

obsession with thought forms

ceases easily and naturally.

As within the openness of universal space

shapes and colors are spontaneously forming,

although space has no color or form,

so within the expanse of awareness

realms, relations and values are arising,

although awareness possesses

no positive or negative characteristics.

As the darkness of night,

even were it to last a thousand years,

could not conceal the rising sun,

so countless ages of conflict and suffering

cannot conceal the innate radiance of Mind.

Although philosophers explain

the transparent openness of appearances

as empty of permanent characteristics

and completely indeterminable,

this universal indeterminacy

can itself never be determined.

Although sages report

the nature of awareness to be luminosity,

this limitless radiance cannot be contained

within any language or sacramental system.

Although the very essence of Mind

is to be void of either subjects or objects,

it tenderly embraces all life within its womb.

To realize this inexpressible truth,

do not manipulate mind or body

but simply open into transparency

with relaxed, natural grace

intellect at ease in silence,

limbs at rest in stillness

like hollow bamboos.

Neither breathing in nor breathing out

with the breath of habitual thinking,

allow the mind to be at peace

in brilliant wakefulness.

This is the royal wealth of Mahamudra,

no common coin of any realm.

Beloved Naropa, this treasure of Buddhahood

belongs to you and to all beings.

Obsessive use of meditative disciplines

or perennial study of scripture and philosophy

will never bring forth this wonderful realization,

this truth which is natural to awareness,

because the mind that desperately desires

to reach another realm or level of experience

inadvertently ignores the basic light

that constitutes all experience.

The one who fabricates

any division in consciousness

betrays the friendship of Mahamudra.

Cease all activity that separates,

abandon even the desire to be free from desires

and allow the thinking process to rise and fall

smoothly as waves on a shoreless ocean.

The one who never dwells in abstraction

and whose only principle

is never to divide or separate

upholds the trust of Mahamudra.

The one who abandons craving

for authority and definition,

and never becomes one-sided

in argument or understanding,

alone perceives the authentic meaning

hidden in the ancient scriptures.

In the blissful embrace of Mahamudra,

negative viewpoints and their instincts

are burned without remainder, like camphor.

Through the open door of Mahamudra,

the deluded state of self-imprisonment

is easily left behind forever.

Mahamudra is the torch of supreme liberty

shining forth through all conscious beings.

Those beings constituted by awareness

who try to ignore, reject or grasp awareness

inflict sorrow and confusion upon themselves

like those who are insane.

To be awakened from this madness,

cultivate the gracious friendship

of a sublime sage of Mahamudra,

who may appear to the world as mad.

When the limited mind

enters blessed companionship

with limitless Mind,

indescribable freedom dawns.

Selfish or limited motivations

create the illusory sense of imprisonment

and scatter seeds of further delusion.

Even genuine religious teaching

can generate narrowness of vision.

Trust only the approach

that is utterly vast and profound.

The noble way of Mahamudra

never engages in the drama of

imprisonment and release.

The sage of Mahamudra

has absolutely no distractions,

because no war against distractions has ever been declared.

This nobility and gentleness alone,

this nonviolence of thought and action ,

is the traceless path of all Buddhas.

To walk this all-embracing way

is the bliss of Buddhahood.

Phenomena on every plane of being

are constantly arising and disappearing.

Thus they are forever fresh,

always new and inexhaustible.

Like dreams without solid substance,

they can never become rigid or binding.

The universe exists in a deep, elusive way

that can never be grasped or frozen.

Why feel obsessive desire or hatred for it,

thereby creating illusory bonds?

Renounce arbitrary, habitual views.

Go forth courageously to meditate

in the real mountain wilderness,

the wide open Mahamudra.

Transcend boundaries of kinship

by embracing all living beings

as one family of consciousness.

Remain without any compulsion

in the landscape of natural freedom:

spontaneous, generous, joyful.

When you receive the crown of Mahamudra,

all sense of rank or attainment

will quietly disappear.

Cut the root of the vine that chokes the tree,

and its clinging tendrils wither away entirely.

Sever the conventionally grasping mind,

and all bondage and desperation dissolve.

The illumination from an oil lamp

lights the room instantly,

even if it has been dark for aeons.

Mind is boundless radiance.

How can the slightest darkness

remain in the room of daily perception?

But one who clings to mental processes

cannot awaken to the radiance of Mind.

Strenuously seeking truth

by investigation and concentration,

one will never appreciate

the unthinkable simplicity and bliss

that abide at the core.

To uncover this fertile ground,

cut through the roots of complexity

with the sharp gaze of naked awareness,

remaining entirely at peace,

transparent and content.

You need not expend great effort

nor store up extensive spirtual power.

Remain in the flow of sheer awareness.

Mahamudra neither accepts nor rejects

any current of energy, internal or external.

Since the ground consciousness

is never born into any realm of being,

nothing can add to or subtract from it.

Nothing can obstruct or stain it.

When awareness rests here,

the appearance of division and conflict

disappears into original reality.

The twin emotions of anxiety and arrogance

vanish into the void from which they came.

Supreme knowing knows

no separate subject or object.

Supreme action acts resourcefully

without any array of instruments.

Supreme attainment attains the goal

without past, future or present.

The dedicated practitioner

experiences the spiritual way

as a turbulent mountain stream,

tumbling dangerously among boulders.

When maturity is reached,

the river flows smoothly and patiently

with the powerful sweep of the Ganges.

Emptying into the ocean of Mahamudra,

the water becomes ever-expanding light

that pours into great Clear Light

without direction, destination,

division, distinction or description.

we talk a lot in past about renouncing our world the yogis in past knew it was the ultimste way to be able realize mahamudra. The first example came from our teacher the buddha himself, follow by all who took the same path, in the kagyu renouncing is a very big things, from Tilopa , Naropa, Saraha,Marpa, Milarepa all gave up for reaching the highest state.

The Five-fold Mixing Or, it is fivefold

as 1) the Mixing of Passion with the Mystic Heat (or Inner Fire: chags-gtum mo bsre); 2) the Mixing of Aversion (dveṣa/ze-sdang) with the Illusory Body (māyā-deha/sgyu -lus); 3) the Mixing of Delusion ( moha/gti-mug) with the Clear Light (’ od gsal/ prabhāsvara ); 4) the Mixing of Pride with the Generation Stage (utpanna-krama/rdzogs-rim) and 5) the Mixing of Envy and Jealousy with Pure Appearances (or Pure Perception: śuddha-ābhāsa/ dag-snang ).

The fivefold explain that on our everyday life we got the essence of enlightenment and if we train our mind we will be able to recognise it.

The goal of our renunciation ~ 17th Karmapa

The goal of our renunciation should be to commit to what is beneficial for beings, and to what serves the cause of the dharma.

[questionsonislam]

We have difficulty in remaining on the true path; we sometimes act very religiously and sometimes in a very relaxed way. When we think we have attained the level we want in terms of the religion, we demolish our sincerity and piety with one deed suddenly. What is your advice regarding the issue?

We are ordered to pray as follows: in the chapter of al-Fatiha: "Show us the straight way”. Descriptions that are close to one another like “the moderate way”, “the straight path”, “the smooth path” and “justice” are used for the true path. The Quran explains this way as “The way of Allah, to whom everything in the skies and on earth belongs”. And this way leads to Paradise.

Believers read the chapter of al-Fatiha in all rak'ahs of prayers and ask the true path and guidance from Allah. Those who complete this path without deviating from it attain Paradise, which is the unique land of happiness. Hell is under the Sirat; he who deviates in any way will fall into that terrifying land of penalty.

When we ask the straight path from our Lord, we want to be on the straight path throughout our life in this world, that is, we want to pass through the Sirat Bridge, which is thinner than hair and sharper than sword, in this world. It is really difficult to be on the straight path with all of our deeds, words and attitudes in this world. However, it is not possible to pass the Sirat Bridge in the hereafter unless we complete this thin and sharp path without going to extremes.

The Sirat is located on Hell. All of our deeds virtually have Paradise in front of them and Hell under them; if we do any deed by deviating from Allah’s line of consent, we will have committed a sin and disobeyed Allah. They are the heralds of Hell in this world.

Being on the straight path leads man to the land of consent. It takes man to the eternal land of real pleasure and happiness. The straight path is the moderate way away from all kinds of extremism. Is it not also the way to be happy in the world? Is it possible for us to attain happiness unless our body is on the straight path with all of its organs and our heart is on the straight path with all of its feelings?

Our eyes should be neither short-sighted nor far-sighted; our blood pressure should be neither high nor low; the electric current of the mechanism that makes our brain work should be neither low nor high; our heart should beat within certain limits; the same thing is valid for our body temperature.

All of the activities that take place in the seventy trillion cells of the body should be between certain limits so that we can continue our life normally. Otherwise, we will spend our life in hospitals.

We face with a game, a hoax. There is a hidden enemy in us. We instantly feel anything that harms our body and try to find a solution to it but we do not show the same sensitivity toward the spiritual illnesses that wound our heart, deviate our world of feeling and lead our mind to dangerous areas. What is worse, we like them. This hidden enemy, which shows us what is black as white and which drinks poison with pleasure is the soul. When this enemy in us cooperates with devils of humans and jinn, or soul is shaken and moves away from the straight path. However, the real danger for us is not the deterioration of our worldly relaxation but the loss of our eternal bliss. Nevertheless, the soul manages to push it into the background and puts the other to the foreground.

We pray to our Lord to lead us to the straight path in the face of those ferocious enemies. We know that the way there is through ‘worshipping only Him and asking help only from Him”

I think about it but I cannot manage to forgive a friend who has wronged me. I want to retaliate and take revenge. This thought leads me to the following reality:

“I cannot silence even one feeling of mine; how can I arrange my whole world of spirit? It can happen only through my Lord’s grant, generosity and guidance. It is not possible for my spirit to be on the straight path with all of its feelings without the grace of my Lord.”

Believing is the biggest guidance for the heart. A believing heart is on the straight path. The heart of a believer turns toward its Lord, who is free of place. He will see a manifestation of His divine names on anything that he looks. He puts himself next to that work of art imaginarily and says, “Praise be to Allah who educates both of us in a nice way.” Then, threes, fours, thousands and hundreds of thousands are added to that two. The heart turn toward the Lord of realms with praise. A heart that reaches that point is on the straight path no matter what it loves.

A heart that is heedless of Allah adds one more curtain of heedlessness in front of it and moves away from its Lord a bit more.

It is something very important not to lose one’s way among those endless creatures and incidents. This hard test can be passed only through Allah’s guidance. Otherwise, man will be drowned in matter, be lost in causes and be destroyed.

A heart that is saved from the dangers of being a denier or a polytheist continues on the straight path. This is possible through the creed of Ahl as-Sunnah. An example regarding the issue:

Qadar is a part of belief. The madhhab of Jabriyya, which denies the will of the slave, and the madhhab of Mutazila, which holds the view that the slave is the creator of his own deed, moved away from the straight path. The moderate way is to believe that the slave wants and Allah creates the voluntary deeds. That is the straight path.

In the book called İşârât-ül İ’caz of Nur Collection, it is stated that sirat al-mustaqim (the straight path), “is justice, consisting of the blending and summary of wisdom (ḥikma), chastity (‘iffa), and courage (shajā‘a)” and the following explanations are given:

“Deficiency in the power of animal appetites is apathy and want of appetite, while its excess is profligacy, which is to desire whatever is encountered whether lawful or unlawful. Its middle way is uprightness, which is desiring what is licit and shunning what is illicit."

"Deficiency in the power of savage passion is cowardice, that is, fear of what is not to be feared and delusive imagining. Its excess is uncontrolled anger, which is the progenitor of despotism, domination, and tyranny. And its middle way is courage, which is giving freely of oneself with love and eagerness for the defense of the laws of Islam and the upholding of the Word of divine unity."

"Deficiency in the power of intellect is stupidity, that is, not being aware of anything. Its excess is the gift of the gab, that is, being so cunning as to show what is right as wrong and to show what is wrong as right. And its middle way is wisdom, that is, knowing what is right as right and adhering to it, knowing what is wrong as wrong and avoiding it.”

Thus, man becomes a believer on the straight path when all of the faculties, senses and feelings in his spirit get rid of excesses and deficiencies.

When the heart attains guidance with the heart, it is time for righteous deeds. Man needs to be on the straight path in terms of his deeds so that he will be on the real straight path. His looks should be on the straight path and should not look at haram things. His words should be true and he should tell the truth. He should neither praise others excessively nor criticize them unjustly. He should be honest in trade and he should be away from deceiving, taking interest and profiteering. They are all things that are not liked by the soul. Besides, the straight path is the opposite of the path that the soul shows.

One of the definition of being on the straight path is to follow the moderate way, by keeping away from extremism, in all aspects of ethics.

Generosity is an aspect of high ethics. A person who is neither extravagant nor stingy is regarded to have this aspect of high ethics.

Justice is another aspect of high ethics. Man should not oppress others; nor should he cause his addressee to oppress him by being too weak to protect his rights. Man oppressing himself is another issue. A person who does not use the things entrusted to him by Lord will oppress his soul when he goes to Hell.

Another aspect of high ethics is reliance on Allah (tawakkul). A person who acts in accordance with causes and who shows consent to the result is regarded to have acted in accordance with tawakkul and is on the straight path.

When a believer prays by saying, “Guide us to the straight path”, he asks his Lord to be on the straight path in all aspects. And he includes all believers in his prayer.

All faces turn toward the Kaaba in prayer; similarly, all spirits need to obey the Quran so that the community will be on the straight path.

Our Lord, who teaches us the prayer “Guide us to the straight path” in the Quran attracts our attention to the fact that peace in the world is based on the straight path just like happiness in the hereafter. He informs us that those who deviate from that path will be “maghdub” and “dallin”. Maghdub means the people upon whom is Allah’s wrath. Dallin are the people who have been enslaved by their own faiths. Both of them will face penalty and will be losers. Tafsir scholars say what is meant by maghdub are Jews and what is meant by dallin are Christians. The following fact becomes clear under the light of those explanations:

“Cultures based on neither Judaism nor Christianity are on the straight path; they cannot lead us to peace and happiness.”

Let us turn our faces away from what is wrong and turn toward the truth. Otherwise, we will be punished for our wrong choice in the world by ethical crises, spiritual problems and anarchy; our penalty in the hereafter will be very severe.

[sockparade]

the gap

(CNN: Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct was set on fire by protestors during the night of May 28, 2020)

This is maybe a mark of my persistent immaturity, but I’m slowly (probably too slowly) realizing that I’ve mistaken my individual god-given ability to form an opinion to mean that I’m the actual audience for everything. I don’t know if it has to do with the exorbitant number of hours in my childhood that I spent watching TV and reading books instead of living in real life. Or whether it’s my self-centered nature that I just never grew out of. Or perhaps it’s the unshakeable result of my young adulthood being bathed in the explosion of social media where every platform (AIM, AsianAvenue, Xanga, Geocities, Wordpress, Yelp, Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) seemed like another microphone specifically designed to help me share my reaction, review, or analysis about everything I could possibly encounter in my life. 

Part of me wonders if I am maybe too eager to be off the hook, but Jia Tolentino makes a pretty compelling case for that last reason in her delightful but at times painful collection of essays, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion. 

Here are two incredibly insightful excerpts from her essay, “The I in the Internet”:

“In part out of a desire to preserve what’s worthwhile from the decay that surrounds it, I’ve been thinking about five intersecting problems: first, how the internet is built to distend our sense of identity; second, how it encourages us to overvalue our opinions; third, how it maximizes our sense of opposition; fourth, how it cheapens our understanding of solidarity; and finally, how it destroys our sense of scale.”

“In the run-up to the 2016 election and increasingly so afterward, I started to feel that there was almost nothing I could do about ninety-five percent of the things I cared about other than form an opinion-- and that the conditions that allowed me to live in mild everyday hysterics about an unlimited supply of terrible information were related to the conditions that were, at the same time, consolidating power, sucking wealth upward, far outside my grasp.” 

I think regardless of where an individual is on their personal journey with experiencing racism or becoming anti-racist, the events of the past few weeks have surfaced various realizations. That has certainly been the case for me. 

I want to make an effort to write more about my process in hopes that it’s helpful to others who are also processing. I’ll start by sharing four of my realizations here. 

The first one is really basic. I value my own opinion too damn much. 

This sounds kind of embarrassing to say out loud but I had to take myself aside last week and give myself an earful. Haha, I know, that sounds like someone who’s been sheltering in place for too long. But in all seriousness, I really did have to chew myself out. It went something like this.

Why am I trying so hard to decide which parts of a protest I am okay with? Why am I trying to figure out where I land on some kind of protest supporter likert scale? It feels like I need a 50 question Buzzfeed quiz to tell me what kind of protest I fully support so I can feel less hypocritical and internally consistent within myself. It feels like I’m mentally creating some kind of Pantone color card deck for political protests and then holding my brain and my heart up to each swatch, desperately trying to find a match. Why? 

Why am I treating such an emotional and painful protest like some kind of a la carte brunch menu I can order from? Was the protest peaceful? Socially distant? Were folks wearing masks? Did they obtain the proper permits? Did they cause any traffic or block any freeways? Okay but were any ambulances blocked or did anyone lose their job because of the traffic? Did the signs seem hopeful and solution-oriented or did they mostly say “Fuck the Police” and “ACAB”? Did they blatantly break curfew? But was the curfew announced with enough notice? Did they set any fires? Was it buildings or just dumpsters and trashcans? Did they destroy any cars? Were they cop cars or civilian cars? How much graffiti is there to clean up? Did it seem like the protestors provoked the violence or did the police? Do you have videos of that? Was there looting? Okay but was it just big box stores like Target that were being looted or was it looting of mom and pop businesses too? 

Like I can hear myself ordering a protest like, “Yeah, so I’m going to go with the non-permitted protest but with clearly identified local organizers who I recognize. I’m okay with you leaving in smashed windows and burning buildings but if they’re mom and pops, can we make sure it’s only places with good insurance policies? Hmmm and maybe lemme add a side of major freeway blockage but only if no one gets hurt and it’s for less than an hour. Oh, and can I substitute the graffiti for dumpster fires? Oh yeah and can you also make sure there are catchy slogans on a few signs or cute pictures of kids holding signs so it doesn’t all feel too bleak? Like, why the fuck do I do this? 

Why do I think my personal judgement of a protest is of upmost importance? Why do nonBlack people feel appointed to judge and assess the efficacy or nature of a Black Lives Matter protest? Why do we critique the strategy of a political movement? It’s like we’re that casual viewer of ice skating who gets super vocal with their crappy commentary on ice skating every four years during the Winter Olympics? Do you really think you’re qualified to judge that triple lutz? Get the fuck out of here. 

Or worse, when the judgement comes out in a protective voice? Like, oh no, I’m worried the white people in power and watching at home are going to dismiss it because of the rioting and looting, it’s going to look so bad. That it wasn’t strategic to the cause because it was a bad look. Like what the hell? Why are we still protecting and upholding the broken situation of power being held in whiteness?  

How many times have you read or heard someone say they believe Black Lives Matter and support the “peaceful protesters” but want to be clear that they do not condone the rioting and looting? Condone? Do people realize how condescending that word is? I mean, who is giving you that power to condone or not condone? Does the movement need our approval? 

I was dizzy from reading the articles my nervous neoliberals friends (of all races) were posting on my social media feeds blaming the riots on “outside agitators” and anarchists. And then I started to read all the counter articles being shared about how there’s a historical pattern of this media tactic to blame rioting and looting on outside agitators, anarchists, and ANTIFA in order to distract and delegitimize the movement as a whole. And then Trump started to blame ANTIFA! Wait, why was Trump and my neoliberal friends agreeing on something? Was this signaling the inevitable end of the Democratic Party? Haha but honestly, I appreciated that dizziness and that panicky frenzy because it snapped me out of trying to rationalize everything and helped me realize that trying to figure out whether I was “okay with rioting and looting” was the wrong fucking question. 

Delegitimize to who? What is the purpose of a riot? What would be considered the success or failure of a riot? Do we subconsciously think protests are at their core some kind of performance for us? An audition for our allegiance? A persuasive act to convince people to join their movement? A ploy to get politicians to change their hearts and minds? How have we gotten it so twisted? Since when is someone smashing a window an appeal towards intellectual persuasion? Isn’t it a clear signal that we’re past that?

I really had to scrutinize why I was reading so many different takes on rioting and looting in a desperate search to try to find a framework I could comfortably agree with. How many articles like “In Defense of Looting” (a really good article btw) did I need to read before I could feel confident in justifying my attitude towards looting? Like how oppressed does a group of people need to be in order to justify looting? Ugh. Was that the question I was asking? And was that really the best question for me to be focused on? 

Eventually I had to say to myself, “Yo, you are not actually the audience for these protests and your opinion is not the most important outcome here.” I mean, yes, let me be clear in saying that it’s important for me to form a personal opinion so that I can move from spectator to co-conspirator in fighting and challenging racism. And yes, I need to put in the work to form a thoughtful opinion that isn’t just the result of scrolling social media for a few hours each day. I do think folks can cause harm trying to do antiracism work when it’s built on emotional impulse or plain ignorance. But at the end of the day my specific opinion on the ethics of rioting and looting is not what ultimately matters in this Black Lives Matter movement. 

Why? 

This is my second realization. Simply put: The rioting and looting was effective. 

I genuinely believe that the images of people protesting in the street, the smashed windows and the buildings set on fire did something to people’s collective imagination. I wonder how much of the protests and riots were also a release of frustration towards an unjust economic system and a untrustworthy government. Was it just pent up energy or was it because as a country we saw 36 million people file for unemployment in the previous two months leading up to the protests? People will probably write their entire PhD dissertations on this topic one day. 

No matter what the analysis is of the factors that led up to the protests, the riots are the reason why the protests received extended news coverage and brain space despite our comically short news cycle and atrophied modern attention span. The rioting provoked a shockingly unrestrained display of police brutality that lasted for several days afterwards. The gross violence (tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, beating with batons, shoving, driving cars into, you name it) from police officers towards protestors (even the peaceful ones, if you’re still playing that game!) of seemingly all backgrounds was well documented on video and live-tweeted by individuals and the press (many of whom were also attacked and arrested) which I think drove more and more people to show up for the subsequent protests in their outrage. 

I sincerely believe that the shift in power we are seeing right now is the direct result of both the visceral theft and property damage that happened in many of the riots across the country (notably not sparing wealthy neighborhoods) and the documented police violence against a diverse group of protesters. This change in power dynamic is evident not only in the conversations around the role of police in our country but also in the willingness of employees (at all levels) to speak out boldly and demand high-level resignations and changes in behavior. It has only been two weeks since the protests began but folks have already begun to tally its accomplishments so far. I’ve been honestly surprised by the reach of the protests, expanding far past police brutality, to impact tech, journalism, literature/poetry, food media, sports, and even leisure brands -- not by way of so-called “solidarity PR statements” but in resignations, changes in leadership, and super specific transparency about racism in decisions around hiring, pay, and promotions. The physical toppling of racist historical statues has so long overdue. 

I don’t want to spend any more energy figuring out a way to like rioting and looting. I stand up for where it’s pushed our country.

Okay, I can already hear your pushback. But Becky, isn’t this using the end to justify the means?

Here’s my third realization. Yes, sometimes the end justifies the means. 

This feels like it’s an awful statement to make publicly and in writing. It’s usually used to shut down an argument. And usually yes, I think using the end to justify the means can lead to some pretty terrible behavior and abuse like murder, terrorism, and military occupation, just to name a few. It’s probably the most common trope for Marvel/DC villains and their nefarious schemes. So no, I don’t think the end always justifies the means. And I think I’d generally still debate against it on an intellectual level or in an ethical discussion. But I also think about other stances in which I would also uphold it. For example, I don’t believe that an abused woman should be charged with a crime if she murders her abuser in an attempt to escape. And I will for the rest of my life struggle with the harm (historic and current) that has been done to so many communities across the world in the name of “spreading the Christian gospel” even though I still believe that somewhere in the bible’s pages is a true story of the world and God. Even if it often gets lost in translation and in money/power grabs is it still worth the end? Is it worth increasing access to Christian truths? 

And if we really think critically, it doesn’t take long to move beyond these more extreme macro examples. There are much smaller ways in which we exhibit our ability to use the end to justify the means. Like maybe we wouldn’t argue with someone that it’s a defensible ethical framework, but it ends up being the de-facto ethical framework of our privileged lives. 

Think for a moment about the way we use our iPhones and other electronics with such freedom from ethical dilemma while knowing about the terrible working conditions in the factories that manufacture them. We don’t say out loud, “Having convenient and well designed hardware to access the internet and contact other people justifies x number of suicides at Foxconn factories each year.” Think about how slowly we’ve moved to break up with Amazon despite countless, well-documented reasons to do so. We don’t say out loud, “Being able to get packages in less than 2 days at prices that are cheaper than anywhere else justifies the awful working conditions for warehouse workers who struggle to get adequate bathroom breaks.” What about the way we simultaneously grieve the destruction of the public school system but continue to choose to send our kids to private schools, charter schools, or out-of-neighborhood schools that have better ratings. Isn’t that using the end (doing what’s best for your kid) to justify the means (contributing to the continued racial and economic segregation in public schools)? We just don’t talk about it like that.  

Look, I’m not saying I’m above it, I’m just identifying it plainly. We don’t talk about our privileged life choices out loud like this. It feels too shameful. But on some level, aren’t we essentially doing that calculus in our heads? Even if it’s subconsciously? Like we see the dissonance between our value system and some of our choices but then we say, “Yeah, I know it’s not great, but I guess I don’t feel bad enough to make any major changes to it? Maybe I can try to ignore it? Or make a partial concession to appease my conscience but not actually address the problem?” We certainly don’t label it as justifying the means to an end. I mean that just sounds extra shitty. But we live it, don’t we? 

Wait, there’s one more. 

Haven’t I known about police murdering Black and Brown people for years now? I know for some folks in our country the murder of George Floyd is the first one to really land in their consciousness. But for me, Oscar Grant’s murder was the first unjust police murder that I really learned about. (Sidenote: Believe it or not, I first learned about Rodney King’s murder and the LA riots because of Oscar Grant’s murder. The riots in Oakland prompted me to start reading and researching the history. I don’t know how I managed to not learn about it at any other time in my life.) 

Oscar Grant was murdered back in 2009 (rest in power), the year we first moved to Oakland. What has been my ethical framework for thinking about police for the past ten years? Why haven’t I learned or read about abolition despite working in non-profits to improve the economic and educational outcomes for Black and Brown communities for over ten years? Why is this the first time I have been considering the call to “Defund the Police?” Do you see it? 

My fourth realization. The argument against defunding the police also happens to be an example of using the end to justify the means. 

This feels really ugly to type out in detail but in the spirit of inviting honesty in dialogue-- here’s what I think has been happening with me. By not educating myself on and joining the movement to defund the police (and the larger goal of abolishing prisons, the military, imperialism), I have essentially been communicating that while I understood that Black and Brown (and trans and disabled) people were being murdered and assaulted by police in disproportionate numbers, I personally tolerated the institution of policing because I felt that the police could provide some semblance of security to me (real or imagined) in the hypothetical event that my own safety was threatened. 

I can see now that my apparent willingness to accept the status quo of policing in this country, shown through my lack of sustained outrage, education, and action was incongruent with how sick I felt about the injustice whenever I thought of it or encountered it in my work. Being an Asian female and living in a wealthy neighborhood has meant that I’ve had no personal interactions with the police. I have never had to call for armed intervention/protection. Those are my privileges and I had mastered the skill of compartmentalizing my life. And even as I supported local campaigns against additional funding being used to build new jails, as I advocated for alternatives to detainment for those in the juvenile justice system, and as I tried to build educational options and career pathways for young adults with criminal justice system involvement, I did not personally pursue a complete dismantling of a system that I knew to be corrupt, broken, and deadly.      

My opinion was that Black Lives Matter. But my lived priorities, the focus of my career, and my ability to tolerate injustice did not live up to my opinion.  

I think there was probably also a lack of imagination and trust on my part. I was far too dismissive of radical ideas that felt peripheral to immediate problem solving and I didn’t seek out diverse Black voices to inform my thinking and focused on listening to voices that affirmed my opinion. I did not invest enough time in forming an ethos for my career or for my personal life. I want to take responsibility for that.  

So yeah, I think that’s the part we are less willing to say out loud. We’ll talk about getting rid of qualified immunity or imagine the type of training we think police need instead of talking about abolishing the police department under the guise of being realistic. But I think we do that because ultimately, we are implicitly justifying the means (the police’s racist and murderous behavior), for our mostly imagined, selfish end. Now that I’ve examined it, I find myself more and more able to commit myself to the movement to defund the police. And like most paradigm shifts, I’m finding that it’s informing so many other aspects of my thinking.   

The question I want to pose to you is this:

What’s happening in the gap between the ethical framework that you espouse (i.e. your overvalued opinion that you’ll defend in a conversation or social media post) and the ethical framework that you actually live? 

That gap is sometimes wider than we’d like to admit or care to examine. (Spoiler alert: The thing happening in the gap is probably racism, mixed with some classism, ableism and a fear of losing the comforts of your privileged life that you’ve managed to build/acquire in this capitalist setup.) 

I feel like the work in studying that gap has always been important but it seems especially critical now as we’re pushed to form opinions and talk about our opinions with such urgency and frequency.

Henri Nouwen is known for saying, “You don’t think your way into a new kind of living but you live your way into a new kind of thinking.”

I believe that Black Lives Matter. And I also want to live like Black Lives Matter. 

[blackhoof-kra]

Burning Man. Oregon Country Fair. The John Muir Trail. “Because it’s there.” Buddhist retreats. Trekking in Nepal. Firefly gathering. Rainbow gathering.

I traveled to Standing Rock in November of 2016 with my friend, hauling over 5000 dollars worth of winter tents, clothing, food, and gear. My full time job allowed me to stay barely a week, and my ego, mixed with a hefty dose of white savior mentality, convinced me that my training as an EMT, and my lifetime of experience with direct action and social justice, would make me useful. Fast forward 5 days, and I was crying in the driver’s seat of my car, while my amazing friend listened quietly as I grieved for something I didn’t know I had ever lost.

Standing Rock is an incredible place. An indigenous led prayer ceremony, populated by resistance movements from every corner of the globe, many of them bound to each other by shared and distinct traditions of dance, song, storytelling, and way of being in the physical world. Like any indigenous and overwhelmingly powerful place, white people had decided to take it. White people, like me, were arriving to SR in droves, some of us even dressed like it was Burning Man, forcing our way to seats right next to the sacred fire, putting our pasty faces too close to elders and demanding that they teach us their culture, clumsily mimicking centuries old dance traditions, jostling for position in the lines for free food, taking up so much space that the medicine tent had to be guarded 24/7, and young Dakota men were placing themselves in front of elders to protect them from the onslaught of questions and poking and consumption an demands for emotional labor and reliving centuries of trauma. By the time we arrived, SR elder organizers had begun holding twice a day orientations, where each of these things was addressed, and indigenous folks were demanding that white people stop colonizing their space. Yes, colonizing their space.

“White people have no culture.”

This is partially true. It is also untrue. This statement is a form of denial, and also a source of grief.

White people do have culture. Our culture is that of colonization. Of genocide. Of taking. Of envy and of fear. The majority of white people can name no more than two generations back in their families. The majority of white people barely know where their grandparents were from, much less who their ancestors were. The majority of white people have no traditions, and the ones we have, are rooted in consumption and the superficial application of organized religion, both of which are steeped in histories of violence. Christmas is about a severed tree dropping dead needles on heaps of plastic crap, grinding the gears of our capitalist economy, a formerly pagan ritual that has been bastardized and twisted into a stressful display of wealth and excess. Easter is about disposable plastic balls full of processed sugar, many of which are left for years to mar the sterilized landscapes and rigidly decorated city parks and backyards. Valentine’s Day was created exclusively by the greeting card industry to make you spend money on disappointing gifts and unhealthy treats for your unsatisfied monogamous partner. Independence Day is a too long period of time where daily explosions and worshipping of war trigger people and animals with PTSD, and create an alarming amount of pollution, maimed limbs, and death. Thanksgiving? Don’t even start.

The closest thing white people have to culture is our disturbingly fanatical obsession with sports, which we use to justify things like property destruction, vitriolic hatred for people we don’t know, and even accidental deaths. These are the same things that we justify with our constant military assault on developing and impoverished communities, at home and abroad.

Which brings me to my main point: The culture of white people is the culture of death. It is a culture of endless war, desensitization to human suffering, and the upholding of a brutal individualism fueled by greed. It is a deep, dark hole of grief and of loss. We don’t even know what we lost. We don’t know our ancestors. We don’t have stories of creation and hope and family; only stories of destruction and genocide. Our coming of age ceremony is a school shooting. Our song is a ballad about rockets and explosions. Our elders die alone surrounded by their stories of family members who no longer visit them. Our cities were built by the blood of slaves, on top of the graves of native people.

Philosopher and professor John Kozy writes;

"Violence pervades this culture. Americans not only engage in violence, they are entertained by it. Killing takes place in America more often than the Sun rises, currently at an average of 87 times each day. Going to war in Afghanistan is less dangerous than living in Chicago. The Romans went to the Coliseum to watch people being killed. In major cities, Americans just look out their windows. Baseball, once America’s national game, a benign, soporific sport, has been replaced by football which is so violent it destroys the brains of those who play it. Violent films, euphemized as action flicks, dominate our motion picture theatres and television sets. Our children play killing video games."

We do not get to achieve enlightenment; we lost that privilege centuries ago. We buried it in graves on land upon which we were strangers. This loss is real, palpable, and painful. There is a profound level of fear inherent in white people and the way we desperately grasp that which is not ours. This hole cannot be filled by our self delusion, and it represents generations of isolation and grief. It is our own generational trauma that we carry with us and pass on to our children. It hurts, and we do not know how to assuage that pain.

So we take. We take the traditions, costumes, dances, songs, and agency of marginalized groups after we have decimated their populations and destroyed their homes, and we polish these items so the suffering cannot be seen. We take their words out of context, and we use them to make money and to fake solidarity. We take their circles and stories and we wash them with our whiteness, and we struggle to fit them into our bloody box. We take their lands, their trails, their mountains, their rocks, and we climb and walk on them, snatching frenzied glimpses of what we want to call connection, enlightenment, transcendence, and wondering why they slip through our grasp. So instead, we get high on endorphins and call that “good enough.”

We want to learn something about ourselves that we lost, and so we keep taking the tokens and lives of other communities. But that one doesn’t fit, so, you know...on to the next.

The cycle needs to stop. It is the responsibility of white people to face our history and to fight the culture we have created. Stop hiding behind the stories and tokens of other people, and be accountable for the brutal ways we have consolidated our power and privilege. Stop pretending like you can hike or climb or meditate your way out of this power dynamic. You are not enlightened. Let’s stop with the excuses. You are powerful, and it is time to own that and to use it to fight back against the culture of death and violence that has left us spiritually and morally bankrupt. Call out the bullshit when you see it, in yourself and in others. Stop colonizing the lives and land and stories of others. Stop perpetuating the culture of death, and instead fight for the living.