Anger
hitting you fucking hitting you hitting you
the author of vinland saga ladies and gentlemen
i hate the giant follow buttons all over the dashboard never in my life have i wanted to follow someone from the dashboard without looking at their blog first & i ESPECIALLY never want to follow someone just because my mutual reblogged from them. but i DO want to block people based off a single post on the dashboard all the time & hate that i have to go to their blog to do so. in an ideal world dashboard would look like this:
BRUH a dude I know from work came in for the first time in months and I thought he looked different but couldn't figure out why?? So I asked if he'd changed his hair and he was like "BITCH I GOT TOP SURGERY"
GOT DAMN HOW DIDNT YOU NOTICE
ALTLIKE THIS
i’m aware that being noticeably angry while i talk about the ways oppression impacts me is an instant ticket to some people just tuning out. i don’t even have to be particularly aggressive for this to happen; just anger that’s identifiable as such makes people not want to care about this shit.
men don’t want to hear how angry women are; abled people don’t want to hear how angry disabled people are; straight people don’t want to hear how angry gay people are. and on and on and on.
it’s offputting. it feels confrontational. it feels like i’m blaming someone for my oppression instead of just gazing around and saying ‘isn’t it unfortunate that some nebulous force has made it so some of us are human and others only conditionally so’
and i get that, i really do. i struggle with being on the other side, with seeing how angry people are about the way they’ve been dehumanised, denied their human rights, treated as lesser in a billion tiny ways by people like me, maybe including me. it’s hard to swallow sometimes.
because none of us want to think this is really real, that this problem is here and now and involves us - you and me specifically. that there’s some culpability to be claimed here by individuals, maybe including us and people we respect. that not every oppressed person is willing to sweetly take us by the hand and inspire us to be better. that we don’t deserve that soft gentleness.
but this is part of the lesson.
to learn to sit with those feelings, with the discomfort of not being catered to in this moment. to hear the rage and misery and pain and fury and to not rush to be comforted or distracted.
to not immediately respond with “but what about ME, i’m better aren’t i, i’m different right? you don’t mean ME, please tell me i’m not part of what makes you feel like this! please reassure me i’m not a bad person.”
to learn to sit with the guilt and shame and discomfort and to learn to listen, really listen and absorb not just the words being conveyed but the fact that the way things are has brought this person to these feelings and to learn to understand that we’ve been part of making this horrible thing happen and to sit with that knowledge and not reject it.
it’s part of the lesson respect someone’s pain and fury
that you have been part of causing, to let the conversation be focused
on their feelings when you’re so accustomed to them focusing on yours.
to connect with them in that human way while they express what they are constantly told they shouldn’t express.
it’s part of the lesson to learn to hear, believe, respect those feelings. it’s part of the lesson to try to understand the kind of work it takes when people do sit sweetly with you and gently explain.
the anger is an honesty worth hearing.
[ID: Slideshow-style series of images. They're all plain white text on a black background. Transcription goes as follows:
Things happening right now in Gaza that we cannot see
1. DECAY
There are bodies trapped under rubble that are not accessible. People on the ground predict there are at least 1,000 unrecovered bodies.
It will take machinery to lift parts of buildings, and under them, there will be dead bodies. Some of these bodies will have been deceased for weeks by time they are able to be extracted.
The smell of dead flesh fills the air in Gaza. In some places it has been described as "unbearable"
2. WASTE
Trash, blood soaked cloths, food scraps, waste gets piled up in huge piles with no one to collect, no sanitation practices.
3. DUST
Every time a bomb is dropped, a building crumbles, rubble is shuffled, more dust enters the air.
Everyone is breathing in dust.
No masks.
No respirators.
With water being so scarce, people cannot rinse their throats, eyes and noses of the dust particles.
Imagine the discomfort. The pain in their noses, the need to wipe their eyes.
This is not something that can be documented. But is being felt.
4. HUNGER
The lack of food is getting critical.
Parents are going without food so their children can eat.
People wait in lines for hours to get a days worth of food.
Dirty food is being scrapped up out of destroyed houses.
5. NOISE
There is no break from the sounds of this genocide.
A constant barrage of
Missiles
Explosions
Ambulances
People screaming for help
Families crying over their dead loved ones
Frustrated voices
Children crying
No breaks. Constant unrelenting noise.
6. URINE & FECES
With water being shut down, toilets are no longer flushing. Only about 10% of Gazas toilets are currently functioning. That amount is getting smaller and smaller.
People are either forced to wait in hours long lines, or go where they can. More foul smell enters the air.
Toilet paper and feminine products are hard to come by.
People are waiting as long as they possibly can to relieve themselves. Paired with dehydration, this will certainly lead to infection and illness.
7. INSOMNIA
People in Gaza are reporting that they are sleeping three to four hours a day, at most.
With the constant noise, fear, despair and trauma, they are suffering from insomnia which leads to exhaustion.
Lack of sleep leads to reduced reaction times, and weakens your immune system.
8. FLIES
With decay comes flies. An uncontrollable amount of flies.
The flies land on and bite the living as well as the dead. They land on trash, they land on food, they land in the very little water available.
The flies are inescapable.
9. HELPLESSNESS
No one in Gaza feels safe. No one believes they will be okay.
The overwhelming feeling is they are waiting for it to be their turn next.
Children write their names on their arms so their bodies can be identified.
Yes, there have been children's bodies identified this way, that would have otherwise been unidentifiable.
End ID]
The Palestinian Ministry of Health released a full report with names, ages and IDs of those who were killed – maybe at least in part as a fuck you to Western media and the US president who suddenly cast doubt on the number of fatalities. Over 7000 people died. Whole families wiped out forever. It's beyond comprehension. May their memory be eternal.
