shame roulette: breaking the habit

reloaded, part two, director's cut and so forth

the cycle stops with me…after one last hit, i stg

first off, i’m not perfect nor do i aim for it. much of what i’m writing about in these loosies is a process of learning and unlearning. i never wanna preach to people, i wanna reach them, and vice versa — i want the same consideration for things i don’t know. cultivating a healthy learning relationship is probably the best thing we can do for our loved ones — a balance between understanding and being understood (“of course the libra talking about balance).

look, i’m a board-certified hater but the aim here is not shaming anyone individually (except shaun king, we don’t have enough hate for how he operates) but to give a language to phenomena i’ve clocked and create space for conversations.

[note: i’m using the general, royal “you” here so if it resonates with you specifically or behavior someone you know engages in…that’s between you and you or you and yours.]

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patterns i see:

the gift of the grift: one-stop shop activism

shaun king is the cvs of bad shit happening to black people. literally, he’s the don king of the prize fight between the militarized US police force and niggas just trying to live their lives. he found a lane to be the intermediary between people who don’t be knowing and people who be donating and grifted his way to being a black pariah and a scammer’s messiah (unfortunately a bar). we hate him for it. we also have seen people run the same play over and over and over (marshawn lynch, add a few more in there) and over again.

the personal is political, yes, but the political shouldn’t be a branding opportunity. take that capitalism off the brain, socialize the likes, the clout, and the attention.

there are so many insecurities around people who want to be “good” or “informed” and where there is insecurity, there is opportunity — this is where these tinder swindlers and bad vegans and serial lovebombers and pick-up artists and girlbosses who need a girl to boss and cult of personality influencers can thrive. don’t be a lick.

be on the lookout for opportunists who use their voice and misguided, biased, and selfish sense of justice to manipulate people into giving them attention, money, or power. it’s not just police violence or racialized violence — it’s also gaza (shaun, we meet again), ukraine, relationship issues, mental health issues, hustle culture cultists, etc.

wallahi when i find this man—

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we will not podcast our way to freedom

we are not going to infographic our way to freedom. we will not black-square ourselves to freedom. we are not going to prime time tv our way to freedom, we are not going to use racist structures and gatekeepers to get to freedom. these can be tools, but used ineffectually they work against sustainable change and the amoeba of what came before will swallow up progress.

be wary of those who want to be the focusing prism of another’s illumination and education — we shouldn’t be perpetual tutors nor should people who are learning learn the same fact over and over and over again. share resources, let people opt in by doing the work themselves, and engage in ways that align with a movement’s vision.

• circle-jerking the same 12 facts about marx, che, davis, lumumba, adrienne maree brown, chomsky etc with people who we already agree with is madness, bro — at some point just jerk each other off. can’t roast people who only watch Friends over and over when all we do is chat Comrades.

• yes, it’s always is two dumb bitches who be telling each other “mmmm, that’s right, exaaactly” but it’s often two smart ones too.

• invite new people into conversation rather than bully them into your perspectives or patreons. we all gotta survive under interconnected oppressions and capitalism but don’t gatekeep that precious opinion to grift your comrades. 

• don’t wait for a gatekeeper to give you the greenlight just to dilute your message for vague reasons. share information freely and know that the pieces of art and media we share reflect the reality — read again, reflect the reality.

• get offline and get on the mf line in a way that works for you. if some shit is not for you, fucking fantastic — you’ve learned something about yourself. go find what works for you and live your purpose.

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slacktivism

confession:Ii hope when some people go to organizer heaven, they run into MLK and tell him “bro i had a dream too and i woke up and posted about it, you just like me for real” that the civil rights avengers jump them and kick you down the joker stairs.

• don’t be your ancestor’s mildest dreams; people died for what we have today (the bleakness is not lost on me, no sir)

• be specific in your activism and be active in it too. i have to remind myself of the same thing all the time. i fall off, i fall back too — i would never shame you for doing shit i’ve done too

• we human. we don’t be knowing. and when we do get to know, we share it. like any little kid who just learned how to swear, we say words over and over and over. let’s be specific in the use before the words lose meaning

find your lane, occupy it to the best of your ability, lock in.

• if it’s money, pay out

• if it’s education/communication, chat your shit (dis me)

• if it’s resources, smoke em if you got em

• if it’s physically showing up, pull up

• if it’s staying inside and coordinating, get after it coach

• if it’s sharing information and keeping yours informed, do that

• if it’s art, make sure the morals don’t get swallowed up by the money

spe-ci-fi-ci-ty is our best friend — i’m not asking people to point fingers at each other but rather for us to point at ourselves

being a silly little guy/gyal online or only critiquing movement work (with no solution-oriented focus) only does so much and it’s not much. some work in the shadows because that’s where they operate best.

but some take advantage of the slacktivist mantle to a) make the personal political as a sword or a shield in defense of their own public image/reputation or b) engage us all in a zero-sum faux-reciprocal game of “[x] stood for [y], but [x] been real quiet about [z].”

hate to say it but we let too many people into the activist cookout — the label has ceased to have meaning. real recognize real and shit looking a little unfamiliar — i wasn’t even recognizing myself so i had to grab a to-go plate and eat in the car for a few years. between solitary bites, even i’ve stepped back from the label because it feels like a more like a joke these days, a creation of a subjective moral hierarchy, kindling for the fire of a goofy culture war where we’re all pawns.

live footage of me on the way to the whip

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weaponizing radical language/vague “wisdoms” to manipulate

i already wrote about this as it pertains to therapy speak — same shit goes for activist/allyship language. an isolated, lost soul, looking for guidance both a) deserves that help and b) is an easy lick for the fake helpers. be wary of those who build large platforms based on being an “exposer of truth” because eventually their truth will be exposed. why?

no accountability. they chat all the shit in the world (often laced with comedy), the primacy effect kicks in and we believe it, and these people can say whatever and don’t have to respond to critiques/retract false statements like the press.

when they’re up, they’re citizen journalists, pulitzer prize deserving icons of mess and morality — they can gain followings and achieve lower echelons of celebrity online making them “authorities” with none of the credentials. but when their platform is critiqued, all of a sudden they’re just civilians again — “i’m just a girl/guy/goof” energy, no systems in place to reverse any of the harm or make sure that any necessary justice can be served — just more distrust and mistrust in the world and we don’t need more of that do we???

hoarding knowledge

lil subsection: i dunno, don’t…do that? it reinforces that people gotta come to a specific person or place for edification (when we got so much internet) as opposed to all of us doing our parts to learn, unlearn, and pass on information. otherwise, you the british museum, homie — let the artifacts go free.

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weaponizing one’s genuine ignorance against them

all this does is push a potential compatriot away because, what, you wanted to look like you read the ilan pappé harder than them? glaze your favorite russian author more than the next guy? faced the whole guy debord book? your lit too tough, your books too bad, your pedagogy too loud (shout out paulo)? there’s privilege in even having the space and time to build your own framework and library (irony not lost on me, i swear).

this feels insignificant but these human actions and reactions create fissures and cracks in movement work, reinforce the very hierarchies we say we’re breaking down, and secure a temporary hit of dopamine laced with twisted, toxic, tantalizing pride. we all deserve dignity and space to grow at the bare minimum — we can’t fill that space with ego.

in a country that don’t be reading, why are we surprised that no one knows things?

worse, why do we use that institutional abuse against people knowing this truth about the education system? two thoughts at the same time.

i already owned up to those feelings of wanting to shame in the previous piece and ain’t shit changed — i don’t like feeling those feelings, hate desiring to call out, and i wouldn’t want someone to talk down to me because i’m more fightier than i am flightier these days. we all don’t know shit. it’s normal. it’s natural.

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organizing around one person’s ego/bruised pride

how many more movements were stopped dead because of 2-4 people’s interpersonal relationships being played out as the crux of movement work when it's just a byproduct of the various systems that were trying to destabilize to build new ones? never ever defending DV, SA, or gaslighting — simply examining the relationships built over movement work in high-pressure situations, and trying to triangulate fissures that are built off of real-deal problems in the actual work itself and what people are bringing to the work from their own lives.

it’s easy to let a strong personality take the forefront, some of that pressure can be placed on them and the heat feels lessened on everyone else. but the stratification will build and a hierarchy/clique will form. it’s natural, we all want to be surrounded by like-minded people and people we like. but we have to resist going smooth brain and following people blindly or worse — with a fear of how we’ll be treated if we don’t. real strength comes from our ability to adapt and overcome, independently and together, not from our ability to manipulate others into our POVs.

clock how many you might have seen/experienced in movement work:

• missed connections missed only because of fear of a direct conversation

• passive-aggressiveness played out through witting or unwitting acolytes

• calls for accountability with no clear accounts

• bullied into isolation/bullying into isolating someone

• assuming the worst for one another because it soothes the ego to feel superior in any way

• organizing around hurt, not around alleviating pain and/or a future without the harm

• hyperbole/exaggeration to elicit a stronger response/dead a conversation

• throwing stones and hiding hands

• unconstructive gossip being treated as fact

• white crocodile tears

• choosing indirect conflict and calling “safety” with no real threat to anything but ego

• treating direct conflict as a life-threatening attack

• silencing someone before letting them speak for themselves

• tying the whole movement to their treatment/how they treat others

• smear campaigns built from bullying and nonspecific accusations

thoughts that come to mind when i see this play out:

• you’re not every woman, it’s not all in you

• you can be a tenderqueer and still cause emotional damage

• hey bro — it’s not misandry, men have caused problems for…everything and everyone. so move accordingly, trying to understand both perspectives

• they were calling out your whiteness not your transness, don’t intentionally get it twisted

• you wasn’t there so why are you always in the middle

• lots of cop behavior from the ftp crowd i fear

• america is not the whole world — humble yourself, admit you don’t know

• they’re american — some of that knowledge is more theoretical than practical, why you being so mean

• just because your people are going through it this week doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want

• my dawg, you were _____phobic/______ist; don’t throw everything away over your image, humble yourself

• loud AND wrong but it was funny so no one’s checking that are they

• we all have a blindspot — acknowledge and keep it pushing

• we all have a blindspot — be acknowledged and keep it pushing

• do you need this grudge to have a sense of self-worth? you think you’re michael jordan?

• can two things be true at once? can both things be deeply subjective?

• stop trying to get your lick back through other people

• be as loud with the apology as you are with the accusations now

egomaniacs tend to lash out when you try to call them out and that can deter any clarity or accountability. space can exist where the movement is front and center and that relationship is the background — anyone who refuses to decenter themselves from a cause is more hindrance than help.

hopefully, you or the right people can help these types off the pedestal. starving them of attention in a specific respect doesn’t mean isolation — they still deserve care.

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celebrity activists are not change-makers

hear me and hear me well:

celebrities are usually only good at the thing they’re famous for. if you can’t label why they’re famous, they might not be good at a single damn thing except getting attention.

celebrities are humans and, with power, are more insulated from some of the ravages of oppression and also from engaging with the activism surrounding the eradication of those oppressions. this sentiment isn’t letting them off the hook — this is asking us why we press pop stars more than politicians.

putting pressure on the flow of money to enact change, si, yes, oui, go for it. as consumers, it is our right to do so, and divesting from dickheads keeps money out of the hands of greedy little fame demons (not to be confused with fame monsters, stephanie germanotta i would never). consume or don’t. literally, that’s it. when the checks stop checking, believe me they’ll notice. let them show their true colors.

please stop asking celebrities to “use their voice” when it’s not their ministry. pass the mic right tf past them to firsthand accounts and experts. some celebs are actually tapped in, have a moral backbone, or are educated enough to do it on their own (kehlani, hey boo) but the vast majority…c’mon now, be fucking for real. they’re either a) actually factually ignorant, b) performing that they’re ignorant, or c) generally shouldn’t be seen as experts. don’t make me tap the “where’s ja?” sign.

live footage of holding a celebrity “accountable” in a world where marjorie taylor greene exists

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isolating people trying to find their place in movement work: case study

we are more easily manipulated when we are by ourselves — that’s why people go the extra mile to isolate us from community whether that’s micro (interpersonally) or macro (algorithms dividing us in small or large ways).

furthermore, it’s how we radicalize people in the right or the wrong direction. that cognitively distorted grudge/stance is built ford tough and can be incredibly difficult to reverse.

an case study: men. both the villains and the victims of patriarchy. plenty of men have been asked to interrogate toxic masculinity, homophobia, be a good man, stop supporting the patriarchy. while the mission is clear and necessary, some of the delivery and cueing of that “reformative” information comes from a place of shaming. worse still, it can feel like a healing journey with no end in sight — cishet men will always be defined and judged by a body, a specific mindset, and physical presentation that they never asked for. is it any wonder some of these dudes just give up? how does one heal from what they are?

i’m not saying that men have it worse or qualifying men’s pain on a metric against other groups at all — we all going through it, sad bitch contest, we in worst place. this failure to find guidance and healing isn’t simply relegated to men but to any group of people but as men have been labelled “the reason everything is fucked up,” i’m asking how do we meet this group in spaces that rehabilitate and reintegrate, not just shame, blame, and find a new game? bell hooks said it best: in order to heal us all we’ll need to heal men."

in some cases with men, shame is detached from a person’s individual behavior and the group’s generalized behavior is what a regular degular man is judged by. whether it’s “justified” body shaming (small dick energy, short, balding, fat shaming, etc), systemic issues (they’re dumb or broke), or value-based (they intrinsically hate women, are violent, greedy, don’t have feelings, not spiritually attuned, “only want one thing,” etc). there are truths entrenched in these stereotypes, yes. the brain loves shortcuts, yes. but to individuate someone and try and see them as both part of the group and the individual takes work, time, and space — things understandably in short supply as we all — read, all — are trying to survive.

when the work, time, and space aren’t used to build a caring community member from a place of centering collective safety, some of these lost men go to a place that makes them feel warm, not criticized, not questioned, where they’re strong (superior even), a part of something, and not terrible: cult leaders like andrew tate and the man grifter cinematic universe.

andrew tate fucking sucks, full stop — man got packed up by beefing with a teenage climate activist while dodging sex trafficking allegations, is this really someone’s king? radicals and progressives and especially women are not in large part responsible for the joe rogan pilled, internet edgelord, culture war youtuber phenomenon — where’s there’s a buck, these mfs will build. it’s the gold rush in the loneliness epidemic as it pertains to men. choices get made, consequences get applied — we can only hope that the conses don’t quence on us.

all we can control is how much we push some of these impressionable people away — if someone is drifting, needs support, and is met with poor excuses for community, it creates customers for these alpha grifters today and an investment in future problems for progressives and radicals. this may be unpopular: the alpha bullshit that is sold as masculine self-actualization (a core need if maslow is to be believed) creates another fight for ourselves because someone shamepilled in their lives chose petty over patient — a shortcut to a long battle.

to reiterate: it’s not all on us. but everyone gotta do their part, right? this is that small direct action that could recruit an ally, reach someone somewhere specific — even if it’s not as easy as posting an infographic to the story, this little action is the work. believe me, i’m still part of the get gully crowd — some people need their ass beat. but in specific situations, some people need a helping hand not the hands™️.

this goes for dealing with white people, straight people, cis people, and people from different cultures — literally, none of us have a clue what is going on outside of what came before and we try to make individual sense of it for a better tomorrow. let’s rebuild collective truths and a collective reality because otherwise, we’re in for more suffering and less solidarity — and that solidarity already looking shaky lately.

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conclusion?

why are we shaming laterally? because punching up at those propping up oppressive systems through voting, calling representatives, and pulling up to they crib ain’t working no more.

playbook’s been looking like “can’t shame the shameless? turn to your neighbor (who you agree with mostly), flambé them, it’s okay, it’s for justice!” this is doing the corrupt, inept politicians’, white supremacists’, intentionally obsequious zionists’, and fascist police’s job for them — they just wait for us to flame out, stop looking at them. and if it’s taking too long, they’ll extinguish the fire with media suppression/manipulations, symbolic distractions, and, push comes to shove, excessive force. i’m not saying “play nice” i’m saying we gotta “play smart” and be prepared to play rough with the right people (who conveniently seem to mostly be on the right).

ego must die. this normalized individualism must go. we’ve been so nonviolence-pilled, fake MLK quote-coded that a lot of us can’t recognize seeds of revolution growing in front of us. we’ve been seeing sparks of revolution trying to catch on and the fuel won’t last if we can’t look at our neighbor as humans and keep a sustainable fire going that reminds us of the warmth of our collective humanity while applying the heat of our numerous frustrations, angers, and pains on burning the right system down. gimme a fire with friends, not friendly fire.

the carnival game is shame roulette — a bunch of sad, exhausted, frustated clowns putting one bullet in the chamber, locking and loading. we can’t wait to shoot it at each other and stand in terror when it’s pointed at ourselves. we gotta stop playing — other carnival games don’t require building ourselves up off of shaming each other into a digital mass grave.

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i hopped offline in 2020 — i felt crazy. the same patterns and cycles kept going around. i felt like i was in a time loop — can’t say much has changed tbh. i would have valuable conversations with people about what we were seeing (think 2020’s black squares) and then see them jump right back on the carousel, leaving me to watch them shamepost (in loud and quiet ways) and share the AI images the next time injustice came round everyone’s way — and these days there’s less and less down time between injustices and no water breaks allowed on the revolution marathon route.

look, i’m a teacher — meeting people where they are is my whole lane. maybe i’m too naïvely optimistic about shame but i’ve been seeing the carousel slow down and transform. i’m seeing less amanda seales (who i appreciate from time to time) and less shaun kings (interest you in a boxing match, queen?). the gaza encampment kids point all attention back at rafah and gaza not towards individualist platform building, failed mayoral runs, pleas for the acceptance of hollywood, and fake mountain excursions.

[of course, there’s evolutions of the 2010s activist influencer aesthetic hitting gen z: a colleague shared a self-proclaimed celebrity psychic who spent days bullying lizzo to give money to gaza and fancies herself an advice giver. spooky shit — look it up — sis lost the plot a little.]

i hope we all get off and connect our struggles, build laterally, don’t aim to get famous off of being a “good person” then *riff raff voice* act like we don’t know nobody, and don’t build morality empires on the burial plots of each other’s reputations.

like fossil fuels vs. cleaner alternatives, shame works but care’s healthier. pay close attention to who gains from shame and who flames out when they’re called out for weaponizing it.

for generations who grew up with shame and cultural indoctrinations in place of love, patience, guidance, freedom of choice, and reciprocal relationships, i guess the moment makes sense but i hate that it does.

i’m not getting back on the carousel — the spin is too much for me.

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excellent video about the manoverse or manosphere or whatever they calling it now.

books (all used for reference here):

• you are your best thing (collection of essays) — tarana burke & brené brown

• all about love and the will to change — bell hooks

• i thought it was just me (but it isn’t) — brené brown

• the shame machine: who profits in the new age of humiliation — cathy o’neil

• violence: reflections on a national epidemic — james gilligan

• the revolution starts at home: confronting intimate violence within activist communities — edited by ching-in chen, jai dulani, leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

• identity capitalists: the powerful insiders who exploit diversity to maintain inequality — nancy leong

next week: be crimes, do gay 💕

i made a promise to add this to the shame loosies