#educate yourself read books learn the history. silence says you side with the oppressors and silence kills people!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

callmetippytumbles · 3 years

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i have a question regarding activism. i know it is not your job to educate me, so please feel free to ignore if you wish. i am a minor, and my parents have asked me to stay out of activism and politics until i get a bit older. i respect their wishes, but i know that silence is violence and by not speaking out, i m on the side of the oppressor. how can i help out? (i am not allowed to repost awareness stuff, sign petitions, or donate my money to gofundmes and such.) thanks and have a safe day!

Hi. I have not really been on tumblr in the longest so please forgive how long it took to respond to you. I do hope that you are still interested in my response and that you are okay when you receive it.

I have some questions around the limits your parents place on your political activism. Did they give a specific reason besides your age as to why you cannot participate? The only thing I can think of is that your political beliefs and theirs do not align and that is the issue more than your actual participation. The main part of the limits of your participation I do not understand is signing petitions. It’s literally one of the simplest things you can do that doesn’t put you in immediate danger (the way a protest would) or require a financial commitment (the way a donation would-even those that are one time kind of things). I find that to be bizarre in addition to the social media restrictions. It sucks and as long as you are a minor and live with them, there isn’t much you can do about that.

With all that said about the limits on your activities, this does not mean you throw your hands up because there is nothing for you to do. There are two things you still have control over: your education and your voice.

The first thing you can do is take the time to educate yourself about the issues you care about. Read books, watch documentaries, listen to podcasts. Learn the history that impacts those issues. Learn how to distinguish good source material from bad. Your parents can’t dictate too closely what you read, when and how.

The second thing you can do is speak up when you can. Protests and social media aren’t the only times or places you can speak out against injustices. If you are with family and someone is saying wild shit, don’t stay quiet and hope they shut up. No, point out what they are saying is bullshit. You don’t have to get into extended political discussions to do it. It can be as simple as “[x offensive thing] you said is really fucked up.” The point of speaking out when you hear people say wild shit around you is not to change their mindset. Don’t enter those kind of situations with that goal. The point of making your issues with their statements known is to let them know that you do not agree with them. A lot of the time people say wild ass shit publicly is because they think that what they are saying deserves an audience and that you agree with them. There is reason why “locker room talk” is a thing.

It may also be a good idea to look into bystander intervention training as well. That way you would have an idea of when and how to intervene in case shit goes down publicly without becoming a hashtag yourself.

Those are some things you can do. Hope it helps.

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sparksinthenight · 3 years

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Advice for Little Me

This is advice that I have for my twelve-year-old self. If I’d known all this at twelve my life would be a whole lot better.

1) Capitalists are horrible, manipulative, lying, selfish, apathetic, overwhelmingly dangerous, incredibly bad for society, wrong, and deeply disturbed.

2) Anyone who ever says or insinuates that they earned the wealth they have are the worst types of people.

3) Anyone who goes around measuring the value of a human being by how fancy their job is incredibly shallow, materialistic, lacking in understanding, and not worth your time.

4) No. No people did not "earn" anything through hard work. They got it through privilege, privilege, privilege, and privilege. The fact that they could afford a decent quality highschool education is already a huge privilege. And no, being poor when they were in college absolutely does not count as not having privilege. They got to go to college. That’s a privilege so many don’t get.

5) You know who's actually working hard? The people in the sweatshops, the mines, the agricultural plantations, the warehouses, etc. The people getting paid poverty wages as they work themselves to death. Have some fucking respect for them you’re not above them just because you were born in a rich family.

6) All humans have equal value.

7) And the value of a human being is inherent.

8) If you have a house and fancy furniture and a flatscreen TV and a car and a closet full of clothes and enough money to go to restaurants and golfing and shit and then you turn around and say you're oppressed I fucking hate you so goddamn much.

9) The voices of the poor people are fucking ALWAYS silenced in this world, all over the world.

10) There's men in suits somewhere defending capitalism and our centrist dads are defending them while most of the world are wage slaves.

11) The poor are always ignored, pushed to the side, and silenced.

12) Hi. Hello person reading this. Check out the Red Deal. It's fucking awesome. Please read it. It will save your soul and change your life.

13) Also my Wattpad account is here please check it out https://www.wattpad.com/user/Balladoad it won't save your soul and change your life but I write communist stories.

14) Your value is inherent. Child. Darling. Your value is inherent. You are alive. That is enough. You don't need a fancy job or a big income or a fancy degree or something. You're a human being trying to do the best you personally can with the resources and knowledge you have and in the situation you're in. Your value is inherent. Baby.

15) Check out the Red Deal.

16) Nobody is liberated. None of us are liberated. Especially under capitalism none of us are liberated. We are all equal. We are all capable of being free. Of having an equal amount of power. Of making decisions equally and democratically where everyone has a seat at the round table. Seperation is a myth. Wow that sounds like a fucking hippie thing to say but I mean it in the most practical, tangible way. We are all equal and we should be treated equally and under capitalism we are not. Not even close. We can all be together, all be comrades, all help and support each other, all protect and provide for each other, all listen to and understand each other, and all create a world where finally, finally people are free.

17) True freedom does not and should not feel forced. Corporate capitalists tell us that freedom is the ability to be successful in the capitalist framework. That is not what true freedom is. True freedom comes from within. It does not feel forced. It feels good and right and beautiful and true. It's not forced upon you it's something that sparks to life inside your own soul.

18) Sucess as a human being is about the kindness and compassion you show other people. Which is actually rather inversely proportional to how much money you make from what I've seen. At every step of your life seek out people who need help and help them.

19) Children should all be treated with equal respect, reverance, affection, and love.

20) Your value is inherent. Human value is inherent. Valuing human life does mean valuing the continuation of human life but not just that. It means valuing the quality of human life too. It means valuing human happiness.

21) Take every opportunity you have to learn. Not learn trivial "knowledge" about string theory or CRISPR or valence orbitals. Real, important knowledge about how to be kind to other people. How to be respectful towards other people. How to uplift the downtrodden. How to be in solidarity with the oppressed. How to live in harmony with other people. How to tear down the walls that divide us. How to live in harmony with nature. How to have respect and reverence for nature. How to protect and defend the Land and Water. How to be brave to put the needs of others before your own. How to think for yourself and be your own person. How to live your life in accordance to the truth and intangible mystic forces behind everything that guide us all. Wow that sounded hippie.

22) People are exploited and oppressed. So many people are exploited and oppressed. They deserve better than this.

23) You shouldn’t go after power. Seeking power is the way to corruption. You should seek to destroy the unequal distribution of power itself so that all people can have equal power.

24) Absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Power corrupts whenever it’s not equally shared.

25) Money is power. It always has been, it always will be. It’s what determines if people are able to eat or not. It’s what makes us spend most of our time at our jobs working for our bosses and doing what they want us to do.

26) Learn history. Please.

27) Read books about the Holocaust. About slavery. About all the types of slavery that have happened in various societies not just the Transatlantic Slave Trade though definitely you should learn about that too. About the Irish Potato Famine, the Armenian Genocide. About colonialism. About settler-colonialism. About feudalism. About monarchy. About the Industrial Revolution. About segregation. About the genocide of Indigenous peoples. About workhouses. About the Witch Trials. About the French Revolution. About the Spanish resistance against fascism. About residential schools. About the 60s Scoop. About the Stolen Generations. About resistance against the Roman Empire. About so much more. Just read them. Make sure they’re not written through the lenses of oppressors and/or rich people though.

28) Recognize that while history affects the present day history IS NOT the present day and present struggles are unique and different though not altogether separated from history. The present day is the present day. It’s struggles are unique and the way that the struggle for universal equality and liberation manifests in the present day is unique.

30) Don’t trust Christian priests.

31) Actually be cautious of any rich, privileged person trying to teach you religion.

32) Just because someone’s older doesn’t mean that they’re right or they know more than you. Knowledge of the truth and wisdom comes from kindness, compassion, humility, and suffering. It does not come from age. A rich man born to a rich family who thinks he’s better than poor people and does not have humility and respect towards them is not someone who knows things, no matter how old he is.

33) Men are generally less trustable than women because they’ve been taught to believe they’re always right and as such do not question themselves and think deeply and critically about their opinions as much as women do.

34) This does not apply to men who are poor or mentally ill since society never teaches them that.

35) Despite this being an unpopular opinion, pain and struggle are actually really good teachers. If you’re suffering, you deserve better. You deserve to not be suffering. But still, use it as an opportunity to learn.

37) Gender roles are the biggest scam ever created.

38) But the even bigger scam is capitalism.

39) You do not need material wealth. It is inherently addictive and bad for yourself, everyone else, and the Land and Water.

40) It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.

41) If you’re in a situation where people are treating you like you’re better than other people just get the fuck out of that situation as fast as you can. And never fucking look back no matter what ANYONE says.

42) Have respect and reverence for nature. Learn from it as much as you can. But from like, nature directly. Not from people talking about nature. Unless they’re Indigenous. And pristine, untouched nature is better than nature that’s been tampered with.

43) The world runs on bonds of love more than bonds between atoms.

44) Work hard not for money or to increase the power you have but rather to humbly and reverently improve the lives of the oppressed.

45) But recognize that you can’t do everything and do what you can and don’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t do.

#advice #eat the rich #capitalism #advice for living #advice for myself #I wish someone had told me this #rebellion

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