Collabs Welcome

Illustration by Andrea Pippins

I don't believe working with someone on a common goal automatically means that they become a collaborator. There has to be a shared vision or shared understanding of why this particular effort is towards a collective good. My goal is always to be liberation centred and so anything I endeavour to do, my calling must align with it. And whatever innumerable menial tasks put forth. And what makes it difficult when you are working with people, who are not collaborators in a true sense, the difficulties you face then become amplified because how you choose to perceive those issues also becomes an issue.

I'm a big believer in community. But I also think each person, in having a role, is not necessarily entitled to complete access to me and my beliefs. If I'm forced to work within systems then those who are choosing to work within them (and support them through implicit or complicit action) have to exist with some level of distance from my inner world. It is incumbent on me to not dehumanize them as these systems seek to do us all, but I also cannot pretend that we are working towards a truly shared goal. The more people that get a chance to see the benefits of a liberation-centred framework the easier it’ll be to envision themselves doing the same work.

As for now, I am continuously the lone torch bearer in much of what I do. And while the inroads I make are exciting and speak to a collective level of more meaningful support, it's still very isolating. I hope as time goes on I find more people who are true collaborators but if that is not to be, or at least not in the near future, then I am also seeking to no longer dismiss the deep impacts of these feelings of isolation and fatigue create.

As Chief Boden from Chicago Fire often said "Leaders lead from the front."

If I believe I have access to a bigger picture, and a special ability to perceive things differently, then I also have to work to create it without resentment towards the people I'm seeking to create that change for.

I want to stress the distinction between my profound belief in collective healing and liberation as being vastly different from the paternalistic Christian-centered charitable process that seems to be society’s baseline. I do not think of myself as better than the people I seek to serve, I do not think desirability politics should be legitimized or recreated. There is always inherent value in human life and all life. And while I don't agree with a majority of people, and how they choose to function within these systems, I'm also not better than them in living differently. Any barriers or difficulties that arise in the work I seek to do is just information to ensure we try differently next time.

There's no devaluing of the people who cannot or choose to participate because agency is imperative in liberation.

"It is our role to make a world that is loving and inclusive and transformed by love in every iteration."