If you are anywhere near the same circles I am in, you have heard people shouting “do not obey in advance”. Sometimes a directive, sometimes admonishing, sometimes a rallying cry. But rarely is it teased out beyond a demand of individual behavior change. Our choices matter. And every individual together makes up collectives, corporations, institutions, and governments. So yes, many individuals deciding not to “obey in advance” has an impact.

But I cannot help but hear the shaming voices of so many campaigns

We find ourselves in a new era. One that did not come from no where but has been built on everything that came before. Yet still feels like a total shock even to those paying attention. Everything has been upended. I know I am still spinning from it all. One tactic, not new especially to activists and political speakers on the left is social media censorship. But it is here with new fervor and new power.

So I decided its now time to dive into an experiement -a blog. Or perhaps more specifically a way to share my process, my work, and thoughts through my own platform.

a: control by one power over a dependent area or people. b: a policy advocating or based on such control (Merriam-Webster)

A forced dependency. An entering, a hollowing, and a manufactured need. So as to become the new source of resources and meaning.

A disease, a dis-ease of culture.

Who has a right to protection and who does not?

How do the ways gender and race impact our ability to protect ourselves? I think about “stand your ground” laws, and Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin, killed by white men claiming self-defense and a right to “protect” their community. When George Zimmerman was acquitted, it was understood, of course he would be fearful of an unknown Black person. No question.

1a : the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy

Violence is a slippery term, sliding between definitions with the turn of a phrase. Is it the violence in the imagination of white people, or the violence forced upon the bodies of Black people. Can violence be the assault of an object? Or does violence require mourning, trauma? If we label destruction of property as violence does it imbue it with personhood?