Excommunicate Me from the Church of Social Justice

super-slow-motion:

havingbeenbreathedout:

tastiereconsumate:

“Telling people what to do and how to live out their lives is endemic to dogmatic religion and activism. It’s not that my comrades are the bosses of me, but that dogmatic activism creates an environment that encourages people to tell other people what to do.”

Wow, I love and relate to all of this article so much. It’s difficult even to zero in on a passage to excerpt, but the section on purity politics is particularly good:

There’s so much wrongdoing in the world that we work to expose. And yet, grace and forgiveness are hard to come by in these circles. At times, I have found myself performing activism more than doing activism. I’m exhausted, and I’m not even doing the real work I am committed to do. It is a terrible thing to be afraid of my own community members, and know they’re probably just as afraid of me. Ultimately, the quest for political purity is a treacherous distraction for well-intentioned activists.

Also, unusually for the internet, the comments section is also good and thoughtful and has links to further resources. 

“The experiences of oppression do not grant supremacy, in the same way that being a powerful colonizer does not. Justice will never look like supremacy. I wish for a new societal order that does not revolve around relations of power and domination.”

A quote that stood out to me.

Excommunicate Me from the Church of Social Justice