To be honest, I think part of why the knee-jerk reaction to every photo or 20 word post about direct action is “well you didn’t mention people with disabilities and mental illnesses and no white privilege and poverty and .. and .. and .. so stop making me feel like I should be doing stuff!” is that people want me to take away their sense of guilt about the decisions they’ve made for themselves.

And imaging that direct resistance is something only white abled people with privilege can do is easier than taking an honest look at who is really resisting injustice and acknowledging that actually most of the people out there taking action and taking risk are people of color, are people with disabilities, are people with mental health problems, are undocumented people, ya know people with a stake in what is happening.

Because acknowledging that fact means looking at yourself, looking at all your experiences of oppression and all your privileges and your skill set and honestly asking yourself what you could be doing. And that’s hard.

The truth is we all struggle with risk assessments and our own health and the fact
that people are literally dying and the only way we can stop it is if we
take risks that will have personal consequences for us.

The ‘am I doing
enough in the face of injustice’ vs. ‘am I doing too much to carry on’
is constant and since we’re all in different relationships to power,
that struggle is a very individual one.

And it’s not my job to wrap every post about direct action in a thousand disclaimers that pacify your sense of discomfort.