I’m attending a Zakat distribution at a local community masjid & the way they’re grilling each recipient about their private household business, family members, mosque attendance, their work, savings, etc...

The people are each walking out with their heads down looking upset. Every time I’m at one of these, either getting help or offering it, I come away with a bad taste in my mouth.

Anyways, if you ever see that or you’re a part of a committee supposedly there to help people, put a stop to interrogating people in poverty about their “worthiness.”

Since there are folks acting like the US doesn’t actively engage in stirring reactionary movements via propaganda across nations independent from US authority in favor of their own gov’t & capitalist interests, especially Cuba, here’s a review of it’s own publicly stated funding: The major foundation of its policies regarding Cuba is to disseminate US-approved & pro-capitalist propaganda via broadcasting media, the largest firm which is based in Miami, Florida, where the largest population of right-wing pro-capitalist (mostly white) Cubans live.

I remember when this TikTok trend came out & a lot of Black & Brown folks immediately recognized how often white women use this act to attempt to gather institutional & police violence against PoC by playing “damsel in distress.” A good video on that.

...everybody does this because it’s the real world. There’s no reason to hide answers & expect every person to know every one to every question.

What kind of crappy workplace *doesn’t* want you looking for answers? 🥴

https://twitter.com/Ejiketion/status/1416095449757495310

A more pertinent example of real world practicality that actually requires physical safety of others: we install solar energy equipment in both residential & commercial sectors.

We’re working with structural & electrical considerations constantly, so we have to be very careful.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but “healing” from painful emotions isn’t a thing.

There is no healing. You will get scars & sometimes they’ll hurt. It will always be there, because it is not a physical wound, it’s an experience.

But you are more than what happened to you. You don’t need to put your life on pause or stop yourself from living the best you can because you’re still in pain.

There is no contradiction to live both happily & in pain, it doesn’t have to one or the other in absolutes.

It’s okay for things to suck & still enjoy your day.

I realized for the first time yesterday that a constant insecurity I had growing up was never being good enough & therefore never deserving of anyone’s commitment & care, & it still affects me in ways today.

I’m still learning how to look past that & see myself in a community.

https://twitter.com/fabb1108/status/1337995789671550976

I fight for my own joy now, but still... I feel like I have to do it alone.

And I’m desperately trying to not do that to myself.

Starting by letting friends in to the deepest parts of myself.

Folks don’t understand that because they have no idea what it’s like to sleep on the street or in a tarp tent or in a car for months on end.

Everything’s fallen apart & the stress is enough to kill you. Intoxication is the easiest thing to get in order to cope.

https://twitter.com/oksomik/status/1328040313764634631

In most studies over the last 20 years, it was found that majority of unhoused folks who had an alcohol or drug abuse problem developed it *after* going homeless.

Because the reality is that having nowhere to go to sleep, cook, shower, relax... it’s torturous.

That’s basically what I got out of this year & didn’t realize it until reading these words.

Always grateful 🙏

https://twitter.com/nomoreus_/status/1328159395285508097

I realized I didn’t need to become everything in above & beyond capacity.

I just needed to become more of myself.

Joan The Scammer said “that’s over, it’s cancelled” at a coffee machine once in a video & ‘cancel culture’ became a controversial societal concept 4 years later to the point that it’s been discussed in US Congress & people have written entire books about it.

The power... My bad, Joanne*

Anyways, I find stuff like this fascinating, because I love tracing how ideas come into existence & become cultural norms or institutions in a society. It helps in fighting against harmful societal notions & practices.

The way people act ignorant about poverty like saying “They need to lower their spending” like poverty doesn’t mean deprivation & the fact that it comes from being paid poverty wages.

https://twitter.com/antifleek/status/1327286539282489347

It’s basic math: you get paid below what’s necessary to live with adequate resources (aka deprivation), there’s little (which won’t pay out of poverty) or nothing to save.

The logical steps are few to think this through.

Ooh, I’m gonna have fun breaking this down.

https://twitter.com/BinhamidAli/status/1230563222488375300

I’ll definitely come back to this a little later today, because it’s Friday & breaking down assumptions of “the Islamic permissibility” of wealth hoarding & exploitation by a wealthy ruling class as to be relevant to anything “Quranic” is going to make for a good pre-Juma’a post.

I know what’s it’s like to live in a constant state of being where you feel a deep pain that you are inadequate & undeserving of love, belonging, & happiness.

And I never want any of you to ever go through this pain alone. I was born into poverty in a place in where sewage flooded the street & any animal from snakes to wild dogs surrounded the little hovels my mom & I lived in, alone.

I wasn’t born with any measure of luck in skilled talent, strength, smarts, or a supportive & well-off family.

Welcome to the Pacific. Solo museum dates >