Newsletter #34

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people


“This holiday season, leave the condescension off the menu.”

The year is ending, which also means that we are squarely in the holiday season, and tis’ the season to travel and be with our biological family, in-laws, various forms of family constellations, and friends. The holiday season is also a supremely stressful, anxiety-inducing, and even triggering time for some. Traveling via plane, train, or bus during a global pandemic without mask mandates is challenging for those still moving through the world with a public health ethic. Driving cross country has its own economic and safety challenges to be mindful of. Economically in the United States, we are feeling the squeeze. Food prices are causing many of us across income levels to fret about loading up the shopping cart too much and reevaluating what is necessary. 

Not to mention talks of unionization in hostile work environments such as Starbucks and Amazon are finally gaining traction, as well, as major layoffs across the tech sector have inundated our newsfeeds. Pivot podcast co-host Professor Scott Galloway dubbed this white-collar recession the “Patagonia vest recession.” Winter is here for people who work in tech, the knowledge economy, or the consultant arena! 

It is not a strong fourth quarter for the United States. Our one major good news is that there was no “Red wave” this midterm election. 

The state of the world means that there will be lots of commentary at the dinner table over the holidays. This time of year, people who identify politically as Progressives or Leftists struggle to be with their centrist and conservative family members. I want to remind everyone that Black Progressives and Leftists must also navigate conservative Black family members, homophobic family members, and family members who pledge allegiance to respectability politics. White people are not the only people with problematic family members. 

The bullshit is universal, fam. 

This holiday season, I am urging you not to be the asshole. Not to be condescending and resist acting like an all-knowing Progressive cable news show pundit at the holiday gatherings. 

However, you define family or whomever you consider family, the family unit is a complicated space for many, and it can be a space of immense possibility. Gathering with our family can be a time and space for many of us to practice our abolition politics, the tools we learned in therapy, and practice being more tolerant and accepting. Family gatherings can be a space for deep consciousness-raising work and organizing. This holiday season, try entering conversations with your loved ones rooted in a radical love ethic. Seek to see their humanity and speak to them in ways that keep their dignity intact. Making people feel like perpetual failures and unintelligent will not make them abandon their cults, conspiracy theories, and classist and racist worldviews. 

Do not abandon your boundaries or collude tacitly with white supremacy to maintain fake family peace but seek to be more strategic rather than lording your politics over your family. 
It's many people's day off; people have traveled far, some have spent lots of money to go home, people have been cooking and cleaning all day, and others have been prepping for weeks, even months, with their therapist for this visit home. There is so much in the air. Attune yourself to everything, informing the background noise and soundtrack of your family gatherings. Let us never forget that these holiday gatherings are happening on stolen colonized lands. Lands built by stolen and colonized people. All of this and more is informing our time together. Plus, with all the weird family dynamics in the air, ask yourself, what is possible among this fraught, complex group of people today? And sometimes, what is possible is that we genuinely laugh with our family members, remember those we have lost, watch the kids play, and be merry, and for a little while, we are present with the complicated joy. 

We must stop using these family gatherings as an excuse to discharge our valid anger by weaponizing social justice values against our family. Are you truly that incensed by your family's racism, xenophobia, and other problematic views? Are you that shocked, boo?  Or do you have deep shame about your family and all the ways it is unwilling to unpack and heal collectively, and their problematic views on the world are just another sin to add to the list? 

A family unit that thrives on secrecy, shifting blame, toxicity, gossip as a form of intimacy, bullying, and requires unquestioned loyalty is not a family system yet ready to deal with the world's social ills and engage in a conversation about how white supremacy shows up in the family. 

As part of my dissertation, I will theorize and write about how Black feminism is my spiritual and civic practice. I genuinely believe our social justice and anti-racist politics should transform us and make us more loving, ethical people and, therefore, better citizens. This will allow us to engage in the challenging work of organizing people into the movement and get better at making solidarity with one another. 

While perusing social media, there is no shortage of mainly white therapists or mental health influencers encouraging you to go no contact with your family. I am not against going no contact with family members (I have done it myself), but I am against how casually that is mentioned and deployed. I am also increasingly uncomfortable with the number of white people who claim to be anti-racist and who rely so heavily on this tool.  There is also no shortage of people telling you that it is not your job to educate others, and there is some truth to it, but I do believe that if I am on speaking terms with my family, then yes, it is my job to educate and try to organize them, but I can only do this once I have cultivated a real relationship with my family members. Blood relation, adoption, or fictive kinship ties does not equate automatically to intimacy and trust. We must earn the right to be in a deep philosophical dialogue with our people. 

I applaud us all across the age spectrum for wanting to heal from our childhood and family trauma. I am so proud of us for cultivating emotional intelligence and seeking to be different from our family of origin. And I applaud us all for being the catalyst of change in our family, and I think we can do this by not shaming our family members and being so acrimonious. If browbeating and shaming our loved ones worked, no Leftist or Progressive would have an anti-vaxxer, climate denier, Republican, etc., in our family units. 

In the words of Kai Cheng Thom, “I hope we choose love.”

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

For this newsletter, we compiled and highlighted all the resources made available throughout the year. Please subscribe to the newsletter to access it.

LISTENING:

For this newsletter, we compiled and highlighted all the resources made available throughout the year. Please subscribe to the newsletter to access it.

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

For this newsletter, we compiled and highlighted all the resources made available throughout the year. Please subscribe to the newsletter to access it.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Anti-racist Check-in

Join me for a free one-hour Anti-Racist Check-in session where I will share some insights to help support our collective practice this year. This is open to people who have taken my courses in the past and to those of you who have not. This is a community offering that is grounded in a Black feminist love ethic. The check-in will be recorded and made available to subscribers of my Patreon. 

If you are able, and the recession and inflation isn't causing you much economic harm, please consider paying at the sustainer level.

Time: Thursday, January 19th from 1-2 PM EST // 12-1PM CST// 11-12PM MST// 10-11AM PST

Black Feminist Sunday

Let's gather together virtually and close out the year intentionally. The space is open to all who are practitioners of anti-racism. The event is free, but you must register here.

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

  • Evan W.

  • Lara D.