Fuck the system.
There, I said it. And I make no apology for saying it.
It needs to be said.
It’s not just that the system is broken. It’s that it has never actually worked for more than a tiny minority of people in the first place. It’s that it was never designed to work for more than a tiny minority of people.
Of course we know this.
We’ve been chipping away at it for what feels like forever. Sometimes taking huge strides forward; often taking as many steps backwards again.
Still…it persists: this system that serves straight white men—and virtually no one else.
This system that continually and consistently pushes down people of colour, women, people who don’t conform to heterosexual, cisgender “norms”. This system built on the oppression of anyone they label as “other”.
So, I’ll say it again: fuck the system.
If I sound angry, it’s because I am. I’m livid
I detest everything about the system—and the systems within it—that keep us strangled, silenced, and afraid.
At the same time my fury is what drives me, it’s what fuels me with the DEEP and MASSIVE desire to help get the oppressed OUT FROM UNDER the oppressors. It’s what makes me determined to pull every individual member of my audience (including you!) out from under the rubble.
Once we’ve done that? We unite.
We come together and collaborate in burning down every structure that doesn’t work for the benefit of ALL people (and other living creatures, and the planet) and replace it with something that does. Together we build something new, from the ground up.
We decide the time for incremental steps is over and the time to push back is now. We decide it’s time for radical choice, resulting in radical change.
I want everything I do to be a rallying cry.
I want us collectively to take that fear and loathing, that anger and frustration, and turn it into a powerful—but peaceful—call to arms.
More than anything, I want social justice in the world. I want accountability.
I’m going to share more about how I believe we act on all this next time. But for now?
This is me…here…unapologetically issuing my rallying cry.
You in?
Find a dose of inspiration related to this very topic in my poem, there are no others, on page 47 of my book. If you’d like to receive a signed, printed copy of the poem on archival paper, suitable for framing or gifting, send me a message and tell me how the fucked up system we live in affects you.
I’ll send one out to you by snail mail—who doesn’t love snail mail?!—to say, “Hey...thanks for being here and thanks for being part of the solution.” Use “There Are No Others” as your subject line and be sure I have your full name and full postal mailing address.
And remember...I love your guts.
L.xo.