Power is relational and interpersonal. It is dependent on another person or people’s being economically, socially, emotionally vulnerable. It’s what allows the powerful to skate by while the those around them make sure everything goes according to plan.

That vulnerability is what binds a community together. It may be destabilizing for some, but it can also provide the only forum to candidly and effectively discuss and address the problems in our lives. It’s what provides us feelings of warmth and protection, connection and progress.

But that vulnerability has got to come from somewhere.

You might not be able to extinguish a single member’s extreme power when your vulnerability is providing the glue of your crew— but you can do the second best thing.

You can help contain them by withholding your emotional labor.

A colonizer has to lower their guard somewhere else to compensate when you put up a wall to match their own.

What happens if the only place colonial identities have left to be vulnerable is with their other colonial friends who view it as weakness? Will they learn to become kinder because now they now lost their safe space in the very same system they benefit from? What happens when they are forced to become potential prey for other predators such as themselves?

They built these walls between us, so, in my opinion, it is incumbent upon them to be the ones who tear ‘em down.

#WeAreTheGatekeepers #AcceptOnlyReciprocity #BanishedFromTheGarden #BuildTheWall #TearItDown #Lent #Lysistrata #PleaseKeepCookingForMeKevin