We stand still.
On the train tracks, screaming at the train, refusing to save each other.
“THERE’S A TRAIN COMING DOWN THE TRACKS AND IT’S GOING TO HIT US!”
I screamed into people’s inboxes.
I was the second one to scream this actually. The first person who wrote an email to the listserv of our organization drew our attention to the Federal Aid Regulation changes coming down the track to absolutely wreck our field, harm our communities, and make documenting that harm a privately funded affair. One other person and I responded.
Far too late that night, I furiously wrote three documents that I sent to the committee I sit on. The committee that advocates for people with disabilities. The attachments included an appeal to our executive committee to make a public comment, a draft of said public comment, and a guide for members of our organization to submit their own effective, legally addressable public comment.
I received several emails, in a rather astonished tone, remarking how well written and informative the guide and public comment were, impressively factual and “apolitical.” No one offered edits. The concerned replies described personal fears of prosecution. Fears that, somehow, an internal email to another internal committee, or to our members listserv, having the names of individuals on our committee would create an opportunity for future backlash from the federal government. Indeed, a terrifying thought if true, and also if true… they choose this as their response?
The committee could not reach a consensus (despite the option to send under the committee’s name instead of individual names) and I was forced to take my shouting to the executive committee on my own, as the train barreled down the tracks.
The executive committee immediately tossed the idea of submitting a public comment from our organization out the window. They voted instead on sending out the guide to our listserv. 5 yes, 1 no.
By the end of the week, the president messaged to state she would send the guide out the very next day, speak now or hold your peace. Less than 24 hours later, she sent an email with regrets; they quite suddenly did not have sufficient support from the executive committee. Individuals in these committees, who would not type their anonymous committee name on an internal email, encouraged me, as an individual, to instead be the one to pen my name and send the guide out.
Cowards.
This was my immediate visceral response. Absolute fucking cowards. Staceyann Chin’s words on the tip of my tongue,
“I want to scream, ALL OPPRESSION IS CONNECTED, YOU DICKS!”
But, because I am a practicing Buddhist, the words of Thich Nhat Hahn also whispered softly in my ear: “You think so?”
You think those individuals aren’t scared? Looking at the collapse of the empire around them, clinging onto their jobs, their family, their sanity?
Compassion leaked through the rage of running headlong into bureaucracy propped up by a wimpy minority, completely hamstringing not only the majority, but an organization’s entire ability to act on behalf of the mission and people it has promised to serve.
So, while this train is still barreling down the tracks, aimed right at the town square of our organization, all the people in it, and all the people we serve, I sent the now fourth email to our listserv about this impending doom. And, like the 3 other emails that have gone unanswered, mine too withered upon contact with most inboxes. Two responses, lovely and supportive, in a listserv of hundreds.
I came to this piece to write in a furious outrage. To point fingers and talk about the mechanisms of structural failures hinging on a minority of people, who can somehow silence a majority, and halt the simplest of actions.
See, I have no problem screaming at big machines. I have no issues, no fears, no qualms, with screaming “THE TRAIN IS COMING!” while attempting to pull people off the tracks, rig up a way to derail the train, plot and plan against the inorganic wreckage heading our way,
But, while writing, I found myself facing the colleagues who voted no, one openly, one (or more) silently in the background, and I can’t bring myself to name them. Instead of bravely trotting out dirty laundry, I can’t even name the organization.
I can rail against oppressive systems, but not oppressive people.
Why? I think it’s twofold. One, compassion softens the cursing sailor who lives in my brain. I can’t help but see these colleagues as beings, making costly mistakes, but regular-ass flawed people all the same. Where I falter is in holding the individual accountable. Compassion in this case is anesthesia. I am anesthetized and silent. And Two, I’m afraid. I, the little fish, in the pond of this organization, am afraid of the personal consequences of naming those people and this organization. I fear losing credibility, losing opportunity. I too am a coward.
Niemoller wrote about this kind of complacent complicity, this kind of logic we engage in. “And I did not speak out.” He didn’t write about the grotesque form of human that becomes a violent, murdering, individual. He wrote about you, he wrote about me. He wrote about the moment we fail to hold individuals accountable with love and rage, as Lama Rod Owens would prescribe. Even as I half-speak out, I protect the people protecting themselves, those who harmed you by staying silent. I too stay half-silent, screaming about a train; I stand still as I witness the individual greasing the tracks.
At current count, over 14,800 people have publicly commented on this proposed rule change. I may not have shaken the folks in our organization hard enough, nor figured out how to move forward in community with them, but I will act to get them off the tracks. I, and many others, will continue to scream:
GET OFF THE GODDAMN TRACKS!
Image by Marijakes