I Can Only Ask You to Love: continuation
Hello wonderful human beings, how has life been treating you lately? For me, the past couple of days have been hard, if you follow me on social media (Facebook and instagram) you might already know that I decided to take at least the next two weeks off of social media, and just the internet in general. Like I said in my social media post, I am not going quiet or giving up on the fight against racism, this is a decision I have taken because the current situation has made my depression and PTSD come back, and I need to take a break to care for myself.
As I was getting ready to do so, eliminating apps and silencing notifications, when I got an email saying someone had commented on my last post. So, before I officially go MIA for two weeks, I want to address the comments. Before I begin talking about the comments, you should know that I decided to take them down because the way these comments were made was through a repost of my blog post–only part of it actually–and I have decided that I don't want my blog to be associated with that person's blog or that person in general.
When I read what they had posted I got mad, and my first reaction was just to ignore them, but then I realized that it needed to be addressed because the things said by this person were mean and hurtful. I left a comment on their post to further explain what I meant on my original post but also to give my opinion back, to which this person replied, and that was when I decided to write a separate blog post instead of just commenting again because the things this person was saying are things I deeply disagree with.
If you haven't read my last blog post you might be confused as to what I am talking about, so you can click here to read it, and then come back to read this. It is a small two paragraph post that I wrote as a response to the current situation in the United States–racism. On that post I was trying to encourage people to love each other, and I gave 5 examples of ways in which I love others.
What I am going to do to share these comments is share the screenshots and further talk about them. There will be three pictures, since this person created a blog post, then I commented, and lastly the replied to my comment.
This first picture shows the part of my blog post that they shared on their post, and this confused me because the person is saying that they will answer my questions, and by that I assumed they meant the questions on that paragraph. However, like you are about to see, there is a lot on their post that has nothing to do with those questions.
- The first question was "What does it look like to love a stranger?"
I don't know if the word stranger means something different or has multiple meanings, but I use the word stranger to mean someone you have never meet before, or someone you have seen before but don't personally know. This person didn't mention anything about strangers, their #1 was this:
On my original post I never mentioned anything about people who hate themselves, mental illness is so much more complicated that someone hating themselves. I do have other posts about mental health that you can read if you desire to do so.
I honesty don't know what to say to this. For me it is such an obvious-matter-of-fact-thing that people with mental illness and be loved and deserve to be loved, otherwise I would be unlovable and underserving of love. Telling someone that they are unlovable and underserving of love, only fosters more mental illness, and it's honestly a pretty shitty thing to tell someone. Just because you choose not to love someone doesn't mean they can't be loved, and it definitely does not mean they don't deserve love.
- The second question was "What does it look like to love someone that has hurt you?"
This one is a tricky one because I realize how easily it can be misinterpreted. Just to clarify, I didn't say on my last post–or have ever said in my life–that you should stay in an abusive relationship or that you should let people hurt you without doing anything about it. You don't have to stay in an abusive relationship in order to love someone who has hurt you in the past. We have all been hurt, but we have also forgiven. There are obvious situations in which you have to leave for your happiness and safety, and there are situations where things have to change in society/cultural level to ensure that other's are being abused–hence the protests against racism–but there is a big huge abysm between staying to allow someone to hurt you and loving someone who has hurt you in the past. Forgiveness is an act of love. Choosing not to be revengeful is an act of love.
- The third question was "What does it look like to love the people on your neighborhood?"
This one doesn't really need further explanation, but I want to share that I have had a couple of neighbors approach me in the past couple of days to tell me that they are glad to have me as part of the neighborhood, and to reassure me that I belong here just as much as any of them do.
- Question number four was "What does it look like to love someone you disagree with?"
if this person had chosen to talk about disagreements themselves, then I could talk about how somethings are a matter of opinion, while other things aren't. I would have agreed with the first half of the statement, there is a lot we can learn from the people that disagree with us. However, this person decided to say "I am going to humiliate you until you agree with me" then proceded to insult me when I disagreed, and called it a courageous act. Now extrapolate this mentality to white supremacy and there is your explanation to why we are where we are today.
- the last question was "What does it look like to love someone regardless of whether you think they deserve it or not?
I find something very problematic with this answer and it is that people and objects "things" should not be measured in the same scale of love; they aren't mutually exclusive. Things should never be loved more than or in place of people. For example, when you love power more than people, you cause injustice.
To the second part of the argument "to hate horrible people", I have to say that something that is very hard to do is differentiate between hating a person and hating an action/situation. Do you really hate the individual person or do you hate their actions?
- Some things that didn't fit in any of the questions
Based on my personal experience I whole heartedly believe that freely–unconditionally–you love, the more love you get back. It is important to understand that both love and hate are gradual things; not all love is falling madly in love with someone, and not all hate in kneeling in someone's neck until they suffocate. In the little actions and gestures that we do everyday, do we foster love or hate? In a scale of bleach white to stark black, what shade of gray are we? what way are most often leaning towards?
With that we have reached the end of this post. Like I said at the beginning I will not post for the next to weeks and most likely won't see you comments, but please to comment. Let me know what you think.