Do not shame people for not marching.
Do not shame people for not protesting.
Do not shame people FOR marching.
Do not shame people FOR protesting.
Do not shame people who are weeping.
Do not shame people who are silent.
Do not shame people who are removing themselves from the pain.
Do not shame people who are re-blogging everything they can get their hands on.

Self-care takes different forms.
Help each other heal.

–Ashley R. Oliver

For people dealing with systemic oppression, there is some idea that there is a right way to deal with it. There isn’t a right way. There are so many ways. Sometimes living your life and trying to be as happy and healthy as you can is the right way for you. Sometimes trying to make as much change as you can is the right way for you. Sometimes the right way is educating yourself as much as possible. Sometimes the right way is reading science fiction or playing basketball. Sometimes the right way is making art. Sometimes the right way is writing or talking about the situation to everyone who will listen. Sometimes the right way is taking a bath. Sometimes the right way is organizing within your community to meet the needs of the people. Sometimes the right way is to get politically involved. Sometimes the right way is to give up on politics. Sometimes the right way is to protest. Sometimes the right way is marching in the street, sitting in an intersection, picking up a megaphone or a microphone, handcuffing yourself to something inconvenient, annoying people into paying attention. Sometimes the right way is staying home, putting your pjs on and turning the news off. Sometimes the right way is going away where there aren’t any people and reconnecting with the sky and the sea, the earth and the trees. Sometimes the right way involves talking and crying or laughing about it with a friend. Sometimes the right way involves destroying inanimate objects. Sometimes the right way involves donating time or money to an organization you believe in. Sometimes the right way involves putting your fingers in your ears and saying La-la-la-la-la-la-la because you just can’t tolerate hearing about another person who could have been your sibling or cousin or child or parent or lover or partner or best friend being lynched in some way.

For many of us, what is right for us is going to be different on any given day, in any given moment, for any different reason. One day, I need to read every single page of The New Jim Crow or The Warmth of Other Suns. The next, I need to watch Scandal. One day, I need to march in the streets and scream at the top of my lungs. The next day, I need to meditate and for everything to be still and quiet. One day, I need to talk to everyone I encounter about racism. The next day, I need to make love to someone wonderful and make jokes with them about nothing much in particular. One day, I need to read everything I can find about the last person who was a victim of extrajudicial execution. The next day, I just can’t. La-la-la-la-la.

There is no right way.

My friends, my community, may we please honor the different ways that people take care of themselves under circumstances of oppression. There do not need to be divisions between us based on having different strategies for dealing with what has been done to us.

My friends, my community, please listen to the needs of your body and your heart and your spirit and take the kinds of actions that support your being whole and healthy as you engage with the horrors of the world.

You are precious.

When you are living in circumstances of oppression, just surviving is an act of resistance.

Take care.