I would die for you, knowing you'd risk nothing for me
"fighting for change" actually means something
I. To die…
You need to be willing to die and it’s time to learn what that means.
Before I step into a dangerous situation, I spend time meditating on my own death. I visualize what could happen, how it will feel, and the effect on my family and friends.
I could get shot in the head or neck or chest and die instantly, or I could get shot in the pelvis and bleed out for a few minutes. I could get hit over the back of the head and get stomped out. A group of guys might get me alone and do unspeakable things to me. I could get into a drawn out hand-to-hand fight where my body gives out, I feel my energy leave me, and accept that my attacker now decides what my last moments will be.
I could be in excruciating pain the entire time. I may break down sobbing for my parents. I haven’t spoken to my mother in seven years but in that moment I might scream for her, begging for one more chance to tell her I love her and I’m sorry. All of my mistakes and regrets and failures may flash before me and be the last waking memories I ever have.
I might gurgle and choke on my own blood while I panic and thrash and my vision starts to narrow. I might lie on the ground unable to speak as people try to save my life, and see the fear in their eyes when they realize they can’t. I might hear a kind stranger assure me everything will be alright and know as well as they do that they’re lying.
When I die, it will be forever and I find both terror and comfort in that. Whether I like it or not, it’s final. That’s how I conquered my fear of flying, actually: it’s just a fear of death, and I can’t do anything about it anyway. If the pilot can’t land the plane, we’re all as good as dead already, so why worry about it?
My family will be devastated. They might wail and cry, or sit silently. They will grieve and feel an emptiness that will never be filled and have to carry on with their lives nonetheless. They’ll hang onto my things for years even though they’re not sure where to put them. They might set a place for me at the dinner table over the holidays, or just leave the seat empty. My father will remember every fight we ever had and every time he felt like he failed me and wish he could do it over, but he won’t be able to.
They might send me texts I’ll never read or leave voicemails that I’ll never hear. They might pretend I never existed and just try to block out my life as a way to cope with my death. And at some point they’ll move on, even if they never accept it.
When this life is over, what happens to me? Will I watch all of this from some afterlife?Where will I go when I die? Is there anything after this? Will I simply start piecing together a toddler’s fragmented core memories as I start a new life, having no recollection of this one? Or is there just nothing after this, only eternal darkness, nothingness, purgatory?
I have had to confront these questions and make peace with them because I know it may be necessary. I’m under no illusion that fighting for change can be done from home where I’m safe and sound.
II. …for a cause
I won’t dance around this anymore and try to cater to people’s sensibilities. You’re grown-ups. I’ve spent hours of my life—that I’ll never get back—trying to baby-talk (white) liberals and leftists alike through the realization that change takes personal sacrifice and I’ve written again and again and again about how even well-meaning white people’s complete unwillingness to risk any measure of personal safety is at best failing to help anyone and at worst actively killing us.
Leftists, you’re not off the hook. This applies to you guys too and honestly I don’t have much to say about this that my friend Veena hasn’t said already, several times. In her words, “you are not a white leftist until you are willing to risk your life for marginalized folk.”
All of white leftists’ revolutionary heroes—Lenin, Mao, Castro, Che, Ho Chi Minh—came to power in the wake of bloody civil wars that killed thousands of people; and even beyond factional political violence, every non-white male group in this country and the world over experiences violence daily. To be black is to be systematically oppressed and killed by the State. To be a woman is to live in constant fear of attack, to watch doctors stand over you while you die in agony instead of treating you. To be trans is all but a death sentence at this point.
The militance of these communities is born from necessity, for survival. To exist as they are makes death a probability, and to fight back makes it a near certainty. Still, with this irrefutable history behind you, most of you will patronize and condescend people who get “too worked up.” You won’t risk your friendships to check someone for using a slur. You won’t risk your job to stand against toxic culture or stick up for a coworker. You won’t even argue with a family member because it’s too stressful and they might not give you money anymore.
You’re risk averse by design. It isn’t your own thinking; it’s been done for you. You’re this worried about rent for a reason. Yes, there are “more of us than them,” but whether you’re scared to break rules at work because you have to pay your bills or because you truly believe in some nonviolent moral high road, the material result is the same: nothing. You’re not a threat to power, and they sleep soundly at night.
Should you decide to become a threat, that power will always crush you with violence. Only white people think you can achieve anything without engaging in it too. Union members, leftist political activists, civil rights activists and more will always be assassinated in their homes and slaughtered in the streets. The revolutionary leaders you worship didn’t say to themselves, “I mean I would join arms to fight this oppressive fascist dictator, but I can’t lose my job.”
But even knowing all of this—knowing that you’re too scared to argue with your friends, let alone risk shit for me—I know that I would die for you. I’d lose teeth for you, I’d go to prison for you, I’d get stabbed and shot and worse to protect you. I would give up everything I have for a better world and that’s not a hard decision to me.
And I have an understanding of what violence means because I’ve seen a lot of really fucked up shit. People losing a fight start crying and moaning and begging for mercy and get stomped out anyway; they have seizures and piss their pants and bite their tongues off when they get knocked out.
Bullets don’t leave a little hole like in the movies, they shatter bones, they bounce around inside someone. People turn blue while they gurgle and choke on their own blood. It will get in your mouth and eyes and all over your clothes. Blood smells. Injured people scream and cry and beg for help, beg for their parents, go white as they die and shit themselves when it finally happens.
I don’t expect you guys to have seen that stuff and frankly I don’t think you should. I’m traumatized by it. I’d give anything to be as blissfully ignorant as so many of you but I can’t. I’m just telling you what violence means; and preaching violent revolution and even understanding what violence truly is doesn’t mean shit if you’re not willing to be a part of it. Violence is by definition an action that intends to hurt or kill another and you will be that other. It’s a blade that cuts both ways, no pun intended: you either kill or you are killed, and even if you should decide not to kill, you have to be willing to die.
So become willing to die, because that’s the bare minimum required. Not that you will, but that you are willing. Don’t act like you have a house full of kids to protect; I know most of you are childless renters just like me. You’ve got shit to lose? Fuck you, I’ve got shit to lose. We all have families, friends, jobs, businesses. Everyone who’s come before you and fought for the things you take for granted had a family who mourned them and was never the same when they left.
Spend the time to meditate on death. Make peace with your family and friends and deities and release yourself from the things in this world that make you a coward. Stop telling me there are other ways or preaching nonviolence to the folks who are stepping into the firing line just to hold a sign. I need you guys to get with the program. Get a gun, learn to use it, and meet me outside so we can get some shit done. And if you’re not willing to do that, please show some respect for us and don’t call yourself progressive; progressives don’t tweet about change, they get off their ass and fight for it, come whatever may.
I may have no business reading this essay as the complete opposite of the targeted audience but damn. It reminds me of last year when we had huge political protests in my country to attempt to stop the government from passing a punitive finance bill that would over-tax us.
We bullied, doxxed, and harassed politicians in support of it to not pass it but they did anyway as per the direction of the most corrupt and evil president yet. Thousands of us camped near the parliament for the final vote on the bill for the ‘Occupy Parliament’ protest and the point was to basically show the politicians we elected them and they were supposed to be of service to us and act in our best interest.
The bill was passed and rightfully, people were upset and started breaking into parliament. Live bullets that were periodically being fired aimlessly through the day by police in civilian clothing were being now fired to disperse the crowds (this included a policeman who was directly shooting unarmed protesters and killed a few people in a previous protest). Snipers on top of the parliament building “protecting” the pigs aimed at protesters' heads while the protesters in the thick of it managed to break the gates and head for parliament. At this point, the blood mixed with the fumes and became pink. Those selfish politicians ran, fainted, and left disabled colleagues who were carefully helped by protestors to find their way out.
At this point, how the military was going to be deployed in the hot spots that night was going viral so a good number of us were headed home as this was happening. We saw brains scattered on the streets and dead bodies on live TV. All of them were identified and were loved people with lives and careers. I got home, my mum was relieved. My sisters and friends were calling to make sure I got home safe.
I went to that protest that day knowing I may not go back home alive to show solidarity (and partly because I honestly don't like being here lol). I'm frankly still traumatized. People and activists are still being abducted and ending up dead after being tortured and honestly, not much has changed. Any form of protest is met by violence from the police.
Risking your life like that then seeing people still supporting the same politicians and going back to old ways of participating in divisive politics hurts real bad because it’s like the people who died basically died for nothing. I think all these things have been planting seeds for a “revolution” though.
Your writing is so powerful and inspiring - thank you so much for sharing this with the world, your courage is a necessity that we all need to share if we hope to reach a better tomorrow.