šBLM & ACAB š¤ Compassion First š§æ they/them || 37 || nonBInary || š¹ social worker/homeless outreach advocate ā¤ļøāš„ || PNW ||
prophet motive and good intention || boxcutter dripping honeyš
My middle class friend is like why should I have to pay for healthcare if unhoused people don’t uhhh bc your household made 81k last year sweet pea that’s why
That elderly couple who volunteers at the soup kitchen after church on Sundays and attends every town hall meeting has done more community direct action than 99% of internet leftists š¤·š½āāļø
100% agree homeless people should just starve and dumpster dive till le epic revolution happens!
and for sure local politics is so stupid it only handles dumb things like your schoolboard, judges, infrastructure, and rent laws! now tweets? Thats where the real work happens!Ā
These are all noble and worthwhile things to do. People should do them.Ā But theyāre not gonna get us any closer to ending injustice. After the protest scene collapsed in Seattle, I watched people take up mutual aid, and itās an endless black hole of effort for them. Meanwhile the cops are still kicking homeless people around and the sweeps are still happening. You can give people food, tents, tarps, and cigarettes all you want - the cops are still going to come around and throw everything in the dumpster AND eat the food you were trying to give them. Iāve watched it happen.Ā
Alsoā¦attending town meetings? We used to FLOOD public comment trying to get the police defunded and members of city hall would ignore us and vote against us anyway. What the FUCK are you talking about.Ā
Nothing short of an armed insurrection is going to make the suffering stop. I donāt give a shit about town hall meetings.Ā
You and I both know youāre not gonna do any of that go pick up a ladle cornball. elderly trump supporters did an armed insurrection before the left
āThe only thing thatāll change anything is violent revolution!ā people make me roll my eyes because they never go and do their violent revolution. They always just use it as an excuse to not help anyone. āNobody vote because the system is broken and the less evil candidate still sucks!ā oh yeah? You gonna change the system before voting day? No? Then how does not voting help? āPoverty is a constructed problem, working at a soup kitchen wonāt solve it, only overthrowing the system will!ā oh yeah? You gonna overthrow the system tonight? You gonna do it before that single mum with two jobs and her three kids go to bed hungry? No? Then feed them, too!
āThe system is broken, youāre being used, pain is inevitable under this regime!ā Yeah. We KNOW. But are you out there fixing it, or just using that as an excuse to not help people when you can? Because if youāre using that as a shield for inaction without doing anything about it, if youāre not doing anything but complaining on twitter between sessions of your favourite computer game, youāre not an activist, youāre just larping as one. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen.
I worked at a volunteer center for many years. It was part of my job to match people with volunteer positions based on their abilities and skills. I knew everything there was to know about volunteerism at a local level and let me tell you something; for every social problem someone on the internet is complaining about, there is a volunteer position that is doing boots on the ground work on that problem. And that position is going unfilled. Old people volunteer more than anyone else - at least 80% of the people I placed were retirees. Unfortunately, the nature of being Old is that you can only do so much - for so long. Younger generations are NOT showing up to volunteer like past generations. They are all too apathetic. They wait to be asked for help. They think yelling about a problem on the internet does something to change it. They think the actions of a small group of dedicated individuals is worthless. If it doesnāt change the whole world, itās not worth it. Volunteerism doesnāt solve the problem - so why bother with a bandaid?
Iād like you to look into the face of a disabled mother who was just told that habitat for humanity is going to build her a safe house (using volunteered labor and donated supplies) for her family after a year of them sleeping in her van: and tell her she doesnāt deserve that bandaid. Tell her the volunteers that took extra care to make the house wheelchair accessible for her youngest - didnāt REALLY make a difference. They wasted their time, right? You can tell her that her problems are systemic and explain the social issues and politics at play that allowed her to fall through the cracks all you like, but sheāll probably tell you to go tell it to someone else because she allready KNOWS. She lived it. If youāre not going to actually do something constructive about it - Fļ½ļ½ļ½ off. Pick up a hammer and help build the house- or get the Fļ½ļ½ļ½ out of the way.
If a child is starving, you feed them. They will starve before your protests are heard by politicians. They will starve while you work to prevent starvation in the future. They will starve while you try and solve the problem. If you arenāt willing to personally make a bowl of soup to feed that child - your words are meaningless to me. They are meaningless to that child.
When I was a kid, we were poor. My brother slept in a pile of clothes because he didnāt have a mattress. He wrote to Santa and asked for a bed and sent the letter in the mail and someone at the post office read it and they decided to volunteer their time to raise money and buy my brother a bed. They dropped it off on Christmas Eve. They told my brother that Santa sent them. They didnt even leave their name. I started volunteering shortly after, and then made nonprofit work my life until I was too disabled to continue. In my work I know I saved at least 2 lives because those people told me so - but potentially there were more. 2 human lives, that I might not have been there to save, if a volunteers actions hadnāt inspired me to continue the good work. Every ounce of good I did, was because of that mattress.
The thing is - volunteering and helping other people makes a direct and tangible difference in the lives of people. Not just feeding them and putting a roof over their heads - It reminds them of the best of what people can be and inspires them to do their own good. It affirms to them that we SEE the injustice that they face and we are going to HELP them in whatever way we can, even if it doesnt solve the systemic problem. Even if if just looks like helping one person. It ripples out. It always ripples out.
So you can yell on the internet about injustice and volunteering not solving the problems all you want - but no amount of your yelling is ever going to build a house or feed a starving child. If someoneās bleeding, just give them the fucking bandaid.
If your doom and gloom ass is going to complain about *checks notes* giving unhoused people necessary survival supplies, then you better be *checks notes* staging violent insurrection, after which *checks notes* disabled people will magically have everything they need and all oppression will cease