On Family Trees, Marginalized
This is not about racism, or ancestral lineage. It’s our kinship with trees, and what that tells us about any other family, tribe, or species; any Other: Not Like Us. The other is the faceless face of our primal fear, of the unknown.
What is known is our fear response: from war and mob violence, to cowering obedience. To slake the fear, badges of rank and title are conferred on the alpha who exterminates the most “others.” Social engineers stand by studying, how to improve the next media-massage, to trigger whatever response is further required.
Meanwhile, standing watch, between the highway and the houses, is a thin margin of trees. No more than two or three wide, modest size, with sparse underbrush. They make no comment as I pass, on foot. Or I cannot hear them over the swish of tires, the hum of wires.
These treefolk, too, are Others, survivors in the margins. Grateful to be still alive, to breathe island air and host a few desperate birds—who are part of those family trees, and their subjugation, on display as the inheritors of their kind.
Speaking of wildlife, farther down the road, beside a solid wood fence, lies the carcass of a deer, victim of hit and run. Fur whitened with lime, it grins up with a desiccated grimace, a reminder of life’s fate in the slim margin between the fast lane and the high wall.
In the next chapter in human history, where do we draw the line to “Other”?
How does the land begin to be divided—and how does that end?
Do we consider the ground the line is drawn on to be sacred?
Some of us know how to do this. Some, that is, who are still with us from the whole family tree.
Some of us got here by their lightness of being and not by the weight of their spurs.
Some got here the hard way, in order to show us the longer story of what it takes to survive, in a much bigger picture than “history” or even “human.”
This is the next chapter in being human. To look beyond the uniform, the weaponry, the fatal and murderous pride. Naked, perhaps, we can start to get a glimpse of where we came from, who we are, and where we fit with each other’s fundamental facts, masquerades notwithstanding.
Once there, in the infinite diversity of the natural human being, we might begin to imagine seeing the natural world, and each other, in the way of the indigenous, mystic, or ecologist, child or poet—not as “Other,” but as “Another.”
On Equity and Inclusion
Recently on a Facebook thread following this post…
… a Jewish person took offense to the comparison, and then the silliness began.
I jumped into the fray: “Surely we can find common cause against fascism everywhere it rears its offensive head?”
A young wokester responded with the following mini-lecture from her favorite “equity and inclusion strategist”:
me: “What a great example of gaslighting as a strategy to further divide victims of oppression. None have a monopoly on virtuous victimhood. The solution is not for marginalized subgroups to attack each other, but to find solidarity and mutual support in fighting all the forms of oppression against humanity.”
she/her: “You as a privileged old white male have no perspective on oppression.”
me: “When I am discriminated against, I am marginalized. Skin color is not the only criterion.”
she/her: “Not eating at a restaurant is trivial, and in this case, denying you that privilege is justified.”
me: “Now we’re getting silly, First, you, white, say that I, white, cannot comment on the perspective of an oppressed person. Then when I say I am oppressed, you say that is justice. Note: Lunch counter sit-ins were not just about lunch.”
Young white privileged female flees into cyberspace, deleting her comments on the way out.
On Torches and Pitchforks
As polite Canadians and privileged Americans we are not used to the burden of social activism. We’d prefer to play by the rules, as we were instructed from day one of our school-regimented and media-indoctrinated youth. With government overreach tearing apart the tissue of our everyday lives, however, and meanwhile legislatures on hold and the legal system overwhelmed, we are left with no recourse but the proverbial torches and pitchforks. Here are a few exmples of grassroots action and personal courage in speaking out against tyranny:
Trudeau hounded out of neighborhoods
San Diego school board called out by angry blonde “Mama Bear”
Police of conscience against vaccine mandates in the workplace
Former FDA bigwig breaks silence
On Community Health Advice from our Island Trustees
A post appeared in our island news exchange addressed to the community, signed by members of the local government, urging all citizens to take the jab, for all the usual suspect reasons.
Freshly inspired by some of the local activism cited above, I felt compelled to respond:
Dear Trustees,
I am appalled by your recent post in the Salt Spring Exchange urging Salt Springers to undergo an experimental medical procedure with amply documented harms: for example, already causing more verified deaths than all vaccines combined over the last thirty years (VAERS); not to mention the expert testimony regarding serious potential for even greater long-term harm.
If you are not aware of such harms or expert testimony, you have no business steering your community down that road. If you are aware, then I wonder what coercion you are under to take such a stand, and what legal protections you expect to shield yourselves from liability… not to mention, the reservations of your own conscience.
The same goes for the Covid measures in general. Again, you must be aware by now of the miniscule harm to society of this virus (which has never been isolated), compared to the demonstrable harms in far greater measure from masking, distancing, and lockdowns.
If you truly want to serve your community and advocate for public health, please expand your research past government and big pharma talking points (actually proven lies and dangerous misinformation), and help us resume our lives and businesses with our natural and constitutional rights and freedoms (and natural immunity) intact.
Turn for Home
the end of the road
out past the last encampment
we remember home
the quiet harbor
lies within reach, beckoning—
here we make our stand.
—
image credits:
(feature) harbor: Nowick Gray
tree: Nowick Gray
Hungary: Qtime Network
gaslight: Softieshan
double standard: facebook
rulers: gocomics.com
tested: facebook
mask up: highwire
—
Now available in one volume, Nowick Gray’s collected essays from The New Agora, 2019-21.
Metapolitical: Practicing Our Human Future, by Nowick Gray
Facing an accelerating war on humanity, we break free of the narrative box of the old paradigm, and reject hierarchical power, for the sake of our sovereign human future.
Nowick Gray’s fiction and creative nonfiction crosses genre boundaries and bends categories, with unconventional characters on the margins of society, exploring the heart of nature and authentic human being (see NowickGray.com). Nowick is a regular contributor to The New Agora and also offers perspectives and resources for alternative culture and African drumming. He helps other writers as a freelance copyeditor at HyperEdits.com.