Is it me or is it you?

I haven’t posted in a long time and lately have felt I need to; blogging allows me to see myself from another angle and let’s my voice sing, if only for a few people!  In the past year there hasn’t been a loss of topics to write about yet I took a sabbatical of sorts the past year, to regroup and regain the energy I need when I use my voice.  Using one’s voice not only brings forth positive energy but negative energy.  It is important to take time for self, so you can slide the negative energy away from you or, if it is a good teaching moment, turn it into a positive.   This blog is one such moment; turning a negative to a positive.  Shall we start?

I recently responded to a post on a community information site where a member in my community asked a question.  The result had the person who posted the initial information stop people from commenting but not before her daughter could project her perceptions of me to everyone on the site.  I was pissed! I wanted to respond but the choice was taken away from me and that pissed me off even more.  But I am the kind of person who can stop, breathe and reflect on what the real issue is and why in heaven’s name (if there is such a thing) I was allowing another person to make me feel less than I am. 

I started with the question “Why am I so pissed off”?

Is it because my mom died a month and a half ago and I am being overly emotional? That question seems strange as a man would never think that he was being overly emotional, only a womyn is said to be this way. So, I am going to have to say NO. While I am grieving, I have come to a good place where I don’t give a fuck what people think of me; but I was this way long before mom died.  Nope, not why I am/was pissed off. 

Is it because people say I must be right? You know, the person who always has the last word, knows everything and is right ALL the time – that person?  Again, I would have to say no, as there are plenty of times I am wrong, and I accept responsibility for being wrong.  I didn’t always (my younger and less wiser days will attest to that!). I am not perfect (oh no!), don’t need to have the last word and can take the high road or any road out of town and let others continue to talk smack about me.  Why? Because I came to realize a long time ago that I can’t change anyone but me.  And if can’t change the outcome, can’t provide a teaching then then I won’t say anything at all.  It’s just not worth the tautological negative shit. Nope. I won’t engage in it.

Is it because every time, and I kid you not, every time I ask a question on this site, some people (community members) feel it’s their duty to put me in “a place”, knock me down a peg or so, or try to bully me into being silent?   Well, it is, and it isn’t.  Yes, I get pissed off at the negative crap that comes when I ask questions but that isn’t why I am pissed off right now.  And, I am not pissed off at the post or the person(s) but what is hidden beneath it, what we allow in the silencing of others that then percolates in the subconsciousness of the community and rears itself when truth is spoken.  Wow, what a sentence that one is; fully loaded with the exact amount of “this shit is real”! I should be a writer! Oh wait, I am one…ha!

What’s pissing me off is what is underneath the statement that the person publicly wrote (and which the mother blocked anyone from commenting on afterwards).  It read as this:

 “maybe you should just re-read what I wrote because I’m pretty sure I didn’t make or put down anyone or put down or use lateral violence.  You accuse so many people of doing this maybe you should take a look at things you write and maybe ask yourself if the sarcasm or being passive aggressive isn’t taking part on your behalf.  Have a great day”.

I corrected some of the spelling and wording, but the comment is per verbatim if you consider my corrections.  I am the worst when it comes to spelling as I go back and forth in edits if I see one thing out of place.  It’s a “this is me -take it or leave it” thing.

For the record, I am going to state - I am not passive aggressive nor have I ever been (my family and friends can attest to this).  I don’t believe in beating around the bush and I say it like it is.  If you look back at a previous blog that I posted about me, a Windigo Kaan, you will know that part of my role as a Windigo Kaan is to question, to not take things at face value but look underneath so others can see another way.   Societal perception (how the dominant Society sees things) has crept into so much of what we do that we fail to see any other side but the one presented, which is usually skewed.  I am not pissed off that the person perceives me as passive aggressive (she doesn’t know me well). I can’t fault her for her perception (it’s hers not mine) nor can I fault her for not understanding lateral violence (blaming others for using their voice is lateral violence).  I can however point out that relational aggression is a by-product of lateral violence (relational aggression is a form of bullying that other womyn use to bring, usually womyn, down) and lateral violence comes out of oppression.  We all know oppression was given to us by colonization and that we have learned so well that we have become our own oppressors.  You can’t make this shit up!

Now that is what I am pissed off about -  that our people are so entrenched in oppression and the beliefs in the dominant society that they can’t/won’t look at how they perpetuate it.   I am pissed off, no I am hurt, that the person saw fit to gaslight me “maybe it’s you”, a technique that is akin to brainwashing (and people who are violent towards their partners), and no one said a damn thing; nope, no one (some even liked the post!).  I am pissed off and hurt that a womyn felt it was okay to silence another womyn by not allowing her or anyone to respond to the public relational aggression (at least take down the post and re-write it). 

If we look deeper, it’s not her fault; all of us did this.  For years, lets’ say maybe 500 years, we have allowed the dominant Society to dictate how womyn are viewed and should be treated, “a womyn who questions or asserts herself is just ranting, nagging and a bitch”.  Until one day that belief is so tangled up in our culture and the unconsciousness of our people, we as womyn SILENCE womyn and celebrate it as if it was a badge to be earned and could somehow elevate us up to better than a womyn (let me tell you honey, there is nothing higher than a womyn no matter what the Trumps or Doug Fords of the world say).

Don’t believe me?  Almost every single comment/question I have posted on the site in question, shows womyn (and the odd man) putting me down, calling me names such as “disgusting” and “I should be ashamed of myself” or have led to the deleting of their comments/the post and my favourite, a nasty call to my work trying to get me fired for asking a question (leadership did that nice one to me but it didn't work because that's illegal - I checked).   

You might ask after all I have said “what is the positive?”

It’s me and you; we are the positive.  Sound sappy? Well that’s okay because sappy or not, it’s truth. 

You can either use your voice to call out relational aggression/lateral violence every time you see it/hear it or say nothing at all.    However, (this is like the matrix where you either choose the blue pill and you can go blindly back to not knowing shit, or the red pill and see the world for all that it is) if you don’t say anything, you are part of the problem.  We don’t heal if you don’t use your voice; we stay right where the oppressor puts us unless you are like me – a so called “shit-disturber” who knows we are better together, not apart. 

The teaching?

Understand where things come from; reflect and find the real issue even if it implicates you in it.  Life is too damn short not to support and love each other.  It’s okay to disagree, to ask questions and not like someone.  It’s not okay to speak oppression.

In good thoughts, always.