{"id":1193,"date":"2025-12-29T02:29:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T02:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/?p=1193"},"modified":"2025-12-29T02:29:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T02:29:47","slug":"on-being-far-away-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/?p=1193","title":{"rendered":"On Being Far Away, pt. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activism is in my blood. I\u2019m not sure how it got there\u2014it certainly isn\u2019t genetic. My family has always been more about service, which is good and fine and I\u2019m about it too. I grew up around my grandma and my mom holding church rummage sales, teaching Red Cross swimming and first aid classes, and leading Girl Scout troops. I learned a lot from that, and I gained a healthy appreciation for the warm glow you get from helping others. But that was never enough for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always been driven to take action when I see something wrong. Every time someone asks me when I started causing trouble (good trouble, as John Lewis called it, I\u2019d like to think), I think of something earlier: \u201cWell, in high school I organized\u2026oh wait, when I was in junior high I went to the city council about\u2026wait, does that thing I did in grade school count?\u201d I\u2019ve since discovered that the activist in me may actually just be the autism in me–neurodivergent people are often characterized by a strong<\/a> sense<\/a> of<\/a> justice<\/a> and<\/a> empathy<\/a> that compels them to challenge unfair systems that harm others. Just think of Greta Thunberg, who often speaks about the connection between her<\/a> autism<\/a> and<\/a> her<\/a> activism<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m no Greta, but I\u2019m proud of my place on the front line of movements that matter to me. Whether it was in the halls of power or the streets, I like to put my body and my voice where showing up matters. And I\u2019ve found the very best people I\u2019ve ever known in those places. That\u2019s not surprising\u2014it\u2019s easy to find friends when it\u2019s a self-selecting group who share your values and passions. And if things get risky, as they sometimes do if you\u2019re challenging authority, there\u2019s probably a fair bit of traumabonding<\/a> to seal those friendships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving friends behind was easily the hardest thing about moving to the other side of the world. (Well, leaving so many books behind was hard too, but at least we could pack up some of those and take them along.) I also really struggled with the feeling that I was abandoning my post before the fight was won. I worried that people I respected and cared about would feel that I was quitting the work, that I wasn\u2019t as committed as I said I was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AI\u2019ve continued my activism in new ways down here. \"TwoBut my heart is still divided. If you asked me where \u201chome\u201d is, I\u2019d still have to say America. Watching those friends I love\u2014and so, so many others\u2014fight for the soul of that home is wrenchingly hard. And one of the hardest parts of that is that I\u2019m not there, shoulder to shoulder with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has intensified to a painful extent over the last two weeks as ICE<\/a> invades<\/a> my<\/a> home<\/a>, kidnapping and terrorizing people around Saint Paul and Minneapolis. I know the suburbs<\/a> and street names<\/a> in the news reports. I remember the sights and sounds and smells of places like Mercado Central<\/a> and Karmel Mall<\/a>. I belong in the pictures of 10,000 people marching down a frosty Lake Street<\/a> and linking arms in front of the Whipple Federal Building<\/a>. I want a whistle to warn my neighbors<\/a>. I feel chants and songs trapped in my throat. I need to be there. I need to fight.\"A<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching the world from down here has often inspired what feels a lot like survivor\u2019s guilt. For months at the height of the pandemic, we were free of masks and fear\u2014easy enough for a remote island nation of only 5 million people. Even when the disease was running rampant, we weren\u2019t traumatized by numbers of deaths in the tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then over a million. And in the midst of that horror, I witnessed the enraging tragedy of George Floyd\u2019s murder on a street I\u2019d driven hundreds of times. The need to be there, to stand with my community and my activist comrades, kept me up at night like it does now. I went to the solidarity protest here in Auckland because abusive, unaccountable police culture is a global rot. But I didn\u2019t help to shut down a highway or marshal a march, and I felt that inaction in my bones. It was a wrong feeling I couldn\u2019t right.\"A<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a choir, you keep singing to cover others when they need to breathe, just as they keep singing when you breathe. Activism works the same way: others show up when you can\u2019t. There\u2019s no gap when someone leaves\u2014the line is never really broken. That\u2019s been a comfort, but it\u2019s also been an ache. I\u2019m glad there\u2019s no hole where I used to stand, because that would leave the people I care about exposed. But I can\u2019t step up to give them a rest when they need one, no matter how much I want to. Saying \u201cI\u2019m with you in spirit\u201d isn\u2019t too different from offering thoughts and prayers. That\u2019s never going to feel like enough, no matter how much of my heart is behind it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I need to learn to treat myself like I treat others who have to step back because of circumstance or self-care: with the grace of unconditional forgiveness and appreciation from what they can do with what they have, from where they are at that moment. Here is where I am, and I need to have faith that I\u2019m doing good work and so are they. We\u2019re fighting the same unjust systems on different fronts. And when we win, we\u2019ll meet in the middle and embrace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Activism is in my blood. I\u2019m not sure how it got there\u2014it certainly isn\u2019t genetic. My family has always been more about service, which is good and fine and I\u2019m about it too. I grew up around my grandma and my mom holding church rummage sales, teaching Red Cross swimming and first aid classes, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[606,81,214],"tags":[130,35,620,590,42,175,526,18],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-zealand-studies","category-political-science","category-social-studies","tag-activism","tag-human-rights","tag-moving","tag-new-zealand","tag-politics","tag-protest","tag-social-justice","tag-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}