moar radical love!

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."
- Arundhati Roy

a.m. epiphany: radical love

so i finally got it. after months and years of reading folks like bell hooks, assata shakur and audre lorde and woc bloggers (check my links)

something about this post by the amazing brownfemipower
and where i was at at the time
and where im at right now
made it soooooo clear.

radical love
=
i am so deeply invested in your existence and your survival that i will do everything in my power to ensure that not only through you survive, you thrive
. . . regardless of whether or not i like you (at the time).

first.
there is a real difference between reading/seeing/hearing/experiencing something and understanding it, and reading/seeing/hearing/experiencing something and *getting it.*

bfp has been writing about this for some time, as have many others
and i've been understanding it
but for some reason
(which i will delve into later)
i didn't *get it* till very early this morning
when i was up for whatever godforsaken reason and perusing the interwebs.


second.
how fucking AWESOME is that?

and i mean that literally i was filled with awe
and just sat there

it's how we strengthen communities. it's how we build something that lasts.

it's how we get down to the heart of the matter. to what's really important.

in the comments, bfp uses the example of seeing a woman who you don't particularly like walking along the side of the road after being left there by her partner.
radical love demands (or, it *could* demand) that you assist her in some way. even if it's just getting her to a gas station.

i dunno that just made so much sense to me.

especially after the past week or so
which has included, gosh
the specifics entail a whole nother post
but suffice it to say
it made a lot of the things that i've done lately
and that other people have done
a whole lot clearer.

i dunno.
i'm still reeling. and excited.

and it's powerful because it recognizes that radically loving someone is greater, and bigger
than what they did to you this morning
or last week
or that one time

there's this quote about courage that i may be paraphrasing a bit.
courage is not the absence of fear, but the knowledge that something is more important than fear.

i think the same can be said about radical love.

i am committed to your survival, regardless of whether or not i like you. at this present moment, or ever.
because my existance, my survival is inorexibly tied to yours.
because if you survive, i survive.
if you thrive, i thrive.
because we will be looking after each other.

now. this is not about being a doormat.
this is not, im going to keep doing x for you while you rape me, beat my children, take my money, etc.
i think (and i suppose i should preface all of this with "i think," because that's all it is, is me thinking, no absolutes i suppose) that radical love is about loving yourself
learning to value yourself, unlearning those things which teach you otherwise
and learning to value others, again whether or not you like them.
and moving to exclude those things, people, institutions
that do not value us or our community.

so
(i think) radical love is not sitting around a campfire holding hands
it's NOT postracial
it's not a decontextualized "kuum bye ya ya"

(i think) it IS opening your home to folks that may have your family and friends bein like, well why the hell you doin that for
it is helping someone move/making a call/cooking meals/babysitting/driving/getting up early/staying up late/writing a letter/etc. when you'd rather be sleep or be on facebook
it is talking when you'd rather be quiet or shutting up when you'd rather speak and taking the time to learn which is appropriate when
it is saying i'm sorry
it is saying you should apologize
it is saying even though i don't agree you have a right
it is demanding accountability
it is saying no, im not gonna do that right now. or ever
it is saying no, i can't
it is saying no, you can't do that to me or my people
it's saying yes i will hold her
yes you can keep it
yes, and dont worry about paying me back
yes to i
yes to we
yes to us
yes to us being here and, if we so desire, remaining here

you know?

p.s. and i should explicitly add, that i am not the first person to put any of this forth. if you want to learn more, check the links and the folks i name up top. this is just me working through this after having finally wrapped my head around this concept.