Alt Title: My Ex & Those Like Him, Accountability & Understanding Risks
I am writing this because I think we need to have this talk. I am so sure I am not the only one with this story. I look forward to people engaging, sharing, understanding and maybe learning 🙂
So picture this:You're branded as a soft, feminine, but amab person. We click because I can connect and empathize with people. It's so fun, meeting another leftist in this leftist-heavy city. I am just making friends, so I ignore everything else. I am leaving out the red flags this early – this will build. He mopes, he complains about the end of the world, you feel bad, you empathize because you have so much in common.
In my case, Inseguire* (name changed because he's here) had me SO FOOLED. Soft leftist, preaches radical kindness, how he wishes he could do something. I relate because I, too, have grown up with parents w/ complicated relationships, both with complex trauma. We relate over our leftism – ideals of a workfree world, getting to laze around. Flipping the script, he's the stay at home dad.
Slowly though, you start catching things. Leftism is about understanding, effective activism meets people where they're at, so it's okay, You brush it off. And while they're lounging about complaining, you're engaging in work that they don't recognize. The emotional labor of taking care of them, their complaining, while you're doing what you're doing.
To make matters worse, Inseguire has these Pillars of Belief and refuses to accept any difference of any person. Which is fine, you engage because you're taught to. Leftism has to be rooted in true kindness and the kindness has to be in action (praxis). This is how you build communities that are resilient.
My ex had me so fooled. Because of how much I care, and because he didn't have the community I did – because he ran from accountability. IN the end, the man who recognizes his privilege at every turn, does not use it to be kind. He takes his leftist ideals, emotionally manipulates, takes what he can, sitting high-and-mighty – never held accountable. I don't do it. I should have. I am now, that's why I'm writing this.
To say you are radical kindness, and emotionally abuse someone is not that. To have fucked off from one of the worst capitalist dystopias in the world, because your parents bought a $1Mil home, withhold critical aid from a partner, places you in a position to be responsible. Praxis in the day-to-day – empathy, considering your responsibility with your platform & privilege. Leaving said partner, who is more marginalized in many ways – which you benefitted from by proximity of learning – behind in a place with no social protections, while they are disabled, traumatized to begin with, and now further in debt than before.
They mope about “how they feel powerless,” while having the power to make a decision. To end things when the partner offers to leave. To end things while the partner has healthcare, in a country where it is so inaccessible. To go to therapy and practice self-care, while you are the partner with the privileged, easy access to it. With a choice between abusive parents or poverty, when kindness – while boundaries are allowed and encouraged – could have been exercised at any point in time, is the worst kind of leftist.
Emotional labor is labor. Unseen labor is labor. Unemployed people also benefit from labor protections. Labor movement is critical to revolutions. Praxis, through kindness, is also labor and will be what “”””funds””” the revolution. 🙂