“You are a fraud….” the words scrawled across the lighted screen seemed to drip with blood, It was one of over a hundred face-book posts, text messages and reply all emails spoken about me and the organization my houseless mama and I co-founded. Through the experience and ever after, my heart was broken, my soul destroyed and every injury, scrape or cut, real or metaphoric i received throughout my already too hard life of houselessness, domestic violence, abuse, incarceration and poverty was triggered. I was suicidal and unable to function. Had it not been for the strength of my village, my community and my family i would have not made it out alive from this time.
My whole life, I didn’t have a pot to piss in, like my mama used to say, all i had was my good name, my community capital as i call it, and this person had destroyed it
A single parent, a woman who appeared to be in need of support, a woman like all of us in our poor people-led movement, had now begun a campaign of hate and lies, unmatched by the worst politrickster or klan member. Claiming she was abused by us, the people that loved her and collaborated with her and provide her and her child housing. a flurry of lies began to stream on the digital streets, hitting a crescendo when she called her “community” out to physically beat us up after one of her false claims about what we had allegedly done to her. Her campaign continued for over a year. Each week her threats and accusations seemed to shape shift and morph into grander accusations with larger implications. And the strangest part of all of it was, people believed her. Even people who knew us, who saw our work, who witnessed our truth, my work, my truth, for decades.
In the 21st Century the destruction and dismantling of a community, vision, movement, revolution or individual can begin with a mere click of a fingertip or a tiny cluster of words and symbols splattered across the digital streets.
People and movement destruction or infiltration as it is sometimes called has always been somewhat easy, it just got ridiculously easier. Rooted in the manipulation of human emotions, love, jealousy, fear, greed, loneliness, its purveyors have an easy job. As indigenous and colonized peoples our emotions are even more raw- our triggers more immediate, our trauma more intense and our PTSD more extreme. Play on any one or a group of these and we are destroyed. We are sexual, physical, verbal, psychological, emotional, and spiritual abuse victims. We are survivors both ancestrally and currently of every type of violation to our bodies, minds, spirits, tongues, traditions and souls. And the abuse continues, This is not something in the past, but rather a current and real state of our lives and communities.
Many of us try to live something different, walk something different to heal ourselves, our communities, our children and ourselves and yet we juggle our own colonization in the process, our spiritual backpacks filled to the brim with tendrils of things trying to take us down. Causing us to repeat the adage, who needs enemies when you have ourselves
Along comes something that sounds like any number of our personal struggles and we are there. Lost in the river of hurt-hate-anger-CONfusion-Jealousy-Fear-violence.
In my case, and the organization that is my home, it snuck up on us, brought into our poor and indigenous people-led circle by someone who looked like us - talked like us- be liked us. But not sure what in the end they really wanted from us. Did they work for the state, the “man” or just themselves? Was the goal to destroy us for the sake of destruction as in a state-funded infiltration or was it for personal gain or to inflict personal pain- we will never really know and now really don’t care…Moving on, doing the work, living life as we always had, walking in truth and realness and liberation is what we did and continue to do.
It began as it always does with claims that we had perpetrated against them when all we had done was supported, collaborated, lifted up, loved and respected them.
But the violence didn’t really start until the words, illusions, accusations and lies hit the digital streets. Specifically the social media networks that welcome chisme, shit-talk, gossip, hateration- and infiltration with the love of a long lost friend launched a tsunami of abuse, character defamation, destruction and loss from people that had already suffered so much.
In some circles this process is called cyber-bullying resulting in the “bullied” to suffer depression, suicidal tendencies, fear, and sometimes, in worst cases leading to their death. By the same token, others swear this is merely truth-telling, “exposing” airing of grievances, shattering lies and “speaking up”. One thing i think we can all agree on is the long winding, extensive digital roads, avenues, cul de sacs and highways are extremely dangerous for this information to travel on. There is absolutely no demand of accountability from the accuser. No expectation of corroboration or process. A statement or series of statements are made and it is taken for providence because it has been said, tweeted, face-craked, texted, etc.
No PoLice- No kkkorts - No social media?
Throughout herstory, peoples from all four corners have had processes that one should go through before statements are acted on, believed, trusted and upheld. These processes are not settler colonizer kkkorts, poLice, CPS , APS or Sheriffs. These are indigenous circles of ceremony, accountability and redress like the Elephant councils we hold at POOR Magazine. They are hard and long and in person and necessary often cause us already colonized, trauma-filled, broken folks perpetrate, hurt and abuse each other often, There is accountabilty. Accountability for self and actions.
The act of airing an act of purported wrongness through the digital streets is not indigenous or rooted in any revolution, and yet peoples who commit to not engage the state seem to see the digital streets as a perfect option. Due to its ease it seems non-punitive, un-poLiced space. But its Not. In fact due to the immediacy of its broad access it is probably one of the easiest and most deadly forms of attack we have experienced to date of a persons character, which in many cases can be literally deadly
Two years Later
Fast forward two years the person who tried to destroy me and our movement is committing these acts again. Against another human, an elder, care-giver, and person committed to working in community for change and liberation, advocacy and healing. An elder who has never done anything but help folks who need help.
But she is just one case, there has been several attacks of persons and community through the hyways and byways of the global and local digital streets, by a lot of people, who choose to use the digital streets to destroy character and ultimately community as though it was water coming from a faucet. it has reached an epidemic.
Antidote of Accountability rooted in our ancestors
Myself and several other indigenous women have been working on something different. Something very old, rooted in our indigenous ancestors from all four corners practices of accountability. Accountability, love, liberation and responsibility for each other, our children and ourselves. This is not the mere trickle down grant-pimped notion of restorative justice or mediation, but actual protocols to community care and deep accountability.
As broken peoples breaking each other, the challenge for something to hold all this breaking is a 21st century crisis. We, like all of us at POOR magazine, are constantly reminded, will continue to hurt the peoples closest to us, like all of us oppressed peoples always do, but the way to move from and inside that hurt must not be the 2 second character kills on the digital streets,
In fact the quickest way to disempower the digital streets violence is to challenge the collective belief and acceptance of the claims, stories and accounts by the readers, consumers and watchers. We must as a community be committed to slowing down, questioning the multiple messages and messengers and remember with attacks, vague, overt and otherwise, there are always more sides to the story, problem and accusation. And often times, if not all the time, these streets are being used as another form of soft po’Licing, with no accountability, no respect and no principles but the use of extreme character violence against the accused.
In essence the first and most powerful form of offense to this post-colonial violence lies with the ways we as a community receive, consume and react to the information. The process to true community change, as always, begins with us, the collective, strengthened and inter-dependent community moving against the insanely accessible, immediate driven social media.
For more information on the protocols created by a multi-nationed indigenous women circle, or to request a training for your group, school, organization or institution contact poormag@gmail.com