On Accountability & 'Cancel Culture'

    I've found myself having to apologize a lot in my life, and it's not because of always hurting/harming people but a trauma response for often not feeling enough... Yet I've really taken this opportunity to examine/reflect/study accountability, anatomies of an apology, guilt, and ethical responsibilities to each other within/across/between communities, as well as the feelings/healing that fuels such emotional phenomenon of (re/un)learning, calling-in/out, diverse definitions/demands of duties/ideals within/across/between relationships, and forgiveness as well as reparations/restorations after impact... Thus how do we even begin with the guilt of being, when my existence/presence on stolen land contributes directly to the violence and continuance of settler-colonialism ? I've come to learn to use my guilt as drive, as basis of my passion and will for Indigenous sovereignty, as my being would be nothing without the resilient becomings of the elders, youths, and the water/land protectors across Turtle Island... 

    But verbal/emotional/mental acknowledgement is far from enough, as it takes practice to relearn languages, to unlearn mindsets/impulses/behaviours, to understand/learn how to make space, what it means to create softness/safety, to invest in mutual-aid and more meaningful connections, to buy/purchase Black/Indigenous-owned services as well as to always give back/thanks/credit. I remind myself that there is no 'enough' when it comes to allyhood for all livelihoods, as there's always room to love, care, and learn better/more. And I often think about the differences between interpersonal and socio-political accountabilities, how they intersect and how each serves differently in diverse circumstances... I've had the honour to (un/re)learn thus humbly reference Rania El Mugammar's teachings/work: The Anatomy of An Apology for better understandings/reflections upon accountability. One thing I've also learned over the years is that if we're truly sorry and remorseful about our faults/harmful impact, we should not even be seeking forgiveness at all - we should we seeking and working towards reconciliation through harm reduction with minimal feedings/centerings of our feelings. It is to understand that the relief to our guilt is not being given forgiveness necessarily but to be a worthy and useful contribution to their healing by duty/responsibility/care. Thus to be accountable, is to reconciliACT in changed behaviours/ideals for the betterment of those impacted/harmed/exploited/neglected. Even if that looks like leaving them alone, to give space for process/healing, and to honour the boundaries needed when they are impacted no matter the state/excuse. One of the most important lessons of mine is also to understand that not all can be fixed or forgiven, thus our guilts/regrets really are just fixations on our feelings without clear conscious of what is needed for reconciliation and justice. I remembered years ago being compassionately called-in with words/labels like "savage"/"spirit animals" that I've learnt from mainstream/pop culture, and til today I am thankful for those reminders/teachings thus knowing how to navigate/serve better within/between/through interpersonal relations and for the defence/honour of Indigenous presence/history/resilience. One of the lessons I'm also grateful for was from a virtual and meditative conversation/smoking session with someone I consider a great friend/femme-fam/ally and mentor over the years, and we spoke about our crafts, poetry, and words... also how we can easily find anti-Blackness even in the romanticizations of healing through words - comparing lightness and darkness, using words like the shadows in relation to trauma... How can we write and heal without historical/cultural measures/norms of negativity surrounding darkness ? What about weight and heaviness ? As a writer/poet and emotional being I confess of using language like "feeling heavy", and I now know that contributes to the mindset of heaviness/fatness = negativity. I believe that all is connected and influenced thus a sort of responsibility to analyze and reflect in every circumstance/interaction/sentence/conversation/incidence to truly hold ourselves accountable to our ideas/speech/actions/impact. Yet aside from being accountable to both ourselves and others through interpersonal/socio-psychological relations, what about our commitments to community as a collective ? And how we navigate/serve personal relations/responsibilities while through community guidelines/duties remain a lesson/journey/test of our fair support/solidarity for justice.

    Then we have what's known as "cancel culture" - which I believe to be rooted in notions of community safety/care but often polluted with social media performativity/spectacality, and false/tainted intentions/presentations of politics... The possibilities of being canceled has been a common joke/punchline from certain peers surrounding my work and social profile. It still brings me great discomfort when joked about being "canceled"/"exposed" in the future as it makes me question if people my age actually believe in my/my work's genuineness/values at all, but also a reminder of the realities of serving/organizing communities publicly. At the end of the day, my name is not mine when I've chosen to work for/towards community, and I believe it to be an honour even if it becomes a trigger of anxiety/panic over how others view/think/speak of me. Yet I stand softly and strong in my essence as I hope for my character to be firm, foundational, and transparent enough to not have to explain/defend myself when times come controversies. And though I've learned to stay away from drama and often keeping my full opinion/analysis/understanding to myself, recently I was still forced into the spotlight as a target of being canceled/unfollowed on Instagram... It all surrounds me being approached by a local organization/team of queer/trans Asians who posts/organizes/hosts campaigns as well as events centering Queer/Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour narratives. They reached out back in the Summer to include me in a photoshoot which I was honoured/humbled to accept, however the concept was to have me wear a t-shirt with words of "Jolliqueen" while eating Jollibees fried chicken. I knew that Jollibees from the Philippines and had checked in with their team as well as a close Filipino friend/sister at the time, and was explained that their whole team/organization involved were Filipino and they were okay/wanted to cast me even though I'm Taiwanese. I was also encouraged/supported by my sister/friend back then and had a fairly pleasant time participating in the campaign - but now a few months later before the photos even came out, I was now called to be cultural appropriating and racist of/towards Filipino culture... Thus now I know in my deepest apologies/regrets that I should have never agreed to appear in a campaign when another trans Filipino person would have been the perfect fit. It was never my intention to take up space where it's not appropriate and maybe the flatter/vanity got to my ego before my conscious could be clear. There's no excuse or forgiveness needed as I should have been smarter and questioned myself more. Though I'm glad to have the organizers/team respond so professionally/compassionately as we all agreed that the photos just won't be used/posted when time comes. And I'm only thankful that this was dragged out with intentions to cancel my name by a hurting friend instead of community outrage/disapproval/responses that could come after posting... Maybe it's a sign for me to never model seriously/professionally, or just a reminder to trust my initial questions/doubts - if I needed to check-in with their team on their casting decision and creative directions, then having to double-check/unpack with a community member, then I probably shouldn't have accepted the gig (not that I was compensated/profited in any way). I'm not perfect, and I know I must do better and hold myself more transparent/accountable to each person/community I interact, encounter, and collaborate if I dare claim to love/care/honour.

    Also not to use such (un/re)learning experience to critique/debunk cancel culture, but an example of the usage/exploitations of social media and politics as intentional tactics/tools to hurt/harm/slender/call-out someone's public name/presence unforgivingly... I believe in community accountability and canceling/calling-out publicly as tools of harm reduction and announcements of safety measures. I believe in calling-out predators and abusers for the safety/care of victims/survivors within communities, I believe in publicly shaming and dishonouring discriminative/violent practices/services across communities. I believe in the need for being accountable, honest, and true to ourselves - but not like this, not how names are thrown without decency and respect, not when shared traumas in private are used so ruthlessly without empathy, not virtually online where compassion is already fatigued. I become so sad and disappointed of how many chooses to follow/unfollow without further investigation/understanding, thus I come to realize that the internet public is often more interested in a gasp then in whole truths. And I must remind myself of softness, of standing in my vulnerability against judgement and accusations, I must again remind myself of true allyship and accountabilities. I remind myself to stay myself, as I've learned that realness will always be questioned and tested... 

    I call on us to invest into community healing, into what comes next after calling-in/out, into learning what it takes for reparative/restorative justice. I wish we can grief softly over the love and fights we've lost, and to remain respectful through circumstances/complications. I pray for us to heal, as I demand for empathy and more compassion even in socio-political analysis/reflections... I believe in our growth, as even a survivor I call for abolishing the prisons - I believe in humanity and healing. I believe in holding truth and our communities even safer, closer, and softer.

Growth & Grief

    Sometimes I dream of a death-like sleep, an escape, a safe hideaway to be without dissection, without needing to prove my existence or worth, without care or contributions to be deserving of my next breath... Sometimes I become so exhausted I only wish to disappear, forever, to forgive myself of all the ways I've failed at love, at teaching life thus barely surviving, at grace and compassion as it seems not enough, as it feels not enough to be offering my heart... Sometimes, I feel not enough.

"You are allowed to heal toward a future version of yourself 

without hating who you are right now. 

You have the option to love yourself to new levels."

- Rachel Elizabeth Cargle

    And then I remember of how a therapist once told me at 16 that it's okay to let go in order to grow, to thank the people who's no longer in your journey towards healing, to wish them well and forgive myself too. As at the end of the day I hold no guilt or regrets for the ways I had loved and shared, even if misunderstood and antagonized, my love and care remains sacred and true to its time - I must believe that, I must remind myself that, in order to stay alive I must believe that my love, compassion, and patience worth something, that no time was wasted, that all is honoured and deserving even through torturing heartbreak/betrayal... Thus grief, as it seems a reoccurring thesis/lesson of this year when we've been grieving all year in midst of such violent calls for transformation, for restorative and reparative justice. I've been crying from the Blue Full Moon to the Beaver Full Moon - surviving threats, weaponized politics and twisted words, I struggle to mourn in peace while social medias drained with compassion-fatigued dramas and an audience-filled spectacality. No mediation or explanation needed as my last conversations were simply a call for consideration, a realization for boundaries and self-preservation - as sharing my feelings in vulnerability and truth still stands no conflict in my mind but an unfortunate subject to public projections and assumptions. I only pray/hope for the healing of all, meditating for growth through grief as I attempt to find softness again in cruelty and hurt... 

"Grief can be a garden of compassion.

If you can keep your heart open through everything, 

your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom."

- Rumi

    Virgo in mutable Earth - characterized and rooted in changeability: I remembered losing friends/allies and being villianized in high school after coming out, still I look back in truth of queer/transphobic/ableist layers within mistreatments and misunderstandings but also I come to understand/realize one's need/relief through calling-out instead of calling-in. I was so hurt and desperate to call out the injustices to my feelings/identity/being that I didn't know how to call-in through grace/softness. And maybe if I had called into reflections instead of outing behaviours with socio-political theories of violence/hierarchies that people would have responded with less denial and defensiveness. Yet I must forgive myself for the ways I thought I needed to fight in defence when already exhausted from daily discriminations and micro-aggressions. I understand the need to fight, but over the years I've become too tired, thus mostly in flight. And when later awakened to published comments of my body as a candidate/competition for some university-student-elections drama, I come to learn again the balance between silence and vocalizing a stance through both being villianized/victimized so publicly and powerlessly to my control... I come to realize from all these internet incidences of slandering, call-outs, and misunderstandings/accusations/questions of who I am and how I live, that I have to stand soft in my character/essence and believe in the ways I have loved. Thus I know as a writer/poet/speaker that it is not the words of others or even myself that gets the honour of being remembered, but the ways we have made others feel and the spaces/stories we have shared in vulnerability/truth. I begin to understand through healing of how love/care without boundaries are self-destructive and unproductive to the healing of others/myself, as I'm also not responsible for how others react to my boundaries especially when my softness had already been extended, exhausted, and exploited - I must remind myself that my feelings and needs are honourable before pleasing/responding to others' traumas and forgiving for the ways their projections hurt me... From trees wilting that I learn to grief in grace and peace, waiting for new greens and blossoms in the love of growth/rebirth.

"I think it is healing behaviour

to look at something so broken and

see the possibility and wholeness in it."

- Adrienne Maree Brown 

    Sometimes I grief for the love never returned, for the love I served on silver platters but stepped on like street puddles, and for the love I desperately felt/gave for hopes of healing. Sometimes I still doubt my purpose of being here - a wilting flower asking why she deserves to blossom... And perhaps the remedy is to understand that my love is not the answer nor solution, that its been an honour and enough to contribute and care for our collective traumas/pains, that it has been and will be enough through softness and truth. As even though we are dying too we still dance, wilting in grace as we continue to plant the seeds of rebirth thus harvesting for the ingredients to our future...