My experience has been informed by the fact that my father is black, and my mother is white. and on both sides of my ancestry, I hold the blood of two different Native American tribes.
As a mixed person, I show up in every room as the embodiment of the true “American dream”. Both the colonizer and the colonized.
I am "Both And" in a one-or-the other kind of world. And it has given me a gift of sight that allows me to see through the illusion of polarization and find common ground even amidst the most heightened of extremes.
Nuance appears to be something we are so afraid to hold at this point in modern history. In this world, there are only two sides - the light or the dark, black or white, the good guy or the bad guy.
But what if the truth is not so black or white? What if the truth - is in fact, bullet gray.
Reality it turns out is a lot more grey area than "the powers that be" would have you believe. When I look out at the world today what I see is pain and suffering happening on both sides of the equation and the true tragedy of it all is that a lot of it is inflicted by the hands of the "other".
Perhaps the rage we all feel inside is not wrong. What is true now more than ever is that we are ALL in desperate need of systemic change on the deepest of levels - but what if our targets are misplaced?
Your rage is sacred and ancestral and I implore you to lean into it with all of your might - but also ask yourself who are you really angry at? who is actually responsible for all of the damage that has been done?
If your answer has anything to do with your neighbor - than you are not paying close enough attention and I implore you to go deeper.
Raping, pillaging, hunting, oppression, all serve a greater purpose.
But whose purpose does it serve?
Its time for us to stop for a moment - take a look around. Who are we fighting for? Who are we fighting against? and are our causes coming from a similar place?
The rage most of us feel is coming ultimately from a place of love, it is ancestral.
It is our bodies screaming from the inside out saying NO MORE! We cannot go on like this. Your anti-Palestinian hatred is not welcome here. Your Antisemitism and Jew hatred is not welcome here. Your support of the terrorism of the Hamas is not welcome here. Your support of the Isreali governmental oppression over the Palestinians is not welcome here.
But your fucking rage against the systems that have you taking up arms and suiting up for a war against your brothers, your neighbors, yours friends - in support of a larger military agenda that was never in your best interest to begin with, is encouraged.
GET UP! WAKE UP! RISE UP! RAGE!
Change is knocking at your door and it looks like your neighbor asking for help to create a life we ALL deserve.
I believe the worlds true salvation lies in the full and honest realization that we are all ultimately only reflections of one another. And the full integration of the truth that there is no "other" to begin with. In the words of Marianne Williamson,
"There is only ever one of us here."
Harm inflicted upon the other is harm inflicted upon thyself.
We are all made up of the same stardust, gaseous nebulas and earthen clay and it is an absolute miracle that we are even here at all.
Do you realize how many of your ancestors had to get together and mix their DNA at the exact right time for you to be here in this moment? And how many of those same ancestors likely looked like your neighbor who you have been so vehemently pitted against?
Can two truths be true at once? Can both sides of this conflict be suffering in their own way AND both be in need of a greater revolution?
Perhaps the true revolution that is trying to emerge right now is a revolution in consciousness. A revolution of empathy, compassion and care for ourselves and each other on the deepest of levels.
Perhaps our missiles are misplaced. and those who are truly responsible for all the harm being done are the ones at the helm of command center telling us that our brothers are our enemies.
This is a lie.
The real mistruth is that there is a side to be chosen. We are the people. and we are one. We deserve the right to live and to love in peace. It is true that this will require compromise, it is true that this will require change. But ultimately, if we can be the ones to create space for all of our truths to live in harmony together we will all be better off for it.
So how do we even begin to hold both in a one or the other kind of world?
By remembering that we are two sides of the same coin. Branches of the same tree.
And the fight that we are fighting need not be against each other - it does however need to be against the forces, the media and the governmental infrastructures, and military industrial complexes, that continue to sacrifice innocent human lives for political gain like pawns on a chessboard in the fight for our lives.
A new era is upon us. and it will be the people who are the victors this time.
Thanks for tuning in. See you next week.
xoxo, Iman
Thank you <3