“To the ornery and ill-tempered”

First of all, hiii, thank you for writing me this book, since I am apparently the exact target audience, and thank you for having Daveed Diggs narrate, how did you know exactly what to get me?!

Could not be more excited

This was a really thoughtful (albeit, lengthy) chapter to start off with, and I'm enjoying how much it's getting my mind going. Taking a lot of notes too.

The distinction made between activists and organizers was a really helpful one for me (coming in at the activist end of the spectrum), and honestly I was really shocked by how much resistance I felt within myself at the approach and mental framing they suggest effective organizers take. So much of this chapter was about how organizers must remove their judgement of people who act against the collective even despite being fully informed with the facts, and when that was first brought up I really felt doubt as to whether I had that in me or even agreed. The idea of engaging with such individuals through "persistent, patient, and curious conversations and story sharing" and simply meeting them where they're at over and over is a true testament to hope replacing anger, and of everything described so far it seems to me like one of the hardest parts of the work. To show up like that, you'd need to separate your work from so many personal feelings of betrayal and righteousness and sheer frustration, and that is hard to take your self out of the equation.

Just off of how much I could feel myself pushing back on that idea initially, I'm truly shocked the degree to which I warmed up to it by the end of the chapter. The anecdotes shared really were so helpful to see little ways in which organizers were able to effectively work using that approach, and it was inspiring. One of my favorite quotes was "People thought the public was apathetic. But I realized... It was not that people didn't care or didn't know, but that people were afraid to suffer. It was the refusal or the incapacity to suffer." I really sat with that. It directly tapped into my empathy in a way that actually made me want to be patient and keep faith that there is an essential goodness in people that they actually want to express if they can just bring down their own defenses.

Still not sure I'm cut out to be an organizer, but I do want a better understanding of the work they do so that at the very least I can engage with it better as an activist. Really looking forward to what else is in store.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke would be a great fit here, Eric is queer horror royalty!