"Since we did not always have this knowledge and now feel motivated by it's, it's easy to assume that if others knew how bad things were, they, too, would want to take action. This assumptions can sometimes lead activists to beecome walking, talking encyclopedias of doom"

Hello, that's me👋🏽 a recovering encyclopedia of doom🙃 I know how frustrating it can be to scream at the top of your lungs the injustices of the world, to get angry at people for deciding to look the other way and only get involved in the issues that affect them. But lately I've been thinking of empathy as a muscle, something that must be trained. I was on tumblr in the 2010's where everyone was a social justice warrior, so I have been training my empathy for more than a decade, but we must give some leniency to those who want to learn but are still making mistakes.

Now this is work for the people who want to be organizers, as I always like to clarify, we should not expect marginalized people to educate their oppressors!! But I (and so many more) have decided to make it my life goal to do it. Because I have faith that people can change and can improve, and that most people hurt each other because they don't know better. The first chapter talks about the power of storytelling, how facts alone are not enough we have to get people involved. I used to get angry when I thought about homophobic people who only started caring about lgbtq+ communities once someone they loved shared that they were queer, I thought it was selfish, and that it meant that they could only care for the issues that affected them. But by thinking of empathy as something that has to be trained, I realized that once you start caring for people you are more likely to spread that empathy towards other communities, but it has to start somewhere.

If we give our backs to the people who want to improve but make mistakes, they will never join our cause. For example, most antivaxxers are afraid and don't know who to trust, and if they are treated as stupid when searching for information, then they will go to the communities that embrace them. That's why the labor of organizers it's so important, because we can open the doors to people who want to be part of the change, who want to imagine a better world for everyone but have been coluded by capitalist propaganda.