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.

"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.