3) youtu.be/1V3fUWUUw7w

(the commitment to changing)

2) youtu.be/HGnL5NBALEg

(the understanding of what is wrong and that it’s our responsibility to do something about it)

if you want to listen to a trilogy of songs that explain everything i’ve just said, listen to these three songs in order:

1) youtu.be/ioadFzq_6n0

(the realization that something is wrong)

it’s essentially a lesson in learning how to complicate your own choice matrix and the people who you want to be in your community’s choice matrixes for the better and opening up new ways of understanding and thinking about yourself, themselves, and the world

and if someone doesn’t want to do or be better (which is fundamentally different from actually not knowing what to do to do and be better), that is certainly their choice

and it’s also certainly your choice to be like “i can’t fuck with you anymore/until you do better” in response

and, obviously, you should know when to cut your losses or when to let people just do what they want with and set healthy boundaries

the point isn’t to put yourself in harms way to save or change someone

it’s to help people, if you and they so choose, to do and be better

i amended my previous statement because i really don’t think it’s helpful to focus on the individual rather than the ideologies and beliefs

you make people more defensive when you make it about them rather than about what they’re doing or saying, and putting people on the defensive doesn’t help

the goal should be to make them and/or others to recognize how and why they’re wrong in a way that incites introspection, and the best way to do that isn’t always to punish them (especially not for making a mistake or not immediately understanding why and how they’re wrong)

if someone is like “women are inferior to men; i don’t care what you say” or “trans people should not exist in society” or “the existence of people of color in this space is what makes it inferior” judge what they’ve said or done with the full extent of God’s rage

if someone you have a relationship with has harmful biases, have a conversation with them about where they come from and why they’re wrong and what they can do to become better at recognizing and challenging them

Philanthropy is just a way to wash the blood off your billions." — Brooke, In Treatment (HBO)

Because this is all some patriarchal, dick-measuring horseshit.

All this talk about renaming buildings and whatnot because so-and-so was a monster? I say, take 'em all down. If your name is on the side of a building, chances are you did some horrendous shit to get it there.

That shit's impossible without taking shortcuts, gaming the system, stepping on other folks, without a shitload of collateral damage.

Do your trips to the doctor move the stock market? Do your dinner parties determine the next leader of the free world?

in a decent neighborhood, send their kids to a safe school.

I just wanted to do something that I loved to do, and fuckin' white guys, you need to shatter the model of success in order for you to feel like you've done anything at all.

Well, guess what?

And then the rest of the world pays the price when you don't feel adequate because you don't have a motherfuckin' clue about what you're feeling or why you are feeling it.

Some people . . . lots of people—those people you were just talking about, they just want to have a house

And, by the way, give me a fucking break.

And if you don't become a great man, well, why the hell not? It's all there for the taking. If you don't become great, it's because you're a piece of shit, or a coward, or a fool.

and i don’t think it’s helpful to suggest that only people who don’t love themselves make bad/dangerous/abusive/harmful lovers because they can only offer pain in return

people who don’t love themselves don’t become that way in a vacuum just like people who love themselves don’t become that way in a vacuum either,

“Whatever this vision, or nightmare, [of masculinity] is, it corrodes the life of the Republic on every level.”

— James Baldwin