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The first time in my life that i decided how i felt about hate, i was 17 years old, riding in my family’s mini van with my 3 siblings and my step-father. We were arguing, which wasn’t unusual. What is unusual is the clarity of my memory. Most of my childhood is a hazy fog in my mind, details are hard to recall. But not of that sunday.

We were on the way to church. My mom was already there, since she basically ran the church. (Not that any man in charge there would admit it.) I think we were about halfway there. Whatever we were arguing about, i felt my step-dad was being incredibly ignorant. And (also like usual) i was struggling to hold my tongue. He could tell, and i guess all he needed was an excuse for a fight so he went looking for one.

He kept pressuring and goading me to say what i thought, and i don’t remember all the particulars before the fatal moment—i just know i said i thought he was ignorant.

and he said, « i hate you and i can’t wait until you’re out of my house and i don’t have to deal with you anymore. »

i will never forget that day. It is etched on my mind and heart like a stone tablet.
because this story doesn’t end there.

Our family got through church and the after church cleanup scramble, to a pizza parlor with the rest of the pastors families, and then back to our family mini van to head back to the church for small group classes. The usual sibling bickering was going on in the backseat, and as the oldest, i was handling it. My step-dad was coming to get into the drivers seat. i was in the middle seat talking to my siblings. They were fighting, and my youngest sibling (probably after hearing it that morning) told one of the other two, « i hate you! »

i turned in my seat and said their name sternly, « we don’t say we hate people. hate means you want people to be hurt, and to die. is that what you feel? »

my step dad heard and interrupted me to tell them,
« no, you’re just expressing your feelings, you can say whatever you want. » (or something to that affect, blurred details due to my autistic teenage RAGE at my sense of justice being disrespected.)

And for one of the very few times in my life, i disagreed with him calmly, and with certainty. i knew in my bones i was right. So, knowing there would almost certainly be horrible consequences that i could not predict, i said,
« no. it is not okay to hate other people. don’t say that (youngest siblings name). Only hateful people say hateful things like that. »

and before i could fully turn in my seat, my step-dad had pulled back his arm and swung it towards my leg in an open palmed slap that hurt more than almost any other time he ever hit me. It left a handprint on my leg for hours. For reference, i am 4’ 11in. now, and i was then too. My step-dad is 6’ tall and probably in like the 250ish weight class. I cried silently all the way to the church. I hid in the sanctuary in the sound booth, laying on the floor under the counter.

Later, my mother came to find me, basically to tell me to gtfu and stop throwing a pity party. So i showed her my leg, told her what happened, and then she left me alone and i cried some more. i don’t know if she ever talked to him about it. He has never apologized or taken it back.

In no other moment of my life, was it so cut and dry to stand up to hate. Because most of the time, hate is insidious. It sneaks up on you, a virus that is invisible to your eye. It can disguise itself as greed, or vengeance, or sometimes, even justice. It can be polite, even downright nice sometimes. But hate is always aiming in one direction—destruction, chaos, death.

Hate tells us we do not need to use our eyes. It says for us to look at everything but the problems with our own hearts. Hate allows us to abandon all responsibility and accountability for our actions. Hate will make you blind, and stupid.

Have you ever watched Princess Mononoke? It’s an anime film by studio ghibli, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It came out when i was a year old, in 1997.
I had never watched it until about two years ago. It is one of my friend’s favorite ghibli film, so i watched it with her and immediately fell in love with it.

Though, it wasn’t until the past few months of watching it on repeat that i started to think more deeply about it’s themes and meanings to me personally. Things happen in our lives that make us look with whole new eyes at people and things we thought we knew really well.

spoiler alert: i will be discussing and describing things that happen in the film, so if you haven’t seen it—you may wanna go watch it first!

Ashitaka is a warrior prince of the Emishi people who have been in exile for 500 years. He becomes cursed when he is touched by the posion of a boar god, who had transformed into a demon. The wise woman of his village asks him if he is ready to hear his fate. She tells him, this curse will spread through his body causing him great pain and sufferring, and will eventually kill him. But if he travels to the west, where the boar is from, he may find another path, only if he can,

« see with eyes unclouded by hate »

I’ve been thinking a lot about what that means to me. How does hate cloud my eyes? Are there any distortion fields in my vision? Where are my prejudices, and how do they interfere with my own purpose? How do we spot and stop hatred? How do we stop violence, and killing, and live in peace? And if we must see with eyes unclouded in order to live in peace, how do we help our neighbors to also open their eyes?

i remember that sunday, thinking later that night about how i could possibly teach my siblings against hatred after what had transpired. i thought about what i knew about hate, and i thought about slavery, and the trail of tears, and the holocaust. i was in high school and even though my education in the southern school systems was highly censored and controlled and whitewashed, i was seeing through some of those lines in the books i was learning from, and all the extra books i was reading to distract myself from my abusive home reality.

Sometime not long after that i began teaching my siblings that that is what hate looks like. Hate looks like oppression and abuse and exploitation. i didn’t know that was the lesson i was teaching at the time, but i knew i didn’t want my siblings to grow up to be like my parents. i knew i didn’t want to grow up to be like them. i believe i related it directly to real life things, movies we had watched, news stories we had seen. We had all watched the boy in the striped pajamas together, and so i told them, nazis hated people. That is what hate looks like. I didn’t hear my siblings talk like that to each other again for a long time.

That was the first time i learned how to use my eyes to see, unclouded by hate.

The next time isn’t so easy to talk about. Because it means putting a younger, less educated version of me out in the open. i will never forget the first time i saw one of my black siblings being killed by police, with seemingly no reason, and no mercy. i was at work, on twitter while doing data entry, when i saw a video of a man being shot to death during a traffic stop. It was Philando Castille. That video changed the course of my life, i think. It allowed me to see with eyes unclouded. i had never particularly liked cops before. But my mom raised me in a completely whitewashed household, with no connection to my history or larger family connections. So it had never once occurred to me that cops were racist. That every black person i knew might live in fear everyday. And once i saw that, i could never unsee it. That week i went through my instagram doing a mass purge of people i felt like didn’t align with my values, which were firmly against people being murdered and firmly against racism, and then finding good teachers. Like Erica Hart. Like No White Saviors. Like Angela Davis. i followed the ACLU and Black Lives Matter. Truly for the first time in my life, i learned to shut the actual fuck up and listen to other people, and believe that they were the experts of their own experiences.

i want to be clear, to me this a shameful story that is hard to tell. i am not proud of myself that it took me watching a man die in front of his girlfriend and a four year old child to realize that America still had a really bad racism problem. There were chances for me to see and know better before that. i was just too concerned and clouded with my own problems, my own hatreds. i am glad that i learned, that i had my eyes opened, but i cannot take credit for any of that. Everything i have ever, ever become that is good, i owe to black women and femmes and queers, and wise indigineous teachers. The only compliment i can give myself is that i was smart enough to shut up, and listen to them. i am not impressive for being anit-racist. i am not « one of the good ones ». i am a human being, and i care about other human beings. This is the bare minimum, and literally the reason black people can’t trust anyone is because everyone wants to act like they are Harriet Tubman if they post a black square on instagram.
i am not an activist. i am an artist, writer, and educator. and my only design here is to say and acknowledge what is true. Racism in America is literally the biggest and most important issue we have to tackle. Racism is 100% white peoples fault, problem, and responsibility to stop.
Whiteness is a construct. i do not identify as white, because i am not. But i have the positionality of a white person (if my gender is being read, kinda okayish) or at worst a white woman. White women are literally the most dangerous type of person a black person can encounter outside of maybe the police. i hope every single black person who meets and interacts with me proceeds with extreme caution. Not because i am an unsafe person, but because if they do not proceed with extreme caution every single time, it can end literally in prison or death for them. White woman tears are literally deadly. These things are what it means to me to be an anti-racist and pro-black ally to the black community. i understand these things. i take no offense at them.

i understand that white supremacy is an insidious, hateful thing, and that it’s my responsibility to keep unlearning it every day. And no one else has to put up with my missteps just because ‘im trying.’ i understand that every single white person is racist, and that every single person in the world has to unlearn white supremacy and colonial, punitive thinking. i am not afraid of these things, because to me, these are some of the most exciting concepts in the world. i see with eyes unclouded. i see a world with no police. i see a world with systems of care and repair, weaved like nets of starlight all around us, like mycellium covering the earth. i see all my neighbors, lovers, friends, siblings, safe and full of love, held in care at whatever season they find themselves moving through. i see how we get there. i see children happy and safe, going to schools and parks and libraries without fear of gunmen, predators, police, or bigotry.

i see how we get there because my eyes are unclouded by hate. The revolution will not be televised because the first revolution happens inside. That’s how we’re getting there. Day by day more of us are becoming students, more of us are becoming teachers. The webs of interconnectedness, of care, of knowledge and wisdom, of justice, are getting wider and wider. i see a revolution unfolding like beautiful blossoms in spring. As we learn and we teach and we learn some more, as we build and we repair and we grow, as we fight and we bleed and we die, just like any other flower, we throw our seeds far and wide. And one day, there will be no place in the world that we do not bloom. We will fill the seed stores of the entire earth.

Just like the Spirit of the Forest, dying and rebirthing all that was green and good back to the mountain and valley, that is us. That is what we can do together, if we choose to see with eyes unclouded.

If you were worried i wasn’t gonna tell you how, don’t worry, i aint done yet.

one.
LEARN TO LISTEN TO YOUR HEART
The first voice i heard that told me something wrong was going on, was my own heart. It whispered in my bones and vibrated through me. i don’t need to describe to you what hatefulness is. i don’t need to tell you, because you already know what your deepest shames and fears are, who you are jealous of and who you despise. Look deeper, ask yourself why, again and again until you come to the answer.

My heart told me from an early age what i thought was right and what i thought was wrong. For me, love is my guiding principle. That might not be right for everyone. But for me it is. i navigate the messages of my heart with love. If i dont want it to happen to my husband, myself, my cat, my best friend, etc. then i probably shouldn’t want it to happen to anyone.

My heart made me anti-racist, my heart made me an abolitionist, my heart makes me who i am. i encourage you to see who your heart could make you into.

two.
LEARN TO STFU & LISTEN

three.
LEARN TO MIND YOUR BUSINESS

four.
JUST GENERALLY GOOD RULES