Some people are going to be mad at you because maybe you just joined the fight.
Some people will be mad at you because they don’t like the way that you’re joining the fight.
Some people even might be mad at you because they think that you are not fighting enough.
And most of the time, that anger is very valid. They will have all of their reasons to be mad at you. But the people that are angry at you are still fighting for what they already have been fighting for, which is collective liberation.
Think about a trans person who continues to be midgendered every single day. Sometimes maliciously and intentionally, sometimes because people simply did not bother to ask, or perhaps even because people did not know enough. But it has happened hundreds of times already, and then you misgender them for the first time upon meeting them. You have added to the enormous weight they are already carrying. So they are angry at you, too.
Or think about how many Black and Indigenous communities may be angry at white women because white women have been some of the last to understand interdependence. This has endangered and killed Black and Indigenous people, and People of the Global Majority, for centuries. People are often angry for not only for themselves, but also for everyone that has been lost and who suffers now.
Anger can be powerful and grounding, too.
Your fight is not to try to get people to not be mad at you, it is to fight for collective liberation. One of the amazing aspects about fighting for collective liberation, is that it can help address some of the reasons why people might be angry at you: anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, ableism, anti-immigrantism, transphobia, and all oppressions.
So yes, even if people are mad at you, that does not mean that you should not join the fight. It means you join now, grow humbly, and learn what it means to be in the fight.
Some people will be angry at you. And some people won’t. We need everyone.
It is only when you join, that you understand what you need to be in the fight too.
Do not write off that anger. It can fuel movements, help to drive people to protect each other, and it can even wake people up to understand that they have to catch up.
Even if people are angry at you because you are late, you could do better, you could do more, all of which can be true, that can even help you.
And also, you’re here now.
We do need all of us to show up in all the ways possible.
We’re all the drops that come together. We are the waves.
Even if people are angry at you, you finally get to begin.
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