We now see oppressions that keep us from reaching our true human potential, as systems that interlock with one another, so that racism and sexism and captialism and all other isms are tied in a tight knot with each other. This knot is almost impossible to undo.
I was watching this documentary on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and I started thinking about what I would need as a human to stay alive. At first, I thought if I have oxygen I'll be fine. But then I realized I could only stay alive so long with just oxygen that I'd also need water, and then I'd need food, etc.
There are interlocking systems that we need to stay alive--oxygen, water, food etc. we can not live very long without a combination of those, just like oppressions cannot live very long without the other oppression. I want to look at it this way. If we take the time to work on chipping away one the others will fall.
I'm not saying we should ignore one or the other, what I am saying is to hold on to your hope, to not think it is so overwhelming, or that the knot is too strong. Take away the food and they can only survive for a couple of weeks. Take away the water a few days. The oxygen a minute. That is all I'm saying.
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