LA is burning and we are complicit
There’s a rage and a sadness and a weird kind of knowing that I am feeling right now: LA is burning and we are complicit.
For a country founded on genocide and enslavement, that is, theft, rape and violence towards land and people, we have to confront the fact that, as heartbreaking and devastating as it is to witness, this is a logical outcome, one of many, of the collective dominant culture.
It even seems fitting, given who takes the Presidency in the US in little over a week.
Don’t get me wrong, “logical” and “fitting” is by no means saying it’s ok. None of it is ok. We did this collectively but the impacts are deep and devastatingly personal for some more than others… as they always have been… and there is a collective impact as well. This is happening to all of us, although not all equally.
The truth is that capitalism puts profit over people - ALL people.
Yes some people are privileged and protected more than others, but at the end of the day we are ALL expendable, not just our lives (thankfully the death toll has been relatively low in the LA fires so far) but in livelihood, community, psychological, physical and emotional safety and more.
We are collateral damage - yes even wealthy white folks.
Sometimes we bomb people. Sometimes we fund the bombing of people. Sometimes we extract resources from our planet without regard for the impacts of climate change. Sometimes what we prioritize says everything about what is most important.
"Up against unprecedented challenges and the looming specter of climate change, how has the city of Los Angeles responded? By further arming its police department. As many have noted, the L.A. city budget signed into law by Mayor Karen Bass back in June included a $17 million cut to the L.A. Fire Department, cuts to other city infrastructure services, and a $126 million boost for the LAPD. Those numbers alone don't tell the whole story—fire management at this scale is typically managed by state and federal agencies—but there's a larger-order lesson here about what those in power actually see as important and worth protecting, about their willingness to let most people suffer to ensure their own security." from “The Future Of Fire Cannot Look Like Its Present.” - The Defector
There it is, good old racism, white supremacy and plantation culture, lurking in the shadows and entangled with every major issue we face.
The example quoted is just one small example.
Need the bigger picture?
Here’s a diagram from Rupa Marya’s talk at at Bioneers a few years ago - read a transcript snippet here.
It can feel overwhelming to know how to move forward in the face of such a big and entangled system, while experiencing or bearing witness to the current devastation in LA, or wherever the current devastation is… because you know there will always be a current devastation and not all of them are as well covered as what is unfolding in LA right now.
I like to think of each of us as part of little tiny fractals, both nothing in the context of the universe, and everything.
All we can do is model, live, embody what we believe ourselves, to the best of our ability, at any given moment. We all have to participate in capitalism but that doesn’t mean we have to like it, or bury our head in the sand about the impacts, or stop dreaming and experimenting with different ways of being - different ways to connect, share power, work in collaboration, co-create, break out of binaries to create change that is “both/and.”
We can feel our feelings, not as “trauma porn” but to tap into truth, and see things as they really are. Empathy can feed creativity and innovation.
We can be different.
For those of you most directly impacted by the current fires, I am so sorry, more than I can say. For all of you watching, take care of yourselves too - this is vicarious trauma, and anyone with any kind of history of trauma is likely to be feeling particularly activated.
Please take care, and I hope we can all deepen our commitment to creating a different world, one step at a time.
Banner image by Jr Korpa for Unsplash+
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