Against All Oppression
Gods & Radicals supports the right for All to live peacefully, without harm from those in power. There are no ifs and buts nor exceptions to the rule.
‘Yeah, they split up. She called the police on him.
Fucking hell, what for?
He gave her a slap.
What, so she called the police?
Yeah.
Well, to be honest, I'm surprised he didn't hit her sooner.'
* * * * *
I grew up on the very same street where I live now, just a couple of doors away from my childhood home in fact. When I was around ten, my parents split up, and from then on there was just my mum, myself and my three sisters living at home. My dad didn't go far and was always there for us, but at home it was just us females. One day, my little sister, who had been out playing on the front (she was only around seven or eight and so was confined to the pavement outside our house), came running in crying. It turns out that some late teen / early twenty-something man had told her to get out-of-the-way, calling her a 'little black bitch'. Well, you didn't mess with my mum and she went straight over to where he was and slapped him hard across the face, all the while giving him a piece of her mind. Even now, I look back on that day with pride at a mother looking out for her child, but at the same time, I marvel at the conditions that allowed a person old enough to know better to think that he had the right to say such a thing to a child.
* * * * *
The conversation at the beginning is one I actually heard. It was a group of men discussing the break up of another friends relationship due to domestic violence. The second story is one of the best memories I have of my mum! But I always find myself thinking about those situations, and countless others like them. I think about the kinds of environment that creates, encourages or turns a blind eye to such behaviour. What gives someone the idea that they can abuse others, simply for existing? What makes the men from the conversation think that it's okay to talk so openly about domestic abuse, and in defence of such actions too? What allows people to think that such behaviour is okay? Do they think that it is actually okay? Or has it become the norm, conditioned and reinforced? Was it the norm to begin with? What kind of person racially abuses a kid? And what conditions created such a person?
The Capitalist State divides all people into colours, caste, class, gender, and in doing so creates enemies out of them, but not as in enemies towards the state, which would be a good thing, but rather against one another. It keeps them blind so that they miss the forest for the trees. We talk about feminism and about gender equality, race equality and so on as if they are all separate things, when really there are no distinctions within equality. How can equality be equality if not all people share in it? If you look at the Suffragette movement, it was recently celebrated here in the UK on the anniversary of some women winning the right to vote. Some women. Was this a victory? Some would say yes because it paved the way for the vote for all, but I can't help but see it as a way for the State to weaken the case for equality. No doubt the women who were given the vote were 'upstanding members of the community', code for had rich husbands or fathers.
I think infighting between groups each fighting for their own rights comes about because of fear. Why do some men, even now, fear equality with women? Does it threaten them in some way? Perhaps they think it lessens them somehow. And it doesn't stop there either. Why do some feminist women oppose the rights of trans women so vehemently, or some white people deny the rights for those not sharing the same skin tone? I think it stems from fear, that in some way they think that if those groups gain equality, then it takes something from them.
It doesn't.
Equality isn't equality if it doesn't apply to all, equally. And when I speak of equality, I'm really speaking about freedom, after all, I don't want us to be equally oppressed now, do I. I've never understood why some get so eat up by what another person is doing. All living beings just want to live their lives without harm. In my own personal opinion, everyone can do whatever they want if they are a consenting adult who isn't causing harm to another - it's all good.
I've written for this platform for over a year now, and in that time I have received help, support and friendship from many involved with it. One of the reasons as to why I absolutely love writing here is because of their stance on oppression - in all of its forms, and I am proud to carry on writing for them. I, as a hard-nosed, working class, mixed race Obeah woman, would never sell myself out for anything I didn't believe in, and so I hope that you too, dear reader, will continue to support that message, and that is we are against all forms of oppression, regardless of who is perpetrating it. Let's fight the good fight folks, and that's the fight against the colossus of Capitalism. If Capitalism should fall tomorrow, then the problems I've written about will surely still exist, but it's important to understand that the Capitalist State sponsors the issues that continue to divide us. We must look past those superficial differences and unite to fight and only then will we truly be free. Gods & Radicals supports the right for All to live peacefully, without harm from those in power. There are no ifs and buts nor exceptions to the rule.
Emma Kathryn
My name is Emma Kathryn, an eclectic witch, my path is a mixture of traditional European witchcraft, voodoo and obeah, a mixture representing my heritage. I live in the middle of England in a little town in Nottinghamshire, with my partner, two teenage sons and two crazy dogs, Boo and Dexter. When not working in a bookshop full time, I like to spend time with my family outdoors, with the dogs. And weaving magic, of course! You can follow Emma on Facebook
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