Hey everybody What's up
Just hopping in here. I wanted to follow up very briefly on what happened on the House
floor today. That's my job. Everybody what's up, hey everybody.
So I wanted to follow up briefly on what happened on the House floor today and to drive home
some of the points of what I could not say.
Now this is not to say that I was censored or anything like that, but but here's what's
going on. If you haven't seen the news or you just haven't seen today, I spoke on the
House floor with respect to Representative Gosar, who posted a video of, you know, where
he depicted an animation of trying to kill me
. About a week ago, and because the Republican Party cannot bring themselves to say that
depicting yourself killing a colleague is wrong and inappropriate, we had to bring a
censure vote today in which two members out of two Republican members out of hundreds,
I had the actual wherewithal to say threatening violence and inciting violence against one's
colleague is
wrong. So anyways delivered the speech. You can check it on my my congressional account
if you'd like to see it. But I wanted to dig in a little bit deeper than what I really
had the opportunity to discuss on the floor today because I was thinking a lot about what
I could possibly fit in.
first of all, I can only speak for five minutes and you know, I think I accomplished what
I needed to accomplish in that time. But there's a lot more underlying this issue that we should
discuss. Secondly, there are certain rules surrounding debate on the House floor that
mean that you're not allowed to say certain things, for example
. It's kind of an open question slash generally unable to call someone racist on the House
floor, even if that person has fundraised for white supremacist organizations as representative
GOES-R has done. And, you know, keynoted and I have really engaged in open conversation
and encouragement of white nationalism.
The white nationalist organizations racism or racist is seen as not expressly an insult,
no matter how much evidence or embracing of racism there is. And so, you know, it is kind
of marked and can be challenged as engaging in personalities on the House floor, a.k.a.
insulting somebody.
So there's a lot to a racist and a in a white nationalist targeting a young woman of color
for a depiction of violence that you're really not allowed to discuss or you kind of have
to beat around the bush on nationally.
But. I was really thinking a lot about this because, as I mentioned, as I was able to
mention in my remarks, is that there's a lot of this that has to do with nihilism. What
is nihilism? Nihilism is a general idea that there are no morals, there are no standards.
There is no meaning to anything that we do and that nothing that we do matters. And I
kind of want to discuss how this is connected to white supremacy and how this idea that
nothing matters. It's just a joke, et cetera, is really connected in in very concrete ways
to white supremacist ideology.
So when you think about white supremacy, white supremacy is a system of beliefs in, I would
say, let's call it myth, mythology or an ideology of essentially a person being born of superior
value, intellect, et cetera, because they were born white.
But there's also other forms of supremacy. You know, you have patriarchy, which is that
you are superior because you're a man or, you know, whatever that may be. Any form of
supremacy. But GOES-R specialty is white supremacy with the minor in patriarchy and and the thing
about being a supremacist, white supremacist misogynist, whatever it may be.
The thing about being a supremacist is that your entire identity, by definition, is relative.
Is that your entire sense of self-worth is based on who you think you are better than
whether it's classism or racism or hate. You know, misogyny, whatever that may be, your
whole identity and sense of self-worth is based on who you are better
then. And so the opposite of a misogynist. You know, this is not about being someone
who is not a man. Right? But it's a question of if you cannot be a man, if you do not know
who you are as a man, unless it is relative and put in context and defined by the denigration
of women and
trans people, you are not a man at all. You don't know what you are. What are you? And
so to the misogynist. Without the denigration of women who argue if you cannot define yourself
without somehow denigrating non-binary fam or trans people who are you for the white
supremacist and the racist without it, without the denigration of immigrants
? Who are you without people without? What is your power, if not? It what does your power
look like, what power do you have if you cannot deny black communities the right to vote?
If you cannot denigrate and deny personhood of native peoples, who are you?
And so the answer for them to them is nothing. The misogynist is nothing without women and
their need to denigrate them. And trans people, the white supremacist is nothing without their
relative stated worth to immigrants, to black communities, to Asian communities, to to native
communities and to nonwhite communities.
And so when a white supremacist like representative, GOES-R wakes up and looks in the mirror with
no one else around, they see nothing. They are looking into a void, and because they
are looking into a void and see nothing, then nothing is what defines their world and that
is why, to them, nothing matters.
Nothing they say matters. Nothing they do matters. No actions in their life are to be
taken seriously or have any material value. Not according to me. But according to them.
And so I I just want to make sure that you all know that that connection is explicit
and clear, that this idea that nothing matters and that nothing
has material consequence and that we should not take anything seriously at all is enough
is a notion borne of the fact that connectedness does not exist, that people do not matter,
and that there is no sense of self or identity unless you have someone to subjugate.
And in that respect, I actually have compassion and deeply petty people like that because
imagine how lonely and isolated and sad an existence must be to not be accountable or
connected. Or feel any sense. Of South or connection to community, so.
You know. It's just a note that I wanted to speak to you all with. And additionally, you
know, when you have these jokers around saying that nothing they say or do matters, it's
because none of them have had to ride in an armored 20,000 pound truck and need five people
to go to the grocery store because so
many people are now trying to kill them because of something someone else said publicly as
a joke. Not that this will change any hearts or minds of folks that are already deeply
invested in this ideology because their entire sense of identity and self-worth is so staked
so deeply in this idea and this myth of birthright of superiority
. But I think it opens for those of us who are not white supremacists or, you know, misogynists.
I think it opens the question to us of any get paves a way of how we dismantle hate.
And it has to be through connectedness and connection.
And actually, you know, just giving a shit about other people and. And it's sad that
that this virus of not giving a shit about other people in this country or in this world
is, you know, spread to this point of nihilism.
But it it doesn't just cause the folks that you are targeting to suffer because the great
irony with ideologies of supremacy is that in their desire to subjugate other people
to subjugate, subjugate queer people, subjugate anyone who's not white, subjugate the working
class, the poor, et cetera, they actually need others the most.
Because in order for a white supremacist to have any sort of value or identity, they need
something or someone to be supreme to. And so the great irony of white supremacy is that
they actually need immigrants more than immigrants need them in order to have any sort of sense
of self-worth or identity or grounding.
So I just wanted to leave you all with that because that's what I couldn't say on the
House floor. But just make no mistake that if Republicans win the House, and they will
just I mean, they have already made quite clear that they do not give any sort of consideration
to ethics, justice, et cetera.
They will target members of Congress. They will target women, they will target women
of color, they will target people of color, they will target whoever they want to target
in order to minimize democratic power, small-d power. And then they will try to equate these
things.
They will try to equate their hurt feelings with their attempts to incite violence, actually
incite violence. They will equate their bruised egos to people almost dying as a result of
their actions. And I don't think that there's anything we can do to stop their dedication
to doing that if they gain power.
But that being said, no matter what happens. Communities of resilience and solidarity have
always been here. They will continue to be here and they always will be here. And so
no matter what happens, unlike supremacists, we have each other and we have each other
across.
Groundings of identity, gender, race, class, etc.. And that is the true beauty and power
of solidarity that I don't need a precondition of who you are in order to value you. So.
Peace out, y'all, love ya. And have a good week, goodbye.