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Throughout this year I have been thinking a lot about our present reality. We are living in strange and scary times and I am often unsure what to do with it all. Like many people, I have to structure my consumption of news and social media so that I can decompress and re-find my grounding, otherwise I will break apart at the seams. Unfortunately, I also need to know what's going on. It continues to be critical to not look away in this moment - I must witness the unfolding catastrophe so I can get in its way at every possible opportunity. Fascism is not a problem that will solve itself, but it is solvable. Just not if everyone sticks their head in the sand. The whole point of the Broligarchy's "strategy" is to take an outrageous number of horrible actions in rapid succession so the rest of us are overwhelmed by the sheer number of atrocities and paralyzed in horror as the pillars of our society come crashing down around us. So I have refused to check-out entirely. And I'm grateful to see so many other folks sticking it out with me. In fact, there are a lot of people who are paying much more attention now than they have in their entire lives. Which is what we need. But if the shitshow continues as it has done, if it goes on and on and on relentlessly, and we must remain ever vigilant in our opposition, how do we survive under these conditions? How do we work and play and love under these conditions? How do we thrive under these conditions? We do it together, that’s how. The fascist and conservative playbook is to pit we lowly masses against each other based on arbitrary factors none of us actually care about like skin color, salary, and who you want to bang. The antidote is solidarity. I recently took a trip to Seattle to connect with some martial arts friends. The folks at Seven Star Kung Fu feel like cousins since we share a common lineage a few generations up our respective martial family trees. They usually come to Portland for the twice-yearly Fun Fighting workshops my long-time training buddy and I co-host. They couldn't make it down in October, so we took ourselves north to return the travel favor. When Michelle and I first started Fun Fighting we called it Femm Fighting. Our aim is to create a safe space for martial artists who have historically been marginalized in dojos dominated by cis men, to train and have fun and find community. We're forging connections across martial arts styles and between schools and among all ranks and experience levels. Our demographic includes women, femm humans, nonbinary people, and trans folks. Which there is not yet a single term for in the current lexicon of popular culture. (At least not one that doesn't continue to center cis men, as in the category non-cis-men) After the most recent workshop, we received feedback that some folks who are definitely in our demographic were not sure they were invited because they don't identify as fem/femm/femme. Luckily we are making up the protocols as we go in collaboration with our community, so we simply changed the name. Enter: Fun Fighting. Close enough to the original name to keep most of our branding, but without the gendered specificity of the word femme. The Patriarchy will take all our efforts to overcome and we want to include all our fellow fighters. While I was in Seattle I visited the Wing Luke art and history museum in Chinatown International District. I lucked-out with an amazing and singular version of the Museum and Historic Hotel Tour. The usual Guide was out that day, so the Director lead me and four little old ladies on a fascinating journey through time. We explored what life was like in the early days of Seattle's Chinatown and Japantown districts. We stood in shop fronts and boarding house rooms and family meeting halls and heard about the people who lived their lives in those places. Our Guide shared many interesting personal accounts from the early 1900's, and the little old ladies shared stories from their own childhood experiences in the neighborhood during the middle of the same century. We all asked so many questions and the Director had so much information to share, we went over our time by a considerable stretch. But none of us minded; it was like we checked out of modern time to fully take-in the people and places of the past. The tour also covered the history of labor movements started by Chinese and Japanese and Filipino immigrants in and around Seattle. We learned about how these different cultural groups joined together to overcome racist policies of the day and gain workers rights and fair treatment. We learned about the geoduck harvesters who joined up with the longshoreman. And we learned about Larry Itliong, the Filipino farm worker who took the Seattle labor organizing practices east to the Washington agricultural workers, and then south to the fields of California where he convinced Cesar Chavez that the Filipino and Mexican laborers were stronger together. That museum visit was a timely reminder for me to stay the course of community building because the way we survive under these horrific conditions is by coming together. None of us can ever defeat the powerful few at the top of our capitalist, profit-centered societal structure. But we can do truly amazing things when we come together in solidarity to share in each other's fight. So take the time to learn about the other people around you who are oppressed. Learn about your own family or cultural history of struggle and solidarity. Then come together to craft a future where everyone is free. Their struggle is your struggle. Your struggle is my struggle. Their fight is our fight. Information and Inspiration
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AuthorJaydra is a human in-process, working to make the world a better place. Sharing thoughts, feelings, and observations about the human experience. Archives
November 2025
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