A Year of Motherhood and Massacre

A reflection on my experience of bringing a human into this world and then having the glass shatter around the lie I had allowed it to be for so long.

Author’s Note: This piece is a reflection of my experience in the last year. Events in my life, as well as the influence the events of the world has had on me. I am anxious to share this. I am afraid it will be misconstrued as me taking the current world crisis and making it about me. It feels important that I share the change my life has endured since October 7th has opened my world to horrors I was privileged to ignore previously. Two months after my daughter, Phoebe June Akers, came earth side and for the first time in my life I had an investment in the future. A reason beyond myself to be better. In honor of my baby and all the babies. I am trying so hard to be a human. I am so scared that is not enough. Like so many of us it feels like all I have though.

I also want to note that I am not an expert in any field of anything. I am just human. If I misstate, misspeak, whatever, please allow grace. This is emotion driven, not a scholarly piece.

Emotional vs Logical Mind

Me in TV characters: Erin Hannon, Rachel Greene, Nick Miller

Usually it is a little tickle on my back that will first get my attention, though there are mornings it is a loud and piercing cry that I first wake up to. This morning it was the tickle as my daughter cozied up to me. I have been terrified to admit it since it is such a faux pas, I am a co-sleeper though. Though she may be gently caressing me, they are sleepy touches, not ones of a baby ready to start her day. They are my delicate alarm clock, letting me know this is my chance to sneak out and steal the first few hours of the day for myself. I need it.

Everyday, within my control, starts the same now: wake up, meditate. After that it’s coffee and anything else. The first thing I do, though, is open my eyes and be grateful. I am alive. My life is safe. It is bliss.

Next is coffee, maybe a little wake n bake, clean up the kitchen. Kind of centering and grounding myself. I’m learning for the next step it is best that I enter it…not in my emotional mind.

I sit at the computer and I go to Al Jazeera and I check in on the world.

Hear me when I say it is deeply emotional, but I do it in my logic mind. Not that the current horrors being committed to Palestinians by the Israelis can have any logic applied to them. The genocide in and of itself is an act being committed out of the emotional mind. Utilizing the emotional mind is the only way hatred can be created and evil acted on. Something I have learned is the best way for me to handle emotional based actions is by doing so from my logical mind. It’s the only way I can process. And with this I feel a duty to look and process. Not to scroll passed and wish it away, though like all of us have, I sometimes do.

Every morning for the past year I have bore witness to this genocide, from the comfort of my kitchen. While others are experiencing first hand. They are living in a literal hell. If I let myself do this in my emotional mind I would hate myself so much for being the privileged, white American I am. I’ll lose the focus. I know I am not alone. I know so many of us have seen these horrors and it has rocked our souls in ways we never imagined. I need to talk about it, I really think we all do.

This morning it was Tala Abu Aiwa. Two days ago I was writing in my journal about a young Palestinian girl who was martyred by the Israelis while roller blading around her home in Gaza. A child trying to find a moment of play amongst atrocities most humans today truly cannot even fathom. I am not even sure she was “targeted” and not just collateral of a different attack. I am not sure which would be worse. I was a roller blading kid. I loved listening to Brittney Spears and racing around my neighborhood, feeling like I was flying. Today it was released that her name was, Tala Abu Aiwa. I imagine Tala was pretending to be anywhere but there when it happened. I imagine she was flying free.

That’s just one story. One child. Out of *at least* 16,000 children.

I am so sorry Tala.

The logical mind lens I process Tala’s story through is the same one I used when I worked as a nurse and encountered death on what felt like a daily basis. Maybe that is a sentiment that only translates if you have witness death. Moreover, if you have had to fight death…or be a professional about death. The switch turns on so easy in the moment for me it is an instinct more than anything. Numb, observe, prioritize, execute plan. The numbing doesn’t wear off when the intensity dissipates. It takes the pain was and hides it from you. It has to, you have to keep going. I have to keep going. We have to keep going. We have to fight.

For Tala, and all the lost children of Palestine.

Trapped in Neverland.

So We’re Just Evil? There’s No Chance?

I have had countless discussions with myself, friends, strangers, even professors in my school days about the existence of evil. None has made me question my beliefs like the conversation I had with my brother in law the other night and the subsequent research I did.

My BIL (bro in law) had discovered philosopher Peter Singer while at work and wanted to bring up his ideas to me. We differ in almost every regard so it is one of our favorite games to pose philosophical queries to make the other expand their perceptions. If you know nothing about Peter Singer, look him up, I only know this one thing I am about to mention and that is it. If he is a terrible man besides this one thing, that’s fine, he just made me think.

Mr. Peter Singer

Peter Singer wrote a paper in 1971 called “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. I cannot emphasize this enough, I haven’t been to school in years and so like…citing is an old habit and I also don’t know “blog rules”, so assume that the quotes are all from this paper and I will link the whole thing at the bottom¹. This paper was written over 50 years ago and yet the world is in the exact same situation, with different players. However, the players are kind of all the same if you just dig a little deeper than surface level.

In the year of 1971 the, now country of Bangladesh, then East Bengal, underwent a genocidal famine at the hands of Pakistan Armed Forces. Millions of people were at risk of dying because of the war, famine, weather conditions, lack of resources. People were dying by what, according to Singer, could be solved. If ordinary humans weren’t so evil.

Now, I believe Singer uses the word “evil” not in our typical context. For I know I fall under his definition of the word. The reason we are evil is because we do not intervene in suffering when we can. We allow human beings to continue to be abused, raped, in prisoned, killed, humiliated, slaughtered, more bad things I cannot even think of. The depths of depravity the human mind can imagine is beyond comprehension. I often deal with my conflicts with others internally by trying to “put myself in their shoes”. In the instance of unnecessary massacre of humans with the intention of erasing their ethnicity any intention, is a mindset I cannot begin to fathom. Shoes that I will never fit. I have gone as far as trying to imagine my child, my baby, being a victim of a terrible crime; while the pain I would feel would be so overcoming I would find it hard to go on, I can say with strength I would not turn the gun around and fire on the perpetrator. I don’t think any level of hate could drive me to end a life. Even a spider’s. Therefore I am not evil in the sense of being a murderous maniac, I am guilty of being evil in regard to not doing and giving all I can to help those in need.

I want to scream this 100% of the day

Singer got some hate for this paper, I think because he called the human race evil. However, I would like to argue that here we are 50 years later and we are witnessing the exact same terrors being committed to Palestinians before our eyes. And the Congolese, Sudanese, Haitian, and countless other brown countries are experiencing the same, we just aren’t seeing as much. It is there though. So we can have our fucking phones. And here I am typing this on a laptop with the same kind of battery killing Congolese children without the intention of stopping. So, to Peter, I am evil. I accept that. People really were triggered by this, I get that. It is triggering to hear the truth.

It is a fact though. In the 1970s and now, Western countries have done more than turn a blind eye to the exploitation and execution of the people who do the jobs that allow the Western world to even exist. The only difference I can concern between the handling of the affluent world and the genocide of the Bengalis and the handling of our current genocide in Palestine is that in the 1970s the world just didn’t help. We are funding this one. I am no geopolitical whatever so maybe they funded it then, my research has been minimal so far but I am excited to continue to learn about the Bengalis and their history.

So are we just evil? How can he say that?

Singer basically builds from one question: What are the moral implications of a situation like this? (In reference to the world’s responsibility to assist nine million the refugees dying in East Bengal with the funds that we have.)

He starts with this scenario:

“If I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and save him. My clothes may get muddy but this is insignificant while the death of a child would presumably be a bad thing”

Singer then goes on to build from this. We can all agree in this scenario as it is exactly laid out, that yes, we would wade in and save the child’s life. A resounding yes.

Two many variables are pointed out by Singer, distance and numbers.

Does the distance from the child change the situation? If I was a million miles away but I knew the child fell in would I not try and contact someone close? How is this situation any different than Singer and the Bengalis and myself and a Palestinian? Distance is an arbitrary fact, it simply changes the argument from should help the child to ought I help this child? Furthermore, Singer goes on to argue that the strides in technology and creation of the “global village” has created change in our abilities. This has been a catalyst for a shift the the ethical and moral responsibilities of the world’s citizens. Distance means nothing in this world when it comes to our ability to effect a situation. Sure in terms of providing physical assistance yes, however in providing aid, there is no discernible excuse to not do so. I add to this argument that with the further advances we have made in technology there is no way to argue it is not our moral duty to provide resources and aid so that all humans in this world are able to meet a basic level of comfort.

What is a basic level of comfort?

I am not qualified to actually determine this. This would need to be a world based decision that involves setting aside our personal desires of empirical domination. I read an article from someone a long time back that stated that no white person should be involved in decisions of this magnitude that affect the world. I completely agree, or at the very least no white Americans. We have had enough say, I would argue it’s time we shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. Of course I truly believe that anyone educated and qualified able to make rational and constructive decisions should be in the room where these choices are made, regardless of skin color. But what if there were no white Americans?

If I were to provide a hypothesis of where to begin based on my knowledge: Shelter, clothing, food, clean water, education and healthcare would be the most basic rights that must be provided to all. With this distinctions of quality and safe options for each of these categories that match the progression of the world’s advances. So we aren’t talking about tents and expired canned goods from the Western world’s scraps.

In the 1970s and today the excuse has remained the same, preventing progression in our human evolution allowing us to exterminate the hate within us, instead of each other. Singer writes that in 1971 The World Bank concluded that Indian required a minimum of $300,000,000 by the end of the year to be able to help the refugees effected by this humanitarian crisis.

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Let’s do some math quickly. By that I mean I am going to Google $300,000,000 in 1971 and now and then use their math. So the answer is: $2,331,822.22. Elon Musk’s net worth is: $247,000,000 (reportedly). So how many Holocausts could Mr. Musk end? Beyonce, Obama, Kim Kardashian, The Sackler Family, Taylor Swift, Warren Buffet, and on and on. The list of the people capable of creating huge change who are unwilling to do so is pathetically long. Infuriatingly long.

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The parallels between the East Bengali genocide in 1971 and the genocide occurring in Palestine in the present day are astounding. You could probably rewrite this essay simply replacing Israel and Pakistan and Palestine and East Bengal and it would still be accurate to read. And it has been 50 years. In 50 years we have made zero leaps and bounds in our fight against imperialism. In fact, we were really just being duped and the imperialists were laying ground work to escalate the levels of violence.

I often hear people say “humans used to be savages”. I would argue that being the humans that we are today, in the world that we have, with our ability to conceptualize and critically think we are far more savage than we have ever been. We are more selfish and cruel. Not as a whole, but those of the population who do choose to live lives fueled by greed and hatred. The one developing these weapons that tear children into pieces. The ones running the tanks over bodies laying in the streets. And the ones afraid to stand up and scream that this is wrong. Especially those in power. Cowards. We are still act as savage as we ever have, yet now have the information to allow us to evolve, yet we ignore that in the name of power. And wealth.

But are we, the average everyday person evil? Is me not giving every cent that I have evil? It feels evil, but why does it also feel impossible not to keep myself and my family safe and secure? Something I have been asking myself a lot lately is should I be going over to Palestine and volunteering to provide medical assistance. I can’t do that I have a child here. But I can’t help but think of young me learning about all the brave people who sacrificed everything they had to help those who needed it. She thought she would be one of them, a sacrificer.

“Now, according to the natural order instituted by divine providence, material goods are provided for the satisfaction of human needs. Therefore the division and appropriation of property, which pro- ceeds from human law, must not hinder the satisfaction of man's necessity from such goods. Equally, whatever a man has in super- abundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their suste- nance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: "The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry; the clothing you shut away, to the naked; and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless”

~Thomas Aquinas

Hanging onto Hope with a Death Grip

I live in small town Ohio, in the U.S. I am surrounded by…intense political affiliations and it is…suffocating. The hard part about being an American with a brain is being able to see beyond the myopic view of most, is that you see this facade as the show it is. If it isn’t obvious I am referring to the pathetic performance of professionalism displayed by our government.

Remember, remember the 5th of November

I used to drink the kool aid, I once loved screaming at Trumpers for being the fucking morons they are. I suckled the teet of the donkey for longer than I am proud to admit. I wanted so fucking bad to be able to believe in Harris, alas she has shown she is no different than the rest. The regime currently in office continues to send BILLIONS of dollars worth of weapons to Israel. Trump is, sun downing before our eyes. And Lil Jon is doing roll call at the DNC, while we bomb children. I have never been so disappointed to be from this country.

What I am trying to say here is I am feeling so many things and very few are good. I want to be able to just dance along throughout my day and pretend not to know the truths, but they are right in front of us. How do we keep ignoring?

And I am a fucking mom now.

I can’t just take a shit ton of acid and wait for oblivion to take me away anymore, I have a stake in the future. I have a connection to the world that only mothers, parents have (All types of parents). I have to keep moving forward and putting on smiles and teaching my baby how to be a human.

If there is anything this year has taught me it is that now is the time to be better. To be a better person. That doesn't mean have more money or make a bigger impact. The impact I am making on myself is massive and that is enough. Because, if I can heal myself, I can heal the world.

So when I get the slightest taste of hope, I have to grab it. I have to hold it like my life depends on it. Because it does. How does one go on without hope for the future?

Impact of a Year of Motherhood and Massacre on My Life:

1. I’ve learned so much about the world, it’s true history and why we are the way we are now. The amount of propaganda that makes up the world is astounding. Almost as astounding as the number of lawyers with cocaine addictions. I want to thank my good friend, Kaylan Treezy, for creating a document I will be sharing that really fueled my education of SWANA (South West Asia North Africa).

   

   In lieu of a photo of Kaylan, here is their art

   I think in this I also learned the truth of not sugar coating white washing history. I know I am a white woman. What I am saying is I very rarely get historical information from white sources anymore, at least not without doing more research to verify and find the whole truth. “Redacted History” is an incredible podcast for this. I especially recommend the series on Ronald Reagan.

   At the beginning of this year I read Martin Luther King Jr’s autobiography. One of the strongest feelings I felt at the end was fury. Fury that a history so important had been taught to me so poorly. The impact of all of slavery was taught to me poorly. The TRUTH of slavery wasn’t taught to me. I was 23 when I learned that New York had slaves. Pathetic on me, yes. But my teachers could have done a better job. They didn’t need it all to look pretty.

   The past is ugly and that’s okay. We can learn from ugly. You can love ugly. But you have to look at it. Looking away and pretending it is pretty is just amplifying the problems.

2. I have conquered my eating disorder. It’s amazing how hard it is to starve yourself when people are being slaughtered over bread. I know, maybe that sounds crass, but it’s true. My therapist and I were talking about it, how eating disorders are a first world problem. It is a luxury that I get to sit here and having the ability to even question should I eat or not. Not can I eat or not. So now, listening to my body and honoring the gift that is accessible food, makes more sense.

   Obviously I will always struggle with body dysmorphia and eating related triggers, however, something about gaining the perspective of just how lucky I am to have food made me heal.

   Typing this out maybe this is the most pathetic of all pathetic things I’ve written in this piece.

3. I have spent 148 h 47 m in meditation in the last year. When I got pregnant I was very interested in doing a hypno-birth and just kind of mediating through the pain. Well, I didn't;t practice at all in the nine month leading up to the big day, so I got the epidural and it worked out that way. To be honest I had always wanted to be someone who mediates. Who is mindful and able to sit and just be present with themself. As someone who struggles with, well, themself, this was always hard for me.

   Then in October, I believe it was the 9th, I saw my first post containing a child martyr in Gaza. I shut down my phone and I sat in silence. Every single day since I have meditated. I no longer “wish” to be or do things within my control.

   I am so practiced now I find myself mediating over other activities. What I want to do more than anything is be still and feel life.

   

   Meditating has been the single most healing practice I’ve ever added to my life.

4. I see the divine beauty in simplicity. I used to dream of extravagance, of wealth, of being a big shot. I dreamed of being known and adored. Now, every day of my life is the best day of my life. I am here. I am alive. I am love.

5. I see the deep rooted ugly in consumerism. Sustainability, self sufficiency, community cooperation and collaboration are the building blocks for the future. I do see a way we can continue down this path and exist. Those don’t seem like two possibilities that can coincide.

   .

Kaylan Treezy's Free Palestine Doc

Operation Olive Branch One Click Emails

Help Save Mohammed's Family

Thank you for reading, thank you for being here. Please check out the links above for ways to help! Remember you can’t boil an empty kettle!! Take care of yourself <3

1. https://personal.lse.ac.uk/robert49/teaching/mm/articles/Singer_1972Famine.pdf