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This was a great read, thank you!

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Feb 8, 2023Liked by Iyabo Onipede

First off. thanks for all your hard work coming up with daily posts this month - wow! I hope you feel okay if you miss a post or two - I will forgive you anyway.

Secondly, the biggest problem I have with the very individualistic US society in addition to it's inherent lack of connection, is it's extreme ableism. I'm starting to learn that ableism lies behind most of our society's worst ills, across races. It was the driver of Nazism, which was actually based on the USian genocide of American Indigenous as we colonized the states. (Apparently Hitler thought that was a great idea and took it to an extreme. Clearly some others still think it's a great idea today, and are reviving eugenics.) Dominate and subjugate all Others. Sigh. Eliminate any seen as unfit or unclean.

I think slavery engendered ableism in African Americans because anyone not seen as fit to work was sold or killed. So, Black pain and disability are feared and hated in the US Black community too. (Not just ignored by western medicine, a whole nother can of worms.) I can't speak for anywhere else.

I'm still uprooting my own really deeply entrenched and internalized ableism as a very disabled white woman of ten years at 55. And I have seen how our society not just ignores, but actively hates the poor and disabled ever since getting on SSDI in 2012. I've been fighting for my life every since. Literally. (I don't have enough to live on, have to beg quietly behind the scenes daily to meet my needs, am punished and pushed back down the minute I start to lift my head up. It's soul-sucking.)

I wouldn't say having boundaries is all bad. I've suffered from lack of boundaries my whole life until recently, and was suicidal from it. I'm finally slowly turning that page. But I think the ideal is a bit of a balance of both. And also, not forcing everyone into one way of being. We need all types of people and ways of being. But if there is no "we", then yeah, I think we will lose out as a species.

I believe it's an African proverb that says: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." I'm bringing all kinds of people with me if I can help it. Non-speakers, mentally ill, abled and disabled alike. I believe together we can go far. (Reference: https://andrewwhitby.com/2020/12/25/if-you-want-to-go-fast/ )

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