Building community by taking up space

Advocacy can take on many lanes or show up in different forms. Conversations happening offline and alongside Twitter, Reddit and other social feeds pour in generously everyday from those who are desperately chasing down justice on behalf of vulnerable, voiceless, or muted survivors with no real advocates in high places. Strength in numbers is the advocate’s road to solidarity. This is one way I think about building community by taking up space when I am reminded of the word "advocacy."

Society has a tendency to preserve cultural values; traditions that have been passed down through generations and form our communities. Some cultural ideals translate into enforced ignorance and oppression. How do you escape that?

Minority groups like women or expat labor workers, even if they technically take up more than half of a society's population, remain vulnerable under the systems that keep things that way.

It takes a special kind of dignity to persevere so publicly on any global issue that gets tagged on your back. But it can feel equally as brutal to suffer social scrutiny when you are alone.

Participation in advocacy, or social justice, or women's rights, or anything else that you believe matters is an intersection of political, economic, and educational factors structured by the greater system that has either promoted a stage for your words to blare through the speakers, or has culturally hindered you from signing up at all.

The challenge is in shifting your perspective from assessing personal powerlessness to feeling free, and that depends on whether you choose to challenge the system, or simply your perspective on what advocacy means to you.

Treat your thoughts like you would if you were me at a party. Dance with different ideas, but don't go home with one unless you're sure. Drink different opinions that were distilled from unique places, and don't pressure yourself into one flat corner; the earth is round. Build your community and take up space because advocacy takes on many lanes or could show up in different ways. And whether you arrive early or leave late, make sure you leave your space cleaner than when you found it, and avoid French exits, avoid disappearing into the world, tell yourself you deserve better: A proper greeting followed by a proper goodbye.