Hey, it's me. So, I decided that from time to time, I just want to speak to you like this, unfiltered. From the community I'm part of, from the chaos, from the clarity, especially on Threads, where, for some reason, I've got exposed to a lot and my voice keeps getting exposure, particularly among the North American leftist crowd.

I have learned so much from you all. I really have. And I've also noticed how much personality, how much power each of you carry. That's the beauty of social media, I suppose. It's borderless. It connects us through pain, through passion, and through politics.

But, fam, come on, let's talk.

OBSERVATIONS FROM AN OUTSIDER (OR BRIDGE)
What I see in North American leftist spaces, particularly during moments of infighting, is something deeply familiar. The way these fractures show up, they're not only ideological, they're deeply personal. And it's often rooted in unprocessed trauma, ego, and internalised systems that seep into the activism and advocacy we try so hard to hold with integrity.

And I get it. It is messy.

But before we rush to call someone out, before we sharpen our tongues or our words to post on Threads, I want to ask you something. Ask yourself:

Should I call them out, or should I call out the dynamic?
Am I responding to a harm, or am I reacting to a trigger?
Is this about them, or is this about what's unhealed in me?

Because, honey, listen. I have lived through years of being scapegoated. I've been estranged from my family, my entire big-ass family, from Java to the Czech Republic. And when I see these purity testing behaviours, I feel the same ache, the same hierarchy, the same cycle of punishment and exile disguised as accountability.

And let me tell you—this isn’t just happening in our heads. It’s happening in the places we call sanctuary, too.

MUTUAL AID & THE CYCLE OF EXILE
Since this happened in a fraction of community, mutual aid community to be precise, these mirror the same carceral thinking we claim to resist. We have to pause when these dynamics mirror the same carceral logic we claim to resist. We have to pause. Okay?

Because here’s the thing though: Mutual aid is not merely about food or money. It is also about the ethics of care, mutual accountability, anti-oppression, and that includes how we treat each other.

We need to stop making individuals visible before we make our values visible. Let's dissent our perfection. Can we prioritize repair over cancellation? Let's be brave enough to name harm and offer pathways back into community.

Because solidarity built on fear, shame, guilt, obligation, is not solidarity at all. It's a transaction. It's a performance. And that's not liberation.

And liberation—real liberation—requires something most of us are terrified of: reintegration. Not just of ideas, but of people.

NUANCE & THE MYTH OF PURITY
And because I see nuance... I see nuance. It's wired into me. I know multiple truths can exist at once. Someone can cause harm *and* still be worth holding in the community—if they're willing to repair. Accountability is not punishment. It's reintegration. It's evolution.

But what happens online? On Threads, in these rapid-fire debates, we don’t just lose nuance—we erase it. I literally just saw a post that says,

"Not everything is about race," says someone who never experiences racism.

What? My God. How binary. How rigid. This is the same all-or-nothing logic we claim to dismantle.

And, to be honest with you, this whole thing—this performance of justice—reminds me of Indonesia. Of home. Because here, Everything gets tied to religion, specifically to Islam.

You want to grieve? Prove your grief is halal.

You want to speak? Prove your voice is pious enough.

You want justice? Prove your pain fits the narrative.

Here in Indonesia, it’s wrapped in religious dogma. Online on Threads, it’s dressed in progressive buzzwords. But the machinery is identical:

Gatekeepers who’ve never swallowed your bitterness
Selective empathy that rewards palatable pain
A menu of morality where justice depends on who’s ordering

Sound familiar?

And here’s the thing: This isn’t accidental. It’s groupthink. It’s survivors—many of us loud, traumatized, and unhealed—recreating the same carceral, gatekeeping logic we claim to fight. We become the abusers we fear, not because we’re evil, but because we’re trapped in systems we don’t even see.

And when we do this—when we demand perfection—we aren’t building movements. We’re building graveyards.

THE CHECKLIST TRAP
To my fellow comrades in North America, I need you to hear this. You cannot checklist your way to solidarity. I have watched this play out so many times. Like:

Prove you're human.
Now prove you're not anti-Semitic.
Now prove you're not anti-Black.
Now prove you're not ableist.
Now apologize for making us uncomfortable.

It is exhausting, and it's violent in a quiet way to see things in identity optics.

This is your monthly reminder: The patterns of moral supremacy, rigid beliefs, and intellectual elitism are not exclusive to religious groups. Activist spaces can reproduce the same rotten patterns. Since humans are social creatures, any group—religious, secular, leftist—can fall into the trap of groupthink, power imbalances, exclusionary practices.

Is it because the tendency is to pedestal someone with a voice? Or because most of the loudest voices are survivors, and not all of them are processing their own systemic trauma? Instead of transmuting it into something progressive, they end up becoming the abuser themselves.

We will never know, until we choose to look inward.

REINTEGRATION IS REVOLUTIONARY
From Jakarta to New York, from mosque basements to mutual aid online community—we keep reproducing the same wounds. But we don’t have to.

As I said before: No marginalised identity is morally superior. You can be part of oppressed groups and still be an abuser. Multiple truths can coexist.

I’ve seen this work. Last year, when a licensed therapist caused an uproar in the ADHD community over the term “neurospicy”—it was messy. People were hurt. But instead of exile? They chose reintegration. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t fast. But it was real. And today? That therapist is still here, I'm still following them. The community is still whole.

So what now? What do we do next? I’m asking you for real.

Sit with this tonight. Journal. Talk to your people. Reconnect with the big picture. We are here to liberate, not to replicate the systems of harm.

And I love you for trying.

Until next time—breathe deep. Stay soft. And remember: Reintegration is revolutionary.