Are My Hands Clean?

No, no ones are.  As much as we may want to be free of the taint of participating in oppression, none of us is able to fully accomplish that.  Every time I keep to myself (and it is often) things I hear from folks who are being unfairly bullied by our mental health system and the laws that enable it across the country, even though I do it because I feel I owe it to the person who has not given me permission to tell their story, I am complicit in the ongoing oppression of our people in this country.   Every time I refrain from saying everything I think about our mental health system, whether it hurts someones feelings or not, I am complicit in the continuing oppression and bullying of people just like me, people I could have been save good luck and the grace of G-d and of course privilege in our classist society. 

Every time I don’t take the opportunity to protest outside facilities I know are abusing and or neglecting people like me I am complicit through my silence and inaction. 

I set more and more boundaries around my willingness to be present in situations where people are being discussed as if they were not full citizens or even sometimes full human beings and that helps.  But still I get ambushed sometime by talking to folks I thought were on the same side who seem to have a need to defend the indefensible for many complicated reasons I’m sure, but still, I end the conversation and feel dirty, my hands unclean, my soul troubled.