Advice?(for another poster)

Disclaimer: My advice is based on a lot of presumptions, because I do not know the full details of the situation you describe. I am also no expert, just a person out there with some thoughts. Take it as you wish.

I suggest you help your community. Don't demand or expect anything in return; just give your love. That love would never ask the question you posed here because it would know this to be its core path.

Generally, if people feel loved and respected, they give love and respect back. So you will likely find that you will be heard also. If some come forward to listen to you that is great, but for those that do not realize they have their reasons and let go. I also find that giving love is extremely self-nourishing and provides myself with more energy to lift myself up from my own struggles. And, ultimately, the one and only person I can depend on to heal myself is, myself.

I don't know the situation and am filling in a lot here but from your language it sounds like you are projecting a lot of anger and pressure upon them. If someone I knew well was going through some personal struggles and came to me like that, I would probably want to distance myself from it because I don't want to absorb their pressure or anger; wish them well from a distance.

I have learned through some difficult experiences that if someone is going through a personal struggle and is looking outward for solutions (for someone to come and help them) as opposed to focusing on their own inner strength and resolve, then there really isn't much I can do for them anyway; I can only drain myself down trying. I am no miracle worker and cannot lift them up into the sky, but if they are flapping their wings soaring with their soul I can provide an updraft.

some author, in a perfect world this is great advice. would you, however, say that oppression is the oppressed's fault? like, indigenuos people or women or black people or what have you just haven't been loving enough, so it';s their fault everything is fucked up?

then yeah, at a certain point I agree w/you, sometimes being loving works like nothing else as long as loving also means asking for what u need not being some self-less saint-slave.

how cn purslane be that kind of loving?

As "some author" wrote, I don't know the full details of Purslane's situation. But I think I know where P's coming from.

And I agree with BigBang: is "oppression is the oppressed's fault?" It seems some here on IndyMedia feel it is:  http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/341778.shtml#227770

I felt alot of solidarity here on IndyMedia re: Fouad Kaady's shooting; that is until very recently. It seems the impetus for organizing a demonstration during Mountain Days was on Sandy residents alone. Several comments said this was necessary, so as to avoid the appearance that this was coming from outside. Apparently,"If the people on a local level cannot rise up and get rid of a very bad cop," we here in Sandy "must pay for the cowards who are supposed to be serving and protecting [us]."

I simply cannot believe this mind set, especially from IndyMedia.

I remember distinctly asking who was organizing the protest for FK in Oregon City last February. I was uniformally told that no one "is in charge" or "responsible for organizing" it. In fact, I felt a little foolish after asking, because it was implied that these types of demonstrations aren't ever "organized" per se, they were just a like minded group of individuals getting together to voice their similiar objections and concerns. FK's protest in Feb was a group effort, and a good one, I think, using IndyMedia as the colloborative way to coordinate the event. There was no division of county cops vs. city cops or mention of "people from outside" stepping on the locals' toes.

But, alas, less than 6 months later, we here in Sandy alone are ostracized and told if we're the object of police abuse, we get what we deserve!

I feel it's a bit ironic that we, with children and families and homes in Sandy, are required by other activists to bravely step up and be identified as the "organizers" or "leaders" of a protest (rather than MERELY as collaborators or participants), against police abuse of force especially. And especially in such a small community where the cops know everyone, know everyone's friends, know everyone's vehicles. Apparently, no one really believes what happens to people who choose to stand up to (any) cops on their own around here. Ask the Kaadys or Rubios what they think about that.

I guess there's a lot less tolerance and solidarity and compassion here on IndyMedia than I previously thought. Apparently, unless - as Purslane wrote - you don't follow those unwritten and ever changing "rules" for acceptable activism - you're out.

I'm sorry I didn't feel it was wise to jeopardize my children's lives by being the "face" of who's "in charge" or "responsible" for a protest here in Sandy during this past Mountain Days. Call me a coward and tell me we get what we deserve if that kind of self-righteousness makes you feel bigger and better about your social conscious. But my first duty is to protect my kids, and myself for their sakes. If I were childless, or my kids were grown, I'd be more willing to take the risk. If people can't understand that, too bad.

I know we must all speak up and do what we can to protest injustice whenever and wherever we see it. There's many ways to do that. And I know plenty of people sit by idly and watch our liberties and rights be stripped away daily. But are activists so idealistic that they refuse to see that some of us, no matter how much we may want to, cannot always protest in the way some of you demand we must?

It's really sad to know that I can't count on support because I didn't do it the way someone else decided it had to be done. I feel your pain, Purslane.

I am sorry you feel betrayed. I have noticed that when people get sick or experience a death or a rape or any other life change, they often loose half of their friends who can't deal. This is also true of many of our activists who go to jail. It just seems to be a common thing that happens. It sucks. We are not given the tools to deal with these things. Some of us learn them from having painful experiences and then can help others.

If I may offer a suggestion it would be that you provide the trusting solice that you once sought and did not get to someone else experiencing isolation from a rape. Through this I think you will get a mirror for how and why this experience is so common (the isolation that follows the rape), and maybe transpersonally you can offer yourself the nurturing that you needed and could not get.

In the meantime I do not think you should try and offer something to a community you still resent. You might not resent us sometime down the line. I am just concerned that you will reingage the pain you have felt, before you get what it is that you need.

you are not alone