#6 - Monday Musings - Confronting Violence
In this week’s Monday Musing, I am asking that you consider reflecting, and taking action on, three ways that violence is affecting your life:
I hope you are able to identify, confront, and discuss the structural violence we live under with at least two other people. I hope as a group of three you identify a way you can work together to fight back against systems of harm
I hope you begin to observe the way structural violence shows up at work and pick one way you can cause less harm in your professional life
I hope you are able to identify a way in which you may be exhibiting violence in your interpersonal relationships and commit to changing one of those behaviors in 2025
As I have deepened my political education and commitment to anti-capitalism, I have increasingly been confronted with, and been thinking, about violence. As my learning has deepened, I have come to the understanding that living under racial capitalism, in the imperial core, means that we both interact with, and reinforce, structural violence in our day-to-day lived experiences.
Below, I hope to share some examples of violence that have been top of mind for me - both for the purpose of understanding, as well as thinking about how I can act differently to reduce harm and overturn systems that hurt us all. What I share below is non-exhaustive and comes from the perspective of an eager learner who seeks to do a little better each day. I hope you can appreciate what I share below from that perspective.
Structural Violence
The term structural violence, also referred to as indirect violence, was credited to Johan Galtung, a researcher who focused on peace. A common definition of structural violence states that it, “represents the systematic ways in which some groups are hindered from equal access to opportunities, goods, and services that enable the fulfillment of basic human needs (Harvard Divinity School).
In the wake of the death of the United Healthcare CEO, I became intrigued by the conversations I witnessed others were having. I believe that it is rare in the United States, especially in recent years, for people across class to identify with common stories and struggles. In reading what others thought of this event, I couldn’t help but think about how well so many Americans are able to understand the structural violence that occurs with living under a for-profit healthcare model that is directly tied to your employment (or state access). Culturally, my anecdotal observation is that many privileged groups (i.e., middle-to-upper class, white, heteronormative people) do not like to, and are not open to, discussing violence. It is an “uncomfortable” topic, and because they are less overtly exposed to violence on a day-to-day basis, the preferred approach tends to be sticking one’s head in the sand as opposed to confronting reality (classic petite bourgeoise behavior!) However, in this case, those barriers seemed to be erased - with most people having been affected, or knowing someone who had been affected by, lack of access to affordable and thoughtful medical care.
I hope that this is a moment of momentum. I am hopeful that people will begin to more openly identify and confront structural violence they see and/or experience. I hope that people start to collaborate and take action against structural violence. Sadly, the list seems somewhat endless for ways to get engaged.
My personal focus will be on police and prison abolition. Many police departments saw a surge in funding during the beginning of the pandemic (often using COVID relief funds) and unsurprisingly have killed more people each year, with 2024 being a record year of 1,334 murders (Mapping Police Violence). The United States remains the country with the most people imprisoned of any ‘developed’ nation in the world (Prison Policy Initiative). Imprisoned people are forced to work (i.e., slavery) for little to no pay. In the South, imprisoned people can be found harvesting food and cotton (The Marshall Project). AP World News reports that brands such as McDonalds, Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods use prison labor (AP World News). In the State of California, prisoners are often on the front lines fighting wildfires for little to no pay and at great risk to their personal health and well-being. Late last year, I participated in a letter writing gathering with Flying Over Walls, and plan to become more engaged with organizations in Oakland focused on police and prison abolition now that I am settled from my move.
I encourage you to work with a small group of trusted others to identify structural forms of violence and determine what actions you will collectively take to overturn systems of harm, create alternative systems, or reduce harm done by structurally violent systems.
Violence at Work
The workplace is an insidious place to carry out violence.
I once had an opportunity to interview for a role that would be at the forefront of addressing and resolving threats to the company I was working for. As someone who loves to fix and solve problems, this sounded ideal. I left the call energized - I had found the next role that supported my growth trajectory, sounded intellectually engaging, and I liked the team. However, I had an odd pit in my stomach leaving the conversation. Later, I went for a walk and identified that I could not consider that role because my principles were not aligned with what the company would consider to be solutions to their problems. I realized the role would require me to design and implement solutions that would harm people more than help them. Further, I would be spearheading a large team to drive those initiatives forward - asking others to engage in activities I believed were immoral. I remember meeting with the team and they were all so happy and so convinced that they were doing work that was for the greater good. I knew I could not pursue the role and thanked the leader and their team for their time.
This opportunity caused me to rethink and redefine how I view roles related to problem-solving within an organization. I now consider heavily what a company deems to be a problem, and why. For example, did a senior leader in a company do something unethical and are now being held accountable publicly for it? To the company, this may be a reputational issue or a public relations concern; but, is there really a problem? The company would say yes, but I would have to say no. To me, it looks like someone having to take accountability for their actions in a public setting. These types of scenarios affirmed for me that I am not interested in helping companies be sneakier in harming others (i.e., pinkwashing, greenwashing). I am also giving more time and space to consider the solutions companies are willing to put in place to solve problems. Recently, a book app called Fable went viral for using AI to provide year-end wrap ups to users. The goal of efficiently serving customers a fun and quippy year end update backfired when the AI produced a series of bigoted and racist results (Wired). Companies will likely continue to use AI, even though studies have shown that it is an inherently racist and biased system (ACLU). I am interested in working towards solutions that reduce harm for others, not reproduce it.
In the last few years, I have come to a level of awareness that there is likely not a role within a for-profit or non-profit company that I can take in the United States that does not cause some degree of harm. Given that I need to work, that means my objective is to find roles which cause the least harm as possible. The guardrails I have set for myself include avoiding roles which require me to: (a) make decisions that I know will be harmful to others, (b) carry out actions I know to be harmful to others, and (c) ask that I lead others to perform actions I know will be harmful to others.
I share these examples to remind us all that the workplace often calls on us to carry out acts of violence. Obvious acts of violence may look like creating a list of individuals to be laid off, blocking accommodations for disabled colleagues, or excluding/blaming colleagues who are not white, cis-het men. Insidious examples abound - managers may ask employees to stay late to work on a project, take on additional work for a colleague leaving, or offer a non-paid promotion.
I hope this example prompts you to think about the ways in which you may carry out violence as a part of your job, and to identify ways that you may be able to reduce harm.
Violence in our Interpersonal Dynamics
Living under racial capitalism means that we live under an inherently violent system. This system encourages us to be highly individualistic in our thinking and actions and rewards us monetarily and socially when we comply by committing acts of violence towards ourselves and others.
There are an infinite number of examples of the ways in which we are violent towards ourselves and one another, but for this section, I would like to focus on health-related violence. As I shared above, we seem to be in a moment in which we are able to talk collectively about health and access to healthcare. Like I stated above, I want to take advantage of the momentum of this moment and I want to call those reading in to re-evaluate their behavior as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whether we like it or not, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. COVID-19 remains a debilitating disease that impacts all of our major systems - including our pulmonary, cardiovascular, and neurological systems. COVID-19 has the ability to erase our immune system’s memory and shorten our life spans (as seen by a shortening of telomeres). There is nothing mild about this disease and we cannot continue to pretend it is like the common cold. Further, we cannot continue to turn away from the harm we are causing one another by getting others sick with this disease. We are seeing the effects of this far and wide - this winter, the United States has a ‘quad-demic’ of RSV, Flu, COVID-19 and Norovirus. All people who have had a COVID-19 infection have impaired immune response, leading to more sickness more often. We need to collectively re-evaluate our behavior and start wearing high quality KN95 masks indoors and in crowded outdoor spaces alongside testing and staying home while acutely ill → this is the bare minimum that we should accept from one another.
I understand that not all people have the ability to stay home when ill, or have access to masks (please check your local mask bloc, there are an abundance of free resources) and some people cannot wear a mask due to a medical condition. My plea is not towards those individuals. My plea is for those who have the ability to behave differently and choose not to because they don’t like to be inconvenienced, they enjoy eating in restaurants, or like to hit the bars on the weekend. I am not sure how we have managed to lose the plot to the degree that we, as a society, seem to feel okay with casually injuring, disabling, or potentially killing one another.
If you do one thing differently in 2025, I hope it is wearing a high quality mask (here are my favorites: 3M Aura, BNX brand masks - duckbill and fold) when indoors in a public setting. As someone who is disabled, and has had to be immensely COVID-conscious for the last ~five years, I lack the words to properly explain the amount of grief and frustration I feel every time I leave my home. If we can collectively understand how harmful and care-less our healthcare system is, I believe we are capable of shifting our behaviors to protect one another from further harm and disease and to give disabled people more safe access to engaging with the world.
*This piece explored structural violence (including healthcare, policing, and prison systems), structural violence in the workplace, and interpersonal violence. The piece has a glaring omission as it does not discuss the concurrent genocides taking place in Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, among others. I acknowledge that genocides are the greatest manifestion of forms of structural and interpersonal violence. I have written in the past on resources for Palestine, which you can find here and I am fundraising for a family in Palestine via GoFundMe that you can support here.
