#horizontal violence

[thelongestrose]

me: "yeah so i'm kinda glad i left twitter bc of how it enables and encourages so much horizontal violence"

tumblr salesman: *slaps roof* "this baby can fit so much horizontal violence inside it"

[joanofarchetype]

Purity politics are so frustrating because they rob us of the opportunity to examine and interrogate the way hegemony permeates culture.

Like, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was undoubtedly an antisemite. He was also imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp for insulting Stalin. He was a political prisoner who experienced the horrors of an oppressive regime, and for that reason my Soviet Jewish family valued his writings. My parents were the ones who insisted I read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Gulag Archipelago, despite the fact that one of our reasons for fleeing the regime as refugees was the virulent antisemitic violence which threatened us daily. And here’s the thing:

Solzhenitsyn’s antisemitism was also a result of the regime. The USSR was violently oppressive towards people who were Jewish, Roma, or part of any ethnic group that wasn’t strictly Slavic. Russia alone is home to people over over 186 ethnic groups, to say nothing of the other former Soviet states. And under the regime, embracing any deviation from the homogenous norm was labeled anti-Soviet. At the very least this russification led to the loss of cultural history during the Soviet Union but in effect, it was intended and wielded as a form of genocide. So even people who questioned the regime enough to understand they weren’t being granted its promises of equality for all sometimes misplaced the blame, and that tendency towards lateral violence is absolutely the intended effect of oppression. What Solzhenitsyn’s antisemitism tells us is that people who are victims of the regime can still unwittingly perpetuate its violence. In the United States, we see this in progressive movements when prominent members refuse to be intersectional and assert that identity politics are too divisive to the cause.

While we’re at it, George Orwell’s 1984 is still a prescient work with modern relevance despite the author’s own antisemitism, racism, and homophobia. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is a great American novel with profound insights into the human spirit despite the author’s promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories. White suffragettes who championed women’s voting rights chose to court racists for support at the expense of black women, throwing black men under the bus with elitist and violently anti-black rhetoric. Hell, our nation’s governing documents — the blueprints for every subsequent social advancement in our nation’s history — were written by slave owners who believed they fought for human rights while only recognizing the humanity of a select few. 

None of this is to excuse or ignore the sins of the author. I don’t believe we can or should separate the art from the artist. But in order to avoid these same fallacies we need to understand and accept that it’s possible to recognize society’s ills while still unwittingly perpetuating some of them ourselves. To say we can only ever speak of the contributions of the unproblematic is to presume we’re cured of our own problematic tendencies. In a system built to indoctrinate us with misdirection towards lateral violence, that’s just hubris. It’s uncomfortable, yes. And we should live in that discomfort. We can learn from the contributions of problematic thinkers by using them to examine our own problematic tendencies. If we don’t, we’re doomed to repeat their mistakes. Self-interrogation is crucial to self-improvement, and checking ourselves is an ongoing process to ensure we do right by others in the fight. 

[justc4llm3murphy]

If you are at a job that doesn’t appreciate you, that always pulls you into the office to give you vague complaints from others and is destructive in their criticism, if there is no collaboration in making solutions and you are the only person who is ever asked to fix any issues brought forward, I want you to know some things:

1. You deserve better than that.

2. Get it in writing. Verbal warnings are only worth the breath that it takes to say them. Otherwise, it is just harassment.

3. Good employees are hard to come by. If you are a good employee and care about your job, find somewhere that appreciates that.

4. If it is fucking with your mental health, just leave. Give them the minimal two week notice and go.

You don’t deserve to be treated like shit. Your efforts deserve to be appreciated. You should be treated with dignity, especially when you afford others with that same dignity. You are not a victim. You are an agent of change.

Did you know it takes upwards of $150,000 per position turn over for a entry level staff RN job? Treat your employees with dignity and then maybe there will be enough money in the budget for bonuses. Js

[justc4llm3murphy]

why you should be nice to the outgoing nurse at shift change

You have worked for 12 hours with no break and are pretty sure your stomach is eating itself. It's gurlging has turned into a tidal wave of pain while you run around tending to the patients who are dying and the patients who "need" pillows, blanket, food, linen changed, or to go to the restroom. Your bladder is screaming that you need to visit the bathroom. You've been holding your urine all shift, unable to leave the patient who's lungs are filling with fluid or the patient who's heart rate is erratic at best. Each time you attempt to leave your section to make a beeline for the bathroom, another call light goes off and rings directly to your phone. This time when you answer promptly, you are greeted by a patient screaming at you that they are hungry and you haven't fed them. This patient does not care that he has a possible surgical condition which is why he cannot eat or drink yet. He does not care that it is part of the care he came to the hospital to receive. He does not care to listen to your education on why these measures are put into place. He continues to ring out frequently for the same thing, but you must answer because there might be an emergency and you won't know til you answer. The bathroom is still calling your name. Then you receive a patient who is recovering from a seizure. He is pleasant for the first hour and you have not been able to leave his bedside for 45 minutes when he starts screaming at you. You have attempted to give him everything he requests or needs to make him comfortable and have been working hard but apparently he has decided that you are giving him attitude and becomes verbally abusive, aggressive to the point that every medical personnel in the section reports to the bedside for assistance. Even the Attending MD who asks what is wrong. You finally snap, throw down the pillow you were in the middle of putting a pillowcase on for the patient, and say you give up. You talk to your supervisor and start crying and can't stop. So you go for a breather while they watch your patients but you can't stop crying for an hour. Once you think everything is resolved and your crying has subsided, you return but immediately tear up again. You move seats to the farthest point from that patient, and silently cry while your coworkers ask whose ass they need to beat. Then, you get it together and continue your shift. By 7am, you are so ready to get out. You are mentally exhausted and feel beaten and broken. Oncoming shift greets you with a sigh and veiled passive aggression despite you smiling and greeting them with "good morning." Your report is taken with resignation and questions of "why wasn't this done?" despite efforts to get all tasks completed prior to their arrival. They huff when they don't like your answers and snatch your clipboards away. You have lost all ability to shut out this behavior and feel even more pissed off. You leave work thinking why should they be so angry when they just got to work and nothing had happened yet? You feel tired, beaten, and broken because you know they would treat you the same even if they had seen your breakdown during the shift. And you dream of leaving...forever.

[justc4llm3murphy]

If you are a nurse and treat ANY of your coworkers like shit, only offer criticism even when they are working their asses off, pile on criticism when you happen to hear someone criticizing them first, treat them as if they are incompetent, make them cry, and/or don’t try to resolve any issues with them in person before running to management, there are some things I want to say to you personally:

1. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. FUCK YOU.

2. You only see a snapshot of someone else’s life. You have no idea what other people have been saying to them and you have no idea what their boss says to them behind closed doors. So if you have nothing nice to say ever, then fucking shut up.

3. If you are in a leadership position and treat others like this, you should be ashamed. Most of the toxic leaders I am working under have children and I doubt they would be ok with their children being treated this way.

4. When you do shit like this on a regular basis, you are bullying your coworker. This leads to well-reasearched and documented issues for that person AND your unit: increased staff turnover (each person costing upwards of $150,000 to replace), decreased staff morale, increase in bullying of others, increase in sick days, increase in short-staffed days, depression, anxiety, and more. This can cause the person to kill themselves. And now that you know that, if you continue to behave in this manner, you should lose your license AND you are a fucking horrible human being.

I don’t deserve the way I have been treated for the past 2 years. And it has only gotten worse. And so has my depression and anxiety. For example: since 03:00, I have been having a panic attack. It’s 11:08. My shift ended at 07:00. But because of the bullying from my charge nurse, I was unable to chart on ANYONE all night and when I was able to physically chart, I was too overwhelmed to focus enough to do so. And I swear I feel those suicidal thoughts lurking beneath a very thin veil. So I’m begging my psychiatrist this week to take me out of work for short term disability for 8 weeks. Because I need it so badly

[nicolabeatrix]

“Coconuts and jackie jackies” July, 2018 Melbourne, Australia. A personal reflection inspired by a plenary panel at the Students of Sustainability Conference in Melbourne, depicting the pain caused by “lateral violence” - in the form of malicious words, accusations of inauthenticity or of betrayal of culture - that may sometimes emerge amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. This is often as a result of complex historical and social factors relating to colonisation and oppression. See Lateral Violence for more info.

[justc4llm3murphy]

Look, I'm a good nurse, maybe not the best nurse - but for someone of my experience level, I am a damn good nurse. Not saying this to be cocky but because I need to remind myself sometimes. I can catch a Med error from a new physician easily. I go to bat for my patients and their safety - but they don't know that. I can put a tense family at ease - but not all the time - you can't please everyone. I left a hospital that cared nothing for patient safety, to go to one that made it their top priority. I did this because I love my patients. Because I want more for them and could not stand by and see them get inadequate care because we were set up to fail. But I had friends there. Real friends. As someone who has trouble making real friends, this was hard. That was my home. I came to a hospital where I had no friends. I still have very few after almost 6 months there. I find myself having to cut the bullshit and call people out on their unprofessional manner when addressing me, frequently (things like yelling at me or being rude to me in front of a patient). I find the nurses to be much less happy, although the system is set up so much better than my other job. I don't have friends here. I was speaking to one of my only friends at the nurse's station, lamenting about this today. And no, I didn't whisper. I said it at a normal voice and you know what? I hope they heard. I hope they realize their cold shoulder attitude makes me sad to be there but I am still there. I will not leave. I am doing this for my patients. I know they get better care and pain control at this hospital. I know I can be a good nurse here and am empowered to make a difference here. I do all this for my patients. Maybe one day it won't be so bad. In the meantime, I stick up for the new people. The new docs don't deserved to get dragged. Neither do new nurses. Oh, btw, even though I know how much better it is at my hospital compared to others, our patient satisfaction scores suck. Go figure.

[allthepiecesmatter451]

always-in-progress

let this resentment wash over me carry away my angst and pain smooth over this jagged stone of community a tool of lateral violence a model for longer lasting change

on becoming / leave no stone unturned