Rest is Revolutionary
Why?
Here are some big reasons:
Rest is the opposite of capitalism's "grind culture," which only values people for their production output. This system exhausts people to the point of collapse. Without rest, there is no capacity for resistance nor dreaming of a better world.
According to the mission of The Nap Ministry, the folks at the forefront of nap activism, this work seeks to "honor, reimagine, and recapture the dream space that was stolen for centuries."
The "nap gap" is real: Black folks & other people of color are more likely to have sleep issues than white people due to the stress of racial oppression. This intersection with other forms of inequality leads to both physical and mental health disparities as well as decreased productivity at work (which factors into income inequality!) Self-care is a necessity for all oppressed folks who are healing from intergenerational Trauma--Black women especially.
Did You Know?
The concept of "zombies" as we know it can be traced back to the lore of enslaved folks in 17th-century Haiti (then saint-domingue). The majority of the Slaves brought into the french colony from Africa were worked to death within a few years. A very scary idea for an enslaved person was zombiehood--no agency over their own bodies, even in the afterlife.
The more you rest, the more you wake up.