on integrity
ON INTEGRITY
“I think that the term is being manipulated to fit certain urges for legitimization. A spirit can be used to legitimize someone’s desires. For example, someone can say that a spirit told him or her to do something, which legitimizes his or her unwarranted action (as in the American comedy line “The devil made me do it!”). One can claim divine sponsorship to justify actions that have nothing to do with the divine. One has only to look at American televangelism for that.”
-- Malidoma Somé
[[trigger warning: descriptions of emotional abuse]]
Integrity is a big word. Monumental in fact. I think sometimes when people hear it, they flinch, because it is so big, because it has a moral component to it, and because sometimes it can be loaded with judgement.
Integrity is huge to me, and I’m sure huge to us all. In the world we are in—a world where a genocide is raging in Gaza, being live streamed to our phones and politicians don’t do anything; a world where people deeply are loyal to nationalistic rhetoric over the lives of real people, of their real neighbors, over the greater collective of all; a world where people who are already comfortable and secure financially not say anything about the (multiple genocides happening in the world) because they don’t want to risk material access that they have or professional opportunities; a world where Cassie is testifying against Diddy against the—literal—torture that she survived for years and people are saying things like “I’m a girls girl1, but Cassie isn’t a full victim.”
For the past few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about a small working definition for myself around integrity that I hold.
Ethics X Movement (/ Obstacle) = Integrity
Whereas ethics is your value system; Movement is the embodied way that you chose to move around the pursuit of those ethics, the (/ Obstacle) accounts for any obstacles you might find on your path, and that creates integrity.
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On Instagram, I saw an old interview of Kim Kardashian, in which she talks about wanting to be on the cover of magazines and going to her PR person and them saying that would never happen for her and she needed to set more realistic goals. She then decided that she was going to stalk Britney Spears, and show up at Britney’s hotel when she knew Paparazzi was going to be there, pretend that they were having dinner, hide in the bathroom or a phone booth during the duration of said ‘dinner’, and then leave and tell the paparazzi that dinner was amazing.
This example shows you a lot about Kim’s integrity, what her ethics are, and how she is willing to move when confronted when an obstacle to get what she wants.
Many of the comments were heralding her for being good at manifestation. People were saying, “well she got what she wanted.”
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We are—ever increasingly—in a deep crisis of humanity, of morals, of integrity.
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There have been many moments where I have the same shared ethics and value system as someone, but because we have different approaches to movement and obstacle, that means that we’re not meant for each other or in alignment around a given issue. A lot of times, that’s actually not Tea or Beef, it’s just a respectful—oh, we disagree, blessings on your path and blessings on mine.
Right now, as we’re seeing huge obstacles (fascist governments, genocide, deep deep abuse)—we actually see people responding in many ways—some are leaving the country, some are learning how to fight, some are getting loud, some are getting quiet, some people are acting like everything is okay, some people are talking about manifesting money and wealth, some people use AI to write all their papers and professional emails, some people are completely unfazed. All of this, when examined, illuminates people’s personal ethics, embodied knowledge, motivation, and way of moving and shows how integrity is created.
(meme created by Seema Hari)
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Like all things, integrity is not fixed—it shifts in a given context and circumstance. As we’re all human, sometimes a moment where we act out of our integrity—say if we’re traumatized or in an abusive relationship or undergoing…IDK… literal genocide—is not the full truth of us, but perhaps a moment where we are responding in survival mode, or stepping off our path either because it’s not working for us, or because it’s a moment for us to actually—pause, assess, and recommit to our value system.
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This last week was very difficult.
It started—for me—with ‘skirmishes’ over Kashmir, where my mom’s family is ancestrally from, that led to an exchange of drone and missile attacks between Pakistan and India. I was supposed to fly to Pakistan this week but chose to pause my trip given what was happening, which ended up being a strange reorientation personally, while also being deeply concerned about people who were in South Asia, and deeply fearing for Kashmiri people and the land.
What deeply surprised me was seeing the complete devolvement into nationalistic rhetoric in South Asia, and complete ignorance around Kashmir. Perhaps I am naïve, but I thought that in 2019 people actually had started to care about Kashmir when the revocation of article 370 happened, which took away Kashmir’s protected autonomy. In the years since then, Kashmiri people have been stripped of their land rights and the land has been increasingly sold to Indian people who are not Kashmiri in an attempt to further colonize the land.
(meme created by Seema Hari)
This week also saw Cassie Ventura take a stand against Diddy. May Allah bless that woman in infinite ways, may she always be held and protected, may she only know gentle touch and kindness from now on. This was also the week that Halle Bailey went public about her ex abusing her and got a restraining order, and people came out again in support of Torey Lanez who shot Megan thee Stallion. People’s hatred for women—Black women in particular—and survivors of domestic violence and abuse, have been on full display.
This week and the last few days have also included an increased uptick in violence by the Israeli government in Palestine, and a few days period commemorating the 77th anniversary of the Nakba we saw a renewed moment of violence, where hundreds of Palestinian people were murdered in horrific ways. There were so many tweets from Palestinian people saying goodbye, saying that they were afraid they were going to die, that they were sure that this was the end for them.
And our world just… ignored it.
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The truth is, and there is no other way to say it: I have seen more Bitch Made behavior in the last few years than stands right with my soul and I am deeply angry. Frankly—I am out of patience, and I can’t keep giving people the benefit of the doubt when it’s not earned.
As the obstacles we have faced have become increasingly louder and angrier—the fascist governments(s), the rise of Zionist genocidal rhetoric, the rise of genocidal nationalism, the rise of abuse—more and more, I think about integrity, about the ways that people’s motivations and movement are being shown, and purely what I am—and am not in alignment with. People’s integrity is clear, loud, and on display. And there’s no sugar coating it.
(meme created by Seema Hari)
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Years ago, I was friends with someone I deeply cared about, and who was a survivor and really strongly identified as that. Let’s call her Sabrina. I say this to not shame her, but just to illuminate a powerful lesson that I learned from the eventual falling out of this friendship.