Josh Parsons

Since your government hates you and doesn’t care if you starve despite you paying taxes into a system that should help you like SNAP…

This is where you can get food if you need it.

If you believe that you're ready to do the critical reflection and work required to build communities of enduring value, this is a great opportunity to learn more about what we're building. More details here in the quote post here.

bsky.app/profile/kimc...

This December 6th, we will be holding a free online event. Our cohort will be there to dig into and share what these facilitated conversations entail and why we feel that doing this work is a critical practice required to build communities of enduring value.

We have these facilitated conversations not as a book club, but to process and deeply understand how white supremacy shapes every system, institution, and policy in our world, and truly inspecting and engaging with how we've interacted and benefited from such constructs over the course of our lives.

I shared some initial thoughts here as I started this journey.

bsky.app/profile/walk...

A couple of months ago, I joined @kimcrayton1.bsky.social's Profit Without Oppression community and also started participating in a 14-week series of facilitated conversations with Kim, as I and a group of white men work through Ijeoma Oluo's book Mediocre.

I am grateful to the way that @anildash.com continually names and makes space for the existence of "the reasonable majority" in tech, and the ways this industry deals out chilling effects on those working toward shared social good (which spoiler alert also = real innovation!)

People sit there and wonder why the shit I build works so well and how the fuck I did it for a fraction of the price that they thought possible. It’s not hard, honestly: design for the marginalized

The power law cuts both ways. Use it to your advantage!

Why Settle for a False Binary?

Jordan Peterson and others like him push a narrative that white men must choose between meaning or happiness. That meaning is the higher pursuit, and happiness is shallow or weak. But let’s be clear:

When “Heroes” of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion FINALLY Show Their True Colors

I know some folx are surprised to see David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) publicly sharing statements that mirror the rhetoric of white nationalism. I am not. The writing has been on the wall for years.

DHH Is Way Worse Than I Thought | jakelazaroff.com DHH's politics are not normal. Maybe they used to be, I don't know, but as of right now the dude is_way outside of what most people would consider moral or acceptable.

show this to anyone else you know who also assumed DHH was just a normal conservative dude rather than a raging white supremacist lunatic

No one has ever said that signing up for an email list is going to get you sent to the gulag.

It's like these people cannot argue in good faith so they're shadowboxing with people they've invented in their head.

Also, worth reading this entire thread.

From Urgency to Action: An Emergency Call to Community

This Saturday, September 20th, I’m hosting an emergency Profit Without Oppression Co-Conspirator Network meeting (11am–12:30pm EST).

Deputy AG Todd Blanche says ‘organized’ Trump protesters could be investigated Blanche spoke as DOJ sought to walk back Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments about "hate speech," which landed her in hot water with conservatives.

People legit yelled at me for 24 hours when I said it's extremely dumb to RSVP to a protest. Why hand your name over to a group organizing a protest/rally? Do you *want* to have to talk to the FBI?

Treat anyone encouraging you to RSVP to a protest as a fed. End of.

back on my “words mean things” bullshit to say

“empathy,“ “sympathy,” and “compassion“ are NOT synonyms

Culture Warlords One reporter takes an immersive dive into white supremacy's explosive online presence, exploring the undercurrents of propaganda, racism, misogyny, and ...

if youd like to get a bit more background on how young men get radicalized online but don't want to dive into hell facefirst alone i have a book about it

(it's five years old, but speaks to methods & human motivations that are still current, i think)

www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia...

Why I Created the PWO Community

It’s moments like this that remind me why I created the Profit Without Oppression (PWO) Community.

For too long, “good white folx” have had nowhere to process the ways the myth of white supremacy benefits you at the expense of everyone else.

Linguistics lesson for the day: Accountability is crucial to interpreting language. We make sense of something based on who we believe said it. Synthetic text extruded by LLMs was not said by anyone -- so a crucial step in the chain is broken.

>>

A good question to ask oneself politically is 'what do I need to ignore in order to maintain my commitment to x, y, and z?' Because if you, for example, need to ignore a whole group of people's humanity in order to vote for a horrible politician, then it may be too costly to your soul.

It is my way of slowly unraveling and unlearning these things that I took on that I can name.

It will take time for me to get to where I need to be. It is an ongoing, personal journey, but at the same time, it is for me to continue taking these steps within community in ways I chose not to throughout my life.

Second, embedded in that first point is continuing to develop the practice of community as a direct response to my own decisions to not be in community growing up. There are many reasons why community was not prioritized growing up. Reasons that I have enough clarity now to name and inspect.

Passively consuming the work is not going to work for me. I need to dig deep and trust the people around me to safely create the space to allow for the kind of growth and learning I want to invest in.

Additionally, the work is multi-pronged. First, I understand that I will get out what I put into it. So for me, I believe that I need to lean into this work. I won't be effective in achieving the outcomes I want if I passively consume the content.

I need to work on pacing myself through this work so that it can endure beyond the boundaries of this program.

Something really important to me, broadly speaking, is developing the muscle to do work that endures. These Facilitated Conversations are happening over the course of 14 weeks and today was the first live session of seven.

I'd like to spend a moment reflecting on the participation side of this, because I am participating in this cohort led by Kim.

This…. we have commodified lovebombing and abuse