Survival Notes

When someone dies—especially someone powerful, controversial, or harmful—we’re often told that “the right” response is empathy. That if we don’t grieve or soften, we are somehow failing at being human. But for people and communities who’ve lived under harm, withholding empathy isn’t cruelty. It’s survival.

It’s when influential figures use coded language, “jokes,” or rhetoric to vilify a group, knowing it will likely inspire someone else to commit violence—even though they never give a direct order. Think of it as planting seeds of hate in the public square, then pretending you didn’t water them when someone acts.

We were taught to see free speech as a bedrock right. But today, censorship has taken new forms. Speaking up about injustice, naming racism, or questioning power too often leads to retaliation: jobs lost, posts deleted, books banned, entire histories erased.