Stop Being Nice

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Don’t.
Do not take the high road.
Do not shut yourself up or shut yourself down to “be the better person.”
Do not think you must say something nice or nothing at all when saying something fierce would be true.
Maybe you should stop ignoring the trolls.

Stop being nice.

Niceness can be a learned coping mechanism for deeply held unresolved trauma.

Niceness is a tool for manipulation or an excuse to let yourself be manipulated.

Niceness, as a methodology for maintaining appropriateness over truth, is toxic.

Niceness in the face of aggression is a license to bully.

Niceness as a code of preferred behavior is a tool that dictates the social norms of white supremacy.

Niceness is a weapon of the patriarchy intended to put and keep women in their place, seen but not heard, polite but opinionless.

Niceness, as an expectation, is weaponized compliance that looks pretty and stays fucking silent.

Be human.
Be generous.
Be kind.
Be available.
Be present.
Be vulnerable.
Be there for others.

Be in love with yourself.
Fall in love with strangers you meet on the street just for practice.
Let yourself bleed because your heart breaks wide open in solidarity with humans around you.

But-
stop letting them bully.
Stop turning the other cheek out of courtesy.
Stop ignoring abuse to appease the abuser.
Stop condoning harmful behavior with your silence and a smile.
Stop telling people to “have a nice day” and instead wish them the day they deserve. We all silently yearn for days that go deeper than nice.

You may have been raised to be polite, but you were born to be bold.
What the world needs right now isn’t more nice flavored complacency.
The world needs more upliftment, fierce compassion, bold visionary love that spreads like fire and is willing to fight.

Be willing to offend, agitate, enrage.
Be willing to defend yourself, people you love, and people you will never meet.
Be willing to rage out of love and steel yourself in noncompliance out of righteousness.

Stop being nice.

Here is what I know for sure: I do not want to be remembered as a nice woman when I die.
I want to be remembered as powerful.
I want to be remembered as a force of nature.
I want to be remembered as love that lived in motion.
I want to be remembered by the light of a fire that burns on the fuel of all the nice conversations I never had —

–and that is exactly what I want for you too.