Stop Ruffling feathers and pluck the whole duck

​Over the course of the past five years, I have been facilitating difficult conversations within the White Wellness community surrounding vaccination, COVID-19, and public health. It all started with my piece for Yoga Journal “Getting Vaxxed Was My Act of Ahimsa,” in which I laid out the basic tenant of non-harm and harm reduction within yogic philosophy. This started a “conversation,” which rapidly struck the White Yoga community—opening up a gaping chasm within the yoga and wellness world and exposing the anti-science, racist, and extremist ideologies within a practice that has been appropriated, Westernized, and franchised out of it’s original culture and context.
What I have learned is that the White Wellness world is a cult-like breeding ground for Far Right ideology, White Supremacy, and pseudoscience. It’s cornerstone rests on lack of supplement regulation from the FDA and self-acclaimed “scientific experts” and “doctors” like Christiane Northrop and RFK Jr.
In short: it is a political sub-movement and propaganda machine, and it has been responsible for a large portion of pseudoscience and misinformation, which has ultimately doomed American Democracy, Global Public Health, Global Environmentalism, and Global Economics as a whole.
Up until this past year, I genuinely believed that those with opposing, misinformed, and harmful perspectives could be reached through kind conversation, empathy, and community support. I believed that being open-minded and a safe landing space for those who are ideologically mislead was necessary in the face of the rise of The Fouth Reich, here in America.
I no longer hold that belief.
My internal struggle between being a peacemaker and resisting systems of violence has brought me to the realization that there can be no middle ground in the context of fascism. There is no grey-area when lives are at stake due to cultural brainwashing.
Personal relationships with our family and friends who hold opposing beliefs, actively participate in the spread of misinformation, and perpetuate hateful rhetoric and systemic violence toward marginalized groups (the disabled, the Queer and Trans community, Black and Brown People, and Women) have been slowly deteriorating since 2016. I can no longer pretend that we simply disagree on things like taxes and Federal spending. It is very clear that Donald Trump’s entire platform has given them permission to be loudly hateful of anything that differs from a White, Christian, Wealthy, Heterosexual Lifestyle; and, by proximity, I tolerate their harmful views because I love them and I don’t want to ruffle feathers.
I knew this when my husband’s uncle by marriage started hatefully shouting about how disgusting gay men and gay sex was upon meeting my 7 week-old infant son for the first time. I knew this upon learning that he and his wife and children refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19 even after our beloved Mimi—their mother— passed away from Covid. I knew this when my SIL confided in me that she wonders how all of the anti-vaxxers in her family speak about her job as a medical research director, and whether or not they would condemn her to her face like they do behind closed-doors. I knew this when my youngest sister refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19 because the vaccine “was too new to know if it was safe,” even though I had been sharing peer reviewed studies and interviewing epidemiology experts for the better half of a year preceding the Federal authorization and roll-out of the COVID-19 MRNa vaccine. I knew this when my mother continued to be friends with transphobic, homophobic, openly racist people even after the George Floyd Protests in 2020 and the multiple shootings at gay clubs across America. I Have known this since my FIL refused to reveal who he voted for in the 2024 election, telling his sister, daughter, son, and myself that “It is none of your business and I have a right to privacy, how dare you even ask me.” I have known these things in my bones since I was young: that we tolerate hate from those within our families and communities because of the fear and risk of losing them, or even worse, being their next target.
I am not, and have never been a people pleaser, but I do care deeply for people in my life regardless of their beliefs. My sympathy and empathy for those struggling with letting go of deeply ingrained cultural conditioning often leads me to extend myself beyond my own limitations; from being available to chat with anyone about any social or public health related issue, or being the go-to person to talk other’s through their issues with their MAGA family members. I believed, up until this moment, that being an open communicator and creating common ground is kindness in action. I understand now that kindness does not mean tolerance, especially when it comes to those closest to us. And I can no longer tolerate or make exceptions for people who continue to cheer on a fascist regime, nor can I condone those who sit in silence and pretend they never voted for it or encouraged its success in any way. I can no longer tolerate this behavior because through their love and approval of this violent agenda, Trump supporters show that they hate me, a queer, autistic woman, far more than they love me; and they show it every single day by continuing to vote and argue against my existence, my autistic child’s existence, their immigrant neighbor’s existence, the existence of elderly people in their community, the existence of the millions of children in foster care, the existence of Black people whose ancestors built this country through enslavement, the existence of displaced and housing insecure military veterans, and (while they don’t realize it, yet) their own existence and freedoms.
While my stance on public health, capitalism, and progressivism has always ruffled feathers within conservative spaces and relationships; I was always of the mindset that the more exposure I provided to those who do not share the same morals as myself, the higher the chance of changing hearts and minds. Within the past seven months, I have reassessed my tactics. Instead of holding space for those who have “fallen victim,” to cult-like mentality, I am denouncing, condemning, and removing these people from my life. Because, they are Nazi’s. And I refuse to be a Nazi sympathizer.
For those of you reading this who are unfamiliar with my ongoing Thesis “Harmless Horrors: The Tools of the Third Reich That Paved the Way to Trump’s America,” I highly recommend you take time to read the first outline installment and introduction.
For those of you who find my equating MAGA with the Nazi Party extreme and unnecessary, I would like to turn your attention to the easiest proof of practice: the federalization and militarization of ICE and Brown Shirts/ the SS.
Hitler militarized the streets of Berlin in 1934 upon declaring himself Supreme Ruler of the German Empire. Berlin was a progressive city; home to multi-cultural artists and creatives of all types as well as the Institute for Sexual Research , which made it the center-point of scientific advancement in Gender Studies within the Western World.
Fast forward to Los Angelos, California, June 2025 and the ICE raids that led to the federalization of the National Guard and Marines against peaceful protestors throughout the streets of the thriving, immigrant and Queer-friendly city in an attempt to justify a modern American Police State, not only similar to 1930-40’s Germany, but identical.
If this is not enough to convince you, consider the rhetoric used by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kristi Noem regarding “the enemy within,” referring to brown immigrants as “illegals.” and endangering indigenous communities with new policies regarding birthright citizenship.
Not to mention, Alligator Alcatraz .
Anyone who continues to support this administration in any capacity—including silence— is the modern day equivalent of a Nazi.
The Nazi Party was a Fascist government, and therefore MAGA, GOP, and the entire Republican Party is a modern day Fascist regime.
Fascism, as defined by Merriam-Webster is “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”
With the passing of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Congress has enshrined fascist policies into the fabric of society—both trampling on and utilizing key phrases and amendments within the Constitution to suit their own atrociously inhumane agenda and line the pockets of 83 billionaires while stripping 17 million Americans of Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
As someone who considers Kindness the foundation of her Spirituality, I refuse to tolerate those whose entire belief system is focused on gleefully forcing unkind circumstances upon others. I am no longer ruffling feathers, I am plucking out people, practices, businesses, and whole industries from my life in order to embody peaceful protest. To me, this looks like making my world smaller. I am speaking with my neighbors on a daily basis. My child is attending our neighborhood, Title 1 school. I am on a family advisory committee for the school district and planning to organize a multi-lingual parent community in order to help those struggling with food security, immigration status, and housing security.
And I am writing to condemn bigotry and injustice in all of their hateful forms.
Instead of having kind conversations, I am demanding repentance from those who, until this point have operated under the “it’s not happening to me, so it’s none of my business,” status. I am directly and firmly reminding every single person in my life that our silence is compliance, and that no act of resistance is too little or too late. If we collectively continue to sympathize with and attempt to find “common ground” with people who support hate, violence, and fascism, we do everyone across the globe a disservice. This moment matters, and I am encouraging everyone to stand on the right side of history instead of being swallowed by their own inaction.
In 10 years from now, we will be watching a modern-day Nuremberg Trial while forcing the entirety of today’s Republican Party to eat the meal they cooked for themselves. Now is the time to decide if you will continue to tolerate the “Good Germans,” in your life by fattening their feed and saying/doing nothing, or if you will prep the poultry for roasting.
I hope you choose the latter.