We are living in a moment where collective harm is being repackaged as individual failure.

We are living in a moment where collective harm is being repackaged as individual failure.

Where the very real impact of systems, institutions, and policies designed to exclude, exploit, and dehumanize gets reframed as a mindset problem. A resilience problem. A positivity problem. A personal responsibility problem.

And it’s happening with the language of spirituality. With the aesthetics of healing. With the tone of encouragement.

We’re told to focus on what we can control.
To protect our peace.
To choose positivity as an act of resistance.

But rarely are we asked to question what, exactly, that posture protects.

Because when collective harm is redirected into individual responsibility, the systems, institutions, and policies causing the harm are shielded from direct challenge.

This is how the myth of white supremacy sustains itself without ever having to name itself.

It convinces people that if they are suffering, struggling, overwhelmed, afraid, or angry, the issue is their inability to regulate their emotions rather than the fact that they are living under structures that were never designed for their safety or dignity in the first place.

It turns very real political, economic, and social violence into a personal growth opportunity.

And in doing so, it bastardizes spiritual practices that were originally meant to help people cultivate awareness,

accountability, and alignment with their values.

Personal accountability was never meant to replace collective responsibility.

But now, questioning authority is often framed as negativity.

As being “too angry.”

As being “too much.”

As failing to rise above.

And that framing conveniently ignores the wisdom of those who have lived their entire lives navigating, surviving, and even finding joy despite the status quo. The people who know, from experience,

that peace is not found by pretending the fire isn’t burning, but by learning how to move through it without being consumed.

There is nothing wrong with positivity.
There is nothing wrong with joy.
There is nothing wrong with protecting your peace.

But when positivity becomes a tool to silence opposition to state-sanctioned harm, it stops being healing and starts being compliance.

Positivity as resistance should make rebellion easier, not replace it.