{"id":353,"date":"2025-06-11T13:47:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T20:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/?p=353"},"modified":"2025-06-11T14:26:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T21:26:57","slug":"thank-you-for-your-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/11\/thank-you-for-your-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank you for your service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When you read a piece of advice about attending a protest from a seasoned peace advocate that rubs you the wrong way or doesn’t reflect your perspective, it’s because they’re expressing their<\/em> lived experience. It’s not about you. They will probably be thankful when you share your advice, based on your<\/em> lived experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They didn’t craft their careful admonitions in response to something you wrote. They didn’t even send it to your inbox. They didn’t call themselves the go-to protest advice hotline. They didn’t say that your plans were wrong because, well, you didn’t publish your plans, as far as I can tell. They voiced a perspective. Let’s hear yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it wasn’t written for you in the first place. It was written for the couple that just graduated from high school and are on their first road trip, first time in LA, and find themselves at their first demonstration, and 1992 was 15 years before they were born, and they didn’t grow up in a place where demonstrations were part of the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was written for the cynical, disaffected white Gen X dude who thinks protests are the opportunity to tip things over the edge, and plans to torch a couple of Teslas, and, if he’s lucky, a Federal building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was written for the woman in her 40’s who has so much anxiety about the fact that things might get out of hand, but her whole heart is in the movement, and she believes that it’s her civic duty to show up, even though she knows that if things get out of hand, it could trigger severe emotional distress related to events that happened in her childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was written for the immigrant family who want to participate but don’t feel safe being anywhere on the perimeter where they are more vulnerable to being recognized or even photographed, as that could result in their being deported for being subversive, and they’d like to be surrounded by supportive people whose motives and methods they trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though you are a seasoned advocate for justice and have attended many demonstrations, many people will be attending this one for the first time. Some of those people might find value in hearing different perspectives because that’s how they learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That seasoned peace advocate wasn’t writing to you, because maybe they know you’re good, and you don’t need to hear it. Maybe they know you’re doing the right things, and they don’t need to comment on those things. Maybe they know that everybody doesn’t know how to talk to everybody, but that you know how to talk to the people you know how to talk to, and you’re doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They voiced a perspective, based on lived experience, about how to not die at a protest. I look forward to hearing yours, and if it’s good, I’ll amplify it too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you read a piece of advice about attending a protest from a seasoned peace advocate that rubs you the wrong way or doesn’t reflect your perspective, it’s because they’re expressing their lived experience. It’s not about you. They will probably be thankful when you share your advice, based on your lived experience. They didn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-reflection"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paor1p-5H","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":350,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/11\/respectability-politics\/","url_meta":{"origin":353,"position":0},"title":"Respectability politics","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"June 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"To the many brave voices calling out Peter Coyote's advice regarding peaceful demonstration tactics as representative of an entitled, race- and class-based, and performative nod to respectability politics: I hear you, and I recognize this perspective. I would challenge that perspective as confusing symbology with strategy. I see it as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/ADB6CBDC-F930-41E9-867D-894CB634CF15_4_5005_c.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/ADB6CBDC-F930-41E9-867D-894CB634CF15_4_5005_c.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/ADB6CBDC-F930-41E9-867D-894CB634CF15_4_5005_c.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/30\/reminiscing\/","url_meta":{"origin":353,"position":1},"title":"Reminiscing","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"July 30, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Winter 1978: I lived in Klamath Falls Oregon and attended 7th grade at Brixner Junior High School. I was a band geek\u2013I remember playing The Theme from Evergreen in band, and I still get the closing bars stuck in my head a couple of times a year. I was the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "reflection"","block_context":{"text":"reflection","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/reflection\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":884,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/14\/from-the-inside-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":353,"position":2},"title":"From the Inside Out","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"September 14, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A Reading List in the Spirit of T\u014djisha-Kenky\u016b \u00b7 \u5f53\u4e8b\u8005\u7814\u7a76 Within T\u014djisha-kenky\u016b lies the potential of rearranging the relationship between the t\u014djisha (the person with lived experience of the condition being studied) and the specialist \u2014 in other words, between experienced knowledge and specialized knowledge. . . . The mutual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "didactics"","block_context":{"text":"didactics","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/didactics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_0248.jpeg?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_0248.jpeg?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_0248.jpeg?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_0248.jpeg?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_0248.jpeg?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":463,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/22\/neuroemergence\/","url_meta":{"origin":353,"position":3},"title":"neuroemergence","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"July 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Because no one asked, here's one take on neurodivergence: We have the Latin-derived terms horizontal and vertical to describe the x- and y-axes in a two-dimensional model. The fact that there is no handy, colloquial Latin-derived word for the z-axis, or depth, suggests that writers and thinkers driving language forward\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "didactics"","block_context":{"text":"didactics","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/didactics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":880,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/12\/what-does-autism-even-mean\/","url_meta":{"origin":353,"position":4},"title":"what does autism even mean?","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"September 12, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"peers, autists, human companions: lend me your cognitive architecture (ears are not enough). what we now call \"autism\" originally described a way of thinking that its own framers acknowledged that everyone experiences. If \"autistic thinking\" is something that everyone experiences, where is the line drawn between \"everyone\" and the autistic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "neurodiversity"","block_context":{"text":"neurodiversity","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/neurodiversity\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":837,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/23\/837\/","url_meta":{"origin":353,"position":5},"title":"more spectra","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"July 23, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In my last reflection, I mentioned the intersection of race, gender expression, and neurodiversity in my family story\u2014qualities that all have spectra embedded in them. I didn't touch on culture and class, which are also observable as existing on spectra. 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