#TripleTruthTuesdays, #UpYouWakeWednesdays, #TogetherWeLiveThursdays, and #FaceTheFactsFridays
Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
It was always going to happen, and today is the day. Trees Are My People is introducing its hashtags so you can find our posts easily and quickly wherever you find your content. As of the writing of this post, there are only eleven posts on Instagram using the hashtag #FaceTheFactsFridays (all of which were posted between 2012 and 2018) and not a single post using the hashtag #TripleTruthTuesdays, #UpYouWakeWednesdays, or #TogetherWeLiveThursdays. Likewise, for blog posts, articles, and other content available online which might include a hashtag: zero for all four hashtags. SO, we are going to run with those. And if the content you find when you search for one of those hashtags isn’t connected to Trees Are My People, don’t worry — decide for yourself if you want to read that other content and, if not, keep on steppin’. Or scrollin’, as the case may be.
Why these particular hashtags? Well, three of them refer back to quotations from Samuel L. Jackson’s character, radio DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy, in Spike Lee’s absolutely brilliant 1989 film, Do the Right Thing. I had just graduated from high school and was preparing to head down to university when this film was released. My friends and I went to see the film the week it was released and couldn’t stop talking about it all summer long… nay, all year long… naaaaaah, what am I saying? We still reference it to this day, thirty-one years later.
Do I wish Spike Lee had written his female and differently-abled and Korean characters more respectfully and realistically? Yes. Most definitely. Are there other problems with the film? Yes, there are. Does the perpetually-rumbling-beneath-the-surface-always-ready-to-explode issue of racism thoughtfully explored in the film still color every single aspect of U.S. life to this very day? YES. The film was timely in 1989, it would have been timely in 1969 or 1919 or 1869, and it is timely now, in 2020. Such is the pervasive presence of racism. And racism, as we all know, is fatal. It is fatal not only for humans. When we have power-hungry, hatred-fueled, divisiveness-generating systems and individuals among us, that is bad news for all of the world. Including Nature. None of us can escape the destructive reach of racism.
Why #TripleTruthTuesdays?
Mister Señor Love Daddy says in the film, “Yo! Hold up! Time out! TIME OUT! Y'all take a chill! Ya need to cool that shit out! And that's the double truth, Ruth!” We love that. The double truth. Something so profoundly true that it being singularly truthful is insufficient. But we think sometimes even the double truth can be insufficient, and in those times we in fact need to declare something the triple truth. Especially in this era of falsehoods being boldly flaunted as truths.
In a few schools of Buddhism, there is something known as the “triple truth.” Encyclopaedia Britannica’s definition of the Buddhist school of Tiantai’s usage of the term is: “… (1) all things (dharmas) lack ontological reality; (2) they, nevertheless, have a temporary existence; (3) they are simultaneously unreal and temporarily existing—being the middle, or absolute, truth, which includes and yet surpasses the others. The three truths are considered to be mutually inclusive, and each is contained within the others. Because existence is ever-changing, the phenomenal world is regarded as identical with the world as it really is.” Ain’t that the truth? Or, rather, the triple truth?
Why #UpYouWakeWednesdays?
Mister Señor Love Daddy says, ”Wake up! Wake up! Up you wake!”
If we are fortunate, we keep waking up, morning after morning, for tens of thousands of mornings, until one morning we don’t. Wouldn’t it be lovely to wake up many of those mornings to something wondrous? Perhaps an image of wildlife thriving? Or the sound of the sea rolling into shore?
We all need to metaphorically wake up in terms of our thinking. The world cannot continue to exist with some of us believing we can use the Earth’s resources freely and deny other humans and other species equitable access to those resources. The human species cannot continue with some of us believing that our skin’s melanin level — or our gender or linguistic or ethnic or national or socioeconomic or religious or educational background — determines our worth. We need every single person alive to WAKE UP to this triple truth.
Why #TogetherWeLiveThursdays?
Mister Señor Love Daddy says, “My people, my people, what can I say; say what I can. I saw it but didn't believe it; I didn't believe what I saw. Are we gonna live together? Together are we gonna live?” We thought about using #TogetherAreWeGonnaLiveThursdays but decided a more optimistic spin on the question — or declaration, in this case — is #TogetherWeLiveThursdays.
We cannot continue to live at all unless we find a way to live together peacefully and with respect for one another’s needs. Naturally, we here at Trees Are My People don’t simply mean humans of various backgrounds when we use the pronoun “we.” We include all species inhabiting the planet in “we.”
Why #FaceTheFactsFridays?
This hashtag has no origin in Do the Right Thing. But of course we do urge you to please, please, please do the right thing each and every day in every possible way.
Referencing once again those who seek to spread false information and gaslight and confuse and simply wear down the spirits and energies of well-intentioned global citizens, we offer actual FACTS for those interested to consider.
You and we tirelessly work to make this world we share a good and just place for ALL, and in order to effectively do that we must all be armed with evidence-based, factual information.