Activism can be done in as many ways as people can express themselves. We can march, vote, or even stand in deafening silence, refusing to acknowledge oppressive laws or ignore abusive behavior. We can be activists in our personal lives by standing up for human rights and correcting dangerous normalization of microaggressions that lead to abuse and oppression by living our values without hiding them. Saying nothing is often an implicit conformation. An acceptance.

After all, most people who normalize abuse are sometimes (often) the nicest, most likable people. There isn’t usually a “big bad wolf” who is 100% all evil all the time but people seem to believe the “other” is that big bad wolf when the wolves live within us all. We choose which to feed.

The least likable people by society are the victims. They are the arbiters of ugly, frightening, and often complicated truth. They warn us that the devil they know is usually convincingly the last person we’d suspect. No one likes being told or shown that they aren’t a good judge of character and that “nice” or “kind” is not, in any way, correlated with safe and good. Most people are playing their socially constructed roles predictably. It’s a hell of hard thing to find a way to help them see that so we all can live in our higher selves more often.

Bystanders and enablers give too much benefit of the doubt, lack sharp enough discretion and resolve to change things, they are scared to see the danger of the comfortable lie, they are often well-intentioned but not well-informed. Normalization of abuse and oppression is mostly unconscious which makes it virtually invisible and “unprovable”. How does anyone prove the feeling of the unbearable weight of oppression? They don’t. It has to be discovered and experienced in some personal way before another can feel it too and say “ah, I understand, I believe you, I know now”. Stories, personal experience, and emotional connection are what redistribute the weight of injustice.

So how do we, as writers, fight invisible ideologies that are so deeply rooted in systemic abuse, oppression, and injustice but buried deep in our collective unconscious?

One powerful way, in addition to writing fiction, is Creative Nonfiction. Some years ago I kept a blog writing well-researched, nuanced articles that highlighted some of the most powerful human misperceptions that trap us all in systemic violence. Namely, the bystander effect, enabling, and the “nice guy” effect. From serial killers Ted Bundy, Jerry Marcus, and Edmund Kemper to recent “me too movement” convicted felon Danny Masterson, the denial of enablers keeps violence deeply entrenched in society.

I don’t have the original blog, and I struggle with writing nonfiction often as it can emotionally flood me to revisit my own trauma, but I started a Medium account last fall to do my part, when and how I can. If you have the emotional bandwidth and passion, the work is much needed and those of us most impacted by denial and enabling are grateful and value the difficult work of systemic violence whistleblowers. All of us can wield the mighty pen and develop our voice to help bend the arc of justice.

And of course, all stories, especially fiction, mirror reality in some way and have the capacity — and perhaps the mandate — to change the world, one story at a time.