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"Disrupt and push back against capitalism and white supremacy. In this book, Tricia Hersey, aka The Nap Bishop, encourages us to connect to the liberating power of rest, daydreaming, and naps as a foundation for healing and justice. What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine-level pace -- feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit. In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us. Rest Is Resistance is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey's lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action, a battle cry, a field guide, and a manifesto for all of us who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture"--provided by publisher.… (more)
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I agreed with some of her ideas- "You are enough right now because you are alive." Her encouragement to be in the moment and to take time to dream as well as rest is admirable and could use promotion in our culture. But she was extremely repetitive. The book was 195 pages, but I think a 20-60 page essay could have made her points effectively.
Hersey is mostly speaking to fellow African-Americans, but what she has to say applies broadly and a lot of the populations, especially those who aren't managers, may find her tackling a very important issue. How much do we belong to ourselves? I have felt under constant pressure most of my life to regard myself as a machine that can be adapted, without stress, to the needs of others. The devotion that we are supposed to owe organizations that consider us to be interchangeable cogs is ridiculous. I owe then what I'm being for, nothing more. I will never get to the top? I'm not trying, and, face it, most people never will get to the top.
Hersey talks a great deal about a longer and longer list of "-isms," ableism, patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, and finally, the "ism" that I think is too often over looked, classism, but this is usually just a list without much examination. She associates American slavery with the rise of capitalism, which I think is not entirely true, but the reader might want to have a look at Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams, which is summarized in Wikipedia. Williams argued that the wealth generated by slavery fueled the rise of capitalism in the west. I think one could debate definitions of capitalism, and whether that would be better described as the Industrial Revolution, but certainly that created the situation in which most of us live. Here's the thing though, slavery, according to a history I read, is one of the oldest and most common human institutions. It has contributed its wealth to all sorts of economic systems, as has serfdom, tenant farming, and peonage. The involuntary labor of "lesser beings" is always popular with the upper classes. In Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, .