Eyes Wide Open: On Speaking Out, Staying Small, and Still Choosing Justice

For a long time, I stayed quiet on by Instagram about Palestine.

Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t understand. And the little I did see, the images, the headlines, the grief, felt too painful to hold. So I didn’t. I looked away. I focused on what felt safer, smaller, more manageable: America. My business. My lane.

But silence has a weight.

And now I’m carrying another form of shame, not because I didn’t scream sooner, but because I didn’t even whisper. Because I let myself believe that if something hurt too much to look at, maybe it wasn’t mine to carry.

I know better now.

My eyes are wide open, and I will never look away again.

I will never stop speaking out against injustice, anywhere. Because this isn’t about borders. This is about humanity. Dignity. The sacred right to live and raise your babies without bombs overhead. To grow old without starvation being weaponized.

And here’s the thing I keep turning over in my heart like a stone:

I get why people are afraid to speak up.

I’m a small creator. A micro-business. I sell vintage mugs and write books for kids. I am not some megaphone. I don’t have brand sponsors or a team. What I do have is a shop that helps me keep the lights on, a livelihood built over years of slow, gentle work.

So I understand the fear.
I feel it.

The fear of saying something “too political” and losing a customer.
The fear of being unfollowed. Misunderstood.
The fear of tanking everything you’ve built just by telling the truth.

But if I have to choose between protecting my algorithm and protecting my soul, I choose my soul.

Because what’s the point of having a platform even, a small one, if I’m not going to use it to stand with the oppressed? What’s the point of curating a beautiful feed if I can’t say a single word while children are being slaughtered?

If my work, my brand, my books, my shop, depends on me being silent in the face of genocide, I don’t want it. Not like that.

And I know it’s complicated. I know everyone’s situation is different. I’m not here to shame anyone who’s afraid. I’m not here to pretend that speaking out doesn’t come with risk. It does.

But we need to be honest with ourselves:
Staying silent doesn’t protect us.
It just delays the reckoning.
And it makes someone else pay the price instead.

So yes, I still love a beautiful shelf.
Yes, I still follow home accounts and find joy in cozy corners.
But I can’t scroll through someone’s perfect feed anymore without wondering:

Do you see what’s happening?
Do you care?
Are you saying anything, anywhere, or are you just pretending this isn’t real?

Because if the price of being “aesthetic” is being complicit, I’m not interested.

I still want beauty.
But I want it with backbone.
I want it paired with bravery.

I want small creators, especially, to know that your voice matters.
That we are stronger together when we say enough.
That if enough of us risk it, even a little, we shift the center.
We make it normal to care out loud.

And we make the world just a little bit harder to ignore.

So speak.
Even if your voice shakes.
Even if your sales drop.
Even if it feels too late.

Because you don’t owe perfection.
You owe truth.

Make justice be your aesthetic.

And let the world see what courage looks like in soft light.