YK's Liberation Toolbox

You're here! We're here.

[Hey y'all! Welcome to this place.]

Heya, my name is YK Hong.

This resource site delves into my life's work around Liberatory Strategy + Tech Justice. I have spent the past couple of decades working with organizations and communities around how we dismantle systems of oppression, strategize for liberatory pathways, and because I am a technologist, I also cover issues of tech justice and how they all come together.

You may have come across my work across many different platforms. This site is an attempt to bring together this work in a place that is more focused. It will allow for a more robust experience, with more functionality, flexibility, and tools. I can share here with more data privacy and digital security for all of us, too.

Your subscription helps to sustain this site, and allows Liberation Toolbox to continue to exist.

The Toolbox

This place is a toolbox because that is what we need for collective liberation. Some of you have some tools already, but want to add more. Some have many tools, but want to find out which ones you can continue to use. Some may have older tools that need sharpening. And some may want to swap tools with others. Or even all of the above. We are building up our best and coolest toolboxes over here.

House Rules

If you have come into contact with me on any of my platforms or even in person, I have House Rules. I view my work online, especially on platforms like this, as I do guests at my table in my home. You do not have to be here, you have subscribed of your own volition and can unsubscribe and leave on your own as well. I also make people leave (aka block) if I do not like them being here.

I do not have to do anything, and I certainly do not have to do anything for anyone else. I do not care if people do not like what I am posting, or think I should post on other topics. I do not have to share any specific writing, topics, or work. I share whatever I want. No one else gets to tell me what to post or talk about. This is my house, and I am cooking and sharing the food that I want to share, not the food that others tell me to prepare.

I travel around the world giving workshops and talks with organizations, communities, and groups, on liberatory strategy and tech justice. Though I cover many of those topics online here too, I do not regard this platform or any social platform in the same way that I do my workshops, where I also have a different set of ground rules and agreements.

For instance, if you are in one of my workshops, and you are transphobic, then I have already carved out a space where we have made agreements for me to educate and help people through. So in one of my workshops, I will try to help you through dismantling your transphobia. However, if you are at my home having dinner at my table, and you are transphobic, then you are not welcome in my house. Not everyone is invited into my house in my space, whether on this platform or in my actual physical home.

I have different layers of community. Larger circles where we may debate, disagree, and struggle on issues together to ultimately get to our larger goal of collective liberation. I also have chosen family circles, circles where we hold strong shared values, circles of neighbors, circles of acquaintances. Many circles. Just because we are in different circles together does not mean you are welcome in my house. We can definitely struggle together in larger movement circles, but not everyone gets to be in my house.

In my home, on my site here, I am not here to educate you. If you happen to get educated, good for you, but that is neither my duty nor the reason for my existence here. There are educators on various platforms who are specifically there to educate you, please go find and subscribe to them. There are so many brilliant folks out there. I am not here to post for you. I am here to post what I want to post and what I feel passionate about.

This is my house. You are in my house.

So once again, if you do not like it here, all you have to do is leave. You don't need to announce, "Hey, I don't like the food that you are serving at your house that I invited myself into," or "I don't like the fact that you're posting about your own belief systems and values on your own page." No reason to take up more space with that egotism. All you have to do is leave, unsubscribe, silently. So simple.

Everyone does not need to subscribe to everyone else, and everyone does not need to be in everyone's house. It is in fact colonial thinking to think that you deserve to be in anyone and everyone's house.

For everyone else that is here and agrees to my House Rules, take your shoes off and let's eat.

Building Community

At the end of the day, I want to bring us together strategically to build community. I do that in person in rooms around the world when I work with folks, and I have also been doing it online. We need different types of community everywhere. This is one of those places.

Let's build together.