Liberatory Imagination with Tiffany

About Liberatory Imagination with Tiffany

All things about Liberation, Art, and the Chaos of life. tiffanywongart.substack.com (https://tiffanywongart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Tiffany Wong

Category

arts · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 Feb 2024

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

76 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   Am I the villain?

   Growing up in a conservative Christian immigrant household, I know the bliss of having someone or something to blame. It’s satan’s fault! It’s unbelievers’ fault! Not enough faith! It’s the world’s fault! If only they knew that Jesus was the way! Ironically the bliss of knowing all the answers and being on the in is based on those who are on the outs. LIBERATORY IMAGINATION is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Somatically, it feels so f*****g nice to have security and certainty. Even though I’m free of indoctrination and I’m more tapped into my agency, the other side isn’t more fun…per se. To sit in the unknown and unknowable is uncomfortable at times. And sometimes I miss walking down the street looking at people and think “oh poor unfortunate souls…you have no idea what is available for you. I know the key and you don’t. Thank god he chose me.” That superiority is sweeeeeetttt. What else is sweet is knowing who the enemy is (aka satan) and knowing who will win at the end. There’s this part in the bible…probably revelations or something…where it describes how there’s a war happening between good and evil right above us. When we are being tempted to sin, there is a brave heart battle happening. At all times! And so when you fall into sin, you know that the bad guys won the battle. But don’t worry! The ULTIMATE battle will be won by the good guys. I loooved that part! So freeing to just know that no matter how much I f**k up, the good guys will prevail - and that’s the side I’m on *twinkling of the eye*. Imagine having to deal with men who have that kind of superiority plus they are insufferable men with worshippers. My religious trauma is 90% having had to deal with christian men and white women who mask their privilege with fake humility while abusing their power in disgusting ways. It makes me want to dry heave thinking about it. Fast forward to now. It’s interesting to see the parallels of leftists with Christianity culture. I think that the critique isn’t in the building blocks of leftism (because I wouldn’t call myself a leftist if I didn’t align with it)…it’s in how infiltrated the culture can be by the thing we are fighting against. Obviously there is a common enemy: the empire (colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, ableism, white supremacy etc.). And empire is strategic and is moving in ways that are sometimes more subversive than it looks (elite capture, CIA coups, media etc.) As leftists, we do know what the way out is. Or at least we are studying ways that people have freed themselves and we have theories of how we can be liberated collectively. *cough socialism towards communism cough* It is natural to look for like-minded people, because it feels horrible to talk to people…and they look at you like you’re a weirdo. We also need to be coming together to learn and build relationships with each other. And so there are tells about who is in and who is out hoping to bring more people to be for liberation. There are boundaries around our values as there should be. We have definitions between a liberal and a leftist. As we should have. So I get how it happens! It’s so natural, because all the pieces are there to be able to replicate cult or religious thinking/behaving. Add a charismatic leader who has no boundaries and are exploiting people…boom. But what I want to focus on is how: being able to always blame the enemy can be the go-to tool to escape self-accountability. If you feel uncomfortable with that and are flipping through all the dangerous ways that could be used, sit with it. I think we get confused with words like trauma-informed and grace and cancel culture…and forget the plot. My guess is that alot of us are afraid of addressing accountability, because we are afraid that eventually the fingers will point to yourself. It’s much easier to dog-pile on a B list celebrity. It’s much harder to reckon with how you talked to your partner yesterday. It’s much easier to blame it on our trauma. It’s much harder to tend to our wounds and make sure that it doesn’t hurt other people like it did to us. That kind of linear thinking is very colonial and christian. It’s overly simplified in ways that should have more nuance and then overly complicated and confusing in ways that are actually very clear cut. There should be enough space where we validate the impacts of trauma and empire AND where we can tap into our agency to try to reduce harm…from ourselves. The thing about christian culture is that it feels so good, because you get eternal assurance as well as a common enemy everyone stands against. There is no need to look at yourself, because you’re already forgiven. The only people you’re looking at is the pastor’s wife and the single mother on the praise team who both have gossip swirling around them. I watched that netflix documentary called “Death of the Pastor’s Wife” a month or two ago, and it really wasn’t shocking how the congregation was just cool with being led by the abusive pastor. Because in the same way we like to demonize people (and let me tell you many of them actually deserve it)…we like to celebritize people too. We like to see a leader who is infallible and can rise above it all. We love a savior. And then we love tearing them down. It’s that binary thinking. That saint or devil thinking. I think it’s really easy to apply this to ourselves too. Where we are doing everything right or everything wrong, because it’s actually really hard to hold nuance with ourselves and other people…while also holding necessary hard lines. Hard lines like holding to the values we say we have. I love this by Erotics of Liberation (https://substack.com/profile/231811740-erotics-of-liberation): “We fail to hold ourselves accountable because it traces us back to the way we were harmed and never received accountability or repair from our harm-doers. We never enter the space of violence by causing it. We receive it and pass it on. Meaning, we do harm and refuse to repair because that process of repair would require of us to acknowledge the wounds we’ve spent a lifetime concealing from our own selves. There is no such thing as ‘holding someone accountable.’ We hold ourselves accountable when we are ready to do so. Some people will never be. Postponing our healing until our harm-doers are ready to engage in their own self-accountability process is the antithesis of self-love. We deserve healing, always…and most importantly: now.” YESSS exactly. This is why I love Transformative Justice. It gets into the shadows where repair and true accountability are actually possible. I love that first line “We fail to hold ourselves accountable because it traces us back to the way we were harmed and never received accountability or repair from our harm-doers.” It shines light on our wounds and how it seems so unfair that people get to “get away” with things all the time…and I have to do the hard work of owning up to my s**t when thooooose people get off the hook?? Yeah. That’s hard to reckon with, but we are responsible for our words and actions. Only us. Us with all the injustice we have been through…all the trauma…all the neurodivergencies…all the etc. Yes we have to hold ourselves accountable. Because that’s what dignity looks like. That’s our shared goal right?? Dignity for all. The opposite of empire. I just watched this tiktok (can’t find it!!) about how it’s less about a communication problem than it is a values problem. The creator was talking about how we get caught up in how we communicate without starting with the building blocks of what we actually value. The tricky thing is that most of us would say we value the same things like honesty, but actually embodying it through the dysregulation is really really hard. It doesn’t matter how good you are at communicating. If your values are misaligned…it will eventually show. And sometimes it can be subtle. Sometimes it’s like…someone might value living life from quiet internal transformation that blooms out into action, while someone else might value more external ways of validation through career or academia. The tension isn’t how these two people communicate, but it’s the assumed premise they are communicating from. Their values. Practicing to live out our values is everything. Going back to the above statement “being able to always blame the enemy can be the go-to tool to escape self-accountability.” When we get handed a “get out of jail free” card (boooo prisons), it’s hard not to cash it in. When we can say a bunch of key leftists words, we think that it would save us from not doing the necessary work. I WISH. All those key leftists words actually point in the same direction, which is dignity and autonomy for all - including ourselves. It’s not a general idea for the general collective. It is cutting, revolutionary, extremely practical, action forward, as tangible as the table in front of you, and as detailed as the way you speak to yourself in your head. The question I have to ask is…am I the villain in this story? Not to fall exactly into the binary thinking I was just writing about haha. But for real, I think it is helpful to ask myself that question. Because immediately, I’m like…LOOK AT HER!!! How can she be the villain after all that she has endured and been through??…the whole empire wants her to be neutralized and a robotic worker for the system!! Yes good. Struggle with it. And see how I could be villainous (I know I know harm-doers should not be villainized or demonized but just go with it), because I embody autonomy, power, skill, and knowledge that can definitely be used to exploit, manipulate and hurt alot of people. The things I hope to urge us on - towards liberation - are the exact same things that could do a lot of damage…and mistakes and hurt and harm can all happen as I am proclaiming that I am for liberation. So “am I the villain?” keeps me in check. It asks me to reflect on how much I am ready to dignify myself, which will in turn show how I’m ready to fight for the dignity of others. What does Liberatory Imagination spark in me today? We deserve cathartic release and unity. But not the false cheap (christian) version. We deserve the real thing!! Coalition building, endurance with working with real humans, deep relationships with our chosen family, joyful movement and building, creative bliss…all those things have a price. It asks for our whole lives. Our private lives, our public lives, our creative lives, our relational lives. Liberatory imagination sparks in me bravery to imperfectly try…try to hold myself accountable at every point. Love myself enough to know that I deserve dignity that transcends making mistakes. That transcends hurting people (so scary!!). And that all begins with knowing that I am never immune to being the harm-doer. LIBERATORY IMAGINATION is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to LIBERATORY IMAGINATION at tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe (https://tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   16 Sept 2026

   Millennial girlboss + love island

   Get full access to LIBERATORY IMAGINATION at tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe (https://tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   26 May 2026

   Shaping my internal landscape

   References: Making Mistakes with peregrine and tiffany (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbGh6VGtJOEZWWXE5cEtOQURUSld4V2U5bDJCd3xBQ3Jtc0tsaWl1TDN4NFY2ZkhNekt2UFpJQmNiVnpGZ3JtVmxsVDJQQ2stZy1xTE0wdEZOYzhOYWtucHVPMUE0Ylo2MVdyRWs2WWdVRWkyMlZpLVgwQ1l6ZWN1MzVmMUxVLTZkUlRud3hYUFVCdGxMaTZ0aC1CMA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fp%2FDLnJWimRjrY%2F%3Futm_source%3Dig_web_copy_link%26igsh%3DMzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D&v=t_qkL9r56AY) I Make Mistakes with peregrine and tiffany (https://www.instagram.com/p/DN3VxiGXMrx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) Owdah Awawdah (https://substack.com/@mosababutoha/no...) Naya al-Tanani (https://substack.com/@mosababutoha/no...) Get full access to LIBERATORY IMAGINATION at tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe (https://tiffanywongart.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

231

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

77

Social presence

0

YouTube

66

Engagement

32

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