Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

by Kelly Hayes

“Hope and grief can coexist,” Kelly and Mariame remind us, amid millions lost to the pandemic, amid rising fascism, amid many-sided attacks on our most basic bodily autonomies—“and if we wish to transform the world, we must learn to hold both simultaneously.”

This book derives its title from the words Mariame often repeats in times of deep crisis: “Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.”

To understand the past, we must investigate the stories we were not told, because those stories were withheld for a reason.

Transformative change happens when we are willing to build the things that we know must exist.

the most important thing you can do to transform the world is to act. Taking action is a practice of hope.

People across history have largely turned to one another for comfort, sustenance, and protection in moments of crisis.

Capitalism requires an ever-broadening disposable class of people in order to maintain itself, which in turn requires us to believe that there are people whose fates are not linked to our own: people who must be abandoned or eliminated.

When we are no longer ruled by a manufactured fear of one another, we experience a form of liberation.

In other words, organizers need to develop a vision of who they want to be in relation to their community, their movement, and other people, instead of focusing on self-elevation. What role will they play in the context of the larger group? What are their skills and knowledge base? What will they not do? These are questions that must be answered together with others in the struggle.

Many of our ancestors experienced the end of the worlds they had known. During times of siege and enslavement, amid open warfare and famine, behind bars and while living as fugitives, and with the threat of nuclear annihilation looming overhead, previous generations have found ways to organize for change and for collective survival. We must learn from their histories and traditions as we face an uncertain future.