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and there’s space for something new to take its place. Not that this doesn’t come without loss, grief, devastation, it often does. But to see that there’s also resilience, the beauty of survival, the move to create and thrive despite what surrounds us. To me that’s the essence of our fights for liberation.” —Spenta Kandawalla
One core practice of resilience is transformative justice, transforming the conditions that make injustice possible. Resilience
Sports are so oriented around competitive and capitalist indulgence, uplifting heroes and gathering faceless erasable masses to cheer them on.
“If we are going to heal, let it be glorious.” —Beyoncé
Humans have made of ourselves a hierarchy of value in which some people are disposable—can fail at being human, can be killed as a punishment, can be collateral damage. Can be wasted. Or tortured. Or locked in a small box for their whole lives, given no hope of transformation, or a future in society.
And even those of us who critique these punitive methods, who are committed to justice, practice our own versions of prisons, blacklists, takedowns, and public executions. When we don’t agree
We need to transform all of the energy we currently put into war and punishment into creating solutions for how to continue on this planet. The time, the energy, the money—we actually have all of that in abundance. What we lack is will.
What we put our attention on grows. We have been growing otherness, borders, separateness.
Transformative justice, in the context of emergent strategy, asks us to consider how to transform toxic energy, hurt, legitimate pain, and conflict into solutions. To get under the wrong, find a way to coexist, be energy moving towards life, together.
Transformative Justice: Acknowledges the reality of state harm. Looks for alternative ways to address/interrupt harm, which do not rely on the state. Relies on organic, creative strategies that are community created and sustained. Transforms the root causes of violence, not only the individual experience.
The oppression of false peace: we are taught that our truths are disruptive, and that disruption is a negative act. This one is particularly insidious, and ties back into capitalism—only those moving towards profit can and should create disruption, everyone else should be complacent consumers.
Yemoja reminds me to not get caught
up with this external calendar of production, or get caught up with the idea that visibility is the same as doing the work. When I am flowing and can hear that small but powerful voice say ‘yes,’ I feel a complete sense of calm, I know I am heading in the right direction.”
“When forced into a binary, you always choose wrong.” —Jelani Wilson
Creating more possibilities counters the very foundational assumptions about strategy.
I have been in countless meetings where there was a moment of creative abundance and energy, and then someone said we needed to pick one thing to get behind, or a three- or five- or ten-point plan. What came next was sometimes
very compelling and visionary. Other times—often times—it was reductionist, agreeing on the lowest common denominator, the least exciting thing, because that was the only place there was unity.
we live in a system that thrives when conditions are abundant and diverse, in a universe that holds contradictions and multitudes, and we often reject that chaotic fertile reality too soon, as if we can’t tolerate the scale of our own collective brilliance.
In beginning this work, notice who you feel drawn to, and where you find ease. And notice who challenges you, who makes the edges of your ideas grow or fortify. I find that my best work has happened during my most challenging collaborations, because there are actual differences that are converging and creating more space, ways forward that serve more than one worldview.
We are creating a world we have never seen. We are whispering it to each other cuddled in the dark, and we are screaming it at people who are so scared of it that they dress themselves in war regalia to turn and face us.
What do we need to heal in ourselves in order to offer a future of any real peace? Or to become the protagonists of this human story—and
What’s ironic is that the left often discounts religion, but what makes the “it happens in nature” argument so powerful is this belief that nature is created by some higher being or a force beyond us. I think that is my attraction to nature. Its somehow proof of faith. Something more powerful than us yet that we are apart of at the same time. The most powerful thing for organizers to have, I believe, is faith. This belief that we can win, that we can change the world, that we can all be better.”
Our approach to change is too often reactive and haphazard. We are not leveraging knowledge and innovation from other sectors nearly enough.
