We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice

by Adrienne Maree Brown

I hold space for movement growth, and every time humans are present, so is conflict, and all manner of harmful human behavior.

I am a student of complexity. I am learning complexity from the inside out. I am a student of change and a student of how groups change together—change themselves and change the world.

We won’t end the systemic patterns of harm by isolating and picking off individuals, just as we can’t limit the communicative power of mycelium by plucking a single mushroom from the dirt. We need to flood the entire system with life-affirming principles and practices, to clear the channels between us of the toxicity of supremacy, to heal from the harms of a legacy of devaluing some lives and needs in order to indulge others.

In the longest term vision I can see, when we, made of the same miraculous material and temporary limitations as the systems we are born into, inevitably disagree, or cause harm, we will respond not with rejection, exile, or public shaming, but with clear naming of harm; education around intention, impact, and pattern breaking; satisfying apologies and consequences; new agreements and trustworthy boundaries; and lifelong healing resources for all involved.

I have a vision of movement as sanctuary. Not a tiny perfectionist utopia behind miles of barbed wire and walls and fences and tests and judgments and righteousness, but a vast sanctuary where our experiences, as humans who have experienced and caused harm, are met with centered, grounded invitations to grow.

In this sanctuary we feel our victory, where winning means a mass and intimate healing. Where winning isn’t measured by anyone else’s loss, but by breaking cycles of a...

Where winning is measured not just by the absence of patterns of harm, distrust, and isolation, but by the presence of healing and healthy interdependence. Where we are skilled at being honest, setting and honoring boundaries, giving and receiving apologies, asking for help, and changing our behaviors. Where, every day...

Where we have trust deep enough to grow from conflict, trust that good intentions can yield good practice and radically reduce, even eliminate, harm. Where we trust that we are in such regular practice that we no longer have ...

I will not be perfect, I will keep learning. I will also not be silent, I will keep learning.

Critiques are part of how we sharpen each other.

In the past, I have lost my connection to life, to wanting to live, thought it didn’t much matter if I was here or not, and so it didn’t much matter how I treated myself or others. When I was in that phase of ambiguous commitment to life, I took risks with my mind and body that I couldn’t imagine taking now. I practiced cynicism and hopelessness, as if they were the measures of humor, of intelligence. It was a brief phase of my life, but during that time I believed in nothing.5

That’s why I’m still here. I want to live. I want to want to live.

I wonder about the movements in those countries, what it might feel like to live and organize in a place that truly orients towards life.

The U.S., as a nation, does not choose, or love, life. Not in our policies, in our safety practices, in our relationship to the planet and other nations. Not yet, and possibly never before.

ask: who would benefit from my absence? Who benefits from my self-doubt?

We are afraid of being hurt, afraid because we have been hurt, afraid because we have caused hurt, afraid because we live in a world that wants to hurt us whether we have hurt others or not, just based on who we are, on any otherness from some long-ago determined norm.

terrified and angry at the loss of our plans and normalcy, terrified and angry at living under the oppressive rule of an administration that does not love us and that is racist and ignorant and violent.

Shaming behaviors of abuse in a culture where they have been normalized is, and has been, a necessary survival technology.

The truth is, sometimes it takes a long time for us to realize the harm that has happened to us. And longer to realize we have caused harm to others.

I want us to see ourselves as larger than just individuals randomly pinging around in a world that will never care for us.