guerrilla mama medicine

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9:10 AM
January 2nd, 2011

“

On capacity, I think Ng’ethe Meina of Social Justice Leadership said it best in the Labor/Community Strategy Center’s powerful session on transformative organizing: How can we create a process that transforms individuals as deeply as it transforms the structures of society? He talked about the “gamble” of relying on changing conditions alone, and invites the movement to take a rigorous approach to personal transformation so the “toxicities” of capitalism and empire don’t create the foundation for the new society we are building together. When we think of scale we often think of bigness, but it can be harder to think of depth. Our personal transformation and how we are with one another can be seen as secondary to or outside of our organizing strategy, instead of as part and parcel of it. Maybe before asking how big we can get, we might ask ourselves how deeply we can feel. A key tactic of oppression is to distort our sorrow and our longing so that we accept false solutions—hate crimes laws, multicultural representation, corporate pride, victim’s rights, gender-responsive prisons, and endless consumption are a few of many painful examples of this. Part of how I understand Ng’ethe’s invitation is to get in the practice of being with our grief long enough to begin divesting our hearts, minds, and bodies from capitalism and empire—from the idea and feeling that capitalism and empire can fix the problems they have created. The unfinished projects of abolition and decolonization require not only the capacity to turn out and win, but also the capacity to be present with the unspeakable loss in which we find ourselves.

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—Morgan Bassichis (via theredtree)

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