to my revolutionaries, activists, advocates and allies —
as imperfect beings, we must come to terms that a perfect world will never be created. i say that not to make good the enemy of perfect, but to remind us of our constant need for criticism and self-criticism. we must do the work to question norms not just outside radical spaces, but also condemn the insidious hierarchies that occur within the movement.
imagining the world differently is not a static or formulaic exercise, left to a few whom we uphold as leaders. instead, it is a joint effort that calls forward an insatiable curiosity.
we are in a moment of intersectional politics — a movement is being built on eliminating all systems of oppression, not just racism. sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, abilism, colorism, classism and many more of our oppressor’s tools are being called out. but still, we hold blind spots.
just this weekend, freedom fighter johnetta elzie tweeted about a man who tried to “correct” her analysis on black on black crime. when she attempted to walk away he grabbed her arm, intent on forcing her to listen. painfully ironic that when speaking to an organizer about crime, this man actually committed a crime. we have work to do comrades.
how quickly the oppressed can become the oppressors. how quickly individualism can cripple our forward trajectory. how quickly we can forget to dream.
let’s organize around higher principles than the systems we fight to bring down, and in the face of their collapse build a society buttressed by love, compassion and self-care. our values are not tangential to the struggle. they are the struggle. we must continue to radically imagine a whole new world.
with revolutionary love.
all pics are my own. please credit the source.