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commented on Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown

adrienne maree brown: Emergent Strategy (Paperback, 2017, AK Press)

In the tradition of Octavia Butler, radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures …

"I’ve watched several public takedowns, call-outs, and other grievances take place on social and mainstream media. Some of those have been of strangers, but recently I’ve had the experience of seeing people I know and love targeted and taken down. In most cases, very complex realities get watered down into one flawed aspect of these people’s personalities, or one mistake or misunderstanding. A mob mentality takes over then, an evisceration of character that is punitive, traumatizing, and isolating."

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"But lately, as the attacks grow faster and more vicious, I wonder: is this what we’re here for? To cultivate a fear-based adherence to reductive common values? What can this lead to in an imperfect world full of sloppy, complex humans? Is it possible we will call each other out until there’s no one left beside us?I’ve had tons of conversations with people who, in these moments of public flaying, avoid stepping up on the side of complexity or curiosity because in the back of our minds is the shared unspoken question: when will y’all come for me?"

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"destroying a person doesn’t destroy all of the systems that allow harmful people to do harm. These takedowns make it seem as if massive problems are determined at an individual level, as if these individuals set a course as children to become abusers, misogynists, racists, liars."

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"The places I’m drawn to in movement espouse a desire for transformative justice—justice practices that go all the way to the root of the problem and generate solutions and healing there, such that the conditions that create injustice are transformed."