Excerpt from "Resilience" Emergent Strategy - AMB
What we put our attention on grows. We have been growing otherness, borders, separateness, and in all that division we have created layer upon layer of trauma and vengefulness. Conditions for permanent war, practices that move us into battle with the very planet we rely on for all life. The scale of division, conflict, racism, xenophobia, and hierarchical supremacy on our planet is overwhelming. Finding the places of healing and transformation, moving towards a world beyond enemies is work that has to be done for our survival. Which means transformative justice: justice that transforms the route causes of injustice is necessary at every scale. But I am particularly focused on how it becomes the common orientation and practice for movements with social change. For peace, for liberation. I tie transformative justice into emergent strategy because it feels like a non-negotiable aspect of our future and because the natural world has guidance for us here.
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. While we often put our attention on the state and demand transformative and restorative justice, it is important that individuals begin practicing in our personal, familial, and communal lives. We can reach the people we need to reach and measure our work by the way our relationships feel. It is hard work but it is accessible to anyone, anywhere, at any scale. Eventually transformative practices that begin small will demand new societal structures. I suspect, we can't back into this, demanding that our government provide a form of justice that even we in movements don't know how to practice in real time. So, let's grow our expertise in this.
Before I go any further in this section I want to share with yall some wisdom from the incomparable Shira Hassan. Shira and I can never quite remember where and how we met, but it was when we were both doing harm reduction work. Reducing the harm from drug use and sex while increasing the agency of each human being to make decisions related to his/her/their body without shame or judgement. We were thrilled to find each other. Over the years she has been a confidant, tarot reader, guide, friend. She has taught me to be less judgmental, to love my fatness, to embrace my own need as my body has gone through various levels of ability and disability. And through her work at Young Women's Empowerment Project and her consulting she has taught me a ton about transformative justice. I showed Shira an early draft of this book and her feedback was so good that I had to include it here, as a core part of this chapter. Here is some Shira brilliance.
"I love that you are writing about transformative justice in the context of emergent strategy. I need us to acknowledge more that we have no idea what we're doing. That we're a birthing a new collective consciousness out of the pain of losing too many people to colonialist practice. I need transformative justice to be framed as part of emergent strategy so that we can acknowledge we are midwives to a changeling. Transformative justice is a mutable process with only its values set in stone. In order to resist one size fits all justice, we have to resist the idea that every process looks the same. The goal is for us to to embody these values so that our creativity can guide our healing and our drive for treating each other with true justice. With every experience of healing on our own terms we also begin to heal the generational wounds of colonialist justice. Here's the definition I use in my trainings and the YWEP used too.
Transformative justice:
Acknowledges the reality of state harm.
Looks for alternative ways to address and interrupt harm which do not rely on the state.
Relies on organic, creative strategies that are community created and sustained.
Transforms the route cause of violence, not only the invidiual experience.
I love the piece you wrote that is later included in this section "We are still beginning". It is one of my favorites on transformative justice right now and I've been using it in my workshops.
"Nothing in nature is disposable."
This isn't most people's belief. I just killed a bug earlier today and will set out some rat poison tomorrow lol. The struggle between disposability and getting something or someone that doesn't work for me out of my life. No one is disposable and yet we have a right to make boundaries. Furthermore, we want people to make boundaries. For people who are currently in abusive situations and living with their violent partners, this kind of transformative justice thinking needs more clarity. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go back to the drawing board because someone I love has used TJ principles of transformative and non-shaming to justify the return of their abusive, jerk partner. I say all this to say, I think it's important to think of the audience as people who are currently in abusive situations. What are we telling them? What are we asking?
I really like generationFIVE's works on this. I use this a lot. It is a combination of generativeFIVE's principles with the YWEP's thinking combined into it. Safety, healing, and agency for all.
Safety, healing, and individual agency for survivors.
Accountability and a transformation for people who harm
Community action, healing, and/or group and organizational healing and accountability.
Transformation of the social conditions that perpetuate violence.
Lessons from a transformative break up: How to find new ways to be in each other's lives and not split the communities we love, or the movements we support.
Try every single thing you can to make it work and articulate the effort you are making to each other, even things you aren't sure will work. Try everything. This will matter later.
Love yourself. Don't let fear make you settle for something you know isn't working. Be honest. The harder things are to say, the more necessary they are to say. Commit to being in each other's lives and doing whatever is needed to ensure that in the long term. This may include being far away from each other, physically and social media in the short term. Set boundaries around communication and stick to them. This includes how often to communicate, what is okay to talk about, who is okay to talk to about the process, and permission to express feelings. You can identify a new boundary as you go along if something hurts or doesn't feel right. Don't tell anyone else until you are ready. Be intentional about who you tell, what you say, and letting people know what is and isn't okay to talk and ask about. Write a letter to your community if need be. That way your true story trumps gossip and bullshit.
FEEL YOUR FEELINGS!!!! x3
Gather trusted supported around you and lean on them as much as necessary. Together, tell the story of your relationship to a trusted and neutral friend. What happened? What was great? What did you learn? Be as honest as possible and take the time to tell the whole thing.
Don't judge each other's choices, feelings, or processes. You can't actually know what is going on for the other person. Take responsibility for your own feelings and act accordingly. When you feel ready, dream together about the new relationship you want to have with each other. As you come into new, post-break up relationship with each other, watch for patterns, and take it slow. Celebrate your maturity and growth and ability to be present and do this. Invite others to celebrate and applaud the efforts. When you feel ready, enjoy the friendship you made possible together.
Please note, all of this is in the case of a generally awesome healthy relationship that doesn't quite work, ot an abusive one that you actually may need to actually completely leave quickly.
Transformative justice in an abusive dynamic
"Like everything in nature. We all have gifts. Sometimes the gifts don't seem like gifts: the bee that sting, the stinging nettle that irritates your skin. But when we look at our ecosystem in totality, it is clear how each piece is necessary for the whole. It is a reminder to make room for all of us and our fiery stinging glory." -Karissa Lewis
"Every living thing has a role in the ecosystem and its own destiny to fulfill, even things we can't see, don't like, or don't understand." -Judy Hatcher
When an abusive dynamic builds between lovers, family, or coworkers, it is first and foremost important to understand that it is a dynamic that both or all parties are playing into, consciously and unconsciously. This is different from an abusive event, one explosive moment. This is when there is habitual emotional, spiritual, and/or physical violence and cruelty. An abusive dynamic can sustain by two or more people directly involved in it and a bevy of others who ignore, enable, or exacerbate it. When we are children or dependents, we don't usually have full agency to shift or leave an abusive dynamic because our safety and livelihood depend upon our abuser. And many of us figure out other ways of "leaving": dissociation, appeasing, addiction, etc.
When we are adults, we can begin to notice how we are playing into the dynamic and to shift. We have agency, even if we feel like we are solely victims. That realization can be liberation in itself. Often the same dynamics echo across different realms of our lives. What we allow at our home and love realm shows up with our friends or our families or with our coworkers, bosses, or partner organizations. It is our pattern, our shape. These patterns are prevalent within our movements, spilling the boundaries of our personal lives and creating toxicity in our organizations and networks. We perpetuate abusive dynamics under the guise of accountability, call outs, even solidarity and love. If you have the ability to see the dynamic, to see yourself in a pattern and walk away before reaching the point of emotional or physical harm, bravo. And if not, hey, most of us don't. We need community to hold us in our dignity and to support transformative justice.
Here are a few signs that you may be in an abusive movement, work, family, friendship, or romantic dynamic:
You make agreements or set boundaries and they get crossed or broken and/or you can't hold the agreements or boundaries yourself.
You can't communicate directly with the person or people about concerns. A culture of gossip grows here in the family or group.
When you raise the issue that agreements or boundaries are not being held, there's no accountability. The other person or people deny the transgression, say they forgot the agreements, say it is your fault, ridicule you, continue the transgression and / or you can't see your accountability in boundary crossing and / or diminish the harm.
There's a culture of blaming or dishonesty that breaks down trust over time.
You don't feel comfortable processing the issues of the dynamic with friends, coworkers, allies. You feel ashamed or like it will upset the other person or people in the dynamic.
Arguments are really confusing and/or repetitive. You can't tell what you're arguing about. The arguments have no boundaries or containers. You keep returning to issues you felt were resolved. And you keep losing track of your values and center in the process.
You feel dismissed, hidden, or disrespected and/or like you can't acknowledge reality, be transparent, or respectful.
You feel like a core part of yourself is compromised or not welcome and/or you want to change a core aspect of another person or group.
You feel bullied or bullying, scared or scary, emotionally unsafe.
You feel like something is being taken from you or you are taking from the other person.
Once you become aware of the dynamic it is important to take some space to become clear of the dynamic of yourself. So often, these dynamics perpetuate because we are scared to be alone. Scared to create conflict. Scared to take a step back. And then once we do, we get more air. More clarity. If it feels like there is work that can be done for mediation, healing, and transformation, by all means put time and attention there. But with some humility the nature of abusive dynamics is that they are foggy and hard to navigate from within.
Often, we leap to couples therapy or office mediation while still in the private fog of it all. Get transparent and current with trusted friends or comrades who can offer perspective on the situation. You have the right to tell your story. The silence and shame around these dynamics makes people think they are alone and especially flawed. Not so. Organizations are rife with abusive bosses or collective members. Social justice movements are full of couples in private battles against the oppressive dynamics we face in the world. You are not alone. And you do not have to be silent. You do not have the right to traumatize abusive people, to attack them personally or publicly, or to sabotage anyone else's health. The behaviors of abuse are also survival based. Learned behaviors rooted in some pain. If you can look through the lens of compassion, you will find hurt and trauma there.
If you are the abused party, healing that hurt is not your responsibility and exacerbating that pain is not your justified right. You do have the right to walk away, to literally and virtually gather yourself up and remove yourself from the dynamic. Take space in order to remember and fortify yourself. You have the right to create boundaries that generate more possibilities for you. Those boundaries may be short term or permanent. You have the right to ask for support from your friends and community. It really helps to find neutral mediators, or mediation teams to support conversations that the abusive dynamics may make difficult. Sometimes the feeling of things being unresolved will keep pulling you back into the conversation. Mediation can help draw the line.
You are not obligated to engage in a process with someone if you do not feel like it. Whether you feel unsafe or exhausted or angry. While we are working towards a world where all conflict can be resolved in a transformative way, we aren't there yet. And a lot of messy shit goes down in the name of transformative justice. One thing to really track here if you are the abuser or in a mutually abusive dynamic and you don't want to participate in a process, this could be you dodging a responsibility that if you did take it on, could transform your life and future relationships. But it's up to you. You have the right to not know the right moves to make.
