Eight strong emotions that can help empower activists during dark times. By Chris Crass.
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Love for the endless potential of our hearts united in the unfolding collective journey of living and working for liberation.
Rage against the nightmare of the death culture and the future of repeated oblivions it creates.
Courage to open ourselves up again to the divine difficulty of our lives, and dare to dream against and beyond the nightmare.
Memory to help awaken our souls for solidarities so vibrant no historically constructed supremacy system of division can hold it down or hold us apart.
Tenderness to unearth the magnificent from the mundane, to see the meaning of small acts building towards unstoppable movements to tear down empires that manipulate our vulnerabilities and monetize our suffering.
Gratitude for the greatness of all those known and unknown who have given and risked in the work of liberation struggle and through the refusal of their humanity to submit, through the refusal of their imaginations to shutdown, generated legacies and cultures of resistance and beloved communities.
Patience to be kind with ourselves, our loved ones and comrades, to allow mindfulness to breathe out the toxicity of supremacy systems and the belief in their inevitability they want us to choke on.
Patience to see the inspirational in the leaderships for liberation of our people, in spite of the crushing devastating on repeat on the news.
Faith in our people and ourselves, that in our grief, outrage, depression, and anxiety, the possibilities of liberation muscles strengthened are there as we find power within what we thought were our weaknesses and our vulnerabilities become pathways to find each other in the dizziness of the nightmare.
Faith that our people have always known another world was possible and that everyday greatness is all around us and within us. And that like the people of Montgomery, 60 years ago, we will win!
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If you like this, check out the new book from Chris Crass, Towards the “Other America”: Anti-Racist Resources for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter at www.chalicepress.net/
Photo: FLickr/AK Rockefeller