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Archive for month: November, 2016

Love in a Time of Hate

By Nwamaka Agbo   |  November 28, 2016
Reflections | 0 Comments

This post marks the launch of MSC’s #Lead With Love pledge.  Sign the pledge today and move boldly forward with fierce love!
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What does it mean to deeply love, protect and care for those closest to you? Those who stand to lose so much in the face of bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and sexism? What are we willing to do to actively demonstrate our love and solidarity with those who are most vulnerable in these trying times? What does it mean to love someone in a way in which you understand that your wellbeing is inextricably tied to someone else’s safety and dignity?

I’ve had countless conversations with friends over the past couple of weeks where they try to rationalize and make sense of how some of their friends and even family members could knowingly and willing cast a vote for the 2016 Republican candidate. I’ve stood in hallways and listened to undocumented friends, Muslim friends, queer friends and others as they strategized how they would sit at the Thanksgiving table with an uncle, a mother or an in-law that voted for Trump. The sentence usually went, “I know that they love me, they really do, but I don’t know how they could vote for him.” Or, “They keep telling me to just give him a chance” or “Let’s wait to see what he actually does once he’s elected.”

The harsh truth is that this is not love. It is not love when someone knowingly puts you in danger, jeopardizes your safety and wellbeing on a gamble that “he didn’t mean all those things he said during the campaign.” When we love someone, we never intentionally put them in harm’s way. And, if we do so by accident, then we do everything in our might to make things right. When we hurt someone that we love then we do whatever it takes to restore them and make them whole again.

Authentic and genuine love requires embracing the entire and whole person, in all the ways that they choose to identify (or not) and move throughout the world.

In this political moment, we who believe in freedom for all people must love one another with a ferocity that scares off any threats. We must be unabashed and unashamed about who we care for and how we care for them. In this moment, loving one another must be active and dynamic. We cannot waste time being passive and stagnant with how we care for one another. We must always go back to one another, check in, and ask “What more can I do to love you?”

A bold love requires us to turn and face those shadow thoughts that haunt us about one another. We must reach in to feel the tense knots in our relationships and have the challenging conversations that allow us to knead out our disagreements, our misalignments, so that we can continue to love and fight for one another. In this process we may not always come to a place where we completely agree on everything, but at least we can find some resolution that allows people of different strategies and various tactics to stand in their truth with the shared understanding that we are all working to achieve our collective liberation.

Even bringing all our intentionality to a situation, we may still make mistakes and missteps in our attempt to love one another. We are imperfect human beings and that is inevitable. What is telling about our true character and the depth of our love is how we show up after that mess up. Being able to be accountable for how we may impact one another, regardless of our intention, is how we move forward towards mutual reconciliation and healing. Our ability to engage in a two-step dance of taking responsibility and providing forgiveness is what allows us to always return to the side of love after hurt and harm has been done. Committing to the process of restoration is what allows us to grow as individuals, in our relationships and throughout our social movements as we struggle to address pressing problems together.
In this political moment, we have the right to demand that those who care for us love us in the manner that is true for us. We must not compromise ourselves by settling for anything less. Yes, we should be kind and understanding as people learn to love us in the ways that we need, but if someone is unwilling to honor us in our fullness, we must let them go.

Love is actionable: love is lending your gifts and strengths to those in need without hesitation. Love is sharing your resources generously with one another. Love means showing up and placing your body on the frontlines in between those you love and the harm that is coming their way. Love means speaking up at every opportunity to tell the whole truth and historical context of an issues. Love means recognizing and leveraging your privilege to fight for the rights of your loved ones. Love means going out to face the places of hate to defend those you care about. This is what is looks like to move beyond a passive, flippant love, to a fierce and righteous love.

I’m not a religious person, but as a spiritual person, this passage resonates with me deeply in this moment:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7″

In a time of hate, we must love one another fiercely. We must fight for each other’s right to exist in all their glory just as we would want others to fight for us. Our movements need to be rooted in a love based on intersectionality that moves beyond silos and division. Love yourself and love each other often, in every way and everywhere.

Join #Lead With Love:  Pledge to move boldly forward,

grounding our actions in fierce love!

What To Do? 3 Strategy Questions Matter

By Taj James   |  November 15, 2016
Reflections | 0 Comments

Right now, many of us are questioning the value of particular actions and tactics, asking whether or not they will be effective. We are missing the urgent strategic imperative of this moment.

Any action is valuable that challenges the legitimacy of the post-election claim to power.  Any action is crucial that asserts that power and authority rest in the people and supersede state authority claimed in service of domination and violence.

Don’t ask if a tactic is going to work.
Don’t ask if one tactic is sufficient to stop the imminent seizure of power and infliction of harm.

Instead ask yourself these three questions:

1) Does this act help us realize  that we have the power and that if we exercise it anything is possible?

2) Does this act undermine the false claims to legitimacy and power we are seeing, and begin to delegitimize all power that is claimed in service of hate, violence and domination?

3) Does this act reinforce our collective commitment to stand together as a people and defend with our bodies, our songs, and our presence those who are being targeted by vigilante violence and who are being targeted for state violence?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then do it!

And when you see action being taken that reinforces these three strategic principles and core values, celebrate them and lift them up.

If enough people act in ways that reflect these three principles the impossible will very quickly become the inevitable.

The people are rising up. The professional social change class must catch up with the people and affirm that they instinctively understand what time is.

It’s not time to stay on script.

It is time to accept the reality of our situation and show courage in recognizing and using the power that we have.

Be courageous.

Give thanks for starting points, entry points, that first rung on the ladder, that first step in the long journey. Celebrate all those who have the courage to not stop there, but take many steps until the journey is done.

We don’t have to know where the road leads we just need to hold hands, hold our heads high, sing loud and keep marching forward. That road will always lead to a better place if we walk it together and we walk with love.

The power lives within #AllOfUs

#BelovedCommunityRising
Celebrating the #ThreePrinciples

November 9: What I’ll Tell My Kids

By Mimi Ho   |  November 7, 2016
Reflections | 0 Comments

Sitting here on the eve of the election I wonder how I am going to make meaning of the election results on Wednesday morning, for myself and my daughters who are 8 and 6 years old. They’ve been very upset about Trump’s predatory language and behavior towards women and girls and have asked me several times, “Are we are moving out of the country if he wins?”

Over the weekend, between my texts through Color of Change PAC’s text-a-thon and get out the vote calls for local Oakland measure JJ to protect renters, I pushed away the nagging question of how I am going to explain all of this to myself, let alone my kids.

Of all the parts of myself, organizer, movement-builder, friend, community member, it is my role as a mother that forces me — often against some really strong instincts — to be my best self.  

As I mother, I have to ask myself the questions: Whoever wins on Election Day, what story can I tell my kids that grounds them in the vision and hope of what’s possible when our communities organize and care for one another? How can I support them to feel safe and confident in their bodies? How can they feel the freedom to be ALL of who they are and whoever they have yet to discover?  

No matter who wins, I want my kids to understand that this isn’t about one woman, or one man, but about making sure that our communities lead all of us towards the values, systems and policies that create healthy, caring, thriving communities.

In the face of the hatred that was unleashed during this year’s presidential campaign, how can my kids and our communities declare our values of love, and taking care of each other no matter who we are, as MoveOn.org did so beautifully in their campaign to Vote Love.  

I realize that I can tell them how our communities have gotten in touch with the vibrant values that connect all of us — love, care, community, and the right for all of us to be our whole selves.

I know that my daughters will remember the women of color-led actions that my kids and I took off work and school to be a part of, with hundreds of powerful women across the country taking part in actions to say “GOP Hands Off Me!”

In Oakland, a few of us — many of us parents, several of us not — sought to craft an action that we could bring our kids to, that could shore them up, and shore ourselves up, in a sickening moment for feminists of all genders. All of the organizers came together on our own time, yearning for an action that did not let the ugliness of Trump’s words and attitudes towards women and others get inside us, an action that would lead with hope and allow us to declare our vision.  

Borrowing from both Michelle Obama and Arundhati Roy, our action’s theme was “When they go low, we go high… Another world is on HER way.”  

mimiblogphoto1

Just a few days earlier, Michelle Obama had delivered her pivotal speech in Manchester, New Hampshire where she said in compelling, personal words that “enough is enough.” She repeated her call and response that is now a hallmark of her speeches: “When they go low, we go high!” This phrase exemplifies what I teach my children all the time. How can you call on your best self when you are angry at your friends on the playground? When some boy doesn’t let you play tag because he says girls are too slow, how do you stop yourself from  straight up smacking him on the head — though that might feel righteous and appropriate in the moment — but instead create your own, more fun game of tag so that he asks to join your game. When your girlfriend hurts your feelings, instead of also talking behind her back, how can you both connect, say sorry, repair the harm, and see that you are resilient enough to be hurt and come out stronger in the end?

The small ways that our kids practice choosing their best selves allows them, and us, to choose our best selves when the stakes are much higher. Choosing to be our best selves isn’t about being nice and compliant, because that would be a dangerous way to teach our daughters to be in the world. And, like most things, it is not about the “performance” of being our best selves all the time. It is about always asking the question, “What does being my best self mean and look like in this moment, in this context, under these conditions? And how do we forgive ourselves for our mistakes and learn?” The practice of asking the question allows us to have the space to be our most grounded and most strategic selves too.

As ugly as this election was I was heartened to see so many of us seeking to bring proactive hope and love to our work, an effort that will carry us forward in whatever lies ahead. In the words of Scot Nakagawa,

 

“Rough as the road ahead is likely to be, we need to lead with joy and optimism. The first job of activists is to inspire people. Winning or losing is not all that’s at stake. The key to victory lies in how we answer the question of who we will become in the process of struggle.

 

No matter who wins, no politician or political party is going to make the kind of changes that our communities need. As Tammy Johnson proclaimed at the Oakland action,

 

Another world is indeed here because we we will WILL it to be.

 

We will have health care that provides for us all

 

We will have liberation schools for our children

 

We will have communities that embrace all of us no matter what country we come from, no matter who you are, no matter what we’ve done.

 

We will make this country, this nation, the place we where we live and love a TRUE beloved community.”

 

Arundhati Roy tells us, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing,” letting us and our children know that another world is already here, inside of us, and in the beauty of what already exists in our communities.

The Inner Journey of Leadership

By Hyeon-Ju Rho   |  November 4, 2016
Reflections | 0 Comments

In December 2011, I became the executive director of a civil rights organization I’d long admired. My two-and-a-half years there knocked me flat on my face. When I left, all I wanted was to get as far away from the experience as possible, preferably under a rock.

It was the best thing that could have happened to me. Failure gave me what no amount of success ever could have — courage to let go of safety and the freedom to be honest with myself.

Ultimately, it opened the door to an inward journey I’d been avoiding for years. I now believe this kind of inward searching is essential not only to our individual capacity to live whole and integrated lives, but also to our collective capacity to spark heart-level transformation in the world.

The Setup

Leadership only magnifies what we bring with us. In my case, I’d spent much of my life learning how to be anyone but myself.

The lessons started early. My family immigrated to the United States right before I started first grade, to a southern city with few other Asians or immigrants. I still remember that raw feeling of being unguarded, as all children are, and understanding that whatever I was, wasn’t going to bring me the things I longed for: acceptance, friendship, the warm security of knowing I was OK. Children adapt quickly, and I absorbed the tools I needed to be normal, to protect myself from ridicule and to get along.

No one ever asked me the question, “Who are you?” And I never thought to ask this question of myself. The frame I grew up with was about survival: “I am someone who works hard in order to succeed, and success will bring me and my family security.” I also accepted without question that the rules for whether and how I would succeed were all external to me. Power was outside — in mainstream culture, in school and other institutions, and in other people.

I would love to say that exposure in college to ideas of racial equality and social justice freed me of all this. It did, on one level. It gave me a positive alternative to the narrative of racial inferiority I’d grown up with, and gave me permission to replace shame with righteous anger.

But it didn’t fundamentally change my sense of truth and validation as something outside myself. The progressive social justice communities I was a part of in college had their own rules and norms, and I wanted as much as ever to belong. I never felt secure enough to question, “What in all of this is true for me?” In other words, I replaced one external narrative with another, albeit more empowering, one.

And I could convince myself I’d found what I should aspire to because it was noble. The Quaker leader Parker Palmer calls this “a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to [your] own heart.” My life imitating heroes took me to public interest law and to leadership positions in legal advocacy nonprofits. Engaging the world through law never resonated with me, and neither did policy advocacy. I experienced these spheres as sterile, foreign, and distant.

What had always moved me was deep connection at an individual level, and the mystery of the human experience. And yet, I soldiered on, convinced that even if it felt like I was wearing borrowed clothing, I just needed to try harder to make myself fit them.

Falling Apart

If someone had constructed a situation to bring all of this tumbling down, they couldn’t have created a better scenario than the executive director position I walked into.

My sense of worthiness depended on other people’s validation, and this was the one thing the job was designed not to provide. The organization had a reputation for being tough on executive directors. Its culture included a skepticism of authority that contributed to fearless advocacy outside the organization, and an uneasy relationship with positions of power within the organization. Layered on top of this was a deep internal conflict that defined my tenure. The board had approved an organizational change that many staff viewed as compromising the group’s core identity. In the months before I started, staff mobilized to oppose it. I thought we could find common ground; it never happened. The constant conflict, unhappiness and disapproval would have been hard on anyone; for me it was devastating.

As a leader, I’d always relied on a kind of disembodied skillfulness to get through things — shut down the emotions and push through what needs to be done. It was enough to make me a good administrator, but the organization needed more than that. As it navigated identity change and internal conflicts, it needed someone who could convene honest and courageous conversations and create space for genuine connection and healing. It needed a leader who could lead at the level of the heart. I felt the need for this but was too disconnected from my own heart to know how to respond.

I participated in leadership development programs that urged us to dig deep, but I experienced them as additional forums in which I needed to perform. It wasn’t that I didn’t hear the call to authenticity, or that it didn’t resonate with me. It was more that I’d never chosen my inner voice over external expectations. More than that, I suppressed my voice when they conflicted. It seemed impossible to explore, in a real way, what that would look like now in a context where the stakes felt so high.

All of this felt like failure, which my fears told me made me unworthy of respect and ultimately of love. And this kept me running and striving as if something existential, my very survival, was at stake.

Finding My Way

In 2014, my husband took a job that required us to move to a new city. As painful as my job was, it was hard to leave. Looking back, I can see I was still chasing the external validation that would have enabled me to feel that I had done a good job, that I was OK.

When I let the striving go, I was exhausted. Mostly, I just wanted to hide. But I finally felt bad enough that I knew something fundamental had to change. For the first time in my life, I gave myself permission to just be, without expectations; to think and feel freely; and to take risks in order to find my own truth.

I’d been so scared of walking into the unknown and letting go of the external anchors of my identity — a respected job, professional achievements and other people’s approval. My leadership experience revealed these to be false refuges.

The more I explored what needed to change, the more I realized it was simply this: to live courageously and with integrity by being authentically and fearlessly myself.

These days I’m discovering the pleasures of working from authentic self. I used to depend on imitating others, following outside formulas that left me exhausted. Now my contribution is generated from within and feels infinitely flexible and generative. I used to think I wasn’t creative. I now find inspiration and surprise in the creative process. The ideas come when they are needed. And there is the peace of knowing I am contributing the best of what I have to give.

Choosing Love Over Fear

Living from authentic self has opened the door to something else that was missing from my leadership experience — love.

The thing that fueled me instead was fear. When I look back on the moments that make me wince, fear is what they all have in common: shying away from hard decisions and conversations, instilling a feeling among staff that their work was never good enough, acting out of competition rather than solidarity and generosity. It’s painful even now to write these things down.

The opposite of fear, I’m learning, is not fearlessness. It’s love.

What I’m talking about is connection to each other and to our common humanity, a radical openness where we see the beauty in others and also allow ourselves to be seen. Here, we know there is something more real than security, achievement or success. What emerges instead is a courage that is willing to do anything, risk anything, for the truth of who each of us can be as individuals and who we can be together.

Authentic self is the opening to love, because although love takes us radically beyond ourselves, it starts from within. When I stopped running from myself, I was finally able to give myself the things I’d been seeking from others — acceptance, understanding and ultimately love.

And this opens the door to bravery. Love fuels the desire to give, and it also provides the shelter that makes courageous giving possible. You know that on the other side, whether it’s success or failure, you will still be here: precious, whole and worthy of love.

Taking a Stand

We want more boldness from our leaders. We want to see more out-of-the-box thinking and disruptive creativity. We want to see transformation, not just at the level of policy, but also at the level of millions of individual hearts.

I’m taking a stand that all of this is possible, but only if we take seriously the kind of courageous inner lives that are needed to spark and fuel the changes we’re desperate for.

We’re so practiced at looking outside ourselves for answers — the latest best practices; the models for how we should structure our campaigns and meetings; the expert analysis of what messaging works or doesn’t. There’s valuable information here, but too often it takes the place of simply being with the people right in front of us, of speaking honestly from what is in our hearts, of bringing something true into the world rather than something designed to have a certain impact.

What we all want, what we’re all fighting for, is the experience of our full humanity. We structure our battles against the institutionalized ways in which our humanity is taken away from us — racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty — and we act as if the humanity part will take care of itself once the structural barriers are removed. My years engaged in social justice work gave me righteous anger and language to demand respect, but it wasn’t until I went deep inside that I found love and a path to embracing my own full humanity.

We’ve all heard the call to “be the change you want to see in the world.” I’d always understood this as a call to action. What I see now is a much more demanding call to inner transformation as the ground for transformation in the world.

The world needs so much right now, but it all comes down to whether our hearts are open — to love someone we’ve learned to demonize, to feel our connection to the earth, to risk seeing our fates as intertwined. Hearts respond only to other hearts. The only power we have to engender love is our own love. If we thought we could hold ourselves safely apart while working for social change, we were mistaken. The best of what we have to give is right here, waiting for our courage to claim it.

Editors Note: The full version of this essay was originally published on Medium.com.

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