adrienne maree brown

the other day i got be part of a circle of Detroit thinkers, makers and artists considering the relationship between Detroit and Wakanda. in what ways is Detroit a Wakanda? in what ways might we go beyond our in a different direction than Wakanda?

we met at the FabLab, hosted by the brilliant Blair Evans, who gave us a tour of all the equipment that is changing the realm of production. the other invited speakers were myself, Ingrid Lafleur if Afrotopia, and black comic artist Arvell Malcom Jones. the other attendees were comic book creators, technologists, organizers, entrepreneurs, artists, parents, educators, children and more.

i took notes cause it was a great conversation across a lot of walks of life.

Blair shared the democratizing potential of spaces like the FabLab – what if anyone in any community can make whatever they need? how could that shift our economy? and since the technology is basically here, what human systems are needed to make the most of that potential?

i made some connections between Detroit and Wakanda – we are a city that people can’t truly see from outside, that people have written off. but so much innovation is galen here – it’s part of why i moved to Detroit on purpose. i spoke of our practice of small scale innovation and intentional experimentation in projects like the FabLab, Peace Zones for Life, Detroit Summer, and the very idea that we transform ourselves to transform the world. i also spoke of the resource richness of our location, with 25% of the world’s fresh water around us. i asked how we hold boundaries in a way that isn’t isolating.

Arvell spoke on the work of creating comics and stories of our own, and doing this in community. he asked, “if you are taking care of the people and they take care of you, what do you need?” he also noted that the role of monarchy in Wakanda is about managing needs and resources, versus just holding power over others.

Ingrid asked if Mayor Young could be read as a Killmonger – an anti hero working to create Detroit as a safe space for black bodies to prosper. she reminded us that Detroit is built on salt, a crystal city, on incredibly rich soil. she asked, “what kind of orientation do visitors to Detroit really need?”

here are some thoughts from the conversation – i tried to catch everyone’s names*. enjoy!

…

zoo, the barber, spoke about where conversations really happen – in the barbershop. he said the old, ancient ways were better.

we noted than one strength of Wakanda is that the ancient and future coexist and grow together.

Blair added that if we don’t have a framework, then we will use bigger, better tools to replicate pathological behavior.

Halima and Talon spoke about how WE are vibranium, and our hearts are the purple flower.

Numi, in full Wakanda regalia, shared the Afrofuturist Youth Project, which is teaching youth healing modalities, political education and arts.

Lou pointed out that scale made Wakanda successful – everyone had relationships with each other.

Elandria, visiting us on a tour to learn what different communities think about ‘the Commons’, shared that in her work it’s important to have things you don’t use machines for, so you don’t lose the person who knows that job or skill. and noted that great ideas don’t really matter to folks who can’t pay their bills. she asked how do we meld the
theoretical with the practical?

she also pointed out that the movie, and Wakanda, are still based on extraction. and that actually we need things that are within, that we can all access. she left is with the question, how do we show our shadow side for the sake of being whole in community?

coke spoke on how Wakandans did don’t want to share vibranium if it could be used for harm, and said this reminded him if cell phones in schools, which kids use to access porn, or text people to come fight. he asked how do we change how our children think and act? how do we use technology to do that? so they start creating futures? the children are our vibranium (this point was shared by so many in the room)!

mama lila spoke on how technology interferes with face to face connection. she thrilled us with the reminder that with children we’re building a pathway forward, vs adults, who are unlearning. she said we need to view lived experience as a gift, a source of political education. and reminded us about the importance of our water, that the whole emergency management move was about taking control of our water. wage love.

mohan told us technology is important to empower and augment, not replace. he says we have a tremendous cognitive surplus in this region – how do we bring the tools to ask the people here? he reminded us not to be afraid of failure – an idea isn’t important, but a series of ideas we learn from is very important. he said open source has made so much technology accessible, but we must learn through failing like in a video game. you get good through iteration. (!!)

lauren noted that one of the biggest blocks to actualizing Wakanda is how we think of ourselves. how do we activate that liberator mindset while still in a colonizer-adjacent space?

ingrid asserted that joy is a rebellion. she said “i am active in joy and pleasure to decolonize black bodies.”

upcoming ways to continue conversation:

check out an emergent strategy immersion or facilitation training – www.alliedmedia.org/esii

Ingrid is hosting a conversation on cryptocurrency/black chain on Mar 22 at Norwest Gallery.

Arvell offers ongoing comics classes.

Blair is generating FabLab cities with a vision of Detroit being independent by 2054. he reminded us to generate more than we use, to not be extractive but generate for future generations. to remember we are machines running on DNA coding (swoon). practice makes it real. also community hours at fablab 3-6 daily!

* if i missed yours let me know and i’ll update!

i was asked to write a piece for Sublevel magazine and it aligned with what felt like a transmission, possibly written in the pace of a Battlestar Galactica cylon hybrid. here’s an excerpt and a link to the full piece!

…

Task: We must become scholars of belonging.

Need: Separation weakens. It is the main way we are kept (and keep each other) in conditions of oppression.

Truth: Belonging doesn’t begin with other people accepting us. It begins with our acceptance of ourselves. Of the particular life and skin each of us was born into, and the work that that particular birth entails.

Mantra: Where we are born into privilege, we are charged with dismantling any myth of supremacy. Where we are born into struggle, we are charged with claiming our dignity, joy and liberation.

Possibility: From that deep place of belonging to ourselves, we can understand that we are inherently worthy of each other. Even when we make mistakes, harm each other, lose our way, we are worthy.

Practice: Learn to apologize. A proper apology is rooted in this worthiness – “I was at my worst. Even at my worst, I am worthy, so I will grow.”

Practice: Move towards spaces that value us, let ourselves belong to those communities that know they want us, know they need us, know we have worth, know we deserve more than transactional care.”

read more HERE!

what we give attention to grows. what we pay attention to grows.

i am a commitment to attention liberation and reparations.

i am a commitment to being/shining sunlight on everything i want to see grow.

i am a commitment to divesting from anything that isn’t rooted in love.

*

today i am entering a year-long commitment of putting my attention on what i love and want to grow.

i have been heading this way, but still giving too much of my attention to that which i cannot shape, that which i cannot reach. i want to hold my attention as precious sunlight that i bestow on every practice or person or concept that advances the way i believe things should be. i want to affirm that which is done well, and/or is done bravely.

to have enough attention for this focus, i am intentionally removing my attention from those who hurt humanity or the planet, or hurt movements learning and working to protect either of these.

i will practice:

1. meditation.

each day i will practice focusing my attention on my breath through silent meditation and black feminist chanting.

“i am who i am doing what i came to do.”
“the world needs to hear her voice.”
“my people are free.”
“god is change.”

2. centering daily in the commitment of attention liberation. i am a commitment to being/shining sunlight on what i want to grow.

3. redirecting what isn’t mine. i will direct people to a resource page (link coming soon) for folks learning things that are no longer the best focus for my attention.

i will also disengage from gossip at the interpersonal or ‘media’ level. “Be the boss of your business or be bossed by those that can’t mind their own.” – Chani Nicholas

4. find the people already working on the solution.

Wherever there is a problem, there are already people acting on the problem in some fashion. Understanding those actions is the starting point for developing effective strategies to resolve the problem, so we focus on the solutions, not the problems. – allied media network principles

i don’t read the news simply to be appalled and then rant about how appalled i am. i stay informed about the world with my attention on (and material support flowing towards) movements and people i believe in. we are the solution.

5. put my attention on growing transformative justice in conflict and grievance. this one is big. and this level of work doesn’t happen on social media.

while purely punitive measures can feel briefly sayisfying, i know they do not work outside of a transformative justice process, at worst recreating/proliferating harm, shame, repression, and isolation; at best making people act right without healing whatever is broken at the root.

once light is shed on a harm, i will participate in tj processes where appropriate, or support by mediating or connecting those involved to someone who can help get them to and through a process of resolution.

if that isn’t possible (for instance, if both/all parties are not willing to participate in a process in good faith) i will hold and support strong boundaries, wish all parties the sacred work of transformation, and keep it moving.

i will not give attention to continuous case building against people or institutions where i do not see a commitment to resolution and transformation.

6. i will report back on new year’s eve of 2018, on what i learned through this practice.

wish me luck, and/or join me.

bonus: emergent strategy mantras

i am no victim of life; i shape change.
we are not victims of circumstance; we shape change.

i practice what i want to become.
we practice what we want to create.

i am a microcosm of all the possible justice, liberation, pleasure and honesty in the universe, and i act accordingly.

i remember that i exist only in relationship to other people and systems.

i accept that i cannot change others, but i can hold standards for my own life.

i willingly engage in and support transformative justice processes for accountability and getting in right relationship.

i create more possibilities in the face of scarcity thinking.

i act from and towards love.

the compass spins around
north becomes south,
becomes simply the horizon
the direction that matters is forward
we conjure from the darkness
a future orientation of the people
moving like firstlight, touching everyone
moving like water
weeping and crashing through mountains
nothing is permanent
“to shape god
shape self”
our destiny is to “take root amongst the stars”.
where do you think earth is?
root.

#earthseed #octaviabutler

Thursday, October 5:

my friend Rye Young wrote a lovely, honest post this morning on working towards liberation, even if we won’t see it in our lifetimes. it sparked thoughts in me: lately, I don’t feel like liberation is a place, or some perfect state, some utopia. I feel it, it’s an interior knowing, supported by material conditions we cocreate. so…I see/feel liberation every day (eh most days) just at a small scale. personal. in a group, in a moment, in a movement. breakthroughs. liberation is everywhere, but it’s turned down by the hands of oppression. I’m trying to grow it, to turn it up, every day, inside my own life and others’ lives. we are the fire, we are the wave. ??

Friday, October 6:

yesterday marked two years since grace became ancestor.

i’ve been reflecting on how she redirected conversations when she wasn’t interested in the topic, how she demanded songs, and intellectual rigor.

i’ve considered many times that she wouldn’t have really read or liked the book…but who knows?

i miss how she remembered and asked about people’s lives, about my sisters and nibblings. how sweet and engaging she was with my parents. she was decades beyond us but never too good to hear our small trials and celebrations. i miss her smile when she liked what she could hear.

because of grace i value questions and iteration, and singular moments of transformation as the atomic space of collective transformation.

last night with the full moon i worked to shed any boundaries between myself and detroit, any lingering sense of not belonging. to let the place use my voice and my work to tell her story. detroit is the mecca of Emergent Strategy, among so many other incredible things. thank you grace for being one of the voices that called me home, showed me home.

13 trips
70 people
no lost passengers
my people are free

19 trips
300 people
no lost passengers
my people are free

i can’t stop thinking about Harriet Tubman!

i think about all the resources she did not have at her disposal – grants, organizations, markers and post-its, masses, privilege, a copy machine, social media, social norms, a job that could be done with recognition and safety.

she did not have a perfect language with which to critique her oppressors, a quick way to travel, time to suffer fools.

she had a vision (my people are free), a theory of change (i will physically lead to freedom those who know they are slaves), a gift for adaptation (the underground railroad was about finding the next open space in a series of precarious moves across a deadly chess board) and her body.

1 raid
700 people
no lost passengers
my people are free

i have so many questions!

i wonder if she dealt with people who were made so heavy by their own sense of being victim that they could not take the first steps north.

i wonder what happened when she faced dissent, someone who questioned her leadership. if there were people who would follow her for a week and then say they’d found a better route, a better map in the sky.

when did she tell people about her episodes, her disability?

how did she trust each group of frightened strangers with her vulnerability and freedom?

did she ever feel imposter syndrome – ‘oh what do i know about the way to freedom, i’ve only been that way twice?’ if she ever wanted the recognition of the name Moses, if she just longed to do her work unseen.

how did she survive the heart betrayal of her husband, who found another wife while she was working on his freedom, who rejected her when she returned for him? who else did she love, who tasted her pleasure, who saw her private tears?

how did she know to sing as a strategy? how did she choose the song, the pace? how did she sound?

when the Civil War started, how did she decide to align her skills with spy work? and had she built relationships beyond her family and those she had freed, the relationships with armed white soldiers who said they were on her side? did she trust them?

13 trips
70 people
no lost passengers
my people are free

or 19 trips
300 people
no lost passengers
my people are free

freedom is the scale.

getting yourself to freedom, experiencing personal liberation, these are crucial acts, but not enough. we have to continue the risk, find the many ways to get each other free.

even when there is a price tag on our heads.

and it is not enough to know, in detail, how things are unfair. we have to know we are slaves, to see the evolving mechanisms of entrapment, to always keep one eye on the cage and one eye beyond it. we have to be able to show other people when the systems that fill the hours of their lives are stripping them of dignity and agency. we have to be impolite and disruptive. we have to move in the dark, quietly, listening for each other’s heartbeats, learning as we go.

we have to be willing to pull a revolver on those who, in their fear, would risk the lives and well being of everyone else. we have to be willing to say we will complete this journey to freedom, one way or another.

we have to give our lives to the future that comes through in our dreams. to talk directly to god, to listen directly. to be so much more than we’re told we should be, to be shocking, to be myth, leaving legacy.

8 years
so many trips, in the long winter nights
so many people, directly and indirectly
train ever on the tracks
no lost passengers
my people are free

Harriet guide me today
teach me generosity
adaptation and bravery
teach me the beauty of each small cluster
moving north, moving together,
moving towards liberation
teach me rigor
teach me humility
teach me to listen to the divine
directly, to let myself be well used
remind me that you did the work in hiding, in danger, hoping no one would know your name
teach me to sing when the way is clear
teach me to make freedom more compelling than the slow death of slavery
teach me to work alone and in interdependence that requires astonishing trust
break my heart in order to keep me moving
keep my mind set on freedom
remind me that all the time
and even now
my people are free

all of my adult life i’ve navigated depression. it doesn’t show up in obvious ways. but i know when it’s running the ship.

i lose touch with the miracle, the clarity, the deeper compassion that allows me to move through the world and it’s sharp edges. i notice myself getting drawn towards my favorite things that numb me, it gets foggy around me, hard to see clearly, hard to ask for what i need.

turning inward brings me back. sometimes it’s extreme – like i have to go all the way to where its darkest and find the little light.

often its just moving through cloud, gray, a heavy gray that resembles the nothing from Never Ending Story because that’s the formative threat-of-apocalypse narrative of my life.

the last us election sent me into the fog. i wrote and worked and drank and smoked and got all cranes in the sky…but…i couldn’t get away.

so i’ve been moving through. into the unknown. into my own not knowing, more precisely. some people may know what’s going to happen, i believe that they believe.

but i don’t know. and when i try to imagine beyond a certain point, there is static as often as vision these days. i think we’re in a crucial place of making a viable future, and we might not make a compelling case for ourselves. i believe we have all the potential. but are we willing to practice anything new?

i have been working with groups and movements i believe carry portions of an answer i can imagine living inside.

i’ve been slowing way down. no one likes this. everyone likes it in theory but they still want their things attended to. it’s OK. i got a turtle tattoo to whisper ‘go slow’ in my ear.

and Sunday i took the day off. not just from work, but from chores. i looked at piled dishes and travel laundry and unswept floors and said ‘it’s my day off. i am not doing you.’

i slept so well last night. woke up and read the Ursula le Guin rendition of the Tao te Ching. then i read several graphic novels, between calls for interesting work and the (super amazing exciting deep sweet awesome) new podcast i’m recording with autumn, which included a talk about our summer bodies. in the midst of that conversation i realized and remembered how much i’m loving my whole body these days.

i put on the trolls soundtrack and danced while cleaning the house. i checked in on my heart, my mind, my body, my spirit. i cared for myself in many ways, and planted several seeds for things i want to do/experience in the next few months. i made a gorgeous dinner and ate it on the back deck in my fanciest robe. i listened to Bruno Mars and Superfruit to intentionally let the music lift me.

i feel a fog dissipating, a fire burning. and again the small epiphany: oh, the balance between solitude and togetherness! oh, using the body feels good. oh, no is a complete sentence and emotion. oh. the miracles continue. even when we aren’t worthy, grateful, gracious or even aware. the miracle is the river that doesn’t stop.

Oh.

I am not here to surrender to mediocrity

I am not here to deny the many ways of being
or anyone else’s pain

I know the water flows around obstacles
and I know it can get stagnant sometimes, need the heat to raise it up, to move
up and over,
or the earth to swallow it up

I am here to love deeply, to love beyond my means, recklessly and then like the sun loves,
into the void, no favorites, only orbit

I have no bottom, I am not separate from hell or heaven, they are in me, they are in this world

I am learning to dance with every part of myself
to leave nothing to shame
to declare my love from the inner recess to the stars, light years pound out of my heart
make me visible to the nebulae I love

I am not leading, I am experiencing
earthworm chrysalis snake skin
and the pond where the geese rest on their journey

I am not mothering a child, but I am raising a way of being, nurturing inside myself
a liberated self
knowing one day it will cast aside everything I have known as me

I am a beautiful detritus-to-be,
a candle wick in the molten wax
just smitten with fire
as it changes everything in me
convincing me that everything, with a breath,
can change

movement reflections post #amc2017:

we must build each other up.

conflict is generative if we engage in transparent, direct, emotionally honest communication. the rest is a waste of time and a dragging weight on movement.

we must hold each other’s impossible stories with gentleness.

we’re all learning and doing our best.

we must stand/be next to each other and share the risk and effort of stepping/moving out of the status quo towards liberation.

*

me-eee aa-and crissle, crissle west:

i got a teensy taste of what famous feels like (because amc IS emergent strategy so everyone at home base had the book) and it was pretty overwhelming. now granted, i wore a catsuit with a tail on it for the opening, a very leo move for this virgo. but by hour three i promised myself not to put anyone on any pedestals ever again.

but then i saw crissle from the read on the closing panel and she was so funny and lovely and smart and great. i would have romantic intentions towards crissle but she’s publicly said she isn’t into boobs (or any non-studs really), and i respect her self knowing, so i know our relationship would be challenged.

but i immediately wanted her to feel my gratitude for her existence. her graciousness with my fumbling hellos and requests for a picture was good teaching to me to just let it flow and keep it moving. she immediately did something awkward and cute and i was tongue tied and danced away cause there isn’t much to do with an intellectual crush in a loud bar.

*

emergent strategy exercise premier:

i wanted to premier an emergent strategy exercise at #amc2017 that was built live. here’s what emerged, feel free to use, remix, share!

1. i reviewed the elements of Emergent Strategy, as well as the lineage.

2. i had people get in circles of four.

3. i had people reflect on which elements they already feel at ease with, or expert in. each person got two minutes to share their expertise. they could also share silence if that felt right.

4. i overheard people naysaying their wisdom and made an adaptation of not wasting time denying your knowing.

5. once everyone went, we did learner affirmations – each person got one minute of appreciation, reflections from the other three on what they learned. that way everyone had to admit they knew and had taught something.

6. then we increased the pressure. it was suddenly apocalyptic conditions and they had to figure out survival priorities and skills as a team. 7 minutes.

7. next we did a silent assessment of how well the group upheld emergent strategy under pressure (thumbs up/down/neutral on each element, looking at each other)

we closed with open discussion on what we learned.

*

i’m feeling so grateful for ill and our long friendship, the outstanding closing ritual (that song is in my head) and our work at Detroit Narrative Agency, for jenny, mike, muna, mo and oren for the film we’re creating for AMP’s 20 year anniversary next year, and for my sister autumn, who encouraged me to rest and thrilled me during our first podcast recording session. it was also incredible to be at #amc2017 with the babies of my life ones meeting each other and the extended family.

love bursting.

it helps to say that i’m on the edge of burnout. in the past i flew right by all the telltale signs and right into the flames, almost welcoming the rest that came when i relinquished all ability to live in my life.

right now i feel like i don’t want the rest that comes inside of, or post, burnout. i want to intentionally bring my attention to my well being, and make adjustments so that i can sustain. i want all of us who are tired to learn how to stagger our efforts with each other.

when i think of staggering, i think of geese migrating long distances, and how they take turns holding the lead position because it is the hardest labor. cutting against the wind, setting the direction, setting the pace – it’s maximum effort. we all need to hold that position sometimes, and we all need to fall back in the formation sometimes, in order to all make it, to collectively go all the way.

that means collectively paying attention to the signs of burnout.

my signs include feeling tired and irritable and uninspired to connect with others or engage new ideas. i recently found myself rewriting the words to that song “if you don’t know me by now”, adding the lyric “i may never ever want to know you.” crispy.

in groups i often see signs like flakiness and haphazard communications, constant conflict that people accept as inevitable, and a shape of power under – no one wanting to take responsibility for impact, everyone feeling like victims of the world, powerless to shape the future.

i’m naming this precarious personal state as an invitation to stagger. i recognize that i am not alone in my exhaustion and we all need to name how we are and what we need so we can sustain our efforts.

for now, if you don’t need me, let me rest. there are so many incredible people out there! i list many of them in Emergent Strategy, and there are lists of awesome people at Social Transformation Project, or this list Mia Henry just pulled together.

if you have energy to lead, i am down to follow and support.

free labor feels heavier right now, so if you just need information, consider picking the internet instead of my/others brains.

if you do need me, be gentle and spacious with it – urgency feels like a serrated knife right now.

i’m practicing emergent strategy and resting and stretching and taking my vitamins and hydrating and shifting my diet and adding turquoise and ceremony and easing my schedule and all the other unglamorous things which make it possible for me to give what i can right now, and give more as my cup fills back up.

it already feels better.