Reimagining our World by Deconstructing Harmful Systems
Three ways Emergent Strategy has been integrated in movements and how privileged folks can engage.
I finished reading Emergent Strategy last week and have struggled to come up with a worthy way of writing about the book as a whole. I’ve already seen the ways that it has altered my thinking — as I read the news each morning I find myself identifying ways that we can do better and grow together. So, as opposed to trying to summarize a book that spans our collective existence, I’ve chosen three main themes I found most powerful from the book and aligned them with movements that I believe best encompass these themes. In each section, I’ve summarized how I think that these theories are showcased and included a call to action including ways that privileged folks, including myself, can learn, unlearn, and engage more consciously.
These suggestions are not intended to replace calls to action by impacted communities and their work. Before engaging, please ensure that you educate yourself on the needs and demands of local actions and grassroots organizations. This list is not exclusive in any way.
Line 3: Necessary Spirituality in Extractive Capitalism
Since capitalism took hold, our societies have punished and targeted environmental defenders. But, in the last ten years, these efforts have increased and become more nefarious, particularly as it relates to extractive industries. Notably, most efforts have occurred after the Standing Rock protests. State legislation was largely supported by ALEC* which was “inspired” by Oklahoma’s efforts to protect extractive industry interests and developed model legislation to help other states suppress protestors.
“Clean water and unpolluted land capable of providing sustenance is essential to our survival… [and] Line 3 poses an existential threat to our well-being.”
— Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
State and federal legislation targeting environmental defenders and protesters have made non-violent action against extractive industries a crime. In 2018, protesters against the Bayou Bridge Pipeline were arrested and charged with trespassing on critical infrastructure, a felony in Louisiana. The Bayou Bridge Pipeline is a 163-mile long infrastructure project by Energy Transfer Partners (the same company responsible for the Dakota Access Pipeline).
“Take a moment to speak to her, our Mother Earth is crying out for the warriors to rise again,” they said. “Strong hearts to the front!”
Most recently, protests against Line 3 in Minnesota have drawn lukewarm national attention. Line 3 was supposed to be completed in 2017, but legal and grassroots action has caused extensive delays.
Line 3 Media Collective denounces the pipeline, saying it “violates the treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples by endangering critical natural resources in the 1854, 1855, and 1867 treaty areas, where the Ojibwe have the right to hunt, fish, gather medicinal plants, harvest wild rice, and preserve sacred sites.” (Common Dreams).
At the heart of many grassroots efforts is the collective belief of the earth as our ultimate life source — if we do not protect her resources, we do not protect ourselves. Many pipelines, if not all of them, interfere with treaties that protect sacred, indigenous land and all disproportionately impact communities of color.
In Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown included numerous quotes about water, and how it is indicative of our time on earth. We can flow with it and overcome almost any barrier, or we can continuously fight against it and face resistance and exhaustion. Water is resilient — both soft (morning mist) and powerful (tsunami), and so we must be.
Nonviolent protest against extractive industries is remarkably like water. It is soft (nonviolent) but can be a powerful force against harmful policies (Line 3’s delay in completion) and it demands a more just and equitable way forward.
Native Peoples Action has a phenomenal website that showcases how we must integrate indigenous wisdom in our actions:
“Our seasons are interconnected, and we cannot afford another season without action on Climate Justice. As caretakers of the lands and waters, we need to allow our homelands to heal and return to balance. Returning to balance means uplifting Indigenous knowledge and worldviews through building localized solutions, making reparations with Indigenous peoples and communities, and action-forward planning for the next 10,000 years.”
The climate justice movement seeks to remove our country’s interests in extractive capitalism, which disproportionately impacts communities of color and is responsible for health and wellbeing disparities, and move towards a greener, more integrated relationship between humans and our resources. For too long, tribal communities have borne the devastating impact of capitalistic endeavors and, for too long, they have been the sole communities fighting for climate justice and reconciliation.
To achieve climate justice, non-indigenous communities must shift from secular utilitarianism thinking to spiritual resistance, holistic integration with our natural world, and actively decolonize our systems.
*If you haven’t heard of ALEC, I encourage you to read about the ways that ALEC has harmed communities through legislation.
Black Lives Matter: Eradicating Oppressive Structures
Structural violence is the disgraceful backbone that props up the power of the United States against communities of color. It is evident in our policing mechanisms, in our refusal to acknowledge intergenerational trauma, in our refusal to issue reparations, in our consistent disregard of treaties with indigenous communities. It is evident in the almost 200 Black lives lost at the hands of police in 2020 alone.
Racism is a public health crisis. White supremacy is a national threat.
As of November, 145 cities and 27 states have declared racism a public health issue. But declarations do not dismantle. Declarations do not a champion make. Declarations do not protect.
“The thing about racism that I wish people would understand is that this is not about blaming individual-level people for problems. It’s a societal problem that keeps us from being all that we can be.”
— Tiffany Green, assistant professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin.
Practices such as forced c-sections, redlining and school funding, gerrymandering, access to social and health services, and voter suppression continue even if our elected officials recognize that racism is a critical and urgent issue. They must make active steps towards deconstructing the harmful world we have built.
“In the fight for civil rights in America, Black women have steadily led the way for centuries. Black women led the Underground Railroad, were the unsung leaders of the suffrage movement, organized freedom riders, paved the way for constitutional protections against sex discrimination and remain the most consistent voting block in the United States to stand up for the rights of marginalized people.”
Grassroots organizations and community organizing are critical components of moving towards a more just world. I currently work for a reproductive justice organization that works to put emergency contraception into the hands of our community members in New Orleans. We work with mutual aid groups, legislative coalitions, abortion funds, and other community partners to make sure that we are actively adjusting our structure to be more equitable, more accessible, and more powerful. We work to inform community members of other resources and simultaneously monitor potentially harmful legislation and ballot measures. Most recently, we engaged in voter education efforts to fight against Louisiana Constitutional Amendment 3, which unfortunately succeeded in removing the right to abortion in Louisiana after it passed in November.
By working collaboratively with other grassroots and local organizations, we increase our impact. By engaging with folks working on legislative efforts, we ensure that equity is written into our laws. It is here, within this organization, that I see some of adrienne maree brown’s theories of Emergent Strategy truly at work: understanding that local permeates to the state, regional, and national (fractals); incorporating spirituality within our work; constantly changing our structure and methods so as to best respond to the community and our coalition and collective members (swarming).
Emergent strategy is easily seen in other Black-led grassroots and community-based movements and organizations. For example, Black Lives Matter recently launched #BlackLoveLetters. “In our #BlackLoveLetters video, we asked parents to write love letters to their children. Their letters embody everything our movement stands for: why Black Lives Matter.”
The campaign is one of economic justice and also about healing and love: “By sending #BlackLoveLetters, we are centering love, connection, and beauty in a time of isolation, tension, and change. Every day, we embody the spirits of our ancestors and can connect through this creative intervention — all the while, it fuels our movement as we uplift and support our friends and family at the USPS.”
For many white folks, we think that the only way to make a change is to push for huge and overwhelming restructuring. We often overlook the power of communities and fractal mirroring. The #BlackLoveLetters campaign showcases how communities can push back against systems. By utilizing the USPS, where nearly 50% of the workforce is comprised of Black and brown folks, through individual actions like sending love letters to children, family members, and friends, BLM is engaging in healing and community building as well as an economic campaign to fund the USPS through hundreds of small actions (sending that letter!).
In a PBS article, Assistant Professor Deva Woodly said:
“The most effective demonstration of power is when people don’t think about where [an idea] comes from, they just do it. “This is how you change politics.”
The full article is a must read and can be found here.
(I cannot end this section without stating that we, as a collective, must stop disregarding “red” states in the South. Some of the most powerful movement building and community-led efforts to overcome white supremacy and voter suppression can be found in the South. As the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, we must not forget the rich history of the South and the power that it holds in transforming our country. Georgia’s flip to a blue/purple state is because of the efforts of Black women and men who worked thanklessly to ensure that their communities had a voting plan. The election was not handed to Joe Biden because of us white folks — we do not deserve a gold medal for electing a moderate white man. Joe Biden’s presidency was delivered because of Black women and tribal communities who showed up and voted for all of us, even when we didn’t vote in our own interests.)
Bodily Autonomy: Providing Space and Resources for Each Human
One of the final lessons I learned from Emergent Strategy is the necessity of moving away from scarcity economics and feelings of needing to live within my means (living within the confines that society has made for us). This book reminded me of the interconnectedness of our world and the endless possibilities that await us — even possibilities that we don’t know exist yet.
In order to achieve these endless possibilities, though, it is clear that we must liberate ourselves from the boxes we have created for ourselves and imagine what could be, even if we don’t know how we will get there or exactly what it will look like. We can know that radical liberation is the end goal and work consistently, together (swarm) to move incrementally towards that reality.
What is abundantly clear is that we must create space for all individuals to be their truest selves. Earlier in this blog I wrote: “And yet, despite being so interconnected, we “slip out of togetherness the way we slip out of the womb, bloody and messy and surprised to be alone.” This compounded lack of togetherness and need for perfection prevents us, as a society, from innovating. It keeps us locked in systems designed to harm because we feel hopeless at developing anything better.” Our togetherness doesn’t need to be perfect, but it must be inclusive.
Over the last four years, individualism has become even more rampant in our society. We’ve moved out of togetherness and, as a result, we’ve locked ourselves out of interconnectedness and collective risings. Our focus is on self-preservation, even more so as COVID19 continues to run unchecked in our nation.
A collective sigh of relief was had after the 2020 election but it is understandable if we do not believe that a Biden-Harris administration will help us fund statel, local, and community resources and services. Our access to mental health care in the US is abysmal, we are still fighting against conversion therapy, we have very few support programs for resettled immigrants and refugees, thousands of individuals and families are homeless, safe houses are understaffed, harm reduction programs are thwarted in favor of criminalization, and we have a long way to go before we can claim that the American Dream is still attainable.
2020 has helped us pull away the blinders and explode out of our boundaries. This quote, taken from Bitch Media’s article No New NormalWho Will We Be After This Nightmare Is Over? says:
“Ultimately, the most important lesson here is that no one is coming to save us. That shouldn’t be cause for alarm; if anything, it’s a chance for people to come together and fight for a truly revolutionary vision of liberation.”
Mutual aid groups have become lifelines for our societies, proving not only that our government does not work to serve us but also that communities, when pooled together, can lift each other up.
As we work to reconstruct our harmful, massive governmental system into one that is invested in our communities and truly committed to investing in its people, we can continue to reimagine the society we want by creating it on the local and individual level.
