All flourishing is mutual

Some thoughts on collective power & struggling for freedom

Source: Berta Pfirsich (Tumblr)

I want to be good, and I want my people to be good. I utter this repeatedly when talking about my north star, my goals, my politics. In other words, I want me and my people to have everything we need. I desire this for all of us.

I hear Hanif Abdurraqib talk about not just wanting people to survive but “survive well.” Fatimah Asghar spoke of a world where “we can easily see the value of human life, of each other’s contributions, and where we can honor that. Where we can nourish that. Where that can grow.”

This dream isn’t ignorant of the countless horrors we witness and fall victim to daily. In fact, recognizing how we’re kept from ourselves and each other by the violent interconnection of imperialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism leads me to dream of another world. A world where we’re free to fully immerse ourselves in our living without fear of oppression, imprisonment, land theft, and other forms of state violence.

“I don’t care if it sounds naive,” wrote Asghar. “‘Naive’ dreams breed new possibilities.” The actualization of these dreams requires work, action, speaking up. Another world is possible—if we fight for it.

It’s scary to express solidarity, hold state powers accountable, and advocate for the world we want to see—especially now. Fighting for liberation and better conditions has never been without its retaliation, consequences, and sacrifices.

Material realities such as being terminated by your employer or experiencing interpersonal harm are not insignificant. In fact, they underscore the power of your voice among the collective. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore stated, this is the work of “building life-affirming institutions.”

We are not required to have all the answers. “The inability to offer a neatly packaged and easily digestible solution does not preclude offering critique or analysis of the ills of our current system,” said Mariame Kaba.

I may never have the full scope of history; however, I recognize myself as part of a lineage of Black radicals that struggle and have struggled for the liberation of all people, especially those on the margins—including Black, Indigenous, migrant, low-income, disabled, queer, and trans people. I cling to their words and experiences.

“You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace,” said Fred Hampton. “If you dare to struggle, you dare to win.”

Safiya Bukhari wrote, “The hard, painstaking work of changing ourselves into new beings, of loving ourselves and our people, and working with them daily to create a new reality—this is the first revolution, that internal revolution.” She continued, “If we truly are to maintain our new society after we have won the battle and claimed the victory, we must instill into the hearts and minds of our children, our people, ourselves this ability to struggle on all fronts, internally and externally, laying a foundation built upon a love for ourselves and a knowledge of the sacrifices that went before and all we have endured.”

Kiese Laymon said, “We owe it to each other to love and insist on meaningful revision until the day we die.” He also said, “Ending unhealthy transactional relationships and opening ourselves to radical possibilities is one way we effectively heal ourselves and others in America.”

Assata Shakur stated clearly, “The victory of any oppressed people all over the world is a victory for Black people.”

The Combahee River Collective wrote, “The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking.”

Angela Y. Davis insisted that “this is an era where we have to encourage that sense of community particularly at a time when neoliberalism attempts to force people to think of themselves only in individual terms and not in collective terms.” She continued, “It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope.”

As Mariame Kaba has taught us, “Hope is a discipline.” And I believe the hope she speaks of is best cultivated in community, in understanding our struggles for liberation are tied together. In the words of Malcolm X, “The only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world.”

This requires us to look society’s horrors in the face and not turn away, but it’s in the trouble that we also find the helpers. The people who imagine a world beyond this one and practice liberation in their everyday lives.

In our loss for words, we turn to our people. In our hopelessness, we press deeper into the ones that give us hope. Beneath systems that relentlessly encourage our isolation, we practice interdependence. It’s our only way out.

“What happens to one happens to us all,” wrote Robin Wall Kimmerer. “We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.”

In other words, I need my people if I want to be good—and my people need me.

Our surviving well is not promised, but it is attainable. It only asks that we fight for it. Together. Moving as one.