Let This Radicalize You
by Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba
Let This Radicalize You is a guide for organizers, activists, and anyone who wishes to materialize a better world. Hayes and Kaba share a collection of stories, wisdom, and lessons learned from both past and present movements to lay out the path towards liberation.
“To practice active hope, we do not need to believe that everything will work out in the end. We need only [to] decide who we are choosing to be and how we are choosing to function in relation to the outcome we desire and abide by what those decisions demand of us.”
MY TAKEAWAYS
Simply sharing the ugly truths about our world or current atrocities is not usually enough to persuade people to join a movement. “If spitting horrifying facts at people changed minds and built movements, we would have overthrown the capitalist system long ago, because the facts have always been on our side.”
“Everything is a story, and people need to understand themselves as having a meaningful role within the story you, as an organizer, are telling.”
We are not each other's enemy; state violence is more widespread and profound than interpersonal violence. “It is the grandest illusion ever created: in a world where corporations and governments worldwide are poised to annihilate most life on Earth, we are made to believe that other disempowered people are the greatest danger we face.”
“When laws encode violence and law enforcers maintain it, those who attempt to prevent this violence are indeed breaking the law and challenging its enforcers. Such is the perversion of ‘violence’ under imperial and colonial rule: the maintenance of state-sanctioned violence is considered peaceful, while the disruption of those death-making processes is deemed violent.”
“The repression of Palestinian resistance offers a profound example of the elasticity of violence as a concept and shows how, while the powerful can wage war on particular communities with impunity and claim innocence, the oppressed can be deemed a violent threat simply for attempting to assert their rights or defend their humanity.”
It's important to not idolize or hype-up individuals in a movement as so often done throughout history; we must rather appreciate the collective effort that makes movements successful.
If we expect to make change, we will have to find solidarity even with those who don't share all of our beliefs; even with those who we don't like.
Activism requires sacrifice, but should not be all-consuming; it also requires rest, rejuvenation, healing, and enjoyment of life.
“…we must not allow the frameworks of the powerful to define the bounds of morality in our politics and our action. The elastic concepts of criminality and violence, as controlled by the powerful, will always be bent against us.”