13 Principles for a Welcoming Movement:
Post Number Two of The Movement We. Need
This series of writings is an experiment—a new way of writing a book that inviting you all to participate in. I’ve written or co-written thirteen published books over more than four decades as an author, and a number of others (we don’t talk about those), and seen publishing change radically in that time. I was lucky early on to work with major publishers and some great editors. Now, it’s a different world with different values—but at the same time, with more avenues for communication. So I want to try something a little different—releasing this book a chapter at a time on Substack, and accompanying it with podcasts, social media and who knows what else to broaden its reach. Here is post number two. ss We plan to launch our series of podcasts in the first week of July.
We Need A Broad-based, Welcoming Movement
For almost 50 years, I’ve lived in San Francisco, one of the most progressive cities in the United states. And yet over and over again, we’ve nominated progressive politicians, only to see them narrowly defeated by more centrist liberals. We elected reforming District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2020, only to see him recalled by business interests two years later. Progressive though we might be, we too often don’t succeed in realizing our visions or enacting our policies.
In 2016, staunch progressive Bernie Sanders challenged more centrist Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in the presidential race. Clinton narrowly beat him out, only to be in turn narrowly defeated by Donald Trump. Many of us on the left felt certain that Bernie could have beaten Trump had he been the nominee. However, it is also possible that Trump could have weaponized Bernie’s Socialist identification against him and won handily. We will never know. It's common on the left to bitterly blame the Democratic Party power structure for excluding Bernie and insisting on giving the nomination to their preferred candidate, Clinton. Yet in 2020, Bernie failed to galvanize the hoped-for wave of young and more radical voters that might have secured him the nomination, which instead went to the more centrist Biden.
The elections left a bitter after-taste and enormous angeron the left at the Democratic establishment. Yet maybe we need to be a bit more self-reflective, and admit that progressive forces simply did not quite have the numbers and the power to put our candidate over the top. At this writing, many progressives, especially younger ones, are bitterly unhappy at the choice that faces us, between supporting Biden, whom they see as a centrist and enabler of the genocide in Gaza, and Trump, who threatens to dismantle all that remains of our democratic institutions. I will address my own perspective on this in later posts, but now I want to focus on this question: how do we build a movement powerful enough to secure us better choices?
On the anti-authoritarian left, we have a conflicted relationship with power. In my circles, we often say that we don't want to take power, we want to transform power. Yet that may be one of our critical mistakes: the illusion that we can transform power without having enough power to do so. The Egyptian movement that successfully overthrew more than 40 years of the Mubarak dictatorship had similar ideals, only to see the revolution hijacked by groups who had no hesitancy to seize power: first, the radical Islamists, then the military. If we contest power successfully, we also need to consider who is going to wield power, and how, in the vacuum that results.
We want to have more than good ideals, we want to see real, progressive and liberatory change in the world. To do that we need a clear understanding of the type of power we must have. Power comes in many forms, and understanding their distinctions can help us clarify our goals. Power-over, where one person or one group controls another, is the form of power we are all familiar with, in hierarchies that range from beneficent to totalitarian. We are rightfully suspicious of that type of power, as it is rooted in force and sustained by violence.
But a very different type of power exists, that I call power-from-within: spiritual power, creativity, courage, our ability to do, to make, to love, to take action, to speak truth. And there's power-together, the solidarity that comes when we collectively exert our power from within. That is the type of power we need, as a movement, in order to transform power-over into more egalitarian and democratic systems, and for that we need numbers. We need a movement that is not just a narrow slice of those altruistic and ultra committed folks with the purist ideology, but the broad swath of ordinary human beings who may have widely differing opinions, life experiences. and ultimate goals and yet hold many crucial values and goals in common.
If we're honest, we'll have to admit that the movement at present is often not a welcoming place. Confronting racism, sexism and all the underlying structural oppressions of our system is never easy, and taking a good, hard look at our own privilege is inevitably a painful process. But there’s a harshness in the air now, exacerbated by an online culture fueled by algorithms that favor conflict and confrontation, where canceling, blocking, calling-out and virtue-signaling are rampant. It’s also true that ‘cancel-culture’ and the like have been weaponized against the left by the right, who are far more ruthless and vicious at suppressing dissent than the most ardently purist leftist. But there’s information encoded in the attacks that we should listen to: that many people who do not already see themselves as progressives perceive the movement as harsh, judgmental, and scornful of all who are not yet ‘woke’. And there’s a kernel of truth in that message, unfair and exaggerated as it may be. As a result, I encounter more and more long-term activists who are stymied with anguish about what to do and how to contribute. And I see new people reluctant to get involved.
So how do we build a truly welcoming movement, based on ‘calling in’ rather than calling out? A movement that’s not just challenging injustice, but proposing an alternative that’s more fair, more equitable, more life-affirming and better for all? How do we create a movement that can be regenerative, bringing in more life, more vibrancy, more diversity, more health, more pleasure?
For more than two decades, I’ve been practicing and teaching an approach to regenerative ecological design called ‘permaculture’—a term originally coined by two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, to describe a design system that could meet our needs while regenerating the environment around us. They drew on indigenous and traditional land-use practices, the science of ecology and systems theory to articulate a set of ethics and principles for creating human systems that function in the ways natural systems work. Principles are useful as guiding ideas, ways to test decisions. Am I catching and storing energy? Am I using biological, on-site or local resources as much as possible? Am I finding ways that ‘wastes’ can become resources?
If we want to build a broad-based movement, a regenerative movement that can heal and renew the world, a movement that attracts people as they really are, not just as we think they should be, a set of guiding principles can be helpful. Here are thirteen, to start with, and in the course of the posts to come, I will expand on many of them, and probably add some more!
1. Being Part of a Movement Should Feel Good
At its best, a movement should be something we want to belong to, and identifying as part of it should feed, nurture, empower, excite, challenge, stimulate and entertain us. If activism means a constant state of guilt, anxiety, walking-on-eggshells, and self-flagellation, we’ll lose.
We want the woke, at that moment of awakening, to feel a rush of exhilaration, a sense of coming home, of having found our people. And we need the unwoke, those who have not been activists before, those who may even have been agents of oppression or Trump voters or incapacitated by their own wounds or sunk in addictions, to discover the joy and empowerment that comes with being part of a movement for change, to feel: “My deepest longing is to be an agent of justice in this world! Now I’ve found the allies who will help me find my role and make my unique contribution.”
2. A Big, Positive Vision
A regenerative movement needs to have a positive vision. We often organize protests as a way of standing up and saying ‘no’ to the destruction around us. But to move beyond the status quo, to create a world more just and equitable than the one we have now, we need to know what we want, not just what we don’t want. Vision and hope are what inspire people, and inspiration is a more creative and sustainable motivation then anger or outrage. And then, there’s always the slim but real chance that we might win. Then what will we do, if we don’t already have in place ideas, goals, and images of what the new world should look like?
It's a magical teaching that we can’t just ask the great spiritual forces for what we don't want, we need to know what we do want. You can’t do an abundance spell by saying, “Great Goddess of sustenance and nurturing, get me out of this hole of debt and this rat-infested apartment’, because what you will have in your mind, and what will therefore direct your energy, is that rat gnawing away at the pile of bills in the dusty corner. Instead, you need to visualize clearly what you do want. Maybe you envision abundance as a thriving garden, so rich you can press bags of zucchini on your friends. Maybe you see it as being able to go our for Sunday brunch without spending the rent money. Whatever—you need that image in your mind to direct the energies, spiritual, practical and physical, to make it so.
Linguist and political theorist George Lakoff affirms the same insight in his book Don't Think of an Elephant. No one can not think of an elephant, Lakoff says, because as soon as you say ‘elephant’, the elephant is there in your mind. Everything we name creates an image in our mind, and those images channel energy. If we're chanting ‘No war! No war!” war is what we're focused on. Even the term ‘nonviolence’ preserves a focus on violence. To channel our energies into creating a world of greater wisdom, peace, compassion and kindness, we need to visualize that world and find ways to advocate for it.
3. A Regenerative Movement is Experimental and Dynamic
Political activism attempts to influence large systems that are complex: that is, they have many parts that interact in ways that go beyond simple cause and effect. Complex systems often don't have single answers or single causes. Complicated systems may have multiple parts, like the engine of an automobile, but if something goes wrong, an expert can trace the cause and figure it out. Complex systems are more than complicated, they are dynamic and constantly changing. A regenerative movement would not try to impose simple solutions onto complexity, but would understand that the way to address these issues is often by experimenting, by trying different approaches, evaluating them, and seeing what works.
Complex systems also need to be addressed in complex ways. There's no single strategy, no one best tactics= that will work. Direct action movements have often advocated a diversity of tactics: sometimes as a code for “Go ahead and break those windows, it's OK”. \The morality and strategic value of breaking windows aside, we do need a diversity of approaches to making change. Direct action may be one, but it's not the only one. Working on electoral politics may be vitally important, especially at this moment, but again, it is not the only viable strategy. In fact, we've been most successful when we have used many interlocking strategies: pressure from outside, people working inside, electoral, legal and direct action strategies ideally working in concert. And to address the true complexity of the present moment, we may need strategies and combinations thereof and we have yet to create or invent.
4. A Regenerative Movement Finds a Role for Everyone
A movement for justice that succeeds must be a truly diverse movement, composed and predominantly led by those who bear the brunt of oppression. It cannot be a house of privilege, into which we welcome the less-advantaged. It must be designed, built and inhabited by all those who are most affected by racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, ableism, and all forms of discrimination and oppression.
And yet to succeed, a movement for justice also needs to include those who do hold privilege—as all of us do in some capacity. If you’re reading this post online, if you can read and speak the English in which it’s written, you have more privilege than millions around the globe. A movement big enough to make the immense transformation we need must include those who may not yet be ‘woke’ to the privilege they carry. We need both those who are politically evolved, and those who are naïve, both experienced activists and complete newcomers.
One of my permaculture students, a smart and dedicated activist, confessed to me that he often questions whether he as a white male has a role in the movement. But a successful movement is like an ecosystem—it has a niche for everyone. There are a thousand things a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual male can do, other than run the show. You can show up as a caring, sensitive, considerate friend, ally and yes, when the situation is right, lover—and thereby help to heal some of the ancestral wounding in the world. You can intervene when other people of privilege behave in an oblivious, brutish or oppressive manner. You can educate those others and take some of the burden of doing so off of the historically oppressed. If you’re good at butch sorts of things—like fixing cars or skinning road kill—you can share those skills with patience and understanding to those raised without them. You can change diapers, cuddle small children, nurture plants in the garden and become an excellent cook. You can offer emotional support to other men. There are thousands of roles for you—all of them vital and many of them that only you can do. It’s our responsibility as a movement to convey this message—that everyone has a contribution to make, and that there is room for thousands of unique and varied gifts and talents.
Newcomers see with fresh eyes. Political movements are always in danger of falling into group-think and group-speak. Someone coming in from the outside will look at things without our unconscious assumptions and make us see things in a different way. Building a broad-based movement requires activating those who have not yet been involved. We need to recognize that the concerns and ideas of the newly-reached may be more relevant for reaching others than the perspectives of the long-committed. If we listen to newcomers, we may gain insights that will help us mobilize those who do not yet agree with us.
A dynamic, experimental movement that works in diverse ways also creates many different kinds of opportunities for people to engage at widely varied levels of experience, skill, available time, resources and risk. Between 2002 and 2005, I spent time in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, helping to train activists with the International Solidarity Movement, tsupporting nonviolent resistance against the Occupation. We trained many activists who were interested in nonviolence, which they termed ‘civil resistance’, not because they were philosophically opposed to armed struggle, but because they understood that the armed insurrection posed two great an entry barrier to the vast majority of people. The civil resistance of the First Intifada, which engaged a huge proportion of the Palestinian problem population in activities that ranged from protests to boycotts, was seen as being effective in at least bringing the Israelis to the bargaining table.
A broad-based movement that wants to involve large numbers of people will find ways that everyone can contribute. Even in direct action mobilizations, there's a huge need for many roles of support. Not everyone can afford to risk arrest. Nor is everyone emotionally or physically prepared to do so, and yet those people two may deeply desire to contribute to the success of our campaigns. There are many support roles from liaisoning with the legal services to offering jealous support to providing food that people can do, to feel part of the movement even if they are not able to be on the front lines. As we began to recognize the impact of trauma on activists, we would often set up emotional healing spaces at the Convergence Center or encampment. Therapists, healers, acupuncturists, massage therapists and herbalists from the community could contribute without facing physical or legal danger. In one mobilization, before the days when everyone had a cell phone, we asked an injured friend with a broken leg who was unable to participate in the march, to be our communications center. She would stay by her phone and we could periodically call in to let her know what was happening. If we got scattered, or if some of us got arrested, she could be the holder of information. That allowed her to play a key role in the action in spite of her physical limitation.
5. The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
Alicia Garza, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, wrote the following in response to criticism of her decision to join the Women’s March after Trump’s inauguration:
“I decided to challenge myself to be a part of something that isn’t perfect, that doesn’t articulate my values the way that I do and still show up, clear in my commitment, open and vulnerable to people who are new in their activism. I can be critical of white women and, at the same time, seek out and join with women, white and of color, who are awakening to the fact that all lives do not, in fact, matter, without compromising my dignity, my safety and radical politics.”
Let’s admit it: people drawn to activism tend to be—let us say, judgy. That’s why we’re activists—we’ve looked at what’s going on and judged it as unfair and destructive. We have high standards, for ourselves and others. But we need to leave room for nuance, for uncertainty and even for mistakes—especially if we are going to invite in those that have come from different social and political experiences and cultures. Garza goes on to ask: “Can we build a movement of millions with the people who may not grasp our black, queer, feminist, intersectional, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist ideology but know that we all deserve a better life and who are willing to fight for it and win?
“Hundreds of thousands of people are trying to figure out what it means to join a movement. If we demonstrate that to be a part of a movement, you must believe that people cannot change, that transformation is not possible, that it’s more important to be right than to be connected and interdependent, we will not win.”
In permaculture we often joke that the phrase we say most often is “It depends”. That's because permaculture deals with living systems which are complex and ever changing. There are guiding principles but no absolute rules.
Political activism also works within a landscape that is complex, dynamic, and continually changing. Yet we too often approach it as if there were die-hard rules about everything we do or say, one approved way to open a meeting, express a concept, or identify a particular group of people, and that transgressing those rules is ignorant, hostile and harmful. People feel afraid to say the wrong thing or offend the wrong faction.
A welcoming movement will be messy, imperfect, with plenty of room for people to not already know how they're supposed to talk or what they're supposed to do, room to make mistakes, to say the wrong thing and make amends, to go off on the wrong path and find a way back.
6. A Regenerative Movement Celebrates Victories, Even Partial Ones
In a messy, complex and chaotic world, where we are striving to make huge social, political and economic changes, our victories are rarely if ever complete. We may push for deep systemic change, but sometimes what we actually achieve are smaller incremental shifts, reforms, or partial successes. We need to learn to celebrate those victories.
Winning a tactical issue, for example, expanding the child tax credit, may not overthrow capitalism and institute the just and equitable economic system we long for. But it will have direct and important impacts on real people's lives. We should celebrate that. We should celebrate both because we've added to the sum total of good in the world, and because if we don't, we devalue our own hard work and discourage our continued efforts.
In that spirit, we should also celebrate when politicians make changes in the right direction, even when they don't come wholly to the point we’d like them to get. If Biden and the Democrats, in the face of unrelenting opposition from the Republicans and reluctant support from key members of their own party, succeed in passing even a lesser version of what was originally an enormously ambitious climate change bill, that is still a victory, and it deserves to be celebrated! Not with a sense of finality, “Ah, we can rest on our laurels now,” but in the same way as when you're trying to get your dog to come, and she turns and heads in your direction, you shift from yelling ‘bad dog’ to ‘good dog!’
7. Never beat a dog for coming to you
Carrying on with the dog-training metaphors, here’s a principle I learned from training our herding dogs that can serve us here:
No matter how long you’ve been bawling out “Rover, come!” while she chases rabbits, don’t whack her when she finally returns, if you want her to ever come again. Instead, praise and reward her. When someone makes a first step into activism, no matter how long it took them to get there, we’ve got to actively welcome them, to say “How great that you’ve come to the party!” Not “You’re late—and It’s a measure of your privilege that you are only now coming around to our way of thinking!”
We don’t know why someone might not have yet been involved in activism. Maybe they were herding sheep, or raising kids, or taking care of their aging mother, or recovering from childhood trauma, or just never quite met the right people. Maybe the people they did meet turned them off by being snide or judgmental. Even if they were running a hedge fund or a chemical plant, we need to celebrate the fact that they’ve finally emerged and come to join us.
8. Use language that speaks to everybody
Language determines how we understand the world, and shifting our language, learning new words and concepts, can broaden and illuminate our understanding.
But language can also be used in another way, to mark out turf, like dogs pissing on lampposts, to say, “This is my territory and you are not part of it,” “I belong and you don’t.”
Too often, words or concepts that start out as liberatory rapidly become more like markers showing who is in and who is out. Whenever we use words that people aren’t familiar with or can’t intuitively understand, especially in a way which implies that everyone else knows their meaning, there’s a subtext that says, “You are ignorant and not part of the in-group here.” Language that activists adopt from academics is especially prone to function in this way.
Language rooted in emotion and sensation speaks to us all on a deeper level than terms of pure abstraction. There are some words such as ‘liberation’ that people are familiar with and understand, that carry an emotional weight. And there are other words, for example, ‘intersectionality’, that no one can intuitively understand without an explanation. ‘Intersectionality’ is a crucial concept, the understanding of how race and class and gender and other aspects of our identities intersect and affect us in different ways, and how analysis of one oppression must be informed by awareness of others. Yet no one would intuit that meaning from the word itself. So when we use it, or words like it, we must be aware that it carries a potential subtext, always, that says “I’m smarter and more in the know than you are.”
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use such language. There are important concepts that sound abstract but may open up new worlds of thinking and understanding. I’m saying that when we use those words, we should be conscious that many people will not understand us if we don’t explain them. Not because those people are stupid, or prejudiced, but because if we broaden the movement to include those who are not already activists, they may not have heard them before.
And remember—words are not your jealous lovers. You don’t have to be faithful to a particular term. There is more than one name of God, and more than one way to describe or explain anything. We don’t need a monotheism of terminology. To really understand a concept, generally you must be able to say it in multiple different ways.
Whenever possible, use the language of poetry—language rooted in sensual experiences, that speaks to emotion as well as intellect, that frames issues positively, that carries a rhythm and a beauty. The indigenous activists at Standing Rock consciously name themselves ‘water protectors’ and their marching cry is clear, beautiful, and positively framed: “Water is sacred. Water is life.”
And here’s a beautiful example from Subcomandante Marcos, one of the leaders of the Zapatista movement in Mexico that resists globalization and defends indigenous communities:
“IN OUR DREAMS we have seen another world, an honest world, a world decidedly more fair than the one in which we now live. We saw that in this world there was no need for armies; peace, justice and liberty were so common that no one talked about them as far-off concepts, but as things such as bread, birds, air, water, like books and voice. This is how the good things were named in this world. And in this world there was reason and goodwill in the government, and the leaders were clear-thinking people; they ruled by obeying. This world was not a dream from the past, it was not something that came to us from our ancestors. It came from ahead, from the next step we were going to take. And so we started to move forward to attain this dream, make it come and sit down at our tables, light our homes, grow in our cornfields, fill the hearts of our children, wipe our sweat, heal our history. And it was for all. This is what we want. Nothing more, nothing less. Now we follow our path toward our true heart to ask it what we must do. We will return to our mountains to speak in our own tongue and in our own time.”
Subcomandante Marcos. Our Word is Our Weapon. Chapter 4. “In Our Dreams We Have Seen Another World”. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/subcomandante-marcos-our-word-is-our-weapon#toc14
9. Practice constructive critique, and avoid shaming people.
Constructive critique aims to strengthen relationships, not sever them, to improve the work, not shut it down. It is specific, not global, and about specifically what someone has said or done, not who they are or what you imagine their motives might be. Not “You’re a racist, sexist pig” but “When you told that joke with the accent, I felt uncomfortable. It seemed to me that you were making fun of immigrants.”
Distinguishing between ‘intent’ and ‘impact’ is often useful. When people feel defensive, their response is often to defend their intent. “I was just feeling warm and affectionate when I hugged you.” If we grant their positive intent, we can avoid fruitless arguments about it, and instead focus on the actual impact. “I’m sure that was your intent, but the impact on me, when you grabbed me without asking, was to make me feel disrespected and angry. There’s a history of men’s entitlement to women’s bodies that comes into play, whether we want it to or not. So if you want to hug me again—and I hope you do--just ask first.” Or, we can ask about intent, and that might trigger some deeper awareness. “What was your intent in telling that joke?”
A criticism delivered publicly always risks shaming and humiliating the person who receives it. If we really want someone to hear us and to change, critical feedback is best delivered one on one—ideally in person, next best, by telephone or Zoom, worst of all, in written form online when we don’t have the opportunity to sense tone and body language—especially when that critique is made public. There are times when a public critique is appropriate and necessary, when a mistake or an attack needs to be challenged. But whenever possible, give criticism in private and in person, or at least warn the person privately that you intend a public challenge.
10. Give praise and appreciation publicly
The corollary to constructive critique is public praise and appreciation. Thanking people for their work, appreciating their contributions, offering gratitude for their efforts are ways we can show that we value one another. Expressions of gratitude also create an atmosphere of care and appreciation. We do a lot of unpaid, unsung work in social movements, and receiving appreciation and thanks is sometimes our only reward.
Praise, to be meaningful, is also specific. “You’re a great facilitator” is nice to hear, but “I really learned something from the way you handled that moment when we were deadlocked, and guided us through,” says much more.
11. Organizing is educating, and educating is organizing
A welcoming movement must be a movement that educates. It’s a truism in activist circles that women shouldn’t have to educate men about sexism, black people shouldn’t have to educate white people, the indigenous should not have to educate the non-indigenous, and indeed, that’s only fair and right. It’s an exhausting burden to constantly have to teach people about things they should know or have learned for themselves, and it’s unfair for that burden to fall on the backs of the already oppressed.
Yet I think now is a moment when we have a great opportunity to educate people—and if we are planning for a long-term, deep transformation of society and politics, education is crucial.
So, unfair as it is there are many reasons why we should stop telling people, “It’s not my job to educate you—educate yourself!” For one thing, many people don’t know how to educate themselves. They’ve been badly educated to begin with—either because they went to ‘bad’ schools where the focus was all on discipline and not on learning, or because they went to ‘good’ schools where the focus was all on competing and passing tests, not on learning how to learn.
Secondly, if they go off and educate themselves you know they’ll be googling away on the internet and Goddess only knows what they’ll come up with! If we take up the burden of education, we can determine what we want people to learn and how. Yes, it’s tiring and exhausting and we shouldn’t have to do it, but it’s also a chance to consciously create a new culture, to share understandings, to tell the truth about our own lives and experiences, to open minds and broaden awareness.\
Whenever possible, people who hold privilege can shoulder the burden of educating their fellows—provided they can do it with respect and compassion and not as a means of displaying how I’m the Good White Person or I’m the Sensitive Male and You’re Not. During the upsurge of Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, comedian Seth Meyers posted a sketch (unfortunately no longer available online) where one of his writers, Karen Chee, served as the Weary Black People’s Answering Service for another writer, Amber Ruffin, to deflect Seth’s well-meaning but insensitive comments. That is something we can offer to do for one another when world events are overwhelming and the need to respond becomes too tiring. In so doing, someone who is less triggered can offer education rather than condemnation.
We can see actions and mobilizations as learning opportunities, and recognize that education is one aspect of our victory. Back in the ‘80s, in the antinuclear movement, people came ready for arrest and jail by preparing everything from seminars on nuclear issues to talent show acts. When we were all locked up together for days in big warehouses or holding pens, we used the opportunity to organize and teach.
In the big mobilizations for the global justice movement in the ‘00s, people learned skills in working groups, from cooking for large numbers of people to organizing actions and logistics to street medical trainings. We offered permaculture trainings and installations and magical activism trainings. The mobilizations had double the benefits—they organized powerful resistance to the global institutions of neoliberalism, and they also trained a generation of activists in skills and tools for building a new world.
12. Create Structures and Rituals of Welcome
The most powerful and effective movements I’ve been part of had structures for orientation and training, and ways to teach newcomers about the group culture. In the early ‘80s, I was part of a blockade at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Central California. In the lead-up to the action, everyone who wanted to risk arrest was required to take a two-day nonviolence training. The training not only made us aware of our legal rights and potential consequences of the action, it served as an induction into an organizing culture very different from the dominant society. We were formed into small groups to take action together and support one another—affinity groups. Decisions about the action were made in affinity groups by consensus—and we were trained in how to do consensus. The political culture that resulted was so powerful that decades later activists all over California were still forming groups based on its principles, and it influenced everything from the Latin-American intervention opposition to Occupy Wall Street. But Occupy took some of the model and left out some key pieces that made it work—among them, training, boundaries, and entry rituals.
More recently, at the 2016 indigenous-led mobilization at Standing Rock against an oil pipeline crossing ancestral lands, new arrivals were asked to go through an orientation designed to make people more aware of how to behave respectfully in a very different culture and a movement led by indigenous organizers and elders. Nonviolence trainings were again being offered, as well as many other clear ways that people could make a contribution and get involved in the camp.
If an activist setting is modeling a different culture, people need to learn how to enter in, what the expectations and constraints are. Don’t expect them to already know how to behave, because they don’t. Consider how best to teach them.
13. Be Kind
Not necessarily to the oppressors, but at least to your own supporters, friends, co-conspirators and allies. That doesn’t mean to stifle constructive critique, but don’t turn organizing into an episode of Mean Girls. Support people when they are down. Share burdens. Be there for your comrades in jail, in illness or disease or injury or other troubles. Understand that kindness, compassion and caring are the cornerstones of the world we want to create, and they take practice. So begin with one another.
What a great roadmap! A lot to digest; I shall read it again to lock it into my brain!
Thank you for sharing your writing as you go. I appreciate it.