How we can win for #blacklives in 2016

We are a day into 2016 and already things feel positive. There is a belief that somehow it is all going to be different. Perhaps it is all just symbolism. After all, the restarting of our calendar system is just a construct and there is no geographic significance to the date. Perhaps it is the spiritual energy

generated by the collective resolve of millions of people articulating an intention to be better. Maybe it is just the space many of us are afforded by the quiet time that often comes at the end of the year; allowing us to reflect, to breathe, to plan. Of course I would remiss to not acknowledge that for many people there is no significance to the reset of the calendar. There is no feeling of progress or growth. There is no hope offered by balls dropping, and fireworks blasting, and champagne glasses clinking. Because for those of us who live in very real fear day to day, or who are incarcerated and 2016 is just another year in a long sentence away from loved ones, or who are being abused or exploited, the new year can just feel like more of the same. And then there are those of us who do not observe the Gregorian, western, capitalist calendar and who articulate their hopes on other dates, perhaps with far more geographical and spiritual significance.

Nevertheless, there is much hope that our society in particular has constructed that allows us to look at the next 366 days with fresh eyes, with renewed intentions and with a commitment to personal and social change.

Zora Neale Hurston writes:

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

It is of course no surprise that a central figure in the cultural revolution that was the Harlem Renaissance would transmit something so profoundly significant to our current movement times. For those of us engaged in the current era of the movement for Black liberation, 2015 was indeed a year of deep questioning and for various reasons we sincerely hope that 2016 will be a year that answers. The questions are diverse and nuanced, personal and public, technical and strategic, spiritual and material.

In my meditation and reflection this morning I’ve attempted to answer my own questions to help focus my engagement with the movement in 2016.

Get creative
Across our social movements what we are struggling against is big and bad and ugly and insidious. It is deep and frightening and powerful. In order to win we will need to build new kinds of power, engage new people, and shift systems towards something we haven’t fully been free even to imagine. We therefore need to organize in new ways, envision a future we have never seen, and build new interim institutions that live the values of our movement. We need as much creativity as we can muster. We need to engage in (peaceful) guerrilla movement tactics that inspire our comrades and supporters, confuse and neutralize our enemies, and stimulate the hearts of those on the sidelines.

We must create moments of devastating beauty that make people feel again. This means incorporating narrative, arts, culture, design, and tricksterism the way we do over at Intelligent Mischief along with our comrades the Blackout Collective, the Center for Artistic Activism, the Center for Story Based Strategy, the Design Studio for Social Intervention and Beautiful Trouble.

Focus on Personal Development and Spiritual Growth

That hopeful feeling we have about 2016 is a necessity. It keeps us going. But the reality is that as much as things might improve, they will also get worse. The enemy does not plan to retreat in 2016. We are at a moment of peak capitalism and the few rich and powerful are concerned and are planning to tighten the stranglehold they have over the rest of us. They refuse to allow the movement for black liberation in lock-arms with the movement for climate change, and against inequality to dismantle the system they have so carefully built on all our backs. They are coming for us this year. They will attack us on social media, they will threaten our livelihoods, they will whisper in our ears to make us distrust and turn on each other. They will try to divide our families and bankrupt our organizations. And we already know, they will try to eliminate our very lives.

So we need more grounded, emotionally healthy individuals engaged in the movement now more than ever.

This applies to leaders at all levels. We need to be spiritually grounded, self aware, and accumulate as much relevant knowledge as possible. We need to work on repairing our hearts, developing our minds, and strengthening our bodies as much as we are able. We need to connect to ourselves in spite of the fact that so many resources for personal growth are outside of the means of many of us. Those of us who have skills in supporting, coaching, counseling and teaching must direct our energies towards our communities in both formal and informal ways.

Practice Beloved Community

Many in the movement for Black liberation have adopted the guiding words of our mother Assata Shakur with particular affection for the phrase, “We must love and support each other.” We articulate that intention beautifully at every movement gathering and 2016 is the year for really practicing what we’ve been preaching. This will mean getting past our differences and seeing the good in each other. It will mean sharing meals together and listening to each other.

It will mean developing a new type of love for others in the movement we may not particularly like. The type of love we have for someone who simply also wants to get free and has come into the movement because they want to get free together. It will mean protecting each other even as we engage in explosive arguments. It will mean opening our homes to each other and engaging in joint economic ventures together. It will mean existing in passionate solidarity with other movements. It will require cultivating forgiveness for each other. It will also mean not asking of each other more than they can handle. It will mean anticipating each others’ needs, understanding when someone has been out on the streets one too many times, or has been away from their family for too long. It will mean showing up with meals and back rubs. It will mean looking for the light in each other and it will require that we stop blaming and judging each other. It will mean recognizing that not only is there room for different approaches, there is actually a need. This will be messy and perhaps the hardest part of what we have to do.

Get Strategic About Movement

In 2016 our understanding of how social movements function must grow and develop. We will need to turn to the expertise of movement strategists and theorists like the Movement Net Lab and the Movement Strategy Center. We will need to learn to map the different functions we play as individuals, organizations, and groups and understand where gaps and needs exist and where we need to develop as a movement. We will also need to begin to articulate a sense of direction and differentiate between strategy and tactics. We will need to understand the relationship between our various organizations and most importantly we will need to develop the necessary network structures that allow for efficient communication, decision-making, and planning. Most of all we must answer the questions, “What does it look like when we win? How will things be different? What will need to do to get there?

Check out this dope map of movement functions by our comrades at the Movement Net Lab:

Create Alternative Economic Institutions

Most successful movements employ a meta strategy of 1) protest/direct action; 2) political/legislative strategy and 3) building alternative, prefigurative institutions. One of the most significant ways we can get closer to getting free in 2016 is for some of us to focus on building alternative economic institutions that can build community wealth and provide needed resources for the movement. We should explore the legacy of the role of the black cooperatives in the black liberation movement through reading Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon-Nemhard, following the progress of Cooperation Jackson, and becoming engaged in the work of the New Economy Coalition and the Climate Justice Alliance. We can also become inspired by the examples of solutionary approaches curated by our comrades at Beautiful Solutions and the multi-pronged hyper-local approach of folks like those at Sip and Spoke Bike Kitchen. These resources highlight small efforts at community self-determination and self-reliance that can be connected like many points of light to create a liberatory system of solidarity economics that values labor appropriately and subverts the exploitive, extractive economy that oppresses us currently.

These are just a few answers for ways in which 2016 can be monumental. I’m hopeful and excited. Towards the promised land!