This is the third letter in the series of letters to people who inspire my theology and world view.
Dear Mia,
I love Sarah Schulman’s work. She believes, like you, that “[c]hange does not start in the mainstream…the most effective ways to make social change are from the subcultures and counter-cultures.” You once said that we often crave the very things that scare us: love, community, belonging, vulnerability, trust, accountability, family. It reminds me of that James Baldwin quote: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without, and knows we cannot live within.”
I am enamored with Loretta Pyles’ idea “to create spaces where regular people come together in their communities in a way that resists traditional capitalist and social service models and cultures of control, creating...‘communities of the heart.’” Add the idea of Wekesa Madzimoyo’s warrior-healer as “liberating leadership [that] shifts the focus from an out-front warrior-hero who leads the charge to a warrior-healer who co-creates the conditions for the community to discover its power and address its complex challenges.”
Of course, I don’t have to explain this to you. You are involved with some of the most innovative Transformational Justice work going on. I love the idea of Transformational Justice, but I still struggle to take off my “mask.” And as you so eloquently point out:
We have to work to transform the world, but we can only do that effectively if we can work to transform ourselves and our relationships with each other at the same time. Because our work depends on us and our relationships with each other. We will all be faced with moments when we have the opportunity to risk lowering our masks—to risk true vulnerability with each other. Those moments when we have a chance to soften and let someone else in and let ourselves out. Those moments when we risk being hurt or having our hearts broken or bruised. Those moments when we can feel just how ill-fitting our masks really are.
When I first encountered your suggestion that Transformative Justice starts with self-accountability and how we must be accountable to the harms we cause ourselves, it rocked me. You point out that most of us are in abusive relationships with ourselves, so that is where we need to start building trust and generosity. Creating that self-accountability is how we “lay the groundwork” for social change. I have so thoroughly absorbed the colonial violence of our culture that it is in the very thoughts I have about myself and the very core of how I treat myself. One of my challenges in shifting away from punitive culture is recognizing and shifting the shaming and judgemental foundations I carry for myself and being self aware of how those carry into my communities. I am grateful when you recognize that this is a skill, a practice, and a muscle we can strengthen. I agree that, “the transforming love we need...to do our work is dependent on our relationships.”
I have been attempting to bring the practices of Transformative Justice to my spiritual home. We are a faith that covenants together, which is already a basic step towards models of accountability. And we do carry many life-affirming theologies that create a foundation for the work where “[g]ood religious communities convert people to the way of life our society needs to move to: from believing that violence is redemptive to practicing justice and compassion; from going it alone to giving and receiving care from others; from isolating oneself in individualism to sharing work on behalf of the common good.” However, I must admit that there are times when I see that working within any religious institution may be complete folly. I think Tolstoy may have been on to something when he claimed that it is necessary to be outside the system in order to be conscientious.
I am struck by models such as the National Association of Colored Women who “made no move to standardize their activities...groups and programs evolved out of the needs of the immediate communities.” This is reflected in the most successful movements today such as BLM and your Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: local, relational, adaptive, and emergent. That is the opposite of a religious institution, which tends to be national, inflexible, and static.
I am in the liminal space where I understand that there are “no personal solutions to social problems,” while I am also figuring out that there is still a necessity for personal work and accountability to happen in order to effectively be able to work within sub and counter cultures that are tackling social problems. Obviously, I do not have it all figured out, but I am so grateful that there are folx like you who are taking off their mask for the benefit of all of us.
All the best,
Beth
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