In This Moment, Communion is a Radical Act

“There can be no love without justice.”

I will be working on a post soon so that people can have access to petitions to sign, as well as books to read, shows/movies to watch etc, and which places still need donations. I am going to try and amplify what I've already seen written so that people can have access to it and do some self-education. Right now, it's more important to listen to what black people are asking us to do, and do our own work on how to dismantle the systematic racism in our own lives, and then do the work on what our role as allies is going to be in dismantling the system itself.

One book that I read not too long ago keeps jumping out to me as something that hits particularly close to home in the context of everything that is happening right now. Communion, by Bell Hooks, is an incredible book for learning the importance of love and feminine connection in times such as these.

With all the marches I've been on, I've been struck by how the majority of the activism and grassroots work is being led by women, and some still high school students. I'm amazed at the energy, bravery, and tenacity they have to stand up for their community, and take on the mantle of responsibility. I have seen how their organizing efforts have centered on love and community, and of creating cadres of accountability and sisterhood. Under the mantle of patriarchy, love has always been seen as women's work, as the responsibility of the feminine to safeguard and nurture emotions and connections. That love was always seen as secondary in terms of value to the more emphasized 'logic' and 'reasoning' abilities of men, and thus have been ignored or belittled. And yet in this time of crisis we see that love pouring out. We see it through the mothers who are mourning for their sons over and over again, taken too soon, or in George Floyd’s final words calling out for his own mother, or in the words of his daughter, when she exclaimed that her daddy changed the world. We see it in the way that communities have gathered around female leaders who've been able to clearly articulate how care and compassion are the foundations to the fight to abolish racism and end police brutality. We see it in the women who've stepped up to bring medical supplies, water, and snacks to protests, to the nurses who are going to protests to take care of the injured and wash tear gas out of people's eyes.

If women are the ones who are taught to be experts on love, it is no wonder they are leading the revolution. It is no wonder that many are writing the literature we are consuming on a day to day basis on twitter or instagram, whether it is Layla F Saad, or even Block Thread Queen, a digital sex worker who is fighting racism within the adult industry by calling out the perpetrators and bringing them up on bad behavior while also uplifting and encouraging people to financially donate to black female sex workers who are struggling. I'm seeing black women on twitter and instagram holding live checking-in sessions, in which they hold safe spaces for people to find respite if their struggling, or to find communion if they're feeling alone in the spaces. While Hooks wrote in her book "there can be no love without justice," I think the exact opposite is true as well. Without love, how do we know what is fair and what is not? It is only with a deep and profound caring that we can center goodness and kindness and love as the central pillars in our fight against fascism and systematic violence.

This fight we are fighting, it is bearable because when we fight, we see the love, the strength, and the joy it creates. Everything becomes bearable with love. The fight becomes sustainable with love. And it is the black women who are bringing it. They are healing their communities with love while they are fighting for Black Lives Matter. It is important that we respect that community. That as white people, we do not try to infiltrate the intimate spaces that were not created for us, while sharing and amplifying the spaces that were. To respect the love that has been carefully tended and fostered, and to amplify and echo it.

I keep coming back to this book, to the idea that women are given this idea that we are inherently better at love while simultaneously told that love and feelings are 'silly' and we ran with it. We created powerful systems and communities to sustain our families, and more broadly, our societies. While many of us are at a loss as to how we can contribute, take a step back and see that these systems we are trying to tear down are built on the assumption that love trumps power. But in uncertain times such as these, we see the opposite is true. While people expected mobs and rioting as the coronavirus sank its fangs in, what we saw was a lot of cooperation, generosity, and kindness. We saw people mobilizing to help the needy in their community, and to take extra precautions to try and protect the most vulnerable. So too during the BLM protests. When unemployment is at a record-breaking high in this country, countless numbers people have found ways to donate millions to support grieving families, grassroots organizations, bail funds, and mutual aid funds. People have risked getting coronavirus because it was more important to protect and protest for black lives to matter. There is love here, and the love is strong.

Many of us are new to activism, and many of us are unsure of how to go about it. However we've been trained our whole lives for this moment. We've been taught to love and to cherish and foster that communion. As this movement stretches from it's beginning decades ago into a new era of redoubled energy and passion, we can create sustainability by fostering community around it, and by giving it love.

Like I said above, I'll be posting more links about ways to help, but I also invite you to post your own, or ways that you are supporting your communities through this. I'll leave this off then with one of my favorite quotes from Bell Hooks (really should be reading her if you haven't already).

“Women who choose love must be wise, daring, and courageous. All around us the culture of lovelessness mocks our quest for love. Wisdom is needed if we would restore love to its rightful place as a heroic journey, arduous, difficult-more vital to human survival and development on planet earth than going off to slay mythical dragons, to ravage and conquer others with war or all other forms of violence that are like war. Wisdom is needed if we are to demand that our culture acknowledge the journey to love as a grand, magical, life-transforming, thrilling risky adventure.”