There is also a experiment in england where they are doing something simular with road traffic. Rather than putting up signs to make cars slow down in the village, they took away the signs, changed the road and made it look more like a village, that caused the cars to slow more.

Sometimes it seems to work where when you fight something you make it stronger, like countries with big armies get into more wars than countries that focus on diplomacy.

There is a theory in martial arts where you take the energy and bend with it and turn it around, rather than stand against it.

Its seems with some of these social problems we want to find the way of the reed rather than the way of the oak.

However sometimes its very hard to see the way of the reed.

I might be rambling, but I hope you get what I mean.

oh! brilliant. brilliant. brilliant. i really am thinking about this…

We can enjoy the experience of “sifting through someone else’s fingers.” Rather than panicking, we can stay alert and watch what happens.

I think that accepting and even appreciating uncertainty is one of the most powerful things we can do as human beings.

So happy for you, to be experiencing this in such a deep way. Especially because I think it means that not only are you trusting other communities to break down old borders and unsafe spaces in ways they see fit, but also that you’re trusting yourself, knowing that wherever you next “land” in your work and analysis, you’ll be all right.

Better than all right. You are a beacon, as always.

Thank you for this.

This really resonated for me, as this is a central question to the work I’m doing (and trying to do!) right now.

For me, it keeps coming back to this thought about resources. Not strength. Not being “healed.” But resources. Being marginalized means that there is no such thing as “trauma over.” We are continually facing new situations that can retraumatize us, and that can build on the old traumas.

I remember hearing or reading somewhere that a function of community is that when a person faces trauma, the community around them swoops in, closing around the person to help contain and process that trauma. And without that community to process that trauma, a person instead stores that trauma within their body. That contrast stands out for me so much: trauma processed in community vs. trauma stored within the [individual] body.

Indirectly, quizas, what I’m trying to get at is that we may lack resources such as money and we may face danger emotionally and physically that makes our work (and, hell, our very living) so very hard. But what are our resources?

I know that I am a survivor. I have *survived*. And I know that the other folks I meet–they are survivors too. Their stories tell tales of great strength, great resourcefulness, great creativity. And when we see ourselves as survivors, as resourceful and creative and *resilient*, I think that changes us. And when we come together based on our shared *strengths* instead of our shared *victimizations* then I see us change.

I see us taking risks, engaging in acts and relationships that we have run from in the past because we know that we are survivors. We are strong, we are resilient. We know when to not engage, and we know when to engage. And we know that any words that come out of a white woman’s mouth–they may sting and they may bite and they may even leave a nasty mark. But ultimately. We will *survive*. And we will become stronger for it.

And that, I think, makes all the difference. It allows us to embrace complexity instead of dividing the world [falsely] into “safe” and “unsafe.” There was a time that if it had the label “WOC” in it, I deemed it safe. And if it was a “white” thing/space/person, I deemed it unsafe.

Then life got complex, especially organizing with other WOC and seeing problematic, oppressive dynamics get replicated.

When we are able to embrace complexity, we are more able to fully integrate all the parts of ourselves, even the parts that we deem “bad.” I learn to embrace the white part of my heritage and to integrate it into my understanding of myself. I learn to look at the complexity of my class heritage and current situation and begin to heal the shame and deathly fear of poverty and to appreciate the opportunities/”privileges” I’ve enjoyed. I learn to love my son more fully and to embrace his masculinity and enjoy him as a male human.

And I am able to experience the most joyful, fulfilling, and challenging relationships, sometimes with people I really REALLY didn’t expect to be able to be in relationship with. Both in organizing and in my personal life.

reading this… i am crying. i’ve been crying a lot lately, dealing with so many feelings, addressing so much trauma, trying to work thru so many issues. i don’t know that i can deal with this right now because i have the pressing, immediate, burden and unpacking of rape/abuse/emotional betrayal/mental torture/erasement/debasement etc of the past 8 years that are currently quite literally killing me. but i wanna come back to this too. because i know i need it, i know our communities need it, i know everything you are saying here is true and that it is growth and steps, and that i want to take these steps contigo, in love & lucha, siempre a tu lado. gracias!

i don’t know what to do about what happened that day at the amc (or before amc actually.) still want to believe in good faith even though i know i am naive. how can some people feel so much love and responsibility to other people and then other people not feel that or even see how they are creating unsafe situations? i don’t get it, except lines of community and solidarity are still being created and in flux. but how come all our definitions of community are so different? and how do we move beyond survival, while recognizing that people gotta do what they have to do? maia once said something about our lack of homogeneity being our strength and i beleive that, just so many questions.

and on white women… my partner at the truth and reconciltation workshop was a white woman. we had the same triggers and similar hurts— white straight men. still unpacking this but again, maybe all the lines aren’t that clear.

–

Sometimes I feel like I am struggling with myself to say, “I have to stay the fuck out of their way,” while they’re struggling with themselves to say, “We have to let her in”. I feel like if both sides struggle in both directions we’ll eventually pull the barrier down, because we are protected and rewarded by each other’s struggle.

Also, this bit:

“Or I could say–she knows what her community needs better than I do–and then I could TRUST that her community has ways to hold her accountable. That maybe in assuming alliances between women of color, it becomes really really easy for me to assume that this woman owes accountability TO ME and to the WOC in the room–rather than to HER COMMUNITY. which is not me, even if we are all people of color and poor and…”

…is way past my level of analysis, which is probably why I feel such a foolhardy urge to engage with it. It reminds me of Lisa’s “We Are the Daughters” from the Speak! album – “[We were] the ones who knew community by faith, street, and fringe living – not by gathering, similarity, or food.” It’s true – community and common identity aren’t necessarily synonymous. Like you said, that falls apart quick when we consider what aspects of identity are counted and what ones aren’t. And as much as I sometimes cringe at someone’s politics, I’m not the one who really needs or is entitled to demand to see the fruits of their self-scrutiny.

And yet! I feel like there *is* some accountability in that room. I see Venn diagrams too – I see that while one person’s hood is not mine (and vice versa) and therefore that person is not accountable to mine and I am not accountable to their’s, sometimes we might step into a community together where mutual accountability does apply. And that community might be a conference room at the AMC.

Now, sitting in the AMC room, I might not be obligated to account for, for example, how I manage my privilege at my “real life” work or whatever, but I *am* accountable for what I do and say in that conference room, and if I say something that makes someone else feel unsafe with me, uncertain if they can trust me, I *will* feel accountable to them, even if the community I actually work in thinks I’m the messiah come early.

Because it might *matter*, in that conference room, if we are able to basically trust each other. It might have real implications on what gets done in that room and how people feel about it. Maybe it won’t matter as much as a bona fide community, but still. If that space has the potential for us to do/make something good together, or (inversely) to hurt each other, I think accountability comes with the territory.

On the polarized other hand, I say that with relative comfort because I’ll always be, pretty much, in the role of being accountable to others and very rarely in my existence will I ever have to actually call on others to be accountable to me. If someone makes an “off” comment and it freaks me out, am I actually going to go up to them and be like, “Hey, I am worried there is something wrong with your politics that might negatively affect people in your community, could you please reassure me even though I have nothing whatsoever to do with your community just so I know that I can stop glaring at you and connect with you during this session?” That doesn’t seem right either.

I guess, bfp, you had it right on – maybe it comes down to trust. Trust that either they know what they’re doing or that their community has mechanisms in place for accountability and self-work. But it’s so hard to swallow that kneejerk reaction. It’s so hard to not want to grill someone on what exactly they meant and where they stand. I feel like the snooty lady chasing after some passerby shouting shrilly “ExcUUUUUse me!” When, how, where, and for what are we accountable to each other? How does the effect the mechanism of “calling out”, whatever THAT means?

I don’t know, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I feel like everyone has sort of been lifted up and dropped into a new place, where the question everyone asks is not “what is the problem” or “what is at fault” but HOW DO WE MAKE THIS WORLD? How do we manage the space and differences between all the yous and mes to communify social justice?

I feel like I’m on the cutting edge – or an unfamiliar horizon – and it’s very, very exciting. I feel the urge to say “happy anniversary” to you or some other cultural variation of “welcome + congratulations + hurray” but it doesn’t even make sense. Hitting submit before the pre-emptive regret kicks in.

I come from communities to long ago torn apart, that for too long had no choice but to invest in surviving, and so forgetting and denial was the best medicine. I am grateful for the privileges I have that grant me access to ideas and words, study and reflection that my communities didn’t/couldn’t access. Centered in my intersection of contradicting experiences, I choose to (at my own pace)undo the bordered walls I built that kept me safe. The undoing is powerful, and in the movement I find myself resilient and ready to remember my connection with all that is. The beautiful pain, the wretched joy, and everything in between. All of it, mine. Ours.

I’m not too tech culture savvie about how to share or if appropriate to share links to posts in comments – anyway, I ran into this post about Buddhist teachings this morning and was impressed with the clear surfacing of tensions – a la GA spiritual activist style. http://paramecw.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/ego-a-go-go/