Disrupting the Pattern: A Call for Love and Solidarity
by the amazing ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN
This is my emergent strategy thinking on the conflict and attacks happening on and in Black movement right now. I hope it serves us all.
I love you, Black woman.
I have been doing the work of holding movements for radical social and environmental change for over two decades, and I realized this morning that I cannot think of one Black woman leader who I haven’t seen gossiped on, mistreated, disrespected, lied on, and violated at the level of reputation or privacy – all while being overworked and underpaid, or unpaid.
Observing the pattern of Black women under attack is not new, so what’s been unfolding with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors feels devastating in a familiar way. You have probably seen it – white supremacists doxxed her, meaning they shared her address and images of her home, putting her and her family in grave danger. And they spread misinformation that makes it appear she is financially untrustworthy. They were able to do this, in part, because of conflict within Black movement, including disagreements about structure and money and political orientation.
Right now it’s Patrisse. But I’ve observed disinformation campaigns on so many Black women, especially those in executive director roles or positions of visible movement leadership, that if I began to name them we would be here all night. I include myself in this observation.
My general approach has been: find whatever lesson is here, but don’t feed these untruthful narratives with public attention. Because what we pay attention to grows.
But I am learning that what we ignore can also grow, like a cancer or any other quiet, internal dis-ease. This disease of suspicion directed towards Black women leaders has spread and created such a toxic space in movements that it is sometimes hard to remember we are here for liberation, for solidarity against common ideological enemies, for love, for life. I want to bring my, and our, attention to where we need to grow and heal, to where we need to use a shift in our attention to disrupt this pattern of pain.
I, a writer who can express almost anything I think, cannot find words for how painful this pattern is…
BIO: “adrienne maree brown (she/they) is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation. adrienne is the NYT-bestselling author/editor of several published texts, a ritual singer-songwriter, co-generator of the Lineages of Change Tarot Deck, and co-creator/host of How to Survive the End of the World podcast with Autumn Brown. adrienne’s latest book Loving Corrections is now available from AK Press.”
