What comes after Whiteness?

Re-imagining identity beyond race... for a world where everyone belongs

wild and wonderful rainbow sunset in my hometown of Ashland, Oregon

To learn about Whiteness as a White person is to confront two significant challenges. The first is the psychic pain of reckoning with what it means to be White. As Garrett Bucks puts it in his vulnerable and refreshingly candid new memoir:

Noticing your Whiteness requires wrestling, even for just a second, with our place in a caste system, our place in a hierarchy of domination. And that’s uncomfortable! 

If you make it through this difficult place—and many do not—a second and more difficult dilemma awaits. As Noel Ignatiev put it:

Imagine the loneliness of those who, born to a group they regard as unjust and oppressive and not wanting to be part of that group, are left on their own to figure their way out.

I don’t have to imagine: that’s me. This is the problem: there is at present no exit from Whiteness, no offramp to liberation. In grappling with this dilemma, I experience a tension between two truths:

1. Race is a social construct which we made up…

2. And race is a very real social phenomenon that structures and permeates our lives on a daily basis.

So I feel/felt torn: to identify as “White” feels to me like accepting a logic that I reject; it is to accept the lie that is race. But to deny my Whiteness is to put on blinders and to ignore the harsh realities of a society structured around that lie.

To be clear: race is with us for the foreseeable future; any path forward must reckon with that reality. And: a future without white supremacy must be a future without whiteness… and therefore without race. I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest barriers to dismantling white supremacy is our inability to imagine what replaces it. More specifically: it is our inability to imagine post-racial identities. What comes after Whiteness?

Today I want to explore this question, and some of the deeply fraught and fundamental tensions that sit at the heart of it.

---

Reconstruction or abolition?

Let me start with a core distinction: when I am talking about “Whiteness” I am not talking about White people. Whiteness is the ideology, born out of white supremacy; that logic is then applied to people… without our consent. Noel Ignatiev, in many ways the godfather of the movement to abolish whiteness, explains:

The white race is a club. Certain people are enrolled in it at birth, without their consent, and brought up according to its rules.

I want to be free. I want to reclaim agency in how I self-define… and that means divesting from Whiteness. And more: it means creating something new, something that doesn’t yet exist.

Here’s how I understand the logic flow:

1. Race is a social construct which we made up… as a way of understanding/ordering social relations, it is only a few hundred years old.

2. Whiteness was established in order to create Blackness, as a way to justify and enable domination.

3. Thus Whiteness is inseparable from domination: the category only has meaning as a tool for domination.

4. Because we made it up—the concept of race in general, and the category of “Whiteness” in particular—therefore we can unmake it.

5. Our goal is to get rid of supremacy in all its forms: belonging is incompatible with domination.

6. We can’t move from domination to belonging while maintaining a concept that only exists based on domination. Therefore, we have to rid Whiteness of supremacy. Broadly speaking, there are two ways to do this:

   1. Evacuate Whiteness of its association with domination.

   2. Abolish Whiteness.

I’m framing this choice as reconstruction vs abolition. Reconstruction begs two questions: is it possible, and is it desirable? The answer to both of these questions for me is an emphatic no: why would we want to preserve race (a made up and utterly incoherent phenomenon) as a category of social distinction? In this I’m with Haile Selassie, who famously observed:

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned…

Until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes…

Until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.

I also don’t think it’s possible: it is impossible to understand Whiteness without domination, so to remove domination is to destroy the identity. In this I’m with Mark LeVine, who observed:

One would have better luck taking wetness away from water… than to rip the racism out of whiteness.

Which means our goal must be abolition. As Viewpoint Magazine wrote in 2020 in a compilation of essays exploring this topic:

To abolish white domination means, in fact, to abolish whiteness itself.

What does it mean to abolish Whiteness?

Here’s Ignatiev again:

The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists. Of course we expected bewilderment from people who still think of race as biology. We frequently get letters accusing us of being "racists," just like the KKK, and have even been called a "hate group." ... Our standard response is to draw an analogy with anti-royalism: to oppose monarchy does not mean killing the king; it means getting rid of crowns, thrones, royal titles, etc.

I want to emphasize again, because this is where so many people get hung up: I am interested in eradicating Whiteness, not White people.

In the field of racial studies, various scholars have articulated theories of racial identity formation. My favorite is this integrated model, which traces the process for White people and people of color alike (remember: we are all conscripted into this system and its (il)logic, without our consent).

More recently a model has been circulating adapted from Barnor Hesse’s scholarship (in dialogue with the above) focused specifically on the process of racial awareness among White people:

Image from Slow Factory, building on work by Barnor Hesse

I think both of these models are helpful, and resonate with me personally in different ways. But I have the same problem with each of them: they stop too soon. I’m interested in what comes next: what comes after abolition? If we’re successful in abolishing Whiteness (and if we are to have any chance of building a world where everyone belongs, we must)… what then is my identity? I will be neither “White” nor “abolitionist”… what am I?

I am one of those people who doesn’t get very motivated in opposition. I’m not particularly interested in fighting something; sure I will resist, but it’s not sustainable: ultimately I want to build, not just tear down. Indeed, this is the definition of abolition that I am drawn to, following Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who writes:

Abolition is about presence, not absence. It’s about building life affirming institutions.

Right. So… what are we building?

Beyond abolition: barriers to belonging

Of the many obstacles to finally dismantling white supremacy, I think there are three that feel primary for the purposes of abolishing Whiteness.

1. The reluctance and resistance of White people to do the difficult work of confronting Whiteness, our own relationship to it, and to move through the stages of racial identity development to become White abolitionists.

This is where most discourse focuses, and it’s essential: the only way out is through. If White people do not do this work, we will never abolish Whiteness. And: that work is necessary but insufficient… and I fear our inattention to these next two components actually make the work in #1 more difficult.

2. We haven’t yet imagined what comes after Whiteness. If we White people do the difficult work and join the ranks of White abolitionists… what does victory look like? As we withdraw consent from Whiteness and renounce domination… what is the positive aspirational identity that we are embracing?

This is the question I am most interested in, and which I fear is under-resourced in this moment. Without a positive identity to aspire to, without the invitation of a promised land… I fear too many will continue to avoid the difficult work of racial reckoning. I am very much an “if you build it, they will come” kind of person… and the literature supports this as a theory of behavior change.

As I discussed here, one key to durable social change (cultural transformation, as opposed to fragile reforms that can be undone in the next election cycle), is supporting people in cultivating new aspirational identities. Patrik Edblad summarizes this model of behavior change as: Identity > Goal > Habit. The first question is: who do I want to be? Without something to aspire to, it can be very difficult to motivate behavior change.

But there is a third question that I actually feel fear to even enumerate here, conscious of how fraught this terrain is… and aware of my own racialized identity.

3. Can we abolish Whiteness… while we retain Blackness?

Here is the problem. We created Whiteness in order to create Blackness: they exist as binaries, each defining the other. More to the point: we created Whiteness and therefore defined everything else as “non-white”… the latter always understood as contingent, evolving, and provisional (my favorite treatment of this was the excellent podcast miniseries Seeing White, and in particular this episode). Here’s john a. powell, who is consistently among my favorite thinkers/practitioners in this space:

Blackness is bound up with whiteness—it is already and always present in the white self. It is because whiteness is empty and derivative that it needs the constitutive other for the grounding of its being.

But unlike Whiteness, Blackness as an identity was forged out of pride, out of resistance, out of a refusal both to dominate and to be dominated. Blackness is capacious, abundant, joyful, liberatory: it is the antithesis of Whiteness. Blackness was born out of indigeneity, nurtured and protected in defiance of the colonizing force of Whiteness. john powell again:

The history of blackness has been a cry for freedom.

But this is the rub: if our goal is abolish Whiteness, and with it to relegate to the dustbin of history the concept of race… don’t we also have to let go of Blackness? Isn’t our work mutually reinforcing? If in the world I long for, I will no longer be identifying as White… does that mean you can no longer identify as Black?

The opposite of Whiteness… is Blackness

Whiteness is an exclusionary identity created to implement white supremacy: it is an ideology of domination, constructing an “other” in order to elevate a narrow “we.” The antidote, therefore, must be an inclusive identity predicated on partnership and solidarity.

Last weekend I toured the new Harlem Renaissance exhibit at the Met in NYC, and found myself reflecting. We do actually have a historical precedent for creating a new identity and culture that transcends borders, declines the invitation to domination, and builds solidarity: Blackness.

from The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibit currently at the Met

Blackness didn’t exist until the creation of Whiteness, and the White creators of this noxious ideology endowed Blackness with all of their fears, projections, and hatreds. More: Whiteness made claim to being the only reality, a totalizing framework for understanding life. As Dominique Morrisseau notes:

What’s fundamentally inside of white patriarchal supremacy is the authority to define reality.

People who had never thought of themselves as Black did not have the option to decline the label: they didn’t have the option to consent to conscription into the domination hierarchy of white supremacy. Instead they did something White people could not: they created a new culture inside of Blackness, rejecting the oppressive vision given to them by Whiteness.

The creation of Blackness by Black people was a radical act: the creation of new culture and identity “with cultural values established by the Black community itself.” This global project was unprecedented, linking Black communities around the world: creating a sense of common identity and culture where none had previously existed.

More than that: it seems to me that Afro-descendant people in the Americas are the first non-indigenous culture to construct a culture and identity that explicitly breaks with colonial logic and supremacist paradigms. They were uprooted from land and brought to a place where they were not indigenous. But unlike White settlers, they did not adopt and spread a domination paradigm: unlike White people fleeing Europe, they created a culture in resistance to settler colonialism and the mandates of white supremacy. At some level, Black people retained their indigeneity in creating a new culture, despite being uprooted.

The only way out is through… together

One of the core features of trauma is that it robs us of agency: it denies us choice. This is one of the many traumas of white supremacy: without our consent, it casts White people as oppressors, and people of color as victims.

The ability to self-author our own identities is fundamental to the process of healing from racial trauma: not by denying the past, but by reckoning with it. Just as Black people need to go through a process of understanding how they became Black, so too do White people need to understand how they became White.

Here Black people (and people of color more broadly) have an advantage: they can reclaim Blackness or an identity outside of Whiteness, and construct a proud racial identity: this was the successful project of the Harlem Renaissance—and an ongoing necessity in the face of white supremacy, echoing in contemporary celebrations of Black joy.

White people have no such option: there is no “White pride,” because to take pride in Whiteness is to misunderstand it (or, worse, to understand it and embrace it!) This leaves White people stuck: we are trapped in a racialized identity with no way out. And there is no way for White people to create a new identity alone: it must be a collective effort. Not to save White people from racial reckoning… but to invite us to step toward the liberation on the other side of that reckoning. As john powell puts it:

Whiteness and race must be deconstructed together.

There is a sequencing here… and I think the two goals must proceed in tandem. James Baldwin, perhaps our most trenchant observer of Whiteness as a phenomenon, declares:

As long as you think you’re White, there’s no hope for you. As long as you think you’re White, I’m going to be forced to think I’m Black.

It’s better to watch him say it:

Afro-futurism is an invitation to us all

What if we saw Wakanda as an invitation not only to Black people, but to everyone? To imagine what life might be like if we were never colonized? I tasted a glimpse of this shortly after Black Panther was released back in 2018, at a multiracial movement strategy session I attended at a house in Oakland. Someone made a comment about Wakanda, and without thinking I mimicked the Wakanda salute: the crossed arms of solidarity. I immediately felt self-conscious: uh oh, cultural appropriation! And looked across the room, where at the exact same moment a Black man was doing the same salute: we made eye contact, and he laughed. In that gesture of shared humanity he let me in: expanding the imaginative vision of Blackness—of Wakanda—to include me.

I felt this again in Harlem over the weekend. At multiple times—on the bus, in bars and restaurants, in a jazz club—I found myself the only White person in an entirely Black space. And I felt very viscerally: Blackness is capacious enough to accommodate me. All that is required for me to belong is to check Whiteness at the door: there is no room for domination inside of Blackness (properly understood: of course people of every color are capable of enacting supremacy). Unlike with Whiteness, I wasn’t required to become Black to be accepted by Blackness. This is its transformative power. As Willie James Jennings put it:

We need an assimilation that does not harm but heals.

In my visit to the Met, I also explored the new Afrofuturism exhibit. I deeply appreciated the metaphor of a threshold, a portal into a different type of space: it seems to me this is the doorway we all must step through. A willingness to shed our old identities in order to forge new ones together. To repair: to make reparations for the tremendous harms wrought (and ongoing) by white supremacy. And to grieve: to acknowledge what we all have lost, oppressor and oppressed alike. In that shared grief and commitment to repair lies solidarity… if we are courageous enough to embrace it.

From Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room exhibit currently at the NYC Met

The future belongs to us all

I think there is potential for huge solidarity here: a multiracial project of building belonging… by imagining and co-creating a future that must be post-racial. Sheena Mason puts it simply:

To undo racism, we have to undo our belief in race.

Writing in his provocative 2020 book After Whiteness, Willie James Jennings declares:

We live in a defeated conceptual moment when so many have surrendered their imaginations to working inside the ideas of race, religion, and nation as the most rational way to think collective existence and for peoples to know and announce themselves. It may be impossible to escape these ideas for thinking collective existence given how they are embedded in the world order formed through modern colonialism and enacted through education, but the more urgent question is whether we should continue to surrender our imaginations to them.

I’ll answer the rhetorical question: we must not surrender our imaginations to these tired ideologies. We must free our imaginations in order to free ourselves.

This is the task we now face as a species, and the one I described in launching this newsletter almost five years ago. Our goal is not “multiracial democracy”: that vision is too limited (I love this idea which I encountered via Connie Razza and Angela Peoples in their work on a constructing a belonging narrative for America). Our goal is more capacious: how can we build a world where everyone belongs?

What if we could see Blackness as an invitation to answer that question? The answer is not Blackness itself… or at least, not as conceptualized in reference to race. As Eula Biss notes:

Becoming black is not the answer to the problem of whiteness.

Rather, I see Blackness as pointing the direction to a new creation story, one that honors our differences without reifying them in the illusion of race. Indeed, if we understand the positive articulation of decolonization as a process of re-indigenization… then at some level we all need to aspire to the invitation inherent in Blackness. Recognizing that for the vast majority of us—with the exception of indigenous people still living in their native ancestral land—we must create new culture in a new place. Derek Rasmussen calls this one of the defining tasks of the era: to “build embodied and authentic cultures.”

This to me is the most compelling basis for solidarity: we all have a longing to belong. White people—ourselves told that we didn’t belong in our native lands—made the catastrophic choice to try to purchase belonging for themselves by creating an Other… and we all continue to suffer from that founding sin. As Pat McCabe beautifully said: “Anything taken by force must be remade.”

We now have a choice to follow a different path: one offered by indigenous cultures since time immemorial, and one offered by the reclamation of Blackness. As Bridgit Antoinette Evans says:

The project of our society is to constantly re-imagine how we belong together.

---

I will leave it here for today. This post is intended to call attention to what I see as a major barrier in our work for racial justice: the need for new identities on the other side of Whiteness. And to underscore the collective multiracial nature of this work: White people cannot do it alone.

Beyond the scope of this post—though worthy of inquiry and perhaps future posts—are several questions:

1. What becomes the basis of identity after race? (Gestured at here; I think like all acts of culture creation, it has to go back to our relationship to land and place)

2. How do we get there from here? How do we hold the tension between trying to transcend race even as it structures our lives? (I think there’s inspiration to be taken from similar efforts in the gender space; some concrete ideas are gestured at here).

3. How do we collectively honor the work Black people—and people of color more broadly—have done and are doing to create culture? How do we build upon their foundations without appropriating it or insisting we have to start anew?

I’ve been thinking about this question for a long time… the process of writing has been helpful for me in clarifying my own perspective, even as many questions remain unanswered. I’m curious what resonates, what doesn’t, and if you are aware of promising initiatives doing the work for post-racial world-building.

In community,

Brian

The courage to share your gifts

Belonging requires that we share our full selves... an act of radical vulnerability

beauty, persevering in the face of adversity (from last week’s late snowfall here in southern Oregon)

In last year's post on leadership, I quoted Robin Wall Kimmerer on offering gifts as an act of leadership:

Leaders are the first to offer their gifts.

I had an epiphany last month that makes me want to revisit this sentiment: I’ve come to believe that I drastically underestimated how much courage is required for that seemingly simple task… which seems to me absolutely fundamental to the type of leadership our world urgently needs in this moment.

My epiphany was this: it turns out that I don’t trust other people to see my deepest gifts, and to support me in bringing them to the world. And that lack of trust is getting in the way of what I most want: the kind of deep collaboration that is only possible inside of full belonging.

This mistrust is hard-earned: for most of my life I have felt unseen (the universal experience of non-belonging). In my case this is the paradox of being alone in a crowd: “seen” for those gifts that dominant culture values, and unseen for those gifts that felt most authentic and unique to me.

My epiphany was actually the positive framing of this sentiment: I am finally learning to trust. Letting go of my carefully-guarded gifts in order that I can share them; trusting others to steward them toward what the world most needs. And it feels utterly radical. So today I want to talk about gifts, and what is required to share them with the world.

Here’s my suspicion: the gifts the world needs most—the kind of world where everyone belongs—are also those dominant culture is most likely to try to destroy. I don’t think this is out of malice, or even full consciousness, but rather an intuitive sense that these gifts threaten the dominant paradigm (and they do!) Which means that to nurture our gifts and then offer them to the world is a deeply vulnerable, even dangerous, task. Here’s how I’m thinking about it:

1. All of us have gifts.

2. Our most profound gifts respond to a deep need in the world.

3. By definition, that need is a response to the limitations/failures of existing systems. The Earth, like the human body, is a self-healing system: it produces what it needs to return to equilibrium.

4. The existing system will perceive—correctly!—that these gifts are an attempt to change the system. The system will defend itself, and target these gifts—and those who offer them—for destruction (think the body rejecting the antidote).

5. It is an act of great courage to nurture our gifts in the face of this opposition… and an act of still greater courage to offer our gifts to the world.

6. And yet nurture our gifts we must, and find community to support us in offering them: the world depends on it.

If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, if you find yourself sharing and reflecting on the ideas you encounter here—I invite you to consider practicing the gift economy with me. The next gathering for gift economy subscribers is Tuesday, April 2nd @9am PT.

---

Context for the epiphany: follow the parts back to the whole

My partner Leela was trying to give me some feedback: specifically, she wanted me to be more open to influence. I had invited her into dialogue around an intellectual topic that I was wrestling with, and when she tried to contribute she felt like I hadn’t taken her offering seriously, or been genuinely open to looking at things differently.

I pride myself on being good at receiving feedback: I hold a deep value around centered accountability, and am earnest in my commitment to take on what is mine, and to change behavior where I find myself out of integrity. And yet there was something I wasn’t getting, something that wasn’t landing, and I was feeling frustrated with myself: there was a blockage that I couldn’t get past.

Finally she asked something to the effect of: why are you resisting? Why not just engage with my contribution? I took her question seriously: why not indeed? And then I felt an unexpected flood of emotion and knew that I had finally found the kernel that I’d been looking for.

Lately I’ve been appreciating in a deeper way the radical potential of “parts work,” popularized in recent years through Richard Schwartz’ groundbreaking work with Internal Family Systems. Basically it’s the idea that our “selves” are composed of many different “parts,” each of which advocates for something that is important to us (often born from wounding, to protect us from harm).

In this case the question “why am I resisting” allowed a neglected part of me to emerge to provide the answer: because in the past when I allowed myself to be influenced by others, they often didn’t share my vision or understand my gifts… so to be influenced I ultimately experienced as a form of self-abandonment, as betraying my gifts. So this “part” emerged to protect and defend my gifts from those who couldn’t see them and would—usually inadvertently—destroy them.

What do you do with an idea?

The first time I read this book to my children I choked up and couldn’t get through it; they kept looking at me wondering why I would stop reading. I resonated so deeply with the protagonist, doing their best to nurture their idea (their gift) in the face of a world that simply did not understand.

from Kobi Yamada’s brilliant What do you do with an Idea?

There is a tremendous loneliness in nurturing a gift that others don’t see. This is the first barrier, and one many of us never make it past: the deep courage to trust that our gift is real, even when others don’t see it. It is scary, and vulnerable: it leaves us open to being wounded. Even those who love us, fearing that we will be shamed, encourage us not to cultivate our gifts (this is the dynamic so searingly illustrated in the Pixar short Float).

We tell ourselves this seductive lie: if I don’t create, then my gift can’t be stolen or denied. Audre Lorde wrote brilliantly of this dilemma in her classic “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” observing in dialogue with herself:

Of course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger…

[But] my silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you…

In this way alone we can survive, by taking part in a process of life that is creative and continuing, that is growth.

I’m not even sure I fully admitted to myself that I had a gift. I felt it, deeply, intuitively. But because that intuition was so rarely reflected back to me, it felt unreal. I chose a middle path, neither wholeheartedly embracing it nor denying it. Instead I chose to protect and nurture my gift in secret, keeping it safe even from my full consciousness.

The earth needs our gifts

If we are to contribute to life, eventually we must share our gifts with the world… for that is why we have them. I think of our gifts as endowed to us from Earth… with an attendant responsibility to share them back. Every being has its role in the ecosystem; to withhold our gifts is to rob the world of our presence: it is to be complicit in our own non-belonging.

I love this challenge from Xavier Dagba, pointing to the fear we must confront. This one stung: I see my fear as grounded in humility; he suggests that in fact it’s the opposite.

As James Clear said:

There is no substitute for courage. At some point, you have to make the choice.

And yet the first offerings almost never go well: systems repel change; the status quo has fierce defenders. Usually the gap between our gift and the world’s acceptance is too far: it can’t be bridged in the first effort. Which means that our first task of necessity is done alone: nurturing our gift in private. This is an act of great courage: the etymology reminding us that courage comes from the heart. I’m drawn to the metaphor of a secret garden: a place we nurture the seed of our gift, safe from a world that would deny its beauty.

Belonging requires us to share our gifts

There is a paradox at play here: it seems to me that a sense of belonging is required to fully unlock our gifts. And: to have our gifts acknowledged and received is to experience belonging. Pat McCabe (Woman Stands Shining) said something in Medellin last year that landed in me with a visceral oomph. She said:

A big part of belonging is having your expressed love received. I start feeling ill if I have no place to bring my love where it can be received.

Mmm I feel that in my body: a longing to express my love, to share my gifts with the world… AND for them to be received. Is there any pain more agonizing than unrequited love?

A gift properly understood requires two parties: the giver, and the receiver. For the gift to be honored, it must be received. So the second task is to find someone to receive the gift. I think of this as “finding the other others”: we are deeply relational beings, and cannot engage with the world alone. We have to find support, to resource ourselves for the long journey ahead. This too requires great persistence and courage: I think of all the writers whose work is finally accepted (their gifts recognized) after many rejections… or even posthumously.

This is inviting a select few into my secret garden, to behold the seed that has now begun to sprout. We must exercise great discernment with this invitation: those who cannot behold its beauty may destroy it… or undermine our fragile courage in continuing to nurture its growth. If they can appreciate its beauty, I relax; if not, I usher them out again. It’s that fine line: not seeking validation/affirmation outside myself… and yet being honest about the need to feel seen and appreciated.

Speaking for my own experience… I’m not sure it’s possible to share my gift with the world without first experiencing it being received by a few people who I trust, who can assure me that I’m not crazy. I have been deeply nourished in recent years by encountering people with whom I have finally felt safe enough to share my full gifts… and to have those gifts seen, held, and even celebrated. I experience it with an almost-giddiness: a palpable sense of relief in my body, of lightness, of letting go of the burden I have carried for so long.

This is the breathtaking—and essential—power of being seen. With that added encouragement (again I love the etymology, the idea of someone else supporting our heart), we are finally ready to answer the call: to share our gifts.

Gifts need to be channeled

A couple years ago friend and Building Belonging member JD Nasaw led a somatic coaching exercise that unlocked a metaphor in me: I felt my gift as a wall of water… of the Earth, and destined for the sea. For too long it’s been dammed up by dominant culture, held back… and I won’t be complicit in holding back my gifts any longer. But to just unleash the torrent is dangerous: I could wash away those downstream. I need to be channeled effectively, by those who can see and understand my gift and guide it toward its highest use (which I cannot see alone).

This is the most perilous point, because at the very moment when I feel most vulnerable—finally ready to face the world—I must ask others to co-hold my gifts. This too is Earth’s lesson: no being is an island, no gifts exist in isolation. To realize my potential is to accept the influence of others, to allow my gifts to be shaped in the offering: this is the dialogue between giver and receiver. To bridge that final gap to connect with the world I need help; I must rely on others to share my gifts.

Intellectually I know I can’t bring my gifts to fruition alone… I’m reminded of that proverb “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” I understand that I can’t get where I want to go alone… but to entrust others with my gifts is almost more than I can bear. I’m reminded of this stunning definition of “trust” from Charles Feltman (hat-tip to Beth Tener for pointing me to it):

Trust is defined as choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.

This for me has been the hardest part. My entire life experience has taught me to protect and defend my gifts, to not allow others access for fear they might kill the seed I have been so carefully nurturing. But now my work requires a fundamentally different energetic. I have received the gift of being seen: I now trust in a deeper way that my gift is meant for the world. My garden wasn’t meant to be walled off; nature’s beauty and bounty is intended to be shared. And honestly: I’m not that good of a gardener. I’m proud I kept this seed alive… but I know I need help.

Part of my wounding is a fear of being “too much”: too big, too fast-paced, too cerebral, too overwhelming. While I don’t believe that I am too much… I do recognize that others can experience me that way, and I feel it as a barrier to connection. And: I do fear that I can’t effectively channel my bigness.

For the last 15 years I’ve played elite co-ed Ultimate frisbee. As a 200-pound person, I have to be extra careful with my body—often running at full speed—not to inadvertently injure fellow players who might be half my weight. I feel confident doing that, with experience honed from a lifetime playing competitive sports in contact with a diverse spectrum of bodies.

But in my professional work, I don’t have that same confidence. I know I have a gift… but I don’t yet trust myself to wield it effectively: the degree of difficulty is simply too high. I’m ill-prepared; I don’t have the practice of entrusting my gift to others and having it well-held.

“The deepest form of human wisdom is mutual influencing”

I haven’t been able to get this line out of my head since I heard Miki Kashtan say it. It landed in me both with the ring of truth, and tapped into a deep longing: to share my gifts not as an end, but as a beginning. The type of mutual influencing I yearn for is the fullest expression of my gifts… interacting with the fullest expression of yours. To create something new that wasn’t possible in each of us alone. That form of generativity, that higher synthesis... is what the world needs.

I think this is what we’re all seeking… but so few of us have the felt experience. People collaborate all the time, but usually in structured hierarchical teams: with bosses and subordinates (ugh I wince at the language of domination). And usually the gifts we are paid to contribute aren’t actually our deepest gifts: what capitalism values and what the world needs are usually two very different things.

An increasing focus in my work of late is trying to create the conditions where that kind of mutual influencing is possible. While I have focused thus far on network weaving (trying to bring specific gifts into dialogue) and on creating the space for transformation (facilitated containers)… I now think I’ve under-invested in creating the conditions for individuals to really feel their gifts and to have those gifts be seen.

I fear we’re leaving potential on the table because we don’t have the individual practice of sharing our gifts from a place of trust and belonging… so we (I!) hold back.

The radical power of compersion

I want to bring one more concept in here: I think there’s something powerful about building the capacity for compersion: to celebrate others in the fullest expression of their gifts. [The term comes to us from the polyamorous community, who lamented the lack of a term for what is often called “the opposite of jealousy”].

Indeed, this is one of my gifts: ease and delight in compersion. I love experiencing other people’s gifts, and their power: I find it inspiring. When I witness others in their fullness, it evokes in me a longing to join them, to access my fullness. I experience envy: I want what they have. I have tended to underestimate that for most people compersion is incredibly difficult: we’ve been socialized into scarcity, hierarchy, and comparison. Too often my efforts to share my gifts have been seen not as an invitation but as a threat, or as judgement.

Friend and leadership coach Andrea Mignolo captured this phenomenon with touching vulnerability:

Whenever I met someone who lived on that frequency, connected to the flow of life in ways I longed for, I felt shame. Shame for having lost touch with this part of myself and shame that I didn’t know if I could connect with it again.

There is work here on both sides: the person shining their light (sharing their gifts) also has to resist internalizing the projected shame of those who haven’t yet given themselves permission to value and share their own gifts. As this random internet user put it:

(I would be a bit more generous: people who have learned that they have to be performative in order to feel safe)

Work in progress for me: to do my best to close the gap between my intent and my impact, to support people in feeling my invitation. Marie Thouin, a leading researcher on compersion, explains the promise:

The bottom line… is to try to cultivate our own garden, and remember that another person’s success is ultimately a win for the collective. Noticing the places where this is particularly difficult to do can help us identify the bottlenecks where there is room for us to grow, heal, connect, and love more.

Right: it’s recognizing that the world needs everyone to show up in their full authenticity, and to share their gifts. Kids do this effortlessly, if we can only help them properly label their emotions. A couple years ago when my kids were not yet 5 and 7, I explained how I understand and differentiate the concepts of envy, jealousy and compersion. I understand envy as “I want what you have.” I understand compersion as: “I’m happy for what you have.” And I understand jealousy in two different ways: invidious jealousy is “I want what you have, and I don’t want you to have it.” Or more commonly, jealousy is: “I’m afraid of losing something I have.”

It really bothers me that dominant culture tells us we’re feeling jealous when almost always we’re feeling envious… and usually also compersive. When I finished explaining the concepts, my 4.5 year-old said something to the effect of: “My friend has this beautiful dress from Encanto and I was happy for her but also I wanted it. I was feeling envy and compersion.” I laughed, and my 6.5 year-old chimed in to add: “There should be a word for envy plus compersion. Because I think we usually feel those together. How about compenvy?” And there it is! The wisdom of youth: we now use the term “compenvious” frequently in our household… and it helps us see how rare jealousy really is… until it’s socialized into us.

---

I want to close with this line from Chris Corrigan, quoting and building on Thomas Arthur:

“If you have a gift, give it now.” This is not the time for any of us to hoard or hold on to things that can benefit all of us, so give your gifts with energy and unconditional love.

Easier said than done: bon courage!

I’ll leave it here for today. As with most of my writing, this is my own effort to integrate an epiphany that has been slowly moving into my body… I’m curious if it resonates, and how you are cultivating the courage to share your most profound gifts. I bounced back and forth between the universal “we” the more vulnerable “I”; thanks to my wife Jennifer for encouraging me to try to stay with my vulnerable self. Work in progress for me, alas. Learning to trust… to stretch into the tantalizing promise of mutual influencing.

I hope to see many of you on April 2nd in our next monthly subscribers’ gathering!

Electoral politics and the promise of democracy

The limits and potential of elections as a tool for transformation

Dark or light? Salish Sea sunset, December 2023

2024 is the single biggest year for elections in history, affecting over half of the world’s population. In addition to the US and EU, this includes many of the most populous and politically significant countries on the planet, with national elections in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan (this week!), Bangladesh, South Africa, and the UK… in addition to a small-but-important election in Taiwan (not to mention the barest pretense of “elections” in countries like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela). At stake are dramatically different visions for our shared future.

So today I want to talk about electoral politics: their potential, their limitations, and some thoughts on how to orient toward this pivotal year. I want to do so in part by focusing on four elections from 2023 that I see as emblematic of the global moment we are in, and possible paths we can take: in Guatemala, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Poland.

TL;DR: Elections matter; and they are not the most important way we can build democracy. Elections serve three purposes, in my view; this post focuses primarily on the first.

1. Building a movement for transformation. Elections are an opportunity to tell a story, to dramatize and make sense of people’s experience and invite them into action. The transformative potential of electoral politics lies primarily in symbolic, cultural, and narrative power. A figure like Donald Trump can almost singlehandedly reshape an entire national narrative and influence the direction of politics for a generation to come.

2. Consolidating gains: steering the mighty ship of state. This also really matters: while I don’t think that institutions are the primary or most useful vehicle for transformation, they absolutely guide and shape incentives and therefore behavior. Changing those incentives, policies, and rules can have massive long-term impacts that can be transformational (e.g. imagine if we had quality universal health care, paid family leave, or guaranteed basic income). As Naomi Klein put it: “I don’t think we can surrender the terrain of the state.”

3. Harm reduction and mitigation. The current slate of elections, in general, do not lead us toward a better future: they prevent us from a worse future. And that matters: we must protect the fragile democracy that we do have, and prevent further backsliding on core rights (abortion, LGBT, a quality education, etc.)

If you value these inquiries—I invite you to consider practicing the gift economy with me. The next gathering for gift economy subscribers is Wednesday, March 6th @9:00 am PT.

---

I have in mind two audiences for this post. My liberal reformist friends, who think electoral politics are all that matters, and who are nervous about transformation. To them I say: I agree that elections matter, but not as much as you think they do, or for the reasons you think they do. And: I invite you to join us in working for transformation. If you want us to vote… join us in creating something worth voting for.

And my progressive/radical friends, who disdain electoral politics as a waste of time. To them I say: I agree that electoral politics aren’t the highest/best use of our time and energy—building movements is far more important. And: elections still matter, both in the present to mitigate harm and in the future as a strategy for transformation that we must attend to.

---

Reform vs Transformation: are we broken?

In 2022 Alana Newhouse coined the term “Brokenism” in a way that unlocked something for me. It was this insight:

The most vital debate in America today is between those who believe there is something fundamentally broken in America, and that it’s an emergency, and those who do not.

Yes, that’s it. I’ve long felt that the Left/Right dichotomy misses the point, and Alana gave language to what I’ve been sensing. I would go further and extend her observation to apply to the whole world: it feels important to me to emphasize that this is NOT a uniquely American phenomenon. We are living through an era with more widespread human protest around the globe than at any time in history… as I chronicled here back in 2019, even before the pandemic and George Floyd.

I titled this section “reform vs transformation” because I think the implications of this assessment are profound. If things are fundamentally fine, then reform is an appropriate response: calls for revolution seem hyperbolic or even dangerous. If in fact everything is on fire, then it is the incrementalist approach that feels out of touch.

It is this difference that explains the deep divide between existing elites (the center-left and center-right coalitions that have shaped global politics over the last 40 years) and those emerging to challenge those elites and claim to represent the people: both the ascendant far-right populism of people like Trump, and the progressive populism of people like Bernie.

It is playing out right now inside the Democratic Party itself. In a recent piece on the identity crisis in the Democratic Party, Ezra Klein quoted Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz:

The coalition we have has people who basically want nothing to change and people who want everything to change.

Yes. That’s it. As far as most people around the world are concerned, the debate is over: the single biggest trend in global politics over the last 40 years in my mind is the widespread abandonment of the “center” as people flee to the poles in search of answers that seem adequate to the moment (the MAGA wing already succeeded in conquering the Republican party: reactionary revolution over conservative moderation). As I discussed in this post on polarization:

Today the poles agree on two things: the current system isn’t working, and radical change is needed.

It’s important to note that this feeling of “brokenness” is a felt sense: it is visceral. We can search for data to confirm our impressions, but it lives in us. The Democratic party can tell us that the economy is booming and that unemployment is low… but we still feel unshakeable precarity. As one person Alana interviewed declared:

The one thing I know that I fundamentally do believe is the premise of your piece, that the dominant institutions of American life—in education, in the arts, in politics—are either totally broken or so weak or corrupt that they’re becoming irrelevant. In a way, the only thing I know that I believe in is … brokenness.

I was always struck that the 2005 movie V for Vendetta ended up being a rallying cry for both the Left and the Right (the latter more surprising as it is a clear critique of fascism/authoritarianism), but the unifying thread is V’s statement in his iconic speech: “The truth is, there is something terribly wrong.”

I assume that most of my readers share my assessment that we are living in a moment that calls for transformation. I believe that both the neoliberal status quo and the rise of ethno-nationalism are dead-ends: there is no path to a sustainable future in either of them. While I think ethno-nationalism is far worse, it’s worth noting that many—not only those on the far right—hold the view that the center status quo is actually the more dangerous threat (Michael Anton famously referred to the 2016 Clinton-Trump matchup as “The Flight 93 election”).

Which means it is incumbent upon those of us who aspire to a world where everyone belongs not only to prevent the worst from happening (Trump) but also to create and offer a more compelling vision than the status quo (Biden).

Electoral politics are a vehicle for movement-building

This is the transformative potential of electoral politics, and what Trump understands. People are scared and lonely and desperate: campaigns can create a container for belonging, an invitation to imagining—and taking action!—to create a better world. My favorite piece about the 2016 election made this point beautifully, describing the particular skill and pageantry that went into Trump’s campaign events. The authors explain:

Trump's campaign was all about creating a particular sense of “us” (articulating a sense of “them” is critical but secondary)… Trump's accomplishment was to take these inchoate feelings of decline and marginalization and to provide a perspective that not only made sense of them but also provided a solution. In so doing, he acknowledged the real problems of his audience (while others ignored them or even contributed to them); he understood them and empowered them to participate in the process of resolving those problems.

Here’s the thing: while the far-right does this well (and takes advantage of weaponizing fear and blaming an “other”), the playbook itself is universal. We too can—and must—build movements of belonging that acknowledge and help people make sense of their pain, and invite them into agency in co-creating a better future. Our task is both more challenging—we must decline the easy appeal of naming a scapegoat—and more promising for that same reason: we can create a movement that includes the 100%.

Obama did this in his campaign, and it swept him to the White House against a better-funded and networked Clinton campaign in the primary. “Yes we can” was a claim both to belonging (seeing ourselves in the “we”), hope in a more promising future, and agency: we are in it together. (While I don’t believe that Obama had transformational politics, as a community organizer he at least understood the importance of building a movement).

A democracy worth wanting?

I love Emily Nagoski’s groundbreaking work on female sexuality. In Come As You Are, she upends the myth of female lack of desire by asking: is the kind of sex you’re having worth wanting? She explains:

It is normal not to want sex you don’t like.

I don’t often talk about democracy, because I find it leaves people cold: the democracy we have is not a democracy worth wanting. We have been taught to equate democracy with the once-every-four-years ritual of casting a ballot between two candidates we don’t like for two parties we know don’t represent our interests. Small wonder that huge numbers of people choose to enact the one form of agency they do have… and opt out.

This is my concern with efforts to galvanize people around a “pro-democracy” movement: the frame feels insufficiently compelling. I loved this recent interview Anand Giridharadas conducted with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, where they wrestle with what for them is the puzzling absence of a mass-scale pro-democracy movement. They get many of the prescriptions right—the need to address people’s very real fears, to offer a positive vision, to create space for joy and for hope—but to me miss the broader point: we don’t have a democracy worth wanting. In general, people don’t take to the streets for democracy: they take to the streets to protect reproductive rights, Black Lives, indigenous land…. for each other, and for things that feel tangible to us.

As Celinda Lake summarized a recent national youth poll here in the U.S. (I believe this sentiment could come from any country in the world today):

Young voters, while they’re very issue oriented, they’re not specifically tied to either party and they think the entire political system is failing.

I actually think there is something profoundly hopeful in that recognition: unlike my generation with Obama, today’s youth won’t make the mistake of believing that our elected “leaders” can save us, or that electoral politics is the most promising path to transformation. As Obama himself said in a 2020 speech to graduating high schoolers:

All those adults that you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing? It turns out they don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions. So, if the world’s going to get better, it's going to be up to you.

We have the far more difficult—and far more rewarding—work of building a democracy that is worth wanting. Where we are not only focused on shoring up the crumbling edifice we have (though that too is essential), but on building what we’ve never had: a multiracial democracy that actually meets the needs of all people.

To give but one example: this is playing out right now around abortion rights in the U.S., with Biden promising to “Restore Roe” (for non-U.S. readers, Roe v Wade was the 1973 Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to an abortion; that decision was overturned by the current Court). But for those of us who believe that bodily autonomy is a core pillar of freedom, this is thin gruel. We don’t want to “restore” fragile protections that left basic human rights open to assault and erosion at the state level: we want a vision for reproductive justice that includes abortion as part of a broader commitment to health care. So sure, let’s “restore Roe” as a minimum standard… but let’s not stop there. I want a democracy… worth wanting.

original art by Micah Bazant (collaboration with Mariame Kaba)

I want to turn my attention now to four case studies from 2023 elections that I think offer us different ways of understanding the promise and limitations of electoral politics. A caveat: I am not an expert in the specific politics or history of Guatemala, Argentina, the Netherlands, or Poland, so what I’m offering here is the perspective of an outside observer trying to distill lessons and trends to the best of my ability based on the insights and analysis I have access to.

Guatemala: the promise of a compelling candidate… and a strong social movement

Let’s start with the best example: the presidential election in Guatemala. My favorite fact about the general election (held in June) was that the leading vote-getter, out of 22 candidates, was: nobody. A protest vote against a corrupt political establishment that seemed immune to change. But when to everyone’s surprise dark horse progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo advanced to the August runoff—on an anti-corruption campaign targeting kleptocratic elites—he won in a landslide.

And like all progressive advances against entrenched elites, the backlash was immediate and organized, first attempting to disqualify Arévalo’s party, then trying every trick in the book to prevent his inauguration. And likely would have succeeded, but for concerted popular protest, led by indigenous women and youth, who took to the streets to demand that the will of the people be honored. Though Arévalo was finally inaugurated last month, he is clear-eyed that the only prospect for change is with a strong base of popular support, an inside/outside game. He explained:

We are clear that in the current context, we depend on society and convincing them that together we begin to row. We can’t depend on a political system where those criminal and patronage networks still lurk.

Two lessons I want to call out here:

1. The right candidate and platform can mobilize voters and win elections. Crucially, this platform MUST take on entrenched elites and status quo power, and offer a vision that feels transformational.

2. And: to actually win, take power, and effect change, will require ongoing social movements and pressure.

Argentina: if the only choice is status quo or extremism… we choose extremism

This one to me is the most cautionary tale for the United States. In the face of an economic crisis (annual inflation approaching 140% amid crushing external debt obligations), here’s how one report summarized popular opinion:

Argentinians are weary of voting yet again for political parties from either side of the Peronist divide, who have been both dogged by corruption claims and failed to prevent numerous economic crises.

Are we detecting a theme yet? With no compelling viable candidate on the progressive left (the socialist party candidate garnered 2.1% in the first round), the election ended up pitting the incumbent center-left finance minister (whom many blamed for the economic crisis) against a radical outsider in Javier Milei, a self-styled Trump-type who won the endorsement of Brazilian far-right ex-president Bolsonaro. I heard firsthand from Argentinians who think Milei is awful and don’t genuinely believe he can right the ship… but who are so disgusted with status quo politics and parties that out of sheer frustration they nonetheless held their noses and voted for him.

A commenter on one of Christopher Rufo’s posts said it well—to make the link to the U.S. explicit:

When the system is as corrupt as ours a bomb-thrower can do a lot of good because just disrupting that system allows other parts of the republic to regenerate (at the state level, for instance). So we shouldn't let Trump's imperfections deter us from reaping the blessings of a Trump presidency if that's our only real option.

A couple takeaways for me:

1. If the choice is between status quo and extremism—even if the extremism is far-right and dangerous—people may choose extremism.

2. Progressive parties/candidates need to do better than recycling socialism: the path to transformation needs to be more compelling than a politics anchored in theories promulgated by European white men who died hundreds of years ago.

The Netherlands: Argentina, with some xenophobia over migration

I think the story here is similar to Argentina: widespread disillusionment with centrist parties and the status quo leading to the election of a right-wing extremist. As one report put it:

The Netherlands has had a group of around a quarter of the voters who are simply angry and dissatisfied and who want to show the establishment their middle finger.

With one important difference: where the Argentinian election was all about the economy, the Dutch campaign turned on fears around immigration (especially immigration by those deemed “other”: Muslims in particular).

With centrist coalitions unable to offer a sustainable approach for how to handle migration, voters are turning to extremists. Geert Wilders, an openly anti-immigrant far-right populist, won last year’s election, increasing representation in parliament of his far-right party. While the nature of coalitional politics in the Netherlands will constrain his ability to implement the most extreme elements of his platform, the trend is nonetheless deeply troubling. A couple takeaways for me:

1. The question of migration is increasingly determinative, and will be the biggest factor in this summer’s EU elections… even as Trump is trying once again with the current border dispute in Texas to make it the centerpiece of his campaign here. Center left/right parties have no coherent answer (Biden’s policies leave him open to critique both from his progressive base and from scared “moderates” who are leaning right), leaving a vacuum that far-right politicians are filling.

2. There are no single-issue elections. Part of the reason establishment parties can’t address migration is because there is a fundamental contradiction inherent in the capitalist nation-state regime: the free movement of capital (funding resource extraction, propping up authoritarian/kleptocratic states, exacerbating the climate crisis) forces the movement of people. Refugees and climate migrants will continue to increase—nevermind those fleeing wars and collapsing economies in Gaza, Venezuela, Ukraine, and beyond—putting increasing strain on the fragile nation-state regime. We can’t address migration without addressing climate without addressing economics without addressing racial violence and xenophobia. Progressive movements and candidates must offer holistic solutions.

Poland: holding off the worst for now… a narrow window for change

A rare bright spot in European elections last year, a coalition came together to defeat the ruling autocratic party, returning former Prime Minister Donald Tusk to power in what is widely seen as a victory for democracy and the EU.

It’s hard to find a unifying thread amid complex dynamics (Putin’s Russia breathing down your neck and an influx of Ukrainian refugees has a way of making the EU seem more attractive), but a few things are worth noting:

1. It takes a coalition to defeat the far right (the ruling party won a plurality of votes, but the opposition coalition together formed a majority; this may also prove Wilders’ undoing in the Netherlands). And: it’s a temporary solution.

2. Women’s rights matter: the outgoing Polish government launched an assault on LGBT and women’s rights, including the right to abortion, spawning mass protests. Young women in particular voted overwhelmingly for the opposition coalition.

3. Preventing the worst… is not the same as winning. Holding off the far-right is temporary, and not sustainable: where Macron succeeded in fending off Le Pen in France in 2017, it was much closer in 2022… and without significant change to people’s lives (the status quo) the far right will return (see Netherlands, above). Tusk isn’t the answer. This too is my fear with Biden: just because he managed to avert the worst in 2020 doesn’t mean we actually like him—or the Democratic party. As one Polish LGBT activist noted: “Do not confuse happiness with cessation of pain.”

Elections: the path to transformation

If we want to reap the transformative potential of electoral politics, I see a few clear implications; I’d be curious if others agree or draw different conclusions.

1. We must have a compelling candidate who represents and mobilizes the base. Leadership matters: in electoral politics, the candidate becomes the figurehead for the movement.

2. We must have a broad movement for transformation—bigger than and distinct from the campaign itself—that correctly understands the election as only one (and not even the most important) of many strategies for transforming society.

3. The vision offered must be transformational: it must be honest about the challenges we face and bold about the future. It must represent a stark break with the status quo.

4. The movement-backed campaign must do four things:

   1. acknowledge people’s fears and emotions;

   2. help them make sense of this moment;

   3. offer them a sense of hope about the possibility of transformation;

   4. and invite them into collective action to co-create that future.

5. The movement must be inclusive and joyful; the experience of being part of the campaign must feel like a world we want to be part of. Leaving the status quo behind is scary: we must support people in letting go.

In most elections that I’m tracking right now globally (including ours, ugh)… we are NOT doing this. Establishment elites have thus far done a good job holding off effective challenges from transformational progressive candidates (I’m looking at you, Dr. King’s infamous “white moderates”)… thus enabling the elections of transformational (reactionary revolutionaries) from the far-right.

And progressive movements haven’t yet coalesced into a sufficiently coherent/powerful base to compel action and advance our own candidates. This is my favorite definition of politics, via Ted Kolderie (flipping the old adage):

Politics is not the art of the possible. Politics is the art of making possible what is necessary.

Harm mitigation still matters

With precious few exceptions, this is where we find ourselves. Voting not for the future we want, but to slow the slide toward an even worse future: once again invited to cast a ballot for the lesser of two evils. Frankly, I’m insulted that I’m being asked to vote for an 82-year-old white man as the standard-bearer against the threat posed by Donald Trump. And I’m angry that Democratic Party elites have done everything in their power to stifle the progressive wing of the party and stubbornly refused to pass the baton to the next generation. I’m angry that Democrats take my vote for granted, while opposing many of the things I most value.

A vote for Biden is not a vote for transformation. It is a vote for harm mitigation, and that matters. On every issue I care about, the Democratic Party remains better than the Republican Party (admittedly, a very low bar). I think the current bi-partisan immigration deal sucks… and it’s far better than what the GOP wants and would do (and they’ll probably kill it anyway).

And the best way to mitigate harm? To take over the Democratic Party, to offer Americans a genuinely transformational vision, one that offers a path forward, not a dead-end to an imagined past. This is the work of progressive movements everywhere: to not place our hopes or anchor our strategies in electoral politics, but to nonetheless recognize that they are hugely important (and of course this work will look different in parliamentary systems than in our calcified two-party state). I have been most impressed by the work of the Working Families Party in this regard, and movement organizations that build power outside the Democratic party (much of what Stacey Abrams did in Georgia, and other groups highlighted here during the last election).

---

As always, I welcome comments, reactions, and in particular I’m interested in what sense others are making from the current global landscape, and if there are any trends you’d highlight as worth watching.

For subscribers, I hope to see you March 6th for our next community gathering!

2023 best of: highlights of my learning journey

Slowness, integration, and connecting to Earth

Oregon coast sunset, from a late summer camping trip

Ahh… wintering. I love the period between solstice and the new year: an interregnum. A season of reflection and stock-taking on the year behind, and grounding and intention-setting for the year to come. It’s part of how I integrate: looking back on a year of learning, and curating—for myself, and for you—those resources that most contributed to my ongoing growth and transformation. Things that influenced or changed me in some way, that somehow encapsulated the year. This inventory always precedes my new intentions; you can find my 2024 intentions here.

Key themes and learnings

1. No parts left behind! This was the key takeaway from my first facilitated psychedelic medicine journey in August: a reclamation of the various aspects of my self. I’m so accustomed to not being fully “seen” by people that I don’t give them the chance: I hide pieces of myself to avoid the vulnerability of being fully witnessed… and perhaps rejected, in my fullness. I’m not willing to do that any more: I will no longer participate in my own lack of belonging. If others can’t see me… so be it. My work is to be more integrated, embodied, and congruent in myself, and invite others to see that self.

2. It is dangerous to forget that I am White. It belatedly occurred to me this year that almost all of my relational rupture and repair work—when I want to take accountability for my impact—can fit under this heading. What I mean is that I get in trouble when I forget how I am read/seen by others, sometimes even by those who know me well. My shorthand here is White, but really I’m talking about all my socially perceived identities: race, gender, nationality, size, class, sexual orientation, etc. If I am insufficiently attentive to these dynamics in an interaction—especially because I am almost always working with people holding more marginalized identities—it creates the potential for a dangerous gap between my intent and my impact. For example: I had a difficult interaction with a woman of color this year, where I spoke too freely. I assumed that my words would be heard as I intended them… but we didn’t have enough relational trust built for her to interpret the words coming out of my mouth (in my large, White, American, presumably cishet-male body) the way I intended. I forgot I was White, and the consequence was relational rupture and the need for repair.

3. Slowness: no more “emotional averaging”. I played a lot with “slowness” this year, at the encouragement of my somatic therapist. It took perhaps its clearest form in my commitment to no longer participate in “emotional averaging.” Leela Newman coined this concept and introduced it to me, and this year I found it so helpful in my personal feeling practice. It’s about slowing down and tuning in long enough to feel the full range and complexity of my feelings. So instead of “I’m fine” (which might be a truth), a more complete truth might be “I’m feeling sad, some grief, also some happiness, a sense of compassion and understanding, and on balance I feel fine.” This process allows me to better understand myself, relate to others, and find solutions that account for multiple needs; honestly, it feels revolutionary.

4. Bridge… and beacon. These metaphors also emerged in a new way for me in Medellín, and were a core piece of my medicine journeys. Following john powell’s work, I’ve long conceived of myself as a “bridger.” These days I mostly talk about bridging in the context of the 3 Horizons framework: the need to bridge from the status quo to the world we long for. Which implies that there is a definable point on the other side of the bridge: what I now conceive of as a beacon. It’s a subtle but important point: we need both… and they are different roles. Some are called to be beacons, to invite others into the world we long for. Others are called to be bridges: to help create pathways to access that future. This year for the first time I began to entertain the possibility that I could play both roles; that in addition to my lifelong work of bridge-building, I might also lean in more to embodying the invitation—to being a beacon, at least for those who might see me. Much of my personal exploration with gender this year played with this possibility.

5. “Anything that is taken by force must be remade.” Pat shared this sentiment in Medellín, and it reverberated throughout the year for me. It came back to me following the tragedy of the October 7th attacks, and watching the bombardment of Gaza, and thinking about what liberation requires: there is no path to justice inside of domination. There is no path to healing without reparations. Repair was a powerful theme for me this year, and the centerpiece of my new declaration.

6. Ser Terra. This theme emerged powerfully from the Belonging @ Scale gathering in Medellín in July… and provided a unifying thread to my second plant medicine journey in August. For me this landed as an imperative to be more connected to Earth, and to source. I’m still integrating this one, but it feels foundational: belonging is territorial; we belong to a place. So if we are serious about belonging, we need to re-imagine our relationship to place… and honor Earth’s truth that we all belong, that there is space for all beings.

---

Best of the Best (if you only choose one…)

1. BOOK: Myles Horton (with Judith & Herbert Kohl) — The Long Haul: An Autobiography. Teachers College Press, 1997.

• I’ve been following and learning from Myles’ legacy for several years now; this book formed the cornerstone of this year’s exploration into what it means to be a “good white man.” My review here, and here’s a taste:

If your aim is to change society... you have to work with those people who can multiply what you do... you have to think in terms of which small groups have the potential to multiply themselves and fundamentally change society.

2. ARTICLE: Culture Hack Labs — Land Back to Right Relations. Self-published, 2023.

• I often talk about the three horizons framework, and the importance of anchoring in the “3rd horizon” (the future we long for) in order to ensure that our efforts today are leading toward liberation. There are a handful of groups that in my subjective opinion do this visionary/strategic work well, and Culture Hack Labs is near the top of the short list. This essay collection is a masterclass in visionary strategy: building from a future vision, cognizant of present conditions, with a strategy for how to move from here to there. Highly recommend.

Structural inequalities, social injustice, climate, social and spiritual polycrisis have at their foundation the separation between people and the network of life –  between communities and their territories, between our being and the earth. Can we think of ourselves beyond an individualistic and human-centric identity? Returning to relationships of interdependence with the land and all beings that exist on it, is the root of any cultural change.

3. PODCAST EPISODE: Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom For Living Spirit-Based Change, with Sherri Mitchell. Love Radio podcast, 2018: 59 min.

• I spent a lot of time integrating indigenous wisdom this year, and much of those learnings are summarized in Sherri’s work. I resonate deeply with how she sees her role, the teachings she offers, and the humble way she conveys that wisdom as an invitation to collaboration.

We can’t claim a right to life without extending that same right to all other living beings… we can’t expect to have any of the things that we need in order to live our lives in a dignified secure way that is just and humane unless we are willing to take responsibility for creating that reality for all.

4. SPOKEN WORD: Andrea Gibson — What Love Is. 2023. Oof. I first came across Andrea this year, and this performance just knocked me flat. All the themes of life beautifully woven into five emotional minutes; if you haven’t seen, do yourself the courtesy of taking some quiet space to experience this.

5. MOVIE: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Hayao Miyazaki, 1984. As a parent to two young children I spend a lot of time curating content for them: mostly limiting access to the firehose of toxic messages that mainstream culture sends (Paw Patrol ugh, anything by Disney pre-2018, e.g.) That quest led me belatedly to the work of Studio Ghibli, and this early offering from Ghibli co-founder Miyazaki. I was spellbound: rudimentary animation telling a complex, honest, and emotional story. The title character is herself the single best cinematic example of nonviolent leadership I’ve ever encountered: utterly compelling.

6. AUDIO/STORY: Queer Creation Story, by Justin Natoli. 2023. I first encountered this via the Open Deeply podcast, but it exists as a gorgeous 3.5 minute audio story on Justin’s website. It’s just gorgeous: perhaps my favorite creation story I’ve ever heard (along with Skywoman Falling, and others). My six- year-old requests it frequently :-)

But the Queer essence of the world could not be contained.  For in the beginning, God said, “let there be light.” And you see, light has this peculiar quality. It is both a particle and a wave. Matter and energy. It is two-spirited, and its beingness transcends being just one or the other. Light is Queer! So in the beginning, Queer energy was the spark of existence that ignited this universe into being, and it can be suppressed but never extinguished.

And one day, light returned. It broke through the darkness of sameness and appeared as a rainbow. The glimmering beauty of diverse colors captivated the hearts of the humans and reminded them that the world is a tapestry, woven from many threads, each adding its unique color to the pattern. Each thread necessary to hold the cloth together.

7. SONG: Some of us are Brave, by Danielle Ponder. 2022. Mmm. I found this at the end of last year (hat tip to Peter Harrison for the share), and it featured heavily in my Spotify Wrapped for 2023: a powerful anthem to the promise and pain of liberation that I returned to repeatedly when needing inspiration. I can’t wait to see her live.

And to those who fear leads them to hate

What a pity to be locked in that place

I know you see me though…

I do believe that the power in me

Frightens you, that's your problem

---

Best Books

These days I rarely read books cover-to-cover: instead I go where my muse calls and search for the insights that want to emerge. I am working on tolerating my own discomfort at leaving a book perpetually on my Goodreads “currently reading” shelf, or claiming “read” for a book that I haven’t yet progressed through linearly. I want to highlight three here that moved me this year in different ways:

1. bell hooks — All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow: 1999.

• This year I spent more time thinking (and feeling!) about love than I have at any other point in my life. I started this book in January, and it accompanied me straight through to October, when I finally finished. It’s not her best work (that in my view is The Will to Change) but it is nonetheless utterly profound. The most shocking thing is of course her definition of love itself (a commitment to one's own or another's spiritual growth) and the accompanying implication that most of us were raised in households that were not fundamentally loving. My full review here.

Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care… Awakening to Love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat…

When we choose to love we choose to move against fear--against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect -- to find ourselves in the other.

2. Jen Lumanlan — Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection and Collaboration to Transform Your Family—-and the World. Sasquatch Books: 2023.

• Jen is a personal friend, and I have been privileged to benefit from her learning journey and the gift of her profound parenting work these past few years. I was delighted to celebrate with her the release of this new book: essential reading for anyone trying to raise children without resorting to power-over / domination / coercion. Difficult work inside a domination system, but so gratifying in those moments when we find a better way. This quote from the preface reminds us of the stakes for those of us who are parents:

You can’t have power over someone without hurting them, even if it’s unintentionally.

3. Jessa Zimmerman — Sex Without Stress. Self-published, 2018.

• As I have been more open with friends about my own erotic journey and learnings, they have reciprocated with more candor about their erotic lives. The news isn’t good: many in my peer group of upwardly-mobile-early-40s-with-kids are stuck in unsatisfying sex lives without a clear way out. It’s not surprising: sex under patriarchy sucks. But it is tragic, and it’s not inevitable. Jessa’s book is eminently readable and full of simple-but-difficult advice for how to navigate common pitfalls. This isn’t “go buy lingerie”; it’s “learn how to be an emotionally mature and relationally skilled partner.” Highly recommend, though it is best accompanied with relational support via therapy, and particularly a somatic sexologist, if at all possible. My full review here.

The key to intimacy is letting yourself be seen... if you want true intimacy and look forward to enjoying your best sex life, you need to reveal yourself to your partner… You'll need to tolerate the anxiety of letting your partner see who you are and what you want, as well as the anxiety you may have when you get a clear look at your partner.

Best Articles

In no particular order:

1. James Baldwin — An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis. Originally handwritten in 1970; subsequently published in the New York Review of Books, 1971.

• Baldwin was one of those rare people who see things more clearly than the rest of us. This essay is majestic: like his best writing, searing and compassionate at the same time, telling hard truths to an audience he knew wouldn’t understand. He’s still an inspiration, and this essay touched on some of the key themes I grappled with this year, especially in the context of Israel/Palestine.

As long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war.

2. Robin Dembroff — Nonbinary identity is a radical stance against gender segregation. Aeon, 2018.

• In a year where I did a deep dive into my own relationship to gender, this article really resonated. This:

Nonbinary identities force us to place binary gender categories under scrutiny, but with greater attention to moral and political considerations. We must ask not only what these categories are, but also why and whether we should continue to use them.

3. Ted Rau — Beyond hierarchy and dysfunction: Sharing power in groups. LinkedIn, 2023.

• I love Ted’s clarity of language and commitment to the work: so simple yet so incredibly difficult, and he consistently shines a light toward the path we need to take. This particular article resonated with some of my own key learnings this year around how we access and wield power in collective contexts.

Improving group process is a two-pronged approach:

Power-within: supporting people’s capacity to develop their personal power and responsibility. Figure out what you need and let us know.

Power-with: improving the group's governance structure so the group can hold power collectively and distribute it.

4. carla bergman, Hari Alluri, & Nick Montgomery — Friendship, Freedom, Ethics, Affinity. Chapter in Joyful Militancy, AK Press, 2017.

• I love community, and for me its key feature is interdependence. It is one of the things I detest most about oppressive systems, that they seek to atomize us and keep us separate from each other… and therefore community is also one of our most powerful antidotes.

Empire works in part by constantly attenuating and poisoning relationships… If relationships are what compose the world and our lives, then the “free individual” of modern, Western capitalism (an implicitly straight, white, able-bodied, cis-gendered, property-owning man) is a sad and lonely vision: a strange fiction invented by a violent and fearful society, walled in by morality and self-interest. This is an uprooted being who sees his rootlessness—his very incapacity to make and sustain transformative connections—as a feat of excellence.

5. Miki Kashtan — Beyond Horizontalism: Co-creation within a Led Field. Self-published, 2022.

• Miki is truly unique: I’ve never encountered anyone simultaneously so thoughtful and so committed to living her values. This is a great essay exploring many themes that I find personally challenging, and deeply resonant.

I never ever want people to give up their own being in order to be with me; it grates on my soul that anything I do or, worse yet, just the sheer beingness of who I am, can lead people to give up on their own power… Growing the capacity to express dissent from within trust is key to our future.

6. Samantha Slade — A Little Secret to Participatory Leadership: The Art of Invitation. Enlivening Edge Magazine, 2021.

• I’ve been thinking about the power of invitations for several years now, and this piece ties many of the core ideas together in a way I find compelling.

Good invitation can actually be a catalyst of change… A strong invitation is at the core of building a culture of shared leadership, both on organizational and personal levels: it is a practice that can foster systemic change for a culture guided by conscious, courageous, creative, and collaborative values.

7. Freddie DeBoer — I Assure You, I Am Permitted to Oppose the Existence of Any and All Nation-States. Substack, 2023.

• I really enjoy Freddie’s writing, even as there are clear points of disagreement. I appreciated his moral clarity in the wake of the October 7th attack; it helped me better understand my own thinking.

I am an internationalist; I reject ethnonationalism; I think religion should have no part in government; therefore I must be an anti-Zionist… If you want Israel to live in peace and prosperity, the only way there is through justice for the Palestinians.

8. Clementine Morrigan — What is gender? What about the children? Substack, 2023.

• Clementine is a delightful read: provocative, smart, and willing to go places most of us—myself included—fear to tread. Having already suffered the pain of cancellation, she gives herself more freedom to say difficult things… and I find her courage inspiring. This essay is a good example, and resonates with much of my own thinking.

The issue of “gender ideology”, as the Right calls it, or what I would call social justice culture’s current orthodoxy on gender, is now important not only in its own right, but because it is being strategically used to strengthen Right wing movements…

My concern is that social justice orthodoxy has made it a social crime and cancellable offence to think critically and openly about these topics. Not only am I against censorship and the suppression of critical thinking and open discussion on principle, but I am also very concerned with the impact of the Right being the only place where people with questions, disagreements, or concerns can speak.

9. Angela Peoples & Connie Razza — Belonging In and To America. Topos Partnership, self-published, 2023.

• This narrative research study is an important contribution to the moment. While there are pieces I take issue with, the overall messages are vital. This section in particular feels core to much of where I will be taking my work in 2024:

…American identity feels alienating and exclusionary. That’s because, for many, “American” means “white.” In particular, [what the research typologizes as] Tentative Visionaries and Disconnected Non-Identifiers associate “being American'' with whiteness, which causes them apprehension or shame. For some immigrants and young BIPOC, American identity means assimilation to a white culture, often under pressure to give up other valued identities. And many from historically marginalized groups are not interested in an identity tied to oppression and victimization.

Podcasts:

1. Let This Conversation With Mariame Kaba Radicalize You. Movement Memos podcast, 2023: 62 min.

• Contender for my favorite of the year; Mariame Kaba is in my view the best visionary organizer in the country, and listening to her wisdom is always an exercise in expanding my consciousness. This episode is a delight.

It’s important to align ourselves with people who are trying in ways that we think are important… be bold, go out there and build something. And don’t do it alone… everyone has the power to build the things they wish existed.

2. Luna Matatas on Pegging the Patriarchy. Strippers and Sages podcast, 2020: 58 min.

• It’s rare when I encounter a single episode that fundamentally changes how I think about something; this was such an episode. She speaks with such groundedness and clarity that I found myself changing my mind in real time, and nodding along to subjects I had previously deemed either taboo or never given real thought to. It’s a provocative and brilliant listen. I bought the shirt :-)

Ass play for men is the final frontier in dismantling patriarchy.

3. Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy on Post-Capitalist Philanthropy. Frontiers of Commoning Podcast, 2023: 50 min.

• Alnoor and Lynn are among my favorites trying to bring a more transformative lens to the fraught terrain of philanthropy; their book (which this podcast elaborates on) is a gift, and their intellectual and moral clarity is always inspiring. Highly recommend.

If you don’t have a critique of capitalism you are contextually irrelevant; if you all you have is a critique you are spiritually impoverished.

4. adrienne maree brown on Emergent Strategy and being in right relationship with change. Leadermorphosis podcast, 2023: 52 min.

• adrienne remains in my view among the foremost sages of our times. I always learn something listening to her, and enjoy hearing her update her analysis/vision in real time.

One way to understand privilege is the ability to choose comfort and avoid the tension of discomfort… Leadership is the collaborative art of letting go of my way to find the way.

5. Mara Glatzel: What Do You Need? Insights at the Edge podcast, 2023: 59 min.

• One of the best things about being alive in this moment—despite, or perhaps in response to the crises we face—is the amount of creative content being generated pointing the way home. I loved this episode (and her book); essential listening for all of us, but especially those socialized female under patriarchy.

We don’t often ask for what we need. We only ask for a tiny fraction of it, or what we think we can get or what we think someone might be wiling to give to us, or what we can stomach allowing ourselves to ask for.

6. Finding Co-founders and Creating Collaborative Culture with Yana Ludwig. Inside Community podcast, 2023: 69 min.

• I listened to this episode shortly after finishing an internal Building Belonging retreat process where we aligned on the “key capacities” we would ask community members to aspire to… and found deep resonance in Yana’s learnings.

That’s the scary part for people who have a lot of privileges, well, what am I going to give up? What am I losing? But there’s also: what am I going to get out of it? That’s really what has driven me to get deeper and deeper into this work over the years, it’s just that we have more to gain than we have to lose… being able to live in a place where I have deep, authentic relationships with the people around me, and I’m actually living with a really low carbon footprint. And so I feel good about my life on a fundamental level… that kind of peace of mind is pretty invaluable… when you actually get in there and are able to actually like have that kind of support in your life. It’s huge.

7. Why Do We Have Sex? Asexuality with Angela Chen. We Can Do Hard Things podcast, 2023: 63 min.

• I’ve been on a journey in recent years to better understand sexuality and the realm of the erotic, and a big piece of that has been integrating asexuality into my consciousness. Angela’s contributions have been invaluable. This episode helped me better understand myself, though I don’t identify as asexual.

There are as many sexualities as there are people in the world.

8. Your Brain on Boundaries with Juliane Taylor Shore. Making Polyamory Work podcast, 2023: 44 min.

• I have encountered a lot of content about boundaries—it seems to be everywhere these days. So I don’t often prioritize listening to podcasts on the topic, but was glad I made an exception for this one: deepened my understanding in provocative ways, especially her concept of a psychological boundary. I bought the book!

Being respectful, deeply deeply respectful of who you are is so much more important to me, getting to be honored by bearing witness to who you are, is so much more important to me than avoiding grief, that I am willing to do any amount of boundary work so I make it more okay for me to hang in there and discover more about you… it’s so deeply respectful and loving to say yes to my own grief, so that I can say yes to how you show up more.

9. How to Deal With Emotionally Immature People (Including Maybe Your Own Parents) with Lindsay C. Gibson. Ten Percent Happier podcast, 2022: 67 min.

• This was such a helpful, clarifying, and even cathartic listen; it had never occurred to me before that some people are afraid (for good reason, based on their trauma backgrounds) of emotional intimacy.

When you express something to an emotionally immature person, you are not expressing so they will change, but for yourself... Focus on the outcome you want, you are not trying to improve the relationship, you're just trying to have a successful interaction. Because if you try to improve the relationship, you've gone into emotionally intimate territory, and that is what they can't do, it will make them more defensive.

10. Beyond Capitalism Now with Donnie Maclurcan. Denizen podcast, 2023: 58 min.

• I’ve been looking for a good definition and coherent discussion of capitalism for several years now; it’s vanishingly hard to find. I thought Donnie did a brilliant and accessible job describing the system we all live in, and did so without the hyperbolic critiques that often alienate listeners newer to the topic.

The problem with capitalism is that it extracts money from circulation in the real economy.

11. Embodiment and the Journey of Soul Initiation: A Conversation With Bill Plotkin. Embodiment Matters podcast, 2020: 70 min.

• I listened to this at the right time, as I was myself deep in contemplating and integration around my plant medicine journeys. I loved it, and found it personally clarifying as I tried to locate my own role in the world. I appreciated in particular his definition of “adulthood” for one who has been initiated—wouldn’t this be nice?

An Adult is someone who experiences themself, first and foremost, as a member of the Earth community, who has had one or more revelatory experiences of their unique place in that ecological community, and who is embodying that unique place as a gift to their people and to the Earth community.

---

And that’s a wrap: 2023 in review. I’d love to know what else you would add to this list: anything that moved or transformed you this year.

A closing bonus, for those of you who made it this far: a short clip featuring Civil Rights era icon Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) explaining in a way you’ll never forget the difference between peace and liberation. This is why I am for liberation (which I understand as synonymous with belonging, in the fullest sense of the term). I long for a world in which everyone understands what he is saying… and works to make that vision a reality.