For The Wild - THE WILDFIRE PROJECT on Transforming Toxic Movement Culture ⧸110

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00:00:17.000 Hello and welcome to For the Wild Podcast.

00:00:19.560 I'm Ayanna Young.

00:00:20.440 We are not afraid.

00:00:24.800 We are not afraid.

00:00:27.040 We will live for liberation

00:00:30.800 Because we know why we were made

00:00:34.800 We are not afraid

00:00:37.740 We are not afraid

00:00:41.360 We will live for liberation

00:00:45.000 Because we know why we were made

00:00:49.100 We are not afraid

00:00:52.140 So there's a dynamic in movements

00:00:55.040 where we go to attack each other

00:00:56.800 because that's an arena where we see where we can have impact and because we have such a critical

00:01:02.360 lens of being able to see what's problematic with everything we can turn in on ourselves and develop

00:01:08.420 a culture of a purity of politics where we build these circular firing squads and build an

00:01:15.980 orientation where we kind of constantly push each other to say the perfect things and if you can't

00:01:22.080 say the the perfect thing then then you you you're you're you become disposable

00:01:27.840 today we are speaking with joshua khan bj star and michael strom from the wildfire project

00:01:40.100 the wildfire project strengthens movements for ecological racial and economic justice

00:01:45.640 by supporting organizations to transform and spread a thriving culture resilient in the face

00:01:51.560 of changing terrain, grounded in history, vision, and strategy, connected to a North Star bigger

00:01:57.420 than themselves, building across identity, and prepared to grow and win. We do this through

00:02:03.340 deep facilitation using democratic, experiential methods, fusing political education and skills

00:02:09.560 training with personal and group transformation and a curriculum tailored to specific needs of

00:02:13.960 grassroots activism. Wildfire develops leaderships of frontline groups and maintains long-term

00:02:20.300 support with the communities in which it works. So wildfire emphasizes how movements can approach

00:02:27.860 oncoming crises as opportunities for collective liberation and to begin this conversation I would

00:02:34.420 love to really dive into this fully and explore some of the facets crises entails. So initially I

00:02:42.460 think of Naomi Klein's shock doctrine and how historically the powers that can be utilized in

00:02:50.040 crisis, both real and imagined, as a way to justify ideological agendas and policies that

00:02:56.980 typically cut or privatize public services, deregulate the market, and even suspend

00:03:03.940 constitutional protections. So of course we must remain vigilant of the kind of chaos that is

00:03:10.080 contrived by the elite, but then simultaneously we cannot allow ourselves or our movements to

00:03:15.400 become paralyzed. And since Wildfire, I know, works with groups and individuals regularly,

00:03:20.940 I'm really curious about what are some of the most common self-limitations you see,

00:03:27.140 or maybe what problems are we immediately confronted with when we choose to work together?

00:03:33.680 And then along the lines of limitation, I'm really specifically thinking of our aversion

00:03:38.040 to both conflict and power. So if you could share on how Wildfire encourages groups to explore

00:03:43.780 sites of tension and conflict? Yeah, I think you really just nailed it on the point about

00:03:52.000 it being mandatory for us to figure out how to come together more powerfully. It's really obvious

00:03:58.820 that there are a bunch of crises and collapse on the horizon and a bunch of crises that we're

00:04:06.980 currently in. And I think we're fundamentally rooted in the belief that we need to figure out

00:04:13.600 how to be together differently and be together more powerfully with more compassion if we're

00:04:19.240 going to weather those storms. And so to get to your point about the kind of self-limiting

00:04:26.180 beliefs that come up, yeah, I think that any time that anyone in a group or an individual

00:04:33.200 moves toward some kind of bold or visionary plan, anytime we do that, we encounter our

00:04:42.140 self-limiting beliefs. We encounter stories about who we are that keep us small. And they can take

00:04:50.620 a lot of different shapes. It could be, I don't know how to do this. I'm not smart enough. I'm

00:04:57.180 not brave enough. I can't handle how hard it's going to be. It could be, well, if we really talk

00:05:03.280 about this, our organization is going to fall apart. Or if I, you know, if I show vulnerability

00:05:10.300 as a leader, then the group will lose trust in me, anything like that. And you get a sense

00:05:19.140 that someone is expressing a self-limiting belief when the language is really always or never,

00:05:27.500 right? When it's just kind of the way things are, as opposed to something that they can change or

00:05:34.420 that they can work to transform. And so, yeah, I think conflict is really the big one that we face

00:05:41.660 again and again. There's always some conversation that a group is maintaining collective silence

00:05:49.700 around, but a conversation that needs to be had in order for the group to be relating to each other

00:05:56.080 honestly and authentically. And so, I don't know, there's so many examples. I think that

00:06:02.460 And one that comes to mind is we were recently working with a group that was trying to figure out how to address patriarchy and sexism as they were coming up in interactions with the members.

00:06:18.300 And it was clear that there was a problem.

00:06:23.800 And it was clear that everyone had the desire to fix the problem.

00:06:29.000 All the words that people were saying were the right words, right?

00:06:33.500 We're expressing a rooted commitment.

00:06:36.680 But then when we decided to have a workshop where they had the opportunity to talk about

00:06:41.520 what was going on and what needed to be done, there was just crickets and there was a really

00:06:46.420 low energy and people seemed distracted or like they didn't know what to say.

00:06:53.020 and ultimately it took a lot of work to really come at the conversation from a whole bunch of

00:07:01.820 different sides until finally strong emotion emerged and the strong emotion was anger

00:07:07.580 and it became really clear in that moment that there was a lot of anger in the room

00:07:12.880 and the cost of not expressing the anger was that they weren't really relating to each other

00:07:20.520 authentically and they weren't really dealing with what was at stake because the anger was

00:07:24.920 showing the room that people were hurting people in the room were actively hurting right now

00:07:30.120 and so the self-limiting belief that was under all of that is if I express my anger

00:07:35.760 the group is going to fall apart

00:07:37.740 and once we were able to allow the anger into the room to let it get expressed and to show that the

00:07:46.700 group did not fall apart, then we were able to really stay in the anger until we started to move

00:07:51.840 towards some solutions. And that, I think, is an example of a self-limiting belief.

00:07:59.420 It makes me think of, and I don't remember exactly the quote, but it's something like,

00:08:07.480 in this dominant culture, we are conflict averse, but war prone or, or like we're ready to go into

00:08:16.560 war, but we don't want to talk about conflict. And I think it's really fascinating to hear

00:08:23.060 how afraid people are and scared to be able just to speak truth. And, um, I know I I've felt that

00:08:33.980 time and time again in my own life. So yeah, it makes sense that this comes up. And I want to now

00:08:43.360 speak a little more to the power elements. So I'm thinking of an article I read by Wildfire's

00:08:49.720 Yotam Moram, who reflects on the frequency in which we internalize deep shame about our origins

00:08:57.180 or past mistakes, which then leads us to reject any sort of relationship or embodiment of power

00:09:03.220 in our own circles. And Morham writes, quote, I internalized the message that the best thing I

00:09:09.720 could do for the movement was to mitigate the damage I've done by existing, that my job was

00:09:16.980 really just to disappear. There are historical reasons for this dilemma and current reasons

00:09:21.820 that our movements have adopted these knee-jerk responses to what it perceives as power or

00:09:27.020 privilege, end quote. So I wonder if any of you would be comfortable picking up on this conversation

00:09:35.000 on the politics of powerlessness and who benefits from the negation of power.

00:09:42.820 Do you see differences between responsibility and power? That's a good question, Ayanna.

00:09:48.000 A dear friend, Nia Kota, says that with power comes responsibility and with responsibility comes vulnerability.

00:10:00.300 And when we shy away from our power, we're actually putting more responsibility on other people.

00:10:11.080 And in many cases, putting more of a burden of different forms of labor onto other people.

00:10:17.540 within our groups, within our movement. And so what we protect ourselves from is the vulnerability

00:10:25.860 that moving into our power and wielding our privilege creates. It puts us in the conversation

00:10:35.220 where our shortcomings, our politics will be questioned. It puts us in a place where our

00:10:45.840 decisions will be challenged, and we will have to take greater risks than we would have had to

00:10:54.240 had we chosen not to move into our power. And with those risks means sometimes we're going to

00:11:00.380 make the wrong decisions, if you will, and perhaps regret them, perhaps hurt people,

00:11:06.780 perhaps lose a campaign perhaps lose funding all kinds of things and because we don't have

00:11:16.400 the mechanisms built into our groups and into our community to handle that kind of disappointment

00:11:23.340 shame mistake harm then we tend to avoid being in a position where we could cause it

00:11:30.520 So rather than take the risk, move into our power and assume the responsibility and vulnerability that comes with that, we avoid and we project that power onto other folks.

00:11:45.000 Well, they're actually a lot smarter than I am, or that's our ED.

00:11:50.580 They should be the one to put forward the proposal about our strategic plan.

00:11:56.040 Whatever it might be, we start looking for another person who should hold that responsibility.

00:12:01.120 And it's part of our belief that a group being able to move into feedback, conflict, greater like meta self-awareness with itself and one another and the individuals in it can actually rebuild those mechanisms that we need to handle when things don't go right.

00:12:23.440 to be able to support the group as a whole

00:12:28.020 and moving through what did not serve it

00:12:31.340 so that people are less prone to being,

00:12:37.460 I mean, really at the extreme end of it, being discarded.

00:12:41.900 Like, I think that's a huge fear

00:12:43.740 is that we will, we're going to mess up.

00:12:46.020 And like Michael said,

00:12:47.120 this is going to break this group apart

00:12:48.880 or I might make a huge mistake

00:12:51.580 And I may not belong here anymore. Right. So we're we're kind of building these what I think of as like adaptogens within a group that allow for it to expand in those moments that challenge the perfectionism, challenge the reductive identity politics and allow for us to really support each other, both in moving into our power and as a whole moving into the practices.

00:13:21.580 that are going to uplift, like allow us to evolve when we wield our power unskillfully.

00:13:30.940 So much of what BJ's sharing just reminds me of why we focus in Wildfire on practicing and just

00:13:38.340 being in constant practice of new ways of being together. Because so much of the culture of

00:13:43.820 activism has been shaped by a critical analysis. We get really good at criticizing what's wrong

00:13:49.900 with the world. And there's so many examples of the ways that power is wielded unaccountably,

00:13:56.220 that the ways that power is oppressive, that power is embodied in a toxic masculine way that

00:14:02.240 is power over. And what we find is so many folks are often afraid of embodying that because that's

00:14:08.880 the examples from society that we have to go on. And we see it in our movements that we just

00:14:14.840 orient around not being that, right? Not being oppressive. And then as a result, the contraction

00:14:22.440 that happens is shrinking and withering. And so much of the kind of generative examples that

00:14:29.080 BJ just gave are our reflections of what we try to do is get folks to practice. What would it feel

00:14:36.040 like to be stepping into our power, no matter what balance of identities we hold, no matter what

00:14:41.980 access we have in a way that that grows access and agency for ourselves and for the whole for

00:14:47.760 the group and we really focus on trying to to embody new ways of being that rather than focusing

00:14:54.820 exclusively on identifying and breaking down all of the problematic ways we see it in in society

00:15:00.980 Michael do you have anything that you'd like to add to this uh yeah I think that one of the things

00:15:08.960 I want to pull out of what BJ said and emphasize is how much this all makes sense. How much staying

00:15:17.720 small is a smart strategy in certain ways. Given the way that power exists in our society

00:15:27.120 and the ways we've come to understand power, staying small can totally keep us safe.

00:15:34.020 and it's definitely easier to try and be right than it is to try and win and I think it's

00:15:45.080 important to acknowledge the ways that staying small has taken care of us and a part of that is

00:15:52.640 like I said just that we have so many bad examples and misunderstandings of what power

00:15:58.020 looks like, that it can be hard to envision a power that is connected, that is related,

00:16:05.180 that is accountable, that is interdependent. So we're not just asking people to become powerful

00:16:12.500 in the way that a politician or a CEO is powerful. We're asking people to learn a whole new way of

00:16:21.620 being powerful. And that can be hard, but is ultimately necessary. And the thing we get from

00:16:28.080 that is much greater than the thing that we get from staying small. Can I add one last thing to

00:16:36.380 that, Ayanna? Every body, physical body, has a different sensation or reaction to that word,

00:16:45.440 or even the idea of moving into their power, whether it be the idea of speaking out, for

00:16:52.800 example, dependent on that individual's life experience, or maybe even their family's

00:16:58.580 experience, their culture's experience, maybe their ancestors' experience, that body might

00:17:05.040 feel a very real, deep, visceral fear of like death, perhaps, you know, at the most extreme,

00:17:12.080 because we have lots of lived experience of the treatment of folks who moved into their power,

00:17:19.100 of what happened to them as a result of speaking out, if we keep using that as an example,

00:17:26.100 be it to be silenced through state-sanctioned violence, to be incarcerated, to be assassinated,

00:17:35.380 to be targeted in the media, to have their family targeted, all kinds of things have

00:17:42.840 happened to us that are very real risks of being as powerful as we believe we need to

00:17:49.960 be.

00:17:51.140 And working through that isn't just a matter of choice.

00:17:55.040 It's not as easy as just saying, you know what, I'm sick of thinking that way, I'm going

00:18:00.360 to go for it.

00:18:01.020 there's real healing that has to also happen there and space that we have to create for that

00:18:07.460 healing. And so, um, while there's like the, the politic of powerlessness, there's also the very

00:18:17.020 real demand that we have for tools and techniques that are going to help us transform what has

00:18:25.180 caused our powerlessness. And that's something that we're continuing to really explore and

00:18:29.640 deepen in our work, primarily right now through conflict, but also in some of the practices that

00:18:35.320 we've been drawing from. Yes, I really agree, BJ, that again, like it just comes, this word

00:18:44.600 mandatory keeps coming up. These things aren't something that we can skip and think that we can

00:18:50.000 get to the finish line. You know, we can't just wash all this human, interpersonal human dimensions

00:18:57.840 and human conditioning under the rug and expect to be able to be long-term, efficient, effective,

00:19:05.400 impactful activists or people of service, even people with good relationships with each other,

00:19:12.960 you know, our families, our friends, our co-workers. So this conversation is so ripe.

00:19:19.300 And also the way you all have discussed power is really fascinating because I think at first

00:19:26.460 when I thought about power, I was thinking of like taking the power, like kind of this idea

00:19:32.420 of leadership where I love how you are all explaining it because yes, power can mean

00:19:39.200 leadership, but power can mean vulnerability. Power is truth. Power is all of these different

00:19:46.040 factors. And by stepping into our power, we're actually, you know, in a healthy way, in a way

00:19:53.840 that's balanced with integrity, creates better relationships. And I think that is just a

00:19:59.260 narrative that many of us are completely not taught that stepping into our power is actually

00:20:05.640 beneficial for those around us. I feel like that's, that's not the common way of understanding

00:20:10.440 it. And so I really appreciate that. And there's, there's so much other analysis that I've been

00:20:15.420 doing while you've all of you've been speaking. But I want to get into this next question that

00:20:21.120 I think about so often especially with the Trump administration and really this this very divided

00:20:29.340 country with you know the left and the right but one thing I will say about the right is there seems

00:20:36.320 to be a stronger unification and in that unification there is power or impact or you know

00:20:45.460 whatever word we we'd want to use but it just also seems that more and more often the leftist

00:20:52.040 can movements and community they just you know seem to continue to alienate themselves from the

00:20:57.000 public both by choice as well as in their treatment of those who not uh don't align directly with

00:21:02.960 their values and i know this is a you know generalization alert but i'd like to kind of

00:21:08.280 talk about it overarchingly and i'd love if you all or whoever would like to speak to this can

00:21:13.420 share a little bit more about the toxic movement culture, and then what infrastructure is missing

00:21:19.160 in many of today's movements to move out of the toxicity? Yeah, there's so many angles for this.

00:21:25.860 Maybe I'll kick it off and BJ and Michael, you can build. One direction that that sends my mind in

00:21:33.760 is thinking about power in a structural way, which is one common experience, I think,

00:21:41.640 among activist subcultures that is an element of what we call toxic movement culture is the desire

00:21:49.540 to signal your alienation from society rather than take responsibility to lead society.

00:21:55.480 And when the left is in a structural position where we don't have collective power, and in

00:22:01.820 this case, I use that term in the sense of governance, in the sense of directing systems

00:22:07.220 and of distribution of resources and people feeling a sense of agency over the control of

00:22:14.280 their lives. When you don't feel that sense of power, you want to express your discontent

00:22:21.460 in some arena where you might have an impact. So what I mean is that let's say that you're feeling

00:22:27.300 in some kind of existential despair around climate change and you look to Exxon and see the way that

00:22:36.360 Exxon and the oil oligarchs are ethnically cleansing indigenous communities, are destroying

00:22:43.120 the environment and, you know, our human family for oil exploration. Well, if you don't feel like

00:22:50.920 you have any leverage or sense of power to, let's say, punch the CEO of Exxon, maybe you don't have

00:22:58.160 access to that arena, but you can at least punch the person next to you in the meeting for only

00:23:02.360 agreeing with you 99% of the time instead of 100% of the time. And so there's a dynamic in

00:23:09.700 movements where we go to attack each other because that's an arena where we see where we can have

00:23:13.900 impact. And because we have such a critical lens of being able to see what's problematic with

00:23:20.040 everything, we can turn in on ourselves and develop a culture of a purity of politics where

00:23:26.180 we build these circular firing squads and build an orientation where we kind of constantly push

00:23:34.460 each other to say the perfect things. And if you can't say the perfect thing, then you become

00:23:42.660 disposable. And so I think a lot of these elements of toxic movement culture that we talk about,

00:23:48.700 whether that is related to the reductive politics around identity, whether it's related to burnout

00:23:54.860 out or call out culture. A lot of that is related to a sense of efficacy, that if our

00:24:01.020 movements aren't picking strategies that are, you know, to a scale that's commensurate with

00:24:05.660 the crisis, then we look to where we actually can feel the impact of our actions. And that

00:24:12.280 is a reflection of how our movements engage in conflict with one another. You know, you

00:24:16.140 pointed this out earlier, Ayana, when BJ and Michael were describing our movement's aversion

00:24:24.060 to conflict, where we get afraid to engage in generative conflict. And the other side of that

00:24:29.320 coin is that while in one sense we are deeply conflict-averse as social movements, or at least

00:24:36.220 some sectors are, in other ways we engage in really unproductive kind of conflict on the

00:24:42.400 sidelines that we learn from a sort of combative stance that comes from campaigning and from

00:24:49.020 waging campaigns against a target. And then we look at each other like targets, rather than

00:24:54.420 looking at each other as we've all been damaged by this culture. We've all been damaged by

00:25:00.760 capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, and we're in a process of healing

00:25:05.420 together. And that the reason why we build movements is both to shift society, but to also

00:25:12.140 heal as we do it. So I'll, I'll pause there and see if BJ or Michael want to, want to build on

00:25:18.820 that. Cause there's, there's a lot of dimensions we could take, take it from. Yeah. Another thing

00:25:23.800 I'd like to bring into, into the, that conversation is the general context in what is our responsibility

00:25:33.220 and what isn't our responsibility, because the right is using, you know, the language and images

00:25:41.860 of patriotism and Christianity and these kind of like widely accepted, deeply held symbols

00:25:52.480 in American culture that have a lot of traction. And on the left, we're, you know, fighting for

00:26:01.280 some things that are very contrary or can be very contrary to the way things have been functioning

00:26:08.760 in the United States for a long time. And the sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, transphobia,

00:26:17.480 classism, et cetera, of our society at large is a real barrier. And that part isn't our fault.

00:26:24.680 That disadvantage isn't a thing for us to take responsibility for, but it is on us to take

00:26:29.960 responsibility for what is within our control and for speaking through and across those differences

00:26:38.080 in a way that really changes the narrative and to create our own narrative that is equally

00:26:43.900 compelling and to really ground into relating to people and recognizing the the kind of currency

00:26:53.260 of a relationship and in building our movements and so I think it's important just to always keep

00:26:58.680 that in mind when we're having this discussion. And then another thing that I wanted to bring in

00:27:03.360 is a tendency to not have any gray area, to not allow things to be complex.

00:27:11.480 And I think this is at the root of so many of the problems that emerge in our movement culture,

00:27:18.260 is that something needs to be entirely bad or entirely good, or entirely oppressive or entirely

00:27:24.580 liberatory. And a lot of the work that we do is to help people see with good eyes and really

00:27:32.960 see each other as whole and complex and growing and evolving together. And so I can think of

00:27:40.780 one example in a workshop that we did recently, where we, there was a tension around,

00:27:50.080 on one hand, the group thought of itself as a space where we can bring our whole selves,

00:27:56.900 we can hold each other in our wholeness. But then they were facing the reality of,

00:28:01.900 but we can't hold everything, right? There's actually limits to what we can take on.

00:28:07.620 And we invited them into a conversation of what can I hold? And what can't I hold?

00:28:15.780 What can I bring to the group? And what should I work through on my own? And the place where

00:28:22.620 the lesson really sunk in and really hit was when they started to think about how they would convey

00:28:29.020 this tension to their base, and that they were going to have to ask their base to understand

00:28:37.160 that they were growing, that they were entering into a question that they didn't have an answer

00:28:43.620 to. And when they realized that they had to ask that, they realized that they had to model being

00:28:49.120 complex and unfinished, that there was actually a problem that they were taking on that they

00:28:55.000 weren't going to find a clear answer to. And a clear answer might not actually exist. And so

00:28:59.560 when they sat in that and were like, oh, we're going to have to model to all of our membership

00:29:04.040 what it means to be figuring things out, that ended up creating a whole bunch of ease

00:29:09.320 because they didn't have to be entirely right or entirely wrong.

00:29:14.100 And they didn't have to get this question right the first time.

00:29:18.280 And I think spaces like that where we're inviting people to be in that complexity

00:29:22.660 end up softening all different difficult parts of movement culture.

00:29:39.320 Oh, here we go.

00:30:01.860 Just cause

00:30:06.000 They think we're gonna be quiet

00:30:08.920 Sit around, watch TV

00:30:11.040 Not do nothing

00:30:11.980 Let them

00:30:14.220 Poison the planet 1.00

00:30:16.940 Fuck with our people 1.00

00:30:20.240 They must not feel the ground trembling 1.00

00:30:25.480 They must not see the people organizing

00:30:28.420 And I see it

00:30:30.540 I see us growing underneath the soil

00:30:36.080 Getting ready to break through this concrete

00:30:39.500 Getting ready to heal

00:30:40.460 This earth, this land

00:30:43.420 These people

00:30:44.920 That's what I see

00:30:47.200 And I know you want to rise like flowers

00:30:52.320 Out of the concrete

00:30:54.880 Rise like warriors

00:30:59.240 Into these streets

00:31:01.860 Cause I know we need to rise like flowers

00:31:06.120 Out of the concrete

00:31:08.700 Don't you know you want to rise like warriors

00:31:13.020 Into these streets

00:31:15.780 All together we'll rise like flowers

00:31:20.000 Out of the concrete

00:31:22.660 For people we'll rise like warriors

00:31:27.020 you all said so many really profound things i'm still remembering joshua when you

00:31:33.500 mentioned this um this thing that happens which i know has happened to me before too it's like

00:31:40.080 you can't punch the exxon mobile ceo but you can look to the person next to you who might even be

00:31:47.700 a comrade or a friend or a lover and take it out on them because it's where you may have power or

00:31:53.500 access to releasing those feelings and it's it's all kind of making more sense to me how

00:32:01.620 this toxic culture within people who care so much um can arise because of these dimensions and

00:32:10.620 that we aren't conditioned to know how to communicate how to be vulnerable how to stand

00:32:16.040 in our power these aren't this isn't what we're learning in school or and most of the time or i

00:32:21.760 don't know if most of the time but i would imagine even in our family systems for a lot of us

00:32:26.260 and i know we have talked to some of this but i want to get a little more detailed on this topic

00:32:33.240 and explore the dynamics and the peril of this call-out culture and why we need to seriously

00:32:41.020 reorient ourselves to calling one another in you know i'm wondering why do you think we are seeing

00:32:48.320 a resurgence in this mentality of constant attack and like this is maybe what you kind of spoke

00:32:52.800 some to but you know as well as this expectation of perfection and I'm wondering isn't there value

00:32:58.860 in challenging ourselves to be a part of what is not perfect but the other part I want to speak to

00:33:05.800 and you and I know you all have been speaking to the complexity in the gray area is in one hand I

00:33:10.900 I see the damage that call-out culture can have.

00:33:15.800 On the other hand, I also see that there are times that people do need to get called out.

00:33:21.400 And how you all balance that in a way that's healthy and regenerative, I'd really love to hear.

00:33:30.240 What a good question.

00:33:32.740 I'm thinking of a recent group that I was working with.

00:33:37.340 and we were focusing quite a bit on microaggressions.

00:33:44.260 A lot of research lately, it's been over some time now in the last decade,

00:33:49.460 has shown that microaggressions have a more long-term detrimental psychological impact

00:33:58.720 than the more extreme cases of very overt aggressions.

00:34:04.680 that the like small doses daily affect us even, even more. So we were focusing on

00:34:12.780 microaggressions because that's often a thing that people get called out for.

00:34:19.380 And, um, one of the ways that we tend to respond to it is to name it and shame it.

00:34:29.340 basically. You did the wrong thing. You shouldn't have done that. You should know better. Or you're

00:34:36.080 terrible because dot, dot, dot. Or you're racist because dot, dot, dot. Or you're insensitive or 0.99

00:34:43.060 whatever it might be. As Joshua named, we're trained so well to be able to see it and name it,

00:34:49.620 a lot of us. However, when it comes to engaging it or educating or interrupting it, we have a lot

00:34:57.960 less practice. And because we don't have that practice, it's not a deeply ingrained thing in

00:35:04.260 us. It's not a natural response that we're going to go to. There's risk there. We could do it wrong.

00:35:10.300 And especially if we engage, which means we're going to draw someone into a question, ask them

00:35:16.420 more of why they think that way, or perhaps educate them and share a little bit more about

00:35:24.060 why some of their behaviors are problematic or start to bring their attention to it,

00:35:31.400 we actually put ourselves in a more vulnerable situation once again.

00:35:37.080 When we can call something out and point a finger across the table,

00:35:43.340 then the attention is no longer on us.

00:35:47.020 But when we engage and we draw ourselves into a conversation,

00:35:52.260 then what may also come into the light is our own assumptions our own shortcomings our own

00:36:01.480 problematic behaviors as well oftentimes the closer we get to someone in a like compassionate

00:36:08.380 way the more we can see ourselves and the truth is that the line that divides like what is good

00:36:14.920 and bad if you will or what we see as like a liberatory or oppressive runs through every

00:36:21.520 single one of us. It doesn't divide us. It runs through every single one of us. And we all at

00:36:27.740 some point have, I don't know, we're susceptible. We're conditioned in a way where we're likely to

00:36:34.740 reproduce some of the same problems that we're trying to fight against. So it's absolutely

00:36:42.800 necessary for us to be practicing new skills, particularly around feedback, so that we have

00:36:51.600 the idea of, like, how might we transform this versus how might we just identify this? Like

00:36:58.760 you said, we're conflict-averse, but war-prone. So we are quicker to attack than to invite

00:37:10.900 someone into a conversation so that's what we're really trying to look at when some of our groups

00:37:17.460 is how do what are some of the practices how can we allow ourselves to even experiment when there's

00:37:23.880 so much at stake right like when we know that this thing needs to end 20 years ago and we're

00:37:30.840 still dealing with it how do we approach that conversation with humility with compassion

00:37:38.300 and with enough honesty and truth that we have the potential to transform it.

00:37:49.640 It's useful also when the term call-out culture or the term calling out,

00:37:55.360 it can mean so many different things.

00:37:58.360 And it also feels worth clarifying that within Wildfire,

00:38:02.900 What we're talking about is within groups, among comrades, among people who there's a relational container to support each other to be and do better, which is different than, to me, it's a totally different conversation around publicly calling out a celebrity or the national conversation around the MAGA hat wearing kids that just happened last week.

00:38:32.900 or where the goals of some of that quote calling out

00:38:37.100 are really about drawing attention to a behavior

00:38:40.820 to say that that's not okay, right?

00:38:45.440 That's terrain that we don't really work in in wildfire.

00:38:48.920 The arenas that we work in are within groups

00:38:51.460 and within social movements among peers

00:38:53.640 who share a liberatory goal

00:38:57.200 where it's worth it to invest in each other,

00:38:59.920 where we have a kind of relational container

00:39:02.460 to want to teach each other and support each other to grow.

00:39:06.900 And so it felt useful to make that distinction as well.

00:39:10.680 Yeah, I really appreciate that, Joshua.

00:39:13.440 Because there is a large difference between those two realms.

00:39:18.020 And I'm sure there's even other realms that we have yet to discuss.

00:39:22.260 But I want to now switch this topic to this word Anthropocene.

00:39:29.380 and I've been seeing it used more and more. And I want to actually talk about the idea

00:39:36.500 of letting go of the Anthropocene or the old world, because the Anthropocene is characterized

00:39:42.840 by chaos, change, and uncertainty. It's a result of our own actions that have generated this

00:39:51.080 climate change, mass extinction, pollution, elite authoritarianism, and kind of a sort of perverse

00:39:58.600 resilience. So I'm curious about each of your relationship to this concept or this term

00:40:05.200 Anthropocene. And do you think the more we seek to understand this age of man, as they're calling

00:40:12.240 it, and recognize it as our own, perhaps the longer it will prevail because we're putting

00:40:17.880 so much energy into it? Yeah, I'll kick it off, which is, well, if I understand your question

00:40:25.720 correctly, Ayana. So please, please course correct me if I'm not going in the direction

00:40:30.960 that you're bringing us in. But when we look out into the world right now, we see a landscape where

00:40:38.260 all of the natural living systems that support life on this planet are in free fall or collapse.

00:40:44.640 And that's putting pressure on our social, political, and economic systems in such a way

00:40:51.860 where our orientation towards resiliency

00:40:55.740 is the politics of collapse and rebirth

00:40:58.760 and regenerative cycles.

00:41:01.860 And we've seen so many social movement sectors

00:41:05.740 begin to move towards holistic ecological analysis

00:41:10.720 and towards spirits to understand the scale

00:41:14.780 of the changes that are coming,

00:41:17.780 which is quite different than movements before us,

00:41:21.260 which primarily use the tools of ideology or, you know, materialist Marxist frameworks to think primarily about how do we transform human systems of governance.

00:41:34.860 And so for us, our orientation is that the earth is going to bring us back into right relationship with her one way or another.

00:41:43.760 And when we talk about resiliency, we think about the role of social movements to be navigating this period of constant collapse and rebirth.

00:41:53.420 And I don't know exactly what that means in terms of leaving behind the concept of the Anthropocene other than the sense that, you know, right now we support in wildfire a number of grassroots movement organizations for whom everything feels under attack by the Trump administration and everything feels on fire.

00:42:16.740 and we're looking at how can we transform the existing systems in our society of governance

00:42:23.920 so that we can navigate them better meaning for example you know who the president is has a

00:42:30.760 material impact when the next hurricane hits you know a president's trump uh versus you know

00:42:37.180 president sanders when when the hurricane hits puerto rico there's a there's a huge material

00:42:42.420 difference and yet at the same time there is the longer view of of um that this this civilization

00:42:51.120 does have a timeline and and it's coming to an end where we are in in a great turning and at the end

00:42:58.840 of an era and you know leftists for a long time have been predicting that capitalism is going to

00:43:04.860 collapse under the weight of its own contradictions um and i believe that we are we are in the

00:43:10.400 generation where that's finally going to happen, where the real superstructure of our economy

00:43:14.700 is, of course, ecology. And, you know, the latest UN report estimates a timeline for that that's

00:43:22.740 quite fast. And so we're thinking about what, in that context, what is the role of social movements

00:43:28.960 when the terrain under our feet itself is shifting? So I'm curious, Ayanna, if that kind of gets in

00:43:34.380 the direction of what you're talking about, or if the question was more pointed around the term

00:43:38.300 Anthropocene in particular? No, I loved where you took it. I think it's a kind of a strange

00:43:45.420 question, because in one way, I think, or whether we're putting energy into certain,

00:43:52.080 well, let's just say the Anthropocene, like part of me says, whether we're putting energy into it

00:43:55.660 or not is happening. But then the other part of me thinks about how we are moving through this

00:44:03.060 crisis. And I know, Joshua, you've previously spoken about the difference between organizing

00:44:08.100 to stop the climate crisis versus navigating through it with the former being impossible,

00:44:14.060 but the latter full of opportunity. So I think about this with the term Anthropocene because

00:44:21.140 it's something that I think a lot about, but I wonder, does it kind of paralyze us? Or,

00:44:29.720 you know, I think about conversations I've had with other guests and this idea of identifying

00:44:35.340 with whether it's the oppressor or identifying with the oppressed oppressor system and how that

00:44:44.140 can entangle us within it rather than allowing us to potentially move through it and it's something

00:44:50.080 that I don't feel like I really and maybe this is a gray area thing again and maybe it's really

00:44:55.320 embodying the dichotomy of it all and it's not this or that but instead it's a mixture of all

00:45:00.160 of it. But I would be interested to hear more about what this shift entails in terms of rather

00:45:08.760 than trying to stop, but instead navigate through, you know, what sort of planning is necessary

00:45:14.720 for a just transition away from this system of oppression and climate crisis and into

00:45:23.780 another system that is full of opportunity that that is um not it's of course it's challenging

00:45:32.400 but potentially it can yeah it can just open us up to so much more i think i'm um probably

00:45:41.740 stretching my imagination a bit more than my wisdom as i answer this question but um

00:45:50.360 when I think about what it takes for transformation to really happen like that I'll think about myself

00:45:59.360 as an example I can think about other groups as well there is some amount of pain or loss

00:46:09.080 or perhaps a rite of passage that has happened that has brought me to a point where nothing

00:46:17.220 can ever be the same again. And with that tremendous pain that catapults me into whatever

00:46:27.020 next stage of my own evolutionary development is, being able to either I'm forced beyond my choice

00:46:35.580 because of life circumstances, or I have some choice, but I have a lot of assistance

00:46:44.860 in that sort of rite of passage I can think about moments in my life that really transformed me were

00:46:52.880 when I lost my home when I lost my father when I was became a teenager and was no longer supported

00:47:01.540 by a public school and I had to like figure life out after that it was like these moments came and

00:47:07.160 I was suddenly forced to, I was initiated and forced into this next chapter. And in groups,

00:47:16.360 there are also moments when what previously the shape that they held, the structure that

00:47:24.260 supported them no longer serves them and must be shed or else that group will not be as effective

00:47:31.960 anymore. We're beyond that point as human beings, but it still doesn't change what it takes for us

00:47:39.940 to truly transform. And I think that whether we are attached to that concept of the Anthropocene

00:47:48.340 or not, to make a true transition means we've got to make a just transformation. And that is likely

00:47:57.080 going to be through pain, through loss, through chaos and destruction that forces people into

00:48:04.520 a completely new way of being because they have no way of accessing what existed before.

00:48:11.940 Collapse of the financial system, a new, our next recession or things like this that affect

00:48:20.280 our material lives in ways that force us to respond differently. Or we have a lot of assistance

00:48:27.760 and we are a part of groups that are working hard to make that transition, who are doing the work

00:48:34.400 to create those compelling visions, to create new governing systems, and to expand their sense of

00:48:40.960 self, to be working in collaboration with spirit, with land, with all the non-human beings that also

00:48:51.660 inhabit this place in order to find the way through, in order to find what right relationship 0.96

00:48:57.860 does exist so that they may navigate through it rather than try and stop it. And we don't know

00:49:05.080 what that looks like and we can say just by looking around the world and seeing the infinite

00:49:11.500 number of cultures and ways that people have survived that there will not be one way there

00:49:19.760 will not be a handful of ways but it will depend upon kind of micro circumstances what kind of

00:49:27.380 governance and what kind of worldview and what kind of actual systems and cultures and practices

00:49:35.520 allow people to navigate through it. And those are going to come about through groups and their

00:49:43.040 place and the resources or circumstances that they're within. Their particular context are

00:49:49.760 going to shape so much of that. And that's where we then kind of move from the Anthropocene where

00:49:55.220 it's really about the human influence and see that this next era will be determined greatly

00:50:03.560 by the forces of our planet.

00:50:25.220 Close your eyes.

00:50:26.160 Sing it to your people.

00:50:26.860 Wake up, warriors.

00:50:30.400 The sun's risen.

00:50:32.080 Now is the time to live in our vision.

00:50:35.560 Wake up, warriors.

00:50:39.200 Wake up, warriors.

00:50:41.240 The sun's risen.

00:50:42.800 Now is the time to live in our vision.

00:50:46.360 Wake up, warriors.

00:50:49.920 Wake up, warriors.

00:50:51.360 so for my last question although i really wish it wasn't i wish we had many hours to continue

00:51:00.300 diving in together but i'm thinking of this term and i may totally mispronounce it but i think

00:51:07.520 it's something like solastasia or solastasia and it's a term coined by glenn albrecht which he

00:51:14.880 defined as quote the pain melancholia or distress caused by the loss or lack of solace and the sense

00:51:22.840 of desolation connected to the present state of one's home and territory it is the lived experience

00:51:29.260 of negative environmental change the homesickness you have when you are still at home end quote

00:51:36.780 and i think many of us if not all of us can relate to this sentiment especially those of us who are

00:51:44.480 so deeply aware of the current transition that is occurring and the profound loss and trauma that

00:51:52.520 it entails. And while we must, of course, honor these truths, we also cannot allow ourselves to

00:51:59.020 become overwhelmed with the pain. So as movement facilitators, how do you wade through these

00:52:06.200 heavy realities while still retaining joy. And I guess the other question is, is how do we

00:52:14.240 operate in these spaces of contradiction and really move into our day-to-day lives without

00:52:21.080 getting stuck? In the last week, Ayanna, my phone has rang maybe six or seven times with folks that

00:52:31.960 I have either recently been in touch with or I haven't heard from in a very long time

00:52:37.140 reaching out to ask how can they create their own grief ritual to deal with what's happening

00:52:45.060 on a daily basis at home it was like this not so subtle but pretty quiet constant shift

00:52:56.540 towards losing everything I love.

00:53:02.860 And there's both the kind of anticipatory kind of anxiety

00:53:09.380 or kind of premature grief, I would say,

00:53:13.800 that comes along with seeing the way that things are changing

00:53:17.220 and not knowing what will be lost,

00:53:22.060 but knowing there will be significant loss.

00:53:26.540 And then there is the turning the corner in your own neighborhood and seeing the gentrification

00:53:36.620 that has displaced many people that you love and no longer know where they even live.

00:53:43.280 Or the magical place that you visited often as a child and through your teens and now

00:53:50.720 as an adult come to find is clear cut.

00:53:54.120 the places that we that we love that like we are so intimate with

00:54:00.400 Francis Weller names as the first gateway of grief being everything that we love we will lose

00:54:07.640 guaranteed no no exception including our own life and it's our belief that that's not something we

00:54:18.840 can stop, right? Like there are ways that we can slow down a lot of the devastation that's

00:54:25.100 happening. There's ways that we can work toward policies that are going to shift the way that

00:54:30.840 gentrification is happening. But this change and loss is going to be a part of our lives

00:54:36.120 and increasingly so with the climate change and chaos that we're already experiencing.

00:54:42.720 And so we have to honor the parts of ourselves that are experiencing that grief, that absolute fear, rage, shock, numbness, all of that, or else we start to compartmentalize ourselves and show up as less of ourselves.

00:55:04.820 So coming back to the conversation about power, we cannot be powerful in times of great loss if we cannot honor the pain and the grief and the feelings that come along with that loss.

00:55:21.520 It's impossible.

00:55:22.620 and the joy that we want to be able to experience that's also like experienced in this sense of

00:55:29.220 fluidity and this sense of being like this feeling of adaptation that's also on the other side of

00:55:36.980 releasing those feelings so they're kind they kind of come hand in hand even though it seems

00:55:43.480 like we should let's move toward our joy I know there's someone in my life who that's a big part

00:55:48.940 of their work is helping people pursue their joy, like move that and away from the things that

00:55:55.500 bring us weight, bring us more of the like harder, heavier emotions. However,

00:56:03.680 what we experience in working with groups is that if we don't move toward, if we allow that silence

00:56:10.940 to exist, where we just keep trying to move toward the new strategy or towards that compelling

00:56:17.800 vision and we leave out the part where we have to go into the pain, into the conflict, then we're

00:56:24.160 not bringing our whole selves along with us. So there's so much to be explored and developed in

00:56:30.780 our lives to create containers and space for us to really honor what's happening on the day-to-day

00:56:36.440 basis. And what we're doing right now is exploring how we can at least do that on like a regularly

00:56:41.840 occurring basis to allow folks to like really tend to the parts of ourselves

00:56:47.360 that are hurt and broken by what we're experiencing at home, home being

00:56:56.000 wherever we are.

00:57:18.380 Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast.

00:57:21.920 I'm Ayanna Young.

00:57:22.700 the music you heard today was from peace poets and a wildfire workshop i'd like to thank our

00:57:30.080 podcast production team our co-producer and editor andrew stores our co-producer and writer

00:57:35.720 francesca glassbell communications director aaron wise music coordinator carter lou mcelroy

00:57:42.580 and co-managing directors mara joy and melanie younger please rate us on itunes if you haven't

00:57:49.160 already and sign up for our newsletter at for the wild dot world and find us on facebook

00:57:54.660 instagram and twitter thanks so much and until next time

00:57:58.840 i've been too long away from this wild open sky on the concrete trails of wine

00:58:05.560 through the candles dark and white

For The Wild - March 06, 2019

THE WILDFIRE PROJECT on Transforming Toxic Movement Culture ⧸110

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