Holding a Revolutionary Mindset: A Conversation with adrienne maree brown

Truth to Power is a regular series of conversations with writers about the promises and pitfalls of movements for social justice. From the roots of racial capitalism to the psychic toll of poverty, from resource wars to popular uprisings, the interviews in this column focus on how to write about the myriad causes of oppression and the organized desire for a better world.

Steve Dubb: You have talked about having lived in many places, and that you had a White mother and Black father. Could you discuss how this background helps shape who you are today?

adrienne maree brown: I got to experience humanity in lots of different cultural formations. So, from a very early age, I had a sense that there is not some singular culture or way to be a human. And I moved all the time, so I am highly adaptive. That skill, that muscle of adaptation, flows through my work, how I facilitate, how I mediate, how I write, how I think about the world.

And having an interracial family, it gives me a perspective on humanity that is actually really helpful. There is this backslide into White supremacy and patriarchy, and systems that I think are really harmful and are moving in the opposite direction of life. I feel grateful that I can say I know people across a vast spectrum of culture intimately and I can see what it takes for people to change. I can see that love is one of the key practices that makes it possible to change. Because I have witnessed it very up close over many years.

SD: You have called the late Detroit civil rights activists Grace Lee Boggs a mentor, as well as Octavia Butler. How have mentors influenced your work and politics?

amb: I’ll start with Octavia Butler because she really entered my life earlier. I think she trained me that when you’re looking at the world and the situation feels impossible or overwhelming, activating your imagination can be medicinal. So, taking it into the realm of science fiction, sometimes people can read it and hear it better in that space than they can if you just tell them, “That’s racist.”

I feel Octavia was a great teacher for me in that way. She was also a teacher that you could be an introvert, who spends a lot of your time being a nerd and researching and still have impact on the world and still be helping people move towards a practice of community.

Love is one of the key practices that makes it possible to change.And Grace Lee Boggs, she just blew me away with the clarity of her thinking and the vastness of her scale of vision. I was really impressed that she had rooted herself in a place. I got to overlap with her in Detroit for about eight years.

Ursula K. LeGuin was also a great teacher for me in the realm of imagination. I looked to her as someone who really wanted to get into the minutiae of alternative ways of being. She came up with ideas like a four-way marriage. How would it actually work day-to-day? Let’s get practical. What structures would need to be there? I just appreciate her because she got very into the nitty-gritty.

SD: Can you discuss what you mean by the book’s title, Loving Corrections, and how you hope it will influence readers?

amb: I’ve spent about 25 years where my work was primarily facilitation. As I became more visible through my writing, it would get harder to be a facilitator. Because I would show up and people are like, “I know what adrienne maree brown thinks about the politics of this situation.” And then you can’t be part of the container in the same way.

But I wanted to offer up what was the special sauce. What was the magic I was trying to bring into the room? What was my unique skill set? I think a lot of it was creating containers where people can love each other.

And then this act of loving correction. Where it was like: “We are off course. We need to course correct together and do that in a way where we are holding each other.” Even if we are not going to be moving forward in the same formation, there are ways to be respectful and say, “We are going to be in this work for the rest of our lives.” Those of us who are movement workers, you really make a lifetime commitment. And you might do that from a lot of different political homes and a lot of different political locations in your life.

But if you don’t learn to meaningfully disagree and stay connected somehow, you lose so much. You lose relationship. We lose scale. I think right now we see so much infighting and tearing each other down, because we are trying to do these course corrections, but we’re lobbing them at each other, instead of holding hands and saying, “Let’s step together.”

SD: You referenced the backlash moment we are in. How should activists approach it?

amb: It helps to understand that a lot of these things have happened before, but we might not have been as informed and as immediately able to reach each other, as we are now. angel Kyodo williams says we have advanced our technology to be able to know things about each other, but we did not advance the spiritual technology to handle all that knowing and relating.

If you don’t learn to meaningfully disagree and stay connected somehow, you lose so much. You lose relationship. We lose scale.

With Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, I’ve been doing this series of conversations, called election time with amb, where we are trying to talk about this moment of being anti-genocide and anti-fascist, and how do we walk the line together in movement space. And one of the things she said was, “Organize and talk to each other like you need each other.”

That feels like so much of what Loving Corrections is about to me. How do we operate as if we are trying to build a new world, and we want as many of us to land there and be there as possible? When you’re doing that, you don’t talk to people like they are disposable.

I think we have to be a big tent, united front right now. I think this is a moment where fascism as a global threat goes hand in hand with climate catastrophe, goes hand in hand with disaster capitalism, racialized capitalism, goes hand in hand with imperialism.

Is it a precipice? We have already slipped down the hill a little bit, and we need to figure out if we are going to get ourselves out, or if we are going to have to go through it again. Because we’ve been through it in various ways before.

I also talk about mushrooms a lot. There is a section in the book on this. There is something in the way that mycelium work. The mushroom is just the flower of a beautiful system of communication and resources that is moving underground.

I feel we need to orient ourselves a little like that right now, where it is not safe to be in the spotlight. And we need to be very cautious about who we put in the light. I keep saying, “Don’t shine on me in an individual way.” I think what we should be shining a light on are the efforts and experiments that are happening where people are trying building something new together with each other. And there is a lot of humility in trying something new. You learn by making mistakes.

And then a lot of work right now does have to be defensive and protective. We have a lot of people who have got to taste the freedom of getting to live into their identities: queer people, women, trans people, Black people, Arabs, immigrants.

We’ve told kids they can be as fluid as they want to be. We have to protect them now. How do we create a big defensive effort? And how do we be mycelial, as we move our visions forward?

SD: How do you see Loving Corrections building on past work like Emergent Strategy?

amb: To me, it is all part of the same conversation. In some ways, I feel I am pulling a thread and it’s taking me backwards.

When I pulled that thread on how people hold emergent strategy, that led to Holding Change. In Holding Change, I talk about mediation. How do we hold when conflict arises? That book led me to We Will Not Cancel Us. Things blow up. We keep turning to this move of going public with the blow-up. How do we remember the skills of mediation, direct conversation and boundaries? How do we remember to be human with each other and still think of people belonging to us, even if they make mistakes, even if we need boundaries?

And that led to Loving Corrections. Because for me, if you use loving corrections in an ongoing regular way and get good at it, then you don’t need mediation, you don’t have to get to the level of war. Because you’re making these course corrections all along and you’re co-creating a culture where you can be vulnerable and honest and ask for what you need. I wanted to span a wide range but show that in every space, this is kind of the same move, which is: Can I notice that I am actually in relationship?

Can I protect the relationship even as we get to be different with each other? I know what I think of White supremacy. I think of it as a prison that White people have gotten themselves trapped into, just like I feel that Zionism is a prison that Jewish people have gotten themselves trapped into. There are ways to jail break anyone out of a prison, always.

It doesn’t work to turn our backs. We have to go back and get our family members and cousins, our loved ones. We have to say, “I love you too much to leave you rotting in that cell of that bad idea, that bad ideology. Let’s get out of here.”

SD: In Loving Corrections, you write, “I do not believe whiteness will just die in shame….So, I must believe that something else can emerge, is emerging, even if it is small and rare.” Where are you seeing these emerging paths?

amb: I’ll point to a couple of things that I’ve seen. One is that I just got back to a trip to Ireland. Being among White people in Ireland is always medicinal for me. Because it is getting to be around White people who still feel very much connected to their cultural lineage—to their songs, to their music, to the magic of their land, to the faeries. There is so much still that feels land-based, culturally rooted, which I think a lot of folks who have taken on Whiteness in the United States, they have unhooked themselves from.

If you use loving corrections in an ongoing regular way and get good at it, then you don’t need mediation, you don’t have to get to the level of war.

I go in Ireland in some ways to keep that part of me alive, that hope. This is possible. It is happening right now. There are some people who are really committed to justice, solidarity, and right relationship.

And then I’ve actually been impressed—outside of the feelings of whether you endorse [Vice President] Kamala [Harris]—I have really been impressed with the organizing that has been happening. There is White Dudes for Harris that has been blowing my mind with how direct they are being. Like: “Here’s our assignment, and here’s why we are uniquely responsible for a lot of the harm that is happening.” This feels like reparations work is throwing their energy around Black woman candidate, with a lot of nuance. I have been really moved to see that work. White women have also been organizing themselves and being like, “We have made some big missteps. We have caused a lot of harm.”

I really appreciate the sense of self-gathering. We can argue a lot more about the veracity of that assessment of Kamala. But I’m really interested in how White folks are doing that organizing.

SD: You have a chapter on solidarity, focused on Gaza. Could you discuss how Americans can show up in true solidarity whether with folks in Gaza or elsewhere?

amb: Solidarity in some ways, is an act of setting yourself free. The system says that I shouldn’t care about that, I shouldn’t risk that, and instead I am going to set myself free because I do care about that thing. If you come in solidarity, you recognize that your future, your fate, your destiny, your health, your wellbeing, your safety, everything is tied up with mine. That’s the way I approach it.

I think living in the United States, the way the story often gets told to us is that we’re playing a bit part in someone else’s play. “Oh gosh. If only we could influence it in some way, but I don’t know what we could ever do.” The narrative makes it feel very benevolent and innocent. While the actions are those of a massive imperialist bully.

I used to say this as a facilitator and say this all the time now: “Follow the money. I don’t care what you say. I care what you spend. Follow the money.”

I think this is where Harris-Walz campaign is currently most troubled and most fumbling. Kamala is getting up and she’s saying, “Palestinians deserve their freedom. They deserve dignity; they deserve sovereignty.” But then she is part of an administration that is sending billions of dollars advancing their devastation.

When we follow the money, that’s when we can understand where solidarity matters in the United States. That is why the BDS [boycott, divestment, and sanctions] campaign to me has been one of the most impactful organizing campaigns I have ever seen.

I think the first part of solidarity is awakening to that reality. Even for me, my first move is to say I feel more Palestinian than American. But the reality is I am a citizen of the United States. So, I am culpable of what the United States is doing, and I have to act like I want it to do something different and materially invest myself in something different being possible.

So, I feel like I have taken a lot of risks over this past year that I didn’t expect to be taking. But they feel like the right risks. And I have experienced the consequences. And they feel like the right consequences. And by that, I mean a lot of funding that I usually would expect is not available. A lot of speaking engagements that I would usually have, I am not being booked for. Campuses are like, “We are not going have her come. She’s going to be like, ‘Go encamp’.” And they are correct. If you are trying to keep your students from rising up and caring about life somewhere, don’t bring me to talk. It feels good to be in that alignment.

But the flocking piece really matters. I have to constantly remind [myself] that I’m not alone. So, whenever I’ve seen someone taking a public stance of Palestine, I reach out and try to make sure that I’m connected to them in some way.

SD: If relationship building is at the center of liberatory politics, where do you see the most promising work occurring?

amb: I started doing this election time conversation series because the narrative I have had is that the left is incredibly fractured, and the nonprofit world is incredibly fractured. So, I was asking: “Where are we at? What time is it on the clock of the world? What do we need people to know?”

I was surprised that there was so much more coherence, so much more alignment, than I expected.

Everyone does not have the same conclusion. But folks are generally like: “We understand we need to build the left. We have to be humble about where we are right now. If we had the power that we want to have, we could stop genocide. If we had the power that we want to have, we would be able to keep the Supreme Court from making horrific decisions that impact us. If we had the power that we want to have, we would have the right to an abortion.”

We need to tune in to the fact of where progressive movements are in this moment. There is a lot of building we need to do. We need to build our capacity. We need to build scale.

There is a lot of savvy and a lot of nuance about how people are talking about moving through this moment and not surrendering any of our values in the process of moving through it. But really looking at politics strategically. To me, I’ve been watching groups behind the scenes, groups that are moving in mycelial ways, including groups that you might know like Rising Majority, Movement for Black Lives, Working Families Party. I’ve really been impressed with the relationship building that they have been doing.

Those are some of the places where I see that relationship building happening. I’m based in Durham, NC, now. It has been really beautiful to watch this local community develop a choir. And develop a group called Mothers for Cease Fire. And watch the relationships form in that space. I see it in a lot of places right now.

SD: Where do you see the greatest potential—and the greatest dangers to avoid—for nonprofits in liberation work?

amb: I think the biggest danger for nonprofits is being in a relationship with philanthropy that is not a liberating relationship.

Usually, program officers are people coming from movement….We need to think of them as people that we can organize.

I have been talking to a number of foundations and trying to be very loving corrective in those conversations. When I look back at the last 10 to 20 years, I see that so many people are basically getting paid to write reports and proposals for foundations rather than getting funded to do their organizing.

Even the most well-meaning philanthropists are still deeply tied to capitalism and capitalist efforts and often to endowments that they are trying to protect—often working with boards or wealthy families that are trying to not rock their own boats in the process of creating change. So, I think nonprofits in our effort to disconnect ourselves form the capitalist system can end up completely reliant on the wealthiest.

That said, I think that a sea change is happening. I see more and more foundations starting to think about this. I am in my own experiment of trying to focus on getting non-extractive funding.

They’ll say it’s impossible. But this is where my fractal sensibility comes in. Every foundation is made up of people. Usually, program officers are people coming from movement and still identify as part of something larger than themselves. They’re trying to navigate the institution from within. We need to think of them as people that we can organize. It’s always organizing. How do we build relationships that create the space in which people can change?

Whenever I talk with these foundations, I am really moved by their intentions. I think we can, I hope in the next 10 years, close the gap between intention and impact, so those good intentions don’t require organizers to set their work aside.

SD: I was struck by your essay in the book on “Compassionate Economics.” How can a more compassionate economics effectively counteract what you call the divisiveness of capitalism?

amb: For me, it ties back to emergent strategy. If we start to understand ourselves as truly part of nature, as earthlings, as part of a larger planetary system. If we make our decisions from that place, then we are managing our shared home. I feel the economics practices that would emerge from that place are so exciting.

I see this in my community. All the people who have been organizers, they are now starting to garden and farm. We are all being blown away with the abundance of the earth. We’ve lived our organizing life in a lot of scarcity, but as soon as you start to grow something, you’re like, “The earth is fecund. We all have too much. How are you going to use it all?” It is such a different way of living in relationship with earth.

The most revolutionary thing is to understand that there are going to be many ways we move forward and not just one.

If you orient toward the earth and make decisions that protect this place that is abundant and can meet all our needs, that’s the way we need to move into an economy.

SD: In your chapter on Ursula LeGuin, you write: “If we can’t tolerate the contradictions of our politics, we will always slip into reform” and “we must push for that messy revolutionary stuff and hold the contradictions.” Why is tolerating contradiction necessary to advance a revolutionary politics?

amb: I see it all the time. “That’s a contradiction. We have to choose one.” That to me is the most counterrevolutionary move. If we can’t tolerate the contradiction, we try to find a place that feels neutral. And neutral is usually the least threatening political space to land in.

Movement Generation has a gorgeous framework that I often reference, the three circles model, where they talk about what is politically possible, the false solution we are given, and what we actually need to happen. What we are constantly trying to figure out is: How do we make what we actually need politically possible?

Usually, what is politically possible is only the false solution. So, we end up in this reformist cycle that never gets us anywhere. It kills the revolutionary spirit. Learning to hold the contradictions for me means I don’t have to choose the least impactful, most neutral thing. I need to choose the most impactful move I can make right now. Sometimes, that move is a compromise. Sometimes, that move is taking a great risk.

Even right now, the fact that I keep saying I’m anti-genocide and antifascist, and I am holding what seems to be a contradiction. That’s a mirage. It is only a contradiction because of the current state of the US government. In any other context, those would obviously go together, because fascism produces genocide. But in those moments, for me, the most revolutionary thing is to try to hold both—not let go of either—to keep moving forward. It allows us, I think, to make more interesting moves.

I also think the most revolutionary thing is to understand that there are going to be many ways we move forward and not just one. And that requires being able to hold the contradictions.

SD: Is there anything else you would like to add?

amb: Wherever you have landed yourself, figure out if it can be your political home. Or if you need to have a different political home that’s outside of your workplace. That feels very important right now.

Not every workplace is going to be a political home. Your job is where you work. It may or may not qualify as your political home. And that will depend on how rigorous people are about being revolutionary, holding contradictions, being in conflict in healthy ways, and being able to grow together.

Your political home is a space where you can grow with others, together. Whether you are at a nonprofit, whether you are in a leadership position or not, find a political home where you can pour all your righteous energy.