30 Day Challenge for the Fight for Liberation

A beginners guide to navigating a rapidly changing world.

In lak’ Ech 

Tú eres mi otro yo. / You are my other me. 
Si te hago daño a ti, / If I do harm to you, 
Me hago daño a mi mismo. / I do harm to myself. 
Si te amo y respeto, / If I love and respect you, 
Me amo y respeto yo. / I love and respect myself. 

Liberation work is a two-pronged approach. It requires us to look within, and outside of ourselves. We must remain vigilant in ensuring we are doing the work for ourselves as we do the work with those around us. It is also critical that we understand this is the work of generations past, present, and future. We have been passed the baton, and we must move.  

One person alone cannot change the world, but we should never underestimate our powers as an individual. There is so much that one person can do. When thinking about it from an individual perspective, the feat of changing the world feels incredibly daunting. Early in my journey I could feel the weight of the world begin to entrap me in a tiny box. It would feel like those scenes in movies where they get trapped and water is pouring in all around them. I remember talking about how small I felt all the time. What we are up against is something so large and deeply rooted, it can feel massive and all encompassing.  A dark scary forest you might get lost in if you are not careful.  

I am still in the forest, friends, and I invite you to join me. I have prepared some resources to act as a starting point. Hoping that this can be useful to wherever you are in your journey. Imagine yourself as a puzzle piece. A perfect fit in a picture that is incomplete without you. You can only ever do your part and it is vital to the collective. 

So, where do you start when you are staring down at what feels like a never ending whole? Let’s start here:  

Something simple. What is a society?  

A quick google search will tell us a society is 1. “The aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.” or 2. “an organization or club formed for a particular purpose or activity.” 

Now, ask yourself what the point of living in a society is. Why is it that people come together at all? Why have we developed sociability at all? Octopus live solitary lives. What then is the benefit in choosing to live in a society? Why do you do it? Take a few minutes to ponder these ideas. Write your responses down if you’d like. 

In thinking about societies, I would like us to briefly visit the social contract theory. A quick google search tells us “In simple terms, social contract theory asserts that governments exists only by the consent of the people in order to protect basic rights and promote the common good of society.” Meaning that governments only have power that is given to them based on the peoples willingness to be governed. It means that the relationship between a people and their government should be a symbiotic one. We the people agree to abide by certain rules in exchange for order and structure and safety. A simple example of this is driving laws. People are required to learn the laws of the road before they are allowed to be drivers on the road. Traffic laws exist largely for safety. We abide by traffic laws and pay taxes towards road maitenence in exchange for smooth and safe roads. When the people do not hold up their end of the bargain it translates to dangerous roads and more accidents, but what happens when the government does not uphold their end of the bargain? We get bad roads, swerving or damaged vehicles, and ultimately more accidents. There are consequences for either side not upholding their end of the agreement, and we suffer as a collective.

So now I ask you again, what is the point of living in a society? Why do you do it? This time I inquire deeper, what do you gain from living in this society. What would life be like if all of the same humans existed, but did not live in a society together? Now imagine all the same humans in a society that is not like this one.  

I write this to you today from the inside of the core of the empire. A place where overproduced commerical goods and a serious threat of houselessness are enough to keep people from asking any questions. I, on the other hand, have a lot of questions. I could never understand the myth of the american dream or the idea that hard work alone was what determined one’s ability to succeed. Growing up, I knew so many people who were very smart, or very talented, or creative, or hard working, or innovative, you name it, but I did not know many people who were ‘successful’ by any means. I knew there had to be something bigger going on. 

Let’s switch topics for a second and talk about the good ole American Revolution. *insert eagle sound* The so-called beginning of the land of the free and the home of the brave. Such a sweet irony to call upon this specific moment in history just as other revolutionaries have in the past.  

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Peoples; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Peoples. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.  

THE Facts to be submitted to a candid world; A brief history of the United States.  

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

The irony is that these are the words used that would lead to the founding of this great nation. The words of Thomas Jefferson (criminal) have lingered in the back of my mind since reading the Declaration of Independence in government class in high school. I didn’t know as much then as I know now but the idea “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,” still influences how I move through the world. Call me American, but it is my right and my duty to stand against tyranical governments. We will see the fall of the US Empire in our lifetime. They have reached the end of their oppresive reign. Liberation is ours. The revolution will be fought with love, knowledge and an insatiable human spirit. All of the things they have spent centuries trying to take away from us, yet they still live on. We have carried our ancestors torch for this long it is now time to light the flame.  

I invite you in to explore. I will remind you that everything that exists was imagined first, meaning imagination is key to new world building. It is our duty to learn and understand our roles in the larger fight for liberation. The fight has existed since before any of us were born and will continue long after we all have gone. We must understand the context with which our specific fight is taking place, and what has come before in order to ground oursleves in the world that is to come.  

Important context for this moment in time.

In my opinion our battle is against the construct of whiteness, which I define as “A social construct that is based in binary social groups where one end is positioned above the other creating an intricate web of in-groups and out-groups where one is either rewarded or punished based on their proximity to the in-groups.” It is deeper than a fight against white supremacy alone, which is defined as “the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups.” We are fighting the structure. Embodying whiteness is not something unique to white individuals, it is an ideology and a framework for understanding the world. If we are not careful we risk replicating the same systems while only changing where everyone is positioned within them. We are fighting the idea that anyone is better than anyone, even further, we are fighting the idea that humanity is better than any other being who calls this planet home. Explore the Critical Learners Club for a deep dive into the learning.

Words/Concepts to Know

Colonization: Western colonialism, a political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations violently explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world securing wealth & resources for generations to come at the expense of the areas and people they conquered. 

Whiteness: A social construct that is based in binary social groups where one end is positioned above the other creating an intricate web of in-groups and out-groups where one is either rewarded or punished based on their proximity to the in-groups. 

Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

Dehumanization: the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.

Systems of Oppression (SoO): The way in which social norms, policies, laws, and infrastructures work to harm and dehumanize specific groups of people. Examples Include:

·      Educational Inequality                        

·      Racism

·      Patriarchy

·      Homophobia/Transphobia

·      Car-centric city planning

·      Ableism 

Marginalization: The act of being harmed or othered due to systems of oppression.

Neoliberalism: Creates an illusion of Individual Autonomy by positioning markets in competition where the individual’s choices seem to impact the success or failure of any given market.  

Marketization: The exposure of an industry or service to market forces. For example, the marketization of public education.

Myth of Meritocracy: Takes the ideas of neoliberalism and applies it to individuals and attributes their individual success or failure to their individual choices and/or talents/skills/qualities or lack thereof.

Standards of Success: Defines the parameters for what is considered successful versus what is considered unsuccessful. In a world constructed by whiteness, standards of success are rooted in whiteness.

Credentialism: The system that overvalues obtaining credentials and rewards those who do obtain them with access to leadership roles, more financial stability, and ultimately more power. Functions as a SoO when rooted in whiteness because the way the SoO interact actively prevent marginalized peoples from obtaining credentials. 

White Saviorism: As Flaherty (2016) explains, “the prototypical savior is a person who has been raised in privilege and taught implicitly or explicitly (or both) that they possess the answers and skills needed to rescue others, no matter the situation. The message that they are the experts in all things has been reinforced since birth” (p.17-18).

Interest Convergence: As Christine E. Sleeter explains, (2017) “It is very difficult to shift the center of gravity of a program in which the center is defined by White interests, and any proposed change must align with White interests to gain support” (p. 158) This idea refers to the ways in which white people dominate leadership roles which in turn, dictate how they function.

Fascism: a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Surveillance State: A surveillance state is a country where the government engages in pervasive surveillance of large numbers of its citizens and visitors.

Decolonization: the process of freeing an institution, sphere of activity, a people etc. from the cultural or social effects of colonization.

Intersectionality: The idea that individuals have individual identities that intersect in ways that impact how they are viewed, understood, and treated. Black women are both black and women, but because they are black women, they endure specific forms of discrimination that black men, or white women, might not.

Mutual Aid: Mutual aid is when everyday people get together to meet each other's needs, with the shared understanding that the systems we live in are not meeting our needs and that we can meet them together, right now, without having to pressure power structures to do the right thing.

LandBack: LANDBACK is a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands. Currently, there are LANDBACK battles being fought all across Turtle Island, to the north and the South.

Stewardship: the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property. "responsible stewardship of our public lands"

Prison Abolition: The prison abolition movement is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation and education that do not focus on punishment and government institutionalization. The prison abolitionist movement is distinct from conventional prison reform, which is intended to improve conditions inside prisons.

The Communist Manifesto: A framework to understanding labor and class at this specific moment in time. They explain that we are at a unique point in history post industrialization where the proletariat class has been created because “ The machines thus delivered industry entirely into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered the workers’ scanty property which consisted mainly of their tools, looms, etc., quite worthless, so that the capitalist was left with everything, the worker with nothing…As soon as any branch of labour went over to factory production it ended up, just as in the case of spinning and weaving. in the hands of the big capitalists, and the workers were deprived of the last remnants of their independence. We have gradually arrived at the position where almost all branches of labour are run on a factory basis. This has increasingly brought about the ruin of the previously existing middle class, especially of the small master craftsmen, completely transformed the previous position of the workers, and two new classes which are gradually swallowing up all other classes.” creating the owning class known as the bourgeoisie, and the working class who sell their labor for wages known as the proletariat. They explain the importance of uniting the proletariat class as critical piece in liberation from this faulty system.

Means of production: the facilities and resources for producing goods. The factories, tools, natural resources, etc.

Labor & Wage Labor : work, especially hard physical work.

the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live

Socialism (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.

Anarchism: a political theory advocating the abolition of hierarchical government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.