How The F Did We Get Here?

Navigating conflict at the end of the world

After years of work on my latest book, Be A Revolution, I faced the final editing decision that every author hates – the major cut. Interviewing over 30 movement workers for my book, carefully putting together each section, each chapter so that it all flowed together, the months of painstaking editing. I was told that my book was too long. We are in the social media age, I was informed. Once a book gets over 400 pages, people only pretend to read the book. Something would have to go. It would either have to be one of the profiles of the movement workers who had so generously shared their stories with me, or it would have to be my chapter on conflict resolution in movement work.

I searched through every page of the book trying to find little words or sentences I could cut, hoping that it would add up to enough to not have to make this choice. But after days of searching it was clear, I was going to have to make a choice. I couldn’t bear the thought of cutting anybody’s stories. These stories were so important. So I decided to cut the chapter on conflict resolution.

Oh, the irony.

I had no idea, the day I made that decision, that I would in just a few short months find myself feeling targeted by one of the people I profiled in my book, and that the very conflict resolution issues in our communities that I had outlined in the now-sidelined chapter would be taking over my life.

Let me tell you a story that I really wish wasn’t true. It’s a long one, and it’s one I wish I didn’t have to tell. But it’s a part of a larger issue in our communities that we have to talk about. So buckle up, this is a long and bumpy ride.* (note: to protect privacy, the person in this issue I am discussing will be known as “interviewee” and I will be using gender-neutral pronouns)

Many of the people that I interviewed for this book were people I had known for many years in movement work, but a lot of the people in this book I did not know before I interviewed them. One of the questions I asked many interviewees was “who would you be disappointed to not see in this book?” From that question I was introduced to a lot of amazing people doing a lot of amazing work. One interviewee discussed a movement collective that had a great influence on them and offered to make an introduction. I jumped at the opportunity. After email introductions were made, two people from the collective replied that they would be happy to interview me for the book. Their interviews were scheduled separately. It quickly became clear in both interviews that the collective wasn’t really active anymore, so both interviewees talked a lot about the work they had been doing outside of the collective.

In each interview I introduced myself and often started with a little small talk. Then I asked if it was okay if I recorded the interview, and I briefly explained the project. I’m a writer, and so it shouldn’t be a surprise that my “brief” introduction is a little wordy. But let me pull directly from the transcript in question so you can get an idea of how it goes:

Me: “Well, let me explain a little bit more in detail what I’m doing here, so you kinda have an idea, before we kinda get started. And that might help you figure out, as we’re talking, what direction you want to go, see how you feel about it. So, my book is titled Be A Revolution. And basically, it’s looking at—you know, I’ve written two other books. So You Want to Talk About Race, and Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. So You Want to Talk About Race is kind of just like a primer for people of all races and ethnicities who are like, “I just don’t know what these terms mean, and I don’t know how to move past catchphrases.” And then, Mediocre is like a diagnostic. Like, looking at 300 years of U.S. history of white male violence. And, what that does to our country and to people—everybody.

So, this book though, is hopefully my last one in a while, that’s kind of in this space. Because it’s draining—it’s very draining, and traumatic to document white supremacy and do this sort of thing. And it’s honestly not what I want to keep all my writing focused on. But, this last one I really want to do, called Be A Revolution, it’s kind of addressing all the times when I’m out speaking, or workshopping, or even just online where people show up in comments, and they’re like, “But what could I possibly do about it?” You know, “What can I do?” And it’s really—it’s frustrating, because people are doing, and have been doing for a long time.

And, so this book kind of—I wanted to do two things. One, I wanted to give props to people doing work throughout the country, but then also kind of take away that excuse from people who kind of want to just read about the bad stuff and feel like feeling bad about it equals doing something. And say like, look, you don’t have to have—you can come from anywhere and make change. So, as a book, it will of course have different audiences that have different needs. So, if you’re a Black person reading the book, what the work means to you or what you need out of it or what you want out of it is gonna be vastly different than if you’re a white person reading the book, right? And I’m hoping to address that.

And so, basically what I’m doing, the structure of the book, at least half of it is interview-based. With people just doing work in various areas, and looking at the intersections of systemic racism in various areas of society. And so, the work can be what people would call big or small. And it’s in different areas. So, you know, labor, agriculture, environment, disability. Where these things intersect. Where people are doing work. And so the goal, one, is to highlight what people doing doing. So that people understand that that work has been happening, and is happening. But also because, say, if you’re a white person reading the book, your area of doing the work isn’t even really gonna be doing, often, as much as supporting and giving to. To people who are already doing, and not like “start your own movement,” right?

Interviewee: “Another book club”

Me: “[laughs] Right. [laughs] And then for Black people and other people of color, it can be, here’s people you might want to look to plug into. Or, if there isn’t something like this in your space, inspiration, right? And advice. So, I’m interviewing people—hopefully, depending on comfort level—so far, everyone’s been comfortable with, but I have a lot more interviews, so—quoting people, talking about how they got into the work they’re doing. Because I want it to seem doable, I want it to feel doable to people. And also just to show what that looks like. And then, so that we can see people get inspired by it, or maybe see themselves in it, and then also learn. And so, it was first suggested to me to interview people from your collective by <redacted>, who is like—my spouse and her are best friends. So, I was interviewing <redacted>, and it was like, “Oh, you absolutely should reach out.

So, with that being said, do you have any questions about that, or anything you want to make sure I know before we jump in?”

No questions were asked. The interviewee jumped in and the first thing they said was (all quotes in this piece are pulled directly from interview transcript):

Interviewee: “So, I think it’s important that you have context on the collective. <Collective name> has long since, I would say, sunset.”

I asked the interviewee if they wanted to share their story. “Not only with the collective, but you know, what you may have been doing before.” I said.

The interviewee launched into the history of the collective, but, as the collective had already sunset, the conversation on the collective ended rather quickly. So they moved on to their story. They talked about earlier projects and who they worked with. They even spelled out people’s names in the interview so that I would have them right for the book. Such care, I thought.

The interview almost immediately took on a personal tone. The interviewee discussed feeling burned out. This had come up in other interviews as well. It was something that I felt was important for readers to understand, the toll this work can take. So I asked if we could delve further into that.

Me: “I would love to ask a little bit about you. You were saying you’re in flux, and you’re kind of working through—to paraphrase, sorry—where you are, and what’s next. And I would love if you can talk a little bit about that, because like I said, it is something that keeps coming up. I think it’s so important for people to understand, cause people get fired up, people have energy to do things, but when you’re living it and doing it, it’s a different thing. And I think a lot of people don’t recognize that, what’s necessary for longevity in doing work. And so, yeah,  talking a little bit about where you’re at, what you’ve been working on, and I don’t know, what you’re trying to figure out as far as protecting yourself and caring for yourself while doing work.”

With that invitation, the interviewee launched into their history in movement work. It was an important story, and at times a really painful one. This work, fighting systemic oppression, takes a lot from movement workers, especially if you are from the community you are fighting for. In doing this work, you are actively engaging with the harm that is happening to you and your community. This work can magnify that harm, and yet we continue to do the work, because the alternative is our extinction. So as much as the interviewee’s story saddened me at times, I was honored that they shared it with me, because I knew it could help so many others in movement work.

The hour of discussion flew by, and I had to end the interview to make another appointment.

“if you think of anything where you’re like, “Oh crap, I should have said this,” or, you know, feel free to let me know.” I said.

“You know I’m already thinking all of that right now.” They replied. “I’m already thinking about all of the intersections between all of the things, so that’s the piece that we didn’t talk about at all, because it was more <collective name>”

So I offered to set up a second interview, and they agreed.

I was excited for the second conversation, and apparently so was my interviewee.

“So, I just wrote a little thing about that for this interview, I could just maybe share a little piece of with you.” They said. They shared really beautiful and insightful theories around ableism and systemic racism. I was impressed with the depth of their thoughts and touched by the amount of care they had put into preparation for the interview.

They asked how the book was going. I said that these interviews were taking me in all different directions, that they were really shaping the book in many ways I hadn’t anticipated. So as I was tackling all of this amazing information with interviewees, I was starting with story – their stories.

“I just am writing out basically, after every interview as if it’s its own story, so that I can figure out how they all fit together.” I explained. The book was going to flow with the narratives given to me in these interviews, instead of me trying to force them into my own narrative, I explained.

“I really appreciate that, because the cookie-cutter stuff is what gets folks in trouble, and that’s what most writers like.” They replied.

This conversation was longer than the first, an hour and a half long. We both shared stories. It felt like we were forming kinship. “I” and “me” became “us.” Perhaps I should have taken that quick familiarity as a warning, but I didn’t. They talked about some theory they were working on. “I’m gonna drop in the chat this little paragraph,” they said, explaining that it was still a rough draft. “but you can read it and then let me know if you want me to say anything about it.”

Their theory was interesting and informative.

“This is dope. This is really dope. I was actually trying to think of how to contextualize this for people, and this is really dope. This is really useful.” I replied. So they discussed their theories at more length.

At the end of the second interview I felt energized. My head was buzzing from all of the great discussion we had. I said that I hoped our paths would cross again soon. We wished each other well.

At the end of most of my interviews, I let my interviewees know that I would be reaching back out to them later, closer to the final draft of my book, to make sure that I had all their current names, titles, contact info and more for book credits. I wanted to make sure that people who were inspired by the people profiled in the book would know how to find these people’s work and support them.

So, as promised, months after the interviews, my assistant emailed every interviewee requesting this updated information. The interviewee, like most of the others, replied with their updated info. At the end of the email they added:

"I am not sure if it is too late, but I was hoping to review whatever portions of my quotes ended up landing in the piece. If this is still possible, I would really appreciate seeing them. If not, that is okay also."

My assistant replied that I was still making edits and wasn’t sure what was going to be in the book, but I’d send direct quotes used as we got closer to a final draft. When I finally got closer to final draft stage (about six months prior to publication) I felt confident enough in the final structure of their profile section to send direct quotes from that section to them, so I did.

Two weeks later, I received an email from the interviewee. I thought they might be replying to the quotes I had sent, but instead, it was a request to meet up for advice on book publishing.

I was immediately excited by the request. All I want is for Black people to write books. I want every book by every Black person who wants to write to be on bookshelves. I want our voices heard. We set up a Facetime chat for the following week.

When we got on the phone, they explained that they had been approached by a publisher about writing their own book. They were considering it but didn’t know who to trust, so they reached out to me. I’m someone who works with integrity, they explained.

Yeeessssss! I was so happy to help. I so desperately wanted a book from them in the world. But the publishing industry is tough. It’s overwhelmingly white, hyper-capitalist, and often ableist. Having people on your team you can trust is key. I offered to introduce them to my agent, the person I trust more than anybody else in the industry.

After they agreed to the introduction, I introduced them to my agent via email and they continued their conversation from there without me.

I didn’t hear from the interviewee until two months later, when my assistant emailed all interviewees to get their updated mailing addresses so we could send them a copy of the book.

The interviewee replied back with their address and excitement for the upcoming book. I was glad to see the message, it helped calm some of my pre-launch jitters.

I didn’t hear from the interviewee again until the day before book launch, when they emailed me fundraising for an organization they had founded. I gladly put some money on the fundraising effort and continued to prepare to go on book tour.

Three days after the book launched I received a text message from the interviewee. They expressed shock over what I had written about them. This wasn’t what they agreed to at all, they claimed. They needed time to process this, but in the meantime, they requested that I don’t mention them in any interviews or events related to the book.

I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was confused and surprised. What was happening? What was shocking? I had no idea what had gone wrong but obviously something had gone very very wrong. I texted back immediately and tried calling. No answer. I sent an email begging for a conversation so that I could understand what went wrong and we could try to fix it. Then, I reread their text, saw that they said they weren’t ready to talk, and forced myself to quiet my ADHD spiraling that was happening and wait until they were ready.

They were an abolitionist. They were dedicated to non-carceral, non-punitive resolution. They would reach out when they were ready and we would work through this. I would have to trust that.

Reader: I should not have trusted that.

Instead of the reach-out I expected, my publisher received a letter claiming that I had misled the interviewee about the interview, that they never granted permission to be in the book, and that there were “numerous” issues and errors in the section on them (none of which were listed). They demanded that we stop distribution of the book immediately and that every copy be pulled from shelves.

If you’re reading this and saying to yourself, “what the actual fuck,” trust me, so was I. It has been something I’ve found myself saying so many times these last few months.

My publisher asked me for more information about these claims and I gathered together the information that I have shared here – it’s really all that I have. I sent over emails, transcripts, dates of conversations. I had nothing more to give, I had no idea what was going on. I was completely shocked at how quickly this had escalated, especially when I still had no idea why?

This was a nightmare that honestly I hadn’t imagined before, but it was just beginning. After my publisher’s lawyer replied to the interviewee’s letter (with a brief outline of their understanding of our communications regarding the book interviews and expressing similar confusion around these claims), they didn’t hear anything back.

As the days turned to weeks, the panic and confusion that was constantly looming in my brain started to quiet some. I continued on with my book events, respecting the interviewees wishes to not be mentioned in any of them. Tour was winding down and life was starting to return to normal.

About a month and a half after the interviewee sent their email to my publisher I had a book event with an institute in California. It was a wonderful event, full of really deep and important conversation. The day after the event, the event organizer emailed my publisher asking them to pass on thanks to me for a great event. They also wanted to pass along an email they received, so that I would be aware.

The email they received was from a professor at another California university. A white woman I’d never met. She was asking the institute to reconsider hosting me for the event because of “deep and yet unaddressed accuracy, process, and safety concerns by what has been shared in the book” with regards to the profile of the interviewee. They offered to connect the institute with the interviewee for more information.

Then community members started reaching out, saying they had been contacted by the interviewee as well. They forwarded messages that had me floored. I had been desperately hoping for weeks to talk with this person, to get some sort of idea of what had gone wrong – what their grievances actually were – so that I could find a way to rectify the issue. And I’d received nothing. So these messages sent in this whisper campaign against me were the first I was seeing of what was being claimed. And y’all, I was not prepared.

There was a very long, shocking list of accusations that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. To name a few:

• This person claims that they never gave permission to be in the book and that I misled them as to what the book would be.

• That I never got permission from the people they mentioned in the interview before I put them in the book (I guess to them they can mention their friends and associates in an interview for a book – and even spell out their names in the interview without my asking in order to insure I get them right for the book – without getting permission).

• That I made them seem overly-black ??? by not editing out their use of slang when I quoted them. I don’t know what the expectation was that they had for this interview, but to me, it would be highly unethical for me to edit out slang words in order to make someone sound more “white.”

• That I made them the “anchor” of my book without their consent. There are over thirty people profiled in this book. To say that I made one of those 30 plus interviewees the anchor of my book is an insult to all of the amazing contributions of the dozens of people I spoke with.

• That I outed them without their consent. This really had me concerned. Had I fucked up? Had they identified in some way to me in confidence and I missed that confidentiality? Had I made a dangerous generalization? I checked the transcript to be sure: “I would love, first and foremost, if you could just introduce yourself for the recording, how you like to be referred to, how you like to be described, pronouns, and all of that, so that I have it correct for the book.” I had said. I then checked the book. I had described them exactly how they answered me in the interview.

I had spent weeks desperate for more insight into what was going on and now that I was finally getting some (third-hand as it was) I didn’t know what to do. I reached out to a small circle of friends for guidance and support. I’ve always tried to be careful with my platform, with the size of it and the responsibility that comes with it. I did not want to utilize this platform in any way that may harm someone – especially someone who may be vulnerable, especially a fellow Black person. Even in my own defense. I decided to stay quiet. There was no way that I could see where anything I said or did wouldn’t escalate the situation. I would stay quiet. I would endure the rumors and whispers. Even as they became more vitriolic and personal (my identity as a Black woman was called into question. I was no longer Black, I was instead a “mixed-race” woman with a white mother, insinuating that de-platforming me wouldn’t be as problematic as de-platforming a “real” Black person). There were even insinuations that because the interviewee had said that they had been approached about a book, that I heard that and decided to “give it a go” on my own.

Then I started hearing from press, they were hearing from this interviewee as well. It seemed like anyone who had anything to say about me or my book was getting a message from the interviewee, sharing this growing list of wild accusations. This was getting out of hand. “You need to get out in front of this,”  they recommended.

And now I’m sitting here thinking: how the fuck did we get here? How did a book firmly rooted in abolition, in community care and community building, become center in a conflict that was actively doing so much community harm?

While this has taken up the vast majority of my time and thoughts these past weeks, and while this situation seems extraordinary at times – it really is becoming more common in our communities and especially in our movement spaces.

I have been, for weeks now, a part of a trusted circle trying to help a friend and fellow movement worker through a similar situation in their work. Where a small dispute or miscommunication has ballooned into wild and even dangerous accusations that don’t seem to stop. When I confide in friends about what I’ve been going through, so many have similar stories to share, of people they thought had the same abolitionist, healing-justice principles as them, turning on them on a dime – seeming far more interested in destroying them than finding any resolution.

What is going on? What is happening to us? These are questions we’ve found ourselves asking over and over with more frequency.

I don’t have all of the answers – even though I desperately wish I did right now. But I know that this is an issue that many of us are trying to grapple with. It is something that even came up in my book. As I quoted Richie Reseda in Be A Revolution: “We’re all talking shit about each other, taking from each other, da, da, da, da, da, revenge here, punishment there, violence there. But by all means, let’s all rally up thousands deep and tell these white supremacists how they should act!”

When there’s a boot on your neck, your focus is on that boot. And while you’re fighting so hard to get that boot off of your neck, it’s really difficult to also be able to say, “Wait, am I harming somebody else right now?” “Is every conflict I encounter also a boot on my neck?” “Am I living my values in how handle conflict in community?” And yet this is work we must do. These are skills we must strengthen and processes we must build and invest in. Because these internal conflicts, when amplified by the ongoing trauma of living as multiply-marginalized people in highly oppressive systems – have the power to do harm that white supremacy can only dream of.

And it’s a problem that is only being made worse by social media. I owe a lot of my career to social media. It provided me access to community, and to readers, that largely bypassed the majority-white gatekeepers in the “traditional” writing and publishing world. I found camaraderie in Black twitter. Yes, there were always trolls, and yes, they did really take a toll. But we were there for each other and stood up for each other against attack. We uplifted each other. We shared each other’s stories. But slowly the algorithm started changing. It became clear that the quickest way to get a lot of likes, shares, and followers was to be mad at someone publicly.

In a world where so many of us are disempowered, where every day we are harmed by people and systems that are unaccountable to us, that don’t give a fuck about us – it can feel really good to be given the name of a person, any accessible person, who is doing harm. So maybe you can’t fight the system that is actively harming you right now. Will you settle for dragging this person who offended someone you barely know for filth? Will you settle for getting a stranger fired from their job because someone says so? Will you settle for demanding that a book be pulled from the market over an issue you know nothing about? For many people, desperate for some feeling of agency, the answer is a resounding “Hell yes.”

I’ve seen it happen countless times. I’ve seen how much it is rewarded. I’ve seen the damage it causes to our relationships and our own morality.

One day, I logged into twitter and saw two people I admired and respected having a very public online disagreement. It was a disagreement in perspective, a common disagreement in movement work. It was something that you would expect to be hashed out over a meal or even a simple phone call. But it wasn’t happening there – not because all other avenues were exhausted – but because the public free-for-all had now been normalized and rewarded. I decided that maybe it was time to step away from Twitter. Eventually, I just closed my account altogether. I stepped away from the platform and its hundreds of thousands of followers in defense of my own peace and sense of self.

And now with this continuing global pandemic, our ties have become even looser. Things that should draw us closer together – the fight to keep each other safe – have instead dragged us even farther apart. Our trauma has been compounded as we have lost community members and haven’t even been able to attend their funerals or hug each other for comfort. When instead of taking time to collectively grieve our losses, we’re told that it is all over and we’re all supposed to go back to work now. We are supposed to act like we didn’t spend years acting like proximity to the people we love – the community we desperately need – could be deadly. We are now supposed to come back together like nothing has happened. And y’all, we fucking can’t.

So I’m sitting here writing this and I’m scared, I’m hurt, I’m exhausted, and I’m angry. I’m so angry that we’ve all been put through so much. I’m so angry because our communities are all that we have. They are how we’ve survived so many generations of systemic harm – and yet they are so easily torn asunder. I’m angry that we have to carry so much trauma, and that trauma can be so easily weaponized. I’m angry that we have to fight these systems and find a way to heal from harm that keeps happening and unlearn carceral thinking and build new healthier ways of dealing with conflict ALL AT ONCE. I’m angry that all of the trauma of the ways in which my family and I have been targeted for the work I do – the doxxings, the swatting, the bomb threat, the death threats, the constant harassment – has been dragged up, wounds still so fresh in our little home, as I face the possibility of a renewed harassment campaign. I’m angry that so many of my friends and colleagues are facing similar situations, and are having to consider ways to try to stay safe from members of the community that they live and work in.

Y’all we have to talk about this. We have to take a real look at how we’re engaging with each other. We have to investigate how many times we scratch the itch of powerlessness with the quick, unexamined take-down of another human being. We have to talk about how rarely when these public recriminations start, that we stop and ask: “What have we done to heal this? Is this really where we need to be right now?”

These are questions I’m pondering as I try to not drown in regret over the chapter that I cut. As I try to remind myself that I really couldn’t have predicted that all of this would happen. That the volatility and unpredictability of conflict in so many of our spaces and our lack of tools to deal with them is the problem, not the actions of one individual.

We have a lot of work to do. And if you’re even half as exhausted as I am, I’m sure you’re reading this and thinking, “really? MORE work?” But it’s unavoidable. Because if we’re going to survive white supremacy, end-stage capitalism, violent colonialism and so much more – we’re really, REALLY going to fucking need each other.