Your Values Are Nothing If They Aren't Tested

Beyond the Book: What does it mean to live your values

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

I’ve thinking a lot about movement work and where it all falls apart. So often, we see people come together with the best of intentions, the brightest ideas, the strongest momentum - only for it to implode in an extraordinary fashion.

It feels like a never-ending cycle: a group emerges just when we need them and captures the essence of the people’s struggle. They put into simple, clear words things that seemed so complicated before. They bring people together and inspire a level of excitement and enthusiasm we hadn’t seen in years. And we pour into that group and they take what we pour into them to grow.

And yes, that excitement also brings scrutiny, even attack by those who see the group as a threat. But before those attacks have a chance to pull the group apart, the group seems to pull itself apart, in a way that often does measurable damage to the entire community they had once served.

This does not only happen in groups that capture national attention. I see this in smaller, local coalitions that came together to provide meaningful services for the community. And the implosion of these coalitions not only leads to a great loss of support and advocacy in the community, it also harms and even permanently severs important relationships.

And through all of this, those who never wanted us to come together at all rub their hands with glee and do what they can to escalate tensions and spread them throughout our communities. And as these conflicts turn to lifelong grudges and people are cast out in the midst of it, we wonder why people don’t want to join us in the struggle for liberation.

Now, I’m not here to simplify this all to one article and say “this is the one thing that we’re doing wrong that we need to fix.” But I do want to focus on one main issue that I see time and time again, that has its hands in just about every failure and weakness in our movements: We don’t test our values and - when they are tested, we fail with little concern.

I have spent a lot of time in movement spaces, and have spent a lot of time talking with movement workers. And those initial cracks, the early ones that grow wider and wider until the entire thing breaks apart, those cracks pretty much begin with a failed test of values. Often these are values around transparency, accountability, consent, or repair. Sometimes they are anti-capitalist values, or anti-punishment values. Whatever these values are, there will be a time where a group must act upon them when it is inconvenient to do so. And often it seems like a small thing, and perhaps because it is so small, the group decides it is not worth the effort.

These cracks grow and multiply, until the web of cracks is all we see and we move further and further from the values that brought us together in the first place. And by the end it all looks the same: everyone is treating each other in ways that they wouldn’t treat their worst enemy. People are fighting with weapons of imperialism and patriarchy. Often the final days are spent in the court of public opinion - or even in the real court of our carceral systems. And there’s usually no coming back from that.

If values were easy all the time, we wouldn’t need to name them. They would just be what is because human nature is drawn to what makes our lives easier. Values are the things that we feel will make our lives better, not easier. And sometimes what would make our lives easier is in direct conflict with what would make our lives better.

Normally, if we knew that we really needed something and it was hard, we would set goals to work for it. We would come up with plans. And we do that in our movement work, but often only for others. We have ideas of what we want others to do in line with our values. We have ideas of the future we want that matches our values. But do we plan and work for with anywhere the same intensity living our own values now, in how we act with each other and the communities we serve, while these oppressive systems still exist? Not often. We are in no way prepared for the future we say we are fighting for because every time a piece of that future shows up in our lives at an inconvenient time, we shoo it away.

I can’t name all of the ways in which your values will be tested in liberation work, but I can guarantee that they will be tested regularly, if not multiple times a day. And to be on the lookout for these tests and to view them as opportunities to strengthen and refine your values is of the utmost importance. And so while I can’t name all of the challenges, I can list some of the common ones I see that many organizers and movement workers fail to rise to.

Loyalty to people instead of values: Often when conflict arises in movement spaces, there will be sides to take. And picking a side shows your loyalty, even if the side you choose may be in conflict with your values, and even if the act of choosing sides further undermines the integrity of the movement space. If your values are abolitionist in nature, then you would have no sides other than the side of liberation, love, accountability, and healing. That side sees and cares for everyone in the community. That side is interested in root causes, not simplistic blame.

But often in conflict, loyalty to values is seen as a betrayal of people - especially if friendships are involved. We are told so often how important it is to be “ride or die” for our people, and it is very hard to move away from that, and even harder to tell a friend that their demand for loyalty is in conflict with your (and often their) values. But those hard conversations is a large part of what real loyalty is, to your values and to your people.

The urge to punish: We can’t fight the carceral systems that target us while also duplicating them in our movements, and yet that is what we try to do all of the time. We were raised in punishment culture. It is not just the cops who were cops, our parents were cops, our teachers were cops. We have been rewarded throughout our lives for policing and punishing each other. And in times of conflict, that programming steps in real quick. Learning to plan for these carceral inclinations and protect against them is vital to the success of any movement space.

But I’ve seen many movement spaces - even abolitionist movement spaces use internal punishment to handle conflict. I’ve seen people shunned, cast aside, shamed, demeaned, and otherwise punished. And while all of this energy is poured into making one person feel irreparably broken for causing harm, no energy is given to investigating the root causes of harm or the environment that enabled it. And a toxic space is allowed to continue, with the added toxicity of fear and shame enabled by punishment.

It’s important that we plan for abolitionist conflict resolution when we aren’t in conflict and practice it for all conflicts, big and small. Because when we are stressed, scared, angry, or threatened, our brain doesn’t meander through our knowledge of abolitionist theory, it takes a shortcut through the path most taken or the clearest, most defined steps. And if we are not working to actively avoid even the smallest contribution to punishment culture in our day-to-day lives, and using that practice to build out effective abolitionist processes, it will be almost impossible to avoid carceral behavior when it matters most.

Our inability to hold space with people we don’t like: We spend a lot of time thinking about our values (or at least we should) when creating movement spaces. And we seek out people with similar values to build movements with. This shared vision is vital to successful and ethical movement work. We do need to be largely on the same page on important issues we’re trying to address, and we need to be able to trust that the people we work closely with will act in a way that aligns with the values of the mission.

But when we’re in the work, we will be working with many people who do not hold our same values. We will often be working with people we don’t like, and - even worse - people who don’t like us. We will be called upon to serve people in our communities who fear us, even hate us. And we have to be prepared and willing to stay in these spaces, even with people we deeply dislike and disagree with.

If we believe in our values, they are universal. I believe in abolition. I believe in Black liberation. So I will stand with any community harmed by carceral systems, even if people in those communities are racist or sexist. And I will fight for Black liberation, even if some of the Black people I am fighting for are ableist or queerphobic.

But I often see people in movement work demand that the communities they serve show perfect politics before they are worthy of care or protection. I often see people hold their service hostage in exchange for conversion to a particular set of beliefs or behaviors. And often these heavy-handed and patronizing behaviors are justified as part of the work.

Being dedicated to this work means knowing that oppressive harm often shows up as harmful bias and even violence in our own communities and the communities we serve. And that doesn’t change our goals, even if it should inform our methods. Clear goals, strong boundaries, and thoughtful processes around safety and wellbeing are vital to this work. Your values should inform what you do and how you treat others, what you want for your personal relationships and partnerships, and what we demand of systems and power structures. But if consent and respect are one of your values at all, then you will not blackmail your community into your values or punish them when they fail to live up to them.

Not planning for growth: Most movement workers toil in obscurity. A lot of our most important community work is done with little support or fanfare, and often no budget. Many time this important work is the result of a couple of friends coming together and cobbling together spare time and a few of their own dollars to make real change in their communities. And because these efforts are so small and so little attention is often paid to them, what is the need for record-keeping, budget procedures and transparency, discussions on credit and ownership?

But we have seen time and time again that the fortunes for a movement can change very quickly. 2020 was a prime example of that. In the uprising for Black lives, hundreds of millions of dollars made their way into the coffers of small, previously overlooked, movement spaces. And with those funds came spotlight and scrutiny they had never faced before. These were spaces that desperately needed funds and support for the important work they were doing. And pretty much none of them were prepared to handle it.

When your movement group was three people and you were using your own money to print fliers, it might not have been a big deal to take a few dollars back to buy lunch. But when there is suddenly millions of dollars in your account, what you do with every single penny matters.

When you couldn’t pay people to pay attention to the important work you were doing, it probably didn’t matter who got credit for starting your movement or who was named the head of it. But when media is paying attention and being named the founder of a new “it” movement can mean a six-figure book deal, it matters quite a bit more.

And even if your movement group will never see 2020 levels of attention or funding, most successful movements do grow over time in numbers and influence, and as they grow once easy decisions around budget and credit become a lot more complicated and risky. And if you aren’t prepared, you often won’t know it until you are facing a devastating conflict or controversy because of that unpreparedness. So having these conversations and setting best practices early, and revising them often, is vital to protect yourself, your movement and the community you serve.

Denying yourself victory in the midst of battle: I know that it feels like the world is on fire, and it feels like there is so much to do and so much against us that things like joy, rest, celebration, and community care seem like frivolities at best and harmful distractions at worst. And it is even harder to justify these practices when it seems like much of the world is gleefully ignoring the often horrific realities we are facing.

But let me be blunt with you: most of us will not see our ultimate movement goals reached in our lifetimes. I will likely not see the complete abolition of carceral systems in my lifetime. I know what I’m up against. So if I say that we do not get to find victory in this fight until then, we do not get to feel joy until them, I am dooming myself, my movement, and my community to even further suffering.

Each of us matter and how we live matters. And if that is true, there is victory in every step we take toward each other, in every way in which we care for each other, in every bit of change we can create. If we deny these victories, we do the work of white supremacist capitalism for it. We turn ourselves into vehicles of suffering, instead of human beings worthy of dignity and care.

But these important considerations are often left out of movement work. We are expected to suffer and sacrifice for our movements and we are supposed to postpone our joy, rest and healing for the party at the end of it all. And this toxic dedication to capitalist ideas of production exacerbates the mental health impact of living in oppressive systems while trying to fight them, and leads to burnout that increases movement turnover and conflict and keeps our numbers much smaller than they should be.

There is a lot of work that allies/accomplices can and must do in the fight for liberation, but NOBODY will care for us but us. We cannot say that we are fighting for our lives while also affirming through our actions that our lives were meant to be ground down in struggle.

At the core of this issue is the same important point in all issues raised here: we can’t fight for a future we aren’t willing to live now.

What we do and how we do it is the work, it is what lays the path that we are walking towards. A revolution is not simply a fight. A fight is a fight, and revolution is revolution. If you are not willing to be remade in this work then you are simply fighting for fighting’s sake, and you will be fighting your entire life. So I beg of you: every time you are given the opportunity to be changed by this work, please take it - even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it’s inconvenient. Give yourself a chance to find out who you will be in our liberated future by fighting to become more and more that person every day.