<p>Hey! Welcome back! If you’ve been part of Reflecting on Justice for a while, you know I’m part of an abolitionist book club. Every month we discuss a book or articles or podcasts that explores the whys and how's of abolishing the systems that harm us. Of how we shift the world from punitive and carceral logic and move instead towards transformative justice, accountability and collective liberation. (And, I often write about and share these insights we conjure up at book club to our email community, so shameless plug to join our email list if you haven’t already!)</p><p>Anyway, hope comes up a lot in these conversations we have at the abolitionist book club, whether or not we specifically name it as that, the undercurrent of our gathering is all about sustained hope.</p><p>This sustained hope shows up when we talk about histories and legacies, when a participant shares how their work with folx on the death row is meaningful not because these folx were able to escape state-sanctioned murder, but that they experienced a community fighting for their humanity.</p><p>Sustained hope shows up when we share and remember our first-hand accounts of resistance, of organizing, and how the outcomes of these acts of justice has now, magnificently, become life as usual.</p><p>Sustained hope shows up when we share how much easier it is to talk about collective liberation at this point in time, like something in the air has shifted…however slowly, but shifted nonetheless</p><p>And it is at this abolitionist book club where I first pieced together the realization that liberatory hope is actually not hope, but a dreaming.</p><p><strong><em>Let me explain</em></strong>:</p><p>I have never really been a subscriber of conventional hope. I always thought conventional hope was a risky gamble that would make me a fool if it didn’t turn out or put me in a place where I had to wait and be a passive recipient. That hope would always put me at risk of disappointment, of not being able to lean into the safety of the snarky, “I knew it” or “I told you so”.</p><p>Because a hope that is predicated on the possibility of an outcome is vulnerable. In order for hope as a feeling to exist, there has to be part of me that believes it can become a reality. Dreaming on the other hand, requires no such possibility. Dreaming is to think up something that doesn’t yet exist, something that by definition is outside the requirement of what can be considered a rational possibility. And ironically, I think it is in this particular irrationality, that we can find the resilience that hope needs to continue its survival. It’s the belief that everything is impossible till it becomes possible. That it doesn’t have to be possible within the context of current reality, for it to be the answer.</p><p>And is that not what liberatory practice is? The recognition that we are living in the imagination of colonial violence, of racial capitalism, of extraction and exploitation; and recognizing that we could also collectively imagine something different. That it is this recognition, this “outside the scope of reality” imagination that our ancestors had that built this reality we’re living in now. That I wouldn’t be here doing this if it wasn’t for their imagination, that if I could speak to them now, they, too, probably wouldn’t believe that this is the world we are living in.</p><p>So now back to you, take a moment now to think about whether or not your hope is predicated on the possibility of an outcome.</p><p>And if your hope was not predicated on the possibility of an outcome, could it still become hopeless?</p><p>Because if you really think about it, when we are existing in such oppressive systems, the point isn’t really to dismantle the whole thing in one fell swoop. The point is to try. And it is in the trying, it is in the act of resistance that is trying, where we find our ties to humanity.</p><p>We resist not because we “know” better will happen, we resist because we know we deserve better, and because there is no other choice.</p><p>Not trying is simply not the answer; ignorance and disconnection doesn’t make me feel any better about climate change, about genocide, about the lives we get to live on the backs of another. And turning away in self-protection simply disconnects us from our ethics, our communities, our world that could be, our humanity.</p><p>As Naomi Klein writes in her book, Doppelganger: </p><p>“For me, the reason to study and read and write about economic and social systems, and to attempt to identify their underlying patterns, is precisely because it is stabilizing. This kind of system-based work is akin to laying a strong foundation for a building: once it is in place, everything that follows will be sturdier; without it, nothing will be safe from a strong gust of wind. Yes, our world is still confusing after we understand this—but it is not incomprehensible.”</p><p>And what comes with the willingness to see, the willingness to comprehend? The willingness to dream and feel and hope. To try so that we can continue hope, to resist as we continue to dream.</p><p>As Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center and activist for a free Palestine says </p><p>“I think some of us are feeling quite stuck in this moment, particularly as we are in the belly of the beast and witnessing the unimaginable. I think witnessing the unimaginable forces us to imagine the unimaginable so we can actually create something different.”</p><p>So if you let yourself dream outside the confines of what is possible, to lean in to the irrationality of the unimaginable, what becomes sustaining for your hope? What gets in the way?</p><p>No worries if that last piece about what gets in the way comes through as some form of despair because liberatory hope, living the imagination of collective liberation, dreaming outside the confines of rationality requires us to mourn.</p><p>In colonial society, we often think of mourning as something to avoid, something that we should work to end. Something to be put in the DSM and labelled as maladaptive. Something to move on from, to let go of, so we can keep on with our lives unscathed, and quote unquote happy.</p><p>I heard somewhere that “grief is love with no where to go”; and “what is grief if not love persevering?”</p><p>We grieve because we have loved, we mourn because we’re connected and we experience another’s suffering as ours. Grief is an interruption of a relational dynamic that holds us in connection with another. A relational dynamic that has to find another way to exist. Sometimes, it has to exist in the metaphysical, in a spiritual connection to a loved one. Sometimes, it has to exist as an action towards a vision that honors our connection. Sometimes, it exists as small acts of resistance that keeps us surviving. The small acts of resistances that doesn’t abolish all that harms us in one fell swoop, but keeps each other alive by rejecting the narrative of dehumanization and the politics that systematizes our abandonment.</p><p>It is in this process of mourning that we redirect the love we hold to build the connections that breeds our resistance. To paraphrase Angela Davis, it is in our mourning that we can forge our solidarity.</p><p>So when you think of mourning as necessary for solidarity, what changes for you? Does your relationship with despair shift? How might despair be what actually qualifies you for this work? How might your dreaming be rooted in your despair? How might your solidarity be rooted in your mourning? How might your hope and dreaming continue to be reinforced as you let the grief of interrupted love be directed towards actions of justice? In what ways are you going to nurture and cultivate this interrupted love into a hope and dreaming that stays alive in the small acts of resistance you’re committed to? How might your mourning-forged solidarity show up as you answer the calls to action for ceasefires, for ends to genocides, and for justice?</p><p>As Nadine Naber, a scholar-activist associated with INCITE, feminists of colour against violence, Palestinianforce, and co-founder of organizations such as the Arab women’s solidarity association and Arab movement of women arising for justice says, </p><p>“This is the time to be screaming at the top of our lungs.”</p><p>And as Stefanie Fox, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that mobilizes hundreds of thousands of Jews and allies in solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle and a vision of Judaism beyond Zionism says, </p><p>“The only thing that must be more profound than our horror, more profound than our heartbreak, more profound than our overwhelm, is our determination.”</p><p>So back to you. How has witnessing the unimaginable, allowed you to foster change that has yet to be imagined? How have you been able to mobilize this imagination? What are you dreaming up to be possible, and how are you living in the imagination of that world, right here, right now?</p><p>This audio series is offered by donation, with 100% of the revenue donated to supporting Palestinian, Congolese, and Sudanese resistance. This is my messy, imperfect attempt to have the examination of my complicities as a person occupying stolen lands in the global north, as a person who’s lineage was also directly impacted by the colonial violence that allows me to occupy this space, to be useful to the active resistance in one way or another. If you have any feedback, critiques, or suggestions please email me at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:hello@reflectingonjustice.com">hello@reflectingonjustice.com</a>; let’s co-create our resistances together.</p><p>In each audio we’ll be referencing and examining the work of liberatory thinkers and on the ground activists at the forefront of our work, so make sure you’re on our email list if you aren’t already, so that you can get the transcripts and links to materials referenced. Head to <a target="_blank" href="http://reflectingonjustice.com/hope">reflectingonjustice.com/hope</a> to get on the list.</p><p>If you haven’t met me yet, I am Abby, a cis-queer, first-gen settler from Hong Kong, occupying the stolen, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Qayqayt, and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) peoples, in my work I am a clinical supervisor, adjunct faculty member, and practicing therapist and in my life, I spend most of my time building and learning all things justice-oriented and liberatory practice, living my best life trying to be a human database for this important work. I also have a thing for live shows, cute cats, good food and building mechanical keyboards, so hit me up with all your favorite artists, cat reels, recipes, and recommendations for tactile switches.</p><p>And this is Reflecting on Justice, your resistance besties, your community to unlearn with, and your co-conspirators for liberatory practices in therapy. Till next time, in unlearning and solidarity as always, take so much care, and I’ll talk to you soon!</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to reflecting on justice at <a href="https://reflectingonjustice.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">reflectingonjustice.substack.com/subscribe</a>
