"I Hope We Choose Love"

One thing you learn quickly as an activist, or really in any capacity politically, is that conflict between humans is unavoidable. Whenever you have two or more people, you will have different opinions. When you have large groups of people passionate about saving the world, many different opinions clash wildly.

This summer, I bought and read a new book by Kai Cheng Thom, recommended to me by my eldest daughter who is acquainted with Kai. It is called I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes From the End of the World.
I highly recommend it, and you may purchase it here.

The context Kai writes within is the trans community, but many of the struggles and conflicts are familiar to those of us who are politically and socially active. She speaks of her early days in social/queer activism, how she wanted to be accepted and loved, but over time she and other activists have realized that there are issues that need to be addressed about the way we are with each other within activism. The very first chapter (or essay, as the book is really a collection of essays interspersed with poems around an over-arching set of themes) references a number of other books and articles within the social left that critique what has been happening with us.

She has a lot to say from personal experience and what she has lived in relationship with others about what she calls "increasing fragmentation and oversimplification of identity politics via the Oppression Olympics" (p. 21). Also false binaries and the politics of safety (p. 22), exhausting performance of virtue and exclusion (p. 23), bullying, call outs, mob mentality (p. 24)... Her analysis is fearless, thorough, and initially it feels overwhelming.

How could we possibly make our way out of this morass?

The central essay, called unsurprisingly "I hope we choose love", outlines a new and hopeful paradigm for those who would do the work of justice. First, she redefines justice through "an ethic of love" instead of the lens of punishment, and suggests we begin by creating "flexible, working, practical definitions of justice so that we understand what we are doing and what values we share". She reminds us survivors of harm can perpetrate harm and urges us to "invest deeply and fervently in the dignity of human life. (All in this paragraph from page 89.)

There is a tremendous amount to good advice in the rest of this essay so please read it if you can. I just want to close sharing about it with one more quote from the end of this essay: "We must love ourselves... Love for the community that has failed us all. We live in poison. The planet is dying. We can choose to consume each other, or we can choose love. Even in the midst of despair, there is always a choice. I hope we choose love."

I don't know about you, but I am very deeply moved by this. I am blessed to exist in a little activist bubble of beautiful, warm, and amazing people in Extinction Rebellion Hamilton, But over more than 2 decades of activism, I have experienced and seen an awful lot of conflict, calling out, exclusion, and human suffering.

I hope we choose love!