I’ve been doing liberatory work for a long time through giving talks and workshops, organizing in the streets. Questions that folks ask often, particularly lately are, “I feel like I’m not making a difference,” “I feel like I’m not doing enough,” or “Will we see change?”
And I’d like to make this offering of how we can think about our work together and also as individuals within community:
Think of us as water. We are waves of water against the walls oppressors built to try to control and contain us.
Through organizing we become a movement. And the sheer mass of us is pushing against the wall. Undulating waves.
We have been keeping at it every day since October 7, but we also have a foundation of generations before us.
Sure enough, we begin with a single trickle pushing our way through, creating the first crack. Then out of more crevices more streams of us. All of us pushing as one.
The front and back of the wave work together symbiotically. So each of our voices, gestures, protests are needed because they embolden each other. We have power in numbers together. The more of us there are, the more regenerative we become.
We need all of us, interdependent, to create a strong enough body of water to break through.
And while some may fall to the back of the wave to regroup, others come forward with a force. Undulating waves. Remember that the back of the wave is the very rhythm that creates the front of the wave’s might.
Out of every space we break through. We are a collective moving force until we destroy the wall itself.
This is how I think about liberation. Hope it can be helpful to some.
Liberation means an END to oppression. All of us, together, powerful, and free.
As Bruce Lee said, “Be water, my friend.”
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