when we choose to love...

LAST COMMUNITY MEET UP IN 2022! Join us TOMORROW (4PST/7EST) for one final community of practice to reflect on this past year and imagine into the next through embodied practice, journaling prompts, celebration and special guests :-)

Register here.

There is perhaps no other writer that I have felt greater resonance with than bell hooks. Her words helped us make sense of the “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchal system” that we are struggling to survive under. Her wisdom taught us that “all awakening is spiritual awakening”. Her medicine revealed that love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination”. Her grace challenged us to “hold people accountable for wrong doing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed”. And her courage showed us that when “we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others”.

bell hooks gave us a blueprint to liberation. And we are all better - every single one of us - because of bell hooks. Let us honor her legacy by doing the work and loving radically.

Rest in power.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @culturestrike

1. The fragility of billionaires. Elon Musk's desperate need to be liked while hoarding unthinkable wealth isn't unique to him—it's a common symptom of billionaire depravity. [click to tweet]

2. The class war is destroying US democracy. The US has become a country of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich and we remain in the throes of a struggle to overcome decades of political corruption and social neglect. [click to tweet]

3. Can farm collectives take on Big Ag? What will it take for an emerging patchwork of co-ops, food hubs, and farming collectives to challenge Big Ag? [click to tweet]

4. Is a new kind of religion forming on the internet? Algorithms are surfacing content that combines Christian ideas with prosperity gospel with New Age spirituality (and conspiracy theories). [click to tweet]

5. Forget Amazon — give real gifts this holiday season. We've got dozens of progressive gift ideas for everyone from your radical best friend to your libertarian uncle. [click to tweet]

The Time Person of the Year should NOT be Elon Musk. It should be union activists, and teachers and essential workers. There is something wrong with a country that lets billionaires add $2,100,000,000,000 to their wealth during a deadly pandemic while nearly 40% of the general population cannot afford a $400 emergency. Time to get organized:

TAX THE RICH: We should be taxing billionaires instead of celebrating them. Behind every billionaire hoarding wealth are underpaid and exploited workers. Also, we can build back better if we tax the rich. Seriously, just tax the rich.

SUPPORT UNIONS: Support workers in their demands for a living wage, paid family leave, PPE protections, and healthcare. Follow these labor leaders and show up in solidarity: Fightfor15, AFL-CIO, Amazon Labor Union

PASS BUILD BACK BETTER: Did you know that the families of 65 million kids won’t receive Child Tax Credit checks this January unless the Senate passes Build Back Better this month. That translates to 10 million children who are at risk of falling below the poverty line. Call you Senators and tell them to keep tax credits for families NOT tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

bell hooks gave us words to live by. Here are some of our favorites…

Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.

All of our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.

Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.

Queer as not about who you’re having sex with, that can be a dimension of it, but queer is about being the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.

One of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone.

Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.

True resistance begins with people confronting pain...and wanting to do something to change it.

But don’t just quote bell hooks, LEARN from her. READ Feminism for Everybody, ain’t i a woman, Teaching to Transgress, All About Love and The Will to Change. Here is the best of bell hooks: Life, Writings, Quotes, and Books.

Art by @kaepernickpublishing

bell hooks’ life and legacy showed us how to be good ancestors now. Act accordingly.

*****Join us THURSDAY 12/16 for our final community meet up as we reflect on beloved community and prepare for the year ahead.*****

Art by @ashinspires

CTZNWELL is community powered and crowd-sourced. That’s how we keep it real. Please consider joining us on Patreon for as little as $2/month so that we can keep doing the work of creating content that matters for CTZNs who care.