Dear Friends,
In the last few weeks, as campus protests exploded in violence, my team and I traveled across the country and worked with people on how to respond with Revolutionary Love. Here are glimpses from last week:
- In Baltimore, we sat for hours with students in encampments and led teach-ins on tools for nonviolent resistance based in love. I met behind-the-scenes with administrators on strategies for de-escalation. And they listened.
- In Wisconsin Dells, we heard the stories of young people of color surviving acute trauma — and worked through tools for rage, healing and repair.
- In Madison, we brought stories, music, and tools to hundreds of community leaders, including educators risking themselves to protect their students. They used our tools to discern their particular role in history. One professor lifted up a call for courage even after he was assaulted by the police.
- In New York City, just a few miles away from Columbia University, I talked urgently with faith leaders about the ancestral stories and moral clarity needed to anchor people in shared humanity above all.
- In Los Angeles, where horrifying mob violence was inflicted on students at UCLA, my baby cousin, a freshman, was badly hurt by counter-protestors who hit students with metal rods, fireworks, and mace, as police stood by for hours. All the pain I witnessed in the country hit home. As we help her heal, I see in her the courage of countless students risking their safety to stop bloodshed.
I know the horrifying events of the week are cause for despair and paralysis. I offer you these glimpses, so that you may see what I see — thousands of people in pain AND thousands more who can reach out to one another in the dark to offer love. Liberation work is right here, right now, where you are. Imagine there is a role only you can play, an action only you can take, a difference only you can make.
Focus on what breaks your heart — the death toll in Gaza now at 34,000+ including 14,500 children, the invasion of Rafah, the plight of the hostages, the atrocities in Ukraine and Congo and Sudan, the alarming use of force by police and counter-protesters on students, the astounding rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia and all forms of hate. Notice what that heartbreak feels like in your body. Now, hold this question:
What does love want you to do?
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Revolutionary love is the call of our times.
Yours,
Valarie
CALLS TO ACTION
1. Call for ceasefire. We are making daily calls to Congress to call for a ceasefire. A ceasefire is necessary to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and work to release the hostages. We are following the lead of Palestinian-Israeli groups working together to end the occupation and build a shared future. We cannot implement their solutions for repair without a permanent ceasefire. Join us in this daily practice of calling Congress. Click here for how.
2. Support the peacebuilders. Standing Together is a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace to save the lives of innocent people in Gaza and bring back Israeli hostages alive. They are mobilizing people around a vision of freedom, equality, and security for all in the region.
3. Practice humanity. There is only one side that matters right now: the side of humanity. We are inspired by thousands of you sharing words, images, and tools from our movement to return people to their humanity. Practice the world you want in the space available to you. Use the Revolutionary Love Compass as your guide. Click here.
“ONLY REVOLUTIONARY LOVE CAN SAVE US NOW”
Civil rights activist, writer, and lawyer, Michelle Alexander, gifted us this essay for our movement, “Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now:”
“I know many people feel helpless in these times, but there are countless ways in which we can practice freedom by acting with revolutionary love. Even small acts done with love and in the spirit of justice can help to change everything…We can never know if our small acts of love or courage might make a bigger difference than we imagine. The fact that Black activists today are showing up at marches organized by Jewish students, who are raising their voices in solidarity with Palestinians who are suffering occupation and annihilation in Gaza, is due in no small part to thousands of small acts of revolutionary love that have occurred over the course of years, acts that I hope and pray are planting seeds that will eventually bloom into global movements for peace, justice, and liberation for all.” Read more…
FREE EDUCATIONAL TOOLS
Read this nuanced essay from the New York Times, “The Student-Led Protests Aren’t Perfect. That Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Right:”
“Whether you are watching student protesters on social media or experiencing the protests in person, the way you understand these protests depends on your perception of what they are protesting. It could not be otherwise. If you feel that what is happening in Gaza is a moral atrocity, the student protests will look like a brave stand against American complicity in what they believe is genocide — and a few hateful slogans amid thousands of peaceful demonstrators will look like a minor detail. If you feel the Gaza war is a necessarily violent defense against terrorists bent on destroying the Jewish state, the students will seem like collaborators with murderous antisemitism — even if many of them are Jewish.” Read more…
THE POWER OF PROTESTS
As student protests continued to escalate across the country, officials and students at Brown University set a rare example on Tuesday: They made a deal…
“This feels like a real moment of realizing our collective power,” said Rafi Ash, a sophomore at Brown who participated in the protests. “This is something that demonstrates that the mobilization of the student body can force the university to listen.” Read more…
RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS
We invite you to download our Educator’s Guide for tools to organize teach-ins and lesson plans on the practices of Revolutionary Love. What lessons can we learn from the past? How can we root out hate and hostility from our activism and ground in the love ethic? Use our guide as a resource.
The guide was authored by Professor Melissa Canlas, our Director of Education, who teaches at the University of San Francisco. She described the student protests there as “beautiful spaces of revolutionary love and practice.” Students engage in teach-ins, study groups, and trainings to understand nonviolent resistance. They are inspired by past student movements—the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, and the anti-war movement in 2003. Student liberation movements are imperfect, but they have been on the right side of history. How will you help students anchor their activism in love?
RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS
- Calling In and Calling Out. In fostering spaces of belonging, it is important to recognize when people with marginalized identities are harmed and immediately respond. Use this resource for standing against antisemitic or Islamophobic rhetoric.
- Stay Safe. Be Vigilant. Anti-protest groups are forming at campuses and online which could leave you vulnerable to digital attacks. Consider proactively using these security tactics to keep your public information safe and prevent doxing. If you have an urgent need for digital security, the RISE Together Fund is offering a limited number of DeleteMe accounts, which is a service that automatically removes information from directories that compile your publicly available information. Apply here.
- Legal Resources. Heavy assaults from police forces are rising at campuses. If you find yourself detained or facing legal issues, use this resource for support.
A PERSONAL NOTE TO EDUCATORS AND PARENTS
This is me in college. I’m the student in red, holding the megaphone, blocking an intersection in San Francisco on the day the Iraq War began in 2003. See that woman in purple, behind the police, looking on? That’s my college mentor Professor Linda Hess. She was our witness. Linda taught me the protest songs of her generation, so that I could channel all our rage into song that day — and everyone sang with us. Until the last arrest. It was beautiful and ancestral and powerful. Our protests did not stop the war. But all of us who protested were humanity’s moral conscience in that moment in history. And we became who we are. Today these students are: an immigration rights attorney, a psychiatrist, an author, a doctor, a professor of poetry, a voice for revolutionary love…
A few months after this photo, I was severely injured by a police officer at an anti-war protest in NYC. My body carries chronic pain from that police brutality to this day, twenty-one years later. The state wields extraordinary power to silence dissent. I would not have kept my voice if it weren’t for educators like Linda who stood with me and helped me heal so that I could become who I am today. I am so grateful to her. To all educators, parents, mentors: What essential role will you play? What will you risk? Who will thank you twenty years from now?
Read this story in full in Chapter 3 “Fight” in See No Stranger.
A GUIDED INQUIRY
- Think of a community that is suffering, another or your own. What does love demand? Picture yourself responding in the most courageous way possible. Notice what happens in your body.
- Where is the fear in your body? Say: You are a part of me I do not yet know. Ask what makes this part of you afraid. Your fear carries information. Listen.
- Picture the worst thing that could happen if you responded with courage. What could you lose? Imagine that has already happened. Notice what you feel in your body.
- Now, picture the most beautiful thing that could happen. What impact could you make? Whose life would change? Imagine that has already happened. Notice what you feel in your body.
- Courage is not a calculation of the mind but a choice of the heart. Invite the wisest part of you to step forward and ask: Who do you want to be? Listen.
Explore practices, guided inquiry, and tools at our free See No Stranger Learning Hub.