Scanned from “Arakitronics,” by Nobuyoshi Araki, 1994

To put it more plainly, famed anti-apartheid activist Bishop Desmond Tutu said that “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, then you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” and the risk that many activists feel when we center ideas like “radical compassion,” “revolutionary love,” and “transformative justice,” is that these ideas open the door to neutrality that supports oppression. The fear is that loving everyone means that we don’t take sides, and in not taking sides, what we are really doing is supporting the violence of the status quo.

This is a central tension inside of social justice-oriented communities - which also tend to deeply value love and compassion, not to mention the political goals of prison and police abolition - and as a social movement mediator, I see it articulated again and again in almost every activist organization I work with. Here are some common examples of questions that people ask me about this topic:

Doesn’t making space for multiple perspectives/multiple truths support the spread of harmful ideas?

Does working to “depolarize” intense ideological conflicts turn us into centrists - and cause us to betray the most oppressed groups? Is depolarization just compromising and saying “let’s agree to disagree” about atrocities? Does depolarization lead us into making false equivalencies - such as saying that the anxiety of privileged people over losing unfair advantages is equal to the harms experienced by oppressed populations?

Does acknowledging that perpetrators of harm are also often victims of harm who have their own needs justify the suffering they have caused and de-center the voices of the people they’ve hurt?

Does saying that people who have experienced oppression or violence can also commit oppression or violence (“hurt people hurt people” etc), are you accusing oppressed people of being “the same as the oppressors”? Isn’t this victim-blaming?

These are extremely sensitive questions that are born of legitimate concerns, and indeed, I believe that the rhetoric of “love,” “transformative justice/conflict transformation,” “non-dual thinking,” “multiple truths,” and so on can certainly be used to excuse, disguise, or exacerbate violence, abuse, and exploitation. However, I also believe this is the result of a serious misunderstanding, or sometimes even the willful corruption, of the ideas that I hold so dear.”]

WE ARE NOT DEEP

WE ARE JUST UGLY