Last month, I completely disconnected from social media and spent every day talking with other similarly-disconnected digital campaigners and activists at Web of Change, an annual conference bringing together people working at the intersection of social change and technology. It was eye-opening. Because of the lack of reliable internet I was forced to get reflective and … [Read more...]
Resolution for 2017: Make Time for Self-Reflection in Movement Work
I wrote this in Morocco at the UN climate negotiations while trying to process a way forward after the election. Much of this has evolved into what I'll be carrying forward with me into 2017. It's time. It's time to break down the silos that divide us and build an intersectional progressive movement. It's time to share what we know. It's time to figure out what's … [Read more...]
Comfort Is No Friend in Desperate Moments
I see a lot of people posting about the hard work ahead. It’s true, it will be a rough road. But let's be real about what that hard work means. Make no mistake, none of the strategies employed by the professional advocacy world of the last forty years will suffice to meet the challenges ahead. Third-wave environmentalist partnerships with multinationals will not suffice. … [Read more...]
I Don’t Want To Work Anymore.
This summer, I watched Ali Wong’s standup comedy special, Baby Cobra. A fully pregnant Wong explains how she trapped her rich husband so that she wouldn’t have to work anymore. She calls feminism “the worst thing that ever happened to women,” and cites Sheryl Sandberg, the author of Lean In, admitting, “I don’t want to ‘lean in.’ I want to lie down.” I laughed, and for … [Read more...]
Are we a part of the problem – and would we know it if we were?
There’s a moment in Mallence Bart Williams’s TEDx talk that really struck me – it begins at minute 4:30: So how does the West ensure that the free aid keeps coming? By systemically destabilizing the wealthiest African nations and their systems. And all that backed by huge PR campaigns leaving the entire world under the impression that Africa is poor and dying and merely … [Read more...]