Reaching Across

Let's talk about what it means to reach out and be compassionate to folks who are starting to realize they made the wrong decisions in who to support and suddenly find themselves getting eaten by the leopards.

I've said this a few times and I want to make it abundantly clear: the outreach role is not a role everyone can or should fill. This is specifically a role for people with privilege and people who feel called to do that work. Marginalized folks can be unsafe in many of these circles and it is the role of the privileges to be that boundary.

Being compassionate with people coming out of a brainwashing is vital. But that does not mean we don't hold to our principles and values.

If we hold to the value that everyone deserves their needs met, we have to be true to it.

We extend a hand to help, we offer mutual aid and support, we make sure their immediate needs are met. This creates opportunity for conversations about those immediate needs and how what is happening in the world is affecting them. This will almost certainly be a series of conversations.  These interactions matter a lot.

We don't immediately invite them into community. This should be true anyway, but folks you are in community with should have shared values and standards. We don't want to have harm done to marginalized folks in our communities so we do community in layers. These folks will be on the outer layer and will need to do the work to move through the layers.

What we do is teach them community through one on one outreach. Through events that are focused on the needs of the larger community. We build relationships. And as relationships build, we have our series of interactions that allow us to teach.

Maybe it's discussing the economy and being able to point out capitalist exploitation.

Maybe it's talking about immigrants and being able to refute the claims and stereotypes and racism.

Maybe it's them proclaiming how great the US is and being able to point out the history of white supremacy and colonialism in the US. These are not big brawls of arguments but gentle conversations that nudge folks to examine themselves and the world around them with new eyes.

Correcting folks doesn't always go well. In fact it rarely goes well. People don't like to admit to being wrong.

Again, you don't ever want to be unsafe, and you always want to mitigate damage or harm, so it's important to be able to de-escalate situations when it doesn't go well.

This is a skill set. It is a work that requires effort and patience. It is often like talking to a brick wall.

But things are changing. People are realizing they have been had. And it is the job of folks in this role to reach across and help folks. They are going to radicalize one way or another. Let them radicalize to liberation for all.

We don't compromise our communities by immediately letting them in the inner layers but those who should must work with them on the outer layers. We need them, whether folks want to admit it or not. We need every single person we can to be for liberation. That doesn't happen overnight. That happens through meaningful conversations that help folks critically view the world around them.