Habari Gani? Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)!
Kwanzaa Day 3
Happy Kwanzaa bbs. I hope the last two days have nourished your spirit.
Let’s talk about Ujima and abolition. When I think of Collective work and responsibility I jump to the collective conceptual ties Soulaan people have to the institutions that attempted to rip our world away, tried to strip us of what can never be taken away. That’s their own naiveté but whateva bae, keep attempting the impossible.
Learning just how deeply systems are dug into the tunnels of my mind has been scary. I challenge myself to understand why I think things, not just what I think. That next step of understanding is hard to do on my own, actually it’s not possible. I carry all of the amazing thought leaders that chose to dissect themselves in this insane society along with me. I do not exist as myself without their bravery, for that I am eternally grateful. However, having the warmth of a comrade guiding me through the harmful rhetoric I have grown to depend is unmatched.
I am especially grateful for the ways my community has pushed me to understand an abolitionist framework, because this can be a difficult one for people to digest. A world without prisons and policing. Prisons and policing run American, imagine an America without them. You can’t, but that’s because they’re extensions of the power relations created from slavery. We’ll get into that a different day. The point I’m attempting to make is I had a network of people around me willing to work horizontally with me to imagine a world less broken.
When I make a joke about someone’s criminal status I had people with me who chose not to break smile. Not to darken the room, but to hold me responsible for my part in creating a world we wish for. When conversations got confusing, my communities have held space for the emotional reactions that come with not understanding. Then they work through anything I may not understand. It takes labor to progress with the people around you. You must hold each other when we succeed, when we fail, when we are mean, when we are our best, when we want to punch somebody in the face. Each time we deserve to be held in honesty for our actions and patience for them to be assessed and shifted. When we see every part of ourselves as people, neither good nor bad and endlessly redemptive we are able to do so for others. Until this happens there will never be a world in which we don’t look to persecute each other. It starts with you and the people around you.
Damn, this felt real serious ain’t it? Only cause it is. Light the next candle for today, should be a green one. Say thank you for the people who have held you to standard, continue to push yourself to hold those you care about responsible for their actions in kindness out of love. Always
- Carma
Never too late to learn about the previous principles
Kwanzaa Day 2
Kwanzaa Day 1
