beyond scarcity
If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
(This quote is often attributed to Lilla Watson, but she credits it as a community effort of an Aboriginal Rights group in Queensland, Australia.)
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The last couple of weeks have been fraught with tension in the movement, both interpersonally and structurally. Between the anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, the effects of un-cared-for trauma, and the constant learning of how to hold accountability without disposability… Folks are tired, and don’t have access to the support they need to stay within their emotional window of tolerance. In some spaces, the defensiveness is so tangible that I can feel it encasing my shoulders like a vise.
One of the reasons that conflict arises in spaces that hold multiple identities is the default understanding of scarcity. The Western culture of individuality insists that there is only so much space, and you have either earned and must defend it, or you haven’t earned it and must fight for it. This is an immense amount of pressure to carry on a regular basis, and the overlap of individuality and scarcity pits us against each other from the outset.
Take this culture of scarcity, and overlay it with the shame of being wrong, and you’ve got a recipe for constant conflict. The carceral system as the standard cultural response to mistakes is in every pore of our being. It makes us terrified of being cast away, of being flung to a place of isolation that we can never come back from. We are indoctrinated to believe that if we accept any counterpoint to our decisions/beliefs/actions, we’ve flung ourselves into “the bad zone.”
Fear is freezing. Shame throws us out of our window of tolerance, makes us reactive and defensive. And of course it does! Who wouldn’t want to avoid being cast out at all costs?
This is one of the beautiful things about abolition. Abolition isn’t simply replacing prison with hugs. Abolition is reframing the entire way in which we engage with each other. Abolition says to leave scarcity behind, to say “yes, and.” Yes, I’m nice, and I caused harm. Yes, I caused harm, and I should be held accountable. Yes, I should be held accountable, and I also deserve healing and growth and space. Abolition does not evade consequences. Abolition increases the space that is available to us, and as a result we actually become much more adept at accountability, at growing, at apologizing, at deepening relationships, at reducing harm. Instead of insisting that we are right because that is the only way we can stay in community, we are able to hold our missteps, lean into our learnings, & be brutally honest about the nuances of our existence.
Friends… we are on a rock. Careening around in a solar system, in the back corner of a galaxy, hurtling through a universe of possibility. There is space for you. There is space for each and every one of your polarizing truths. “Yes, and” is not just a comedy improv technique. “Yes, and” is embracing the multiplicity of your identity, and the multiplicity of the world around you. There is so much more to this world than the binary of punishment and retribution.
So here is my challenge to you. How far can your imagination reach? Where can you replace “but” with “and”? Where can you hold yourself accountable - not because you anticipate punishment and seek retribution, but because you seek growth and community and learning?