"... Beloved Community: a world where conflict surfaces as an opportunity to deepen in relationship, a world where all people understand our interconnectedness, and a world where - as stated in the Kingian Nonviolence training curriculum - 'all people have achieved their full human potential.'"
"We can heal every person's trauma, but if we haven't begun to dismantle the structures still in place that perpetuate injustice at a systemic level, we'll replicate the conditions for new traumas to constantly be created."
"Desire and will alone cannot bring about the changes that we need. We need training and skill."
"For most of us, our natural reactions to violence fall into one of three categories: to fight, flight, or freeze. Nonviolence gives us an alternative way of responding: to face. Facing means looking your assailant in the eye, not backing down, not giving into fear, and not reacting in kind. Facing also means genuinely listening to your partner when they are upset, hearing their pain, and taking full accountability for your actions without blaming or getting defensive."
"Nonviolence is not about what not to do. It is about what you are going to do about the violence and injustice we see in our own hearts, our homes, our neighborhoods, and society at large. It is about taking a proactive stand against violence and injustice. Nonviolence is about action, not inaction."
"Racism has become normalized. Poverty has become normalized. Patriarchy has become normalized. Ecological destruction has become normalized. So many things have become normalized in our society, and part of the work of nonviolence is to never normalize violence and injustice."
"I've come to the conclusion that structures, policies, systems, and bureaucracies are often an attempt to compensate for a lack of trust and relationships between people."
"Understanding another person's perspective in a conflict does not mean you condone it. It does not mean you agree with their conclusions. The purpose is to gather more information about the conflict so you can see the full picture."
"Courage means that I have the internal fortitude to honestly speak from my heart and to act in congruence with the content of my heart."
"We are harmed in relationships, so we need to heal in relationships. We are harmed in community, so we need to heal in community."
"Building Beloved Community is not about loving the people who are easy to love. It is about cultivating love for those that are difficult to love. Those people over there."
"My life has been forever altered by everyone I have interacted with and learned from. Indirectly, I have been impacted by everyone who ever interacted with that person. And on and on we go."
"If our traumas are interconnected and interdependent, then so must be our healing and liberation."
"The best way to protect those that we love is to love those that may hurt them."
"... there is one important question that everyone needs to ask themselves to build a strong foundation for a relationship. That question is, 'How do my partner's traumas come out, and can I live with that?'"
"When people talk about 'holding someone accountable,' the key word should not be accountable, but holding. What does it mean to hold someone? When people talk about holding people accountable, does that person feel held, or do they feel attacked and judged?"
"We live in a culture that is so averse to suffering that we do everything we can to find ourselves surrounded by comfort. But there is no growth in comfort. It is through tension that we grow."
"As members of marginalized communities, our work is to heal from our traumas so we're not seeing violence where it doesn't exist and perpetuating our traumas in unnecessary ways. As members of privileged communities, our work is to understand that our position may not allow us to see the full picture, have compassion for why people may be too sensitive, and allow space for that pain and anger."
"He told me that tools like Power Mapping, Spectrum of Allies (which maps different sectors of society and analyzes how much of an ally or opponent they are), SWOT analysis (scenario planning around a movement's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and Pillars of Support (which looks at which institutions are propping up the larger systems you are trying to change) are among the most important tools a successful movement needs to conduct before jumping into action."
"This is a commitment not only to our own wellbeing but to the healing of past generations and the liberation of future ones."
"Feeling the anger or hurt we have toward people we not been able to forgive, looking at our deepest insecurities, and facing our own shame is not light work. But peace is messy, and nonviolence is the work of the courageous."
"... nonviolent negotiation is about creating dialogue, not debate. Second, a nonviolent negotiation strives to find a win-win solution. Finally, we believe that only equals can negotiate."
"Direct actions are largely about mobilizing people power to counter the structural power that has become barriers to genuine negotiations. They create leverage to take to the negotiating table so that we can be heard."
"Forgiveness (Understanding + Grief) + Accountability (Insight + Remorse + Amends) = Reconciliation"
"We heal society not only through individual resilience, but by healing our relationships to each other. Because we are harmed in relationship, we need to heal in relationship."
"Whether or not we'll end oppression, overcome violence, or reconcile all conflict is not the point. The point is to always be walking in the direction of freedom."
"We have the wisdom of our ancestors and the lives yet to be lived by our descendants."
