I also notice in others, and in myself, that these critiques are often a tempting opportunity to use our performative criticality to prove our own commitment, credibility, and worthiness. We must be careful using our commitments to social justice as an outcome to justify dehumanization of others that are out of alignment with social justice as a process. We have also seen cancel culture doing real harm to movements for social change. We are currently seeing so many disingenuous critiques of “cancel culture” to avoid accountability. Accountability, Learning, Critique, & “Cancel Culture” adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy 3.

This strategy is not about being nice, kind, or gentle, it is about being effective.Īnd in a beautiful twist, being soft in your rightness, as opposed to smashing people with your brilliance, can open up others to whatever wisdom you have accumulated. brown seems to be answering the call of Larry Roper, who years ago I heard urge for fewer social justice activists and more social justice strategists. Here she builds on her conversations with Grace Lee Boggs building on a century of Bogg’s movement leadership and Margaret Wheatley’s Leadership and the New Science. Getting Strategic for Social ChangeĮmergent strategy is more than visioning, it is also strategy about how we get there. I learned in school to deconstruct – but how do we learn to move beyond our beautiful deconstruction? Who teaches us to reconstruct? adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy 2. You can find more of my learnings on this here: From Anti-Oppression to Liberation Approaches for Social Justice. A key part of emergent strategy is getting clear about what we are for and not just what we are against. She pulls from Octavia Bulter’s science fiction as a key tool in developing the ability to vision what we cannot yet see. Emergent strategy is her approach based on her learning, thinking, and practices.

Brown is observant about the challenges of social change movements and thoughtful about how those movements can be more effective.

Brown emergent strategy