Resist and Build Manifesto
Written June 2021
Art by Aisha Shillingford
We Are In A Pivotal Moment
We have been on the frontlines of this “normal” extractive economy for centuries. We see and feel what it is doing to our bodies, our spirits, our lands, our communities. To our ways of thinking, our ways of being, our ways of providing, our ways of caring.
The Global Pandemic and the continued injustice toward people and the planet is changing life as we know it. So much is being lost, taken away, or destroyed. We say: enough is enough. As parts of our world re-open, we’re told it’s safe to return to “normal.” But what is normal, really? Normal is careless. Normal is ableist. Normal is profit over life. Normal is having a boss. Normal is not getting paid what you deserve. Normal is the theft of land and life, and the myth of white supremacy. Normal is what got us into this mess in the first place.
And we grieve. We grieve because it is necessary. It is part of the healing process. In healing through grief we reclaim our power to create. And we get to choose what comes next.
As communities on the frontlines, we study and learn from the freedom dreams and actions of our elders and ancestors. The ones who sowed the seeds to restore community self-determination that we see sprouting up today. The ones who broke the rules to change the rules. We carry forward their labors of love and struggles for dignity, inspiring us to prepare and plan for the ecological ruptures that they knew were coming. We carry the strength and wisdom of our lineages to create the worlds we need, again.
We have histories of advancing bold, visionary solutions that nourish regenerative solidarity economies. We carefully and lovingly hold the threads of these histories in our present work as we repair relations and remember our way forward.
It is time to assert OUR solutions. Creative solutions that ensure ecological, economic, and racial justice.
This is a moment of opportunity.
Transition is inevitable.
Justice is not.
As we resist going back to “normal”, we have the power to move money to real community solutions. Defunding, dismantling, and abolishing the systems that cause us harm — police and prisons, corporate healthcare, Wall Street profiteering, fossil fuel extraction — is critical but only half of the bridge toward justice. The second half is reinvesting the resources that exist in our communities to build cooperative, caring, connected, community-controlled institutions that provide for our needs.
The question is: transition to what?
Cooperative farms
Community land trusts
Worker-owned enterprises
Community controlled renewable energy
Cooperative housing
Mutual aid networks
Local non-extractive loan funds
Worker-owned health clinics
This is not the time to return to normal. We are calling on everyone who knows this to commit and recommit to the work of building regenerative solidarity economies. We need to expand the radical imagination of newly politicized people who took to the streets in historic numbers over the past year demanding a transformation from a genocidal system to a life-affirming system.