Fierce Vulnerability with Kazu Haga

Prentis is joined by their friend, author and activist Kazu Haga, to explore his new book Fierce Vulnerability. Kazu asks us to consider a new type of courage, and together they converse about the value of deep interdependence, collective trauma, and how the “us vs. them” binary worldview is at the heart of what is destroying our relationships and our planet. 

• Follow Kazu on Instagram
• Check out his book: Fierce Vulnerability: Healing Trauma Emerging through Collapse

If you want to hear more from Kazu, revisit Prentis’ conversation with him about Navigating Conflict

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello everyone, welcome back to Becoming the People. I'm Prentice Hempel. It's nice to be with you. There are some people in my work that I'm in conversation with all the time, whether or not we speak, but our work and the things that we're thinking about are offered to the world is in conversation. We're talking to each other, maybe we're challenging each other. And at least on my side, Kazu Haga is one of those people for me. I think we are circling very similar ideas and coming to similar and sometimes very different conclusions about those. And so I love to be in conversation with Kazu, who's our guest today, because I feel stretched every time I talk to him. He's been on this podcast before, but if you don't know him, Kazu Haga, he's an organizer, he's a teacher, he's a practitioner of nonviolence, and that's been really core to his work. And he's written a book called Healing Resistance, and he has a new book out called Fierce Vulnerability. And in that book, and I think right now, he's grappling with the relationship between fierceness and vulnerability. And rather than juxtaposing them, which it seems like the title might imply, he's actually saying these ideas, these capacities are deeply reliant on each other. And our ability to live in that space actually influences how powerful our movements can be. In this conversation, we touch on some things that have been really important to me lately. Looking at our society, our culture that is so shaped by trauma in many ways, and asking the question: how can that be true, but not our only shaper? How can it not especially shape how we build movement or build connection with each other, even though our traumas and our collective traumas are very real? And I think similarly, he's pointing to the question of how do we confront systems of violence without actually replicating the kind of logic and habits inside of those systems of violences. We've talked about this before, but I wanted to circle back on this question, and I think he really gets into it in a powerful way in this episode. What does nonviolence actually mean in a very violent and increasingly violent world? And I think the answer he gives is quite profound. I think the last thing I'll say, and I want you to enjoy the episode on your own, but it's he gives a framework, I think, that helps us think about the multiple things that are happening at once, the contradictions that we have to hold. And he gives us a clear way of kind of moving through the world while holding all of that at the same time. And that has been really, really helpful in shaping for me. So I'll leave it at that. There's so much juiciness in this conversation, um, so much that feels enlightening and instructive, and things I'm still grappling with. So I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. I think this is a really, really useful episode for all of us and where we are right now. Thanks for listening. Kazu, it's nice to see you again.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

What's going on? Yeah, thanks so much for having me back.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

I'm really happy to have you back.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Life is wild out there.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I I think we haven't yet invented the words for um what it feels like is happening on at least the macro scale. I can't find the words each day, but what I do know is that when I talk to you, I feel a little bit clearer. So I'm happy to be talking to you today.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Appreciate it likewise.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

And um I want to talk about your book uh Fierce Vulnerability, which I I want to talk about the title in a minute. Um, but first I just kind of wanted to talk about how I think you and I, even though we don't talk very much. I mean, I I think the last time I saw you was a few years ago at a retreat that you hosted for a bunch of us, um, which is really beautiful and profound and it's still working on me, I think, even after all these years. But you're one of those people that I feel like I'm in conversation with. I don't know if you feel that way, but I feel like I'm I'm talking to Kazu when I'm not talking to Kazu.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Oh, I definitely feel that way. And especially when your book came out, I was like, oh man, we're definitely speaking to each other across time and space.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Totally. I feel like our books were like um, like they're related to each other, like they are in the same family. So it's really exciting to read your book. And and you know, I think this is a really interesting thing because it's like when you're writing books that are similar, and then you go, oh, but you see this thing that I can't see, or you say this thing in a way that you know is is slightly different, or I feel you know, challenged by this piece. I think having uh works that are so close gives you, at least gave me the opportunity to kind of wrestle with my own ideas in a in a generative way, which is good.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Yeah, no, I think it's it's it's important to see many different perspectives on the same truth, right? Because every every perspective is going to hit people differently.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

So yeah, absolutely. Um so I want to talk about fierce vulnerability, which is, I mean, uh, you talk about it in the in the outset of the book. Fierce and vulnerability are words that don't tend to sit next to each other very often. We tend to think about those maybe on the ends of some kind of spectrum of how we might feel or act. And I'm I'm curious for you how you want to talk about sitting those words next to each other, putting them together as though they can complement and and be useful to each other. What does fierce vulnerability mean? And right now.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't have like a short elevator pitch definition of it yet. It's one of those words that like I think it's it's continuing to teach me things. My understanding of it continues to evolve. But I remember years ago I was working inside Soledad State Prison, and I was working with a with a man who was serving a life sentence for a homicide. He's home now, thank God. But he was telling me when he committed his commitment offense, he was a young man who, you know, committed a homicide and a gang violence and a gang murder. And he was saying that when he thinks back to that moment, he realizes that taking somebody else's life wasn't an action that was based on courage. It was actually an action based on fear. Like he was afraid that he would be accepted by his friends' group, and he was afraid that if he didn't do this, he would lose his community and his sense of belonging. And he said the most courageous thing he's ever done was come to groups like ours and share all of who he was and share all of his vulnerabilities. And that was the most courageous thing that he ever did. And and that always stuck with me of like when we think about vulnerability, we oftentimes associate it with words like weakness or brokenness or something like that. And there's always an element of risk, right? Like we're risking being hurt by sharing all of our heart. But, you know, like this young man said, there is something so deeply courageous and fierce about committing ourselves and taking the risk to share all of who we are, especially if it's in service to healing the world, right? And I think that's a lot of what Fierce Vulnerability is, is about acknowledging that when we are able to model our own vulnerability and to lead with that, it opens up transformative space that allows so much healing to happen. And so, to me, a lot of the work of Fierce Vulnerability is exploring like what is the work that we need to be doing in our own movement so that we can lead with our vulnerability as a way to tap into some larger possibilities of transformation that might not be here if we're only pointing our fingers and yelling at people on the so-called other side.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, it it really hits me because I'm thinking a lot about leadership these days, and it it feels like we are in the upside-down land of what leadership could be. Like the the models we've had for leadership, what we thought leadership was, hasn't a lot of ways led us to multiple crises and multiple collapses. As you're talking, I'm like, okay, you're you're proposing another model that I don't even know if I know how to wrap my mind around, like what that would ask of me to do. And I think a lot of people avoid vulnerability because of fear, but also because they're like, well, you know, oversharing isn't leadership, you know, if that's our concept of vulnerability. So, like, what does it mean for you? Maybe you can give me an example for you, to be vulnerable in your leadership. Like, how does it actually show up for you day to day?

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Yeah, a couple of things come up for me. One is there's a beautiful quote from Reverend Nadia Bowles Weber who says, preach from your scars, not from your wounds. And I think as leaders, when we decide to open up with any sort of vulnerability, it's really important that we are sharing our vulnerability not as a gift, as opposed to like something we're dumping onto somebody else so that they can take care of us. I think it's really important for leaders to be doing all people to be doing our own work. So we have a sense of like, okay, I can open up with this vulnerability as a way to try to open up other people's vulnerability, but it's something that isn't gonna put me into a state of panic. So then I'm just like dumping all of this unprocessed pain out. And I think also as any people with any sort of public profile or any leadership positions, I think it's so important that we are doing our own growth and healing work, our own shadow work and sharing at least a little piece of it so that it reminds everyone that we are as broken and as insecure and as flawed as anyone else. I think when you talk about kind of the flawed models of leadership that we have, I think we have this tendency to put all of our leaders up on pedestals. And that pedestalizing is actually dehumanizing because it doesn't allow leaders to be in their full humanity, and then it also allows the amassing of power in a really toxic and unhealthy way that allows abuses to happen. And so, you know, I was just joking with someone recently that I feel like as I'm getting older and older, I'm becoming more and more of an anarchist. And just like I think there's real dangers in centralizing power, and I think part of what happens is because leaders aren't as vulnerable and sharing about their insecurities and their shadow work and everything, it allows people to amass more power than is healthy.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

This um this is really getting to me, this piece around the pedestal, and like what it doesn't allow and what it does allow in terms of amassing power, how it distances us. I I I think about sometimes I think about leadership as like, you know, there's a moment or in a context where it makes sense for someone to so-called lead, but it's not a state of being. It's not a it's not who you are fundamentally, it's like contextual to the moment, and we don't really allow that kind of ebb and flow. It becomes a static situation. The only way to get you out of that position is, you know, through all sorts of dramas that tend to happen.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Yeah, yeah. Someone was saying to me recently, like, leadership is a role that we play, it's not an identity, right? So we like we step into these leadership roles, but there's a human being inside of that, and then at some point we step out of those clothes and someone else steps into it. And so, yeah, to really see leadership not as a permanent identity, I think is really important.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

That's right. That's right. I want to talk a little bit about you because you share a lot of yourself in this book, a lot of your stories, a lot of the stories of your family. And um, you know, you were talking about um some things that had happened in your family and this, the the length of time it took you to write a letter, to read a letter, to face what had happened. And I think um I want to hear more about that, but I think one of the questions that I came away with from that is like, you know, how do we support people or whatever, make it seem possible? It's a different way of saying it, to do those things that feel impossible interpersonally, but actually change everything.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Yeah, definitely. So um, you know, long story short, uh, when I was a kid, my mother was involved in a green card marriage with someone who brought a lot of harm and violence and abuse into our home. And so grew up in a pretty broken family because of that. And, you know, then when I was 17 years old, I ended up living in a Buddhist monastery and got involved in social change work. And for 15 years or so, the the story that I told myself is because I lived in monastery, because I've been involved in all this community work, I had healed. Like I'd moved on, I'd healed all my childhood wounds. And then years later, I was at a retreat where people were sharing these vulnerable stories about themselves. So I decided I was like, oh, I'll share this story about my childhood traumas. I had never talked about it out loud before. And so, even though my mind was living in this delusion that I had healed, the moment I started sharing the story, I completely broke down and I could barely get a breath in. And I was crying and crying. And in that moment, I realized how much of a delusion I was living in, telling myself, oh, I 20 years had passed, I've healed, I've moved on. And so in that moment, I realized that one of the things that I needed to do is to have this conversation with my mom and my two sisters, and essentially apologize to them for not being there more for the times that they were really experiencing a lot of harm. Yeah, I just like shut down and stopped coming home and started getting involved and drinking and getting high. And so I was carrying this like deep well of shame for like 20 years. I didn't even realize I had. And it took me eight years to like get to that conversation, right? Of like therapy and meditation retreats and going to more healing spaces. And, you know, a bit of an aside, but one of the things that I talk about in the book is this is what we do in our country as a nation state, right? We say, Oh, slavery was hundreds of years ago, the genocide of indigenous peoples hundreds years of years ago. We've moved on, we've healed. And so much of the work that I'm doing is understanding that the way trauma works in my body is the same way that trauma works in our collective bodies, as communities, as cultures, as nation states. And so, you know, so much of the work of things like racial healing is about going back and having these difficult conversations with our collective selves. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think the the thing that allowed me to have that conversation with my family, A was time and B was community. Like I could never have done that by myself. I remember the first time I finally got to a place where I was able to write them a letter, I had to read that letter with deep community that I trusted and have them reflect back to me what they were hearing in that letter and almost practice like role play reading that letter to my family. And so I couldn't have done it without family. So I think the more we can build systems of support in our own communities that can um, you know, support us in our healing work, and the more we can build those systems into our social movement spaces, the more we can all grow and be in a place where we can offer collective healing to the world.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

I really agree with you, and I I have this thing that I bump up against in my work a lot of like, you know, people come with this question, I'm sure you've heard something similar of like what makes it worthwhile in the end to do that. There's I've been functioning with a secret, uh, pain, uh fear, uh uh remorse or whatever it is. And I know, maybe I know that it's like it causes me to be whatever number of things. Like it has an impact in my life, but I've more or less kind of gotten acclimated to it, or I've adapted to that in my life. What really makes it worth it to be fiercely vulnerable? What makes it worth it to tell these stories? What makes it worth it to practice in community? Like, what actually makes it worth it for us to do this? And I think a lot of people are sitting with that question. Like, why would why would I go back in when I just could not?

unknown 16:04

You know?

SPEAKER_03 16:05

Yeah, that's fair. And and I think it's it's ultimately a question that every individual has to answer for themselves, right? And that discernment of like understanding that, you know, as Rasumenikan says, if we suppress things, there is, it is painful, right? Like there is a cost to constantly telling ourselves that we are okay when some part of us knows that some part of us is actually not okay. And even that cost might at times be worth it. Like you might not be in a place in your life where you have the resources to go to that place and do that shadow work and do that discovery. And I think if that is an actual like discernment that you've made, then that no should be celebrated. Right? It shouldn't be looked down upon. If you actually are asking yourself, do I need to do this work right now? And and then you discern that no, I'm not in a place and that decision should be celebrated. But I think part of what happens in our culture is that the default is that we don't even ask, we just pretend that everything is okay. Um, and so I think that's the danger that we're not even asking ourselves, like, is it worth it for me? Do I have the resources? Do I have the relationship? Do I have the time and the capacity to actually do the shadow work? And so I think you know, the more we can have communities where we can support each other in that discernment. Um, and you know, I also say that like so much of the work of Fierce Vulnerability is encouraging us to step in and stretch into some of the places that are a little more vulnerable, a little more stretchy, not so that we can feel better about ourselves, but because if we don't do that work, then it has implications on our capacity to make social change, right? And so I think for me, what makes it worth it is not just knowing that I'll feel better, but knowing that I can contribute to a healthier movement ecosystem that can then contribute to larger and larger scales of healing um outside of my own immediate life.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Mm-hmm. I want to talk about that, some about the kind of implications for movement building and also just, you know, for the world broadly. Because you mentioned, you know, we're living in a nation and in a world in a lot of ways where there's been an unwillingness to face or to incorporate or integrate on that kind of level of like what has happened can influence what's to come rather than we get stuck in these cycles. And it almost feels, I mean, and I'm gonna say this a little bit cynically, it it might be, um, but it almost feels impossible to think about what a scaled version of that thing that we do individually, of that kind of incorporation could look like. If it takes eight years for us individually to write a letter, how do we look at how do we look at genocide on this land? How do we look at enslavement and exploitation? How do we look at, you know, uh oppression and how do we look at that given how long it can take us individually to kind of address these things? What what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Yeah, I mean, two thoughts. One is that I I don't know. And I think part of vulnerability is that, yeah, we're trying to figure it out, right? Because like nobody has ever lived in a world that was collectively liberated. I mean, maybe like our ancestors thousands of years ago, right? But like in in modern times, none of us know how to do racial healing, none of us know how to do the work of liberating ourselves from the legacy of patriarchy. Like, all of these things are things that we're grappling with collectively for the first time. And so I think there's some humility and some vulnerability in accepting that we don't know. But I think the fierceness is saying we don't know, and we're gonna keep trying anyways, and we're gonna experiment and we're gonna fail and we're gonna learn from that, and we're gonna hurt each other and bump into each other's trauma in the process, and we're gonna stay committed to each other and we're gonna keep moving forward, right? And I think, you know, yeah, it took me eight years as an individual. So, how many decades, centuries is it gonna take us collectively? I don't know, but it's important to realize that like you and I are just two out of however many millions and potentially billions of people that we don't know about that has been doing this work. That's right, like all the people that have um read your book and attended your programs, like we've all been doing it. And so I think there is a collective nervous system that is building more and more, and as every individual is one more individual collect um commits to their own healing work, that's one more person that is adding to a regulated nervous system that maybe has the capacity to talk about some of these issues at the collective level. So we're not starting from scratch.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

That's right, that's right. I think I needed to hear that. Actually, I needed that reminder. You know, sometimes, Kazu, I I've been kind of harping on this thing. I think it's important to identify movement as a thing. And sometimes, you know, I encounter people that don't know there is a movement, quote unquote. And so I feel a little um uncomfortable more and more identifying a space that isn't automatically inclusive of people that don't know it exists. So, but what when we talk about movement, you talk about movement in a way of, you know, a place for collective healing. And I really align with that. The way that you talk about it isn't in the kind of endlessly navel gazing, we're all gonna just unpack everything, but it's more, it seems to me more about the process of how we do it. Um, and I wonder if I'm getting that right or if you can talk about that more.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Yeah, well, I I mentioned in the book a few times, and I keep talking about it, is like my one of my biggest fears about this book and everything I'm doing around Fierce Vulnerability is that people think it's some sort of like, Self-help program or something that, like, as long as we as individuals can heal, then the world will magically transform. And I don't think that's true, right? There are systemic forms of violence that are ripping apart communities everywhere. Whether we're talking about ICE or the climate crisis or what's happening in Iran or Gaza or all these things, these things require a fierce systemic response. And so when I talk about movements, I'm talking about communities of people that have the courage and the capacity to actually put our bodies on the line to come into direct confrontation with the systems of violence that are ripping apart so many of the communities and ecosystems and all these things that we love. And so I think it's it is important that we continue to push for bold forms of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience and things like that, but that that work is rooted in a regulated nervous system that understands that our work is ultimately about healing and bringing us back to wholeness, right? And imagining even forms of civil disobedience as a modality of collective trauma healing. Like we may put our bodies on the line to shut down highways or to shut down government meetings or whatever it might be, but to also understand that we're actually here to not just shut things down, but to open things up, right? Which is one of the kind of million-dollar questions and fierce vulnerability is like if we can understand injustice not just as a political issue, but as a manifestation of collective trauma, then we know that if we're responding to people who are operating from a trauma response, if you want to support that person towards healing, you can't just shut them down. You have to help open things up. And so, yeah, how do we do that work at scale is one of the explorations that I'm in in my life.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

I have a lot of questions about that. There's a couple ways I want to go. There's a couple ways I want to go with that. I mean, I think just to your point though, I always um look at pictures of like the sit-ins and the there's some photos that I found of folks um preparing for the sit-ins and basically uh doing kind of rehearsals of what people might encounter, like it's so intense and saying the vilest things to each other, throwing things on each other. But the the center, the way of the way that they're practicing in my mind, they're practicing center. I think about embodiment, I think that's an embodiment practice. Like, how do I be centered in the face of that kind of cruelty? Is embodiment practice for the collective. But there's a couple ways, a couple places I want to go with what you just said, because it's really touching some things for me. And I think one is um this question of how we organize with people that are experiencing dysregulation, and I think people that are intentionally being dysregulated. But how how do we organize when that is the reality, and I think increasingly the reality as conditions worsen?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

I was at a fierce vulnerability workshop years ago, and my my partner leads in said this thing once. She said, nonviolent direct action oftentimes sounds like a bullhorn. And oftentimes in nonviolent direct actions, we do use bullhorns, right? And she said, What if nonviolent direct action can instead make the sound of a bell? And a bell is a noise that is still loud enough that is able to pierce through the delusion, but it actually invites people inward. And so one of my questions and experiments that we keep running is, what if, you know, I've always been trained as an activist my entire life that not the one of the main purposes of nonviolent direct action is to gain leverage so that we can make demands, right? And not to say that that's no longer important, but what if we acknowledge that part of the role of nonviolent direct action is to help people feel something, like to feel grief or to feel fear that is trapped in their bodies. And so what if instead of just yelling and chanting, we bring a grief ritual to public spaces as a form of nonviolent direct action and help people tap into the part of their bodies that says, I know that something is wrong with the way our world is right now, but I'm being bombarded with messages that everything is okay and I just need to keep shopping and all will be well. And there is a lot of dysregulated nervous systems out there. What if we can use nonviolent direct action to actually help people regulate enough that they can say, oh, maybe something is wrong? Like again, like I don't know necessarily how to do that or what will happen, but I think that's part of the question is like, what if we make direct actions that are invitational? What if we make direct actions that evoke curiosity, that evoke a sense of like what's actually happening here? What is present right now for me and my body?

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Kazi, I think that is that question of maybe something is wrong. Like that as a as a point of intervention, that is something that we are, you know, organizing an action around. I think is a really, really, really profound disturbance in a system. Like maybe there's something there's something wrong, but not I'm not, maybe there's something wrong and I'm just by myself, but maybe there's something wrong and here I am with people that are trying to feel and face that. And I I was also like, Kazu, if you want to work on that, if you want to figure that out, if you want to do something together, I would love to figure out how we can do something like that.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Your work on embodiment, right? Like, is something wrong with the with the way the world is? Is actually not an intellectual question. It's an embodied question, right? Like if we're not asking that in our bodies, then it's so easy to go to our heads and then our minds start spinning at the delusions that live in our minds can take over. But I think if we can help people settle into their bodies, then the answer to that question is pretty clear.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. I would I would actually love to figure that out. The other thing that's like running through my mind right now, you talk about this in the book, but this um I think one of the one of the traps in a way that kind of stops us from getting there is this us versus them paradigm that I think a lot of us get stuck in. And I I am not saying that that doesn't come from a really smart place. And in fact, I think it's also for me reinforced by the way that I came to think about organizing in the first place of like, you need to identify your enemy in order to run an effective campaign, like who is the enemy, and what can you actually do or leverage in order to get your demands met as a community. So I'm thinking about this way of actually trying to create wins for our community and also what this kind of us versus them thing does for the possibility of change. And I I think there's probably so many ways to kind of get to this question. I can see a few different avenues, but I'm I'm wondering from the book or from your own thinking as it's evolved, like what what do you see as like how do we break this down or make it more clear what we need to do here?

SPEAKER_03 29:35

That's such a central question in my life for the last 20 years. So um there's so much I could say to that, but I'll say for now.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Say a lot of it.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Okay. Um, I'll go in then. So one of the things that I talk about in the book is the Buddhist doctrine of two truths. And in Mahayana Buddhism, they teach us that there's two realms of truth that we're always swimming in. There's what's called the relative truth and the ultimate truth. And in the relative truth, the world is much more linear. Uh, you and I are separate beings, uh, it's the world that I can see and touch and feel with my hands. And then there's the ultimate realm that is much more mysterious, much more magical. It's the world that is beyond the Newtonian realm of physics. It's the quantum realm. And our ancestor teacher Tik Nan Hahn reminds us that even though we use terms like relative and ultimate, they're both real. Like we need to understand both realms of reality to achieve liberation. So in the relative realm, there is an oppressor and an oppressed. Like Donald Trump has so much external forms of power that he is wielding in abusive ways that are causing harm to people who have less external forms of power. That is a real dynamic. Privilege does exist, and that is important to acknowledge. But there's also a realm in which we all belong to each other. I have become convinced through my life that we live in a universe that is deeply, deeply interdependent. That I am not interdependent just with the people whose political beliefs align with mine, but I'm interdependent with every single human, every single stone, the sun, the stars, like even science tells us that before the Big Bang, the building blocks of everything that exists in the universe, everything that has ever existed in the universe, everything that will ever exist in the universe existed on a singular point. Right. And so our universe is one in which we are deeply interdependent with one another and we already belong to each other. And that is also a realm that exists, right? And um it's important that we keep remembering that both of those realms are true, and there is a way in which I feel like the us versus them worldview is actually at the heart of what is destroying our planet, right? The this delusion that this delusion of separation, the delusion of individualism, the delusion that I can gain liberation by causing harm to another living being, right? I think that is a delusion. And it is also true that we need to do everything in our power to stop the immediate harm so that healing is possible on the other side of it, right? The safety and and the and the stopping of immediate harm has to happen first. So there's enough time and spaciousness so that we can work on that relational healing and we can remember that we belong to each other. But even as we do that, like can we, how are we sowing the seeds for universal belonging, right? Like, can we stop the abuse of power while remembering that the person who is wielding power in abusive ways also does ultimately belong to us?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

This is a really helpful for me, you know, way of considering these things, the the kind of planes of what is happening. Because I I feel that I understand that, and it's hard to talk about that. It's hard to actually name those things. A lot of the times when we're talking about one issue, um, it's hard to name the the multiple things that are at play without negating one or the other. And that's the binary trap all the time, is that we end up negating one in order to make another point. I want to talk about I've sort of been not I I've I've been skirting around the nonviolence thing, and I'm gonna come right directly on it. And we've talked about this before in the past. Um there's a there's a few things in it for me. I think one is nonviolence. I think you're probably faced with a question similar to this all the time. Um, but I think it's important for people that are just maybe re-engaging or engaging for the first time with nonviolence. But there's um there's a way that it can feel it can seem like it doesn't make sense given the the disproportionate violence that people are experiencing. It's like, how is that gonna do anything? How could nonviolence ever touch the scale of the violence that we see in impact?

SPEAKER_03 34:12

To say about that too. Um I'll start by acknowledging that some of the movements that have inspired me the most in my life are the Zapatista movements or the Black Panthers. I don't know if you're aware of the current movement in Rojava, which is this region in northern Syria where, you know, these people are creating one of the most libertary communities that exists on earth while fighting ISIS to the south and the Turkish government to the north. Right. So they've had to pick up arms and fight to protect the communities that they are building. And so, you know, this isn't someone, something that all advocates of nonviolence will share. But I believe that violence, especially as a form of self-defense and our efforts to create a nonviolent world, are not always mutually exclusive. But I always say that, you know, violence can be very effective in keeping you and your community alive. And there is great value in that. But one thing violence can never do is to heal and strengthen relationships. And to me, that is the question of nonviolence. Like you might have to use violence to keep yourself alive, because you can't heal a relationship with someone after they've killed you, right? But if you've gotten to the place where you've had to use violence to keep yourself safe, to keep your community safe, that's great. We should celebrate that. And then what? Like there's still a fractured relationship because you've had to use violence, because violence happened. And so to me, nonviolence, to me, isn't about saying you can never use violence or to tell communities who feel like violence is their only way to survive that you're doing it wrong. It's to ask the question: once the violence has settled, there is still fracture, there is still pain, there is still this delusion that those people over there hurt me and therefore they are the enemy. And what are we doing to heal that? To remember that we belong to each other so that we are no longer sowing the seeds for more conflict in the future. That's the question of nonviolence. So, yeah, there may be, you know, moments in the journey where we have to pick up arms. And nonviolence is about what do we do on the other end of that?

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Beautifully said. Thank you, Kazu. And, you know, it's also like, how do we not fall in love with the violence itself?

SPEAKER_03 36:29

Yeah. It's easy to romanticize, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Yeah, it's totally easy to romanticize. And once you're in it, there's so much to probably process about that experience that it's like you just stay in there, but you know, not falling in love with the violence, actually falling in love with our relationships with each other. The other thing I want to ask about this, because you know, what we're talking about, the terrain that we're in right now, you you mentioned at the top, vulnerability is there's risk inherent in it. There's the risk of harm. We're talking about risk. And when we're saying things need the things that are happening need to stop, none of it will come without risk. However, the risk looks. If it's nonviolent risk, if it's whatever, there's there's risk embedded in stopping something or changing something. You have to risk something to do that. What would what do you think actually will uh I can feel my own hesitation in a way in asking the question, but what what cultivates our appetite for risk in a moment that feels intensely violent? Like what would actually increase our ability to say, hey, I'm going to put my body on the line, hey, I'm gonna stand in front of this vehicle, hey, I'm going to chain myself to that, whatever it might take. How do you or how do folks you know actually cultivate that appetite for risk or or at least engage or face the questions?

SPEAKER_03 38:00

I love the way you frame that question. How do we cultivate that appetite for risk? I think part of it is I I one of the biggest blessings and the privileges of my life is I live in this community called Canticle Farms in Oakland on a loneliness, which is a community of 13 homes, a tiny house in a yurt, about 45 people. We, you know, where there's a bunch of kids and elders, and we all watch each other's kids, and and there's a an asylum home that houses a bunch of people seeking asylum and a home for formerly incarcerated people, and a home that was rematred back to the local indigenous community here. And it is so beautiful, especially when we can get into circle with the people that we live with and do deep healing work or deep witness. And, you know, there's a family that um used to live in our community that recently had to self-deport themselves because of changes and policies that this current administration made. And it is like the this family was building a really strong relationship with my child, and now they can no longer do that. And it is that it is the deep love that I have for that family that makes me want to risk as much as I am able to to, you know, unfortunately, they had to go back to their home country, but if there was anything I could have done, I would have taken that risk. And so I think it's by building small pockets of sanity in the midst of insanity and reminding ourselves why it's worth it, right? It's worth it because of the possibilities that our species have of building incredible communities of deep belonging where we get to witness each other during the most painful, during the most difficult moments of our lives, and to remind each other that we belong here, right? And so the more we can build communities of belonging, I think the more we feel empowered to protect it. We're not do we're not going out into the streets and and blocking ice because of this like intellectual desire to abolish ice because we're politically opposed to it. We are doing it because I don't know if I'm allowed to, well, whatever, I will I'll try not to.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Do what you need to do.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

Because fucking Sara, Paola, and Pame are no longer living next door to our house. That's why I'm doing it. Right? And so to invest in those relationships and to remind ourselves why this work matters.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Wow. I I really feel that point, Kazu. That the communities we love compel us to take those risks. Um, I I think that's a message that people need to hear and not only hear, but feel that the love for each other, this belonging piece that you keep bringing so beautifully to the center makes it worth it. And I I'm yeah, I'm feeling really, really touched by by that and witnessing my own life and community. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Um, yeah, in a way, I think you could have, you know, the book has this love piece kind of sewn throughout it. It feels like love to me is really at the heart of a a lot of it.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

I also love love, so um yeah, it's so cheesy, but it really is at the center of it, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Who made it cheesy? You know, is that person trustworthy? Yeah, okay, okay, okay. They they did kind of make it uh kind of saccharine sweep, but um, I think what you're talking about feels very, very uh compelling and inspiring and rich. And so I'm grateful for it. Kazu, is there anything else you want to share with us before we close this podcast? How can people get in touch with you? Or like what's the core message, I think, actually, that you want people to take away here today?

SPEAKER_03 41:53

Yeah, well, you know, earlier we were talking about the ultimate realm and the relative realm. And I think the reminder that I always want to leave people with is yeah, we when we turn on the news and we turn on social media, we are bombarded with this message in the relative realm that so many things are broken and so many people are suffering. But there is a place in the ultimate realm where we are already free. Like there's a place where we already belong. Time is not linear. Our ancestors have already healed, our descendants have already come and created the world that we want to build. And even if all you can feel is a tiny, tiny seed of that somewhere in your body, that that place does exist, and that has to be the place where we lead from. We can't lead from the place where we are broken. We have to lead from the place where we are already free, and that exists in all of us somewhere in our body already.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

As I say, that'll preach. Uh thank you, Kazu. Um, for all the work that you're doing in the world, too. I feel the same way. Appreciate you. Yeah, and uh y'all look out for that collaboration. We're gonna figure something out. Hopefully soon. Thank you, Kazu.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Becoming the People is produced by Devin Delania, sound engineered and edited by Michael Main. Our theme song was created by Miyata. And if you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe, rate, and especially, especially leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. And if you haven't already, please join us over at the Patreon, Prentice Hempel. We are having a great time over there, building community, learning together. Come join us. And as always, thank you for listening to Becoming the People.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

We're becoming the people. The people, the people, the people, the people. We're becoming the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, becoming the people.