BLM DC Chapter Organizing Principles
Be Strategic
Understand that a strategy is a series of tactics, steps or actions that overcome specific obstacles towards a goal. A strategy can be planned along a timeline and linear. It can also be cyclical i.e. a praxis or habit of doing the same thing over and over again, reaching new levels of competency, power or awareness each time. A strategy can also be emergent: where you move towards a shared goal with shared values and a collaborative style that supports all parties involved. A strategy can be a mix of all three but it must be explicit, values driven and build the power, skills, resources or capacity of specific groups. It should include an insightful diagnosis of the dynamics of the situation, a daring hypothesis about what is possible and values or guidelines for action. Any action without a strategy is inherently unstrategic. Being unstrategic wastes valuable resources and time leading to burnout, division or lack of trust.
Be Purposeful
Move from a sense of your evolutionary purpose--your ever evolving and growing sense of how you can best make the changes you want to make in the world. Do only what you are truly called to do by your spirit [your deep desire for freedom or political commitments] or by circumstance.
Be aware of capacity
Take no action if you do not have the time or capacity to do it well or see it through. If you don’t have time to build relationships, discuss strategy, debrief or take care of your personal needs during the action or campaign then you don’t have time to act. If you don’t have the time, plan or foresight to foresee and handle the repercussions of your action or campaign then you do not have the capacity to act.
Hold the Complexity
No issue is black and white and the crises facing humanity in this moment are far too complex and complicated for them to be solved through black/white thinking. This means practicing polycentrism, realizing that systems of oppression affect different racial, ethnic, religious, gender, class and other groups in separate, distinct as well as overlapping ways.
Build Power for Black People
Any action done for freedom or liberation under an anti-Black white supremacist society must build the emotional, economic, political, cultural or spiritual power of Black people or create explicit space for Black people to build our own power.
Challenge Patriarchy
Our actions should challenge the notion that a small group of men can decide what is right or wrong and give social sanction, protection and support only to those who stay in line with their decisions. This means practicing bottom up group leadership where everyone has an ability to fully and meaningfully contribute to the outcomes and the responsibilities of leadership are distributed to multiple people. It means supporting women, femme, gender non-conforming and non-binary leadership and explicitly valuing multiple forms of leadership and contribution. It means not gendering care, support, administrative or strategic work or arranging that work in a hierarchy of value. It means requiring an equitable share of emotional labor and explicitly naming and compensating for that labor in non-exploitative ways.
Acknowledge Whose Land You Are On
Any action done for freedom or liberation on stolen native land must recognize and genuinely reckon with the continuous and on-going genocide and land theft that makes this society possible. The erasure of the genocide of indigenous people is the original sin that underlies the racial hierarchy of this nation and by not naming it we are complicit in it. The same is true when we do not acknowledge and co-lead with the communities who live there now. Every action we take without the community is something we do to the community.
Do Not Invest in Structures that Support Another's Oppression a.k.a Use the Best Means to Get the Best Ends
We shouldn’t try to expand problematic avenues to material support and social sanction without highlighting their problematic nature and, if possible, highlighting alternatives for support and social sanction.
Practice Collaborative Solidarity
Collaborative Solidarity is an idea put forth by Elle Hearns. It means, broadly, investing in the capacity for leadership in the groups at the table. It means giving material, emotional, spiritual and technical support to the long term leadership and organizing capacity of marginalized groups within a coalition or at the table.
Build a Bigger or Better We
Political interventions should increase your base or make it stronger. Our strategies should be geared towards growing our base or growing its capacity to achieve its goals. If we choose to disrupt, we should disrupt in ways that build our strength and capacity to govern ourselves whether through creating space or taking power over ourselves and our communities.