In this week’s episode adrienne maree brown speaks with Joanna about:  a social justice and liberation activism that feels good; punitive justice versus transformative justice; mercy and seeing the whole of the person; giving ourselves permission to feel everything; nourishing communities allow for a new future; emergent strategy immersions; a key insight of both pleasure activism and emergent strategies; changing the world through small and consistent actions; a way to overcome our guilt; developing a future where whiteness is not at the center; the conversation between black communities and indigenous communities; being willing to work deep at a small scale and build up.

adrienne maree brown is a writer, social justice facilitator, pleasure activist, healer and doula living in Detroit. She was a 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow and a 2013 and 2015 Knights Arts Challenge winner, writing and generating science fiction in and about Detroit. She was the Ursula Le Guin Feminist SciFi fellow, and a Sundance/Time Warner 2016 Artist Grant Recipient.

adrienne is the author of the radical self/planet help book “Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds” published in 2017. She is also the co-editor of the anthology “Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements” with Walidah Imarisha, in 2015. She has helped to cultivate work and thinking about Octavia Butler and Emergent Strategy, gathering a loose knit network of peole interested in reading Octavia’s work from a political and strategic framework. She is part of the Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity team, at the intersection of political education, community organizing, somatics and black love.

She facilitates the internal healing and visionary development of organizations  throughout the movement, most recently BYP100, Movement for Black Lives and Black Lives Matter. adrienne was a co-facilitator for the Detroit Food Justice task Force, facilitator for Detroit Future, and the Detroit Digital Justice Coallition, as well as part of the faculty for the Center for Whole Communities. She partnered with Engage to facilitate a year-long Community of Practice on Networks and Decentralizing Leadership, 2011-2012. adrienne was the executive director of The Ruckus Society from 2006-2010, and sat on their board through 2012. She was also a national Co-coordinator for the 2010 US Social Forum.

A co-founder of the League of Pissed Off/Young Voters and graduate of the Somatics and Social Justice Cohort, Somatics and Trauma year-long, Rockwood’s Art of Leadership year-long training, and Robert Gass’s Art of Change year-long tarining, adrienne is obsessed with learning and developing models for action, community strength, movement building and transformation. her newest book is “Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good”.

“I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik

Episode Navigator