“This book offers much needed ground for those of us who ‘are
in the mud together’ as Black feminists, abolitionists,
co-strugglers, and everyday people. Through her own vulnerability,
adrienne maree brown invites us to ask ourselves uncomfortable
questions, to name our fears and terrors. She makes it clear that the
solutions to our most pressing challenges squarely lie in how we
relate to one another and to the tender spots that exist within our
own-selves. We Will Not Cancel Us acknowledges humanity while
inviting us to become more discerning, loving, and rigorous for the
sake of collective liberation.” —Charlene A. Carruthers, author
of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical
Movements
“adrienne maree
brown urges us to go deep, sink down, struggle, and swim as we find
language, spirit, ourselves, and each other in this time of chaos. I
cannot say how grateful I am for this work of poetry and love that
makes sense of my/our everyday state of confusion and shows us how we
might live abolition—not as an absolute state but as a dynamic
motion forward and together.” —Mimi Kim, California State
University, Long Beach
Cancel
or call-out culture is a fraught topic these days. Originating as a
way for marginalized and disempowered people to address harm and take
down powerful abusers, often with the help of social media, it is
seen by some as having gone too far. But what is “too far” when
you’re talking about imbalances of power and patterns of harm? And
what happens when people in social movements direct our righteous
anger inward at one another?
In
We Will Not Cancel Us, movement mediator adrienne maree brown
reframes the discussion for us, in a way that points to possible
paths beyond our impasse. Most critiques of cancel culture come from
outside the milieus that produce it, sometimes even from its targets.
Brown explores the question from a Black, queer, and feminist
viewpoint that gently asks, how well does this practice serve us?
Does it prefigure the sort of world we want to live in? And, if it
doesn’t, how do we seek accountability and redress for harm in ways
that reflect our values?
With
an Afterword by Malkia Devich-Cyril.