public grief & direct action: a vision for canopy collective
The words below are the byproduct of the love & wisdom of Zuri Tau, Dannielle Thomas, Anjali Benjamin-Webb, Fernando Perez, danielle miles, Ari Bassin, Will Byrne & myself. The process for these words to emerge was shepherded by Zuri and the International Lab for Liberatory Research.Canopy Collective | Our Why
As Judith Butler tells us, an “ungrievable life is an unlivable life.” A society where its people cannot live “livable lives'' is no democracy at all. The history of chattel slavery and the ways in which those unhealed woulds - those ungrieved lives - have metastasized, plagued and permeated every aspect of America is tearing us apart. We believe that until those lives can be honored and the truth can be really received and integrated by our society, we will not be able to fully heal. The field of transitional justice, which studies how societies reckon with gross humanitarian abuse, shows that those that fail to reckon with past harms falter in attaining full democracy - beset by problems of social cohesion, trust in institutions, civic engagement, and respect for the rule of law. This is where we are today in the United States.\nLearning from the canon of grief studies, we heal in a spiral. Pain and harm turn into the rawness of grief, which settles into the acceptance of mourning and only then can we arrive at grace, or healing. In the U.S., we have not - as a fulsome we - properly or publicly grieved what has been lost and who has been harmed by the hands of racism. Transitional justice work echoes this same pattern: we miss the opportunity to be whole, if we skip over the truth of what we are healing from. Only through grief and truth can we be collectively transformed into a more honest, more human country.
Canopy Collective advances racial equity by transforming the deeply held narratives that stand in the way of justice and healing. We do this in two ways: First, we will launch a national citizen-led truth-telling initiative that aims to engage millions of people of African descent. Led by organizers and artists and steeped in liberatory research methods, this initiative will explore the wide spectrum of harms of racism and vision what healing looks like. Each year, the products of this research will become a public art installation or immersive experience for all. Second, we will bridge Americans into the deep wisdom and leadership abroad in truth and repair, normalizing these efforts as proven tools in the upkeep of democracy, and providing inspiration as we chart our path. We will do this through a podcast miniseries with Vox and a transnational community of practice. The series will take listeners across the world to explore the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in South Africa and Sierra Leone; Germany’s restitution paid to Jews after the Holocaust and its continuing program of “working off the past” in memorialization, education, and policy; reparations to over seven million victims of Colombia’s fifty-year armed conflict; and indigenous justice programs for Native peoples in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, among others. All of these stories will focus on how societies helped their citizens confront challenging truths in the past to pave the way to meaningful repair, belonging, and reframing of collective identity.
We believe this initiative is innovative in the following ways:
From distant experts to proximate leadership: we center those who have been harmed to describe and define the harms, generate what is owed and vision the healing.
The products of research are public art: instead of white papers, our inquiries result in public installations that are immersive enough to evoke emotion, provoke reflection and shift paradigms.
From American exceptionalism to transnational solidarity: instead of a posture of exporting democracy, we create communities of practice focused on truth and repair.
From truth-avoidance to grief as a door to collective transformation: counter to American white-dominant culture, we believe that only through grief can we arrive in mourning and through mourning can we arrive at grace.
Led by organizers and artists: while vital to democracy, are infrequently “valued” as productive, especially outside of election cycles. One reason our work will begin in Georgia is to harness the organizing capacity that was grown in 2020 election cycle.
The How: High Level Plan
0-6 months: finalize learning strategy, inclusion criteria for pilot locations, national organizing partnerships. Begin and complete majority of global research and storytelling for podcast content, convene first network meeting of US reparations activists and global leaders.
Year 1 (months 6-18): Release 8-part podcast miniseries with Vox, reaching their 37.4mm unique monthly listeners and beyond, promoting the truth-telling work throughout. Complete first five pilot localities for truth-telling work, culminating in a place-based public art installations that generate interest from other localities. Launch Canopy Collective website as an organizing and mobilization tool and set sign-up targets.
Year 2: truth-telling work begins in ten new localities, funding secured for additional locations with a finalized scale plan. Complete after action research and learning in year 1 locations.
Year 3: truth-telling begins in additional 20 localities. Week of public grief and art becomes more mainstream.
Year 4: Truth-telling work begins in over 100 new localities, enabled digitally and guided by the leads in previous years.
Year 5: Week of public grief and art becomes a national holiday. Cities begin experimenting with Canopy Residencies - city-sponsored roles for organizers and activists to lead truth-telling initiatives.
Year 8: A bipartisan Federally- sponsored, grassroots-led reparations program is passed with overwhelming support.\nYear 9: Reparations program begins.
Year 10: Canopy Collective film is released, documenting how together we transformed the American national identity
