As a new department on campus, we have been working diligently to ground ourselves in the values that guide our work. We'd like to introduce the first of three umbrella values: radical love & belonging. While love is not a word used often in professional spaces, we believe that radical love & belonging is the driving force behind equity, inclusion, and social justice both in our UMBC community and beyond. Creating spaces for radical love and belonging cannot happen without radical self-love AND being committed to self-work. Read through this post, engage in your own reflection, and join us in our journey to creating space for radical love and belonging on our campus and beyond.
This post was written by Dr. Jasmine Lee, Director of Inclusive Excellence and Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion & Belonging. She is really passionate about dialoguing across difference, fighting for racial justice, and laughing to tears!
So, what is radical love & belonging?
Radical love & belonging is about a pursuit of justice, inclusion, and equity in the name of love. It is action oriented and focused on creating spaces where people can live and belong as their whole selves. Radical love and belonging honors the inherent dignity in all of us and centers "ubuntu" beliefs - I am, because we are.
Pursuing an ethic of radical love is challenging when you feel dehumanized, invalidated, harassed, ignored, or targeted because of who you are. Radical love does not discount righteous anger, nor does it ask us to remain silent in the face of injustice. Instead it asks us to love justice more than we hate oppression. To love humanity, more than we hate discrimination. To pursue revolution and social justice in the name of love for humanity, over retaliation or hatred.
"There can be no love without justice...abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. It is a testimony to the failure of loving practice that abuse is happening in the first place." - bell hooks
Radical Love in Practice
- Interrogate... Pay close attention to your behaviors and your actions, in what ways are you causing harm?
- Righteous anger... Feel the feelings, while striving to hate the action, not the person.
- Call-in... Be brave and courageous, as you call-in family and friends around harmful behaviors that should be called-out.
- Speak truth to power... Name your truth and amplify the needs of others
- Act... consider your spheres of influence and use your privilege and power to act: vote, protest, lobby for policies, or engage in financial activism.
- Accountability and responsibility... Consequences, accountability and responsibility are all necessary aspects of radical love.
"Being a victim of oppression in the United States is not enough to make you revolutionary, just as dropping out of your mother's womb is not enough to make you human. People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressors or who only see Us versus Them can make a rebellion, but not a revolution. The oppressed internalize the values of the oppressor. Therefore, any group that achieves power, no matter how oppressed, is not going to act differently from their oppressors as long as they have not confronted the values that they have internalized and consciously adopted different values." - Grace Lee Boggs
Radical Love in Practice:
- Self-love... love yourself as you are - you are enough!
- Self-work... learn about your own story, privilege, and experience with oppression; actively work to unlearn and undo harmful narratives and exclusionary practices.
- Listen... Consider views and lived experiences that are different from your own.
- Imagine...imagine a world more just, more free, and more equitable; we cannot pursue what we don't believe is possible.
- Both/And... Create space to hold multiple truths at once; Strive to understand the "both/and" over the "either/or".
- Rest... Actively engage in self-care and community care; "Your existence is the resistance" - you/us being well matters.
"It's a radical love...That love drives the dream of a world where black lives matter and therefore all lives matter. Asian lives matter, Latino lives matter, Muslim lives matter, gay lives matter, poor lives matter, and old lives matter. It is a world in which we value the woman in a hijab, and the man in a kippa, and the atheist. Where we realize we are a human family and we cannot function without each other." - Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis.
In Reflection:
- How does radical love show up in your pursuit of social justice?
- How do you create space for "radical love in practice" to show up in your daily life?
More on Radical Love
Books
- All About Love x bell hooks | radical love as a concept for justice
- The body is not an apology x Sonya Renee Taylor | radical self love
- See No Stranger x Valerie Kaur | radical love for others
- Emergent Strategy x adrienne maree brown
Articles
Listen:
