Ownership shatters ecology. For the land to survive, for us to survive, it must cease to be property. It cannot continue to sustain us for much longe… - Aurora Levins Morales

Deciding that we are in fact accountable frees us to act. ("Raícism: Rootedness as Spiritual and Political Practice")

in spite of all the things that make my heart sing, in spite of so many shifts of culture and consciousness, so many structural changes, so much intelligence and passion, sexism and racism both saturate daily life, as of course, they do in most places. Which brings me back to the image of a bridge, and makes me question it. Because what I have wanted, in every case, in every situation in which I straddled some gap of understanding, was to bring my whole self to the table, to have every aspect of my being respected, to have every aspect of my liberation embraced by those whose experience did and didn't overlap with mine. The bridge I keep building is meant to link two shores, but it's not who I am, it's what I do. What I am is the many-rippled, living river below. (in Bridges, Spring 2011)

All solidarity movements must work hard to counteract the pull to think for the constituencies they ally themselves with. Those with privilege often have a hard time abandoning the conviction that they are more competent than those they want to support. As adults, we need to listen to children more than we talk to them. We must back the initiative of children themselves, secure resources and share skills, respect their right and ability to lead themselves, and learn to let them lead us. This process, more than anything, will bring into our awareness and let us begin to repair the disempowerments of our own childhoods. As we do so, we will begin dismantling one of the most powerful ways that oppression reproduces itself.