East Point Peace Academy: Close but Not Quite?
Thus far, the activist organization that comes closest to fulfilling our vision is East Point Peace Academy. The progress they made organizing a national network of like-minded small teams is particularly encouraging.
However, some key points are missing from their efforts. In parficular, they don’t fully affirm everyone’s essential equality and they fail to clearly address how society socializes everyone to accept unjustified domination and submission.
East Point’s principles envision “a world in which historic conflict is fully reconciled and new conflict arises solely as an opportunity for deeper growth.” Its mission declares that the organization “works to build a powerful, nonviolent army of peace warriors: leaders and active participants invested in creating, supporting and nurturing the Beloved Community.” Its core commitments affirm a “holistic and integral” perspective and, in part, declare:
We envision a socially just society upheld by the pillars of equality, equity, and reciprocity.
We seek to lovingly hold one another accountable to the ways we are implicated in causing personal harm, systemic exploitation, and ecological devastation.
Our attempts to analyze, solve, and control often reflect the system of domination that we struggle to dismantle, heal from, and replace.
We work to address conflict at each level of society, from the internal and interpersonal to the community, societal, and global levels.
We endeavor to recognize and benefit from the wisdom and experience of everyone in the organization, and to share our collective power in a way that reflects our Beloved Community/collective liberation vision.
An economy based on generosity rather than winner-loser competition will hasten the transformation of the dominant culture of separation.
Our work is grounded by the personal and collective practice of integral nonviolence, which encompasses three interlinked areas of experimentation and development: self-transformation (aligning principle and practice at the personal level), constructive program (building a just, life-sustaining society within the shell of the existing society), and satyagraha (bold, love-based, embodied resistance to the structures and forces of separation and domination).
In addition to building nonviolent leaders and trainers within California's incarcerated populations, East Point offers these programs: Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence; Fierce Vulnerability; The Gandhian Iceberg; More Than a Protest; Alternative Organizational Structures, and; Healthy Conflict Engagement.
East Point has also published an online manual to guide the organizing of the Yet-To-Be-Named Network — “a decentralized constellation of direct action teams positioned at the intersection of racial healing and climate justice.” As of May 2021, several teams spread throughout the United States were active in this collaborative effort.
The manual affirms:
Our network is called to two core commitments: To contribute to racial healing and reconciliation by making and facilitating concrete acts of reparations and atonement. To honor, uplift, and defend life through bold civil disobedience and creative initiative to address the climate emergency…
We show up authentically, standing for what we believe in, with strength and firm resolve, and with openness, love, and respect for all we encounter… This love for all is expressed without timidity or deference to those who would exploit or demean us and others…
The current response to systems of domination and oppression has largely been to mimic their mode of power. But if we achieve our goal through power over others, we ourselves perpetuate domination and oppression… There is the power that arises within individuals — a spiritual power that transcends the control of “power over” and which isn’t constrained by what seems possible... If we do not dismantle our own internalized patriarchy, racism, and colonization, we are likely to reproduce or be complacent to patterns of oppression in our direct action work… Thankfully, there are other kinds of power. There is the power that arises between and among people who act together….
We seek to lovingly hold one another accountable to the ways we ourselves cause both personal harm and systemic exploitation. We use concrete practices of self-directed self-transformation, such as peer-to-peer support groups and trainings in decolonization, to bring our inner and outer work into closer alignment… Adopt and follow through on your self-growth program with your accountability circle; participate in ongoing enhancement trainings; and link your team with the wider network.
These commitments are solid and valuable. However, it seems they could more clearly address how the System conditions everyone to assert superiority over those they consider to be inferior — and submit to those they consider superior. This systemic dynamic is deeper and more pervasive than “patriarchy, racism, and colonization,” which are major problems. This domination-submission conditioning needs to be identified and addressed as such.
The assumption of superiority is reflected more or less equally by both the left and right. Motivated reasoning, sectarianism, biased reasoning, and intolerance are seen in similar degrees in both groups. These natural tendencies can be controlled or overcome, but the System inflames them.
Everyone, or almost everyone, is afflicted with a sense of superiority or inferiority. The more activists acknowledge this shared reality, the more they can unite with others rooted in this common ground.
Internalizing a belief in everyone’s essential equality — their inherent, basic goodness, and infinite value — can advance holistic transformation. Establishing mutually supportive democratic structures can also advance holistic transformation. These cultural, personal, and social measures can contribute to economic and political transformation. Combined, these measures can synergistically lead to systemic transformation.
East Point, might you strengthen your efforts by incorporating these points in your written principles and organizing peer-to-peer problem-solving workshops?