By Jordan McGowan
If you know anything about the Shakurs in Oak Park, Sacramento, then you know we love to talk about "r/evolution is love." If we are being honest, it serves as our guiding politic. But love looks and comes in many ways, doesn't it? So, what does that mean to you, me, all of us?
I have a poem called "What is Love?" In it, I ask the audience to examine and even respond out loud to what love means to them. I usually get some typical answers: words and phrases we are all accustomed and familiar with in association with love—trust, safety, comfort, understanding, etc., but during one performance, a member in the crowd yelled out "conflict," and it caught me off guard like a well-timed overhand right.
My life almost always seems to be filled with conflict in some shape or fashion. Resolving conflict is actually an indicator, at least to me, about how deep our love and bond is. Conflict is inevitable in life, but how we choose to engage in conflict is very intimate. Truth be told, I am in conflict the most with the people I love the most. This also means I am also constantly in conflict with myself.
If I really believe that r/evolution is love, I must be willing not just to say that I believe "it's not enough just to change the system; we need to change ourselves. We have got to make this world user friendly. User friendly. Are you ready to sacrifice to end world hunger? to sacrifice to end colonialism? To end neo-colonialism? to end racism? to end sexism?" But I must actually work to practice that in my everyday life. And that means daily being in conflict not just with the systems we are fighting but in conflict with myself to ensure I am changing myself to be more user-friendly. During our last grocery distro day of 2024, I was reminded of that just as we were beginning groceries. I was trying to bring food in, but a woman from the neighborhood asked to use our restroom.
"When can I use your restroom?"
"You can't; it's not open; we are still setting up?"
"Well, when can it be?"
Conflict - I really did not want to let her in; again, this isn't even typically what we let happen, but I heard this phrase in my head and felt it in my heart - "user-friendly." I let her use the restroom, and then she went and got in line for groceries, and all I could do was laugh. She said a prayer for us after she got her box, and it just reminded me that sometimes r/evolution looks like when I get into conflict, being able to slow down and ground myself in being "user-friendly." Now let me say, I don't always do that - sometimes I get too trippin'; I am a Shakur, after all. Luckily, I have an amazing community that checks me and holds me accountable to what it is we all believe in; again, these Shakurs don't play. What I can say is that I am working my best to live out this politic every day, but again, I know I definitely fall short.
Again, conflict is bound to happen, but the time, space, and capacity to work through conflict is what love is made up of. We need a commitment to the other person(s) and be willing to work through the hard things and big feelings. I know that as I am learning and doing my best to show up and work through conflict in love, sometimes that also means understanding my boundaries. Not everyone is and/or should be allowed into that intimate space of conflict resolution because sometimes we have not built that base relationship, there is no shared work/principle/goal that ties us together, or there has been deep harm and it is unsafe to work through the conflict at this point and time. However, setting boundaries is one of those ways that I am learning to be in conflict with myself. That is because in order to love myself properly, which in turn allows me to love the people properly, I need to remember that how we move through and in conflict displays our love. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is give it to God and move on with our lives.
"We will fight if we have to, but the fundamental goal of r/evolution is peace."
I was raised to believe the greatest physical act of love you could ever demonstrate is to sacrifice your life for someone you love. This was something that was instilled in me not merely from a religious perspective (growing up part-time in different Afrikan/Black churches within occupied Turtle Island) but something my father taught from his time as a soldier and comrade, something I studied from the Afrikan freedom fighters throughout our history who have sacrificed themselves for our collective survival and freedom, something I see amongst the masses of Afrikans on the continent choosing to push our collective struggle forward in the Sahel, something I have seen with my own eyes.
We will win, but in order for us to win, we must change ourselves. We must sacrifice to change ourselves and, by the way, change our conditions. We must become more user-friendly if we want to build and sustain a user-friendly world.
Jordan McGowan is a Pan-Afrikan educator, organizer and griot. He currently serves as the Minister of Programs for CMB Neighbor Program in occupied nisenan territory(Sacramento), as well as serves on multiple national committees for CMB.
