Dear Revolutionaries,

Stop going to meetings, it’s not working.

Stop marching, put the signs down.

Go home and begin investing in your families, your circles, your networks.

Dear activists, stop killing yourselves for the revolution.

If you haven’t slept in three days because of all the latest news, policies, and meeting and your beginning to see grey hairs sprout faster than the weeds in your backyard, stop.

Also, stop with the pessimism and the doom.

If activists and revolutionaries spent half the time building and creating what they wished to see, rather than reacting to the corruption of a broken system, our problems would slowly but surely dwindle away.

Activists, more building less demanding. Break old habits.

City halls are broken, state capitals are broken, America is broken. Get over it, and start creating.

Let our radical collective actions set the example of what is expected from a government, a community and a nation.

Stop begging for change on a street corner with cardboard signs and hip photos to post after the event on instagram.

When you resist the system, the energy spent on opposing corruption takes away from building new systems of living. 

Think about it like an abusive relationship, if you keep begging your partner to change but stay in the toxic environment of the relationship.. you will continue to be abused.

Stop allowing yourselves to be abused.

Start investing in local social support and resources.

Find organizations that actively build on the foundations of productivity and functionality.

Revolutionaries truly need to ask themselves what does the revolution look like?

Do you see it vividly, does it include violence?

Or does it include the beauty of grassroots systematic social and local change.

And within the revolution that you envision… how are people treated?

With kindness in language and actions?

Do you practice these modes of social relations in your day to day life?

Do you encourage the good and discourage the bad?

When you envision systematic revolution, what are the moral structures that allow harmony to exist.

More importantly, do you practice these methods with your spouse, your partner, your children, your family, your friends.

When you envision the future, does it involve healing?

If so, are you actively healing yourself?

Or do you want change so bad that you neglect your obligations.

Does change drive you to the corruption you fight against, or the addictions you are trying to solve within the other.

This article was written with the intention of telling revolutionary activists to slow down, take a deep breath, self inventory and as Luisah Teish would say “you gotta be willing to LIVE for the revolution, not die for it, honey”.

Check in, ask yourself why it is we cannot manifest the change we wish to see.

Could it be the time, energy, and finances are being invested in all the wrong places?

Heres a few examples locally and throughout the US of people who are creatively manifesting change in the narratives of revolution.

Luke Rudowski – Multi Media Journalist and founder of We Are Change 

Micha White – Activist, Co-founder of Occupy Wall Street and author of The End of Protest

Floyd Harris Jr- Founder of The Freedom School


Desiree Marando Martinez- Founder of Homeless in Fresno and the We Are Not Invisible foundation.

There are thousands of others, many may be in your community and you just don’t know it yet.

These are just four people in my own journey who have been an inspiration to myself and communities looking for fundamental change world wide.  

Those listed above have dedicated their lives to create revolutionary change as a daily practice.


No longer can we hold monthly meetings that go no where.

Please leave the street corners alone and stop yelling at people who already agree with you that the system is broken.

…..So where do we go from here?

I encourage every reader to take in consideration no matter who you are: a janitor, doctor, teacher, line clerk, social worker, psychologist, chef, etc. to critically analyze what it looks like to be a revolutionary in your field.

Does it look like setting your phone down and having a conversation with the person in front of you.

Does it look like a weekly meet-up group in your backyard.

Does it look like building an after school program, or writing new curriculum in your place of work.

Does it look like community fundraisers, or creating new bus routes and if the city doesn’t comply setting up a volunteer system to get people to where they need to be.

Does it look like a theater group, a band, a artist residency.

Only YOU know what YOU do best, so go out there and build some shit, our future depends on it.

*Authors note: Every role is vital, from the front line activists to the revolutionary teachers to the politicians who fight against corruption. Every role is necessary, yet in our current political state we deeply and radically need to reassess whats working and whats broken, what can be built and what must be left in the past, what is genuine change and what is resistance, the future of our humanity depends on it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.