How can my movement effectively confront and unlearn the racist legacies of influential figures like Bakunin, without dismissing their contributions, in a way that deepens our commitment to genuine equality and solidarity today?
Start by refusing silence. Convene open “anatomy sessions” where Bakunin’s writings are projected line by line, and participants annotate in real time: green for liberatory insight, red for racist poison, yellow for unanswered questions. This collective marginalia turns critique into ritual, teaching newcomers that every inheritance is provisional. Next, pair each Bakunin reading with voices he erased—Emma Goldman, Rudolph Rocker, contemporary Jewish antifa thinkers—so the canon becomes a dialogue rather than a tomb.
Translate the lessons into structure. Draft a living anti-racist charter that all working groups periodically audit: Do our slogans, tactics and decision rules reflect the green notes or the red? Make changes public, because transparency is the only antidote to buried prejudice.
Finally, create restorative gestures. Fund a solidarity project chosen by Jewish comrades, financed from sales of Bakunin merchandise or event donations. Transform the stain into material support, proving that critique is not academic but reparative.
By salvaging the emancipatory fragments while openly dismantling the rot, you model the equality you preach and inoculate the movement against future idol worship. Which other revered figures need to pass through this furnace next?
I believe confronting and unlearning racist legacies requires transparent critique within our teams. We hold sessions dissecting figures like Bakunin, highlighting contradictions, and pairing their ideas with marginalized voices. We also update our movement’s principles regularly, ensuring our actions match our values. By turning critique into collective ritual and restorative projects, we deepen our commitment to genuine equality—making it clear that no revered figure is beyond questioning or reform.
Your plan already smells of living praxis, not museum curating, and that matters. Remember: ritual critique must permeate everyday organising, not just special workshops. Slip a “contradiction checkpoint” into weekly stand-ups: one comrade names a bias they spotted in literature or logistics, another explains how they corrected for it on the ground. That small groove normalises constant recalibration.
Couple transparency with power-mapping. Track who controls budgets, narrative framing, police liaison—the hidden levers where prejudice can nest even inside radical language. Redistribute those roles on a timed rotation so no historic residue ossifies into new hierarchy. When the rotation cycle ends, score yourselves: did decision clarity improve, or did quiet voices still defer to charismatic veterans quoting dead theorists?
Your restorative projects can evolve too. Invite recipient communities to design the criteria for success and publish their feedback unedited. When reparations loops become reciprocal learning loops, solidarity graduates from charity to mutual transformation.
You have slain the idol. Now guard against the altar creeping back in disguised as “respect for movement elders.” Which of your current tactics would a future generation expose as today’s unexamined prejudice?
What specific daily practices or rituals can we embed into our organizing to continuously surface and challenge unexamined prejudices—ensuring that our movement’s evolution remains honest and grounded in equality, rather than becoming complacent with superficial critique?
Turn vigilance into muscle memory. Begin every meeting with a sixty-second “bias pulse”: each person names one assumption they are currently interrogating, then states a concrete action they will take in the next 24 hours to offset it. The promise, heard aloud, becomes a miniature social contract.
Pair organisers as “reflection twins” from divergent backgrounds who swap notebooks each night. One records decisions that felt easy, the other annotates whose interests those decisions might have eclipsed. The written dialogue forces slow, embodied noticing that group chatter often skips.
Reserve five minutes of every work shift for a live “red-line reading”: someone selects a vintage text or a freshly drafted flyer, reads it aloud, and listeners call “stop” when a phrase smells of hidden hierarchy. The group rewrites the sentence on the spot, proving critique can be swift, collective and creative.
Keep a low-tech “whisper wall” in your common room or chat channel where comrades anonymously post moments of exclusion. Rotate a daily caretaker who summarises patterns and proposes micro-fixes by nightfall.
Finally, institute a rotating budget day. Whoever held least spending authority last month steers allocations this month, destabilising comfort zones where prejudice often naps.
Which of these rituals would most unsettle your current routine—and what resistance might that reveal?