We Will Not Cancel Us

1. Abolition is about building life-affirming practices, not just dismantling systems

Abolition is about presence, not absence. It’s about building life-affirming institutions.

Building the future. Abolition is not merely the destruction of prisons and police; it is the active creation of spaces where everyone can belong, heal, and be held. To achieve this on a societal scale, we must first practice these life-affirming behaviors within our own social movements. We cannot build a free world using the tools of our oppressors.

Fractal responsibility. Emergent strategy teaches us that our smallest daily choices today seed the norms of our future systems. If our movements rely on exile and punishment, we will inevitably recreate the very carceral systems we seek to destroy. We must work hard at getting abolitionist practice functional at a small scale so that large-scale change becomes possible.

• Practicing abolition at a small, interpersonal scale
• Aligning our internal movement conduct with our external political visions
• Shifting from reactive policing to proactive community care

Movement as sanctuary. We must transform our activist spaces into sanctuaries that welcome flawed, whole human beings who are committed to growth. This requires us to establish a low bar for entry but maintain a high standard for our conduct. By doing so, we create a magnetic community that people run toward for healing rather than flee from in fear.

2. We must distinguish clearly between conflict, harm, and abuse

Part of my critique of the way call outs are being used is that not liking someone, social media offenses, power misuse in work settings, movement conflict, and sexual assault are all getting the same level of public response.

Precision in language. In our current movement spaces, we frequently collapse distinct interpersonal breakdowns into a single category of disposable behavior. This lack of precision dilutes the severity of actual abuse while over-penalizing minor mistakes and political disagreements. Without clear definitions, we remain stuck in a chaotic cycle of reactive outrage.

Defining the breakdowns. To navigate conflict constructively, we must understand the specific nature of the relational rupture we are facing. The author defines these key distinctions to help us choose the right path forward:

• Abuse: Behaviors intended to exert and maintain power over another person.
• Conflict: Disagreements or arguments rooted in personal, political, or structural differences.
• Harm: The actual suffering, loss, and pain experienced by individuals.
• Mistakes: Unintentional offenses or errors that can be resolved with a genuine apology.

Tailored responses. Treating a political disagreement with the same severity as sexual assault prevents genuine resolution and isolates potential allies. By using precise language, we can apply the appropriate healing or boundary-setting tools to each unique situation. This clarity protects survivors while allowing room for others to learn and grow.

3. Mycelium teaches us that individual harm is a symptom of systemic toxicity

We won’t end the systemic patterns of harm by isolating and picking off individuals, just as we can’t limit the communicative power of mycelium by plucking a single mushroom from the dirt.

Interconnected networks. Nature offers us profound metaphors for understanding human conflict, particularly through the underground networks of mycelium. Just as a visible mushroom is merely a small part of a vast, interconnected web, an individual act of harm is a symptom of deeper systemic issues. We must look beneath the surface to understand the root causes of our friction.

Systemic supremacy. The toxicity we witness in our movements—such as white supremacy, patriarchy, and ableism—is deeply embedded in our shared cultural soil. When we punish an individual without addressing these root causes, we fail to clear the systemic channels of their underlying poison. We must flood our entire system with life-affirming principles to truly heal.

• Viewing individual transgressions as symptoms of collective socialization
• Flooding our entire social system with life-affirming principles
• Moving away from isolating individuals toward transforming environments

Processing conflict. By adopting a mycelial perspective, we can learn to process conflict and harm into opportunities for collective growth and beauty. This ecological lens helps us see that we are all connected, both at our best and at our worst. Only by healing the whole network can we prevent the recurrence of toxic patterns.

4. Call-out culture has devolved from a tool of the marginalized into a punitive weapon

Right now, call outs are being used not just as a necessary consequence for those wielding power to cause harm or enact abuse, but to shame and humiliate people in the wake of misunderstandings, contradictions, conflicts, and mistakes.

Tactical devolution. Historically, call-outs served as a vital, asymmetrical strategy for marginalized people to demand accountability from powerful, untouchable entities. Today, however, this tactic is frequently weaponized within movements to publicly humiliate comrades over minor infractions. This shift has transformed a tool of liberation into an instrument of internal policing.

The feeding frenzy. When we rush to participate in online takedowns, we often engage in a reactive "feeding frenzy" that prioritizes social media performance over actual justice. This behavior mimics the very punitive systems we claim to oppose, leaving little room for inquiry or nuance. We end up tearing each other to shreds while the state watches and gains data.

• Escalating interpersonal conflicts into public campaigns of shaming
• Demanding instant, performative public apologies that rarely satisfy anyone
• Creating an atmosphere of fear, secrecy, and hyper-vigilance

Discerning the tool. We must reserve call-outs as a last resort, specifically for situations where massive power imbalances exist and private accountability efforts have failed. When used indiscriminately, call-outs weaken our collective power and isolate valuable members of our community. We must learn to fight fair and struggle in principled ways.

5. Fear must be transformed into discernment to avoid reactive mob mentalities

My dear friend Malkia Devich Cyril teaches me that there is the fear intended to save your life, versus fear intended to end it.

Fear versus discernment. Living under oppressive systems induces a constant state of trauma and fear, which can easily freeze us or drive us to lash out. To build healthy movements, we must learn to distinguish between life-saving fear and the paralyzing terror that prevents us from acting wisely. True discernment allows us to reclaim our agency in times of crisis.

Slowing down reaction. When we act out of unexamined panic, we are highly susceptible to group-think and mob mentalities. Discernment allows us to pause, feel our grief and powerlessness, and make informed decisions rather than reactive strikes. It transforms our raw fear into valuable data that guides our collective intuition.

• Recognizing when our bodies are triggered versus when they are grounded
• Using fear as data to inform our intuition rather than dictate our actions
• Resisting the urge to immediately join online campaigns of destruction

Cultivating emotional capacity. By developing our capacity for discernment, we can navigate complex, gray situations without resorting to binary thinking. This emotional maturity is essential for holding both survivors and those who cause harm within our communities. It allows us to step back, breathe, and choose the path of long-term transformation.

6. Transformative justice requires addressing root causes rather than restoring unjust baselines

These teachers helped me see the limitations of restorative justice—that it often meant restoring conditions that were fundamentally harmful and unequal, unjust.

Beyond restoration. While restorative justice seeks to return a community to its pre-conflict state, this approach is insufficient when the baseline conditions are inherently unequal. Transformative justice goes deeper by addressing the systemic roots of harm, ensuring that we do not simply restore an unjust status quo. It demands that we transform the very environment that allowed harm to occur.

Root-level intervention. If a person steals out of hunger, simply returning the stolen item does nothing to resolve the systemic poverty that caused the theft. Transformative justice demands that we look outside state mechanisms to heal relationships and alter the material conditions that breed harm. It is about addressing harm at the root so we can grow into right relationship.

• Moving beyond simple apologies to structural changes
• Addressing the intersection of capitalism, racism, and interpersonal violence
• Creating community-based safety nets that bypass the carceral state

A living practice. We are still in the infantile stages of practicing transformative justice, often using its language while still relying on punitive habits. True transformation requires us to commit to the slow, rigorous work of unlearning supremacy and building new relational models. We must practice this daily with each other as believers in a new world.

7. Canceling people mimics the carceral state and relies on disposability politics

Cancelation may even be counter-abolitionist… Instead of prison bars we place each other in an overflowing box of untouchables—often with no trial—and strip us of past and future, of the complexity of being gifted and troubled, brilliant and broken.

Carceral mimicry. When we cancel our comrades, we are practicing the same disposability politics that fuel the prison-industrial complex. By placing people in a category of "untouchables," we deny them their humanity and the possibility of redemption. This punitive approach is fundamentally counter-abolitionist and weakens our collective capacity to heal.

The illusion of purity. Canceling relies on a false binary of good versus bad, innocent versus guilty. This perfectionist standard ignores the reality that we are all complex, traumatized, and capable of causing harm. We must let go of the narrowness of innocence and acknowledge our shared messiness.

• Replicating state-sanctioned exile within our activist communities
• Erasing a person's past contributions and future potential for growth
• Fearing that we will be the next target of public disposal

Abolishing disposability. An authentic abolitionist framework must reject the idea that any human being is disposable. We must commit to holding people accountable while simultaneously keeping them within the circle of our collective care. Only by leaving no traumatized person behind can we break the cycles of systemic harm.

8. True accountability requires slow, real-time processes rather than instant online performance

Real time is slower than social-media time, where everything feels urgent. Real time often includes periods of silence, reflection, growth, space, self-forgiveness, processing with loved ones, rest, and responsibility.

The pace of healing. The rapid pace of social media demands immediate reactions, public statements, and instant consequences. However, genuine accountability and healing operate on a much slower, human scale that cannot be rushed for the sake of an online audience. We must resist the artificial urgency of the digital world.

Supported mediation. Resolving deep-seated conflicts and addressing harm requires private, supported processes like mediation. These real-time interventions allow participants to express vulnerability, set healthy boundaries, and work toward mutually satisfying resolutions. It is through these slow, face-to-face interactions that we build deep trust and resilience.

• Prioritizing direct, private conversations over public, performative rants
• Allowing time for reflection, self-forgiveness, and behavioral change
• Utilizing skilled mediators to guide communities through complex disputes

Building capacity. We must invest our time and resources into learning the actual skills of mediation and community accountability. Without these practical tools, our movements will remain fragile and easily fractured by internal conflict. We must prioritize building the capacity and wide hearts to receive and transform our comrades.

9. We must choose collective life and healing over the satisfaction of punishment

We in movement must learn to choose life even in conflict, even when seeking accountability, composting the tension and bad behaviors while holding the beating hearts.

Choosing life. In a nation steeped in a culture of violence, punishment, and death, our movements must consciously orient toward life. This means resisting the brief, addictive satisfaction of destroying others and instead focusing on what generates long-term healing. We must choose to move toward life-affirming practices in every action we take.

Composting harm. Rather than discarding those who make mistakes, we must learn to "compost" our bad behaviors—transforming our failures into rich soil for personal and collective evolution. This requires us to hold each other's beating hearts even when we are in deep conflict. We must believe in our collective capacity to change.

• Centering the healing of survivors while supporting the transformation of harm-doers
• Recognizing that most people who cause harm are survivors themselves
• Refusing to let our internal pain be weaponized by the state to weaken our solidarity

A vision of solidarity. Our ultimate victory is not measured by who we exclude, but by our capacity to break cycles of abuse and build a resilient, interdependent future. By choosing life, we create a movement so irresistibly accountable that it becomes a sanctuary for all. Together, we can build a future where we all belong.