Kelly Hayes > Quotes

“the destruction of property is usually viewed as violent only if it disrupts profit or the maintenance of wealth. If food is destroyed because it cannot be sold while people go hungry, that is not considered violent under the norms of capitalism. If a person’s belongings are tossed on a sidewalk during an eviction and consequently destroyed, that is likewise not considered violent according to the norms of this society.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“under capitalism, “peace” is the maintenance of violence on the state’s terms.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Our goal should be interdependence: to be part of a community where rescue is viewed not as exceptional but as something that we owe each other.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“The creative power of the oppressed will always exceed that of the oppressor, because it is the oppressed who must exercise creativity to navigate and survive a world that is set against them.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“It is not saviorism, but collectivity and solidarity, that will fuel our best efforts.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Everything feels unprecedented when you haven’t engaged with history.”
― Kelly Hayes

“The repression of Palestinian resistance offers a profound example of the elasticity of violence as a concept and shows how, while the powerful can wage war on particular communities with impunity and claim innocence, the oppressed can be deemed a violent threat simply for attempting to assert their rights or defend their humanity.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Such is the perversion of “violence” under imperial and colonial rule: the maintenance of state-sanctioned violence is considered peaceful, while the disruption of those death-making processes is deemed violent.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“We do not suffer oppressions identical to those of our ancestors, but the struggle against our oppressors has never ceased.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“When state actors refer to “peace,” they are really talking about order. And when they refer to “peaceful protest,” they are talking about cooperative protest that obediently stays within the lines drawn by the state.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“We urge organizers to spend more time with books and other modes of learning, not as an admonition (after all, you are reading right now) but to encourage you to claim an inheritance of knowledge your oppressors hope you never discover, embrace, or build from—the stories, wisdom, hope, and imaginings of organizers who came before us.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Given how revocable and alterable these corporate-owned mediums are, we must consider, What would we do in the case of a major political event if social media were no longer at our disposal? And what about all the people we’re not connecting with in our own communities due to some people’s lack of social media use or the invisible constraints of corporate algorithms?”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“As fires rage and sea levels rise in the coming years, we will be called upon to rescue one another again and again.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“It’s true that the language of reform is more easily accepted by the public, because language that lacks substance is generally inoffensive.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“If your tactics disrupt the order of things under capitalism, you may well be accused of violence, because “violence” is an elastic term often deployed to vilify people who threaten the status quo.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Reform” is not a battle cry. It is a political pacifier.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Many of the social patterns and behaviors that lead us to reject one another and revert to individualism are the products of trauma, so to do the work of being human together, we must make space to address these emotional and physiological realities.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“the work of changing, imagining, reimagining, building, and rebuilding the world—is on me, too, because it’s on all of us.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“What are the ways that people make the places they inhabit, daily, through their participation, cooperation, and interdependence? What would those dynamics look like if those people were truly free? How can we manifest those ideas, values, and visions in the spaces we create together?”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“remember this much: learned prisoners are an affront to the [prison-industrial complex].”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Cynicism is a dominant force in today’s political discourse”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Organizing is deeply transformative: it subverts and transforms dominant systems of power, it transforms our imaginations in prefiguring a future beyond our present-day apocalyptic deathscape, it transforms our collective processes by nurturing relationality, and it transforms us as people as we realize our own capacities. Organizing thus not only changes the material and social conditions around us; it also changes us in the process.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Hope and grief can coexist,” Kelly and Mariame remind us”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Protest, like catastrophe, can enliven our connectivity as human beings. We should not think of our protective instincts as “selflessness,” rather as a connectedness that facilitates reciprocal care. By not abandoning people, we contribute to a culture where we, ourselves, are less likely to be abandoned. By defending one another, or even rescuing each other, in times of danger, we are reclaiming our capacity to help each other survive.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Many people have no real sense or experience of community. They may think of communities in purely geographic terms—their town”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Mutual aid is the story of this century,” Burley said. “We have to be there for each other.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“The group is all-volunteer and community funded”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

“That doesn’t mean outreach and relationship building are easy. But placing relationships at the core of our work is key to building sustainable movements.”
― Kelly Hayes, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care