Alan Mills’s Reviews > See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love > Status Update

Reconciliation: she considers whether to reconcile with her abuser. But admits that reconciliation requires accountability. But what if the infliction of harm is ongoing, intentional, and without remorse? That would make reconciliation impossible, by her own admission.

It seems she agrees: when attacked your job is to defend, not understand. If all she is saying is that it is the job of White people to confront white racists, I agree, but it is hardly a revolutionary idea. The Black Panthers and SNCC both said the same thing about 50 years ago!

Talking to bigots, making the point that understanding is not reaching an agreement.

But what if instead of talking those men had dragged her friend out back, set him on fire and lynched him, b/c he was not human and had brown skin? In the midst of a lynching, her goal wouldn’t be to understand them. Would she urge her friend to live them as they lured gasoline over his body? Or would she fight back?

I fundamentally disagree. They may be wounded—and wound someone often enough and young enough and you will create them—but they can ALSO be monsters. Requiring a child to love the parent who raped them at the age of five is all too often held out as the only way to heal. This is a dangerous myth, and prevents healing more than it fosters it.

The first section was good, but nothing earth shattering. Basically, we would all be better off if oppressors loved the oppressed, rather than dehumanizing them. It is the second section, love your enemies, that I have problems with. She states, “But there are no such thing as monsters in this world, there are only human beings who are wounded.”

I fundamentally disagree.