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Overview
Overview
Here's the truth about community: it will be hard. People will disappoint you, and you will disappoint others. Expect conflict, miscommunication, power struggles, hurt feelings, and the urge to quit. Many start but abandon community when it gets uncomfortable, often in the first few months. This isn't failure; it's because community reveals our unhealed relational patterns and tests love, as bell hooks says, "the practice of love offers no safety... we risk loss, hurt, pain." Adrienne maree brown notes, "Never a failure, always a lesson." This module addresses staying when it's tough, viewing conflict as growth, understanding accountability versus punishment, harm versus discomfort, and how to keep community alive beyond initial enthusiasm fades.
Core Question: I tried building community and it fell apart / hurt me / exhausted me. What went wrong?
Answer Preview: Nothing went wrong. Community is supposed to be hard sometimes. The question isn't whether conflict will happen—it's whether you have the tools and the commitment to move through it together.
Key Concepts
Key Concepts
Conflict as Growth: How disagreement, when handled with love, strengthens rather than destroys community
Accountability vs. Punishment: The difference between calling people in (with love) and calling them out (with shame)
Harm vs. Discomfort: Learning to distinguish between being actually hurt and being challenged
Burnout and Sustainability: Why so many community builders flame out, and how to pace yourself
Power Dynamics in Community: How race, class, gender, and other axes of identity shape community dynamics
Transformative Justice: Responding to harm within community without replicating the carceral systems we're trying to escape
Content
Content
[BOOK CHAPTER] bell hooks - All About Love, Chapter 12: "Healing: Redemptive Love"
Link: https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/all-about-love-new-visions-bell/All-About-Love-New-Visions-Bell.pdf
On healing from harm within relationships and community. Why hurt and healing are necessary to know love.
[ARTICLE] Loretta Ross - "I'm a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic." New York Times
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/opinion/sunday/cancel-culture-call-out.html
Ross coined the distinction between "calling out" (public shaming) and "calling in" (private, loving accountability). Essential framework for handling conflict in community.
[VIDEO] Loretta Ross - "Don't call people out -- call them in" TED
Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/loretta_j_ross_don_t_call_people_out_call_them_in
Ross's TED talk on transforming call-out culture into call in culture. How to hold people accountable without destroying relationships or community.
[ARTICLE] "Centering Abundance: Rememberings from bell hooks on Love and Community" - The Inclusion Solution
Link: https://theinclusionsolution.me/centering-abundance-rememberings-from-bell-hooks-on-love-and-community/
On how our own unhealed patterns get projected onto the community: "If I am not critically self-aware, my own insecurities, self doubts, and traumas can be projected onto those with whom I am in community."
[VIDEO] Brené Brown - "Boundaries" (Short clip)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLOoa8UGqxA
Brown on why boundaries are essential to sustainability in relationships and community. "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind."
[ARTICLE] "What Is Transformative Justice?" - TransformHarm.org
Link: https://transformharm.org/
Comprehensive resource hub on transformative justice, responding to harm without police, prisons, or punishment. Toolkits, curricula, and real world examples. Free.
[VIDEO] "The Art of the Difficult Conversation" - Adar Cohen, TEDx
Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/adar_cohen_3_ways_to_lead_tough_unavoidable_conversations
Practical framework for having conversations that matter, even when they're uncomfortable.
[BLOG] adrienne maree brown - Disrupting the Pattern: A Call for Love and Solidarity
Link: https://adriennemareebrown.net/2021/04/17/disrupting-the-pattern-a-call-for-love-and-solidarity/
brown's ongoing reflections on movement conflict, community accountability, and how to stay in relationship when things get hard.
Supplementary Content
Supplementary Content
Books & Academic Texts
adrienne maree brown - We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice
Priya Parker - The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Loretta Ross & Rickie Solinger - Reproductive Justice: An Introduction
Video & Audio
How to Survive the End of the World - adrienne maree brown & Autumn Brown
Reflection and Engagement Options
Reflection and Engagement Options
Journal Prompts
When has community disappointed you? What happened? What did you do? Did you leave or stay? What did you learn?
What's your default response to conflict? Fight? Flight? Freeze? Fawn? How does that pattern show up in your communities?
Think about a time someone called you out. How did it feel? Was it effective? What would "calling in" have looked like instead?
Where are you confusing discomfort with harm? Being challenged isn't the same as being harmed. When have you treated growth-pain as a threat?
Are you burning out? What are the signs? What would it look like to pace yourself in community work?
What power dynamics are present in your communities? Who speaks most? Who's listened to? Who does the invisible labor? Who benefits most?
Discussion Questions for Learning Communities
Loretta Ross distinguishes between "calling out" and "calling in." What's the difference? When is each appropriate?
adrienne maree brown writes: "Never a failure, always a lesson." What's a community failure you've experienced that was actually a lesson? What did you learn?
How do you handle conflict in community? Do you avoid it? Confront it? Gossip about it? What would it look like to handle it with love?
What's the difference between accountability and punishment? How do we hold people accountable without shaming, excluding, or destroying them?
How do power dynamics show up in this group right now? Who talks most? Who does the emotional labor? Can we name these patterns honestly?
What boundaries does this community need? What agreements would help us sustain this work long-term?
When should you leave a community? What's the line between "it's hard but worth staying" and "this is no longer safe or healthy for me"?
Creative & Artistic Engagement:
Visual Arts
Create a visual "conflict map" of a community experience that went wrong. What happened at each stage? Where could intervention have helped?
Design a poster: "Community Agreements We Actually Follow."
Performance & Movement
Role-play a community conflict. Practice calling someone in instead of calling them out. Debrief.
Create a group movement piece that explores tension and resolution—pulling apart and coming back together.
Music & Sound
Create a "Staying" playlist—songs about not giving up, about coming back, about doing hard things with people you love.
Writing & Documentation
Write about a time you left a community. Was it the right call? What would you do differently?
Draft a set of community agreements for a group you're part of. Share them and invite feedback.
Write an honest letter to a community that hurt you. You don't have to send it.
Homework
Homework
Solo Practice: Conflict Inventory (20-30 minutes)
What you'll need: Paper/journal, pen, honesty
Instructions:
Name three conflicts in your community life right now. They don't have to be big. A tension, a resentment, a misunderstanding, an unspoken thing.
For each one, answer:
What's actually happening? (Facts, not feelings.)
What am I feeling? (Name the emotion.)
What do I need?
What does the other person probably need?
Is this harm or discomfort? (Be honest.)
For ONE of these conflicts, plan a "calling in" conversation.
What would you say?
When would you say it?
What outcome are you hoping for?
What are you willing to accept if you don't get that outcome?
Write your own "staying statement." Complete this sentence: "I stay in community because..."
Group Practice: Accountability and Repair Circle (60-90 minutes)
What you'll need: 3-8 people who are already in community together, willingness to be vulnerable
Instructions:
Opening (10 min): Each person completes: "Something that's been hard for me in this group is..."
Ground rules (10 min): Agree together: We will listen without defending. We will assume good intent while naming impact. We will focus on repair, not blame.
Honest sharing (30 min): Each person names one thing they want to be accountable for in how they've shown up (or not shown up) in this community. Example: "I haven't been as consistent as I said I'd be, and I want to own that."
Repair round (15 min): Where is repair needed? Where has someone been hurt? Practice: "When [action happened], I felt [feeling]. What I needed was [need]. Can we figure out how to move forward?"
Community agreements (15 min): Together, write 3-5 agreements for how you'll handle conflict going forward. Examples:
"We'll address tension directly, not through gossip."
"We'll assume good intent and name impact."
"We'll check in on each other after hard conversations."
Note for Solo Learners/If you don't have a group, modify this practice by:
Journal through the prompts.
Write your own conflict agreements for yourself.
Practice a "calling in" conversation with a mirror or on paper before having it in real life.
Before You Move On...
Before You Move On...
Reflection questions to sit with:
What's the hardest thing about staying in community? What makes it worth it?
Where do you need to be called in? Where do you need to call someone in?
What would it take for your community to handle conflict with love instead of avoidance?
Community isn't the absence of conflict. It's the presence of people who are committed to working through it together. The hard part is the love part.
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