Wisdom from Rebecca Solnit's Call Them by Their True Names

"Naming is the first step in the process of liberation." (1)
"Being careful and precise about language is one way to oppose the disintegration of meaning, to encourage the beloved community and the conversations that inculcate hope and vision." (4)
"Equality keeps us honest." [I would add that that is true in schools too!] (15)
"Women [have a] tendency to gather and ally rather than fight or flee." [This is what people often misunderstand about all girls schools when they say they must be filled with "catfighting."] (44)
From John Muir: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." (48)
"The reality of facts . . . are, after all, part of a network of systematic relationships among language, physical reality, and the record." (50)
"what we do begins with what we believe we can do. It begins with being open to the possibilities and interested in the complexities." [This can also be called moral imagination] (58)
"Often, it's an example of passionate idealism that converts others . . . Sometimes, rather than meeting people where they are, you can locate yourself someplace they will eventually want to be." (76)
"A city is a book we read by wandering its streets" (136)
"Not just a tolerance of difference, but a delight in it, love for it" (147)
About Standing Rock: "the people most involved seemed to get it tat this is a really nice chapter, not the end of the story, and you can celebrate that chapter." (149)
"the importance of knowing that we don't know what will happen next and have to live on principles, hunches, and lessons from history." (150)
"Stand[] up for what you believe in, even when victory seems remote to impossible." (150)
"Consequences are often indirect." (151)
"When activism wins, it's because, at least in part, the story has become the new narrative, the story the mainstream accepts." (158)
"Breaking a story is usually a prolonged, collaborative process. It usually begins with activists, witnesses, whistleblowers, and with victims, the people affected, the people on the front lines the people to whom the story happened. The next step is often carried out by people with storytelling powers who are willing to listen." (161)
Daniel Ellsberg: "You can't be objective, but you can be fair." [This is true in teaching too] (162)
"Every bad story is a prison; breaking the story breaks someone out of prison. It's liberation work. It matters. It changes the world." [Also what teachers do!] (163)
"Actions often ripple far beyond their immediate objective, and remembering this is a reason to live by principle and act in the hope that what you do matters, even when the results are unlikely to be immediate or obvious." (173)
"Hope for me has meant a sense that the future is unpredictable . . . but know we may be able to write it ourselves." (174)
Patrice Cullors on Black Lives Matter's mission: "rooted in grief and rage but pointed toward vision and dreams." (175)
"Ideas are contagious, emotions are contagious, hope is contagious, courage is contagious. When we embody those qualities, or their opposites, we convey them to others." (180)
"Consensus leaves no one out." (183)
"The only power adequate to stop tyranny and destruction is civil society, which is the great majority of us when we remember our power and come together . . . This work is always, first and last, storytelling work, or what some of my friends call 'the battle of the story.' Building, remembering, retelling, celebrating our own stories is part of our work." (184)
"This work will only matter if it's sustained. To sustain it, people have to believe that the myriad small, incremental actions matter. That they matter even when the consequences aren't immediate or obvious. They must remember that often when you fail at your immediate objective  . . . even then, you may have changed the whole framework in ways that make broader change more possible. You may change the story or the rules, give tools, templates, or encouragement to future activists, and make it possible for those around you to persist in their efforts." (184-185)