Summaries from our affinity groups:

May 14, 2026 Pat Is Back Teach-In

Black, Indigenous and People of Color/People of Culture affinity group summary

A member posed this question. How have we in our Pat Is Back group chosen/found effective ways to protect ourselves, our people, our community and then to organize? Pat is Back is not a 12 Step meeting, it is a facilitated teach-in. However, we have developed using traditions from recovery/12 Step spaces to defeat our internalization of what capitalism has successfully on many levels given to us. We must develop our historical awareness of what we stand on and how we organize. We gather together and develop political consciousness. When we say political, what do we mean? We mean there is power in a capitalist system that is used to dominate and control and force you to submit. Or as the pat robinson's Revolutionary Prayer says to live for our community, our people and never to betray the revolution. Revolution means to transform a predatory capitalist economy and society into a caring economy and society. Developing consciousness about power means understanding how do I love, care for and protect myself so I can organize and move forward together with others. One person talked about appreciating how Pat was a radical therapist and agreed with the practice of connecting trauma and the political, with capitalism. Learning how our actions have consequences, while actively working to take the actions to best support, not hurt people. We organize ourselves, address our internal emotional states so we can demand both from ourselves and the places we put our money, from our government and socialist companies, creating a caring economy. For example, how would a socialist worker co-op company deal with its profit, the money you get after the cost of making the product. It would mean you would put the profit back into a caring product. You would have a better bicycle or refrigerator made, instead of having built in obsolescence where people are forced to buy another product in one to four years. We are not talking only about going out to vote, not electoral politics or power alone. We are saying that our work, our labor must be respected. This means we will withdraw our labor. In Lupe's novel To Face It, bus drivers withdrew their labor, put those buses to the side and did not keep driving or transporting people to the stores to consume or buy products. That's great power. We utilize Joy Degruy's workbooks on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, not only for theory, but for healing, using Ch 6 which introduces the concept of the ten steps. You can get the workbook for your family, friends, sorority, which could strengthen and maintain the change, because you continue to ask yourself questions. Am I feeling fear because those who taught me in the educational military complex: control of children's minds, be afraid of authority, don't stand up for myself with my co-workers for example. Working on internalized Anti-Blackness was spoken of. Why do we hate-ourselves? The self-hatred inside of us BIPOC for just being BIPOC makes us lie, because we don't feel safe, ever.

white affinity group summary

We used Ruth King's (a Black, meditation teacher) letter "Dear White people", a call in to use our unearned privilege to speak to our white children about the real truth and horror of racism and to confront our own fears about telling the truth about how our ancestors have caused hurt and terror to BIPOC, including rape, killing and genocide. We looked at how we have to face that our people are moving too slow, our grief about that, and the ways we have become numb or complicit or addicted to our unearned privilege. A member spoke about still having deep denial. We spoke about blaming other white people and not taking responsibility for our part, not speaking out about systemic racism or picking and choosing when or where to do so, even in spaces where we claim to be dedicated to social justice. One person spoke about imagining talking with their great nieces and nephews about racism and being in fear of other family member's reactions, being cut off or cut out. We need to ask ourselves how to engage our white people in taking practical action.