We’re living in a belonging-starved culture, where alienation and individualism are in full force. People are either struggling to find belonging due to very real constraints on their time and energy (working multiple jobs, constant upheaval, etc.), or they’re finding belonging in fear-based economies (conspiracy theories, alt-Right and neo-fascism, men’s rights groups, etc.). 

Historically, neoliberal and nationalist forces have manipulated belonging in order to coerce oppressed people into assimilation and conformity to colonizer nation-states, heteronormative family structures, and genocidal governments. Over the past few decades, infrastructure to create resilient belonging in our schools, meeting places, organizations, cultural hubs, and broader communities has been dismantled. 

At the root, the layered violences of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy have severed our inherent belongings to the land and to each other. Violence continues through forced migration, family separation, displacement, and economic scarcity. People come to our movements believing that they don’t belong in their schools, communities, and families–their current pains built on a chain of broken belonging that goes back hundreds of years. These wounds make it so that many are fearful of the ramifications of the type of vulnerability that could meet this need. 

Despite all this, we know that people need each other. 

No organization can tackle this fundamental wound on its own–no one organization can create ultimate belonging. And, we do have a duty to right-size our response to this very real rupture and need. Who people belong to, how they belong, and where they belong is profoundly political. If we believe that we need all of us to build the power necessary to win, we need to understand how a belonging-need shapes actions and steers motivation. We need to see this as part of our organizing, not outside of it.