anne braden on developing her justice work

a few weeks ago, my friend anna tipped me off to this awesome interview with anne braden. i was introduced to anne braden (via her work) at the gainesville catholic worker house and i’ve been a fan ever since. she just seems like one of those people who has woken up. the way she works for justice in the world and the things she says… i just dig it all.

anyway, in this interview, the interview asked anne when she found her passion to fight for justice. anne gave the best answer. to paraphrase:

it’s sort of like developing a print from a negative in the dark room. you expose the paper to the light and then as you put it through the chemicals the picture shows up. it was always there, but it develops and gets stronger over time.

love love love that. i very much feel like that myself. from a young age, likely because of my christian roots, i’ve been thinking about and working towards justice. even back in my mission trip days (where the way we did work was pretty fucked up) i knew there was work to be done. and the older i get, the more i see it. i’m absolutely sure that there are some ways in which the work i’m doing now is still messed up, but i hope it’s getting less fucked up over time.

anyway, thanks for the analogy, anne. it’s a good one.

and thanks for the recommendation, anna! <3