At the No Kings rally on October 18th, Anishinaabe elder Ricky DeFoe eloquently spoke truth to power, calling out, in his words, “a society whose genesis is barbarian, an ethos of violence and death, a gun culture, hypermasculine and patriarchal, highly addictive, extremely stressful, hypersexualized, hate-filled, lawless, toxic” and whose current leaders’ behavior of “drunkenness, debauchery,” and limitless greed “bring shame and hardship.” He inspired the gathered crowd by affirming that “the natural response to oppression, ignorance, evil, and mystification is wide-awake resistance.”
Such resistance, he claimed, calls for an “ethic of risk.” I was immediately struck by his use of the term, paralleling feminist theologian Susan Welch’s A Feminist Ethic of Risk.[i] Returning home, I picked up my copy and found many of the same points DeFoe had articulated.[ii] Both asserted that an ethic of risk recognizes that “to stop resisting, even when success is unimaginable, is to die,” and by this they meant not only the threat of physical death, but also “the death of the imagination, the death of the ability to care.”[iii]
Hearing those bold (and bolded) words spoken by DeFoe, I was deeply moved. Finding them again in Welch’s book enabled an even deeper reflection on all that they entail. What does it mean, I wondered, that to stop resisting, to acquiesce to the overwhelming powers of domination and oppression is to allow death of the imagination? It is both to give up on creating alternative ways of resisting the powers that be and to no longer believe a future of peace and justice is possible. Even in the writing of those last words I feel a despair so overwhelming that I cannot give that thought credence. Welch’s explanation is akin to my own, writing that if we cease resisting “we lose the ability to imagine a world that is any different than that of the present . . . and strategies of resistance and ways of sustaining each other”[iv] -- an ability we cannot afford to lose.
And what of the effect of acquiescence on our ability to care? To know that ICE agents are storming apartment buildings in the middle of the night, traumatizing families and young children; that life-saving scientific research is being halted; that millions of AIDS sufferers have lost their medical care; that billionaires throw extravagant parties while thousands go to bed hungry; and that total disregard of climate change in the name of greed is causing the wanton destruction of forests, waters, and the very earth and not feel a “NO!” rising within oneself, to simply turn a blind eye and go along with it all would require us to completely numb ourselves to pain and suffering. This is something I cannot choose to do, for the ability to feel is at the core of our humanity. To do so would indeed be to die.
Resistance arises out of such care, out of love – a theme echoed in the works of so many resistance writers -- Paulo Freire: “’I am more and more convinced that true revolutionaries must perceive the revolution, . . . as an act of love;[v] Albert Camus: “ . . . rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. . . which unhesitatingly gives the strength of its love and without a moment’s delay refuses injustice;”[vi] bell hooks: “Love was the force that empowered folks to resist domination and create new ways of living and being in the world;”[vii] Beverly Wildung Harrison’s recognition of “the power of anger . . . in the work of love. . . ” is what moves us to acts of resistance.[viii] Resistance is care in action.
Resistance to authoritarian power involves risk, even moreso in the current environment of weaponizing military forces against the citizenry, especially for the brown and black peoples being targeted by this administration. However, Welch argues, even though acts of resistance entail risks, these are not acts of self-sacrifice. Though one may risk censure, livelihood, prestige, wealth, or even physical harm, what one gains in being true to one’s sense of integrity to the cause of justice is far greater. “When we begin from a self created by love for nature and for other people,” she writes, “choosing not to resist injustice would be the ultimate loss of self.”[ix] .
An ethic of risk guides us in determining what form that resistance takes. Welch explains that the ethic of risk entails three elements: 1) a redefinition of responsible action, 2) grounding in community, and 3) strategic risk-taking. We need to examine each of these.
Welch describes responsible action as “the creation of a matrix of further resistance.”[x] ‘Matrix’– a word I love – from the Latin matrix or womb and rooted in the Latin matre or mother. It is the medium or source from which something else grows and emerges. So, if responsible action is the creation of the matrix of further resistance it calls both for actions that make life more just in the present while also continuing to nurture the possibilities for the growth of resistance and change in the future.
This is the nature of what Welch calls strategic risk-taking. By this she recognizes that while the aims of individual acts of resistance may be modest, like responsible action, they also must create the conditions for sustained resistance in the future. “The measure of an action’s worth is not,” she argues, “the willingness of someone to risk their life but the contribution such an action will make to the imagination and the courage of the resisting community.”[xi]
Still, I wonder, how does one determine what those actions should be? At the very least, Welch says, “We can prevent our own capitulation to structural evil.”[xii] But she goes further. Her second condition is that such actions be grounded in community. When I asked Ricky how he determines what acts of resistance to engage in, he, too, responded that this is never something that one determines by oneself, but rather in continual dialogue and conversation in community.
We may be fortunate to be born into community, or join existing communities, but community is also something we create by the work of nurturing relationship. We weave the web of community by strands of showing up, listening, talking together, and as Welch argues, literally working together, by which she means the basic work of physical sustenance – growing and preparing food, building houses, sewing – all necessary to develop truly emancipatory conversations, especially as those strands weave across difference.[xiii]
As we enter this season of Thanksgiving, I wonder about those early interactions of creating community across difference. Much mythology surrounds the story of the first Thanksgiving, but the history does suggest that the fifty-three remaining pilgrims at Plymouth and ninety members of the nearby Wampanoag tribe shared a harvest feast. One can only wonder who we would be as a society if, in the growing and preparation of food together, the sharing of meals and conversation, that had been the beginning of true community rather than an isolated moment before what would become the genocide of the indigenous population of this land. As DeFoe said so forcefully in his speech, “Western colonialism may speak of an American history. Native people speak of an American holocaust. The American holocaust is our experience.” But, as he continued, “Native America still stands.”
A settler on these lands, I am fortunate to live in a place where Native America still stands vital and vibrant. Because of the strong presence of the Anishinaabe and other indigenous peoples here I have had many opportunities to forge relationships, friendships I treasure. I am grateful beyond measure for the generosity and welcome I have been given, the wisdom shared and relationships formed by which I am moved to acts of solidarity and reparation.
Toward the end of his speech, DeFoe called on us all to “join hands in the strong bond of kinship.” For those of us who, like myself, are settlers on this land, if you want to move from being settler to kin, writes Anishinaabeikwe Patty Krawec, it starts with what you do – showing up to protests, actions, powwows, and events; supporting Land Back movements and helping to restore what was stolen; and most important of all, entering into relationship with humility and respect.
To conclude with DeFoe’s hopeful words, this bonding together in kinship is the work of “transformation and renewal,” by which, as Krawec writes “we can walk together on a good path that is green and beautiful and together we can light the eighth and final fire: an eternal fire of peace, love, and kinship.” [xiv]
. . . . .
* For those in the Duluth-Superior area, if you are interested in joining hands in kinship and creating community locally, Ricky DeFoe would like to hold an Anti-Racist Community of Transformation (ACT) Unlearning Othering circle here. If you are interested in being a part of that please contact Jen Grey Eagle or Liz Eagle. Here is their contact information. Jen Grey Eagle: jen@antiracismcommunity.org; Elizabeth Hacker: liz@antiracismcommunity.org. Alternatively, ACT also offers courses on Zoom: What We Do | Antiracism Community of Transformation
Sources
Bartlett, Elizabeth Ann. Rebellious Feminism: Camus’s Ethic of Rebellion and Feminist Thought. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.
Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Trans. Anthony Bower. New York: Vintage Books, 1956.
DeFoe, Ricky. No Kings speech. Duluth, MN. October 18, 2025.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 20th Anniversary Edition. Trans. Myra Berman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 1993.
Harrison, Beverly Wildung. “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love.” In Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ, Eds. Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989. 214-225.
hooks, bell. Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Kraweck, Patty. Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2022.
Welch, Sharon D. A Feminist Ethic of Risk. Rev. Ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.
[i] The term “feminist ethic of risk” originated in Sharon Welch’s book by the same name. In her revised edition she says that the term is both accurate and misleading, accurate in that the process of reflection in which she engaged was feminist, but misleading in that she has found elements of this ethic expressed elsewhere among African American ethicist and novelists. She would now name it simply an “ethic of risk.” I have retained the word “feminist” because so much of what is deeply true of the feminism I know and love, such as this ethic, has been lost and forgotten, so that only a shallow version of feminism remains in the popular consciousness. I wish to resurrect it here.
[ii] In re-reading Welch’s text, I found many of the same phrases and concepts that DeFoe had spoken. I was so struck by the parallel I asked Ricky about his acquaintance with Welch’s work. He said that these were concepts he had learned in engaging in anti-racist work. Apparently Welch’s ethic of risk has become endemic in the work of anti-racism. The concept has come full circle. Welch claimed that her conceptualization of the ethic of risk came out of her work in feminist movement, but that it was deeply grounded in the work of womanist writers – Katie G. Cannon, Emilie Townes, Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison and their struggles against racist oppression.
[iii] Welch, 46.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Freire, 70.
[vi] Camus, 304.
[vii] hooks, 194-195.
[viii] Harrison, 220, 217.
[ix] Welch, 165.
[x][x] Welch, 74-75.
[xi] Welch, 47.
[xii] Welch, 48.
[xiii] Welch, 135-136. See also my longer discussion of this in my Rebellious Feminism, 95-97.
[xiv] Krawec, 186. The reference is to the Anishinaabe prophecy of the seven fires in which this is the time of the Seventh Fire. During this time, the light-skinned race will need to choose between two paths. The one path is green and lush; the other black and charred. If we choose the right path, the Seventh Fire will light the Eighth and final fire of peace, love, and harmony.