Spotlight: Adrienne Maree Brown

One of the most inspiring things to me is seeing someone who is able to step out from the molds that our society places on all of us and be who they really want to be. For example, I sometimes think I would love to make my living as a nonprofit martial arts teacher and a freelance philosophy writer and public commentator. This stems from martial arts and thinking about meaning and politics being things that I love doing and, according to my ego, things that I’m good at. Thus, seeing a woman who’s blog describes her as “an organizational healer, pleasure activist, facilitator, singer, and artist living in Detroit,” fills the optimistic part of me with hope.

Adrienne Maree Brown is the woman I described above, and I just found out about her today from a link on Feministing. I’m sure she has some quirks and is left of myself on the political spectrum, but she seems to honestly care about people and making people’s lives better, especially those at the bottom of society.

So far the only piece of hers that I have read is her description of pleasure activism, and it definitely spoke to my hippie and utilitarian sides.

Brown’s blog’s “Book Me” section also has an interview from Democracy Now that I recommend as a quick way to get a good general sense of what she is about.