Revolution

I consider a revolution to be a single act or multiple acts over a course of time that ultimately change the way a person, group of people, country, or a general body acts, feels, thinks, and responds.  This is obviously a broad definition, but I do think that there are many different types of revolutions.  I think that one of the hardest types of revolutions to achieve is a revolution of thought.  When some belief or idea has been ingrained in a person, or group of people's minds for a long time, if they have been taught this belief since childhood especially, it is exceptionally hard to change or transform this belief on a large scale.  It is also difficult to determine the most effective way to go about revolting.  Without a truly organized revolt, it may be impossible to achieve the intended results. I think the word: revolt also comes with  a negative connotation, one may think of a person being revolted - to be disgusted.  It also comes hand-in-hand with the thought of violence.  Ultimately, this makes me question if violence is necessary in order to achieve any sort of result.  I would like to hope that it would be possible for change to occur without the need for someone to be hurt or killed, I would like to hope that people could listen, just simply allow themselves to hear and think about the ideas of a people that they may be opposed to, instead of only acknowledging and listening to them after some sort of catastrophic event.  

I think that the women of The Combahee River Collective ultimately had a huge task in front of them.  They recognized that they "have a very definite revolutionary task to perform" (The Second Wave Reader, 70).  Racial politics and racism definitely run more deeply in the thoughts and beliefs of people and are often the most difficult to change.  The Collective wanted to change the economic position, sexual identity, and racial-sexual oppression that black women face.  They had many goals that they wanted to achieve and if they are not organized, their ultimate objective may have started to become burry, and the reason for why they were carrying out certain actions may have become unclear, much like it did in Born In Flames.  Their concern was that black feminists were out in the world (in small numbers, yes, but they did exist) but that they were not united together.  Their plan was to publish writings and then distribute them, to basically spread their word.  At first, I thought that this plan would definitely not be sufficient.  But then I thought of revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Bob Dylan, and how their words inspired revolutions in their own kind.  These two figures were from different times and supported different issues entirely, but they were both effective in sparking a change of thought in people.  Their words may have directly or indirectly (depending on who you ask) inspired people to revolt, in some cases violently.  Maybe we can evolve to a state in which we can have a revolution of thought through words and peaceful actions alone, without ultimately resorting to violence.