Posted on autostraddle.com by Frances Lee
There is a particularly aggressive strand of social justice activism
weaving in and out of my Seattle community that has troubled me,
silenced my loved ones, and turned away potential allies.
I believe in
justice. I believe in liberation. I believe it is our duty to obliterate
white supremacy, anti-blackness, cisheteropatriarchy, ableism,
capitalism, and imperialism. And I also believe there should be openness
around the tactics we use and ways our commitments are manifested over
time. Beliefs and actions are too often conflated with each other, yet
questioning the latter should not renege the former.
As a Cultural
Studies scholar, I am interested in the ways that culture does the work
of power. What then, is the culture of activism, and in what ways are
activists restrained by it? To be clear, I’m only one person who is
trying to figure things out, and I’m open to revisions and learning. But
as someone who has spent the last decade recovering from a forced
conversion to evangelical Christianity, I’m seeing a disturbing parallel
between religion and activism in the presence of dogma:1. Seeking purity
There is an underlying current of fear in my activist communities,
and it is separate from the daily fear of police brutality, eviction,
discrimination, and street harassment. It is the fear of appearing
impure. Social death follows when being labeled a “bad” activist or
simply “problematic” enough times. I’ve had countless hushed
conversations with friends about this anxiety, and how it has led us to
refrain from participation in activist events, conversations, and spaces
because we feel inadequately radical. I actually don’t prefer to call
myself an activist, because I don’t fit the traditional mold of the
public figure marching in the streets and interrupting business as
usual. When I was a Christian, all I could think about was being good,
showing goodness, and proving to my parents and my spiritual leaders
that I was on the right path to God. All the while, I believed I would
never be good enough, so I had to strain for the rest of my life towards
an impossible destination of perfection.I feel compelled to do the same things as an activist a decade later.
I self-police what I say in activist spaces. I stopped commenting on
social media with questions or pushback on leftist opinions for fear of
being called out. I am always ready to apologize for anything I do that a
community member deems wrong, oppressive, or inappropriate- no
questions asked. The amount of energy I spend demonstrating purity in
order to stay in the good graces of fast-moving activist community is
enormous. Activists are some of the judgiest people I’ve ever met,
myself included. There’s so much wrongdoing in the world that we work to
expose. And yet, grace and forgiveness are hard to come by in these
circles. At times, I have found myself performing activism more than
doing activism. I’m exhausted, and I’m not even doing the real work I am
committed to do. It is a terrible thing to be afraid of my own
community members, and know they’re probably just as afraid of me.
Ultimately, the quest for political purity is a treacherous distraction
for well-intentioned activists.2. Reproducing colonialist logics
Postcolonialist black Caribbean philosopher Frantz Fanon in his 1961 book Wretched of the Earth
writes about the volatile relationship between the colonizer and the
colonized, and the conditions of decolonization. In it, he sharply warns
the colonized against reproducing and maintaining the oppressive
systems of colonization by replacing those at top by those previously at
the bottom after a successful revolution.As a QTPOC (queer, trans person of color), I have experienced
discrimination and rejection due to who I am. I have sought out
QTPOC-only spaces to heal, find others like me, and celebrate our
differences. Those spaces and relationships have saved me from despair
time and time again. And yet, I reject QTPOC supremacy, the idea that
QTPOCs or any other marginalized groups deserve to dominate society. The
experiences of oppression do not grant supremacy, in the same way that
being a powerful colonizer does not. Justice will never look like
supremacy. I wish for a new societal order that does not revolve around
relations of power and domination.3. Preaching/Punishments
Telling people what to do and how to live out their lives is endemic
to dogmatic religion and activism. It’s not that my comrades are the
bosses of me, but that dogmatic activism creates an environment that
encourages people to tell other people what to do. This is especially
prominent on Facebook. Scrolling through my news feed sometimes feels
Iike sliding into a pew to be blasted by a fragmented, frenzied sermon. I
know that much of the media posted there means to discipline me to be a
better activist and community member. But when dictates aren’t
followed, a common procedure of punishment ensues. Punishments for
saying/doing/believing the wrong thing include shaming, scolding,
calling out, isolating, or eviscerating someone’s social standing.Discipline and punishment has been used for all of history to control
and destroy people. Why is it being used in movements meant to liberate
all of us? We all have made serious mistakes and hurt other people,
intentionally or not. We get a chance to learn from them when those
around us respond with kindness and patience. Where is our humility when
examining the mistakes of others? Why do we position ourselves as
morally superior to the un-woke? Who of us came into the world fully
awake?4. Sacred texts
There are also some online publications of dogmatic activism that
could be considered sacred texts. For example, the intersectional site Everyday Feminism
receives millions of views a month. It features more than 40 talented
writers who pen essays on a wide range of anti-oppression topics,
zeroing in on ones that haven’t yet broached larger activist
conversations online. When Everyday Feminism articles are shared among
my friends, I feel both grateful that the conversation is sparking and
also very belittled. Nearly all of their articles follow a standard
structure: an instructive title, list of problematic or suggested
behaviors, and a final statement of hard opinion. The titles, the
educational tone, and the prescriptive checklists contribute to creating
the idea that there is only one way to think about and do activism. And
it’s a swiftly moving target that is always just out of reach. In
trying to liberate readers from the legitimately oppressive structures, I
worry that sites like Everyday Feminism are replacing them with equally
restrictive orthodoxy on the other end of the political spectrum.Have I extricated myself from a church to find myself confined in another?
At this year’s Allied Media Conference, BLM co-founder Alicia Garza
gave an explosive speech to a theatre full of brilliant and passionate
organizers. She urged us to set aside our distrust and critique of newer
activists and accept that they will hurt and disappoint us. Don’t shut
them out because their politics are outdated or they don’t wield the
same language. If we are interested in building the mass movements
needed to destroy mass oppression, our movements must include people not
like us, people with whom we will never fully agree, and people with
whom we have conflict. That’s a much higher calling than railing at
people from a distance and labeling them as wrong. Ultimately, according
to Garza, building a movement is about restoring humanity to all of us,
even to those of us who have been inhumane. Movements are where people
are called to be transformed in service of liberation of themselves and
others.I want to spend less time antagonizing and more time crafting
alternative futures where we don’t have to fight each other for
resources and care. For an introvert like me, that may look like
shifting my activism towards small scale projects and recognizing
personal relationships as locations of mutual transformation. It might
mean carefully choosing whether I want to be part of public disruptions
or protests, and giving myself full permission to refrain at times. It
may mean drawing attention to the ways in which other people outside of
movements have been living out activism, even if no one has ever called
it that. It might mean checking in with myself about how I have let my
heart grow hard. It may mean admitting that speaking my truth isn’t
justification for being mean. It might mean directly dealing with my
religious hangups so that I can come to a place where the resonant
aspects of theology or spirituality become part of my toolkit. It means
cultivating long-term relationships with those outside my (not that)
safe and exclusive community, understanding I will learn so much from
them. It means ceasing to “other” people and leave them behind. It means
honoring their humanity, in spite of their hurtful political beliefs
and violent actions. It means seeing them as individuals, not ideologies
or systems. It means acknowledging their agency to act justly. It means
inviting them to be with us in love, and pushing through repeated
rejection. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I can sustain this work for the
rest of my life.Gonna reblog this with commentary. I grew up seventh day adventist, a fundamentalist, evangelical apocalyptic cult branch of Christianity. I feel like it has definitely helped shape a lot of my anxiety in the social justice movement. I find myself always afraid I won’t have the right beliefs or opinions, doubting my own judgment while torn between opposite arguing viewpoints on this site. And while I do not want to silence anyone in their fervor for their beliefs, I wish we weren’t so quick to take receipts, to stack up evidence of why people are problematic, are bad people in the community. I don’t even post anything about social justice, or ask questions, because I don’t want to overstep my bounds, or say the wrong thing, or say it in the wrong way. I reblog things, but I don’t say anything, but maybe I should. Maybe I should stop worrying about my imagined Tumblr reputation that I could get if I do something wrong. Maybe I should allow myself to express opinions, explore opinions, have discourse, without this looming perceived threat of the community. But I hesitate because this community matters to me, and who wants to feel excommunicated? So today I find myself free of Christianity but paralyzed by the same perfectionist anxieties I felt growing up. Because if you love Jesus you won’t sin, and if you are a good social justice warrior, you will already know better. Maybe this is mellow dramatic and too much, and maybe I’m saying it the wrong way. But that’s kind of the point. I have to say it. And this is how I know how to say it right now. But god dammit it’s better to speak up for a cause flawed than to never speak up at all.
Thank you for that contribution. Definitely not mellow dramatic.
As someone who has been at the receiving end if some community attacks on Tumblr I can say that it’s definitely highly stressfull, painful, difficult. It’s to me also worth it because the result is that I can surround myself with better forms of community, with people who embrace imperfection and aren’t on a holy quest to silence their own guilt.
I’ve written before that coolness is a bribe. You get popularity in a movement by walking their line and you hold on to the power and self-esteem that brings by maintaining its social rules. Losing your reputation is scary and can be painful, but its ultimately liberating, and even within social justice communities, the best people are often on the margins.
Now doing all of this offline is a lot harder and I have been lucky enough not to have to deal with it at this point and to have been able to find activist better communities with different mentalities & to contribute some better dynamics of my own where I can.
QueerAnarchism 