Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Oh, and READ THIS BOOK

I was never a riot grrrl proper. But I was so inspired by the movement. It really gave me an initial framework for understanding my experiences - and then eventually seeing beyond them. This book is amazing. It takes the movement very seriously but doesn't cut it any slack either. It's well-researched and well-written. READ IT!





Ramblings

I had a really inspiring weekend. I actually think it's a culmination of events that are making me feel fairly welled up with possibility. I had a weekend long meeting with the editorial committee (EDCO) and advisory board (ADBO) of a journal I work with - I'm on the ADBO. It's an interesting journal called Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action (UTA) (www.uppingtheanti.org) and it occupies a curious position in the lexicon of journals as well as activist publications. It's fairly dense by the standards of "lay" publications; that is, non-academic publications. Yet, it offers a rigorous account of movements on the ground. And because it straddles a disparate set of worlds: academia - where the theorizing happens vs. activism - where the "action" happens; and because it self-consciously recognizes that these two worlds should not be as far apart as they are, it is doing something very important. But, the EDCO and ADBO are primarily (but not) comprised of white, middle-class grad students. One ADBO member remarked that people call the UTA folks "gradicals."

The separation of these worlds has always marked my reluctance to go back to school. I would very much like to think that we are, I am, doing work that materially advances my politics. I have absolutely no commitment to a value-free sociology as practiced in the United States. I want to take a position and learn how to defend that position. I want to create meaning out of the rad fucking things I see around me. I want to interpret the world according to my values. But I don't want to do in that right wing scary kind of way.

Anyhow, back to being inspired... UTA has been publishing for 5 years now. If you saw how and where the work is being done, you would be amazed that they've pulled it off. It's such hard work and it comes out of, well, kind of nowhere. There's no office, no staff - just a really dedicated group of people. The EDCO really works hard and long to make it happen. One of the reasons the journal is so outstanding is that it has really high-quality publishing standards. The challenge is that it's working with many on the ground organizers who may not have the academic training that many on the EDCO have, thus they may feel intimidated by the process of submitting and subsequently editing their work. That's been identified as a BIG problem. So, we brainstormed for a good long time about how to expand the EDCO's pedagogical capabilities - their bedside manner as well as their ability to unmask the writing process - in order to advance the journal's capacity to invite a variety of writers and over time expand the journal's ADBO and EDCO outside the privileged milieu they (we) don't seem to be able to address. I think that educational capacity is profoundly political and a precursor to broader democratic control over the journal in this instance, and our larger political lives in general.

I am under no illusion that what we do significantly turns the tides that I am observing in the mainstream political world. Toronto just elected a total douchebag as its mayor. The Tea Party, funded by billionaires, is the voice of the populace somehow - even though there are huge and important gatherings of left-wing thinkers and activists converging all over the fucking place doing amazing fucking things. I struggle constantly for people to change the terms of the debates in order to see that those terms have been set by the linchpin of history and power but it is in our obedience that they remain. I think that the world as I see it in my heart is entirely possible. I don't think that people are too dumb to see it. I see a psychic longing in my students all the fucking time. We just have to make our movements a place where they can tap in and feel at home. I don't think we've done that yet. And I think that the problems that UTA is facing is reflective of larger activist world to some extent.

It's exceedingly difficult to confront people at their points of privilege. It's never been easy for me to face, though those have been the moments that I've learned the most. I think UTA is struggling to see outside its own positioning and I think it'll be a stronger journal if it figures it out.