Finding my Activism Niche

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Coming back to this blog after not having posted for almost half a year is hard. My mind says I should have a good reason – and I don’t. My mind tells me that I should have something profound to say – and I don’t. Even coming up with a heading seemed treacherous. I’ve learned a lot since the selection of Donald. Mostly, I’ve learned that I don’t know a lot. This journey has been humbling. And yet when I was looking at someone else’s vision earlier today, I realized that maybe I do have something to contribute. Most people don’t look at marriage as something that bestows a privilege. Maybe I can add that to a vision. At minimum, I can use my work to update my vision. So here’s a start, using questions from a workshop I attended as a framework.

Where does your passion to take action to end racism come from?
I think my passion comes from a profound dissatisfaction with the world we live in and a yearning for what it could be like. The world I envision, as a sketch to be fleshed out, is built on deep democracy, the kind feminist pragmatists wrote about, whose ideas I incorporated in my thesis. This democracy is filled with cooperation and collaboration, community, dance, and joy. This democracy is not corrupted by capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. This democracy does not center hierarchical institutions such as corporations and the nuclear family, instead it centers institutions that support democracy like cooperatives and intentional families.

How can this rooting sustain you in taking action toward racial justice for the long haul?
The most important thing to remember is to remember the most important thing! This vision and rooting myself in it can only sustain me if I remember it and notice how it is already emerging in my life. So, I want to create ways I can reconnect myself daily to this vision. And I want to remember to live this vision consciously by building (and noticing!) communal outlets of pieces of that vision.

What are ways that this rooting might not sustain you or lose your passion for taking action about racial justice?
It might not be concrete enough. The path from where we are to the vision might not be clear or too meandering (I get impatient easily!). I might lose hope that we’ll ever get there because my vision is big. Something also became clear to me during the workshop: I often don’t see the connections, the support, I do have, so I might be more focused on the vision than on the ways it is already realizing in my life. It is experiencing how this vision is emerging in my life that sustains me the most.

What are some capacities or skills or practices that you think might help you to sustain your passion to fight for racial justice for the long haul?
I want to set up ways I could practice reconnecting to this vision in community. I also am recommitting to my meditation practice, which can undermine my tendency to isolate myself (including in a group by focusing on what makes me different from the rest of the group instead of seeing what connects us).

United Fantasy

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Coming back to the United States from Europe is always hard for me. There seems to be something different about Europe that I am missing in the U.S. Europe feels more like home. There is more of a social contract there (although it’s being dismantled partly because of the destructive influence of U.S. corporations). Of course, I am on vacation, which helps. Somehow there is “something” different – and I can’t articulate exactly what that something is.

Yesterday, I listened to a discussion with Kurt Andersen about his new book Fantasyland – and something clicked. Because I haven’t actually read this book (though listened to a second interview), I won’t attempt to summarize his argument here. I will, however, run with his idea, which may or may not be true to his points (for that we’ll have to read his book…): The fundamental thing that differentiates the United States from Europe is that people in the U.S. tend toward living in Fantasyland. The white people who came to the colonies way back when self-selected based on the fantasy (as it turned out to be for many) that their lives would dramatically improve, so this is in the very fabric of the U.S..

And I see it everywhere from the fantasy that the U.S. is a country of the free (when that’s true only in the sense of a limited kind of freedom) to Facebook’s contention that the people I am connected to are friends (probably even the idea that it provides connections is a fantasy…). The U.S. self-image is largely based on fantasy. In reality, the promise of the country was (and still mostly is) limited to a very small group of rich white men. The U.S. was founded on stolen land with the blood and exploitation of people not even deemed fully human. The central idea of capitalism in the U.S. is also a fantasy: Hard work does not lead to success and happiness (at least not most of the time) – and it is becoming less so as what upward mobility was there is eroding.

Of course, Europeans aren’t immune to fantasy (their support of homeopathy is just one example) but they seem to be more grounded in reality, including less religious. Maybe the biggest fantasy has also prevented more of a social contract in the U.S.: Individualism. In Europe, workers are more likely to form and support unions because they know that individual success depends on others. They are less likely to subscribe to the fantasy of the “self-made man.”

All this typed, I am even more eager to read Andersen’s book because I want to see the evidence he presents, especially since I am realizing how I don’t yet fully understand his argument of how the U.S. went haywire in recent years. However, based on my own experience and limited research, the idea that USAmericans tend toward more pie-in-the-sky living resonates. And that idea might be very detrimental to us and the planet as a whole.

Travel Insights

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Two books, a conversation, lots of experiencing and thinking – that’s what influenced an inner change during my recent vacation – or rather a recommittment to things I’ve explored before, even long before Donald was made president.

The first book is Naomi Klein’s “No is not enough.” The second is Anthony Flaccavento‘s “Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up.” Both books make similar arguments: It is not enough to resist the current system, we also need to build a new one. While Klein’s book (despite the title) is more of an analysis of how we got Donald – an analysis that I’ve found tremendously helpful as Klein is articulating a lot of what I’ve been thinking – Flaccavento presents examples of this bottom-up economy that serves as an alternative to the capitalist and socialist systems most of us are familiar with and that have failed most of us so thoroughly. Clearly, Donald is just a symptom. He is a symptom of a system that is built on exploitation and hierarchy. Understanding this is just the first step. Klein’s book is very helpful in gaining that understanding. Flaccavento’s book is pushing us further by suggesting actions to take.

Maybe Flaccavento’s book is also so helpful to me because it is building on some of the things I’ve noticed – again – during my trip. I start to thrive when living in community and closer to nature. Although the sense of community might’ve been a bit more complicated by being with my parents and being on vacation, clearly being with others is helpful for me. Since I am single, I too often end up isolated and lonely. Plus, there’s something about the basic interactions, the basic cooperation that communal living brings: Sharing meals, doing dishes together, etc. Reading in Flaccavento’s book reinforced that building community isn’t just a personal preference. It’s also a way to resist. Again and again, loneliness is mentioned as one of the driving factors behind the shift to totalitarianism we’re seeing worldwide. Strengthening communities, rebuilding communal ties might thus be a crucial ingredient for building a true democracy (or the system we build as an alternative to the hypercapitalism that is destroying the world).

I also noticed how social media is sucking time out of my live without giving me what I want: Most connections on social media are superficial at best and yet it gives me the delusion of connection. While I was traveling, I had little desire to share on Facebook – because I was sharing in person! Back in my regular life, I keep going to Facebook with an almost desperate desire to connect – because I have so little in person connections.

Although I am still struggling to learn how to do it, I want to build community, create connections. After the election, I’ve already started to do more of that through book circles and knit-togethers. Because I’ve felt the difference this makes in my life (and body!), I want to build on what I have started and expand it, maybe even finding a place where this happens more often, more organically, than in a big city.

On Waking Up

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Fully waking up to the reality of white supremacy patriarchy reminds me of the times I woke up to the fact that I was in an abusive relationship, especially the last one. It comes with this rage of realizing that what I thought was one way, maybe even something beautiful, turns out to be something ugly, something build on lies.

Then I look back and see all the signs that I somehow chose to miss. And this choice seems to be just as complicated in the case of the white supremacist patriarchal system as it is in an abusive relationship. I am being manipulated and yet there is also a level of allowing myself to be manipulated. A willful looking away. An attachment to the lie that is stronger than the tiny voice saying that things are otherwise. So in my head now is the voice over and over “how could I not have seen?!” And my mind lists all the red flags – for example, Ferguson, The New Jim Crow was published in 2010. Heck, I went to workshops and even wrote about them! Somehow the lull of the lie was too strong for me to stay awake. “How could I have let that happen?!”

Partly because that’s how the system is set up. It is set up in ways that make it all to easy to not see, to ignore. We’re segregated so we don’t find out what’s happening unless it’s in the news and the news drops it fast. Unless those of us with privilege make a conscious effort to know, we don’t know just how abusive this system is – and how much it is hurting everybody! Those with less privilege experience the abuse every day.

How can I stay awake? The most important thing is for me to stay involved. Just like I asserted my agency to protect myself from the abuser by going no contact, I can chose to set up my life to stay woke. No, I have a responsibility to do that. Enabling this system through my collaboration clashes with my values. Seeing how easy it is to go back to sleep, to hide behind my privilege, it is my responsibility to ensure this does not happen. Fortunately, there is lots of help for that: From organizations, from other people who have been doing this far longer, from books, from podcasts (the links are just a tiny sample). Most importantly, I need to keep practicing showing up. Speaking out. And listening to those who keep telling me about the abuses of the system.

Obeying in Advance

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When Corrupt Trump fired FBI director James Comey presumably to obstruct the investigation into the Russian meddling into the 2016 election and how that might tie to the Trump team, I decided that it was time for me to read Timothy Snyder‘s new book On Tyranny. The week after the election, Snyder’s Facebook post went viral. It summarized his academic work on the transition of democracies into authoritarian regimes into 20 lessons. His book builds on that post.

The first lesson is Do Not Obey in Advance. It confused me. I sensed that somehow it was important and yet I didn’t fully understand it. Snyder gives the example of the Austrian’s lack of reaction to the Nazi’s round-up of Jews shortly after they occupied Austria. Austrians acted as if that was the most normal thing in the world – and the Nazis learned that they could get away with murder, literally in too many cases. I did not see how this applies to our time now.

Over the weekend, I listened to an interview with Snyder. In it he emphasized the importance of Lesson 1. If we obey in advance, none of the other lessons matter. I shared some of that with a friend as we walked. She mentioned her concern over the lack of outrage about ICE raids. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized the two things are related.

While it is hard to tell whether the raids have already increased because of the new administration (ICE claims otherwise) or our attention to them has, Corrupt Trump’s rhetoric suggests an increased focus on preventing “illegal” immigration (where it is unclear exactly what is deemed illegal, especially since that can have more to do with filling out paperwork incorrectly than with what most would consider crimes). ICE raids are a part of that. There’s also a tipline offered through the newly established Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office, which is basically a way to engage all of us to go beyond obeying in advance to becoming active collaborators. These newly created office is also putting together a dangerous and possibly illegal database that gives anyone access to personal information of those labeled “alien offenders.”

Clearly, ICE raids are not the Nazi round-ups of Jews. Although the differences might be less than we first think. During the early years of the Nazi regime, Jews were not sent to extermination camps. They were sent East to get them out of the ever-expanding Germany. One of the major differences, though, is that ICE raids have occurred in the past. They didn’t just start with the GOP’s occupation of the White House. “Illegal” immigrants, with a similarly slippery definition of illegality, were targets even under the Obama administration. We have already obeyed in advance – unless we were part of the few white allies who were fighting it.

So what can we do?

First, we can inform ourselves. I didn’t know about the database until I did some research for this post, for example. I didn’t know about what happened during the Obama administration until I immersed myself in information after November 8. I still have a lot to learn!

Second, we can contact our members of Congress and find out how they are fighting this, especially the VOICE office, and what they are doing to ensure ICE is held accountable.

Third, we can get involved with organizations who are actively fighting this, including with the sanctuary city movement. This can range from donating to the ACLU’s rapid response team to getting involved locally (lots of links to resources, including a toolkit, are here). Please share other resources in the comments!

Corrupt Trump is a Symptom

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After Corrupt Trump was elected, I was under shock. How could people vote for this man? He stands for everything I dislike – and seems to clearly violate American values (not to mention norms and laws). I held on to the fact that the majority of voters did not vote for him (although far too many did). As I am learning more, though, I am realizing that Corrupt Trump is a symptom of a deeply unjust system – reflecting injustices too many of us avoid acknowledging because of the promises of the ideas this country was founded on and our pretense that these American values – liberty and justice for all – have already been achieved. We fail to acknowledge the deeper causes that enabled Corrupt Trump.

Some of the more immediate causes are the moral bankruptcy of the GOP. After Obama was elected in 2008, the leadership realized that they could not gain power with policies that were out of touch with a large swath of U.S. citizens. Energized and made more conservative by the Tea Party, they decided to take advantage of the upcoming 2010-census-based redistricting. Basically, they decided to gerrymander themselves into power. While gerrymandering is the usual thing a party in power does during redistricting, the GOP pulled out all the stops – call it gerrymandering on steroids. David Daley describes this in his book. The unusualness of the GOP approach becomes also clear by the number of redistricting laws that have been struck down in recent months. The other prong of the GOP power-grab was undermining the voting rights of those they could not reach with their conservative policies: People of color. When the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, it opened the way for the racist laws that would restrict voting access. And state-level Republicans took full advantage of that – to Corrupt Trump’s benefit.

(As an aside, because the GOP also knew that their policies contradict the US constitution – at least from the perspective of legal minds without agenda – they needed to prevent Obama from appointing a Supreme Court judge. They were not confident that a judge without a conservative agenda would uphold their illiberal laws.)

With Corrupt Trump, they did not see a man who has no moral compass, who personifies Harry Frankfurt’s ideas on bullshit. Instead they saw an opportunity to take advantage of a man without policies to push their agenda through, to complete undermining at least the promise of the United States’ visionary foundation. To understand why they did this, we need to look at two other things: The authoritarian origin of conservatism and the mixed brew of racism and sexism.

Before we do, let’s briefly add to the more immediate causes the failure of too large a portion of the Left/Democrats/Progressives – basically everybody not in the authoritarian-wing of the GOP – to see how that wing was organizing. They systematically filled positions in local and state governments, which allowed them to push through their immoral agenda undermining the liberal aspects of our democracy. The biggest failure might have been, though, not to fully understand, let alone address, the origins of the authoritarian thinking.

The origin of authoritarianism, as I argued in my thesis, is the nuclear family headed by the male father. The father has the authority both over his wife and his children. He decides. He rules. While this type of family has been somewhat democratized, this shift did not happen at all in conservative families. In fact, conservatism is maintained through the strict father model, which, when brought to politics, produces an authoritarian leader. The influence of this conservative, hierarchical family might be reflected in the decreasing number of people, especially young people, who believe it is essential to live in a democracy. (This could also be a lack of experience with non-democratic ways of living… Or both…)

There is another central institution in the U.S. and North-Western countries: The capitalist corporation. The corporation is an authoritarian system: It is headed by one person – usually by a white, cis-gendered, married man – who makes decisions on the direction of the company that impact all stakeholders, many of them without any input. The erosion of unions, going back to at least Ronald Reagan, has increased the power of the CEO and his cronies, greatly contributing to both the increase of wealth and income inequality and the further undermining of democracy. As inequality increased, the incentive to corrupt the political process to ensure the maintenance of the current system took over both political parties, particularly the GOP. With the selection of Corrupt Trump as their presidential candidate, the GOP stopped pretending to be a democratic party. Their open embrace of an authoritarian made them an authoritarian party.

Gerrymandering and voter restrictions were not enough to ensure their power grab. They also needed to convince enough voters. The GOP did so by shoring up the ideas that have been latent even before the US was founded. Recently pushed into the underground, they were ready to explode back into the open: Racist and sexist ideas that could be used to justify a system that only works for the few.

After the election, predominately white, mostly male pundits and politicians were quick to blame economic anxiety for Corrupt Trump’s win. The data shows otherwise: It’s what The Atlantic euphemistic calls “cultural anxiety,” the anxiety white men (and women) feel about losing their status at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. It was the interplay of racism and sexism that drove this cultural anxiety.

As an example, the vast majority of white Evangelicals voted for Corrupt Trump – to the tune of 81%. While this might seem to contradict their values, after all he has been married multiple times, for example, it is consistent with Evangelical Christian history and with the authoritarian hierarchy in their families and churches. Racist ideas that justified their economic advantages allowed Puritans to support slavery and helped Southern Christians feel nothing when keeping supposedly freed slaves in horrid conditions as late as the 1930s.

So, what are the key ideas justifying this current mess? The key ideas center around systems justifications of the strict father model, which is also known as patriarchy! While there are too often debates about whether racism or sexism are at the root, I argue that they are so intertwined that it makes little sense to look at them separately. Racism and sexism uphold each other. The hierarchical system of patriarchy is maintained by dividing women through racism and by dividing people not at the top through sexism. Who is at the top? White men. They are followed by white women, then men of color, and finally women of color. There are further hierarchies within each group justified with other forms of prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination, including homophobia and singlism. It is a hierarchical system that is based on arbitrary criteria, such as gender and skin color, instead of things like skill, knowledge, or wisdom.

In summary, I believe there are three keys to our current political regime:

  1. The strict father model creates the foundation by teaching us to accept hierarchies and making authoritarianism seem normal. It is taught within the nuclear family and/or through the structure of organizations most of us work for.
  2. Sexist ideas are used as systems justification for the strict father model within the family and the larger system.
  3. Racist ideas are used as systems justification for the strict father model within the larger system.

What do we do now? How do we dismantle this system? It will involve several strategies – including a shorter-term defense of democracies. Longer-term it needs to include restructuring families – probably through a system similar to the intentional family I sketched in my thesis. I am also looking to the work of Grace Lee Boggs for some guidance and will share my ideas here once they are ready.

Update: Not surprisingly, I am not the only one thinking along these lines. I just discovered an article in The Establishment that makes similar points. It is crucial, though, to add sexism to the mix because it furnishes more ideas that justify the system that brought us Corrupt Trump. And it is likely what drove a higher percentage of black men to vote for Corrupt Trump compared to black women.