michael
kelley wrote:
>
> i dig you a lot michael but i can't for the life of me figure out how you
> can assume that people on this list aren't involved. or rather, how you
> can suggest that some here aren't as evidenced by your apologies to the
> subbed activists in your closing.
>
> At 11:18 PM 11/23/1999 -0500, you wrote:
> >I want to commend Yoshie for her fine posts on many of the recent
> >threads: sexism the BRC, etc. Maybe I have a special sympathy for a
> >comrade who is the child of a factory worker,
>
> then you should probably have sympathy for eric and me, as well as a number
> of other listers who don't run about authenticating their positions by way
> of their identity. but i'm not so sure that having sympathy for someone
> because of their identity is necessarily such a good thing. i do it myself
> but the epistemological conundrums involved therein are enough to make me
> pause and question my identifications: there is no access to truth simply
> by virtue of a 'standpoint'
>
> but I think she has been
> >right on the mark. Especially when she tells us to do some political
> >work ourselves.
>
> i've read yoshie and rakesh for over a year now. i've not read once from
> either of them about their organizing activities. nonetheless, i do not
> presume that either aren't activists. moreover, i do not expect them to
> type about it. afaict, yoshie and rakesh both type lengthy quotes and
> reference scholars pretty regularly.
>
> >Why not use our talents to educate others?
>
> there are people on this list who *are* being educated. we can imagine
> there are many many people reading who get something out of these debates
> that they simply cannot find where they are. more reasons why these debates
> should be had. i and others who post get appreciative mail from lurkers
> all the time about what we type. it is educative work in many ways.
> consider paula's recent comments to Katha. writing and arguing in public
> forums is often a life saver for workers coming to some sort of political
> consciousness in ways i can only hint at, but it certainly enables you to
> feel sane when, very often, all around you are people telling you that
> you're wrong.
>
> or participate in
> >organizations etc.? Get down and dirty. It just won't do to just read
> >books and give impressive citations and the like. You have to meet the
> >people, get to know them. Teaching workers and now prisoners has
> >changed my life. So has helping to raise four kids, cooking, doing
> >household chores, including cleaning toilets. Sometimes when I hear
> >people on these lists pontificate (of course, I have done this too), I
> >think that come the revolution, they will still be talking.
>
> it is an email *disucssion* list so by definition it's about people sitting
> around talking. you can't see what they do when they aren't typing. that
> doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything.
>
> whenever you say this michael i'm deeply offended because i feel like i
> have to whip out my activist street cred to impress you. i don't do it
> be.c i don't think i have to prove anything to anyone. i know what i do
> and have done. it's also troubling because i work my tail off to be able
> to get to the point of being able to pontificate and learn and read and
> make arguments-- something i wish all workers could do and have time for.
> positing one as more important than the other doesn't seem especially
> helpful. coming to some sort of leftist consciousness is deeply bound up
> with mastering the ability to think in different ways than you've been used
> to *and* it often enough involves being able to articulate yourself through
> the kinds of academic arguments that we engage here
>
> I'll be
> >making sandwiches and doing the rest of the shit work that needs to be
> >done. I remember at the last Socialist Scholars Conference, someone at
> >the Monthly Review book table spilled a cup of coffee. None of the left
> >scholars standing around did anything. I ran over to a large closet,
> >found a janitor, borrowed a mop, and cleaned up. Earlier, I helped the
> >staff set up the table. I did not notice any other intellectuals doing
> >the same.
>
> my experience with leftists activists is much the same. they sat around
> and waited to be served and cleaned up after too. women and men alike. i
> watched it happen while working with them and while waiting on them. the
> issue, ultimately, is about the blindness to the world around you that
> comes from white skin and class privilege and probably has little to do
> with how much of an activist you are.
>
> i don't mean to attack you, but it seems to me, and it's clear from
> rakesh's response, that the post made some invidious comparisons.
> furthermore, as i've mentioned before, it is rather interesting that the
> folks who typically pound away about activism are men. that could just be
> a function of the fact that men far outnumber women in many of these
> contexts. i don't know.
>
> nevertheless, i tend to see activists' claims about what constitutes
> adequate activism as rather gendered and raced. that is, the demands
> placed on folks to be activists often presumes a generic person with few
> responsibilities other than going to work every day. in other words, the
> model of activism bandied about is not unlike the model for any profession:
> that of a white man, established in his career with not much to take care
> of but himself. that model of activism has little place for people who are
> often responsible for the bulk of childcare, for the bulk of the emotional
> labor and kin work involved in being a mother/wife, for the care of the
> infirm relatives or simply for the hour long phone calls from distressed
> relatives, for helping out financially and otherwise poor relatives, and
> for just plain dealing with the strife it causes when your relatives don't
> understand the activist involvements.
>
> if you're having a hard time understanding what i mean, think of the film
> Norma Rae. that film captured the kinds of judgments from friends and
> family one must deal with in order to be an activist in ways that resonated
> with me that i cannot capture within the limitations of language. activist
> women, then, deal with challenges to the gender identity in a way men do
> not have to deal with.
>
> yes, i know that plenty of folks do it all. indeed, i've often been
> considered one of those folks who juggled all these demands --and i lived
> on 2 and 3 hours a sleep at night to do so. i'm in my thirties now and i'm
> burnt out. i do what i can but right now i am taking the liberty of not
> getting involved and i think i have darn good reasons. i don't think i or
> rakesh or anyone should have to defend our decisions in that regard. for
> me, having to defend them is not different than having had to prepare for a
> custody battle last year: my lawyer told me that i'd be asked why i got
> involved and why i carted my son to protests and so on and so forth. in
> other words, my capacity as a mother was called into question because i
> wasn't the ideal model good mother who devotes her energies solely to
> parenting. i think that's effed up, but it is, nonetheless, a widely held
> belief. and, obviously, it is encoded in the juridico-legal system so it's
> not just about bad beliefs, but also about structural gender inequality.
>
> i think it's also problematic to expect graduate students to be politically
> involved. killing a dissertation is a pain in the behind and drains you
> emotionally in all sorts of ways. not even to mention the fact that diss
> advisors regularly chatise grad students for such activities because they
> see them as distracting them from their goal. [and they're probably not
> wrong about that]. indeed, it is the case that you sometimes pay for your
> activism because your patrons are not convinced your 200% dedictated to the
> diss and so are less willing to fight for you when it comes to obtaning
> those scarce poorly paid adjunct positions and assistantships. i'm
> fortunate enough to have diss advisors who think the world of me, but i
> know that many grad students are not that fortunate
>
> kelley