In a message dated 8/29/02 5:08:34 AM, owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com
writes:
Chuck Grimes:
>It is my sense that people will not move, until they literally feel
>the weight of oppression and the grip of authority on themselves in
>some physical form or other. So all the defining and framing of issues
>goes to no effect until it begins to unfold and define the real,
>tangible suffering directly to be found in the lives of the people
>involved---caused by some obvious law, procedure, social custom,
>practice, or policy, enforced by some asshole group in power.
>
>So then, I won't argue against reconstructing the histories of
>leftwing movements in the US, and resuscitating their lost
>leaders---since I am marginally involved in some of that in disability
>history. But the more meaningful purpose to those efforts has to be to
>re-discover some of their best practical lessons. And the one lesson
>that comes through to me, is make it concrete.
>
>Chuck Grimes
I think we can get confused, I certainly do, about the barriers we *can* visibly oppose--lining up to register to vote, integrating restaurants--with the heart of what it means to move together, a movement. People can SEE these actions--the Panthers with shotguns--the Seattle demos--and get inspired. But that's not the same as what we're fighting for, or why we're fighting for it.
Women were getting illegal abortions, a lot of them, and even helping each other get them in an organized manner (here there was an illegal referral service in the dorms) but it wasn't until abortion was put in the context of how women are held down overall--until women discovered other pieces of the puzzle--that unwanted pregnancy looked like anything more than a natural disaster and something one had to just endure and get through. Just like eviction or firing or unemployment or bankruptcy seem to us now. When it's happening to someone else we can say it's obviously 'the system,' but consult your soul when you're going through it and you'll see what I mean, I don't care how 'ideological' you are. Chuck, I think all the things we're experiencing are *concrete* enough, we feel 'the weight of oppression and the grip of authority', we just don't see these personal disasters as political or collective, we blame ourselves, and anyway the U.S. is better than anywhere else ... isn't it?
>The women's movement had not
>only the pill and abortion, but legal, social and bureaucratic access
>barriers to point out that were remarkably similar to some of those
>erected against blacks.
But it also had a dignity aspect. Look at the issues, day to day mistreatment and condescension by men, lies about our bodies, unfair division of household work, beauty standards, love from men of our true selves ... not that there's been an overcoming, but significant progress. These I'm sure parallel the disability movement, certainly they parallel the CRM. Many times in union drives people say they are organizing because they want respect, 'trabajo con dignidad.' Yes a raise, yes health insurance, those things, but not as much as 'dignity.' In contrast, a lot of people on the left talk about a 'living wage' and whether it's $8.40 or $9.60 an hour and miss the point.
Jenny Brown