As if the election wasn’t bad enough, sitting at Scholz’s
Garten watching the returns with my daughter crying next to me, the days since
the election have been some of the most wretched I have experienced. Yes, there have been some hugs and a glass or two raised
with gentle friends. But there’s also been an enormous amount of dumbassery.
I’ve been doing the activist thing long enough to have
acquired an assortment of motley friends, a little insight, and some ‘cred.’ It
started by showing up at an event at the Oklahoma state capitol. Just showing
up, wearing the tee-shirt someone gave me, chatting with some folks. I showed up
to another event. I moved to Austin for a job. I marched with the Occupy folks.
I didn’t know anything except that I was frustrated and wanted to make a
difference. It seemed like change was possible if we just spoke up and educated
people and made issues visible.
Now we struggle to make sense of a country that has selected,
by grace of the anachronistic electoral college, the most disgustingly
unqualified, ignorant, angry, bigoted presidential candidate that our country
has ever known. That he will lead us to economic and environment disaster is
certain. That he and his cronies could and desire to destroy our democracy
seems like a pretty high probability also.
There has been outrage. There has been marching in the
streets every day. There has been an outpouring of grief and confusion and pain
on social media. And suddenly there are a lot of people saying “What should I
have done? What can I do now?” Many of them are young and just becoming aware. Some of them are older folks who have maybe never been political beyond voting and going to the school board meetings.
I know there have always been and always will be
ignorant, violent, hateful people in the world. Their existence does not surprise
me. But what has surprised and distressed me beyond imagining is the reaction
of many of the activists I know.
I don’t know very well how to explain, but I’ll try to
illustrate the point with a safety pin. Someone pointed out that people in Britain
started wearing safety pins after the Brexit vote to indicate their solidarity
with immigrants and their willingness to help people victimized by racism. So
folks here got the idea to do the same. Stories of people finding the courage
to wear the pins and of people who thereby found kindness and help from
strangers began to trickle in. But activists began a furious barrage of criticism.
Apparently this new crop of people who are trying to do some good, trying to
find their voice, just don’t have the cred to wear the pin. They haven’t been
marching in the streets with us. They haven’t been vocal about black lives and
justice. They don’t understand the risks. They don’t understand the
responsibility. They haven’t done all the hard work.
I don’t understand this tribalism. I don’t condone this
exclusive attitude. And I’m beyond depressed that the people who are so busy criticizing
and standard setting are women. It struck me today, as I sat on the front steps
of City Hall for a protest, crying softly behind my sunglasses, that this is no
different than the hundreds of other ways that women enforce the patriarchy by policing
each other’s dress and behavior and ensuring that women who step out of line
are ostracized and punished. It’s the mentality of powerlessness, the tactics
of oppression turned against the other victims of that oppression. It’s a
purity test that no one can pass. It holds us down instead of lifting us up, damages
our cause rather than advancing it.
I may not have been much of a soldier, back in my military
days, but I did learn the difference between defense and offense, and which was
more likely to bring victory. I also learned that you have to plan and fight your
battles with the soldiers you have in your platoon. The strong ones; the weak
ones, the seasoned troops, the kid just out of basic, the expert marksman, the
swaggering fool who’s likely to get the first bullet. You don’t get to pick and
choose. You just figure out how to make it work with what you’ve got.
I’m dropping out of most of the groups I’ve worked with in
the past. I realize my sphere has been too small, my mind too comfortable. I
have no idea what the future holds for any of us, least of all me. But I do
know that I’m not going to circle the wagons if that means leaving people
outside in the cold.
