Re #2: I try to make sense of this as well. As someone who has participated in all kinds of protests and rallies over the years, from Gaza solidarity camps and small-town BLM protests, to traveling to DC for inauguration protests and the Women's March, I often feel kind of empty and ineffective after many of them, and have struggled to e…
Re #2: I try to make sense of this as well. As someone who has participated in all kinds of protests and rallies over the years, from Gaza solidarity camps and small-town BLM protests, to traveling to DC for inauguration protests and the Women's March, I often feel kind of empty and ineffective after many of them, and have struggled to either reframe my thinking or find ways to feel more useful. I always enjoy the energy of being surrounded by like-minded people, and I recognize that I, personally, have really outsized expectations for myself regrading what is useful. So maybe the gathering is the point?
I also think it's really easy to fall into the desire for heroics when in reality, the work of change can often be slow and thankless and boring. Wouldn't it be great if we could just plug in somewhere at our convenience and have a direct hand in a thing that tips the scales (not to be critical or sarcastic--I often feel this way!)? Which I think speaks to Garrett's point: that all of the road-building we do for each other matters.
And getting back to protest effectiveness, I've also been thinking a lot about the idea of joy as resistance and the gathering being the point. I think it helps to ask oneself and one's organizing groups what the goals are and work toward specific goals, but also to make fun and joy and connection part of those goals. Of course, I always come back to punk rock, and that catharsis of dancing and getting sweaty with my friends, but I also get excited knowing I will get cookies and a fizzy water and some good conversation with great people at an organizing meeting. The fun and the connection makes the slow and thankless less boring. I fell like I've been seeing reminders that we are the point of all this, and I appreciate that. Because who are we fighting for if not each other?
I do think that all of it matters. Every way that we come together to try and enact change. And I'm not really interested in heroics anymore. But as a single mom with limited energy and time I am trying to think about what will be most impactful to do with what limited energy and time that I have. After a lifetime of protesting and seeing so much of what we grew up thinking could never be undone being undone, I'm not looking for the satisfaction of getting what I want accomplished in my lifetime. But I am looking to be strategic so at least I can feel like (hopefully), I'm helping us shuffle slowly in the right direction.
So much really smart stuff in this thread from both of you. A few thoughts:
1. The gun thing is real! And it's just one of many reasons why street protests don't feel as accessible to everybody-- not a perfect answer, but what that makes me think is (a). how important it is, in a diversity of tactics, for those who do feel more able to take to the streets first to do so-- both because some won't ever be able to and because the number help other step up (b). we need to keep celebrating all the things we can do and all the ways that we can make opposition a discipline in our lives, even if it feels (or is) Sisyphean.
2. My current thinking on street protests is that the impact has less to do with location (it has to be in D.C. or in a state capitol) then (a). the more that they keep happening-- that they aren't just one day, over-coordinated official affairs and (b). the more that they happen everywhere. The goal is to make "the fact that opposition is not going away" the story. Recent examples when we experienced ("oh, the media can't avoid covering this, because it keeps happening") was in 2020 and the Gaza campus occupations.
3. Cathleen everything you say about the joy of resisting and organizing and remembering that you like and care about the other people doing so both resonates really deeply and strikes me as super, super important.
I hear you about the everywhere all at once-ness being the goal, but I'll confess that living in the sort of small-ish, college town that is a Blue speck in a sea of Red, it can feel like our gatherings here get blown off. Like, THERE GO THE ITHACA HIPPIES AGAIN. Even if the crowd is diverse, it won't be perceived in that way. I agree that in terms of being embedded in the work, everything matters, especially joy and togetherness, But we are also in the midst of a perception war, in a battle for people's imaginations, and so I can't help but wonder if there's something to be said for larger mobilizations, whether they happen in D.C. or state capitols.
As another resident of a blue dot in a red state, I feel this. Part of what my organizing group is working on is the fact that our state legislators blow us off constantly, because they're like "oh yeah, those Bloomington folks are always pissed at us." I even find myself being like THERE GO THE BLOOMINGTON HIPPIES AGAIN. Ha. So we're trying to use the dedication here to bring in more people from predominantly Republican districts who might have more in-roads with their legislators. And I have to say, the tactic seems to be working, which has been really hopeful to me.
I will also still go to the big stuff, because I think that you are definitely right that big mobilizations do matter, and that also doing it in a sustainable way so we can keep it up is also important. Aaah! It's all important which is why it can be so hard to focus and figure out where to be effective.
Ah, the farmer's market nazis. Proof that even blue dots have a lot of work to do, because for all of this town's posturing at being special and above it all, the city's handling of that is one of many examples of how we are the white liberals MLK Jr warned us about--more concerned with order than justice.
I think it's smart to ask "how can I help spread the message beyond the bubbles" (that's a key part of the Otpor! story) AND I think that it never hurts to keep the fires burning everywhere, even the usual suspect places.
Re #2: I try to make sense of this as well. As someone who has participated in all kinds of protests and rallies over the years, from Gaza solidarity camps and small-town BLM protests, to traveling to DC for inauguration protests and the Women's March, I often feel kind of empty and ineffective after many of them, and have struggled to either reframe my thinking or find ways to feel more useful. I always enjoy the energy of being surrounded by like-minded people, and I recognize that I, personally, have really outsized expectations for myself regrading what is useful. So maybe the gathering is the point?
I also think it's really easy to fall into the desire for heroics when in reality, the work of change can often be slow and thankless and boring. Wouldn't it be great if we could just plug in somewhere at our convenience and have a direct hand in a thing that tips the scales (not to be critical or sarcastic--I often feel this way!)? Which I think speaks to Garrett's point: that all of the road-building we do for each other matters.
And getting back to protest effectiveness, I've also been thinking a lot about the idea of joy as resistance and the gathering being the point. I think it helps to ask oneself and one's organizing groups what the goals are and work toward specific goals, but also to make fun and joy and connection part of those goals. Of course, I always come back to punk rock, and that catharsis of dancing and getting sweaty with my friends, but I also get excited knowing I will get cookies and a fizzy water and some good conversation with great people at an organizing meeting. The fun and the connection makes the slow and thankless less boring. I fell like I've been seeing reminders that we are the point of all this, and I appreciate that. Because who are we fighting for if not each other?
I do think that all of it matters. Every way that we come together to try and enact change. And I'm not really interested in heroics anymore. But as a single mom with limited energy and time I am trying to think about what will be most impactful to do with what limited energy and time that I have. After a lifetime of protesting and seeing so much of what we grew up thinking could never be undone being undone, I'm not looking for the satisfaction of getting what I want accomplished in my lifetime. But I am looking to be strategic so at least I can feel like (hopefully), I'm helping us shuffle slowly in the right direction.
So much really smart stuff in this thread from both of you. A few thoughts:
1. The gun thing is real! And it's just one of many reasons why street protests don't feel as accessible to everybody-- not a perfect answer, but what that makes me think is (a). how important it is, in a diversity of tactics, for those who do feel more able to take to the streets first to do so-- both because some won't ever be able to and because the number help other step up (b). we need to keep celebrating all the things we can do and all the ways that we can make opposition a discipline in our lives, even if it feels (or is) Sisyphean.
2. My current thinking on street protests is that the impact has less to do with location (it has to be in D.C. or in a state capitol) then (a). the more that they keep happening-- that they aren't just one day, over-coordinated official affairs and (b). the more that they happen everywhere. The goal is to make "the fact that opposition is not going away" the story. Recent examples when we experienced ("oh, the media can't avoid covering this, because it keeps happening") was in 2020 and the Gaza campus occupations.
3. Cathleen everything you say about the joy of resisting and organizing and remembering that you like and care about the other people doing so both resonates really deeply and strikes me as super, super important.
I hear you about the everywhere all at once-ness being the goal, but I'll confess that living in the sort of small-ish, college town that is a Blue speck in a sea of Red, it can feel like our gatherings here get blown off. Like, THERE GO THE ITHACA HIPPIES AGAIN. Even if the crowd is diverse, it won't be perceived in that way. I agree that in terms of being embedded in the work, everything matters, especially joy and togetherness, But we are also in the midst of a perception war, in a battle for people's imaginations, and so I can't help but wonder if there's something to be said for larger mobilizations, whether they happen in D.C. or state capitols.
As another resident of a blue dot in a red state, I feel this. Part of what my organizing group is working on is the fact that our state legislators blow us off constantly, because they're like "oh yeah, those Bloomington folks are always pissed at us." I even find myself being like THERE GO THE BLOOMINGTON HIPPIES AGAIN. Ha. So we're trying to use the dedication here to bring in more people from predominantly Republican districts who might have more in-roads with their legislators. And I have to say, the tactic seems to be working, which has been really hopeful to me.
I will also still go to the big stuff, because I think that you are definitely right that big mobilizations do matter, and that also doing it in a sustainable way so we can keep it up is also important. Aaah! It's all important which is why it can be so hard to focus and figure out where to be effective.
Really well put, Cathleen. And also: In a world where even Bloomington has Farmers Market Nazis, thank God for the Bloomington hippies.
Ah, the farmer's market nazis. Proof that even blue dots have a lot of work to do, because for all of this town's posturing at being special and above it all, the city's handling of that is one of many examples of how we are the white liberals MLK Jr warned us about--more concerned with order than justice.
I think it's smart to ask "how can I help spread the message beyond the bubbles" (that's a key part of the Otpor! story) AND I think that it never hurts to keep the fires burning everywhere, even the usual suspect places.