brown black and queer

Clearly, the “revolution” has yet to come. Change is not going to be dropped off by the stork on our doorstep, so we need to do more thinking about and more acting on how we can adopt it. These are a few thoughts I’ve been having about reformation and revolution. They are directed to those who consider themselves revolutionaries and to those who want change but wouldn’t necessarily hold up their fist with the aforementioned.

1) Reformation and revolution do not occur without each other. Think about it, and read on. I expand on it in the rest of this post.

2) The imagination and our imagined community and our ideology can be revolutionary, and I think should be. We need to imagine all that we can imagine. Using our imagination liberates us from the shackles of the ordinary, from the accepted, the norm. For this reason, I am on a science fiction kick. Currently I’m reading Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed for the Quirky Black Girls book club. Can’t say that I’m too far in, but already I’m loving the fact that the lines of race and gender and age are being blurred by characters Anyanwu and Doro who have the ability to change their outward appearances and physical strength while those around them are mortal and cannot. It completely fucks with my notions of perspective and permanence. In other words, it’s expanding my brain and giving me an alternative to life outside of how it exists now. That’s revolutionary.

Not only must we imagine, but we have to be willing to experiment according to that freed logic. In her book Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empires, Prisons, and Torture, Angela Y. Davis talks about what she learned from the 1960s & 70s rights movements.

“I don’t know how else to talk about this other than to encourage people to experiment. This is actually the lesson I would draw from this period of the 1960s and 1970s, when I was involved in what were essentially experimental modes of conventional civil rights organizaing. Nobody knew whether they would work or not… I think the best way to figure out what might work is simply to do it, regardless of the potential mistakes one might make. One must be willing to make mistakes. In fact, I think that the mistakes help to produce the new modes of organizing–the kinds that bring people together and advance the struggle for peace and social justice.”

One more thing on this. A friend and blogger black scientist was recently asked for evidence that fundamental/systematic change can occur through electoral politics. She responded, “I have no problem believing in things that have not yet happened.” Thank you! Me neither.

3) Do we think the revolution is just gonna pick up one day, and the next we’ll have this new world to live in where we’re all free from oppression? Someone has to be behind it, and let’s face it, we’re not all going to be behind it at once. As much as we would like (and trust, I would love it) big things poppin, we’re going to have to think about social order the way the designers and the supporters of this order have thought about it, we’re going to have to acknowledge how powerful these systems are, we’re going to have to acknowledge that there are people behind these systems as well and most of all we’re going to have to understand that creating change takes effort, time and patience. If I could snap my fingers, I would, but unfortunately I can’t.

Get over it. The whole world is not going to come to this great conclusion tomorrow. Let’s continue to do what we’re doing in support of the revolution, and create new avenues to get there, accepting smaller victories as victories but with hope and action for better things to come. We have not won until everyone has won.

The most practical way to revolution is to think and act in terms of long term and short term goals. Answer for yourself, what is it that I want my world to look like? How do I want to be able to live? Now, how are we gonna get there? We’re going to have to make plans and make moves, but we won’t be able to achieve everything at once. We have to accept and celebrate steps in the right direction.

The most important thing we can do is to educate and become educated on how to liberate ourselves and each other, but as we all know, education takes time. It is not easy to unlearn and to learn anew how to build and live in a world where we are free.

4) Wishing the worst so people will be forced to react is downright malevolent. Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve been hearing people say (and I’ve thought it, too) around the buzz of the bailout that they hope the U.S. goes into a complete depression so people will finally decide to do something about the state of the economy.

I’ve also heard that maybe it was a good thing that Bush was such a fuck up in office for 8 years, because now we realize that something different needs to happen. True, we wouldn’t be where we are now if shit hadn’t gotten so bad (a lot of people maybe would not have voted for Obama), but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was necessary or even good.

It’s awfully privileged to think this. I know that even in these trying times, I still have a little cushion to plop down on. Most of America isn’t so lucky. Most of America is suffering, can’t find a job, can’t feed their kids, much less themselves. They’re locked up and won’t be rehabilitated. They can’t walk down the street without being called a “cocksucker” or thought of as a “nigger,” and they certainly aren’t considered more than roaches to far too many lucky citizens.

We already have enough to think about. We (maybe not you, because you have enough money to afford your internet access and enough time to be reading my blog) the people are suffering and smiling. We need a strategy that doesn’t require reaction, reaction to “sudden” disaster. Let’s build, not destroy.

5) Because it needs to be said, sorry, Barack Obama is not the black Jesus we’ve been waiting for, people. 

6) Why is it that many die-hard Obama fans, so-called revolutionaries refused to acknowledge or support candidates like Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente? Why is it that few people raved about candidates like these but could not support Barack Obama? What is so wrong with support? Support is support is support. It is not a zero sum game. Because you get down with one candidate does not necessarily mean you oppose another. If you must know, I voted for Obama/Biden, but I informed myself about other parties, tried to get the word out about other candidates, considered my options in voting outside of bipartisan lines and thought long and hard about what the most revolutionary thing to do was. I was at the Green Party Party in LES during the first part of election night (there’s a big long rant here, but I’ll save it for a rainy day) and I was happy to see that people had actually voted for Obama. I support those who challenge the system. Obama and Clemente both were doing that. Yes, I can only vote for one, but I do not deny support for the other because of those rules.

7) You needn’t be wealthy to do something. I remember when activists around me where scrambling after Katrina. Over the next few school breaks, a number of (Jewish) students had gone and come back from the 9th ward. I sensed obnoxious pride in those people who were able to fly there and a low sense of worth in those who cared but could not get there. I don’t think we should waste time in measuring aid and creating other forms of oppression within well-intentioned activists. We all have access to very different resources and we all do certain things that make us happy. Let us, in our own ways, put these together to create our paths towards liberation.

8 ) The revolution starts in you. All those supposedly little things really do count for a lot. Choosing the spinach over the big Mac, getting enough rest, drinking your water and being yourself are among some of the most revolutionary things we all can do.