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Lucky: Some Thoughts on Community-Building and Privilege

Sady

Hey, who wants to hear some totally non-news-related navel-gazing that later opens up into a discussion of feminist practice? Oh, you DO? Good!

So, as the year winds to a close, here is one thing I have had to face about how it has gone down: I’ve suddenly become a really, really lucky person. I mean, bad things have happened this year too! Because bad things happen to everybody! But also, I started a blog a while ago, and for some reason – some reason I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND, mind you – people have been really, unaccountably nice and supportive about it. And now, I am getting to do the thing I have been telling people I was going to do since I was seven years old, which is Be a Writer. A broke Writer, mind you! But, still! And I know nobody wants to hear me yammer on about that, because it is boring, but suffice it to say: I have wondered how to use this luck well. How to deserve it, basically. And I was on the train yesterday, reading Adrienne Rich, and I suddenly came across this passage (in her essay “When We Dead Awaken,” which you NEED TO READ if you have not already, and NEED TO RE-READ if you have) that was basically like Adrienne Rich suddenly fixed her steely gaze upon me and decided to speak to me about all my nonsense:

We seem to be special women here, we have liked to think of ourselves as special… An important insight of the radical women’s movement has been how divisive and ultimately destructive is this myth of the special woman, who is also the token woman. Every one of us here in this room has had great luck – we are teachers, writers, academicians; our own gifts could not have been enough, for we all know women whose gifts are buried or aborted. Our struggles can have meaning and our privileges – however precarious under patriarchy – can be justified only if they can help to change the lives of women whose gifts – and whose very being – continues to be thwarted and silenced.

Which: yes, Adrienne Rich. That is true. I agree with you on this topic, Adrienne Rich. Because, basically, I know that I would not be here if several men and women had not – BIZARRELY – found the time and energy to help me out in about a million ways. My question to you is: how do you justify that? How do you use what you’ve been given, and give it to other folk?

On one hand, I have learned how to do it from people who have done it for me: people who have used their own positions to point out what I’m doing to others, or just to teach me How Stuff Works. But there are also the other expressions of support, from people who do not give one tiny little crap about The Blogs. Like, my friend who makes a project out of coming over and giving me pep talks so that I can complete difficult projects and get the hell over myself when I am despairing about something or other. This lady is really talented – she has a great voice, she’s a funny writer, there are about a million things at which she could very plausibly succeed – but the thing she’s most passionate about and good at is supporting other people and helping them to figure out where their talents lie. And she does this! For me, and for others! Or my boyfriend, who, when I was like, “oops, I know you just moved in with me but I got laid off, MY BAD,” was like, “super! Now you can start pitching stories to people! Because obviously you could do that and it would not end in terrible failure and humiliation! And I will ensure that you do not starve, also.” Or a musician friend of mine, who was the first person I knew to have a Professionally Creative Profession, who made a project of me when I had not written anything in years, and told me The Shit You Need To Hear, such as, “look, you can talk about how you want to do something or you can actually do it, so suck it up and start putting things on the Internet or something because time is officially A-Wasting.”

What I am realizing – and providing several personal examples of, on a site that is not actually my personal blog! – is that for us feminists, this is actually a form of activism. For one thing, it’s how we overcome the stereotype that women are bitchy and catty and hateful to each other. For another, it’s how we challenge the idea that competition and hierarchy and status and power are inevitably central to human communities, and that opportunity is some sort of zero-sum game. And it’s how we build community; it’s how we create the movement we want; it’s how we make stuff happen. I’m talking about writing, because that is the thing that I am passionate about and (ugh, okay) good at, feminist-wise, but there are so many other forms of activism and talents for activism and general goodness, in the people around us, and we can either empower the ladies and dude-allies around us to own their talents and succeed with them, or we can just sort of wave at each other and be like, “hi! Hope you’re doing okay! I’m really busy though so I’m not going to take any steps to make it okay if it’s not!” I know I am getting very Oprah here, but also, let us toughen this discussion up by introducing The Shit You Need to Hear, again: look, we can either talk about the movement we want or we can have it. We can talk about how we want more diversity, more experiences represented, more talent, more activity on more various fronts, or we can actually take the step of paying attention to the people around us, noticing what they are good at, and then telling them – telling them like hell, my friends – to go out and be good at that. And making it more possible for them to do that, when necessary. Because if one thing is true, it’s that competitiveness and self-satisfaction with one’s role as a Special Lady is really not going to get anyone anywhere ever.

I get stuck on precisely how to do this, however. Partly because I am horrible and self-absorbed, but also because it is an easy theory to espouse and a hard one to put into practice. I think that it can take a lot of forms. Writing to a lady who is having a hard time, and reminding her that she matters and makes a difference; I did that one yesterday. Or seeking out people who are not as well-known as you are, and making them better-known; that’s another one. Talking to someone who’s not sure how to move forward, and telling them what’s so great about them, and coming up with suggestions as to how they can use that; that’s a good one to do, I think. But also, this is all sounding REALLY OPRAH AND NEBULOUS (“you know what’s nice? Being nice! The world would be a nicer place if we were all nice, I think! In conclusion, niceness”) so I am going to turn the floor over to you. What concrete stuff do you do with your privileges or luck to build community? It would be nice (AHHHH) if you would tell me. Because I kind of need to know.

13 thoughts on Lucky: Some Thoughts on Community-Building and Privilege

  1. The one thing I tend to be rhetorically gifted with (most of the time) is perspective. I try and lend perspective in ways that humanizes those who are oppressed, or scared, or mystifying to others in any way I can, usually in an interpersonal context. It’s when I become callous and cold to a situation that I know I need to step back and refocus myself, and extract my ill will.

    You know, I spent all that time in college, and read all those books, and am reading all these books, and interacting with a huge swath of people, and the one thing I can do, the one thing that is usually in my control, is the ability to say, “Well, what if we think about it this way?” and soldier on until they’ve considered the alternative. It’s small, but it works.

  3. I am good at writing posts that no-one wants to comment on, right before other posts are posted that are way more newsy and relevant.

    I am bad at timing.

  4. Linkbacks, citing your sources, naming the people whose thoughts you are building on–that’s huge. I know it may sound obvious because hey! don’t plagiarize! but on the internet people are sometimes surprisingly reluctant to do it.

    Follow-through. Don’t make vague promises: we should get together sometime! I will make diversity and inclusion a priority on my blog! Make concrete promises: I’ll call you on Tuesday. I will not recruit any more white women for this blog until I have recruited X number of WOC. Then follow through. Concrete promises make accountability possible, and keeping them builds trust.

    As a woman of privilege, sometimes requiring that marginalized women “just ask” for help or something to be corrected or whatever is too much. (Oh god I read this somewhere, but I can’t remember where!) You as a privileged woman have to repeatedly make the first move–commenting on the blogs of marginalized women, for example. I can see you already are aware of that one, with “seeking out people who are not as well-known as you are”* but I think it’s worth repeating. Especially in the case of women with depression (like me!) you can’t just expect them to call you when they need help–you need to make time for them without them asking.

    *Also do remember that it is not a goal of every blogger to be well-known. Determine whether a given blogger wants to be linked around before doing so.

  6. Sady, I LOVE this article and plan to do some serious brewing on it. It has been extremely motivational. I have a butt ton of art and poetry that just sort of sits in my living room or journals. If I really want to give back, I need to put it out. Being scared isn’t gonna help anyone.

    Creating a community of support is so important. I have often though of this in terms of riding public transportation. When the train is crowded, we clamp up, try not to touch each other, resist the movements of the train to maintain balance. But what if we relaxed into it a little? What if everyone was comfortable enough to use each other a little bit as support and balance? What if we allowed ourselves to touch each other and move with our neighbor? Is it necessary to be so independent, that we resist anything that is outside of ourselves?

  7. Aw, Sady, I really like this piece and was trying to think what to say! Maybe some other people like this piece but feel they shouldn’t comment because they don’t know what to add either. 🙂

  8. I like this piece a lot. I discovered that I am a talented teacher, in part because I am good at helping people figure out what’s preventing them from being successful/achieving their goals. Do they lack specific skills? Is it disability related (I’m thinking specifically of LDs and mental illness from my own personal experiences)? An issue of confidence?

    For me, this is a big part of being a feminist in the classroom, and trying to create anti-oppressive learning spaces. It’s heartbreaking to see how much nasty, oppressive stuff people internalize about themselves (that they’re stupid, that they’re incapable of learning). And that educational institutions reinforce these beliefs, even when individual teachers work hard to convince students that they are good enough just the way they are.

    I came to this the hard way – having to address the ways my own disabilities were effecting my ability to perform academically. And I’m still working on the self-acceptance and learning to take care of myself part. But it feels really good to be able to pass on what I’ve learned to other people, to point people towards resources, to point out structural barriers to success (however you want to define it). I find that lots of people, myself included, tend to blame themselves for not being able to meet the totally arbitrary standards that schools set (yes, I need longer to write that paper, no I don’t know how long, because I can’t always predict whether I will be well enough to write), and not see these standards for what they are – arbitrary. And to not see ourselves as people who are worthy and deserving of support and accommodation. And a big part of starting to move towards that place myself was reading feminist disability blogs. So, yes, writing is a vital form of feminist activism.

    This does sound nebulous all written out, and I’m not sure what it says about community or movement building more broadly, but I’m glad you’ve created a thread where people can talk about it.

  9. Fabulous piece! Being nice is radical, and central to activism and any attempt at improving peoples’ lives. Helping to empower people, providing support, and instilling a sense of efficacy in others is very important in feminism and any political movement aiming to make the world a better place. It’s always important that we check our privilege, keep our lives in perspective in terms of what we have, what we don’t have, our strengths and weaknesses, and so on, and use whatever resources we can to help others.

  10. I had typed out a long response yesterday, and ended up deleting it. It turned into something critical, and I was taking ‘things’ personally – that happens a lot when using privilege is brought up. My privilege of being white, seemingly educated (I just read a lot), and being in the upper part of lower class are constantly, I mean contantly, used to discredit me when it comes to sex-workers rights issue, which is the exactly the area where I try to use what little privilege I have. It’s pretty much the only area where my privilege will do any good at all. So, that stings me and the whole thing just started to sound like me complaining about being stung. My original comment ended up being something like, “learning can go from those less privileged upwards too, ya know” which was just me being sour and self-centered and whiney about how nobody pays attention to me. Waah and yawn, and not very nice of me to say on such a sweet post about helping others.

    I think maybe, though, as far as lack of reply – that any replies would end up requiring people to pinpoint their privilege first, and then try to figure how they use it, I think some people are like me, they try to use privilege to help people, but their privilege is a double edged sword – all privilege is – if you stray to far from helping those who are close to your privilege level, you get accused of meddling in what you don’t understand – I know sex-work issues aren’t the only place that happens. When you ask people what they do with their privilege, they might be worried that they are using it in a wrong way, and that someone will call them out for it.

    It’s a thought provoking post either way- in any way, and I bet I wasn’t the only one who typed something out, but got to thinking too much about it… that’s good in itself, that people were too serious about the post to fill the comments up with fluff…

    🙂

  12. Cheerleading! Like this: Sady, I got like two sentences into your post and thought to myself, ‘this person writes a lot like that TigerBeatdown person, whose writing style I really enjoy’ (and am uncociously copying here, yeah). And then I looked at the top of the post & there was your name, and I thought ‘wow that’s amazing that her voice is so distinctive I could pick it out in a forum in which I didn’t expect to see it’. Your style is engaging and distinctive and I hope you continue to write and find public forums (fora?) for your work. Cheers to you!

  13. Woah yeah. I know I can do a lot more to help others like me (young; smart but endlessly self-critical and anxiety ridden about how smart I really am; excited to give something but never getting started…etc), but for now this is going in my own personal you-can-do-it-scrapbook. Thanks very much.

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