I think this is one of the reasons that I bounced off my local DSA because ultimately it was run by relatively wealthy white (cis) people. I say this as a white person who came from some privilege, I don’t think privileged white people have much to lead and teach with in revolutionary struggles. I can only speak for myself but the process of realizing the privilege you experience is problematic and unjust and beginning to extract your mind from it leads naturally to a psychology motivated from guilt, internal conflict and an apathy since for people like me we have no fucking clue what joy means outside of the system (however you want to define it) because we have never had to think about it. People like me are complete children when it comes to this.
Black people, indigenous people, hispanic people, women and LGBTQ people, poor people… any group of people that faces racism and discrimination every day and have been denied the avenues to joy that are provided within the system are intimately familiar with what it means to resist with a radical joy. I think the “white people can’t dance” stereotype connects to this, I have never in my life danced as a form of joyous resistance and reclamation of the joy in my body because I am always thinking about whether I am dancing the right way in order to be rewarded by the established standards of the system. Ok, so I just don’t like dancing because I get self conscious but also the idea of moving my body in ways that just makes me happy is completely foreign to me because I have internalized a worldview that never considers something like this as an avenue towards joy (and when I do discover one, my worldview tries to isolate it as an edgecase).
I guess what I am saying is that I think this article is about race, sexuality and the consequences of privilege without recognizing it?
As CrimeThink as they get. I like, and apriciate the critique, and at least partialy the conclusion. I think we sucessfuly managed to emply some of it with a major mobilisation in my country. But then again, that was published nearly 20 years ago. Easilly more than 2 generations of activists heave read this, and from my perspective the places where id expect it to be most popular dont seem that much closer to our common objective. Maybe its a long process, I belive in these. Or maybe life is not only about fun after all. It was always a struggle to survive, to gather resources, to protect onself and the community. Its rooted so deep in our DNA that we will recognise petterns of predators and threats in anything if that part of our brain is not stimulated enough, or actuall ones are to complex and indirect (que Q). So we are hardwired for what would mostly be considered some type of duty or obligation. And from my perspective, the experiments that are biggest and closest to what id be aiming for (Chiapas, Rojava) are heavilly based on ones selfless commitment to the community and its wellbeing, often against ones personal interest and surely not by sanely considerd enjoyment. I think we aspire to the ideal human life, but merly playing as if were there wont make it come true. Not particularly original, but balance and connection to reality seem to be the key…
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