Re: I want to speak to the manager of anarchism
I want to speak to the manager of anarchism | Donn161
I really liked your post. Reading it and writing this reply post have brought me some real insights.
Seemingly it is nearly impossible to find a group that doesn't have either one or a handful of organisers who most people see as "the main people".
Yup. And this leads to burnout.
it still feels like a bunch of anarchists are sitting around talking in the exact same terms that middle management at any company talk. "How can we best motivate our employees/organisers to turn up"
Hierarchical structures ARE useful, and managerial work is labor that needs to be done. Not everyone wants to send emails or schedule events. Some people just wanna show up and hold a sign or write a letter.
But maybe a better series of questions is: "What support do I need? What support do our fellow members need? How can we show up for them?"
Leftist efforts I've worked in are often with broad goals targeted at helping supposedly less fortunate people. But often, we are the poor people, the disabled people, and the people being discriminated against.
I could have really used help with a discrimination complaint I had filed, but I never considered that my local socialist group might be able to help me with that. We just didn't work on issues that individual members had.
All these things lead to me feeling unreasonably bitter and frustrated, I feel that if I was able to put the needs of the movement above my own and force myself to take initiative, then others can too.
Again, "the movement". I think we need to focus on our communities, and let "the movement" be something that happens or doesn't happen, not something we try to make happen.
And when I say "our communities" I mean our personal communities - the members of our leftist group, the members of our church or sports club, the people we work with, the people who literally live next door to us that we talk to over the fence.
I'm not talking about other people in our city who we don't know.
Core issues I've had in leftist organizing spaces
We're often not addressing our OWN problems, but seeing victim groups and organizing for them, and not following their lead
Having non-specific goals leads to banging our heads against the wall and feeling like we're getting nowhere
Having too many issues we want to work on and splitting our energies too widely
Too much work gets put on the most motivated individuals. Rather than saying "It's not getting done because we don't have the help" it becomes "I'll add that to my list; it needs to get done."
Advocating for myself
I'm disabled - I stepped out of organized work about 10 months ago. I used to volunteer for organizing my local Pride Fest (a more liberal non-profit group), for abortion rights (socialist/anarchist members), and with my regional socialists.
Since then, I've started advocating for myself again, and I see that my issues exist within a system. If I heal & get back into organized work, I want us to directly support each other's needs, not work on far-off goals for people outside our working group.
My local cannabis dispensary forces me to take plastic carrying bags with my order. I hate this; it is wasteful. I've been working on collecting facts and advocating against this ridiculous policy.
My library has a bunch of "green space" that was supposed to be native plants, but it's just stupid lawn grass. I want to see the native plants when I go to my library. This is my town, my community, and my personal experience. It matters to me.
The Library has some special books you have to checkout in-library (you can't reserve them online). I asked how they navigate that with regard to disabilities - people who can't come inside to get them. This isn't about me, but man it's easy for me to ask this question, and I'm at my library almost every week.
I emailed my police chief a few months ago to ask what training they do with regards to autistic people. I think I might be autistic, and this was a pretty simple action to take.
There is so much work we can do within our own existing lives. A loved one of mine works at a grocery store. The store throws away "expired" food. She asked her managers if they could put this food in the break rooms. Management agreed.
Grandiose goals are great, and sure we should work toward them, but I think we need to do work that supports ourselves and those in OUR communities - i.e. the people who we actually relate with on a regular basis.