WHAT ACTIONS, STORIES, GROUPS, MOTIVATIONS KEEP YOU RADICAL?
What books, podcast, documentaries, novels, movies keep your spirit alive with rage for movement forward?
What actions do you weave into your life towards mutual aid, a more just future, and dismantling systems of oppression?
At the risk of sounding like an idealistic liberal, I thought we could spend our time together this Friday just positively sharing what keeps us radical. What stories or histories inspire us to continue to show up in a way and take action or stay artists and freaks that have impacted you.
On my drive home yesterday I listened to most of the podcast Mother Country Radicals, hosted by the child of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn of The Weather Underground. Watching the documentary in college was definitely part of what made me a radical person.
The podcast feels inspiring not just for what they did, but their criticisms of themselves and what they didn’t do, what they got wrong, where they could have shown up differently for the struggle.
On my mind is : Where do I redistribute money to? How do I keep my attention intact? How does my teaching of quilting as a radical tradition only become more wild and free?
Currently grappling with some of the q's you pose in therapy : the seemingly unending vastness of how unjust our world/the US/capitalism, etc is and are and how I want to do SO MUCH but can only do what feels like SO LITTLE.
I recently bought a home in a quiet neighborhood and I keep brainstorming how to be a good steward to my community. My town's water plant launched a program where local community members could "adopt" storm grates close to them and keep them clear of debris as it drains directly to our rivers - I adopted two close to me and intend to manage them, keeping them clean of garbage, leaves.
My partner & I contemplate a garden and I imagine setting aside extras for my neighbors to partake in freely, I volunteer for a local restaurant that gives away 400 free meals every season to whoever wants to come and I sneak extras into peoples meals. I drop off food & flowers to struggling friends. I try where I can and when I can. It's hard. It still sometimes feels like it's never enough and I dream of collective community.
I just read Haley Nahman's Newsletter "Are you nice or kind?" https://haleynahman.substack.com/p/42-are-you-nice-or-kind?s=w An essay on the difference between "woke signaling via language and optics (nice) versus material concerns like who has food, shelter, safety, agency (kind)". Her essay hits hard and asks all the right questions.
I am so grateful to so many writers and artists who help keep my soul in check on this front. I find deep wisdom in Krista Tippett's On Being interviews, and specifically a conversation she had with Ruby Sales called 'The Inner Life of Social Change.'
Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark is a literary anchor, as is the work that Mikaela Loach (British climate activist) is doing. Her new book is called 'It's Not that Radical: Climate Action to Transform our World' and I'd highly recommend it! Oh and Joanna Macy's Active Hope, another gem!
In terms of my own practice, I have been getting lots of people ask me to 'explain' substack to them, so I've decided to host a virtual workshop to help people get to grips with some newsletter basics, and using this to fundraise for the BabyBasics Network in the UK, which does vital work supporting struggling families.
I am so glad you mentioned On Being. That podcast has been a gift in my life. I really enjoyed Ruth Wilson Gilmore's interview in the more recent season.
The marvelous book Let This Radicalize You is doing it for me. Also Death Panel, the podcast, which is keeping me alert to what is actually going on in health care and how it basically affects everything.
I did my 5th grade book report on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. My mom helped me type it. I keep that memory very fresh.
I've had more success staying radical and true to my values by being mindful of where purity culture and fundamentalism show up in radical spaces (and myself!), which is pretty often in a college town with a transitory population. I crave the honesty and imperfectness of recovery groups *and* the courage and creativity to dream up new worlds that I see in radical spaces. I want to build long-term radical community built on trust and repair and accountability based on good faith. I want a radical community that doesn't demand constant perfection and burnout.
That's what I crave, but what's helped me in the meantime is work that is of service. Working with individuals in our rotten-to-the-core healthcare system. Helping marginalized people get their art out there in place that have built barriers towards them. Choosing one or two action-oriented things to move the needle forward - donating art for raffle towards heirs' property preservation in the south, joining the new staff union for our university. I get so overwhelmed in the face of capitalism as a whole, but choosing areas to put my energy towards to see actionable change helps me avoid overwhelm.
I really like your question " How does my teaching of quilting as a radical tradition only become more wild and free?" I think sometimes I compartmentalize my life/ work. There are places where I feel more radical- such as around body liberation and love, and how I parent and the ways that I'm trying to show up in small town government, but I want to consider how my work as a family photographer/ photographer educator can be more radical, more wild, more free.
All of which to say, that I think one of the most powerful ways I stay engaged can and should be being in places where important questions are being asked and giving myself the time and space to grapple with them.
I taught (subbed) a grad level diversity class this week for marriage and family therapists and the theme was cultural humility. I brought into the class ideas of abolitionist and anti-racist and anti-carceral approaches to therapy and only one of 40 people really had ever heard of this. I got to pull out my favorite local resource, A Room of One's Own Bookstore. Media isn't always accessible when searching, or it can be tiring to find answers to questions, and Room is a great resource for abolition. I'm honored to have worked there during grad school. It really fueled my understanding of community care.
I also recently listened to Tressie McMillan Cottom and Pooja Lakshmin on the Ezra Klein podcast on boundaries and self-care and the concepts the two spoke of were awakening--how we radically care for ourselves outside of eurocentric ideas of self care.
I recently picked up a graphic version of the essay "The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black / Bruno Borges and not only has it kept me fueled but also reinforced my recent exploration of clown performance, which also feels quite radical. Both emphasize PLAY and when play is prioritized, CARE is also a necessary component, which shouldn't feel radical but does!
I'm always returning to my favorite radical, Dorothy Day. I try to stay close to her writings, writing inspired by the Catholic Worker, art inspired by the movement, and my local Catholic Worker houses. Doing these things reminds me my core commitments to hospitality and questioning systems of power.
I’ve been reading Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism and it speaks sooo succinctly to the FEELINGS of being an organizer rather than just focusing on the political history.
I got radicalized into social movement work through experiencing and witnessing injustice, but I stay in the work because I’ve found community, friendship, energy, and purpose.
Wow, the synchronicity of all this -- I’d just been thinking about my reading habits in recent years, and asking myself why it’s been harder for me to focus around movement writing, political theory, etc. which I read when I was community organizing years ago. I’ve been actively incorporating fiction, “diet philosophy” out of. Need for balance and pleasure, but feel so far from radical knowledge. Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s Abolition Geography has been great for me to dip in and out of; her formulations and language are so generous and expansive. I also bought the newest Ntozake Shange unpublished works and am looking forward to digging in soon.
LOVE this reminder! I want to remind myself more. I love tapping into the hippie counter-culture, learning from their mistakes but also being inspired by their funky re-vision of beauty and what matters. <3
Popping in again to say, I often think of Larry Kramer, AIDS activist, artist, co-founder of organizations that spoke to truth to power, and a profound pain in the ass. I think of the AIDS crisis, and the radical way people didn't wait for the people in power understand them. And I think of Elizabeth Taylor, bad ass and AIDS drug dealer (yes, look it up). And I recommend "The Viral Underclass," by Steven Thrasher, which faces down our current plague and takes lessons from the past. (Steven is on that bird app-turned-into-a-letter, and Instagram.)
So many gorgeous answers, y'all ✨. Wanted to share that something thats helped radicalize me has been being a community member of Anticapitalism for Artists (www.anticapitalismforartists.com/). Participating in their free 10 week long "Intro to anticapitalism for artists" course last fall and helping facilitation of the most recent summer cohort has been an impactful teacher, provided amazing materials to then discuss within community each week and enabled motivation through collective accountability to really devote attention to this work. It's expanded both my understanding of how capitalism operates, what all anticapitalism can look like and brought other aligned artists in my life that I'm so thankful to have. 10/10 would recommend joining their waitlist for the course (typically offered once a year)/ following on IG: www.instagram.com/anticapitalismforartists/.
I was radicalized at a Food Not Bombs punk house in 2002, after being politicized by the invasions of Iraq & Afghanistan. I have had a foot in anarchist and/or Leftist spaces ever since, but varying degrees. I'm also a precarious academic; I have an antagonistic relationship with the academy as a radical and a worker, but I also attempt to use my teaching for furthering liberation projects (often by siphoning money from the uni to activists and organizers). The times I've distanced myself from radical spaces has been almost always because they are devoid of the spiritual beliefs that I've found as a means of survival. Yes anti-capitalism helped me find anger for the poverty my mom and I experienced in my childhood, but it was queer and feminist witches who helped me heal it. I struggle almost daily with reconciling these two ostensibly conflicting approaches to change, mostly because I don't think they are or should be conflicting! I really love witchy radicals, but too often the social justice witches aren't actually radical, and waaaaay too often the hardcore radicals are completely dismissive of healing/spirituality/etc. Anyway, all that said, I still love AK Press and PM Press for a good stream of actually-radical texts. Adrianne maree brown is obviously a favorite; some other writers I turn to regularly: Cindy Milstein's collections are beautiful; Mariame Kaba; Kelly Hayes; Kai Cheng Thom; Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I love the For the Wild podcast, and On Being.
I'm part of a local anarchist social center right now, which feels really fulfilling ---we provide a free space for people to just hang out, have movie nights, reading groups, host meeting for the local sex work alliance (of which I am also a part), host the Books to Prisoners group, and more. But we're also frequently on the verge of burnout, soooo....mixed bag.
Final thing I'll say is that when I am actually burnt out and can't go to meetings or organize things, I turn back to prison letter writing. Black & Pink is always a great org to find a pen pal; just start writing, from the introverted privacy of your own home, on your own time!
That was scattered, but I so appreciate this prompt! I think about this stuff so much!
Anything that keeps me tender helps me stay radical. Poetry and music are big here. Touching in, getting close. When I’m not numb I am ready to be in solidarity and in action with others. Being outside. Breathing intentionally with other people. Singing with other people. Really anything done collectively in an attempt to raise or settle our energy. A fire, either outside or in a fireplace. But especially when outside under the stars. Platonic affection. Queer platonic affection.
Really enjoyed mother country radicals! A few things immediately came to mind: the doc Dope is Death (which actually intertwines with the weather underground a bit), a few podcasts: 5-4, about how much the Supreme Court sucks, and Death Panel which makes me feel sane about sticking to basic COVID precautions, and Assata Shakur’s biography, which really rocked me a few years ago when I was just learning about abolition
Currently grappling with some of the q's you pose in therapy : the seemingly unending vastness of how unjust our world/the US/capitalism, etc is and are and how I want to do SO MUCH but can only do what feels like SO LITTLE.
I recently bought a home in a quiet neighborhood and I keep brainstorming how to be a good steward to my community. My town's water plant launched a program where local community members could "adopt" storm grates close to them and keep them clear of debris as it drains directly to our rivers - I adopted two close to me and intend to manage them, keeping them clean of garbage, leaves.
My partner & I contemplate a garden and I imagine setting aside extras for my neighbors to partake in freely, I volunteer for a local restaurant that gives away 400 free meals every season to whoever wants to come and I sneak extras into peoples meals. I drop off food & flowers to struggling friends. I try where I can and when I can. It's hard. It still sometimes feels like it's never enough and I dream of collective community.
Yes, we start with our own neighborhood's storm drains. This is the way!
I just read Haley Nahman's Newsletter "Are you nice or kind?" https://haleynahman.substack.com/p/42-are-you-nice-or-kind?s=w An essay on the difference between "woke signaling via language and optics (nice) versus material concerns like who has food, shelter, safety, agency (kind)". Her essay hits hard and asks all the right questions.
Thanks for sharing this!
I am so grateful to so many writers and artists who help keep my soul in check on this front. I find deep wisdom in Krista Tippett's On Being interviews, and specifically a conversation she had with Ruby Sales called 'The Inner Life of Social Change.'
Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark is a literary anchor, as is the work that Mikaela Loach (British climate activist) is doing. Her new book is called 'It's Not that Radical: Climate Action to Transform our World' and I'd highly recommend it! Oh and Joanna Macy's Active Hope, another gem!
In terms of my own practice, I have been getting lots of people ask me to 'explain' substack to them, so I've decided to host a virtual workshop to help people get to grips with some newsletter basics, and using this to fundraise for the BabyBasics Network in the UK, which does vital work supporting struggling families.
I am so glad you mentioned On Being. That podcast has been a gift in my life. I really enjoyed Ruth Wilson Gilmore's interview in the more recent season.
I just bought Hope in the Dark and am excited to crack it open <3
The marvelous book Let This Radicalize You is doing it for me. Also Death Panel, the podcast, which is keeping me alert to what is actually going on in health care and how it basically affects everything.
I did my 5th grade book report on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. My mom helped me type it. I keep that memory very fresh.
Yesss death panel!!
Right? YES!!!
Just popping in to say what beautiful sharing and lists and offerings here <3 Thank you all for pooling together these histories and resources
I've had more success staying radical and true to my values by being mindful of where purity culture and fundamentalism show up in radical spaces (and myself!), which is pretty often in a college town with a transitory population. I crave the honesty and imperfectness of recovery groups *and* the courage and creativity to dream up new worlds that I see in radical spaces. I want to build long-term radical community built on trust and repair and accountability based on good faith. I want a radical community that doesn't demand constant perfection and burnout.
That's what I crave, but what's helped me in the meantime is work that is of service. Working with individuals in our rotten-to-the-core healthcare system. Helping marginalized people get their art out there in place that have built barriers towards them. Choosing one or two action-oriented things to move the needle forward - donating art for raffle towards heirs' property preservation in the south, joining the new staff union for our university. I get so overwhelmed in the face of capitalism as a whole, but choosing areas to put my energy towards to see actionable change helps me avoid overwhelm.
I really like your question " How does my teaching of quilting as a radical tradition only become more wild and free?" I think sometimes I compartmentalize my life/ work. There are places where I feel more radical- such as around body liberation and love, and how I parent and the ways that I'm trying to show up in small town government, but I want to consider how my work as a family photographer/ photographer educator can be more radical, more wild, more free.
I really resonate with the point you made about compartmentalizing life and work. I’m trying to break down those boundaries myself!
All of which to say, that I think one of the most powerful ways I stay engaged can and should be being in places where important questions are being asked and giving myself the time and space to grapple with them.
Thank you for this!
I taught (subbed) a grad level diversity class this week for marriage and family therapists and the theme was cultural humility. I brought into the class ideas of abolitionist and anti-racist and anti-carceral approaches to therapy and only one of 40 people really had ever heard of this. I got to pull out my favorite local resource, A Room of One's Own Bookstore. Media isn't always accessible when searching, or it can be tiring to find answers to questions, and Room is a great resource for abolition. I'm honored to have worked there during grad school. It really fueled my understanding of community care.
I also recently listened to Tressie McMillan Cottom and Pooja Lakshmin on the Ezra Klein podcast on boundaries and self-care and the concepts the two spoke of were awakening--how we radically care for ourselves outside of eurocentric ideas of self care.
I recently picked up a graphic version of the essay "The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black / Bruno Borges and not only has it kept me fueled but also reinforced my recent exploration of clown performance, which also feels quite radical. Both emphasize PLAY and when play is prioritized, CARE is also a necessary component, which shouldn't feel radical but does!
I'm always returning to my favorite radical, Dorothy Day. I try to stay close to her writings, writing inspired by the Catholic Worker, art inspired by the movement, and my local Catholic Worker houses. Doing these things reminds me my core commitments to hospitality and questioning systems of power.
I’ve been reading Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism and it speaks sooo succinctly to the FEELINGS of being an organizer rather than just focusing on the political history.
I got radicalized into social movement work through experiencing and witnessing injustice, but I stay in the work because I’ve found community, friendship, energy, and purpose.
Wow, the synchronicity of all this -- I’d just been thinking about my reading habits in recent years, and asking myself why it’s been harder for me to focus around movement writing, political theory, etc. which I read when I was community organizing years ago. I’ve been actively incorporating fiction, “diet philosophy” out of. Need for balance and pleasure, but feel so far from radical knowledge. Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s Abolition Geography has been great for me to dip in and out of; her formulations and language are so generous and expansive. I also bought the newest Ntozake Shange unpublished works and am looking forward to digging in soon.
Some other relevant books I plan to read:
When Crack Was King
Rehearsals for Living
Ordinary Notes
Living a Feminist Life
LOVE this reminder! I want to remind myself more. I love tapping into the hippie counter-culture, learning from their mistakes but also being inspired by their funky re-vision of beauty and what matters. <3
Popping in again to say, I often think of Larry Kramer, AIDS activist, artist, co-founder of organizations that spoke to truth to power, and a profound pain in the ass. I think of the AIDS crisis, and the radical way people didn't wait for the people in power understand them. And I think of Elizabeth Taylor, bad ass and AIDS drug dealer (yes, look it up). And I recommend "The Viral Underclass," by Steven Thrasher, which faces down our current plague and takes lessons from the past. (Steven is on that bird app-turned-into-a-letter, and Instagram.)
So many gorgeous answers, y'all ✨. Wanted to share that something thats helped radicalize me has been being a community member of Anticapitalism for Artists (www.anticapitalismforartists.com/). Participating in their free 10 week long "Intro to anticapitalism for artists" course last fall and helping facilitation of the most recent summer cohort has been an impactful teacher, provided amazing materials to then discuss within community each week and enabled motivation through collective accountability to really devote attention to this work. It's expanded both my understanding of how capitalism operates, what all anticapitalism can look like and brought other aligned artists in my life that I'm so thankful to have. 10/10 would recommend joining their waitlist for the course (typically offered once a year)/ following on IG: www.instagram.com/anticapitalismforartists/.
I was radicalized at a Food Not Bombs punk house in 2002, after being politicized by the invasions of Iraq & Afghanistan. I have had a foot in anarchist and/or Leftist spaces ever since, but varying degrees. I'm also a precarious academic; I have an antagonistic relationship with the academy as a radical and a worker, but I also attempt to use my teaching for furthering liberation projects (often by siphoning money from the uni to activists and organizers). The times I've distanced myself from radical spaces has been almost always because they are devoid of the spiritual beliefs that I've found as a means of survival. Yes anti-capitalism helped me find anger for the poverty my mom and I experienced in my childhood, but it was queer and feminist witches who helped me heal it. I struggle almost daily with reconciling these two ostensibly conflicting approaches to change, mostly because I don't think they are or should be conflicting! I really love witchy radicals, but too often the social justice witches aren't actually radical, and waaaaay too often the hardcore radicals are completely dismissive of healing/spirituality/etc. Anyway, all that said, I still love AK Press and PM Press for a good stream of actually-radical texts. Adrianne maree brown is obviously a favorite; some other writers I turn to regularly: Cindy Milstein's collections are beautiful; Mariame Kaba; Kelly Hayes; Kai Cheng Thom; Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I love the For the Wild podcast, and On Being.
I'm part of a local anarchist social center right now, which feels really fulfilling ---we provide a free space for people to just hang out, have movie nights, reading groups, host meeting for the local sex work alliance (of which I am also a part), host the Books to Prisoners group, and more. But we're also frequently on the verge of burnout, soooo....mixed bag.
Final thing I'll say is that when I am actually burnt out and can't go to meetings or organize things, I turn back to prison letter writing. Black & Pink is always a great org to find a pen pal; just start writing, from the introverted privacy of your own home, on your own time!
That was scattered, but I so appreciate this prompt! I think about this stuff so much!
That podcast is amazing. I loved listening to it.
Anything that keeps me tender helps me stay radical. Poetry and music are big here. Touching in, getting close. When I’m not numb I am ready to be in solidarity and in action with others. Being outside. Breathing intentionally with other people. Singing with other people. Really anything done collectively in an attempt to raise or settle our energy. A fire, either outside or in a fireplace. But especially when outside under the stars. Platonic affection. Queer platonic affection.
Really enjoyed mother country radicals! A few things immediately came to mind: the doc Dope is Death (which actually intertwines with the weather underground a bit), a few podcasts: 5-4, about how much the Supreme Court sucks, and Death Panel which makes me feel sane about sticking to basic COVID precautions, and Assata Shakur’s biography, which really rocked me a few years ago when I was just learning about abolition