Feminism

Offerings For The Pro-Choice March

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Back at Harvard, I learned two twin currencies for liberal political engagement: prestige and critique. In order to make the most important, sophisticated contribution to your community, you should try to do one or the other. (Or, in my case, kind of switch back and forth between them.)

Prestige meant planning events with lots of endorsements by student and Real World groups; generating lots of publicity (including Real World media, if possible); and generally capitalizing on linkages with nodes of power, with the aim of Getting Big Things Done.

Critique meant showing up to a prestigious event and eviscerating it with progressive analysis. Pointing out that it reifies X Y and Z oppressive dynamic, invizibilizes A B and C communities, and generally fortifies neoliberalism and hierarchies of privilege.

Something like that. Now, I’m not saying that other approaches didn’t exist at Harvard (Harvard Progressive Action Group was probably doing things at least a little differently; and same for the Student-Labor Action Movement), but these were the ones that most affected me, in my thinky liberal way of moving through the world.

And so, yesterday, when six of us from the Marxist-Feminist study group arrived at a Bay Area Pro-Choice march armed with flyers that we had each played a part in creating, I thought to myself, This is a good offering. We chanted, we participated, we were a part of what was happening, and I felt tremendously grateful to all the people who have fought before us for the right to legal abortions. Some of the signs people carried gave me chills: “ABORTION ON DEMAND, WITHOUT APOLOGY”; “Rape Survivor For Choice [because I didn’t have one]”; and of course, the iconic coat hanger. At the rally, women shared personal stories about terminating their pregnancies, making real and visible the object of our shared struggle. No doubt, there was bravery here. This was something we wanted to support.

We were not, however, blind to the limitations of the event. A narrow focus on defending abortion rights completely overlooked the ways that austerity measures here in California are generally pummeling working-class people’s access to sexual health care. This myopia has long been a problem of largely white, middle-class reproductive rights movements. Surveying the crowd and listening to the speeches, I felt a little pessimistic about how our half-sheets would go over, fingering capitalism as a major part of women’s oppression and choicelessness.

But instead of standing on the sidelines hating (read: critiquing), we engaged. When the organizers opened up the stage for anyone to take the bullhorn, two of us got up and articulated our comparatively broader analysis. And the crowd was feelin it!

After that, flyering was easier and less awkward. People came to us.

The One And The Many: Polyamory and Precepts

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Friends, I’m gonna try an experiment. Rather than pour out a long story about today’s topic (non-monogamy and polyamory), I’m just going to give a brief thumbnail sketch — and we can see where the comment thread takes us.

As some of y’all may have noticed on Facebook, Ryan and I (with our Bad Good Romance) have been in an open relationship for over a year. In the past, when asked “What’s that all about,” I’ve explained that rather than a declaration about having other lovers, it’s more an expression of commitment to exploring our desires in a non-judgmental, loving, honest way that doesn’t assume monogamy is the best path to a healthy relationship — for us or for others.

A little more background on the situation is that I identify (and have for years) as someone with polyamorous tendencies. I can feel happy and fulfilled with multiple lovers at once. Also, I’m happy for my lovers when I know they’re enjoying sex and companionship with other people. (Note: this is only true when things between my lover and me are going well. If things between us are souring, then I typically feel super jealous of the other sweethearts in their life.)

Ryan, on the other hand, has always operated on the monogamous side of things. By this I mean: when he’s with a partner, he’s not interested in being with other lovers; and it’s painful to him to know that someone he loves, and who loves him, also wants to romance somebody else. At the same time, he’s deeply respectful and even admiring of polyamory, and investigates questions of (non)monogamy both through reading (like the classic “Poly Primer” [as make/shift’s crossword puzzle clue called it] The Ethical Slut, which Ryan had read even before we met) and by deeply reflecting on his own feelings, perceptions, and experiences.

Up til now, our difference in orientation hasn’t mattered much for us. But recently, one of my favorite former lovers (what one might call an “ex-boyfriend”) moved from the Midwest to Berkeley, a short ways from our house. After a rocky past and more than a year without seeing each other or really communicating at all, he and I now find ourselves spending time together. An entire afternoon last week; something like fourteen hours yesterday.

And so, Ryan and I have been doing a lot of processing. Each of us feels scared of limiting or hurting the other one. But we don’t want to break up, either. Not an easy place. We both agree that polyamory seems like a positive practice, a good way to live. But for people who naturally gravitate toward exclusive relationships, walking this new path ain’t easy — and may not ultimately be worth the hurt.

At the same time, the way we hold one another — mentally and physically — throughout these painful talks only underscores how much, and how well, we love each other. This is non-violent communication from the heart, organically: expressing pain, grief, fear and heartache without blaming; taking physical space and declining touch when we need to; listening; not escalating; acknowledging and validating each other; taking the time and space to do all this properly; being physically affectionate when we both feel ready; and committing to follow through on what we decide, together, as the best way to move forward.

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Interdependence, Colonialism, and Commodity Fetishism

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In Buddhist parlance, we often encounter the word “interdependence.”  It comes up in many contexts.  One way I often hear it invoked (in dhammic as well as New-Agey spaces) is as a kind of feel-good spiritual brainteaser.  Isn’t it amazing and beautiful how we are all connected?

Here’s a good example, from my own life.  I was attending a conference about spirituality and technology: the Wisdom 2.0 Summit.  One of the keynote speakers, Tony Hseih, CEO of the online retailer Zappos, gave a talk about the culture of happiness at his company, and how attention to the human connections between merchant and consumer fosters better, more lucrative business.  The title of his book sums it up nicely: Delivering Happiness: A Path To Profits, Passion, and Purpose.

When it came time for Q&A, I raised my hand and got the mic (standing up, semi-terrified, before this large crowd of very successful techno-seekers). I thanked Tony for his work, and then asked what he thought — and what all of us present thought — about the happiness of the people who produce the technology we use.  The people working in the factories that make our phones, our laptops, our desktops.  The people mining the minerals for all of these.  What about their happiness?

It’s all well and good to look at interdependence as a network for human kindness and beneficence.  But the fact is, it is just as much (if not more) a network for exploitation: of humans, animals, and the earth.

In his newest book, The Boddhisattva’s Embrace: Dispatches from Engaged Buddhism’s Front Lines, Hozan Alan Senauke of the Clear View Project cuts to the core of exploitative interdependence in the conclusion of a beautiful essay on the shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh.
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“If You Can Serve Then You Can Poison.”

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This semester in my MFA I have the profound good fortune of working with an amazing faculty member: poet, writer, and cultural historian Gale Jackson. Today in our twelve-person advising group, we worked together to respond to one of her poems — “1691. Tituba of Salem.” — which happened to be the first and only one I had already read.

* * * * * * * *

The whole poem is a deeply layered thing that I know I’ll continue to revisit. One line (now the title of this blog post) echoed as I was reading Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study In Urban Revolution. (Remember when I mentioned that? Yep, ha, still makin’ my way through it.) Describing an opening sequence in Finally Got The News (a renowned documentary self-made by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers), I Do Mind Dying authors quote League leader John Watson:

You get a lot of arguments that black people are not numerous enough in America to revolt, that they will be wiped out. This neglects our economic position. . . . There are groups that can make the whole system cease functioning. These are auto workers, bus drivers, postal workers, steel workers, and others who play a crucial role in the money flow, the flow of materials, the creation of production. By and large, black people are overwhelmingly in those kinds of jobs. [116]

Of course, times and circumstances change. This brings new questions. What does US de-industrialization mean for the potential of workers in the United States to “poison” the system we serve? How does utter disposability, from the point of view of capital, affect the position of undocumented immigrant workers as they clandestinely serve, haunted by a terrorizing, racist, sexist campaign of economic opportunism that threatens to incarcerate, violate, and deport?

The rich, ongoing resistance of immigrant workers in the US testifies that this shifting terrain does not completely close down our opportunities for struggle. Disruption and destabilization are still possible.

* * * * * * *

I also wonder about the converse. Perhaps if we can poison, then we can also serve.

I mean this more in terms of the ways that I might poison my own life. The ways that I might relate to, and feed, my own internal sufferings. Day to day, in subtle ways. Clinging to high expectations. Beating myself up over mistakes. Fearing and worrying about the future. Indulging in fantasies and daydreams, even when they make me feel kind of sticky and queasy afterward. In general, surrendering my happiness to the mercy of my own thoughts.

Goenkaji says: there is nothing more harmful than our own untamed mind. And there is nothing more helpful, more beneficial, than our own trained mind, tamed mind. This observation comes up again and again in dhamma teachings — the idea of “turning the (monkey-) mind into an ally.”

So much in one post! Hope I haven’t overwhelmed you. Happy Monday, friends.

PS: You, like me, might want to support Gale and her important ongoing work as an artist. She’s more of an “analog girl in a digital world,” to borrow a phrase from Erykah, so since the PayPal button is out, over the next couple days we’re gonna put our heads together to find a simple way for y’all to make offerings and contributions (and/or purchase some of her breathtaking books!) from afar.

Class Traitors, Class Transitions

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I wonder whether Moses, after being kicked out of the palace and downgraded to the slave caste, ever felt nostalgic for his royal upbringing. Same for Siddhartha, who left his princehood by choice and became an ascetic. Did St. Francis of Assisi, who shunned his cloth merchant inheritance, ever miss strutting down a 13th-century street in a fly outfit? What was it like for St. Clare, a follower of Francis, to abandon her landowner life and found the Order of Poor Ladies?

These folks all share certain dimensions of class transition, along with some leanings toward class treason — though I hesitate to call any of them class traitors because, while they attempted to carve out alternative, anti-hegemonic lifestyles and communities for their followers, to my knowledge they did not explicitly, politically confront the existence of the class line itself. (Someone please correct me on this if I’m wrong!)

Lately in my own life, I’ve been noticing painful areas in my move away from liberalism (and/or nominal radicalism) toward a politic that actually centers the working class and the dispossessed. This process, for me, involves somewhat shameful, tender stuff.

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What To The Radical Is Martin Luther King Day?

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Alan’s got a lovely piece up at Clear View Blog (digging his jaunty-angled question: what would MLK, Malcolm X, and Paul Robeson think about being put on U.S. postage stamps?) that points to the connections between big-L Love and the effort to, in King’s words, “defeat evil systems.”

Compassion and militancy.  Neither can substitute for the other.  If you’ve got militancy but don’t practice compassion, your friends and comrades — the people upon whom you most rely, politically and personally — prob’ly won’t enjoy being around you.  Not in the long term, anyway.  And if you’ve got compassion but no critical analysis of “evil systems,” or meaningful program to defeat them, you are, as Ryan points out, utopian.

Combine the two, compassion and militancy, and you’ll get something powerful.  But you’ll also get problems.

Frederick Douglas famously asked, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?”  We might do well to extend the same skepticism to today’s hallowed, lovey-dovey vacation day.

Beneath the hype, MLK day can serve as a reminder that people who advance the fight for radical liberation, using their own compassion and militancy, are undoubtedly risking their lives.

So if you’re among them, thank you for your courage.  May the earth continue to bless you with beauty every day. May you sometimes have a sweet picnic by the lake.

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Buddhist Production, Feminist Effort, and the God of Work

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It’s a gorgeous, crisp day outside: perfect for a ride on my pretty new bike, and no time to be stuck inside blogging til dark. So the thought-connections in this post will be loose. Maybe I’ll try tightening them up sometime.

The following are three excerpts from three different pieces: Buddhist, economic, and Marxist-feminist. All deal with the same theme: work. I’m simply interested in thinking about parallels and dissonances among them, and working toward a more holistic understanding of how work operates in reality, and how we might want it to operate.

1. Buddhist Production

Let’s start with the Buddhist one, from Tricycle Magazine online:

When explaining meditation, the Buddha often drew analogies with the skills of artists, carpenters, musicians, archers, and cooks. Finding the right level of effort, he said, is like a musician’s tuning of a lute. Reading the mind’s needs in the moment—to be gladdened, steadied, or inspired—is like a palace cook’s ability to read and please the tastes of a prince.

Collectively, these analogies make an important point: Meditation is a skill, and mastering it should be enjoyable in the same way mastering any other rewarding skill can be. The Buddha said as much to his son, Rahula: “When you see that you’ve acted, spoken, or thought in a skillful way—conducive to happiness while causing no harm to yourself or others—take joy in that fact and keep on training.”

– Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “The Joy of Effort”

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Harmful Sexuality: Workplace Exploitation

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One of the Buddhist precepts that I don’t hear discussed much in ‘official’ settings is the advice to “avoid using sexuality in harmful ways.” There’s a ton to unpack there, obviously, but one connection I’m making has to do with a meeting tonight of Bay Area radicals rallying around a friend of mine who got fired from her job.

She’s been an educator in an Oakland after-school program for a while, and a few weeks ago her boss fired her. Didn’t tell her why. (Still hasn’t.) Didn’t even bother to notify her: she came in and worked a whole day before being told that her contract had been terminated.

So what’s this got to do with sexuality? Well, even though no one has told her why she was fired, my friend has a pretty good idea: she turned down her boss’s sexual advances. For months he had been flirting with her, but as soon as she put a stop to it, the game changed. You can read her entire account on her blog.

Sexual harassment at the workplace? Clearly not okay. So tonight a bunch of us will get together and see what we can do to support. My friend already took the lead herself, by refusing to play along with her boss in the first place. (Reminds me of Robin D. G. Kelley’s Race Rebels, where he examines everyday worker resistance, and specifically names the form of struggle wherein women respond with calculated coldness to sexually aggressive male superiors.) But individual assertions of dignity are not enough. Not even when it comes to sila (Buddhist morality, including the precepts.) It takes sangha, community, to breathe life into explorations of harm and benefit.

And importantly, the precepts aren’t some kind of spiritual checklist. Don’t lie — gotcha; Don’t steal — okey dokey. If that were true, then as long as my shit is under control, I wouldn’t need to care about anybody else’s struggles with harm.

To me, rather than instruments for performance evaluation, precepts can act as guideposts for looking deeply and holistically into processes of harm and benefit.

We’ll see what we can come up with at tonight’s meeting.