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Student sit-ins and occupations have become a common sight in California over the last couple of years, but this week has seen something new — a sit-in at a union office.
Two factions have been competing for leadership of UAW Local 2865, the local that represents academic student employees in the University of California system. Balloting in the union election ended eight days ago, but the vote count was suspended abruptly last weekend, and has yet to resume.
The incumbent United for Social and Economic Justice slate shut down the count last Saturday, claiming irregularities in the voting and alleging that the insurgents were using “scorched earth tactics” to disrupt the process.
The challengers, Academic Workers for a Democratic Union, countered that USEJ pulled the plug because of fears that AWDU might win an upset victory, and staged a sit-in in the union office to press for transparency in the process. Expressing concern that the disruption “contributes to the public perception that unions are corrupt and outmoded,” a group of labor scholars released a public letter calling for the count to resume.
The AWDU, which grew out of California’s student protest movement, says Local 2865 has operated undemocratically, has passed up opportunities to forge coalitions with activists in the state, and has rolled over in contract negotiations.
On Tuesday, the two sides agreed on protocols and mediators for a resumption of the count, but that resumption, slated for yesterday morning, hasn’t yet occurred. Meanwhile, the two sides continue to exchange accusations on their respective blogs (USEJ and AWDU).
Fingers crossed for a swift and just end to this stalemate.
Adapted from a comment I just left at Feministe.
You probably can’t make yourself non-racist, but you can make yourself anti-racist. And in the end, being anti-racist is actually more important.
And no, you can’t ever rid yourself of privilege completely. But you can go a long way to rid yourself of ignorance of that privilege.
More to the point, you can make yourself into an opponent of privilege as it exists in the world, rather than just as it exists in you.
Jill hit the nail on the head when she said that the struggle to be — and to be seen as — “one of the good ones” can be a distraction from the real work of the activist. When you find stuff that needs doing, figure out how to help, and get to work on helping, that’s activism. Checking your privilege isn’t activism. It’s a part (and an ongoing part) of the process, but it’s not an end in itself.
And one last thing: As a person with privilege, if you spend time in progressive spaces, you’re going to get yelled at every once in a while. Sometimes people will be right to yell at you. Sometimes they’ll be out of line. Staying open to both possibilities is important, but it’s even more important to learn how to distinguish between them — and to figure out how to respond to each in a productive and self-caring way.
Guy: “The audience suggestion is ‘Slingblade and Oprah on a date.'”
Liz Lemon, as Billy Bob Thornton: “I sure do like them french fried pertaters.”
Jenna Maroney: “No you don’t, Oprah!”
• • •
There’s a rule in improv: Never say no. Whatever premise your partner comes up with — whatever setting, whatever action, whatever character — you validate it and expand on it. Instead of saying “no,” you say “yes, and…” This is harder than it sounds. We’re accustomed to the idea that drama and comedy both grow out of conflict, that disagreement is the meat of communication.
Really committing to “yes, and” is terrifying. But it’s also thrilling, because a dialogue built around “yes, and” is a dialogue built on trust and on partnership. It’s a dialogue built collaboratively rather than adversarially. It’s harder to do it that way, but when it works it’s incredibly satisfying.
I wrote a piece this morning about some of the ways in which progressives have been arguing this week, and Jill Filipovic of Feministe just put up a much longer, more thoughtful post that started from a similar place. A common thread running through both of those essays is an exasperation with gotcha discourse, with what Jill describes as a culture of “calling out.”
As Jill notes, there’s a strong desire among a lot of progressives to be — and be seen as — “one of the good ones,” and calling out people who are Doing It Wrong can feel like a shortcut to that identity. There’s also, I think, something deeper acting as well. Calling people out is a model for political dialogue that we intuitively understand, one that’s validated everywhere we look, one that feeds our desire for recognition and attention. It’s also, as the improv analogue suggests, a habit of discourse that’s ingrained in all of us, and one that’s not easy to break free of even when we’re making a conscious effort. We’re addicted to the “no” in politics and our personal lives no less than in performance.
But what happens when we opt for the “yes, and” instead? What happens when we try to construct a discussion — even a discussion in a blog’s commenting space — as an act of collaboration?
We can see a glimpse of what that looks like in the comments to last night’s Feministe post on Bin Laden’s capture. People were coming from very different places on the subject, but for the most part they recognized it as a topic on which good people could disagree, and disagree passionately. There’s a lot of “but…” in the thread, a lot of “on the other hand…” a lot of “at the same time…”
What those comments show us as well, though, is how fragile that sense of community can be. The further down one gets in the thread, the more snark and calling out there is. It’s hard to keep saying “yes, and” when the people around you keep giving you “no.”
Obviously not every statement can or should be “yes, anded” anyway. Sometimes folks are so deeply ignorant or hateful that they have to be challenged aggressively. But if you compare the first half of that thread to the second half, or compare that thread to recent Feministe discussions of the royal wedding, what you see are differences that are far less about the content of the statements people are making than about the premises they are bringing to the table about who they are talking to and what the purpose of the talking is.
Jill referred to calling out as “a stand-in for actual activism” in her post this morning, and closed by suggesting that “it’s high past time we stopped thinking of call-outs and privilege-owning as the best way to do activism online.” I think she’s right, and I think there’s something important to be added, too. The work of “yes, and” — the work of communicating collaboratively, of finding and building common ground, of moving from distrust to trust — that work is real activism. It’s movement-building work, and it’s important.
“Our ultimate end,” as Dr. King once said, “must be the creation of the beloved community.”
studentactivism.net 
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