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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!”
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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.”
“Can’t I just calm down and enjoy the day? On a day when friends and fellow travellers have been beaten and arrested, no, I can’t. Sorry.”
–Laurie Penny, British journalist, gives her 140-character take.
There’s been a bit of a tussle in certain corners of the American progressive blogosphere over yesterday’s royal wedding.
I totally get the argument that everyone’s entitled to a bit of mindless cheesy celeb-gawking fun every once in a while. I totally get pomp. The wedding itself isn’t to my taste, but given my own pop culture preferences, I don’t really have any esthetic grounds for looking down my nose at it.
But here’s the thing. The British royal family has a long and sordid tradition of ethnic nastiness, a tradition that extends directly to this particular groom’s brother. It has a long and sordid tradition of sexual nastiness, a tradition that extends directly to this groom’s father’s treatment of this groom’s mother. It has a pretty long and sordid tradition of class-based nastiness, a tradition that absolutely and completely suffused yesterday’s spectacle.
Add to that the fact that the wedding is speculated to have cost the British taxpayer as much as fifty million pounds, at a time when Britain is slashing services to the poor. Add to THAT the fact that a huge number of left-wing activists in London were rounded up over the last week, in flagrant violation of their civil liberties, under the pretext of keeping things calm and cozy for the royals and their clique. Add to THAT the fact that each living Tory Prime Minister and ex-PM was invited to the wedding and neither of the two living Labor PMs were.
Add all that together, and I’d say that it’s at the very least an event that deserves some skeptical progressive analysis along with all the rah-rah.
The British understand this, by the way. UK media have been full of political analysis not only of the wedding itself, but also its reception. And that’s as it should be.
Often student activists are criticized for not proposing concrete solutions to the problems that others have identified. “Sure, you’re against our plan,” administrators and politicians ask, “but what alternative can you offer?”
Sometimes the “problem” is invented, of course, and sometimes students have detailed proposals at the ready, but not always. When the problem is real and students are offering no solution of their own, “what do you suggest we do?” is a legitimate question.
It’s a legitimate question. But “not this” is a legitimate answer.
Consider Mario Savio’s speech to the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964 — probably the most famous speech ever given by an American student activist:
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious — makes you so sick at heart — that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
Faced with a university that was breaking his heart, Savio said “no.” He said “stop.” He didn’t say “here’s an alternative.” He said “not this.”
Sometimes students, organizing against an act or a decision or a proposal or an administration, have an alternative at hand. Sometimes they have a suggestion as to what should happen next, what should take the place of the current plan or the status quo. Sometimes they have many such suggestions.
But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes what they have is “not this.” Sometimes what they have is “no.” Sometimes what they have is “stop.”
And sometimes that “stop” is the most radical, most cogent, most effective, most reasonable intervention there is.
Video footage shot in Fortnum & Mason’s Saturday while the store was being occupied by UK Uncut protesters appears to show police asking activists to remain inside the store, and assuring them that they will be allowed to disperse peacefully once outside. The protesters were later arrested en masse as they left the premises.
Of 201 arrests made in connection with Saturday’s demonstrations, at least 138 came at the Fortnum & Mason’s occupation, despite the fact that police and store officials agree that property damage at the action was minimal and violent disruption to the store’s operations non-existent. Police made few arrests at the far more aggressive “black bloc” actions that day, in some cases being videotaped standing by as masked protesters vandalized shops and offices.
Not long ago, someone tweeted the following from Willow Smith’s @OfficialWillow Twitter account:
So Chris Brown is going to prison now breaking a window at ABC, but he didnt go for hurting Rihanna?
The tweet has since been deleted, but it’s burning up the Twittersphere.
The first question people are asking is: Is it real? Was Willow’s account hacked? Did someone else send the tweet on her behalf?
The second question folks are asking is: If the tweet was real, was it appropriate?
I’ll have more on this in a little bit.
Update | It’s been suggested that the link in the Willow tweet may contain a virus or phishing attempt. I’ve cut it out of my version of the tweet until that’s resolved.
Morning Update | Late last night someone used Willow’s Twitter account to put out a denial that the tweet came from them. So it’s clear that the account was hacked, and folks should avoid clicking the link in the original tweet.
studentactivism.net 
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