In Another Life We Would Have Been Artists

An activist's manifesto.

I don't usually like cross-posting, but, prompted by Vashanti I've been meaning to write a blog post about what activism means to me/why I do it. This is my column that's running in today's issue of The Eagle. A little background:

• I a write biweekly column. About hipsters. I know, right?
• This happened. Campus politics exploded. Activists and journalists alike suspended the notions that cigarettes are not a food group and that drinking every night is socially unacceptable. It was a time of crisis, y'know? A list of demands was made by the campus community, and then this happened. I'm not sure if anyone knows what to do with themselves right now.

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Dissent: it’s a theme I’ve covered in this column all semester. I’ve discussed it in the context of hipster history (hipstory, I suppose) – bandanas, skinny jeans, flannel, they’ve all at some point been donned as signs of solidarity, as separation from and statement against the mainstream. But their meanings now have largely been stripped of significance and appropriated into the fashion of the contemporary hipster, leaving histories of rebellion in their wake hidden under the guise of – you guessed it – irony. And although individuals sporting this style may catch a lot of flack, hipsters are not what’s threatening our generation. Rather, they are indicative of a much bigger, much more harmful issue: complacency.

It is easy for us to take for granted the freedoms we enjoy as a result of our predecessors’ struggles. Because of this, it is even easier for us to assume that these struggles are over, that all those nasty “-isms” don’t exist, and that there is little to nothing left for us to fight or defend. We have watched the most radical generation in our nation’s history age into conservativism, and we have watched the generations after that follow their lead, assuming either that the fighting is done or that it is futile.

But there is a greater stirring in our lives. It is a wave of recognition that some things (many things) are still just not right. We are the most highly educated generation that our country has seen, and as a result, we recognize injustices – whether they be the inadvertent results of misinformation, or atrocities spurred by ignorance or motivated by hatred.

Our generation does not know exactly what it is fighting for; we do not have one single cause, but honestly, it’s nice to see someone care about anything anymore. The only thing worse than the passive aggressive Hobbesian nightmare that is Internet fighting is passive progressiveness – the ability to realize injustice but the inability to speak up or take action. Perhaps the dissident publication Adbusters said it best: “This is our decisive moment. Either we wallow in debt as passive observers of history and pray that technology will eventually solve all our problems or we actively seize power and deal with the consequences.”

Despite all the controversy we (as a community and a generation) have been experiencing (potentially the largest understatement of my AU career), I am more than proud to have participated in and witnessed the way that various communities have overcome their differences and united in response to that which they oppose.
We have realized that it is not about the differences in our personal solutions but about the greater problems that we all have in common.

No, it is not right that this unification happened at the personal expense of individuals, and no it is not right that anyone must feel responsible for cleaning up the mess that another person or another group has made, but the vigor of response has been simply admirable and nearly unprecedented. We have recognized that the solution is not to walk way from the problem, leaving it for someone else, the solution is to refuse to be silent until satisfied. Talk about “ideas into action,” eh – not bad, right, Kerwin?

We are recognizing that as long as there exists injustice for one, there is injustice for all of us – that once a group’s rights or ability to live safely are taken away, then all of ours are at stake. Yes, in fact, the dignity and safety of one is more important and more powerful than the hatred of others. This is an ideal, and we must fight to make it a reality, or else we are being irresponsible to ourselves.

We can borrow from feminist rhetoric – as long as we live in this world, we are survivors, not victims, of injustice, and we can either continue to live through it like nothing is wrong, or we can take action to correct it. We cannot ask to see our vision realized any longer – we must demand it.

Our rights, our beliefs and our ideologies are not something to be taken and twisted into dirty words used to shame us by those who feel threatened by our liberation. These are ours to value and keep and to empower us to achieve greater things. You cannot claim to know fully (and therefore claim the right to speak on behalf of or judge) the suffering or indignities experienced by an oppressed group unless you yourself are a part of that group, but we can all do our best to act as allies and recognize what is wrong and how to help.

So yes, injustice is everyone’s problem, but I’ll acknowledge that activism isn’t everyone’s solution. Thankfully, we have been given the gift of diversity, so that individuals may utilize their different talents to effect change. Activism takes many different forms – it is not limited to the picket-sign protest of yester-generation. Activism comes down to who you are on the day-to-day, if you are living what you believe in. The opposite of hate isn’t love – it is justice, fairness and respect.

So if we’re truly going to be defending all those abstract nouns that we believe in so strongly, then all of us – journalists and activists (we have more in common than you think) – must commit to achieving it, not just by discussing it but by owning up to our responsibilities and living it – and there’s nothing ironic about that.

As Far As Waking Up in the Beds of Strange Girls Goes

I think this one may be my favorite.
Probably partially because it wasn't like that, but also because free housing in Montreal is the shit, second only to finding out that that connection you thought you've been making with someone without ever seeing them is actually real and staying up until 4 in the morning watching/mocking The L Word is completely worthwhile.

Anyway, her name is Emily, and we sometimes have similar thoughts, though she's a little more music/photography-oriented and sometimes writes in a more stream-of-conscious style. Read it though. She's got a maple leaf tattooed on her arm, and that's how you know someone is worth your time.

This post is also about Canada.

Lately I've been doing this thing where I'm really cautious about throwing whimsical statements into the air because I've picked up this habit of actually following through.

Among the results of this are my previously mentioned night at the Potomac, thirteen hours of travel for about a day and a half in Montreal, and a rediscovered affinity for girls in v-neck T-shirts. These are a few of my favorite things.

Montreal was immensely rewarding. It taught me that the exchange rate of spending time with people in other countries is about double (potentially because of travel time), that swing dancing is difficult, that there are lighters so tacky that they shock even me, that you cannot make right turns on red in Montreal, and that, yes, I can speak enough French to negotiate last-minute sleeping arrangements in the corridor of a hostel under a bookshelf containing both a French translation of 100 Years of Solitude and the Dr. Phil reader. Brilliant.

Traveling for no reason. It's the only reason.