“often i have had to make these choices on the spot. with little to no background information. feeling a little lost in the swirling demands emotions running high. and i can say that even hind sight is rarely 20/20.” I really relate to this as someone who is mostly relatively privileged, with little activist experience, who has relatively recently moved to a city with a very intense history, and is trying to figure out how to support social justice projects without really knowing all of what’s in play (oh, and while trying to start a healthcare clinic…hmmm…).

Emotions can run really high, because the stakes are high, and there is a long history of hurt and abuse and neglect and disappointment; but the flipside of emotions NOT running high seems to be endemic depression, which is also very sticky.

But “sitting back” as you point out is not really an acceptable alternative to taking the risk of fucking up. And I wonder about the people who sit out, drop out, never try, or show up but don’t speak, how their silence is or is not factored into the “four or five different opinions” (the way not voting is a vote)?

Thanks again for this…

If it is ok, I plan to take this to a community meeting I have next week that has been struggling both with their own identity as organizers and with conflict from other organizers from similar or intersecting community ids. It seems like something we all need to remember when building solidarity movements and thinking about what we mean when we say “community” about anything.