As I noted in a previous diary, I have determined to only do what I love when it comes to the Occupation movement. I'm one of those people who, when she takes those personality tests, such as Meyers-Briggs or "IQ test", or is evaluated by someone who works with systems such as the Enneagram, that I am a "visionary philosopher." Usually, if I've subjected myself to one of these reductionist activities, it's because I'm considering career possibilities. "Visionary philosopher" isn't very helpful on that front. I've yet to see a job posting for one.
It does, however, inform the types of things I love to do. I love to consider the big picture. The really big picture. When I see protests in Tunisia, I think "what impact will this have on the world?" When I see Occupy Wall Street, I think, "where does this fit in with what's going on around the world?" When I hear, "the 99%", I look for all the people who would make up the 99%. I want them all connected to this, so that it's real and that we have a real chance at making some profound change. To my mind, we will only get that change when people around the world, from all social strata, realize how connected we are. When we all stand up together. Frankly, I envision a world wide strike at some point. We all, in unity, stop feeding the killer beast and turn our every labor toward the creation of a truly democratic world for all.
It's no surprise then, that what I would love to do at Occupy Boston is to help generate more solidarity statements.
So, I put out a little call. Somewhat quietly, as I'm not usually an organizer and I didn't feel sure of myself. A couple of times on Twitter, I simply said that I'd like to start a Solidarity Working Group at Occupy Boston. Three people responded. We had our first meeting on Sunday evening.
Interestingly, we are all women.
Our first meeting was really just about brainstorming:
- what would a Solidarity Working Group do?
- How is it different from Outreach or People of Color?
- Why do we think it's important?
- How would we accomplish what we want to do?
Where we've gotten so far:
- we will be to help craft Solidarity Statements with people from all kinds of identifiable communities within Boston
- we will, with community representatives, bring those statements to the General Assembly for Occupy Boston ratification
- we'd love to see one get ratified once a week
- we will work with any existing working groups who are connecting to communities, solely to bring the function of crafting solidarity statements in conjunction with whatever work they are already doing.
Our mission feels clear. How to get started feels less clear, at this moment.
I have done a tad of outreach to some other working groups. A representative of the People of Color working group thought it sounded like a promising idea. It turned out he is also on the Outreach working group. He put me in touch with someone else who is on both of those groups and is also in some other working groups. My next outreach will be the Anti-Oppression working group.
I then realized that we had communities right on-site whom we could help write solidarity statements. The homeless, the LGBTQ folk (an anti-oppression statement has been ratified but I want to see if that feels the same as a solidarity statement), women, etc.
This is the kind of project which has endless possibilities. The statements can be written for broad communities, such as People of Color (a phrase I struggle with. Am I colorless?) From there, you can write more specific ones such as Solidarity with the Haitian community or Solidarity with the Arab community.
Sometimes, I have these pie-in-the-sky ideas and I don't know how to actually make them happen. As I've aged, I learned more and more to simply bring the ideas to other people and that by getting other people interested, ways to generate the action emerge. I'm hoping that is what occurs with this. I'm excited about but, also feel trepidations. I don't want to be presumptuous and assume that people want to hear from me or have any reason to trust in my sincerity or intentions or skills. I'm just taking baby steps and holding onto the idea that this something I will love to do.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure I'll make it back down to Dewey Square until Saturday. I've pushed myself well beyond my physical capacity and I need to take a break if I'm to continue to be useful and I have other life obligations. This makes me nervous, because I want to gain momentum on this project, but don't think I can do much without being there.
Also, I'm the original author of a proposal being presented to the General Assembly on Saturday. It's been through two rounds of consensus, thus far, and is no longer 'my' proposal, thank goodness. It's had some wonderful amendments. Still, I field a lot of feedback on that when I'm at the occupation. So, it seems like I may not be able to give this project my full attention until Monday.
I had been thinking to postpone making a formal announcement about our new working group until we'd one enough footwork to feel that we had some concrete direction. But, perhaps that's the wrong approach. Losing a week of momentum because, right now, it seems entirely reliant upon me making things happen, doesn't seem right. So, I think that today I'll reach out to the others who came to the meeting and see what they want to do and what kinds of ideas they have.
If anyone here has any input on how to make connections and forge trustful relations so that people will feel good about writing their solidarity statements with us, I would love to hear it.
My personal mission is to let all the different communities who have felt abused and disaffected over the years know that we see them. That we know they are there, we know they have their own concerns. We know they have their own ideas. We want to listen to them. We want their voices to be included in the million-part harmony of the global democracy movement. We want to walk to this new world together.
My previous diaries on OccupyBoston & OccupyWallSt:
Occupy Boston: "Do What You Love"
#OccupyBoston: articulating an angst
#Occupy: Consensus and Autonomy
Anti-Capitalist Meet-Up: What is this #Occupy thing?
OccupyBoston: A Hard Day's Night
OccupyBoston: Triumph and Tedium
A space of our own: A Women's Perspective on OccupyBoston clicks
#OccupyBoston: the day after
A Proposal to the Greenway Conservancy re: #OccupyBoston
Holding the Line at #OccupyBoston
#occupywallstreet: a primer on consensus and the General Assembly
#OccupyBoston: learning together
from an #occupier to Ed Schultz: Yes, we can change gov't w/UPDATE
from #OccupyWallStreet to #OccupyBoston : lessons
#OccupyTheRecList: a discussion (w/clarification update)
Witnessing #occupywallstreet: the power .... of the people ... 's mic
Witnessing #occupywallstreet: my 2nd day
Witnessing #occupywallstreet #6: my first day
Witnessing #OccupyWallStreet #5
Witnessing #OccupyWallStreet #4: Send blankets, Updated #2
Witnessing #OccupyWallStreet #3: Cheer Them On!