solidarity
adding page because of these tweet via simona ferlini [https://twitter.com/sonmi451it/status/1704677360279179429?s=20]:
my new favorite channel [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDUUk9lXYQY] linking to 52 min video from yesterday – “The Theory and Practice of Solidarity”: Mie Inouye in conversation with Daniel Martinez HoSang.. hosted by anthony morgan
from video page:
Boston Review is an independent, nonprofit public space for discussion of ideas and culture. They publish new online essays several times a week, on topics including the arts, law, gender and sexuality, race, philosophy, and science, all of it 100% free to read, as well as four themed print issues a year.
Solidarity has long been a key idea in struggles for a more just world – but what does it mean, and how can movements build enough of it to change society? These are the key questions shaping Boston Review’s new issue, “On Solidarity”. The forum discussion about solidarity is led by Mie Inouye, one of the speakers in this event, who explores obstacles to solidarity and the paradox that emerges from solidarity being an essential component of struggles for justice, while actually existing injustice renders it impossible.
In this conversation, Mie discusses her vision of coalition building and ways to achieve solidarity across difference. Mie is joined by Daniel HoSang who traces the main obstacles to solidarity back to neoliberalism, which splinters social relations and teaches us to express injustice in the language of personal grievance.
Mie Inouye is an organizer and political theorist. As Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, her research and teaching areas include social movements, democratic theories of political action, socialism, identity politics, American political thought, and religion and politics. Her public writing has appeared in Boston Review, Jacobin, and The Forge. She leads a forum in Boston Review’s summer 2023 issue, On Solidarity. Academic homepage: https://www.bard.edu/faculty/details/… Twitter account: @mieinouye
Daniel Martinez HoSang is an organizer and organizer trainer, a member of the Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective, and Professor of American Studies at Yale. His most recent book is A Wider Type of Freedom: How Struggles for Racial Justice Liberate Everyone. He is a contributor to Boston Review’s summer 2023 issue, On Solidarity. Academic homepage: https://americanstudies.yale.edu/peop…
notes/quotes from video:
mie: one version of the problem of solidarity.. pitting against each other ness.. situation where might not have same interests/motivations for getting involved in organizing
2 min – mie: what can be possible grounds of solidarity between diff social groups given this paradox.. 4 answers: 1\shared material interest and org around those issues 2\ id 3\ morality for those w diff id’s.. 4\ ideology.. vision of world working toward building beneficial to everyone involved
3 min – mie: reflecting on experience of org’ing i see a diff/simpler one.. we lack both org infra and social capacities necessary to figure out what we all have at stake in the struggle against racial c and to forge connections between those motivations and to try to forge a shared vision of world we’re fighting to build
rather.. let go of fighting and org around something already in each one of us.. ie: missing pieces
4 min – mie: capacities i see lacking 1\ to show up to meetings consistently or to follow thru to a collective
oi.. whalespeak.. oi
5 min – mie: 2\ to endure certain amount of discomfort/conflict that i think is inevitable in any process of org-ing
even bigger oi.. we have no idea.. what legit free people are like.. takes a lot of work ness et al has become a major cancerous distraction
6 min – mie: i define solidarity very broadly .. as collective action toward shared ends.. more sociologically.. present in any kind of social formation.. ie: growing up in mormon church.. not a form of solidarity i would endorse.. but one we should think of .. to see similarities and diff’s that are unexpected but useful toward what it is we’re trying to build
can’t base a legit alt off anything from past (all in sea world.. so aboudning in myth of tragedy and lord ness.. oi)
7 min – daniel: your essay clearly lays out things we’ll benefit from in thinking together.. most may not agree on much.. but would agree that something foundational to put thousands of people together is absolutely necessary to face social crisis we face.. will be around diff things ie: climate, ed, etc.. while can say all connected.. that’s not reason we all act together.. need to act in collective ways beyond that.. differentiation/separation is not by accident.. material structure of our econ/social-life always already anti solidarity.. both intentional and a cultural norm.. living on own et al
12 min – mie: do i think that feeling of togetherness is a pre condition to creating solidarity? i think george floyd ness happened in midst of pandemic and people very vulnerability.. that need for sociality brought people to the streets.. we don’t all org for right reasons.. ie: reasons we’re taught.. ie: have shared reasons.. but.. too .. have a very real deep need.. sociality is a deeply felt need.. and we should try to help people meet it
deepest – maté basic needs – let’s org around that..
15 min – daniel: gets to another paradox.. 1st think people recall.. relationships et al.. but then too.. after that.. return to respective orgs.. the hope might have been .. renewed.. but often deep alienation/suspicion happened.. at moment imperative for solidarity most clear.. seemed most incapable for it
because never got deep enough in first place..
we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8bn today.. a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8bn today.. and an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8bn legit free
ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8bn today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8bn today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8bn legit free
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to ground the chaos of 8b legit free people
17 min – mie: one of problems w solidarity.. we just lived thru one of most remarkable protest movement 2020.. a moment a lot of things were possible.. maybe things are shifting now.. i’m so exicted by all solidarity we see.. i think that’s in part a legacy of summer of 2020.. living on in diff ways.. i don’t mean to say this is a failure.. but there is room for self critique.. i did see in subsequent couple of years what you’re describing.. brittleness.. inability to have conflict openly.. avoid and/or very atomizing..
19 min – mie: part of it has to do with that we don’t have in place the kinds of practices/capacities for enduring the forms of discomfort/conflict that have to emerge .. that do inevitably emerge in process of any attempt to change the world
oi.. that’s to date.. that’s while we’re still in sea world.. and missing the opp we have today.. for a legit global detox leap.. oi..
not inevitable.. oi
mie: one i of that deference politics.. as main way to forge coalition.. an ethic that requires that people who are relatively privileged defer.. suspend judgement and defer to people who are relatively oppressed.. there are a lot of problems w def politics.. i think it’s a dangerous way to build coalition.. it’s a mode of conflict avoidance.. that precludes us of figuring out what we have at stake and forging connections between those needs.. makes orgs very brittle/fragile.. makes people not able to long term org.. ie: could have had more endurance if all people knew why they were there.. what they had at stake
sounds like seat at the table ness.. cancerous distraction
22 min – daniel: both of us in higher ed.. so this plays out in classes.. asked.. what is it we’ve failed to do.. have had capacity to teach about ideas but not skills to use them.. the ability to practice solidarity is really denied to students
oi
25 min – mie: i’ve been a prof for 3 yrs.. i learned pretty quickly that the only way to teach a successful class right now to my students.. is to create a sense that’s there’s a shared goal.. that we are all trying to answer.. forge a comradeship.. we need each other to figure out answer to this question/project.. try to develop levels of trust between them and me and each other.. that’s a huge amount of my pedagogy.. trying to build relationships between my students.. you have to show up.. you have to have conflict.. and they love it.. i think they want that kind of contact w strangers.. and the opp to try to convince people to get on board w way they are experiencing and wanting to change the world.. this is what i feel i can do as a teacher
oi.. invited vs invented.. dave’s campfire analogy.. people telling other people what to do.. oi oi oi
28 min – daniel: talking to someone you don’t know and finding a connection.. deeply valuable.. ie: everyone wearing a button one day at work.. et al.. as ways to practice it in these moments..
oi.. cancerous distraction..
30 min – anthony: last question before q&a.. what do we most need from a theory of solidarity today
mie: we need an account of how to cultivate endurance.. we can’t unlearn the habits of isolation, suspicion, competitiveness. thru single convo.. can only unlearn and learn new habits/capacities thru ongoing practice w other people.. needs to be conflict that takes place in enduring relationships.. for long enough to make a change for world/self
nah.. we just need to let go enough to see what legit free people are like.. how they dance..
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature as global detox/re\set.. so we can org around legit needs
imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
32 min – daniel: not just enough to hope for some place to expel all contradictions/uneasiness.. endurance if that.. if want real joy of solidarity.. so part is the capacity that that is central to the work.. just in context of teaching.. can’t just say.. we have safety in here.. disservice to people entering the space
34 min – q&a
_________
_______
________
________
_________
_________
________
be you. 