Truthfully, one of the BIGGEST pieces of community organizing I do is just. Conversation.
Not even political conversation. Just normal social bonding activities and topics!
I bring spare herbs and eggs to the neighbors and ask after their kids and grandkids. I show up at the market and shittalk the weather with the folks staffing the stalls. I tell cashiers I like their style and ask if they remember where they got any of the pieces. I wave to the neighborhood children when I'm out with them and teach them how to cue my dogs with treats so they can safely pet the furballs. Whenever I swing by the 24hr diner in town, I chat up the waittress who always seems to be the only person working the floor, and I ask after her health and if she's getting enough time off her feet because I can tell no one else does.
I have no idea at the time if any of these conversations will bear fruit. But it is absolutely fucking critical that I inform you I am a visibly trans dyke with a buzzcut whose built like a brick shithouse even before I put on my four inch heels. I walk around town like this every single day of my life. I have shown up in everything from my most schlubby fuckboi sweatsuits, to my strut "of shame" outfits the night after a hook up, to full on "leather dyke about to go fuck something up", to "farm hand of questionable gender and even more questionable ethics about fucking the rancher's wife and daughters.
It does not matter how I look, people in town light up when they see me. They get excited to talk to me, to hear what I've been up to, and to tell me what's going on with them. Sometimes they even broach topics that they clearly understand we disagree on. I always let them reach across and open that door themselves. I don't affirm or agree with anything they might say before this point that I find inappropriate, but I don't argue either. I use what I learned as a "soft conversation closer" that essentially communicates to others "we can continue to talk, but it won't be about this. If you continue anyway, the conversation ends until we can talk about something else.
But like I said, eventually these people always manage to muster their courage. "[Redacted]," they ask, hesitantly, "have you heard about [insert fascist talking point]? It feels really big and present on the mind lately." And I say "why yes I have, and I agree, it HAS been big and on the mind lately. After all [insert appropriate de-radicalization/innoculation talking point]." And they look confused and repeat a phrase full of buzzeords they assume is a counter argument. At this point, *I* look confused and say "I don't think I understand what you mean. I'm a bit tired today so I might be misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you're saying [rephrased version of their talking point minus the buzzwords and plus some acknowledgement of the latent dogwhistles and indoctrination they relied on]. Could I ask you to try again and see if I have an easier time following your perspective?"
There is usually a pause as they wrestle with how to respond to this. Three outcomes split off from here
1) they really do rephrase their genuine concerns sans buzzwords and dogwhistles and we get to have a real and substantive conversation about our needs and shared humanity
2) they get angry that I will not simply change my mind in response to hearing their retort. This is a person to whom I say "it sounds like you feel really strongly about this and aren't comfortable with the idea that we disagree. Why don't we set this down for now, after all if anything changes we can always come back to it." And then I refuse to talk about it with them again until they can have the conversation with me without getting excessively angry.
3) they simply decide not to continue the conversation themselves because they either don't know how to or recognize that it would be unproductive in the moment to try.
Now I'm definitely not suggesting that everyone can or should do this. But there are so many ways every day we have to offer a glimpse of our humanity to people who need to know that it exists. If we are comfortably capable of doing this, it can be literally life saving, not just of the person you're talking to, but of dehumanized people in their future who may depend on that person being able to make a different choice than they would make now.
You do not need to be able to debate politics to do this. You can simply be human in other people's presence.
It will not shock me to learn that the isolationism of the world since the early pandemic has likely played a huge role in how vulnerable many people are right now to different kinds of radicalization and authoritarianism, and while I have incredible empathy for how burnt out and exhausted we all are, I cannot help but recognize that this is not a reality that can ever change unless some of us (also deeply exhausted and burnt out) continue to choose to invest in community and connection building regardless of what we may need or have space for. The fewer of us are carefully balancing how we can ensure we are able to continue doing that, regardless of how much or little support we ourselves may have, the more frequently those of us making that call will have to keep doing it. The less rest we will have. The more exhausted we will become. The fewer of us there will be. The more vulnerable our communities will be to the societal forces seeking to harm and destabilize us.
I understand people do not like this post. I've had a fair few comments already about how the opener was "barely salvaged" by other later comments.
But I cannot emphasize enough how much this is coming from love, solidarity, experience, and deeply painful and material understanding of what it has cost me my whole life to be someone who will never get to stop making this choice.
There will never be a day where I can afford to prioritize my own exhaustion over the lives and well-being of the people I have committed to caring for. This is not a role I will ever set down. And if that means I will do that increasingly alone until it kills me, I fucking will. I don't need any single specific person to walk with me on that journey. But it is so unfathomably devastating to see just how many potential walking comrades have decided for themselves that this must be **someone else's** weight to carry, and they will not contribute to it in any way that is hard on them. Do I want people to live like I do? God no!! That's part of why I do what I do.
But you have to understand. If I don't want anyone to do what I do I need to make sure the world is as kind as I can possibly encourage it to be every single fucking day between now and the inevitable heat death of the universe. And if people calling themselves my comrades are actively fighting me on that, making the world crueller and less safe to do my work in, then I can no longer afford to consider them my comrades at all.
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