Activism
I just got out of a meeting with my RD for breaking Open House Hours. I've been given a "written warming," which basically means that you've got official paperwork on your record saying that you got in trouble once. I was originally on "Warning Status," which means that if I'd've gotten found out for anything else, they could've screwed up my life in all kinds of ways, so you better avoid doing anything (or getting found out for anything) that will mess up your life.
It was a strange meeting, since my existence negates the premise behind Open House Hours, as evidenced by the little notice taped to my door: "This door is Calvin Locked (the way you have to prop your door open when someone considered sufficiently a "boy" is in your room so that anyone going down the hall understands that you might be having sex and can hold you accountable) in solidarity with the LGBT community on campus."
It's all completely bombastic, naive, ridiculous, and ... juvenile. I understand this full well. The whole meeting with my RD was a farce - she understands how above the rules I consider myself, and I understand how noble she thinks I'm trying to be. It's this awkward self-congratulatory system where it's clear to everyone that I'm not doing it just for myself, but that I believe I'm clearly in the right, and that I don't believe I've wronged anyone or anything because of it, even though the point of the meeting is a disciplinary procedure. It's clear that I think rules are being enforced for the sake of rules, and that their rules are blatantly wrong.
Look, I'm clearly totally immature in the way I'm doing this. I feel like a squirmy toddler (and am made to feel like a squirmy toddler) when I get a glint in my eye as the RD reads me my rights: right to a formal meeting with the Student Discipline Committee, right to appeal to the Vice President for Student Life (to whom, among others, I'm incidentally presenting a talk to about topics surrounding these issues next week - PS, she's the person that ended up reducing my status from "Official Warning" to "written warning"). "You're a fighter, aren't you, Emory?" she tells me, as I giggle - "Yup." "I just keep wondering, What kind of idea are they trying to think up, now?"
It's not about arrogance - it's about confidence and humor, which together sometimes seem like arrogance, I suppose.
It's difficult to live on a floor devoted to racial justice and read books from anti-apartheid Black Consciousness leaders and go to classes on feminist liberation without getting to a point where you just laugh at the ludicrousness of The System. Honestly, I just can't take it seriously, sometimes, because the issues it's getting itself into mock themselves. I'm content to do the work necessary to help The System back onto its feet, but when I'm put in a situation where it's trying to intimidate, shame, punish, restrict, and watch me, of course I'm going to ruffle my tail feathers.
Maybe I didn't the first time. Maybe I didn't the second time. Maybe I didn't the third time. But I've been doing this, poking at institutions and seeing where they'll bother to budge, as a rule since I was like fifteen. On my bad days, I take it all very seriously and get severely depressed by how obstinate this world and its institutions and social systems are. On my good days, these days, I laugh at the ludicrousness of it all, the ludicrousness of myself, the ludicrousness of my noble sincerity and the global retrospective perception of activism as "pure." And I keep going, because I feel a duty to, and because sometimes, there's joy and hope in seeing change come.
This stuff is a freaking joke. It's inconsistent and messy and absurd, and if I've learned anything from my personal idols, that's how you have to frame it to yourself if you're going to stay afloat in this type of life. If you're going to try to keep yourself motivated. Because a year of it where you do something every couple weeks or months is one thing. Two years of it where you have meetings every week is another. A life where half of what you do outside of class is activism is another entirely, and one where that's your job, your life, what you eat and breathe and sleep, is a step I've yet to comprehend and have incredible respect for.
I don't mean to say that activism requires judgment or an air of explicit, forceful superiority. As anyone that's worked in this way for any momentary period of time knows, you get punched down pretty fast if you're expecting anything at all out of this for yourself - it can be a shitty drudge sometimes. It feels tiring and stupid. I mean, when you win, it feels great - but activism is the act of making a game out of justice, and it feels nigh close to sacrilege at times. I can't even tell you how many times I've earnestly thought to myself that this is actually the end, I'm actually going to go somewhere else, I'm actually going to leave Christianity for good now, I've had enough, I'm not doing this anymore, I quit. Sometimes, it's an every-other-day thing, sometimes it stays for a month, sometimes it's just this cloud that won't leave, sometimes it feels like nothing will let you escape the doubt forever.
But you don't, and you keep going, and you see change. People tell you they have no idea how you do what you do, how you don't have mental breakdowns, they don't understand how your faith works or how you have the patience and will and naïveté necessary to do this kind of thing. If you keep going, though, if you just keep trudging, every day... Miraculously, you see change. And if you don't pat yourself on the back sometimes - even if only as an act of self-parody - you'll go crazy while it happens.
It was a strange meeting, since my existence negates the premise behind Open House Hours, as evidenced by the little notice taped to my door: "This door is Calvin Locked (the way you have to prop your door open when someone considered sufficiently a "boy" is in your room so that anyone going down the hall understands that you might be having sex and can hold you accountable) in solidarity with the LGBT community on campus."
It's all completely bombastic, naive, ridiculous, and ... juvenile. I understand this full well. The whole meeting with my RD was a farce - she understands how above the rules I consider myself, and I understand how noble she thinks I'm trying to be. It's this awkward self-congratulatory system where it's clear to everyone that I'm not doing it just for myself, but that I believe I'm clearly in the right, and that I don't believe I've wronged anyone or anything because of it, even though the point of the meeting is a disciplinary procedure. It's clear that I think rules are being enforced for the sake of rules, and that their rules are blatantly wrong.
Look, I'm clearly totally immature in the way I'm doing this. I feel like a squirmy toddler (and am made to feel like a squirmy toddler) when I get a glint in my eye as the RD reads me my rights: right to a formal meeting with the Student Discipline Committee, right to appeal to the Vice President for Student Life (to whom, among others, I'm incidentally presenting a talk to about topics surrounding these issues next week - PS, she's the person that ended up reducing my status from "Official Warning" to "written warning"). "You're a fighter, aren't you, Emory?" she tells me, as I giggle - "Yup." "I just keep wondering, What kind of idea are they trying to think up, now?"
It's not about arrogance - it's about confidence and humor, which together sometimes seem like arrogance, I suppose.
It's difficult to live on a floor devoted to racial justice and read books from anti-apartheid Black Consciousness leaders and go to classes on feminist liberation without getting to a point where you just laugh at the ludicrousness of The System. Honestly, I just can't take it seriously, sometimes, because the issues it's getting itself into mock themselves. I'm content to do the work necessary to help The System back onto its feet, but when I'm put in a situation where it's trying to intimidate, shame, punish, restrict, and watch me, of course I'm going to ruffle my tail feathers.
Maybe I didn't the first time. Maybe I didn't the second time. Maybe I didn't the third time. But I've been doing this, poking at institutions and seeing where they'll bother to budge, as a rule since I was like fifteen. On my bad days, I take it all very seriously and get severely depressed by how obstinate this world and its institutions and social systems are. On my good days, these days, I laugh at the ludicrousness of it all, the ludicrousness of myself, the ludicrousness of my noble sincerity and the global retrospective perception of activism as "pure." And I keep going, because I feel a duty to, and because sometimes, there's joy and hope in seeing change come.
This stuff is a freaking joke. It's inconsistent and messy and absurd, and if I've learned anything from my personal idols, that's how you have to frame it to yourself if you're going to stay afloat in this type of life. If you're going to try to keep yourself motivated. Because a year of it where you do something every couple weeks or months is one thing. Two years of it where you have meetings every week is another. A life where half of what you do outside of class is activism is another entirely, and one where that's your job, your life, what you eat and breathe and sleep, is a step I've yet to comprehend and have incredible respect for.
I don't mean to say that activism requires judgment or an air of explicit, forceful superiority. As anyone that's worked in this way for any momentary period of time knows, you get punched down pretty fast if you're expecting anything at all out of this for yourself - it can be a shitty drudge sometimes. It feels tiring and stupid. I mean, when you win, it feels great - but activism is the act of making a game out of justice, and it feels nigh close to sacrilege at times. I can't even tell you how many times I've earnestly thought to myself that this is actually the end, I'm actually going to go somewhere else, I'm actually going to leave Christianity for good now, I've had enough, I'm not doing this anymore, I quit. Sometimes, it's an every-other-day thing, sometimes it stays for a month, sometimes it's just this cloud that won't leave, sometimes it feels like nothing will let you escape the doubt forever.
But you don't, and you keep going, and you see change. People tell you they have no idea how you do what you do, how you don't have mental breakdowns, they don't understand how your faith works or how you have the patience and will and naïveté necessary to do this kind of thing. If you keep going, though, if you just keep trudging, every day... Miraculously, you see change. And if you don't pat yourself on the back sometimes - even if only as an act of self-parody - you'll go crazy while it happens.
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