Best of 2023: Building Movements is Uncomfortable. That's a Good Thing / Kelly Hayes
Jan 3, 2024
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Kelly Hayes, co-author of an essay on movement building, discusses the importance of listening, discomfort, and navigating relationships within movements. The chapter explores pushing back constructively, challenging white supremacy and classism, and building relationships through deep listening. It also touches on supporting listener-supported content and the advantages of being forgettable.
Deep listening and building relationships are crucial in movement building.
Movement building involves navigating uncertainty and discomfort, embracing uncertainty and being open to growth are integral to the transformative journey of organizing.
Building power requires collaboration and solidarity across communities, recognizing the shared struggles and enemies, and extending solidarity across identity lines helps build larger movements.
Deep dives
Deep Listening and Building Relationships
Deep listening and building relationships are crucial in movement building. It is important to create spaces where people feel heard and valued, even if their ideas differ. This requires active and constructive engagement with differing viewpoints, allowing room for growth and understanding. Building unity and solidarity among diverse groups of people is essential for creating effective and transformative movements.
Navigating Uncertainty and Discomfort
Movement building involves navigating uncertainty and discomfort, both individually and collectively. It requires grappling with the complexities of different perspectives and learning to negotiate boundaries and expectations. Embracing uncertainty and being open to growth are integral to the transformative journey of organizing.
Collaboration and Solidarity Across Communities
Building power requires collaboration and solidarity across communities. Movements have the potential to unite people, even if their specific politics differ. As organizers, it is important to create spaces and foster relationships where people can engage in dialogue, listen to each other, and find common ground. Recognizing the shared struggles and enemies, and extending solidarity across identity lines, helps build larger movements.
Challenging Classism and Expanding Solidarity
Challenging classism and building class unity are essential in movement building. Recognizing the class war being waged by the ruling class against the poor and oppressed, and actively resisting it, is crucial. Expanding solidarity and fostering relationships across different communities are necessary for challenging oppressive systems and striving for a more equitable and just society.
Social media as a double-edged sword
The podcast episode discusses the dual nature of social media platforms like Twitter. On one hand, they have facilitated tremendous accomplishments in movement work, allowing individuals and organizations to raise awareness, fundraise, and mobilize support. For example, stories of injustice and campaigns like Free Brisha have gained widespread attention and successfully led to concrete changes. However, social media is also seen as a realm of political performance and spectatorship, often divorced from relationship building or strategic aims. It can reward superficial outrage over substantive discussions, and platforms themselves are profit-driven and can undermine progress by manipulating algorithms and diminishing visibility of important issues.
Recognizing the limitations of social media
The podcast episode highlights the need to acknowledge that social media platforms were not created with the intention of facilitating liberation or movement building. While they can be useful tools for certain purposes, they are ultimately profit-driven entities that prioritize user engagement. The episode emphasizes the importance of recognizing the limitations and challenges of relying solely on social media for movement work. It suggests that true strength in movements lies in entering multiple spaces, both online and offline, strategizing effectively, and not fetishizing social media platforms as mechanisms of liberation.
The penultimate Best of 2023 episode features a September interview with Truthout's Kelly Hayes on the article she co-wrote the Boston Review essay with past guest Mariame Kaba, “How Much Discomfort Is the Whole World Worth?: Movement building requires a culture of listening—not mastery of the right language.” Following the interview, Jeff Dorchen delivers a Moment of Truth and we read more of your answers to the Question from Hell!
Check out Kelly and Mariame's essay here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/how-much-discomfort-is-the-whole-world-worth/
Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell
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