A good friend of mine has been having a rough year. I keep telling him to keep his chin up: "We're only four months in to the new year... Plenty of time for everything to make a complete about-face!" I've been telling him this frequently enough now that when I start to say it he'll smirk and roll his eyes. At the beginning of the year one of his three housemates burned something to a crisp on the stove (for hours) and the smoke smell lingered in his house for so long that he was having respiratory problems for weeks. He crashed in my livingroom for a couple of days, but didn't want to "overstay his welcome" (which was ridiculous of course; his welcome didn't have an expiration date). Then he got hit by a car on his bike and broke a bunch of bones on one side of his body. He can't bike for a while and he's been hobbling around for months, and recently he found out that the guy driving the car wasn't covered on the car owner's insurance policy. This reeks of bullshit to me, but my friend is so burned out on having life shit on him that he's not even pursuing it. I'm not sure what to do.
Anyway, he was tabling for the QSA the other day (Queer Straight Alliance) in the wind and reported to me yesterday that it was absurdly difficult and he's not sure why he bothers. All the other activists in our little group are pretty radical anarchists. They do well; just last week the guy behind many protests in the area organized a protest at UNM and succeeded in getting a guy fired for sexually harassing an employee, article here. I'm VERY proud. This same guy calls the QSA the "Queer Capitalist Alliance" and refuses to participate. My friend feels the same but sometimes static inertia keeps him attending meetings and helping out because he doesn't know when or how to quit.
Personally, I feel that his presence there can be nothing but a good thing-- mostly because I respect him so much, but also because he really is connected with the world of social activism that Gets Things Done; that refuses to participate in a messed-up system; that knows routes other than participating co-operatively with a fucked up system to get things done. I told him "Maybe by being present there, you can help make people aware of other things that are going on to really make a difference," and he told me "It doesn't work that way."
The way I see it, organizations like the QSA are like activism for beginners; "gateway-activism," if you will. Sort of the way Food Inc. was a beginners guide to food awareness. Nothing in that movie was new information to anyone who's had per eyes open for the past ten years; everyone knows that factory farmed animals are mistreated, miserable and malformed creatures and that there is nothing GOOD or OK about most of the food in this country. But it was excellent material for opening the eyes of people who just don't question things like this; never have, and might still not have had they not been exposed to it. Like I said, it wasn't news to anyone who has a clue, but for him, it was excellent transition material. I feel that having a foot in the water is a good start to realizing how deep the problems go, and that starting with some college organization even if it is a little fucked up and doesn't know the whole story... it's still a start. It's still SOMETHING.
My friend doesn't feel the same. He's convinced the people will stay stuck in their ways and don't want to learn about other avenues or opportunities. He's a pessimist to the bitter end, and it's sad. I wonder if "conventional activism" opens the doors to radical thought, then radical action, or if conventional activism perpetuates itself.
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