Evelyn Lynn,
Noemi Y. Molitor,
Cara Page, and
Lamont Sims,
"A Conversation about Southerners on New Ground:
Transformation, Legacy and Movement Building in the U.S. South"
(page 2 of 8)
As we started thinking through this S&F Online's theme of
"polyphony," we thought about how many voices literally hold SONG.
Playing off the metaphor of polyphonics, we theorized SONG as the
consistent bass line to the foundation of our work. SONG's bass beat
holds the center and keep us grounded in our direction while our many
voices carry the harmony and rhythm of the work. In this sense, SONG's
work and the resources it provides represent the fundamentals of our
organizing. Our different perspectives, our multiple longings for
shared political struggle, for collectivity and kinship, for spiritual
homes, for a reclaimed erotic, for reclaimed bodies, and for reclaimed
land form the harmony and rhythm of SONG. This harmony becomes audible
not through assimilation, but through an anti-oppression lens that
appreciates the beauty of difference and believes in the right of all to
live decent lives free of harassment, bullying, exploitation, and hate.
SONG's leadership core forms a foundation from which its different
members are connected and build action. We organize around local issues,
short and long term campaigns, and spiritual expressions. To Noemi,
transformation and longevity stood out as commitments that hold
and sustain SONG. For example, in organizing schools across the South
(which will be discussed further below) we learn through various tools
how to create organizational longevity and sustainability for our
communities; some of these tools are different models of power and
power analysis, Story Circles and inclusive event planning. In our work,
we practice to be attentive to how we live our lives and to the
everyday, specifically through how we treat and approach each other.
Cara commented that SONG's commitment to accountability is the
approach to its members that helps to carry the work forward by sharing
leadership and ingenuity, while remaining accountable to long term goals
of safety, resiliency, and liberation for our community. Indeed, SONG
speaks to our longing for alternative worlds, allows spaces for
dreaming, and enables inspiration.
As members of SONG we envision and nurture our longing, desire,
imagination, and creativity as ways that allow healing and alternative
responses to persecution, violence, and to the targeting and isolation
of our communities. Academic traditions invested in positivist praise
of rationalism often bring skepticism or even cynicism to transformative
anti-racist, feminist, and queer agendas and do not appreciate what
pushes our desire and longing towards liberatory action. In our
conversation we shared an appreciation for emotional, spiritual,
visionary, and political work that alternative academic approaches
invested in critical theories may overlook when their analysis falls
short of being accountable to communities and transformational
practice. Noemi recalled hearing Caitlin Breedlove talk about how she
approaches scholars that enter social justice organizations who bring
the most beautiful and brilliant critique of current political systems
but offer no alternative visions. "As much as we need these analyses,"
she says, "if you cannot suggest something productive to change things,
you might need to take a step back to pause and reflect."
As we contemplated lessons learned about how to bring multi-issue
social justice work into action, we thus discussed how simply pulling
things apart in fierce analyses and criticism is not enough, and might
even be destructive. To us, it was important that we understand these
lessons not in the sense of corporate values like measurement, success,
or productivity, or in the tone of threats and weaknesses. Rather, what
stood out to all of us about SONG's work was the desire to move beyond
what we are against and to unite around what we are for. For example,
with the SONG office's move to Georgia, we might ask ourselves locally,
"what do we want Atlanta to look like?," while building with
organizations that already exist in the city.[1]
SONG's organizing
schools' curriculum therefore builds onto dreaming, imagining, and
creating as positive means of transformation.
At the same time, SONG made central for each of us the question: how
do we take care of ourselves? When we think of transformation, we think
in a way that is beyond opposition; our very survival becomes part of
creation. SONG recognizes that our individual survival is ultimately
connected to our organizational sustainability. Continued transformation
relies on our longevity, and on our ability to nurture ourselves and
avoid burning out. SONG rejects the notion that selflessness is
necessary for struggles against oppression. Instead, SONG believes that
self-care is a very important factor for sustaining community and the
work that we do. Considering the core working agreements, SONG makes it
very clear that we are our greatest resource by valuing people over
profit and other forms of corporate value. We cannot afford to willingly
throw anyone away; neither can we value profit over people. Sustaining
ourselves and others who share this work is a major part of SONG's
mission and builds towards our collective healing and our cultural and
political survival. SONG uplifts the interdependence between our
individual and collective wellness. This includes acknowledging and
working with our trauma, our experiences of violence and oppression,
rather than leaving them unspoken and/or individualized—we believe
this to be vital so that we can live collective sustainable lives.
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