I guess I should finally send one of these out huh. My summer’s been kind of a hectic, depressed mess (more later), but really this has taken so long because I’m terrified of having people see unpolished writing. Pushing myself to just put words on the page and not worry about perfection was sort of the point though, and I finally have time to sit for a couple of hours on this work trip, so here goes. Also, I’ll probably set this up so people can pay me if they want after I move.
Trash
I’ve been thinking a lot about trash as a way of better conceptualizing solidarity (with immense credit to Cathy Cohen’s “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens” and Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto).
Trash, as we think about it in our day to day lives, it’s what left after we extract all the value we can out of something. A broken couch left by the dumpster is someone’s admission that they can’t get any more use out of it. A banana peel is the un-edible remains of already eaten foods. And if trash is what’s left after value is extracted ...we're all garbage. Certainly everyone reading this anyway. The vast majority of humans will be discarded by someone with more social power than them once their value runs out.
This analogy feels like such a useful way to talk about locating power too. We can pay attention to the ways we ignore or hurt people once they’ve contributed to their lives, and we can notice what class of people are willing to discard us. As a trans woman of color, lots of people want me tossed, but as a middle class person who went to grad school, I have enough value to be extractable-from for a while yet. I haven’t found any other way of conceptualizing the ways that I’m both deeply marginalized and relatively safe and in a position to care for others. Another easy example is Caitlyn Jenner (sorry). As a trans woman willing to get behind Trump, she had a lot of value, and saw herself immediately discarded by those she supported after the election.
But there’s power in trash too I think. When you throw away a bottle, do you have any idea what happens to it? Do any of us know the supply chain of our discarded goods? Trash gets ignored once value is extracted, and there’s buildable power there. I hate that there’s a huge island of plastic in the Pacific destroying our planet, but it’s true that we ignored our trash and it developed the power to come together and destroy everything. Once we’re thrown away, are there ways we can think about assembling, coming together, and building power with all kinds of trash?
Other ways this analogy feels good to me include thinking about dumpstering and repair. Rich people throw away furniture with the slightest break, or food that’s past the expiry date but still fine. Power will throw people away because people can’t contribute value in ways that power understands, but there’s so much these people can contribute in ways power can’t begin to comprehend.
Also this helps me think about why there are cishet white men who feel like stronger allies to me than some women of color do. People who understands that they are trash and they discard others in equal measure are my favorite to work with, regardless of the sorts of ways they’re trashed. People who don’t think they’re trash and try to assimilate only to be discarded by someone else with more power (looking at you, rich indian libertarians), are immensely frustrating and will never lead us to liberation.
This might turn into an actual essay or zine! I’ll keep you posted on whether or not I think it’s actually worth the effort.
Identity as verbs
My sister started talking to me about “transgendered” as a term and I actually kind of like it? I know that the standard response to it is to correct people because trans is something we ARE and not something we DO, but this doesn’t leave room to think about how identity is done /to us/. I didn’t choose to be trans. I chose to eat estrogen and wear dresses, and then socially people understood me to be trans. Similarly, I didn’t choose to be Indian; I was “Indianed” by pre-existing systems of understanding borders, immigration, and ethnicity. I’m obviously not going to start being okay with assholes saying “transgendered” in public, but I wish we talked more about how gender identities are things that are mostly done to us regardless of our wishes.
Detroit Debates
I’m SO FUCKING MAD about the debates. This will probably become a longer part of a future newsletter, but I fucking loathe the ways Detroit is summoned as the platonic ideal of a failed city to gain political points or defend stripping community power in favor of “emergency management”. There are cool community responses happening being organized by my co-workers and coalitions of other pissed off Michiganders (more at a future date), but every time I see Detroit talked about by gentrifiers or rich folk not from here, I want to punch the city out of their mouths.
What’s going on in my life
I got a new job! I’m the Learning Director for We The People MI. Being in the non-profit industrial complex, and turning organizing I love into my source of income has been fucking WEIRD (again, more in a future newsletter). My job is to help activists reflect on past work they’ve done, and to develop our activist team’s understanding of both theory and praxis. As far as we know, no activist groups have institutionalized a role like this, so a ton of people are watching what I’m doing. It’s terror inducing, but also it’ll be fine!
I’m moving again in August, fuck moving. Also fuck switching doctors and trying to stay on meds that are controlled substances.
My girlfriend took me to see a Whooping Crane in Chelsea. It’s very endangered and very pretty, and I’m glad we could do that. His name is apparently “American Pharoah” (he’s tracked), and he loves all his Sandhill friends. I hope he’s doing okay.
I’m in the bay area till Saturday for a conference, and I’m not sure I like it here.