Is Radicalism Exhausting?
We who believe in freedom cannot rest.
The summer of 2018 I was a camp counselor. This summer literacy camp was a national program with a week-long required training retreat. I was incredibly excited to meet other college-aged people from all over the United States, each and every one dedicated to serving minority children in our communities. This song featured above, “Ella’s Song” by Sweet Honey in the Rock, was the musical theme of the week-long summit: it played during every break and at meal times. Folks even broke out in song whenever the mood was low.
The change in mood was for good reason: rest was scarce all week long. We woke up at 7am to get to breakfast and worked well after dinner and into the night. There were very few breaks built into the day, every activity and seminar was mandatory. At first our team was invigorated by our commitment to the work, constantly being reminded that our belief in freedom was hinged on our refusal to rest. Later the shame kept us going. Anytime the energy started to wane in the crowd we were reminded that we could not — should not — desire rest. It was my site coordinator, our direct supervisor, who first questioned the sustainability of restless freedom fighting.
Let’s refer to her as D. A licensed counselor, D was a huge support during this program and made a point to have us meet regularly, despite scheduled events, to check in with ourselves and each other. We should huddle up to share how we were feeling, our fears, apprehensions, joys and most of all our frustration. After days of expressing our exhaustion D pointed out that the format of the program was draining by design. People need rest: it was unreasonable to expect anyone to sustain the level of energy required to listen, learn, engage, sing, shout, dance, walk, and talk for 12 hours a day without breaks. She gave us all the validation we needed to take intentional time away from the program to rest. This choice made us a team and in a way we weren’t before, and later our summer reading program became a site of holistic care and nurturing for the community we served because of D’s intentionality around rest and self-care for the staff.
4 years later, after working as a campus and community organizer, a political educator, and finally taking a break from school after 17-odd years straight I can say that attitude has not waned. I constantly enter spaces and have to consciously pull back because of a lack of boundaries in the culture. When an organization, a non-profit, a grassroots movement, a school, a community group, or any collection of concerned folks seeking justice refuses to build rest into their culture, they are actively perpetuating burn-out. What my former supervisor, D, understood was that it is impossible to pour from an empty cup; we can only care for and pour into others because we ourselves are being nourished, replenished, and fulfilled.
To be clear, I am in no way trying to vilify the organizations I have taken part in, every step in my journey has taught me something valuable and I wouldn’t change it. Rather, I am questioning the way that even in anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-oppressive spaces we continue to work ourselves to the bone towards our goals. It doesn’t feel good, or ultimately productive, to create so much frustration and fatigue in your organization’s base. It fosters a culture of toxicity, resentment, anger, conflict, unrequitedness, and dissatisfaction that’s only resolution is the endless cycle-out of disgruntled ex-members, ex-teachers, ex-organizers, ex-community members, etcetera.
I find myself, in this moment, unfulfilled by my lack of involvement in formal liberation work AND apprehensive of diving back in, expecting to find myself right back in a toxic culture that rarely filled my cup.
Author and activist, adrienne marie brown, offers an alternative.
In Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019) brown asserts that organizing and liberation work must be rooted in pleasure, joy, and toe-curling ecstasy. In a world where we are often asked to put our needs, never mind our desires, to the wayside for the movement the author argues that “there is no way to repress pleasure and expect liberation, satisfaction, or joy.” In this work she challenges us to be honest with ourselves and each other, especially when it comes to the need for pleasure in our radical framework and relationships. The author continues:
“I have seen, over and over, the connection between tuning in to what brings aliveness into our systems and being able to access personal, relational and communal power. Conversely, I have seen how denying our full, complex selves—denying our aliveness and our needs as living, sensual beings—increases the chance that we will be at odds with ourselves, our loved ones, our coworkers, and our neighbors on this planet.”
It is only through living in an honest way that we can truly achieve our radical dreams. Being honest, for adrienne marie brown, means that “pleasure is the point” and it should be the focus of liberation work for each and every one of us. Through the lens of radical imagination (and in some ways afro-futurism) brown pushes the reader to imagine the best possible future they can, one in which every need is met and our desires are within our grasp, ready to be plucked like ripe fruit when we decide to indulge in their saccharine-sweetness.
What this means to me and for me is that I have to take the words of my old supervisor, the scholars I read, and my inner voice, and put them into radical practice.
Audre Lorde says that “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” When we understand rest as a revolutionary act we can replace burn-out with a more sustainable culture of care. According to adrienne marie brown this means emphasizing boundaries: “Your no makes the way for your yes. Boundaries create the container within which your yes is authentic. Being able to say no makes yes a choice.”
In places where we cannot refuse or there is shame in declining participation our engagement can never be full because it lacks the potential to be authentic. When we enforce boundaries as students, teachers, liberation agents, laborers, family members, friends, lovers, etcetera then we gain the potential to fulfill all of those rolls from a joyful rather than an obligatory place.
For my own reluctance to rejoin movement spaces (and deep desire to do so on my own terms) this means joining in the role and capacity that fits best to fulfill my desires and make me feel good. Often we are called to movement as protesters, organizers, teachers, and more. The reality is that the imagined world we strive for needs everyone, and it has great need for artists, writers, graphic designers, chefs, child-care providers, and so much more. Just because you entered through protest or political education, and just because that role is needed, does not mean it is what brings you joy. And what is radically healing about joylessness?
Lorde also famously argues that “the Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house”, claiming that we must radically reimagine our methods in order to seek real freedom from oppression. We cannot truly engage or pursue justice in a capitalist system while failing to care for ourselves and prescribing to oppressive ideals of productivity and commitment that separate us from our humanity. Together these two sentiments from Lorde lead us towards care as a political commitment and away from modes of engaging with labor, liberation, and each other that fail to honor the human need for rest, replenishment, reciprocity, and radical love.
The real world application of a politic of love, care, and rest is choosing to use ALL your sick days, even when you don’t have a temperature. It is having a relationship with food that allows for all the leafy greens and lean proteins along with the pound cakes, french fries, and down-home cooking that makes your tongue sing. A real world love politic exists in mid-day naps, bathtub orgasms, guilty pleasure movie marathons, platonic foot rubs and platonic fucks; any and everything that brings you pleasure.
To engage in this world radically is to constantly be making intentional decisions based on a political commitment to freedom, but it does not mean that we deprive ourselves of good things because we should not indulge while others suffer, as so many believe. We should do our best to be informed, to make moral decisions, to help others, to reduce harm, to strive towards the world we believe should exist — but never without pleasure glistening on the horizon.
