Letter from America:
Nothing to fear but not being normal
Robert Jensen
Department of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
office: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
Critical Times, Adelaide, South Australia, April/May 2001, p. 5.
Also posted on the
Common Dreams News Center website.
by Robert Jensen
In my first “Letter from America,” I talked about the sadness
and rage that is part of living in this country for progressives and radicals.
This time, I want to add fear to the mix of primal political emotions.
On the heels of a successful “anti-inaugural” celebration towelcome
the new president in January, political activists in Austin cametogether
as the Democracy Coalition to hold a teach-in on “resistingthe Bush
agenda.” Speakers ranged from disaffected left-leaning Democratsto
more radical folks, but all were able to rally around the goal of countering
the hard-right orientation of the new administration. While many of us see
little difference between Republicans and Democrats, the stolen electionand
the reactionary stance of the Bush crowd has sparked greater politicalinterest
in the country and provided an opening for political discussionand action
among people who had never worked together.
There was a lot of important talk that night about foreign policy, environmental
protection, reproductive rights, and civil rights. But for me, the most interesting
moment came when a man stood up and said, “I agree with a lot of what
I’ve heard and I want to get involved, but I’m scared.”
I had two very different reactions to his comment. On one level I understood
and empathized with him. In a culture this locked-down, it’s easy to
be scared when considering even the most benign political activity. Anyone
who has done political work has had to deal with that fear of taking thefirst
step.
At the same time, I wanted to say, “You are part of the most privileged
group of people in the world. What do you have to be afraid of when people
in other parts of the world are risking their lives in political action?”
Americans -- especially white middle-class Americans -- enjoy one of themost
expansive sets of political freedoms that has existed in the modernindustrialized
world. There are barriers to organizing but there is no seriousrepression
to stop Americans (at least those in the more privileged sectors)from becoming
politically active today.
As I struggled with those thoughts, I was assuming the man had meant he was
afraid of a response from the power structure -- getting fired from a job
or being harassed by law enforcement. But later, I wondered if the man hadn’t
been talking about a different kind of fear that grips many “normal”
Americans, especially in the middle class: The fear of being seen as “not
normal.”
Although the man left before I could talk with him, it’s crucial for
those of us on the left to wrestle with this issue if we are to organizesuccessfully.
One of the most obvious rules of political work is that youmeet people on
their ground and try to persuade them to move, not condemnor ridicule them
for where they are.
The fear of repression at the hands of authority is easy enough to comprehend.
At various times in U.S. history, dissidents have suffered everything from
outright assassination (such as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, killed
by Chicago police with help from the FBI in 1969) to imprisonment (such as
Eugene Debs, jailed for a 1918 speech opposing World War I) to various levels
of harassment (experienced by many activists during the FBI’s post-World
War II counterintelligence program).
But for people in the privileged sectors of U.S. society, such recrimination
is not the big problem today. Even though the police response to protests
in Seattle and at the past summer’s political conventions should remind
us of how quickly state violence against internal dissent can reappear, I
don’t have a sense most Americans are stopped from being politically
active because of such threats.
Instead, I think it is that fear of being perceived by others as abnormal
that keeps many people who may have progressive beliefs from engaging inpolitics.
For all the talk about American individualism, we generally area conformist
lot, especially politically. The propaganda machine of the businesscommunity
(advertising, public relations, news, entertainment) has so successfullydemonized
or co-opted left politics and political resistance that the vastmajority
of people see a stark choice: Either remain politically inert andsafe, or
take a chance on resistance and accept marginalization and/or ostracism.People
often don’t see a way to hold onto the psychological safetyand comfort
of American life (having “normal” friends in a “normal”
neighborhood with “normal” social activities) if they engagein
left-of-center politics.
I certainly have felt this in my own life. Although in many ways I’m
a fairly conventional person (I’m a professor, with no tattoos or piercings),
my political activity on campus and in the community has alienated me from
most of my colleagues. It’s not that they are nasty to me -- the vast
majority are civil in routine dealings, so long as I don’t press political
topics -- but I am not part of the department in any meaningful social way.
With a couple of exceptions, even those who say they support and respectthe
political work I do almost never engage me in conversation about it.
That’s the price I have paid for being openly left and engaging inwhat
many see as unnecessarily confrontational politics. For me, it’snot
a terribly heavy price because I long ago stopped wanting to be includedin
these circles, not because I think I am better than my colleagues butbecause
there are so few shared interests and values. I think everyone understands
that inviting me to a dinner party with “normal” faculty members
and their partners would likely create more tension than it’s worth.
There is an answer to this fear, which I hinted at in the last letter. Engaging
in left/radical politics may cast you out of “normal” socialgroups,
but it also creates new opportunities for social connections in newgroups.
Politics is not just about issues but also about the creation ofcommunities
of resistance in which one can find a home. That home may notlook like the
standard middle-class neighborhood with all its protections.Even if one continues
to live physically in such a “normal” placewhile engaging in
political activity, the social and emotional landscapelikely will change.
But there are many kinds of homes in the world that canbe welcoming and comforting.
Creating these political homes is not easy, especially when we acknowledge
how differences such as race affect how welcome some people may feel. But
part of our challenge is not simply to have the best analysis and political
arguments, but to be able to create such a sense of belonging so that people
can sustain themselves in the face of a world that is hostile to the goals
of justice and peace.
Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the University
of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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