Originally read the title as "The Church of Social Media"; was pleasantly surprised in a number of ways. Neatly articulates a lot of feelings I've had for some time. Particularly happy to see this republished on Autostraddle.
Every comrade ought to read up on the French Revolution and the Cultural Revolution. When you institutionalize social mores, you end up with group policing. The left isn't any more resistant to this than the right. It arises from actions as simple as identifying yourself as a comrade. If the environment that results from your actions doesn't enable your objectives, then what is the true purpose of those actions?It’s not that my comrades are the bosses of me, but that dogmatic activism creates an environment that encourages people to tell other people what to do.
Every comrade ought to read up on the French Revolution and the Cultural Revolution.
This point was a big one for me: Unfortunately, the MLKs of our generations will never exist withour their counterpart Malcolm Xs. We have to be vigilant to make sure our Malcolm Xs don't become our Robespierres.At this year’s Allied Media Conference, BLM co-founder Alicia Garza gave an explosive speech to a theatre full of brilliant and passionate organizers. She urged us to set aside our distrust and critique of newer activists and accept that they will hurt and disappoint us. Don’t shut them out because their politics are outdated or they don’t wield the same language. If we are interested in building the mass movements needed to destroy mass oppression, our movements must include people not like us, people with whom we will never fully agree, and people with whom we have conflict.
IMO Malcolm got a bad rap. He didn't remain the ideologue that he began as, and I think that if he weren't killed so young, he would have been remembered quite differently. Your point is still taken, but I think it's sad that Malcolm is so defined by how he was different from MLK. He eventually grew to be much more inclusive himself.
I agree he gets a bad rap. I guess i was looking for an easy metaphor.