0:00

feel like you and I have been

0:02

in a book conversation with each other

0:04

for years. And so it's nice

0:06

to finally be in like a

0:08

real life conversation. Definitely.

0:26

I'm Autumn Brown. front

0:28

woman of the soul -pop band Autumn,

0:31

a queer science fiction writer, a

0:33

theologian, a mother of dragons, and

0:36

a healing justice facilitator for social

0:39

movements living on Dakota and Anishinaabe

0:41

land currently known as Minneapolis. And

0:44

I am Adrienne Marie Brown,

0:47

a luscious black queer witch

0:49

writer auntie, an apocalyptic cosmic

0:51

optimist, and a gardener of

0:54

healing ideas. I live

0:56

in the land of the Shikori, Skorore,

0:58

Tuskora, Ino, and Lumby

1:00

peoples, where I am currently

1:02

losing the battle of breathing

1:04

in springtime. And

1:07

this is how to survive

1:09

the end of the world.

1:11

Our podcast about learning from

1:13

apocalypse with grace, rigor, and

1:16

curiosity. As a reminder,

1:18

we have no ads. We are

1:21

fully listener supported. So

1:23

you can join our Patreon for exclusive

1:25

content behind the scenes, ask us anything,

1:28

and other delightful only fans

1:30

like material for intellectuals.

1:34

Only fans like that. I

1:37

still want people to know that at some point I'm gonna be

1:39

posting my nudes in the Patreon, but get

1:41

there. Yeah, totally. We'll get there. We'll get

1:43

there when we have to be. My foot

1:45

nudes. Your foot nudes. I

1:48

am so excited.

1:50

Wee! We are so excited. Wee!

1:53

So honored. Oh, I was just saying

1:55

we is like how excited I am,

1:57

but yeah, also we. Yeah. We, yeah,

1:59

no, we, we, and we, we

2:01

are so excited. We're so honored.

2:03

This is the best kind of

2:05

privilege I think that there is

2:07

to have on our show the

2:10

great Sarah Shulman, author of the

2:12

brand new book that's like literally

2:14

dropping this month, The Fantasy and

2:16

Necessity of Solidarity. I'm

2:18

sure many of our guests already know

2:20

who this luminary is, but I'm going

2:23

to read her bio. Sarah

2:26

Shulman is a novelist. playwright,

2:28

screenwriter, non -fiction writer, and

2:30

AIDS historian. Her

2:32

books include The Gentrification of the Mind,

2:34

Conflict is Not Abuse, which is my

2:36

favorite all -time book title ever, and

2:40

Let the Records Show a Political

2:42

History of Act Up, New York

2:44

1987 to 1993, and the novels

2:47

The Cosmopolitans and Maggie Terry. Shulman's

2:50

honors include a Fulbright and Judaic

2:52

Studies, a Guggenheim in

2:54

Playwriting, and honors

2:56

from Lambda Literary, the publishing

2:58

triangle, NLGJA,

3:01

and the American Library Association, and

3:04

many others. Her writing has appeared

3:06

in The New Yorker, New York

3:08

Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, The

3:11

Nation, The New Republic, The

3:13

New York Times, and The Guardian. Shulman

3:16

holds an endowed chair in creative

3:18

writing at Northwestern University and is

3:20

on the advisory board of Jewish

3:23

Voices for Peace. Sarah

3:25

Shulman, welcome to the show. It's

3:27

so great to finally meet you

3:29

guys. I was just saying

3:31

to Adrienne that our names are always

3:33

together in the same sentence everywhere, but

3:35

this is the first time that we're

3:37

meeting. Yeah, it's so cool. Yeah, it's

3:39

really amazing. And I think, you know,

3:41

I was telling Sarah as we were

3:44

prepping, I'm like, it's so deep how

3:46

aligned our arcs are, you know, that

3:48

what you and I are in conversation

3:50

about in our lifetimes, Autumn, is just

3:52

woven so deeply into Sarah, what you're

3:54

also passionate and interested in. So we're

3:56

going to get into all of that.

3:59

But before we do, we just like to

4:01

just start by grounding ourselves in how we

4:03

are doing right now in this moment on

4:05

the clock of the world. So

4:08

Sarah, how are you today? Well,

4:11

I'm here in Chicago. I teach

4:14

at Northwestern and yesterday was a

4:16

remarkable day of resistance that was

4:18

organized by the faculty. Yay. Actually,

4:21

because we're facing these fake anti

4:24

-Semitism charges from the government. Yes.

4:26

And also all the anti -DEI

4:28

stuff. And our faculty has been

4:30

so bold in speaking up to

4:32

the administration. It's really been a

4:35

great experience. Amazing. That's inspiring. That's

4:37

great. Welcome. Autumn,

4:40

how are you doing my love? Wow.

4:43

Well, I'm having like a mini

4:45

Mercury retrograde day. Sarah

4:48

and Adrian can see this. Our listeners

4:51

can't see it, but I'm recording into

4:53

my phone, which is sitting on a

4:55

very tall stack of books right in

4:57

front of me. So I'm having like

4:59

a different kind of recording experience than

5:02

usual because my microphone's not working. And

5:05

I have had a kind of a

5:07

harried running late morning because I have

5:09

to unexpectedly buy a new car. And

5:12

so it's just been a lot. It's

5:15

been a lot, but I'm, but surprisingly,

5:18

I'm in a great mood right now

5:20

and I'm just so excited to be

5:22

in this conversation. I was

5:24

so excited to get my advanced readers

5:26

copy of Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity

5:28

and to start reading it and I

5:31

just feel like. You're speaking some medicine

5:33

into the movement right now that is

5:35

deeply needed. And I'm so excited that

5:37

we get to be in conversation with you about it today.

5:40

Yeah, there's something just kind of mystical

5:42

in the timing that we decided to

5:45

do a solidarity season and that you

5:47

were releasing this book on solidarity into

5:49

the world at the same time. It's

5:51

just amazing to me. So I'm feeling

5:53

the miracle of all of that. Adrienne,

5:56

how are you, sister? I

5:59

am also, like, there's a part of me

6:01

that's just a wagging tail, because I'm just

6:03

like, I can't believe we're getting to be

6:06

here together. Wow, that was really good. That

6:09

really does sound like a tail wagging. I don't

6:11

know what doing. Thank you. Wow. It's just my

6:13

chair. Okay. So I was like,

6:15

do you have a tail now? Anyway,

6:18

so people change so fast. I

6:21

have been

6:27

It's the worst of times. I

6:30

keep having these days where I'm

6:32

like, oh, everything that happened at

6:34

the level of my life, my

6:36

life, my relationships, my friendships, my

6:38

family, my contacts is all so

6:41

beautiful and clear channeled and proactive.

6:43

And I just feel so mature in

6:45

my life right now. But then at

6:48

the level of my body, I feel

6:50

like I'm really be set

6:52

by the challenges of being in the world

6:54

right now. And I, the image that I

6:56

want to give people is like me standing

6:58

at the window, um, maybe like,

7:01

like the two kids and the cat in the

7:03

hat looking out at the snow, just like forlorn

7:05

and like, I can't go outside, but instead of

7:07

snow, it's just pollen. And I'm just like standing

7:10

at the thing like, I want

7:12

to go to that party, but I can't

7:14

go outside because of the pollen. Like it's

7:16

so, you know, and I'm trying not to

7:18

feel sad for myself, but literally, I mean,

7:20

I probably will have multiple sneezing fits during

7:22

this recording, but right now I'm doing the

7:25

full, like, netty pot affrin. Like,

7:27

you're just trying so hard and just being

7:29

like, I don't understand where in my body

7:31

all of this could be coming from because

7:33

my head doesn't feel big enough for what's

7:36

coming out of it. And I just want

7:38

people to know that, you know, that that's,

7:40

that's what I'm dealing with. But I'm also

7:42

grateful that it's spring and that I get

7:44

to experience another spring on this beautiful planet.

7:47

So both and and both. Mm

7:49

-hmm. There you go. Okay,

7:51

good. So land here. Landing and

7:53

gratitude. I appreciate it. Landing and gratitude, generally.

7:56

Oh, and also I got in the pool yesterday

7:58

for the first time in a while, and that

8:00

feels good. Good job. I get it,

8:02

get back in, get on the horse, get in the pool, look

8:05

at that horse in the pool. So look

8:07

at that horse, look at that horse, look at that horse. Sarah,

8:10

I think we have like, so

8:12

the other thing I wanted to say is

8:14

Autumn, I know you didn't mean to be

8:16

rubbing it in, but I did not get

8:18

my advanced reader copy through hijinks and stuff.

8:20

It's not any, I can't tell. Mercury retrograde.

8:22

I think it's truly mercury retrograde because I

8:24

have like so many people who've been trying

8:26

to get it to me and I thought

8:28

it was like a mail issue and I

8:31

went to the mailbox. I did

8:33

learn that my mailbox app was broken or

8:35

something. So anyway, but I don't have the

8:37

advanced reader copy and I never liked to

8:39

show up for something where I'm like, I

8:41

didn't have the, I didn't do my homework,

8:43

but I also feel like because our conversations

8:45

are so overdue that we're fine. So Autumn

8:47

has done the like, she has the questions

8:49

that are like, we got to deeply read.

8:51

And then I have the questions that are

8:53

like the larger meta questions. And I think

8:55

we're gonna, I think it's gonna be balanced,

8:57

but I want you to know that because

8:59

normally I would never do a conversation with

9:01

someone without being like, I read the book

9:03

and I've got it all annotated. But

9:06

that's coming too. I'll get to, it's on

9:08

my horizon. But I do want

9:10

to know when did it become clear to you?

9:13

based on everything you've been writing and working on,

9:15

that solidarity was where you wanted to go next.

9:19

You know, I've been in the movement

9:21

of Palestine solidarity for about 16 years.

9:24

And when the Israeli

9:27

assault on Gaza began

9:29

and the American campuses

9:32

started to explode, I

9:34

realized that All

9:36

of this activity that had

9:38

seemed very marginal and sometimes

9:40

it had seemed futile and

9:43

that was like the politics

9:45

of repetition for so many

9:47

years actually was building an

9:49

infrastructure that the current movement

9:51

could sit on. So

9:54

organizations like Students for Justice in

9:56

Palestine or Jewish Voice for Peace,

9:58

they're 30 years old. Yeah. You

10:01

know, books were being written, ideas

10:03

were being developed, movements were being

10:05

built, and when the students needed

10:07

them, they were there. So

10:09

I started to sort of think about

10:12

how solidarity is not the quick fix

10:14

that everyone wishes it was, but

10:17

often it's about building infrastructure for

10:19

the future. I

10:21

love that. Yeah,

10:26

at some point. You talk

10:28

about this in the book, Sarah,

10:31

your journey into the solidarity for

10:33

Palestine struggle and the process that

10:35

you had to go through of

10:37

kind of your own unveiling. And

10:41

I think it'd be great for

10:43

us to hear that story at

10:45

some point in the course of

10:47

this conversation. But before we

10:49

get there, I think we

10:51

want to stay a little bit zoomed

10:54

out still. Right.

10:57

The title of this book is The Fantasy

10:59

and Necessity of Solidarity. I have to say,

11:01

you stay winning with book titles. I know

11:03

you are a title goddess. book titles are

11:06

your title queen. Do do your

11:08

own titles or to someone else? I do. I want

11:10

it to be that if someone's not going to read

11:12

the book and they just read the title, they'll have

11:14

something to think about. Yes. I

11:16

mean, wow, what a juicy one. What a

11:18

juicy one. Yeah, because

11:20

it's all right there. It's

11:23

all right there. you

11:25

do kind of you make this

11:27

argument in the book that we

11:29

are kind of misunderstanding solidarity that

11:31

on on some level in our

11:33

the way that we talk about

11:35

it in movements that there's kind

11:38

of a misunderstanding of what solidarity

11:40

is and then you give us

11:42

a ton of case studies and

11:44

lived experiences of what it actually

11:46

looks like. So

11:49

Again, with that more zoomed out view, can

11:51

you kind of break it down for our

11:54

listeners? Because no one who's listening going to

11:56

be listening to the show will have had

11:58

a chance to read the book yet. What

12:00

would you say is the case that you're

12:02

making for what's missing from how people define

12:04

solidarity and what you're inviting people into with

12:06

this book? So the purpose

12:08

of the book is to make solidarity more

12:10

doable. And the first

12:13

step towards that is to strip

12:15

away the concept of heroism. perfectionism

12:18

and rescue because that I think

12:21

keeps a lot of people from

12:23

from entering into that relationship because

12:25

they're afraid they're gonna do something

12:27

wrong or they come into it

12:30

and they think I'm gonna be

12:32

able to fix this and they're

12:34

not gonna be able to so

12:37

if we understand that solidarity is

12:39

a relationship of error of small

12:41

steps of building for

12:43

the future, it's a lot easier

12:46

to participate. You

12:48

know, in the olden days, solidarity was seen

12:50

as a horizontal thing. Like you have the

12:52

shop, right? And there's all the

12:54

workers and then there's the single boss and

12:57

he's a bad boss. But the workers organize

12:59

and they can get win rights. But

13:02

now the boss is a globalized

13:04

conglomerate. So sometimes

13:06

horizontal solidarity is not enough.

13:09

And there's two other groups of people

13:11

that need to be included. One is

13:13

bystanders. That's people who are not directly

13:15

implicated, but they see the injustice. And

13:19

the other are conflicted perpetrators, like

13:21

myself, like anti -Zionist Jews who

13:23

have to get involved in supporting

13:25

Palestine because of what's being done

13:27

in our name. And

13:30

so these different groups have to

13:33

work together, but because the relationship

13:35

is inherently unequal. It's fraught and

13:37

you have to accept that from

13:40

the beginning. Well,

13:42

the one of the things that

13:44

I was noticing in my in

13:46

my initial reading was That when

13:48

you say Sarah that solidarity Between

13:50

people were inequality as a part

13:53

of the relationship. I think that

13:55

amongst contemporary leftists that's what people

13:57

primarily think of when they think

13:59

of solidarity. They sort of automatically

14:01

go to the like, solidarity is

14:03

something I do for people who

14:06

I'm not equal to, or they're

14:08

not equal, who have less power

14:10

than me. And I think a

14:12

lot of people forget that there's

14:14

this like longer history of the

14:16

definition of solidarity. So you tell

14:19

the story early in the book

14:21

of like having that conversation with

14:23

your friend who was like, that's not

14:26

what solidarity means. Or solidarity isn't about

14:28

inequality, it's about equality.

14:30

And that you were like, oh,

14:32

right, there's literally two different ways

14:34

of understanding from two different political

14:36

ways of framing even what this

14:39

activity is. Yeah. We've also had

14:41

the experience of asking for solidarity.

14:43

You know, I grew up in

14:45

a very homophobic and sexist family

14:47

and I begged my relatives to

14:49

help me and they wouldn't So

14:52

I've been through that. I'm

14:55

a queer woman in the culture

14:57

industries where I'm completely dependent on

15:00

solidarity to get anywhere because there's

15:02

so few people like me in

15:04

power positions. So I have some

15:07

insight from the other side as

15:09

well. So I'm looking

15:11

at it in a dynamic way. Okay,

15:14

so that helped me on them because what

15:16

we want to understand is what are the

15:18

conditions that can make

15:20

these different forms of solidarity actually successful

15:23

or effective. So

15:25

I go in the book I

15:28

go through all these different case

15:30

studies of very eclectic interesting individuals

15:32

who did all kinds of creative

15:35

weird things some of whom have

15:37

not been documented before and movements

15:40

that maybe we don't know about

15:42

but that achieve some level of

15:44

forward. Forward moving even

15:46

if they didn't solve the problem

15:49

and it's through all of these

15:51

different perspectives that I'm trying to

15:53

give us a different view so

15:55

for example In 1980 I was

15:57

a reporter for women news which

15:59

was a feminist newspaper some 22

16:01

in this story And

16:04

we receive a press release from a woman

16:06

named Willnette Brown. Do you know who

16:08

that is? No. Okay, so she

16:10

was a lesbian in the Black Panther Party. Hell

16:12

yeah. And she ended up joining Wages for Housework,

16:14

which was a kind of a cult, but it

16:17

was a very interesting one. And

16:20

she created a fake group

16:22

basically called New York Prostitutes

16:24

Collective. And she called for

16:27

a press conference. So

16:29

we went to the press conference and she

16:31

Black Butch Woman. In 1980, you never saw

16:34

a person like that on television. But

16:37

because of the prurient interest that the

16:39

media had in New York Prostitutes Collective,

16:41

all three networks came with their cameras,

16:44

and Will Met got in front of

16:47

the camera and announced that prostitutes were

16:49

raising their prices for the Democratic Convention.

16:53

And I realized that this

16:56

was brilliant action of solidarity

16:58

because she manipulated these men

17:00

behind these cameras and got

17:03

the story on all three

17:05

six o 'clock news programs.

17:08

And I don't know how many

17:10

people able to say, well, our

17:12

prices are going up. And I

17:14

just thought this is brilliant. It's

17:16

a combination of performance art, right,

17:20

knowing your enemy. and creativity.

17:23

So I start with that example. I

17:25

love that. And

17:29

for you, that's that in

17:32

terms of the different the

17:34

different types of solidarity we're

17:36

talking about. That

17:39

would be a distinction. You're distinguishing

17:41

that as like the version of

17:43

solidarity where would you say that

17:45

that solidarity among equals, would you

17:48

say that that's like Well,

17:50

she wasn't a sex worker. I mean,

17:52

prostitute was the word that was used

17:55

in 1980. Right, right. But she had

17:57

this idea and it certainly didn't hurt

17:59

anybody to hear that on television. Another

18:02

example I give is after Franco

18:04

died, the fascist dictator in Spain,

18:06

there was a period of transition

18:08

during which abortion remained illegal as

18:10

it had been under fascism and

18:12

it was also illegal for Spanish

18:14

women to leave the country to

18:17

get an abortion. And there

18:19

was a group of French women in

18:21

the south of France who were helping

18:23

Spanish women cross the border into the

18:25

south of France and getting abortions from

18:27

French gynecologists at the time. So

18:30

then they would send the women back

18:32

to Spain and give them a task,

18:35

you know, like talk to this person

18:37

or do this errand and they wouldn't

18:39

because these women have been raised under

18:41

fascism and they had fascist ideology and

18:43

they would get their own abortion and

18:46

then they wouldn't help anybody. So

18:48

the French women had to say, does that

18:51

mean that our project is a failure? Does

18:53

that mean that our solidarity has failed? And

18:56

the conclusion they came to was no,

18:58

because these women got abortions that they

19:00

needed. The fact that

19:02

they didn't become like us

19:05

is an unreasonable expectation. So

19:08

I thought that was a very interesting example.

19:12

I was going to say it's also

19:14

really beautiful to think about one of

19:17

the things I'm always troubling for myself

19:19

is like how to hold the line

19:21

of like organizing or inspiring or supporting.

19:24

Um, or showing up for people and

19:26

like holding that separate from manipulation, right?

19:28

And that's so often like we, we,

19:30

without meaning to, we create manipulative experiences

19:32

where it's like, this is now transactional.

19:34

Like we'll help you if you help

19:36

us, we'll show up for you. If

19:38

you show up for us an equal

19:40

measure in some way that we can

19:42

see. And I've definitely seen that over

19:44

the course of my organizing life between

19:46

black and Jewish communities, black and Latino

19:48

communities, black and Arab communities, different, you

19:50

know, spaces where I've been tuning in

19:53

and paying attention to it and being

19:55

like, Oh. we can't do solidarity in

19:57

a transactional way. We have to do

19:59

solidarity because it's what we believe is

20:01

most liberating for ourselves and that it's

20:03

like we're aligning ourselves with the vision

20:05

of the future that we most want.

20:07

And that feels like, yeah, such a

20:09

perfect example of just being like, yeah,

20:11

this is not about manipulating y 'all

20:13

into becoming something other than you are.

20:15

It's about aligning with our own vision

20:17

and values and helping that to show

20:19

up in the world. Beautiful.

20:25

Right, and there's a way

20:27

that what all of this

20:30

speaks to is motive, you

20:32

know, motive for engaging in

20:34

solidarity work. And

20:37

I really appreciate, Sarah,

20:39

in the book, how

20:41

much you bring into

20:43

the light, the fact

20:45

that there is a

20:48

sort of personal journey

20:50

of transformation. like

20:52

an individual like deeply

20:54

internal journey of transformation

20:56

that's happening as a

20:59

part of this activity

21:01

and that well and

21:03

I'm thinking about these

21:05

sort of like two

21:07

at least at least

21:10

two points along the

21:12

journey there's the point

21:14

around being able to

21:16

critique and challenge your own self

21:18

-conception in order to enter into

21:20

solidarity work. And then there's this

21:22

later point that this story is

21:24

kind of illuminating that's around like

21:26

when we have to really look

21:29

at what our motive was for

21:31

engaging in the action and then

21:33

rethink whether or not that motive

21:35

made sense or whether we can

21:37

still consider it to be successful

21:39

even if like the thing that

21:41

we were, even if

21:43

maybe we had like a not

21:46

an ulterior motive, but an additional

21:48

motive, right? To the activity. the

21:50

things I'm trying to dismantle is

21:52

the demand of pure motive. Because

21:55

I don't think it really matters. I

21:57

think what matters is what the outcome

21:59

is. And the example I give is

22:01

Jean Genet, the French gay writer, who

22:04

was a great friend of Palestine and

22:06

was very much appreciated by Palestine and

22:08

did a lot of work for the

22:10

Black Panthers. But basically, he was sexually

22:12

attracted to Arab men. I mean, that

22:15

was his motive. But

22:17

in the end, his actions

22:19

were so beneficial that it

22:21

didn't really matter. know,

22:23

you don't have to have a clean heart and

22:26

a clean mind. What really matters is what are

22:28

you doing? I

22:31

love that. I

22:33

think it's also interesting because like

22:35

so much attraction and community and

22:37

belonging is so often what's drawing

22:39

people into into

22:41

acts of solidarity or organizing or taking risk

22:43

on behalf of other people. I remember Shaye

22:45

Howell telling a story about that where she

22:47

was like, yeah, I had a crush on

22:49

someone in the Communist Party and so I

22:51

went and hung out at their meetings or

22:53

whatever and then ended up getting politicized and

22:55

off we go, but - Well, they used

22:57

to have free beer at the Communist Party.

23:00

What a good idea. Get them in the door,

23:02

get people the door. Right, totally. And

23:05

lubricate them. So

23:08

- so I want to come back to

23:10

this self -conception piece. One

23:13

of the things you talk about

23:15

is this idea that criticizing your

23:18

own self -concept is key to

23:20

learning who you are relationally. And

23:23

I mean, the question I was

23:26

going to ask was like, how

23:28

do you learn how to criticize

23:30

your own self -conception? But I

23:32

think I wonder if if you

23:35

could explain some more to us

23:37

about this by way of telling

23:39

your own story. About your journey

23:42

into Palestine solidarity. Okay, so I'm

23:44

66 years old So I was

23:46

born in 1958 Which is 13

23:48

years after the end of the

23:51

Holocaust and I come from a

23:53

Holocaust family Okay, so I was

23:55

raised with ideas that were wrong,

23:58

you know When you have when

24:00

the Israeli state was developed and

24:02

was established in 1948 and there

24:04

was There was

24:06

violence with Arab neighbors. I

24:09

mean, we did not know the extent to

24:11

what was going on during the Nakba. But

24:13

my parents viewed that as an extension of

24:15

the Holocaust, which had ended three years before.

24:18

So their view was that Jews were

24:21

oppressed by the Europeans and now they're

24:23

being oppressed by the Arabs. Now I

24:25

know that wasn't true. But

24:27

that's what I was raised with.

24:31

And I think my parents didn't

24:33

really understand either what had actually

24:35

happened to Palestinians and what the

24:37

history was. I mean,

24:39

there were people who knew. I

24:41

mean, there's records of the Grand

24:43

Mufti and people resisting Jewish settlements,

24:45

but it's not like it was

24:47

my mother growing up in Brooklyn.

24:49

She didn't have exposure to that.

24:51

So because it was hard to

24:53

understand that we had gone from

24:55

one of the most oppressed people

24:57

in the world. to a

25:00

nation state that was dominating in other

25:02

peoples within three years. It's

25:06

a dramatic transformation of self

25:08

-concept to have a truthful

25:10

take on that. So

25:13

it took me very late to,

25:16

in fact, I'm embarrassed and ashamed

25:18

of how long it took me

25:20

to finally make the decision to

25:22

face the reality of Israel and

25:24

Palestine. It wasn't until 2009 that

25:28

I made that decision, but it was one of

25:30

the most enriching decisions of my life. But what

25:32

happened was I had written a book about homophobia

25:34

in the family, and I was

25:36

invited to Tel Aviv University to give a

25:39

talk on homophobia in the family, and I

25:41

come from a very homophobic Jewish family, and

25:43

so I wanted to go give this talk.

25:46

But my Turkish Jewish colleague said,

25:48

you can't go, there's a boycott.

25:51

And I said, what boycott? Now,

25:53

it turns out that the Palestinian

25:55

call for a boycott of Israel

25:58

was in 2005, so this is

26:00

2009, and it hadn't reached me

26:02

this information. So my

26:04

colleague said, well, why don't you find out about it?

26:06

So I said, okay, but I totally expected that I

26:08

was going to go. I wrote

26:11

to Judith Butler, who got back to

26:13

me in three hours. sent

26:16

me all these links and all

26:18

this information and all this stuff

26:20

and I read everything and I

26:22

realized I couldn't go because I

26:24

would be crossing a picket line

26:26

that the Palestinians were asking Internationals

26:28

because only we can boycott Palestinians

26:31

can boycott right? We

26:33

can to do a cultural and academic

26:35

boycott of Israel and that this was

26:37

based on because the founder of the

26:39

one of the founders of the BDS

26:41

movement Omar Bargouti had

26:43

been a student at Columbia during

26:45

the anti -apartheid movement, and that

26:47

was his model. So

26:50

I wrote a public letter saying, I can't

26:52

go, you know, because of the boycott. And

26:55

then I got a letter from Omar,

26:57

and I was like, and he was

26:59

like, thank you, Professor Shulman, for making

27:01

this stance. And I thought, uh -oh,

27:03

because I remembered that what had happened

27:05

was Cuba. that left us

27:07

in the United States at supportive Cuba,

27:09

not realizing that they were profoundly oppressing

27:12

gay people. And I thought,

27:14

I don't know what his politics are

27:16

about gay people. So

27:19

I was put in touch with

27:21

all these people and they said,

27:23

look, come here on your own

27:26

dime and only speak in anti

27:28

-occupation venues and come to the

27:30

West Bank and meet queer Palestinians.

27:34

So I did. I went to

27:36

Israel. I spoke at

27:38

an anarchist vegan cafe. I

27:40

spoke at a women's center. I

27:43

was taken by a car full

27:45

of anarchists into the West Bank.

27:48

I went to a demonstration in

27:50

a small village called Beilene, where

27:53

they were protesting during the construction of

27:55

the wall. So

27:57

I went to this demonstration and everyone's

27:59

marching around. They're singing songs. They have

28:01

Palestinian flags. Don't build the wall. And

28:03

then the Israeli soldiers come. And

28:06

of course they look exactly like me because

28:08

if my family hadn't gotten a visa to

28:10

the United States, that would have been me.

28:13

But I'm not used to Jews

28:15

being military and police and stuff.

28:17

I'm used to Jews being accountants

28:19

and dentists and things like that.

28:22

You know, so I'm looking at these

28:24

people and suddenly they start shooting tear

28:26

gas at us, but we hadn't been

28:28

doing anything. And the Palestinians

28:30

take out cut onions that they carried

28:32

with them to put over their noses

28:34

because this was a tear gas that

28:37

would make you think you were choking.

28:40

And I was like all of

28:42

a sudden my head spun like

28:44

the girl in the exorcist. And

28:46

my definition of who is we

28:48

completely shifted. So

28:52

I went to Ramallah and I met with

28:54

Omar. But the night before,

28:56

I met with this queer Palestinian group called

28:58

Al -Qa 'us. And they

29:00

were like, when you meet with Omar tomorrow, tell

29:02

him he should work with us. You're

29:07

right in the middle of it now. And

29:09

I met with Omar and he,

29:12

you know, He was a

29:14

little rough with me, and I didn't know if

29:16

it was because I had too much power because

29:18

I'm a Jew or I didn't have enough power

29:20

because I'm a lesbian. I wasn't sure exactly what

29:22

the tension was. But I

29:24

said to him, you know, I'll end that with all chaos

29:26

and they want you to work with them. And he said,

29:28

well, they haven't come out for BDS. If

29:31

they come out for boycott, defense, and sanctions, I'll

29:33

work with them. Oh, wow. So,

29:35

and then at the end of the meeting,

29:37

I said, what can I do to help

29:39

you? And he said, you're creative. You'll think

29:41

of something. Which was a very smart thing

29:43

to say because it's not his job to

29:45

think of my strategy, right? Exactly. So I

29:47

go back to meet with the Al -Qaeda

29:49

people and they're like, well, two things happen.

29:52

One was they said, you should bring us

29:54

to America to meet American queer people. So

29:56

I spent the next year fundraising

29:59

and I raised like $40 ,000

30:01

and I brought three leaders of

30:03

the queer Palestinian movement to seven

30:05

US cities on this tour. And

30:07

each city was a different community.

30:10

So there was like the black

30:12

gay community of Chicago, the Arab

30:14

queer community of the Bay Area,

30:16

the public university, the private university,

30:18

the Democratic Party. By the time

30:21

they had finished, so many people

30:23

had heard about them, met them,

30:25

seen them. It was like a

30:27

revelation for the American queer community

30:30

to have this relationship. And

30:32

then when they went back, Omar

30:35

contacted them because they had created

30:37

so much visibility on their tour.

30:39

And they did start a group

30:42

called Palestinian Queers for Boycott Divestment

30:44

Sanctions. So they did do

30:46

what he wanted. And when

30:48

you looked on the BDS website, both

30:51

in Arabic and English, it listed them

30:53

as a member group, Palestinian Queers for

30:55

Boycott Divestment Sanctions. So that's how it

30:58

all got started. And

31:00

then after that, I just did a

31:02

lot of projects like I did the

31:04

first LGBT delegation to Palestine. I

31:07

organized a Homo nationalism and pinkwashing

31:09

conference in New York. I wrote

31:11

a piece in the New York

31:13

Times that popularized the term pinkwashing,

31:16

you know, like, and I've been

31:18

doing projects ever since. So

31:20

that's just how it all started. Yeah.

31:24

I really appreciate you sharing the

31:26

history and it also gives me

31:28

some context because 2009 into 2010

31:30

was when we were organizing the

31:32

U .S. Social Forum in Detroit

31:35

and it was a that was

31:37

the first you know I was

31:39

aware I had been somewhat politicized

31:41

but that was the moment where

31:43

I had to make my first

31:46

like what I would call choice

31:48

to take a stance and actually

31:50

hold the line because in Israeli

31:52

group submitted a proposal to do,

31:55

you know, talking about basically being

31:57

the only queer haven in the

31:59

Middle East. And we had

32:01

to make a decision like we weren't saying

32:03

no to anything that was that people had

32:05

submitted. That wasn't, you know, generally we were

32:07

just letting people come in, but we had

32:10

to make a stand of like we won't,

32:12

we can't have pink washing here. And it

32:14

was a whole organizing process, like where people

32:16

were organizing us. And I just remember this

32:18

like seven AM meeting with folks having to

32:20

be like, we're going to take this

32:22

stand and it's going to cost us something. And

32:25

just starting to really understand what it means

32:27

to stand in solidarity with something that is

32:29

not popular. And

32:31

anyway, it laid the groundwork

32:34

for this iteration. But

32:36

thank you for the story, but also thank

32:38

you for all those. although

32:40

all that weaving, you know, it's to me,

32:42

it sounds like the weaving, they're like, I

32:45

think of it as running between the trenches,

32:47

you know, and just being like, oh, I

32:49

have enough privilege to move between some of

32:51

these spaces that maybe other folks aren't moving.

32:53

And well, I opened my book with a

32:55

quote from Hadir Shafi, who is a Palestinian

32:57

lesbian leader. And she says, think

33:00

about what you can do, not what

33:02

you can lose, which is

33:04

a great way to go. And also

33:06

in the new book, I have a

33:08

history of pinkwashing so people can see

33:10

that it was a deliberate public relations

33:12

campaign that the government funded. You know,

33:14

it's not this thing in the air.

33:16

It's real. So I hope that that

33:19

will be helpful for readers. I

33:21

think that's going to be super helpful. Autumn,

33:23

I think you should ask the

33:25

question, the other question about

33:27

the conflicted perpetrator first since we're here in

33:29

this territory. And then I'll come back because

33:32

I have another question I want to ask.

33:34

Yeah. So There's

33:37

this really powerful moment

33:39

in the book where

33:41

you talk about how

33:44

among those invested in

33:46

domination who are actively

33:48

using lies as a

33:51

public relations strategy in

33:53

order to maintain the

33:55

broad cultural narrative around

33:58

their activity. You

34:00

say some know they are lying and some

34:02

do not know. And you

34:04

reference a lot at this

34:07

point in the book, the

34:09

claims of anti -Semitism to

34:11

guard against criticizing Israel. And

34:14

I was reading that section

34:16

and thinking about the bystander

34:19

versus the conflicted perpetrator and

34:21

putting that in relationship to

34:23

those who know that they're

34:25

lying and those who don't

34:27

know that they're lying. I

34:32

would just be curious to know your

34:34

take on among those, the bystanders, or

34:36

maybe if we just start with those

34:38

who are lying and don't know, those

34:40

who are lying and do. Who

34:44

among them do you think we

34:46

can organize and how do you

34:48

find or create a conflicted perpetrator?

34:53

Well, I guess you're asking,

34:55

have you taught design? I mean, how would I

34:58

do that? I mean, first of all, there's a

35:00

group of people I don't want

35:02

to say their names, but they write for

35:04

the Atlantic. They have

35:06

their own media. And

35:09

they'll tell you a story of, I

35:12

went to a building and all these people were yelling at

35:14

me and they were yelling at me because I'm a Jew.

35:17

It's like, no, they're yelling at you because you're

35:19

supporting the mass murder of their people. So

35:22

there's a complete deflection and refusal

35:24

of any accountability. And

35:26

they think that they're being persecuted, but they're

35:28

not. So I mean

35:31

I have to believe that on

35:33

some level those people know the

35:35

truth I really have to believe

35:37

that because there's such advanced people

35:39

But then you have like the

35:41

students who are manipulated like our

35:43

campus Northwestern is being accused of

35:45

quote anti -Semitism by a white

35:48

nationalist fascist government that is anti

35:50

-Semitic also and I

35:53

can assure you that no one has

35:55

ever been persecuted on my campus because

35:58

they're Jewish. a

36:00

myth. But we have

36:02

some students who are Zionists

36:04

who are being fed this

36:06

idea that watching anti -Zionists

36:08

of all backgrounds sincerely oppose

36:10

the war on Gaza is

36:13

somehow oppressing them. is they

36:15

feel threatened by it. And

36:17

they authentically do feel threatened

36:19

by it. But the institutions

36:21

like Hillel and things like

36:23

that that are encouraging this

36:25

victimization feeling, I'm

36:27

not helping them see the

36:29

difference between feeling threatened because

36:31

they have to question themselves

36:33

versus being persecuted. And

36:36

this is something I went into in

36:38

conflict is not abuse, that, you know,

36:40

I think people feel victimized by opposition.

36:43

for two basic reasons, either because

36:46

they're supremacists or because they're traumatized.

36:49

And those are not distinct, you could be both. But

36:52

if you're supremacist, you're raised with this idea

36:54

that you shouldn't have to question yourself. So

36:57

if somebody questions you, they're oppressing

36:59

you. It's abuse. If

37:02

you're traumatized, it's so hard to just keep

37:04

it together. Somebody asking you

37:06

to question yourself feels impossible and

37:08

you feel like they are your

37:10

perpetrator Like if you ever had

37:13

someone say you're just as bad

37:15

as my father or whatever when

37:17

you're not Yeah, you know, it's

37:19

um, it's a projection. Mmm.

37:21

Yeah, okay. I'm really glad you

37:24

went there because You know, I've

37:26

really been thinking about the arc

37:28

and particularly the arc between thinking

37:31

about conflict and thinking about solidarity.

37:34

And for me, I have

37:36

found that solidarity becomes a way,

37:40

it's almost like a measurement of health. It's like, oh,

37:42

I know how to do conflict well. And

37:44

that means I can actually do solidarity well.

37:46

Like it's very connected, right? It's like once

37:48

I stop being scared of conflict and recognize

37:51

that like it's tension and conflict are part

37:53

of bio divergence. And then We

37:56

have to be in conflict to help

37:58

pull people out of these systems of

38:00

oppression or of Thinking that they're persecuted

38:02

when they're actually not they're in power

38:04

So so much of what autumn and

38:07

I talk about on this show all

38:09

the time is about having difference and

38:11

conflict and not seeing that as a

38:13

crisis but actually seeing it as respect

38:15

seeing it as a sign of like

38:18

equality in the relationship and And and

38:20

just relationship period just like oh we

38:22

are in relationship And

38:24

because you're in relationship, there will be difference

38:26

and there will be conflict. And so we

38:29

wanted to ask you to bridge between those

38:31

teachings of conflict is not abuse and solidarity.

38:33

And do you see the same line where

38:35

it's like being able to be in conflict

38:38

well is a core part of being able

38:40

to be in solidarity? Well,

38:42

I mean, you have to accept that you're going

38:45

to make a lot of mistakes. I mean, I

38:47

make mistakes all the time, like every day, you

38:49

know, and sometimes people that you're working with get

38:51

very angry at you and they never forgive you.

38:53

And that's a hard thing to carry. But

38:56

that's the way it is. But

38:58

as someone who's, I've been in

39:00

Jewish voice for peace since 2010.

39:03

And this is the largest anti -Zionist

39:05

Jewish organization in the world. We now

39:07

have 34 ,000 members. And

39:10

one of the things you learn there

39:12

is how to talk to Zionists because

39:14

it's not to change their minds. It's

39:17

like talking to anti -abortion people. You're

39:19

not there to change their mind. What

39:21

you're there to do is to create

39:23

a theater of ideas for the audience

39:26

so that you can expose their positions,

39:29

you can break down what the real

39:31

issues are, and the people in the

39:33

audience have more information when they leave.

39:35

So it's really a performance, but don't

39:38

try to change those people's minds because

39:40

you probably won't. Well,

39:42

and I think that that's actually a core

39:44

piece of conflict generally, right? It's like, if

39:46

you're coming into something and you're like, I'm

39:48

trying to change you, I'm trying to change

39:50

your mind, then it's almost like from the

39:52

very beginning of the conflict is not going

39:54

to go well versus like, yeah,

39:56

I mean, the one purpose is this, right?

39:58

Doing it publicly where you're like, we're going

40:01

to expose something for an audience or another

40:03

thing, which I think is. is

40:05

just being able to tease out, like we do

40:07

have this difference. And like, given that we have

40:09

this difference, how are we going to share this

40:11

space, share the world, share whatever it is. And

40:14

sometimes you can't, I mean. Yeah.

40:16

Exactly. And sometimes you can't or like finding,

40:18

you know, to me, then the long line

40:21

of that is like, then you have to

40:23

land in the boundary, which is we cannot

40:25

do this together, at least not at this

40:27

time. So what is the appropriate boundary? And

40:30

I feel like this past. What

40:32

is it, 18, 19 months now

40:34

of this round of the Palestine

40:36

struggle? It has

40:39

been so elucidating on all of

40:41

these fronts because I really found

40:43

very early on that I was

40:45

like, I have no interest in

40:47

trying to argue with Zionists. I'm

40:49

deeply interested in being in solidarity

40:51

with Jewish people, with

40:53

Palestinian people, with Arab people

40:55

with anyone who's actually in this and focused

40:57

on Palestinian freedom and liberation and equality and

40:59

Jewish safety and all the other things. You

41:02

know, was like, I think we can hold

41:04

all of this. And I think there's a

41:06

ton of people who are holding a sophisticated,

41:09

sophisticated, but also simple. It's just like, we just

41:11

all deserve to be here. It's like, do you

41:13

get that? Okay. Then let's move forward. And by

41:15

here, I mean, on earth, alive and safe. And

41:17

then we have to figure out the rest. But

41:21

I also found I'm like, it's not for me. As

41:23

someone from the US who has never been

41:26

to Palestine, you know, I'm like, it's not

41:28

for me to just to be telling folks,

41:30

here's what you need to do over there.

41:32

Like, here's my solution for you. Here's how

41:34

many states you should have any of that.

41:37

know, I'm like, there's something anarchist in me

41:39

that comes up. And it's like, that's not

41:41

my job. It's like, you know, my job

41:43

is to be in solidarity where I'm like,

41:46

what I know is my country is causing

41:48

more harm than good in this situation. And

41:50

it's is is. not moving from a pure

41:52

place. And so how do I be in

41:54

solidarity as a, you know, as a U

41:57

.S. I mean, Palestinian society is like any

41:59

other society. It's multi -dimensional, right? There's a

42:01

millions of factions and they have all different

42:03

shit with each other, you know, and part

42:05

of the job of being in solidarity is

42:08

staying out of that. Exactly. You

42:10

know, say more about that, Sarah.

42:13

Well, I have managed somehow

42:16

to some degree to stay

42:18

out of that. Because

42:23

it's like you said, it's not my

42:25

ball game. The thing that

42:27

I'm more interested in is revealing, because

42:29

when you do debate with Zionist, the

42:31

thing that ultimately gets revealed is that

42:33

they want a state where you get

42:36

different rights based on your religion. And

42:39

that's fundamentally something that Americans were

42:41

raised to think is bad, I

42:43

mean, until now. Now we're in

42:45

the paradigm shift, right? Yeah, right.

42:47

But they really have supremacy ideology.

42:50

And so your job is to expose, that's

42:52

my job, is to expose that. And then

42:54

is to listen to Palestine and also to

42:57

hear them, which are two different things. And

43:00

to hear that they're like everybody

43:02

else, and they have all different

43:04

kinds of interests. They have all

43:06

different kinds of religious beliefs. They

43:09

have atheists. They have lesbians. They

43:11

have feminist coalitions. They have everything

43:13

that everyone else has. And,

43:16

you know, there's a fear on

43:19

the part of many Israelis that

43:21

if there was one state, Palestinians

43:24

would all vote as a bloc, but

43:26

it's impossible. they could never do that.

43:29

Just like Jews could never vote

43:31

as a bloc because there always

43:33

will be the extremist religious people,

43:35

the communists, you know, it's a

43:38

dehumanizing perspective. Exactly.

43:40

I think that's, it's so interesting, right? It's

43:42

like, to me, one of the ways you

43:44

know you're stuck in supremacy thinking is when

43:46

you think any bloc of people is going

43:48

to all behave the same way at any

43:50

given moment. And even in

43:52

the situations where it seems like everyone is,

43:54

I'm like, there's always, like you said, I

43:57

love this conflicted perpetrator or there's always someone

43:59

in there who's like having doubts whether they've

44:01

been able to articulate them or not. And

44:04

part of our job is humanizing ourselves enough

44:06

to see the humanity in everyone else, right?

44:10

I really, I

44:12

want to say thank you to you because

44:14

when you lay it out on the timeline,

44:17

you know, when you said like, oh, you're

44:19

66, I'm like, okay, so you're, you know,

44:22

basically a generation ahead of us. And

44:25

you, you know, when you're talking about when

44:27

you were starting to do this work, like

44:29

when you say like 1980, I was like,

44:31

okay, cool. I was too, right? It's like,

44:33

I just want to say thank you. Cause

44:35

I think sometimes we don't get to have

44:37

those conversations in real life in real time

44:39

to be like, oh, thank you for what

44:41

you did in your generation that. began to

44:43

open up the doors for those in my

44:45

generation and also thank you for the humility

44:47

of being like and I was a late

44:49

bloomer or I was late to this work

44:51

like I feel deep understanding of that too

44:53

of like both it's never too late to

44:55

show up like we need everyone to show

44:57

up when they show up and also like

45:00

yeah you can be in a generation doing

45:02

all the work of this but One

45:04

of the things I remember when I first started coming into

45:06

this work was people being like, yeah, there's all these people

45:08

who are progressive except Palestine. And

45:10

that's the, you know, Mark, Matt Hill

45:13

wrote a book about this. And there's just so

45:15

many folks who are really like. help

45:17

me understand this, because I would be in

45:19

a relationship with so many people. I was

45:22

like, I don't get it. You can see

45:24

the humanity of the situation in every other

45:26

circumstance except this. And I think there's so

45:28

many people still like that, where everything else

45:30

is aligned, but they're going to be late

45:33

to this, or they are already late to

45:35

this. I think they have two major fears.

45:37

One is giving up Jewish exceptionalism. which

45:40

people are raised with. And

45:42

the second is losing their families. Because

45:45

Zionism is something that is constructed within

45:47

the family. It's a family -based system.

45:50

People say, oh, you American Jews, you

45:52

should support Israel because your families live

45:54

there. Well, if you're Ashkenazi, all your

45:56

family lives there because they were in

45:58

displaced persons camps and they were dumped

46:00

in Palestine and they couldn't get visas

46:02

to the U .S. It's not enough

46:04

of a reason. You

46:07

have to go against the idea of

46:09

family loyalty and all that kind of

46:11

thing. And I wrote

46:14

the pinkwashing thing, Zionists were calling my 89

46:16

year old mother at home and saying like

46:18

crazy things to her. And she called me

46:20

and she's like, I read this article. I

46:22

don't even understand it. And you know, I

46:25

tried to explain it. And she said, but

46:27

Sarah, don't you know, everybody hates the Jews.

46:29

And I was like, I know, but this

46:31

isn't about that. Yeah. Right. This

46:33

is about someone else that everybody hates. Um,

46:36

well, and actually that it, I

46:38

have another question that, you know,

46:41

may or may not. It doesn't have

46:43

to make it into the episode necessarily,

46:45

depending on how edgy we feel like

46:48

we want to be. But I wonder

46:50

about, you know, you

46:52

were making this distinction, Sarah,

46:54

between like people who have

46:57

supremacist ideas versus people who

46:59

are just traumatized. And I

47:01

sometimes I wonder about how

47:04

much our like

47:06

trauma at the site of

47:08

identity makes us susceptible to

47:10

supremacist ideology and I wonder

47:12

about like, you know Like

47:14

again and again, this does

47:16

not have to go in

47:18

the show But like do

47:20

you think on some level

47:22

that being a queer Jewish

47:24

woman? like Was part

47:26

of what helped kind of guard

47:29

against your ability to see what

47:31

was happening in Palestine Well,

47:33

definitely. And I go into that in

47:35

the book. I mean, because I'd already

47:37

had experiences of not being heard, of

47:39

being made invisible, of being pushed to

47:41

the side, of being falsely accused. I

47:44

mean, also, I don't forget that I've

47:46

gone through the AIDS crisis. Right. You

47:49

know, I'm like a historian of the

47:51

AIDS crisis. And one of the first

47:53

similarities that I noticed was that people

47:55

who are endangered, whether it's people with

47:57

AIDS or Palestinians, are falsely presented as

48:00

dangerous. When actually

48:02

they need protection, they're presented as

48:04

a threat. So once you

48:06

recognize certain paradigms, you can see how

48:08

they repeat. And in

48:11

fact, you know, there have always been a

48:13

lot of queer people. I mean, Jewish voice

48:15

for peace was started by queer women and

48:17

some straight women in the Bay Area 30

48:19

years ago. So anti

48:21

-Zionism is something that makes sense to

48:23

people who've had to break from homophobic

48:25

families. Right, but I

48:28

guess the question I'm asking is, like, are

48:31

some of us going to be slower

48:33

to come to be in solidarity with

48:35

others because of how much trauma we

48:37

hold at the site of our identities?

48:41

Right, because we don't to let go of anything else,

48:43

right? You don't really need everybody,

48:45

you need a critical mass. Because

48:47

most people do not participate in change,

48:49

no matter what. You just

48:51

need a small group of people who are very

48:53

effective. I mean, this is the

48:56

lesson of act up, which, you know,

48:58

had between three and 700 people. It's

49:00

quite small, but they were

49:02

incredibly effective. Yes. You know,

49:04

I mean, I think this is also, you

49:06

know, pointing back to direct action generally, right?

49:09

And like that there's always the small group

49:11

of people who are like, okay, I'm willing

49:13

to, to escalate my own behavior and to

49:16

get louder and to get more flagrant. in

49:18

in some way in direct relationship to how

49:20

many people are being silent or how many

49:22

people are like heads in the sand or

49:25

looking away. And then if enough, but it

49:27

always actually is one of the most hopeful

49:29

things to me is like, we only need

49:31

that tipping point that that sort of core

49:34

group of people who are willing to be

49:36

consistent. And that's when I think about Palestine.

49:38

I'm like, yeah, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction

49:40

project has been going on. And, and,

49:43

you know, maybe a lot of people are like,

49:45

I don't understand it. But I'm like, it's such

49:47

an effective model over time. And it is how

49:50

apartheid was ended and it is how apartheid I

49:52

think will be ended in this circumstance and wherever

49:54

we find it. And I think in this country,

49:56

you know, we're in this interesting moment in the

49:58

U .S. where like we're in our own collapse.

50:01

while also, and maybe that's another question, maybe

50:03

I'd love to hear you speak about this

50:05

just a moment, is like what it means

50:08

to be in a nation that's beginning its

50:10

own collapse, its own economic and political collapse,

50:12

and what it means to still be in

50:14

solidarity, or like to do solidarity work, because

50:16

it was one of my big concerns last

50:19

year was like, you know, the worst things

50:21

get here, the harder, maybe is it harder

50:23

to be in solidarity with other places or

50:25

does it actually make us more able to

50:27

be in solidarity with other places? It

50:30

depends on the person, but I think people in

50:32

crisis tend to be more effective. But

50:35

like for example, I saw images

50:37

of a demonstration of Columbia University

50:39

faculty. Now, Columbia has

50:41

capitulated and gone to appeasement to an

50:43

extreme. Shameful

50:46

degree, I say that as an alum. Yes. Oh,

50:48

you are. Here

50:51

are these professors and they're holding

50:53

these signs saying, defend research. And

50:55

I thought, your students are being

50:58

arrested. Exactly. Homeland security is raiding

51:00

your dorms. People are being disappeared

51:02

off the street on your campus.

51:04

Yeah. But it's the research that

51:07

you want to defend. Yeah.

51:10

I think, you know, I keep trying to hold

51:12

a softness where I'm like, okay, whatever is getting

51:14

people into action right now. You

51:17

know, okay, because like you said, you know, it's

51:19

like, yeah, you were in action for a long

51:21

time before you were able to click into this

51:23

self conception shift. Right. And so I keep having

51:25

that moment where I'm like, okay, some people are

51:28

going to be like, I'm getting into action because

51:30

of the social security stuff. I'm getting into action

51:32

because of the data breaches. I'm getting into action

51:34

because of research or cause someone I love has

51:36

cancer or whatever. There's so many points of activation

51:39

right now. And then part of our job is

51:41

to be like, yes, and that activation has to

51:43

include Palestine. So, you know, when I saw the

51:45

big. off marches. I'm like, great. The

51:48

ones I saw, I saw hands off marches

51:50

and I saw Palestine marches on the same

51:52

day. And so I just posted it all

51:54

like it's all connected. It's all of the

51:56

same thing. And I know because I know

51:58

how the left is that I'm like, I'm

52:00

sure there's all kinds of internal struggles happening

52:02

and like they're not Palestine enough and they're,

52:04

you know, whatever. But I'm like, but what

52:06

I can see is like there's an uprising

52:08

happening and like if all of

52:10

this uprising is happening, it's eventually going

52:12

to be flowing in the same direction

52:14

because we're all actually moving against the

52:17

same oppressive forces, even if we don't.

52:19

I mean, our biggest obstacle is that

52:21

Trump has seized the means of enforcement.

52:25

So even if judges

52:27

rule correctly, how do

52:29

we enforce those rulings?

52:32

And that's our biggest problem at the

52:34

moment. Well, we have to have I

52:36

feel like we have to have conflicted

52:39

perpetrators who are willing to not follow

52:41

orders. That's right. We need

52:43

some defecting Republicans. Absolutely. Defecting Republicans. And

52:45

we also need, I think, this also

52:47

the act up part of it. You

52:49

know, like I'm very excited by the

52:51

direct action. possibilities at this time and

52:53

what I'm already seeing. Thanks

52:58

for listening to our show. We're

53:00

on Instagram at end of the

53:02

world PC and we're on blue

53:04

sky as ourselves. You can make

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us. Thank you. Music

53:35

for today's show comes from

53:38

Autumn, the band, Tunde Elaniran,

53:40

Mother Cyborg, and The Banksons.

53:42

Emceeing. We did it. Yay!

53:46

Emceeing. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank

53:49

you so much, Sarah. Shake

54:00

your hands and shake these

54:02

balls. Stop me,

54:04

stop me, stop me, stop

54:06

me, me, stop me,

54:08

stop me, stop me, stop

54:10

me.