Every generation knows some kind of war. Silent Generation were the World War II generation and veterans and then the Cold War. The Boomers knew the Vietnam War era. There probably was some Silent Generation and Boomer overlap of the Korean War depending on their ages. Gen X had some overlap of Vietnam and the Cold War, then we had the Balkan Wars, Iran/Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq Desert Storm, and so many many more. Millennials and Gen Z got the post 9/11 wars and the ones still being fought today. Endless wars are the history of humanity. Collectively, the older you get the more wars you bare witness to. This is not a history of all wars or an exhaustive list.
In the wake of the general "you are doing it wrong" activism or 'XYZ protest is fake and performative" commentary. I have a lot to say on this subject alone and have addressed some of it before. I create content to illustrate how transferable skills and processes can apply to multiple situations based upon my lived experiences and knowledge.
Resistance comes in many forms and its okay if you are still figuring that out. Don't let the naysayers push you away from showing up and that's what counts -- showing up.
When the rural areas, small towns, and smaller cities start showing up and protesting. THAT IS THE MESSAGE and it is working.
I was proud that there was a small antiwar protest last week in my hometown that has a population of 10K people. You know who showed up? Those nice older liberal ladies. That's who showed up. There are folks that show every damned week at the local protests in the Lehigh Valley. No Kings is the big protest, but there are protests every week that you aren't hearing about. People are showing up and that counts too.
It is a daunting existence when you live in a reddish purplish area - especially when you spent half your life in a very blue big city. I had immense culture shock to that end when I moved back home in 2023. I never felt safe due to all the MAGA signs around town and everywhere I went. It is imperative that the newer folks showing up in rural, small town, and smaller city areas don't get pushed out. We are creating safety nets in our regions. Many of us feel unsafe.
Did you know that once upon a time that I was an activist too? I have quite a bit to say about the constant flood of "you are doing it wrong" when it comes to activism of any kind. That sentiment is so 2016. It's almost like we don't know how those ten years unfolded and turned out.
Why did I leave the activism and organizing folks and never came back? All I experienced was "you are doing it wrong" with zero suggestions as to what could be done different or 'that's emotional labor'. If you want people to protest, organize, march, and whatnot correctly than perhaps suggest literally anything other than rubbing their nose in excrement and bullying them into submission. Not everyone is born into activism and in some areas there is little to no access to it. I've lived on both sides from the small town level to the big city level in Philadelphia. It's a bit elitist to treat folks from underserved areas outside of big cities like unwanted pests for showing up and wanting to be a part of the resistance.
In 2016, I had a small academic feminist discussion group, which ended up being foisted into a small organizing activism group after the election. I brought younger folks in who insisted we needed to be an Intersectional Feminist group - and in hindsight that was shooting ourselves in the foot. There are expectations when you slap "intersectional" on anything and it goes beyond 'everyone is welcome here.' It, of course, failed spectacularly despite my best efforts and eventually fizzled. Did we have lessons to learn? Of course! Were we doing it wrong? We were trying our best, but its hard to do it right when you can't appease everyone's opinions on "you are doing it wrong" without any guidance as to what we could do better etc. Sometimes you have to spend the emotional labor. It sucks, but it is what it is. I spend a lot of emotional labor on disability advocacy online. I do it because I am disabled and I advocate for myself and others as we are very often not included in these organizations and protests.
My resistance has had to change greatly as I have become more disabled. I have leaned into educational aspects of resistance and my own resistance is magical. Many witches use their powers, traditions, spirits, and ancestors as part of their magic and that is a valid part of the resistance too. You think my Ukrainian ancestors are happy about what's going on in Ukraine under putin's tiny lil man baby hands? There is ancestral healing that comes in as well. My more recent Eastern European ancestry came to the United States during the World War I years. They came here to escape wars. I think about this a lot. They left their worlds behind because of war. And what of the ones who stayed? I found a couple that ended up in Dachau Concentration Camps or Subcamps during World War II and two sets of great grandparents had their ancestral village was burned to the ground by the Soviets in 1954. I've been working my magics pretty steadily for the past 5-6 years and continue to do so and shift and pivot as such. Right now, ancestral healing is one of my larger focuses.
The lesson here is that if we continue to push people away, especially the newbies, then nothing is ever going to change. Ten years from now we will just be here again being told 'you are doing it wrong' and its fake and performative. That is not how you get people on board with activism -- its how you push people away and end up stuck in echo chambers that effectively get nothing done.
The most important lesson is that often the loudest voices are often not attached to the best leaders and some voices and some leaders aren't worth following. No one is above or beyond reproach -- that includes some of your favorite content creators and podcast bros too.
Based upon my experiences a decade ago, I left because I did not have the mechanism to process navigating all of the 'you are doing it wrong' activism folks who leave it at that with zero direction or suggestions. We get back up and do better next time. You will stumble at times, but learn how to have healthy boundaries and know when to cut ties with toxic communities. I let it get to me and walked away after the constant frustration in 2017. That experience was a source of great shame and contributed to my giant bucket of C-PTSD. I felt like I failed. I tried so hard to do better and I did on my own far far away from the activism circuit. I am unsure if it’s some kind of gatekeeping hazing over the lords of activism to determine who is worthy or not, but it’s not helping. Why push new folks away? It makes no sense. I abandoned ship as my life fell apart in 2017 and figured my divorce and restarting my life was more important that trying to broker peace with abusive bullies, sorry I mean activists. That part is on me, but the whole experience left me feeling like I do not belong here - this is not for me - I am not wanted here. I left and never looked back.
Sustainable progress is slow, very slow, massive acceleration of progress in any form will eventually lead to collapse if not properly maintained with foundations and structures. I always here "things fall apart, the center cannot hold" If its all oppositional walls and no infrastructure and load baring columns and foundation, it will collapse spectacularly.
If your resistance is exclusionary, then its not resistance, its holding up the tenets of the imperialist supremacy of purity culture and unattainable exceptionalism that is always beyond reach.