October 7 and Radicalizing Experiences

When you go from just caring to actually doing

When I was a young organizer, it was common for people to ask, “What was your radicalizing experience?” It was assumed that there was a pivotal movement when your worldview changed. I would say, “I’ve always been like this.” As the daughter of a single mother (my parents were divorced - they were married when I was born) in the South during the Reagan years, I knew something was terribly wrong. Single mothers were demonized in a way that makes the fury at childless cat ladies laughable (which, in fact, it is. Meow.) I was mad about economic injustice because I experienced it first hand. I was the daughter of a great feminist who set an example of a hardworking woman, even though what she had really wanted was to be a stay at home mom. I decided never to put myself in a position where I was dependent on a man for my economic security. I became a union organizer, organizing primarily women workers (nurses).

Others had experiences that opened their eyes. Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor, had such an experience when she went to college and first encountered the factories of the day with their horrible working conditions. She also witness the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, an eye-opening experience if there ever was one.

I have had radicalizing experiences since. Going to alcohol rehab at age 40, ten years ago, was one, though not in the way it was intended to be. I had never to my knowledge met anyone who did heroin or crack. I was scared to death of these drugs (I remain so) and had never done any illegal drugs or barely even jaywalked. I came out a radical harm reduction advocate, though it took some time for me to evolve. I learned that it’s the drug war not the drugs that is causing the harm - a topic for another day.

October 7 was radicalizing. I’d always been very pro-Israel, but it wasn’t until October 7 and the aftermath that I felt like there was something I should do about it.

Our friend Eve Barlow wrote in her Twitter feed last night that if you’re one of those non-Jews who has been saying that you would never let what happened during the Holocaust happen again, and you’re silent now, well, where are you? She put it better but it hit home. I started writing in support of Israel and against antisemitism in this country because a) I saw my friends suffering b) I was horrified at what happened and knew that it’s only a matter of time and the lack of will to fight back before these kinds of attacks happen in Europe and eventually here (I was right) c) ever since I studied European history in middle school, I’ve thought I’d be one of the good Christians, one of the few.

So here we are. But how to be an ally? How to be helpful? I have no money to give but I write better than most. For awhile, for various reasons, I was not writing as much about it all, but I’m back now.

A slower moving but equally changing radicalizing experience has been living in a poor urban neighborhood that is overrun by anarchist and other kinds of white radicals who hate this country and will tell you so. I’ve seen how crime destroys black communities and how angry young while people find ways to glorify that destruction. I’ve moved to the right. That might put me in a center that some of my friends say doesn’t exist, but where I think many of us find ourselves.

It seems I meet many of you there.

Nice to meet you, and thank you for joining me.