On Making History: Thoughts from a Young Activist

As part of the younger generation of both queer and feminist activists, I find myself feeling as though my peers have adopted apathy over responsiveness. However, being a young activist forces me to recognize that I and my colleagues in the struggle to end systemic oppression are diverse in race, class, sexual orientation, gender, and age, and in this diversity, there are individual and personal reasons for joining the fight. It forces me to recognize that we are all in this together, fighting for change – that we, the young activists, are making history in our own era.

There are young people identifying as activists but perhaps their definition of activist, queer, feminist is different; perhaps their approach, in response to their definition, is different from that of tradition or what some may claim to be the mainstream. There is no unity in definition – only in the ultimate goal. It is safe to conclude that the ulimate goal of all queer activists is equality based on gender identity and sexual orientation; it is safe to conclude that many of these activists – that most feminist activists – have the ulimate goal of total equality across all classifications. It appears that younger generations – my generation - have taken a more apathetic view of both queer and feminist social change activism due to the rise in technology-based community building and communication, movement disorganization, and ultimately the lush feeling of inheritance. But this is certainly not the whole picture, and to allow it to cloud the work that is being done is to deligitimize this work and the activists who’ve accomplished it.

Computer technology has been a significant aspect of the growing-up experience of younger generations. For many people, the internet has become the hub of communication in various aspects of life and in all types of relationships. Forums and blogs and networking sites like Facebook and MySpace provide places for people to exchange ideas and opinions, as well as to meet people in and out of their communities. For people utilizing these sites, their participation can become a kind of activism. In writing a cultural critique or a political commentary on a blog, an individual might feel that they are engaging in activism. And in a way, they are. These writers are actively copying down and publishing their ideas and opinions, putting them out there for the whole world to see. In doing this, writers hope to reach even a small portion of the masses and influence their opinions through new perspectives. When people read blogs and other commentaries such as posts on facebook and news articles, a new thought process and perhaps even a conversation (whether online or face-to-face with others) may ensue.

Reading and writing such things on the internet is exchanging ideas and therefore, is activism and even community building. However, the exchange of ideas - while the core of having an opinion and acting on it – must be balanced with on-the-ground direct action such as policy revision, workshops, petitioning, rallying, voting, etc. Without the direct action component, internet participation is only an exchange of ideas. For example, where would we be if the patrons at Stonewall only talked about how they felt when the police raided the bar rather than rebelling against them as they did? Reading and writing – blogging and internet networking – are indeed parts of activism and not everyone should be expected to both blog and petition. But without both, the blogging is meaningless. So leftist bloggers must hope that they are damn good writers, capable of influencing the Republican news columnist, the gamer, the porn surfer, and the college student who swears up and down he doesn’t follow the news. But it’s possible, and it happens every day.

Having an organized movement is arguably key to such collective energy. (Whether or not it inspires or spews from collective energy is sort of like asking what came first, the chicken or the egg.) For clarification sake, let’s compare the activism today to the activism of the 60’s and 70’s. The onset of the culture wars brought clear goals and smaller goals with which to reach the larger. Second-wave feminists had the Equal Rights Amendment (among many other things) to work towards and while perspectives, theories, and approaches to feminist activism differed (and still do), activists rallied together in an organized movement for ultimate gender equality. Today, young feminist activists rally together for social change, but without the large goal to guide the complete goals, the activism feels more scattered – accomplished, but scattered.

Marriage equality is the great goal for queer activists, but it seems that the vast majority of activists actively seeking marriage equality are those who are currently wanting to marry. While there are certainly many younger queers working for marriage equality, many younger queers, while maybe wanting the equal right to marriage, feel that it is not relevant to them right now, at this very moment. For these younger people, it is expected that those who are currently working for marriage equality will have already made it possible for them to marry when they are ready.

The inheritance that many younger queers seem to feel is perhaps the most toxic cultural reality. Many young queers seem to feel that what they need is already here and what they will need will be made available to them before the time comes. Young women, too, seem to feel that they have all of the rights needed to live equally with men. There is this general feeling of absolute equality among younger generations – a belief that a history of struggle is far behind and the rights of today will always be here because of those struggles.

There is something to be said for being born with the right to vote at 18, to play sports in school, to be employed and have a minimum wage and maximum hours, to be safe from hate crimes and harassment, to be able to go to college (nevermind the continual gender, race, class, sexual orientation disparity). It means that we’ve always had them and have never had to earn them. It means we’ve always had a history and have never had to make it. It means that we – the younger generations - don’t understand the struggle.

Even if few in number, there are young activists. I am one of them. I understand why we appear invisible. But I also understand that it is the apathetic, the passionate but indirect, young people who blur the direct efforts being made by their peers. I understand that, without the recognition and acceptance from our peers and from older generations, we will continue to go unnoticed. We are activists of a different era, a different struggle, a different cultural context, and while we can never understand the time of struggle for older generations, we can recognize that their efforts are far from over – that the history they made is still in the making. Respect between generations and an acceptance of the cultural context in which each are operating is key to mutual understanding and celebration of each others’ work. I am proud of my mothers and grandmothers, my queer fathers and grandfathers, my lesbian and feminist sisters. I dream that my foremothers can be equally proud of me. I dream that my peers will stand with me; we can fight, young and old, side-by-side, and can actively contribute to the history that has long begun and is far from over...