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Conversations with progressive activists and organizers on the ground in conservative red states across the United States. We're sharing strategies, tips, and ways to hold hope and motivation in hostile environments.
Hi, welcome to Tenacious Conversations with Red State Progressives. I'm Mimi Garcia, your host, and this is a little bit of a different episode. Mixed in with our conversation episodes, I'm going to be doing these sort of solo audio journals, you can consider them, that are really reflecting on where we are right now, where I am, processing our current state of affairs and working with the folks who I'm talking to.
So in this episode, I'm really thinking a lot about the intersections between organizing and community and power. Um, obviously not small topics, but I've been thinking about How we on the left and particularly, um, white people, but also I think, I mean, I am Hispanic, but also have grown up very much within the sort of American hegemonic, uh, they've grown up very much within the sort of American mutt, middle, upper middle class, uh, suburban world that, um, For those who are on the left and out of these traditions may tend to consider organizing solely in these terms of Politics, activism, and the mobilization of things.
And for those who may be listening, you know, organizing is a way of building power. And we know that in our society, power, the power to influence our society, to change laws, to do all of that, comes typically from two things. One is money. And the other is people,
and organizing is working to bring people together towards a common goal and to develop and exert power to achieve that goal. And, in later episodes, I'm sure I will talk about, um, power, what is power, how do we build it, how do we wield it, um, how do we understand areas of influence. But I've been really thinking about, especially after my conversation with Seth Hutchinson, who is the organizer with the Communications Workers of America, who I talked to in my last episode.
And also, he's a former, colleague of mine and friend that we were both organizers together at the Texas State Employees Union. And when I was just a baby organizer starting out in my early 20s,
we used to say, if you can organize a potluck, you can organize a union. And You know, that's kind of a quippy line. It sounds really funny, but in a lot of ways, it's true. And I think one of the things that we have sort of missed and is core to some of the problems in our society right now is that we have become in the United States of a certain class really removed from community.
And we see this, you know, there was a lot of talk. a couple of years ago, it still sort of comes up every now and again about this epidemic of loneliness in the United States. And as someone who is also, like, online a lot more than I would like to be, there are a lot of factors that are contributing to that.
And so, you know, lots of, theorists have written a lot about this, and I am not an expert in that way, but I can say that, I think the ways in which capitalism operates to Instead of relying on each other and relying on community, we rely on services and goods that are monetized that can substitute for what we really needed in social connection and social cohesion before.
So for example, if I, want to try out a new recipe, or I'm cooking something, but I don't have a casserole dish to make this in, I could go talk to my neighbor and say, Hey, I'm working on this dish. I'm working for the, you know, getting this thing together. Do you have a casserole dish? Could I borrow one?
And, you know, and then use the dish, make the thing, have the party, maybe make it another get and return the dish full with the recipe to my neighbor. But, that takes having already developed a little bit of a relationship with my neighbor. , the neighbor having the thing that I need, which they may or may not have.
And then the effort of making the thing that I was going to anyways for the event I was planning, and then the effort to make it again to thank my neighbor for letting me borrow this dish. And so there's, there is relationship building and there's reciprocity in that, which takes a whole lot longer than what I can do right now, which is I can.
take my phone, I can pull up the Amazon app, and, probably within two and a half minutes, I can select a casserole dish, I can pay for it, I can have it shipped directly to my door, and it might even be there by the end of the day.
And I will say, like, I have more often done that because it feels more convenient and less risk. This is like a really simple example, um, and maybe a little bit of a silly example, but when we put this layered on top of, you know, I need a ride to the airport, I'm gonna call an Uber, I don't have someone who could drive me there, I need, uh, help with this other thing rather than ask somebody, I will pay someone else to do that.
And I don't want to discount the importance of people being paid for their labor, of, you know, for folks who don't have community, or maybe they have community but nobody in that area has the time or the money for a car or like a functional vehicle to take them to the airport, those are all very real things.
But within our, collective move as. society towards greater monetization, we have substituted Convenience that can be purchased for inconvenient social cohesion and social relationships. And you know, I think if you're very online like I am too, you may be seeing within the sort of Instagram blue sky space, all of this, you know, there's a boycott, trying to collectively use our buying power, or to withhold our consuming power The Amazons and Walmarts and Targets, of the world.
And so as one option to an alternative, an alternative to consuming is a mutual aid, is borrowing, is creating connection. And part of what comes with that is vulnerability. Because when I, again, for this very, mundane example of the casserole dish, if I don't have what I need, to do what I need to do, and I can, in the privacy of my own home, without bothering anybody, purchase that thing and have it delivered to me, then I haven't bothered anyone.
I haven't shared my vulnerability with anybody. but then let's start thinking about illness or job loss. or child care, and then asking for, can you watch my kid for this afternoon, or I need to do XYZ, that is a much more vulnerable state to be in.
That's also, you know, issues of safety, and do you trust this person, and all of that kind of stuff. There's all these other unknowns. So, I want to talk a little bit about like, okay, we need community. We need cohesion. People want to be connected to each other. How do we do that? if you can organize a potluck, you can organize a union.
But can you organize a potluck? Folks are so hungry for connection. I've been thinking about how could I, build my community around me. this is something that I have been working on really actively since my parents died. For those who don't know me listening to the podcast, both of my parents died within about 10 months of each other in 2020 during the height of lockdown and the pandemic.
And it was For many people that time, for all of us, it was incredibly difficult, and that experience itself was, extremely difficult and extremely painful. And one of the things that I realized when I suddenly no longer had these two people who were so important in my life and a huge part of my support network, was that beyond my parents, And my sister, who lives in the same city as I do, but who is also very busy and has her own kids and her own life.
I didn't have people who I could just call up and say, I need to do this thing. Can you watch the kids for a couple of hours? I didn't have anybody in my life who I felt like would say, Hey, Mimi's really sick. Let's put together a meal train. Hey, Mimi's really sick. Let's put together a meal train. What I learned through my mother's death in particular, which, um, she died after my father, was that people are eager to help and assist.
That in my life, the thing that was keeping me from having community with others and being supported by others, was myself. And my unwillingness to reach out, to connect, and to be vulnerable and say, I am struggling. I am having a hard time. I need help and I need support. And I'm still not great at it, but I am getting better.
And being able to say, able to have that vulnerability also takes a great deal of security and personal, like, secure sense of ego because When I would ask for help, for me that felt like saying, I can't, I am incapable of supporting myself in doing these things. And in the reality it was, I am human and there is only so much that I can do.
And we as humans are, um, social creatures and we are supposed to live in community and supposed to support each other and that no one's going to know that I need help until I start asking for it. And so I started doing some things, and some of it sounds very mundane. One is that I just told people what was going on and what help I needed.
And also knowing that, like, folks might say no, and they're saying no 99 percent of the time has nothing to do with me and everything to do with their own capacity and what they're dealing and what's going on. But then I also like started to think about how are we organizing the potluck. Where am I building opportunities into my life where other people are invited in and can come and we can be together and build connection together?
So I had a great friend who had started this romance book club years ago and it was, it was always on the invite list and never showed up. in part because I'm a really bad book club attendee. Like I never read the book. Or I might read a book by the author, but a different book. Anyways, I had a lot of guilt over that.
And then what I realized was like, this book club was like, books are involved, but it's really about connection. And I just started showing up. And it felt like awkward and I felt uncomfortable the first few times because I knew some of the people really well, I didn't know some of the people at all, but I kept showing up and It's been over a year, I think it might be two years that I've been doing this, that I've been part of this book club.
And now there, there's like seven, eight, six or seven women who are part of this book club. We talk about books for about 3 percent of the time. And then We talk about each other. I know, you know, all about their children and their parents and their health concerns and we talk about the things in the world and we share victories, and we share tragedies, and we share really mundane stuff together, and it feels so good.
It feels so good to now have this community of women who I can rely on and who I can ask for help from. So that's
Mimi: one thing that I will say, about building community and organizing yourself into community with people. Invite people in, be vulnerable, and ask for help, and ask for the things that you need.
Be understanding that not everybody is going to be able to show up for you in the way that you want it every time. And you show up. You show up and take that risk of feeling uncomfortable, of feeling awkward, of feeling like things aren't quite settled because it's through moving through that that you build that connection.
The other thing that I will say is that, I grew up in a family that was very giving and my parents both were like, if their feeling was, and this was my dad's legacy so much, and really heard this actually from so many people when he passed away, which was that his feeling was that what he had, he only needed the money that he needed for, His family and for him and for everybody to survive and be taken care of and beyond that, it was no longer his, that it was his responsibility to share what he had with other people who needed it beyond what he needed, to sustain and to have that life.
And what that cultivated was this feeling of whenever. Someone, and particularly someone who I already know, who I'm connected with, but oftentimes it's strangers, asks me for something, and I'm able to give it. I, frankly, feel rather honored to be able to have the opportunity to give and to help, uh, assist in that.
And, you know, if I'm not able to, if I'm not available, if I can't, um, participate in whatever kind of way, I will, I will communicate that. I'm working, I'm a former over committer and I am trying really hard not to over commit to things and burn myself out. you know, it's sort of a yes, yes and situation or a no and situation where I say, no, I'm not able to do that, but I can do this other thing.
And so that means that when other people, are setting boundaries with me, that I really appreciate that. And then I see, okay, I've asked for this thing, I have expressed a need or a vulnerability, and I want them to also be able to say, no, I don't have the capacity to do this thing. And sometimes they say, I don't have the capacity to do this thing, but I can do this other thing.
Is that acceptable? And so a lot of it comes through clear communication. So what does this have to do with the, state of the world we're in right now? What does this have to do with, the current Trump regime and the crazy executive orders and the challenges and fears and everything that we're facing right now.
I think that the work of building community is, of course, something that we should have been doing all along. I think it's also really important that we recognize that it is the capitalist system that really undergirds our entire country, that the interest there is to keep us alienated from each other.
Because if we are not asking each other for help, if we're not supporting each other for our needs, then we can purchase our needs. And that furthers the capitalist endeavor that furthers getting more money into the economy and more money into the hands of people who just want more and more money. And that just politics, and political outrage is not a firm foundation to build lasting relationships on.
So if we are only organizing or only talking to other people because we are outraged about the state of health care in this country. We're outraged about the lack of access to reproductive health care and abortion or any number of things. That is not robust enough to keep us connected. that when we have policy differences or when we get burned out, if I am not connected to the people around me and care about them on like a human level, then I'm not going to want to be there to fight with them about the issues and the policies and the politics.
So, I don't really have answers to any of this right now but I am really thinking about what can I do beyond my book club, what can I do beyond all of these Systems that I have right now to be better connected with my community. one thing I've done and you know, not everybody has kids but kids are like such a great avenue to connecting with other families.
And, I joined our PTA at my son's new elementary school and we are going to the neighborhood elementary school for the first time A lot of the families in our neighborhood do not go to the neighborhood elementary school because of all the issues of, you know, in gentrifying neighborhoods where families send their kids out of the neighborhood school and the neighborhood school loses resources because of that.
And so I joined the PTA. And I'm part of the PTA now, and we're planning a outdoor movie event, for the families, but we're also leafleting the neighborhood to invite those families who are not part of the elementary school, who have elementary age children, to say, come meet us, be in community with us, come see the school, and the people are here.
Because not everybody feels comfortable showing up in an unfamiliar, area for the first time and being outside in a beautiful spring evening, watching a movie together is a beautiful low stakes way of building connection. So that's where I am right now. Those are my thoughts. I would love to hear how you're thinking about community and how you're grappling with that.
Um, and what you're doing right now to, , to connect with others in your neighborhood, , or in your life that it isn't all just about the outrage of the current crisis that we're in, which I don't want to downplay. Like it is very real what's going on, but it can't be our entire focus in existence because we will burn ourselves out.
Thanks so much for listening. Put it in the comments. Please don't forget to subscribe. If you have thoughts you want to share, you can email me at hello at the just collaborative dot com. You can also, uh, find us on Instagram at just collaborative and yeah, have a great one. Stay tenacious, y'all.
The Tenacious podcast is a project of Just Collaborative. You can find more at thejustcollaborative.com/tenacious.