Return to Granma Nudge | Columns | Features | Return to Sonoma County Free Press Home Page

Sept. 1992

30 Years of Activism ...
500 Years of Resistance

by MARY MOORE

Working on the 500 Years of Resistance campaign this year has been important not only on an activist level but on a very personal one. l992 marks my own 30 year anniversary of activism. In l962 I was a young soon to be single mother of three children, living in San Luis Obispo, when I helped to start a group called The Fair Play Council. Our main purpose was to work toward fair housing and employment in our community. The concept of the "Civil Rights Movement" hadn't yet emerged, we had no regional, state or national networks or any other kind of links outside our rather isolated town of San Luis Obispo where concerned blacks and whites simply saw a need to deal with overt bigotry and discrimination.

We did our work door to door and business to business and as the "movement" grew across this country so did we and our outside links.

In l966 I lost my three children in a custody battle over my activites and my involvement with "those people"! It wasn't a case of alcohol, drugs, sex or rock 'n roll leading me astray, just my involvement with black folks. It hurt in ways I can't describe and effectively broke up my family forever. By the time I left this nightmare behind and moved to Los Angeles (l967) the Civil Rights Movement was in its prime. What an awakening for a small town liberal white girl. Because I lived and worked alot in the black community I grew to understand racism pretty quickly. It took another few years before I made the connections to sexism in regard to my situation. When I finally "got it" in the early '70's the womens' movement became my teacher and salvation. I've always understood since then how intertwined the "isms" are and because for years waitressing and other "basic" jobs were my main economic fallback I was able to understand how classism fit into the picture. It was truly an education in the school of hard knocks and while I wouldn't want to live it over I'll never forget its lessons.

Eventually I did get to college and I was fortunate that by that time I had the essential life learnings that helped me to better understand the books.

Also that was the time (late '60s/early '70s) that the campuses were truly and actively involved in change. As one of the few white people in Pan African studies I was able to get an education that was priceless.

Those were the early years of resistance for me. In the middle '70s along came the anti-nuke movement and the threat of the Diablo Canyon nuke to my old home town. I was living in Sonoma county by then and I joined with others to form SONOMoreAtomics and the Abalone Alliance. That led to almost l0 years in the anti-nuclear and environmental movements. But I never felt comfortable in the anti-nuke and peace movements. There was hardly any consciousness about racism, very little about classism and not nearly enough about sexism and homophobia. And it drove me crazy when white folks would talk about "survival" indicating that they had just discovered the concept!!

I realize my experiences have been different than alot of other white people. I certainly don't recomend losing your children as a means of consciousness raising or going cold and hungry in order to achieve class consciousness. There must be less extreme ways to get to the same understanding. But the fact remains that the experiences of well fed white Amerika differ greatly from the majority of people on this planet and it's our experiences that dictate our perception of the world.

As I look around Sonoma county I see very few white people, including those in the activist community (with notable exceptions), who are drawn to the basic justice issues. I have spent a good part of this year defending a black mans right to "shout" when he encounters racism. I have listened in amazement when even K.P.F.A. people refered to the L.A. revolt as riots. I have heard many times over the years progressives bemoaning the fact that there weren't any people of color in "the movement" . Talk about not seeing what is right in front of you!! I have watched as good caring people support armed revolutions in far away places but can't even deal with angry words when they're right in their face at home! More recently I have cringed as I heard "gentle New Age practitioners" justify their spiritual genocide of Native Americans.

Racism isn't always in the form of the K.K.K. More often in our community it is unconscious and results from unexamined attitudes. Unexamined attitudes simply reflect the dominant culture's assumptions of the way things are. It takes a conscious effort to purge these assumptions but it can be done. Obviously this is also true of sexism, classism and homophobia. It's hard to ask already overworked and underappreciated people to make this effort but it's crucial that it be made.

500 Years of Resistance means not only resistance to the powers that be but also to those attitudes that have rubbed off on all of us. Forging real bonds of trust means that men have to listen to what women are telling them, white people have to listen to what people of color are telling them, middle class people have to listen to what working class people are telling them and straight people have to listen to what gay and lesbian people are telling them. And all of us need to make a priority of forging those bonds. It's the only way to a strong resistance to a future that looks pretty bleak unless we find a real way to start working together.

Return to Granma Nudge | Columns Page | Features Page | Return to Sonoma County Free Press Home Page