Calling Activists to a Higher Standard

By Gavin Leonard and Adrienne Maree Brown, WireTap. Posted January 4, 2006.

[Editor's Note: Is it possible to lead a financially comfortable, healthy and happy life, and be an effective activist working for social justice at the same time? Gavin Leonard and Adrienne Maree Brown are both accomplished young organizers who have different views on what it really means to strike a balance and how it affects the long-term plan for transforming politics. Gavin Leonard, 25, volunteers as director of Elementz, a hip hop youth arts center, and works at an affordable housing agency. Adrienne Maree Brown, 27, is the director of communications at the League of Young Voters and a board member of the Ruckus Society.]

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Point: Calling to a Higher Standard By Gavin Leonard

Over a period of about a month this summer, I watched every episode of the West Wing available on DVD. I work for a nonprofit community development corporation from 9 to 5, and as the director of a nonprofit hip hop-based youth arts center on the side. I'd say I work about 100 hours a week, and I still seem to find plenty of time to watch TV. And I like it. But I'm also becoming increasingly disappointed and impatient: I can count on one hand the number of people I know personally who work more and harder than I do.

I know there are more than a handful of people -- who I don't know personally -- that work harder than I do. For instance, I listen to a lot of sports-talk radio while I'm working during the day. Every time I listen to the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals give a press conference, I can't help but think that he works much harder at making a football team go than I do at trying to make the world a better place. It's really quite amazing how much energy is spent fine-tuning athletics -- amazing to the point of really bothering me. How is it that in the grand scheme of things such trivial pursuits occupy so much of peoples' time, money and energy?

The concept of working hard inevitably gets me thinking about the fact that, in my generation of activists, there is an overwhelming desire to "be sustainable." There is a growing tendency to take care of oneself, to successfully balance personal health, happiness and comfort with active work toward progressive social change. I want to be clear: I'm not against any of those things. But I'm really concerned about how well this strategy is going to work out for us.

I've watched more than a few active, engaged young people stop or greatly decrease their work on social justice issues to pursue "a more sustainable lifestyle." The implied assumption is that this new lifestyle will include work on issues, but they put a greater emphasis on staying healthy and happy. The problem is, I've seen a whole lot of people that end up focusing nearly exclusively on themselves -- leaving the movement one more person behind in an already uphill battle.

Fine Line between Sustainability and Selfishness

There's a very fine line between somebody ending up in their own world that's positive and ending up in their own world that's selfish, but I think it's a line worth discussing. For illustration, consider the choice to pursue a good relationship, have a child, and then spend a lot less time working and a lot more time raising that child -- a good choice, in my opinion. Put that decision somewhere on the same spectrum as the decision to take a corporate job to make more money -- a decision I'd guess most of us have watched someone make, and then we never quite see that same old friend again.

It seems pretty well agreed upon that we live in a self-centered society, and that seems to scare the hell out of people and truly bother the very people that are working to "be sustainable." But the whole concept of change has been slowed down dramatically by the selfishness of society, and activists and progressives are actually perpetuating their very own kind of bling bling while denouncing rappers and their cars.

I know it eats at me. I own what I consider to be a nice house with a deck and a hot tub. I have the hot tub so that I can be comfortable at the end of a long day of hard work. Same with my nice stereo and no longer new couches. If I at 18 could confront myself today at 25, I'm quite certain I'd end up with a black eye -- or at least a severely bruised conscience.

And that's exactly it. I am meeting me, and I've got a bruised conscience. I know I spend entirely too much money on things I don't really need. I know that with nothing more than a stronger will I could be a part of setting the even higher standard that I believe needs to be set. But every time I've ever tried to beat myself up, somebody's told me not to because it's "unhealthy and unsustainable." I'm scared to death that I'll never meet somebody who will give me a downright ass whipping, and at this point, I'd settle for someone that would just let me do it myself. I feel like we keep lowering the bar when a long, earnest look at the big picture should actually have us raising it.

Adrienne Maree Brown, 27, a writer, singer, trainer and the Director of Communications at the League of Young Voters, is producing a documentary on youth and HIV in New York. She is also a board member of The Ruckus Society.

Gavin Leonard, 25, is director of Cincinnati-based Elementz, a hip hop youth arts center, works at an affordable housing agency, the Over-the-Rhine Housing Network, and serves as the board chair of the League of Young Voters Education Fund.

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