AgitArte
– Artist’s Website –Photo from performance of “We Shall Not Be Moved,” AgitArte in collaboration with City Life/Vida Urbana, Boston, 2010 (photo by Kelly Creedon, reproduced with permission from publisher)
“Transformative organizing focuses on systemic change that addresses root causes, not just reforms that allow the same systems to reproduce themselves,” Jobin-Leeds notes in the intro. “Many may have started their activism by focusing on a single personal grievance; over time they saw the interconnection of their issues with others. Thus, transformative organizing builds solidarity.”
How does this relate to those young people’s desire to emulate Gran Fury? ACT UP itself took the form of affinity groups tied together in some of their planning and actions by the weekly meetings at what was then called the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center of New York. While the group meetings provided opportunities to compare notes, build knowledge, coordinate efforts, and meet new lovers and collaborators, affinity groups like Gran Fury were making decisions about specific tactics and group goals on their own. And this kind of organizing has worked in numerous other instances in the past. In other words, the answer to those contemporary questioners is that there are struggles happening all around you, linking up with and supporting the efforts of others attacking root causes ties you to a broader effort to shift society at its core.
A second key point of the book is that single-issue fights and the failure to bring transformation to political organizing itself ultimately undermines the goal of social justice and forces people to choose between different parts of themselves. From Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, quoted in the first chapter of the book: “We can’t ask someone to be an undocumented immigrant one day, a lesbian the next, and a mom on the third day.”