are often labeled as radicals regardless of what side of the fence they sit on, as well as people who try to erase their entire carbon foot print by composting their own garbage or live off scraps of food and found objects in dumpsters on purpose. And of course Anne Coulter- we all know she's a radical right wing nut job. Is radical anything outside the norm, then? And if this is the case is it the goal of people who live like this to de-radicalize their way of life and normalize it? Or is it normal to them from the jump and therefore not radical?
The idea, I suppose, is that the way you are functioning/operating/behaving is above and beyond what most people would consider a reasonable approach. What does it mean about people who are not radical or who do not consider themselves radical? And does it take down connections and widen gaps when someone self identifies as a radical to someone who does not?Would someone who goes to Starbucks, but creates art deconstructing racism be considered a radical or would someone who is studying to be a corporate lawyer but protests the health care stance of Whole Foods be considered radical? Would they both? Neither?
See its sticky. What I propose is this: as much as I appreciate the group I am involved in and think that the work we are headed towards is important, I think that the term radical can risk creating gaps and eliminating opportunities for conversation. Instead of becoming informed on the work we do, my friend shut down conversation because the word radical did something for her that I didn't quite understand or anticipate and for the rest of the evening the three that I was with jokingly ribbed me when anything I said involved words about our cause. I could no longer be heard on the good the group does because radical had caused such a divide that there was no crossing. It was almost as if it said "I'm more anti- this than you are, and in fact, I'm so anti that we aren't going to understand each other on any level". And sure its an entirely self conscious move on her part to place that word in between us when my friend knows my stances and agrees with much of the work, but there it stood and I no longer could tell her what I thought because the word had been used to create a divide.
Does this mean I'm opposed to radical politics or calling it radical politics? Am I splitting hairs to suggest that calling it by another name would be far more open and inviting? Maybe I am and maybe in the end it wouldn't matter at all, but I just couldn't help but notice what that small, and arguably really fun to say, word had done. It made me someone on the outside rather than someone working towards unity. Anyone who knows me knows I don't have a hard time being the outsider in a conversation, or the one with the dissenting voice (no matter how delicately I put it) but something in there is problematic that I can't quite place my finger on. Being willing to place ones self on the outside to make people think or get a point across or because its the right thing to do is one thing. Placing ones self or another on the outside in a box allows us to stop listening to them. I guess that's what I don't like.
