I know, it’s been a while, again. At least I have a good excuse for my lack of updates: I’ve joined up with another radical cheerleading group while ADL and thus the Vegan Death Squad are on hiatus (long story, but we were supposed to be planning to put on a conference this summer and the university pulled the rug out from under us so now we have no conference and no plans for the summer). Even when we’re not in uniform performing cheers, the RCC (Radical Cheerleaders of Chicago) are everywhere! This picture is from the 5th anniversary of the Congress Hotel Strike last Thursday. It was organized by Unite Here! and they for some reason didn’t want the cheerleaders performing, but we came out of “uniform” and gave our support anyway, and got some people to join in with our shorter, pro-worker cheers.
Anyway, something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and meaning to write about for just as long, is how to define a person such as myself. Now, if you know me, you know that I don’t take much stock in definitions or labels. But they do come in handy when you’re trying to explain yourself and what you do. I could spend hours talking about the work that I do, and not even come close to being all-encompassing. I was out to dinner with a friend and I got to talking about the feminist work I did in college (with Women in Action, Hofstra’s feminist group that did have a couple men in it despite the name). He said that he didn’t like the word feminist because, although the concept includes everyone, the root of the word itself excludes 49% of the population.
I can see where he’s coming from with that, and at Hofstra I ran with a group of people who called ourselves “humanists” instead of feminists. But again, that excludes all the non-human animals that I fight for every day. That excludes the environment that I try to protect. Humanist concerns itself only with humans; I go way beyond that, as anyone who knows me would agree.
He said I should just call myself an activist. Which I am, but most people’s initial thoughts are just of anti-war activists (which I am), but not everything. And there are anti-choice activists, religious activists, conservative activists. Just because activism seems to be stronger on the left side of the spectrum doesn’t mean it’s not there on the right, and I don’t want to get confused with those people.
He said I should just say I’m not a speciesist. Which I’m not, but I also don’t like defining anything by way of negatives. Most people I know don’t go around saying “I’m not a homophobe” instead of “I’m SBNN” (or some other such phrase).
Is there a word to encompass an activist who does work for union, immigrant, anti-war, pro-choice, women, racism, queer, animal, poor, anti-corporate media, social anarchist, environment, homeless concerns?
Until someone comes up with something, I am simply Fuchsia.
(Or, as a side note, maybe that should be the word that defines all of that for future activists!)