The Dorky Vegan

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!)

I started on this train of thought by way of music. That’s how things usually start with me, to be honest. So, this is my conclusion. Maybe. I might have something to add after actually sleeping, whenever that actually happens.

Now, as I’ve said, I grew up on 60s music and culture, in the late 80s/90s.  Maybe I had a skewed view of things, but in my world, everyone was singing about peace and love and social justice. It was amazing. This was the stuff that had been popular. People talked about this stuff!

And then I learned about “modern” pop music. This was during the height of the boy band craze, mind you. Songs about dating and being heartbroken and dating someone else. I sat back and wondered, what happened to caring about important things? There had always been this type of songs, of course, but that was all there was anymore. Music is a powerful medium. Use it to reach out to people, to make a change. That’s what John Lennon did. The Beatles started out singing about ordinary love and ended up with John on the FBI watch list.

To this day, in the pop music culture, there’s nothing that remotely resembles a political stance. When did we lose our voice?

I took a step back from this question. I’ve never really been into the popular music; I’ve had my moments with Ace of Base and Spice Girls, and maybe TLC was the closest that came to being controversial subject matter. I remember when Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” became a hit. We skated to it at the roller rink. How many people were aware that they were anarchists, what that song was about? I didn’t even know at the time (hell, I didn’t know what anarchists were), but at least the core message stuck with me. I’m not sure most of my classmates could tell you, then or now, what that song was about. Their other stuff is amazing and full of political subjects, but of course it was the “least” political, the one that could easily be misinterpreted, that became the hit.

Somehow, through all of this, I started listening to music that meant something again. Only, the funny thing is, I didn’t recognize it at first. I liked the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Dropkick Murphys, and the Candyskins, but for the music, not the words. “Capitalism Stole My Virginity” was just a fun phrase. Unions? Give me bagpipes! At some point, my awareness of social issues blossomed, and around the same time I recognized the music for what it was. It’s amusing, really. The music didn’t make me aware, for some reason. Yet, it was what I had been yearning for.

Now, most of what I listen to is political in some way or another. I’m not just talking T(I)NC, Rise Against,  and Propagandhi (I admittedly didn’t get into them until much later, and really only because I wanted to explore John K. Samson’s work before the Weakerthans). I mean Patrick Wolf and his gender bending androgenous masterpieces. Placebo’s ballad of, not just resisting the cops, but turning the tables on them. The Dears with every single perfect song. “Me and Mia” and “Ana’s Song (Open Fire)” talking about the other side of eating disorders, the side that nobody else seems to talk about.

I’m noticing themes in songs I’ve loved for years. I never realized that Angry Salad’s “How Does It Feel to Kill” is about war (specifically Vietnam). James’ “Laid” was a fun song, but how did I manage to ignore such powerful lines like “Dressed me up in women’s clothes/Messed around with gender roles/Lined my eyes and call me pretty”? Even more recently, Kaiser Chief’s “I Predict a Riot”, about police brutality?

Now, I’m not saying that everything I listen to is political. I don’t think hellogoodbye has any merit on a political spectrum, and probably not Moxy Früvous either. Logan Whitehurst & the Junior Science Club definitely doesn’t. But I have a healthy balance.

And at the same time that I sit here and think, “How could I have possibly listened to these songs without realizing the meanings?” I know of people who, this day, listen to the most obvious of these, Rise Against and Dropkick Murphys and Sage Francis, without getting the message. What does it take to get the message through?

So the music isn’t lacking the political themes. You just have to look for it. Outside of pop music. I’m pretty sure that my mother, who lived through the Monkees heydey, can’t name any of their songs that are about political issues. They weren’t the “hits”.

There’s a whole underground music scene that’s full of politics. It’s a thriving community in Chicago. It just hasn’t made it out to the general public. Gaia forbid they actually think.

MusicLas reglas ????????online poker por el juego a Lowball no son tan diferente de las reglas de los otros juegos sin una. used to mean something. It was how stories and news were passed around, before most people were able/allowed to read and write. There were minstrels and bards, the storytellers. Today’s punks are just their reincarnations.

I don’t know, I was trying to explore my own relationship with music, why it’s constantly evolving to mean something even more to me all the time, and of course my thoughts got away with me. But there we go.

I’m going to write down what I see activism as. You may or may not agree with everything. But this is in my life. And my blog. So whatever.

Activism is standing up for what you believe in.
It’s standing outside in 7 degree weather holding signs and yelling chants.
It’s marching through the streets.
It’s organized resistance.
It’s educational conferences of hundreds of people.

It’s also:
Educating people about the issues even if it’s one person at a time, in private conversations.
It’s showing people that you can live a relatively normal life without sacrificing your morals (even if that is by giving them vegan cupcakes– something they can relate to in a cruelty-free form).
It’s dancing around with pom poms.
It’s writing a message on your bag, where hundreds will see it every day.
It’s sticking by a friend even when they fail to see the double standards they live by, and trying to gently point them out.
It’s celebrating life and mourning death.
It’s changing your strategy for different types of people.
It’s letting people know where you stand.

Activism is getting people to think about the message any way you can.

(I may add to this later. I had more but forgot them with the rumbling of my stomach…)

No, I wasn’t alive in 1968. In 1968, my mom wasn’t probably even able to have children yet. But this is an ongoing segment on Democracy Now! and it’s gotten me to thinking.

I grew up on music from the 60s. If you know me at all, you know that I was obsessed with the Monkees. I still love them. But they were my life from when I was 12 until sometime in high school (when I discovered the Weakerthans, ha). I’m not talking the “Last Train to Clarksville” and “Daydream Believer” hits (although that was a pretty radical subject to have a pop song about back then), but their lesser known songs. “Mommy and Daddy” (especially the unreleased version). “Ditty Diego“. They were anti-war, pro-love, anti-conformity, and I wanted something like that.

Along with the other “Swooning Hippie Chicks”, I lamented the fact that we weren’t living in that magical period between 1967 and 1969 when everything was happening and the music was amazing. We devoured any old records we could get. We watched documentaries about the war and civil rights movement. We imagined being at Woodstock, the Isle of Wright festival, anywhere but here and now. We had the unpleasant experience of being born into a time and place where nothing happened.

Of course, we couldn’t have been more wrong. But I grew up in a very sheltered, small town where the big event was getting a stop light put in. Our one and only! So I wasn’t entirely exaggerating… but wouldn’t it have been nice if that had really been the case? That there were no social justice movements to participate in because everything really was perfect?

In high school, I became involved in the Gay/Straight Alliance. Once I knew that things such as gay existed. But I didn’t realize that there were state, national, and international conflicts about it. When I went to the Pride parades and conferences, I thought it was a celebration… not a tactic.

Same with women’s rights. Women were equal to men in my town; wasn’t it like that everywhere? When I went to college, I found out about the “real world”. First I took women’s studies classes but they focused on the history of the movement, which only perpetuated my thoughts that these issues were long past. But then I participated in the March for Women’s Lives and learned a lot through conferences and joining Women in Action (Hofstra’s student group). I was also active in Student Organization for Animal Rights (SOARs) but that was mostly social so I didn’t get involved in animal rights activism like I could have.

When I transferred to UMass, I was sadly way too busy with classes and working full time to devote any time at all to activism, and it fell by the wayside. Which I wish hadn’t happened, because Amherst has an amazing culture for it, but these things happen.

Then I came to Chicago. And everything came together. Ever heard of intersectionality? I had never had a term for it. I didn’t know that feminism, veganism, anti-racism, pro-queer, anti-war movements were all related. I just figured that the people I knew who were all involved in these movements were smart enough to see through each form of oppression for what it was.

I’m fulfilling my thirteen year old’s desires. I am an Activist. Forty years after 1968, we still have a hell of a lot of work to do.