Advocacy for the Flailing

After a day of social media kerfuffle regarding my position that people are not inherently “bad” for watching the new Harry Potter series (you can read my post about it here), a combative respondent challenged me regarding my own advocacy, or lack thereof, writing:

So you’re gonna work really hard to think publicly about this problem, right? You’re gonna think about how u can use ur platform and position to help with that advocacy? Rather than inserting yourself to tell me what not to do without a concrete suggestion on what to do?

While I have never considered myself an advocate - for anything - in the traditional sense of the word, I am an admitted loudmouth who, as the respondent correctly pointed out, criticized one person’s approach - “anybody who watches or supports the new Harry Potter is a bad person” - without offering prescriptions of my own.

Fair point!

Is it enough to hold a strong position and defend that position regarding various ethical and moral conundrums without taking action? When does morality compel advocacy? If I have, say, a half-dozen issues about which I’m passionate, what are my obligations to those issues? Is it enough for somebody like me to run my mouth from the sidelines without ever getting fully into the game?

I don’t know the answer, and I don’t pretend to know the answer.

When I think of advocates I most admire, the first name that pops to mind is always James Baldwin. As I’m sure most of you already know, Baldwin was a popular author and civil rights advocate who made frequent appearances on debate programs. In a 2024 article entitled, “The Art of Activism: Baldwin’s Influence on Literary Social Movements,” Nakia Booth wrote, of Baldwin, “He believed that understanding and empathy could bridge the divides of race and sexuality, a conviction that informed both his writing and public life.”

Now look, I ain’t no James Baldwin, but I share his conviction, as I articulated to my epistolary partner, that whatever the solution is, kindness has to play a role. This seemed to upset them, and I understand their rage, just as I understand why Malcolm X criticized Baldwin’s more “passive” activism.

In a 1961 debate with Baldwin, X said, about the sit-in movement:

If they are willing to wait for another hundred years for the white man to change his mind to accept them as a human being, then they’re wrong. But if they’re willing to lay down their life tonight, or in the morning, in order that we can have what is ours by right tonight, or in the morning, then it’s a good move.

Must all advocates be willing to lay down their lives tonight, or in the morning? Or is there space for those willing to wait a hundred years for their deliverance?

Again, I don’t know. My preference would be take a page from Obama’s energy policy, which he called “all of the above.” Any step towards social justice is a step worth taking.

My preferred methods are communication and story-telling. As a younger person, my activism looked more like what the commentator seemed to want: marching and raising my fist and singing along to whatever the shitty acoustic guitarist played from the jerry-rigged riser. I was never a very good marcher. Never a good yeller. My Molotov cocktail-throwing skills are average, at best. I do, however, possess the voice of a literal angel, if the angel in question was a terrible singer.

Banksy understood the problem.

That sort of activism never felt comfortable to me, and still doesn’t. Yes, I’ll attend a protest. Yes, I’ll march. I’ll canvas. Donate. I’ll do the things. But most of them don’t suit me, and I question whether my contributions to The Cause (whatever the cause) are better served elsewhere.

But where? How? And, honestly, how much of ourselves must be willing to commit to The Cause (whatever the cause). Are we ethically obligated to put ourselves into uncomfortable situations to achieve our political aims? Because I think it’s a fair question to ask how rooted we are in our beliefs are we if we are not.

Can we be advocates without activists?

If it reads like I’m flailing, it’s because I am. I imagine many of us are flailing in this moment. How does one convey the onslaught of bafflement and disillusion of the current moment without resorting to incandescent rage?

My instinct tells me that each of us must carve out our own roles and that the tension between somebody like myself and the poster is an important part of that process. While I suspect the person believes I possess some nefarious motive, I view them as somebody pushing as hard as they can for the change they want to see. That’s a good thing, and their challenge to me is a good challenge.

I told that person I would do as they requested. Which is what I’m doing here. Thinking, publicly, about our obligations to each other. Likely these are the same thoughts many of you are having.

I just don’t think advocacy looks the same for everyone. Some people march. Some people organize. Some people turn into Laura Loomer. And some of us – annoyingly - write. We ask questions in public. We poke at the edges of moral certainty. We try, however imperfectly, to remind each other that the people on the other side of an argument are still people.

That may not be enough. Honestly, it probably isn’t. But movements aren’t monoliths. They’re ecosystems, some of which blend with others. They require the furious and the patient, the marchers and the storytellers, the people who demand change tonight and the people who keep the conversation alive. I am not of any movement, and don’t wish to be, but I offer my support to those who are.

I don’t know the full extent of my role in advocacy or life or anything. I do know that I will continue talking. I’ll keep thinking out loud. Almost certainly I will keep pissing people off. I will try to continue doing all of it with more curiosity than contempt. A little more Baldwin than Malcolm - but I thank God for all the Malcolms.