A Return to the Unknown – Blogging, Transient Communities and Leadership

I realized recently that in my rush between events and activities – I haven’t given time to put reflections in written form. While verbal diarrhea seems to be a part of my post processing experience with life – those reflections rarely get communicated outside of the sphere of people who participated in the events with me. Therefore when I’m sharing those stories it only helps reinforce a memory with friends or aids me as an individual to feel a sense of narrative completion on the to do list of life.

Go to conference X or protest Z. Check. Talk it out. Continue with Event Y.

Shared experiences, they’re great. Talking things out with friends is also great. But this weekend I was reminded why that’s really not enough, at least for me right now.

While looking at what I consider common sense of organizing – I realized how many students around me haven’t had the opportunity to learn about and develop those skills yet. And as a debate unfolded this weekend at a conference regarding leadership turnover – a topic I have discussed in countless retreats – I realized what appeared immediately obvious to me is constantly being rediscovered by people who while looking elsewhere missed that cue.

Now when good/decent student leadership is leaving – they often tend to leave a long to do list, list of traditions or other set of resources behind. But when incoming leaders receive a bunch of resources – it also tends to be an information overload that gets parking-lotted (Like a car in a parking lot, it is temporarily put to the side to return to). The problem is that often times the resource isn’t utilized. Now one could blame the students for this, but realistically, we’ve got other things to do! We’re full time students and huge binders to read are a drag. But in my experience there’s one in depth resource I will always be quick to consult when I have a question – people. Peers, mentors, teachers, TAs, friends and family are all great places to go. And when the leaders of an organization graduate and the turnover is happening – the best thing to leave behind is a phone number to be contacted at and a good relationship that makes it easier to pick up the phone.

Okay – totally common sense. But the other thing that is always forgotten is who does your organization/club/group work with? Do you have a personal relationship with those leaders than enables you to work with them easily? If so – your new replacement either needs to be put in contact with them to develop such a relationship or your new replacement and that organization’s new leadership will have to meet. Yes, that is a lot of work for both you and that other organization’s leadership to organize, especially if your work has been happening in centrally dictated actions where leaders work together and pass down instructions. However if you consider leadership turnover not at the moment of exchange, but as a process it’s much easier to plan. If you make sure your organizations members know each other – when it’s time to collaborate they’re much more able to continue to work together with or without you.

I’m a senior at UCSB. I will be graduating this year (assuming the English department lets me in to my final required class…) and when I go I know my rolodex (… or facebook) goes with me. But that’s actually irrelevant. Because when I leave, so will a large number of my friends who I would have called to organize an action. Leadership is constantly developing, evolving, and graduating/leaving. If an activist next year called me and asked me for advice – I couldn’t suggest, “Just talk to so and so.” But this year before I leave, I can look for developing leaders and members around me and encourage them not only think of what the organization needs, but also just to befriend the people around them and in allied causes. I don’t know and can never be sure about who will move up – but if members are regularly working as a community the organizational culture of collaboration won’t be dependent on me or my individual skills.

When in caucus spaces facilitators’ job is to start actions, keep things moving and moderate for an enjoyable space for all. I see the role of a good leader in transient communities to do that as well. Ultimately if the quality of the space is dependent on the individual the organization will fall apart with or without a binder of resources. So as a leader now is the time to start reflecting (if you haven’t already). Who’s passionate? Who’s itching for more to do? Who was left out and is waiting for an invite to return to the table? If the people who are the answers to questions like these don’t know each other yet, start the introductions as you go about your programs. Those are the ties that will outlast your days in the organization and help your organization maintain a culture that fosters good communication needed to keep alliances alive when your rolodex is outdated, your binder is ignored and your voicemail is full.

So where does this leave me? I’m at the end of yet another conference, short on sleep, and optimistic about the future of my campus organizations. This weekend I think my greatest act of leadership was being the designated driver at the end of Saturday night – and by doing so allowing for alcohol induced networking. It might seem like an odd place to begin the leadership transition – but those memories, laughing over silly moments and the bonds that go with them are often what makes for a community worth fighting for and can make all the difference to both members and potential leaders looking for a place to call home. And even if those people never end up leading – their ability to enjoy the community and talk within that space will make it easier for whomever does.

Why I Support Voting for the National Marriage Boycott

Do you have one minute? Really, this is all the time it will take to click this link: http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/6032-National-Marriage-Boycott register, vote to support the National Marriage Boycott (NMB for short) and empower student activists.

This last year has been a flurry of activity, activism, and somehow between this time last year I’ve gone from passively accepting instructions at phone banks to… whatever you call whatever I’m hyperactively doing now. But when looking towards a lot of the issues being debated about LGBT issues I keep noticing the same trend of overly localized activism which ignores the bigger picture. Resources spread thin as people are donating to numerous state wide campaigns, rallying around every case, supporting multiple groups and finding those groups don’t always collaborate in the way we wish they could. This isn’t unique to LGBT issues – the same problems plague student groups on campus, environmental groups, advocacy groups, etc… And while this tends to make me cynical there are certain areas where I retain hope…

The National Marriage Boycott was founded by The Emma Goldman Society for Queer Liberation – an activist group made up mostly of friends and peers are Stanford. After Prop 8 passed in the wave of protests with signs proclaiming, “I’m not a second class citizen” I was amazed to see these students not only protesting prop 8, but working to raise awareness of the high suicide rate in LGBT youth. They didn’t just react to the current political circumstances, they used the climate as an opportunity to be proactive and raise awareness for an issue we too often are silent about. This same type of forward thinking rather than reactionary protest shaped the National Marriage Boycott – which is not only protesting the Defense of Marriage Act, it also showcases the optimism with which we approach the issue, highlighting the belief that there can and will be change in our lifetime.

As a student it’s often hard to remember what a great deal of power we hold. Organizations which constantly ask for funding and not time make us feel like we have nothing to offer and without the greater access enjoyed by those organizations even if you have something to say, it’s very difficult to get a platform to say it. When planning The National Marriage Boycott, students didn’t see these things and give up – they thought big, planned big, and worked hard. We got ourselves rings, personally committed ourselves to work tirelessly on the issue until full federal equality, and we only increased our commitment since then.

If we lose this contest and have little to no funding moving forward – we won’t stop. But if we win we’ll be enabled to act in a time that demands action. With seed money to help set up new chapters, promote the group, send people to have those vital conversations that help us build a real community of activists rather than a group of likeminded strangers – we can do so much MORE. Without aid we could get national press and 20 chapters in less than a year. With a few clicks of a mouse you can help us even if you’re unable to join the boycott, you can help put pressure to repeal DOMA and you can support students as we work to stay involved and hopeful in a climate that breads cynicism.

That’s worth 60 seconds for me. How about you?

If you have a minute to vote, please do so at http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/6032-National-Marriage-Boycott and leave a comment here when you do so. Nothing inspires me more than knowing good people are doing good work.

Exemplify the Activism you’d Like to See.

It sounds simple. Exemplify the activism you’d like to see. But it’s easier to say than be, and we have far too many talking heads which is not what we need.

Right now, I’m busy. Very busy... Okay, not as busy as some, but I’m averaging about 3 hours of sleep per night - which is my limit.

I am running for the Associated Students position of Off Campus Representative with Student Voice, a progressive coalition of campus leaders. The reason I am running is simple - I want a student government which is more active than reactive. I don’t just want to recycle our waste, I want to reduce it. I don’t just want resolutions against hate crimes a few weeks after each incident, I want proactive measures to create safe spaces. I don’t want to have to receive petitions in the arbor every time an issue comes up, because if that happens it means we’re protesting and reacting rather than actively setting an agenda. The fact that I need to be a part of protests to get my voice out there means the system as it stands fails to represent me, and I want to change that.

Tomorrow night I’ll preform in Take Back the Mic - a Take Back the Night event of spoken word, music and story telling which aims to bring awareness about sexual violence and aid the community in being proactive in preventing it.

Thursday there are several events I’ll be working on. First I’ll be off to the No on Hate march which seeks to raise awareness of the recent hate crimes in our campus community, until we admit our school has a problems it’s rather hard to address them. Then I’m going to be supporting the arts by MCing an afternoon Open Mic in Davidson Library for national poetry month. And later that night I’ll be going to Take Back the Night’s March. Somewhere in there I’ll be going to class too...

Friday I will be participating in National Day of Silence. Day of Silence seeks to bring awareness to the problems of social discrimination in our schools, an issue which is so often silenced by homophobia. If you think that this isn’t an issue consider the fact that less than a week ago an 11 year old boy committed suicide in reaction to being bullied regularly and being accused of being gay. One in three LGBT youth have attempted suicide. In 30 states in our nation you can be fired for being gay. And in 46 states same-sex marriage isn’t recognized. The fight for marriage equality is important because legal inequity is intolerable - but we cannot forget the students of today are the citizens of tomorrow. And if we can’t provide safe spaces in schools, where can we offer safety? I wouldn’t know what to shout into a microphone if I were asked why this is a problem because there’s so many reasons and few are willing to listen. Even while in a progressive university, we’ve got hate crimes in our community, we too should be reflecting - we’re guilty too.

This Sunday I’ll be at UCLA for 1Fest to celebrate the fight for civil rights, marriage equality and the artistic community that is a part of the struggle. Live music, information booths, politicians and activists will all contribute so that we can actively come together as a community energized, motivated, and with a sense of direction on how to work towards civil rights. The fight for civil rights and equality should not just be seen in angry protests, but also through positive community events such as this. I’ll also be volunteering with some Stanford activists from the Emma Goldman Society for Queer Liberation to work on a Vow Not to Marry ring campaign where participants pledge not to marry until everyone can do so. (I’m already wearing my ring if you ever want to see it.)

And on Monday, I’ll be back on campus working with Student Voice trying to get progressive leaders into positions on campus where they can actively enable organizations.

Am I doing everything? No I’m not. I can’t. I’m still a full time student with hundreds of pages to read, I have papers to write, and projects to do. I still need to eat, sleep, and have enough downtime to recharge to keep myself active. But I do what I am able to. Apathy and inaction are the greatest threats to societal progress. It doesn’t matter how much you are able to do if you’re unwilling to act. It doesn’t matter what the best green technology is unless we’re using it. And I could not stand with a clear conscious before a mirror if I were to ignore the problems I see in favor of a pleasurable apathy. If you’re interested in learning or attending any of the events written about here please check out the following links or send a message to me!

Be actively present!

Urvi

STUDENT VOICE Silvergreens Fundraiser - Wednesday on Pardall
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=71083390771

Take Back the Mic - Wednesday night IV Eclectic on Pardall
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=55913806500

STUDENT VOICE Deja Vu Fundraiser - Thursday on Embarcadero del Mar
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=91395497523

No on Hate Rally - Thursday in the Arbor
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151384660161

Open Mic Poetry Event - Thursday in the Library
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=61085528380

National Day of Silence - Friday EVERYWHERE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=13588438490

STUDENT VOICE Berrilicious Open Mic Night - Friday night Embarcadero Del Norte
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=163309975017

1FEST - Sunday afternoon at UCLA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=65066260818&ref=ts

Emma Goldman Society for Queer Liberation
http://www.stanford.edu/group/emma_goldman/cgi-bin/site/index.php

My Manifesto.

I am going to fail.
I am also going to succeed.

The reason I know this is very simple - I take action.
I know I don’t know all the answers, and the best solutions are probably things I never would have thought to think of. There is so much information in the world and time is so scarce that there is no way I could possibly know everything about any one issue; and there are so many issues that even if I could know everything about one thing, I probably wouldn’t know which one to focus on.

Our entire generation is in the same spot though.
We’ve got so many problems to deal with and so many opportunities to seize.

Things that were once specialized fields have become easily accessible thanks to technology. Anyone with the will and a computer can make a poster, design a website, publish their own writing, compose music without playing an instrument, participate in global discussions, read foreign newspapers, blog to strangers around the globe, and more... Technology has made the tools easily accessible enough that anyone can try. So much to the point that if you’re up to date with consumer society you are a renaissance resource. Time magazine even named you the person of the year in 2006 for your amazing work. So congratulations my fellow citizens - we’re the most hyperactive procrastinators and producers the world has ever seen and our potential talent is only matched by our active apathy and indifference and our illogical attachment to old expectations. We need to get the highest GPAs to help us aquire BS BAs to pad our resumes in order to get a 401k, invest in IRAs, pay off the HMOs until we can R.I.P. with the freedom of the deceased. And while we’re busy conforming to the old mold and doing what we’re told there’s problems to address like global poverty, environmental catastrophes, unsustainable production, military facilitated destruction, human rights abuses, technology misuses, economic mismanagement and the lack of education helping us be unaware of the problems left off the list. We should be pissed off.

Our education system is pathetic. I didn’t know the names of the countries in Central Asia until my sophomore year of college when I specifically took a class to fix that problem. I’ll be the first to admit to my ignorance. I do not know the history of anywhere in Africa, Asia, South America or the rest of North America. And yet I posses a degree in History and an Indian identity. And a quick look at what I was wearing today informs me that my underwear was made in Honduras, my bra in Central African Republic, my jeans in China, my sweatshirt in Turkey and a tee-shirt from Pakistan. This is not an exaggeration. All of my clothing today has come from places I’ve never been.

My education regarding our American system of government was only one semester of my senior year, in which every Friday we spent watching movies. Napoleon Dynamite is the thing I remember best from that class - and I never once cut. I remember reading the Greatest Generation and being pissed off at the book because he argues that the generation which grew up during the depression and then fought WWII was the greatest generation any society has produced - and all I could think about was people of the same generation also built crematoriums and designed the holocaust. A generation is defined by time - not location, and because he applauds only a select group he makes himself blind to the issues of the time that forced those people to stand. When citizens see a future of death, destruction, and a lack of freedoms for the living, standing up shouldn’t be extraordinary. Standing up should be normal. And the fact that this is not normal, means our call to action is needed more than ever. 50 years from now I hope our generation doesn’t get false accolades for simply doing what we should, because if we do it means the culture of active citizenship has only been a phase not a lasting social evolution.

If I stand up for civil rights, environmental reform, sound fiscal policies, antiwar efforts, new methods of diplomacy, investment in the arts, open dialogs and human dignity - that should not make me an activist That should make me normal. Our generation normally multi-tasks. We don’t second guess the ability of the average man to text while driving, sing while showering, do work while watching TV, twitter while working and use every application on an iPhone - we’re obviously capable of doing more than one thing at once. And we need to There are over 2.5 billion people on our planet who live without basic sanitation. Climate Change is a global problem and yet the commitment average citizens are asked to make is turning off their lights for an hour. Really? Is that all we need to do?

How is it our generation with all the renaissance talents, tools to communicate, abilities and passions - has failed thus far to cultivate a civic society that utilizes these talents to better itself? We have all the skills to do so, we have the time to do so, but we don’t have the WILL to do so. Somehow our generation has the time to play on their Wiis enough to cause "Wiiitis" an acute version of tennis elbow, and yet we can’t seem to afford time to think about things as basic as our food and where it comes from? There is a “Paradox of Choice” that our generation is confronted with: We have the power to act, the information to act upon, the tools to be heard, and crippling anxiety about the number of issues we must address.

Maybe these issues are too big for one person to affect and as a result students despair and assume they can’t cause change. - but even on a local level there’s so much work to be done On the same issues too. Education reform, for instance. Why? Because I know the school system I’m a part of is focused more on assigning a letter to my ability to present regurgitated information than on aiding me in making new connections. Since September there have been at least three hate crimes in Isla Vista. There are environmental problems and oil developments. Housing prices are ridiculous. University workers aren’t making a living wage. The majority of women have experienced harassment; racism and homophobia are no strangers to our community even though 84% of students voted no on 8. We might look progressive at times but we’ve got a lot to do.

When confronted with the paradox of choice, we must not chose inaction. Although it seems like an easy way to avoid the problem, what inaction leads to is the problems continuing uninterrupted. It would be like buying a home and not doing maintenance for fear of breaking something - you might cause a problem if you act, but give it enough time and the gutters will clog, your roof will leak and you’ll be forced to act to address worse circumstances and pay a higher price. A civil society is not something that can passively exist, it requires active citizenship, and apathy is the greatest danger our generation could possibly face.

So I will stand.
And I will to try to do my part.
And as I stand and plan to take action I know that sometimes I will fail. Sometimes my best won’t be enough. Sometimes I will be tired and frustrated and angry at the things too big for me to change. And that’s okay. Because the alternative to sometimes failing is never trying. And given the stakes, that is an option our generation can’t afford to take. Because like it or not we live in a democracy and a government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people” will be made up of people like you and people like me. And given that we live in a democracy it is unacceptable that we sit by idly. I will stand. Will you join me?