(no subject)

[kradeelav]

None of our movements had done the kind of work you ended up having to do in order to guarantee the most fundamental rights for someone who was getting sick. So it was really an extraordinary thing for me. It changed the way I understood activism. There’s no way that you have the privilege of just being an outsider when you’re fighting an epidemic. You can always be right when you’re in an outsider position. Your placard can always sound clever. Your chants can always sound correct. But when you’ve got to make sure that somebody gets bathed in a hospital, you’ve got to try to figure out how to maintain that radical position and how to get inside that hospital at the same time, so that when you’re not there, that person is still getting cleaned in a way that respects their dignity.

— Amber Hollibaugh on AIDS activism, quoted in An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2003) by Ann Cvetkovich, Ch. 5.

Comments

[draculard]

Ooh <.< I looked this quote up for more context and found a different source that quoted it as well )(Loss: The Politics of Mourning), but the Google preview cut out quite a bit. I'm guessing this is about the difference between Absolute Moral High Ground Activism and Actual Tangible Results Activism? People who refuse to get anything done because it would mean associating with "outsiders" or the enemy vs. people who make good relationships and help change minds?

[kradeelav]

Oooh, thank you so much for the tidbit that the quote was mentioned elsewhere, never would've known. : o ! The tumblr reblog that I got it from links to this book (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/255773.An_Archive_of_Feelings) which i can't vouch for as a) haven't read it, and b) is most likely outdated in a lot of ways - but yeah, the parts that you mentioned is what rings true to the quote for me. I'm.. no stranger to medical trauma in a biiig way (the *mt tag, also jokingly referred to in my head as '#meatbag things', so having any kind of voice also mention that sense of vulnerability/dignity/identity is validating to hear.

Appreciate the comment!