No Single Issue Movements

Our July 4th event will probably go down as one of the highlights of my summer. Offering a space where members of the community could share their voices and express themselves proved extremely powerful and productive. Art has the capacity to go so far beyond entertainment purposes—it is a tool, an asset to the movement because it allows for alternative deliveries and engagements of a common message (in the case of our spoken word open mic event, VOTE!!) but more broadly, the message is to engage, to participate in political and social change.

Spoken word broken down is basically storytelling by a poet and listening by an audience. This symbiotic relationship of storytelling and listening is the way I believe organizing should be. Out in the field we are constantly listening to people; in order to serve, you really need to hear people’s stories, hear what they need and how you can help. Meeting people where they are should always be the goal.

On the surface what I have done in the past few weeks may seem disjointed, going from a spoken word event to meeting with a law professor about a local food justice initiative to planning a press conference highlighting the rights of people with criminal records—a continuously marginalized group. But in my perspective, all of the actions I have done this summer are inextricably tied. Black feminist queer poet Audre Lorde writes, “There are no single issue movements, for we do not lead single issue lives.”

The reason why I feel so strongly about political organizing and about participating in social justice movements is because of their fluid natures—we organize ‘of, by, and for the people’ so our approach and reckonings ought to be as complex as the constituencies we seek to serve.

This is a very different thing from asserting that organizers should stay preoccupied in the theoretical; first and foremost I seek to find practical routes of engagement that will result in measured improvements in the lives of people. But there always needs to be balance—a great spoken word piece provides vivid imagery, creativity, and a rhythm that allows the listener to become fully immersed in the words of the poet; but a great spoken word piece in my opinion also has a message, a story that needs to be heard and engaged with. Thus with organizing: though we may be thoughtful, analytical, and brilliant, ultimately our hands should get dirty and our brows sweaty and we need to be able to say clearly and concisely what we are doing and why we are doing it. Otherwise we will just be another meaningless hit rap song of the week making the rounds on Power 98 (!)

Zaina Alsous
Charlotte Team