Malcolm

Malcolm and I meet at protests, public events, and on social media, fighting for justice in all the small ways we can. For the better part of a year, Mal stood on a bridge with the flag of Palestine one day a week. I helped to document his protest. But now that cold wet weather has set in, he has a new idea: he wants people to join him for coffee and organizing indoors on a regular basis. He says it’s a way to build community that may prove useful in the months ahead.

Many activists say we need to get off the internet and build more face-to-face mutual-aid networks. Mal and I both see that as well-intentioned but ineffective, as the only people we know who believe in mutual aid are like the two of us, with bad backs and at best $20 to give away. In a good month. But whether or not we form mutual-aid networks, it can’t be wrong to strengthen face-to-face community, so I’m all for his new idea. 

He and I both had right-wing fathers. My step-father made a career in the US military; his adoptive father was an engineer who worked for the military. Both men were harsh, judgmental, demanding. Both thought people were born evil and had to be molded through discipline and hardship into something worthwhile. Malcolm says we both failed our conditioning. Somehow we held onto our empathy, despite the discipline and hardship.