Radical Courage & Compassion (“Occupy this Book” excerpt) | Mickey Z.

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Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

July 14, 2014

(The following is an edited excerpt from Occupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism, which can be ordered here.)

“A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant,” explained former Black Panther, Elaine Brown. “A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people.”

It damn sure couldn’t have been easy to stand up and expose rampant sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy within a high profile radical movement, but efforts like that are an important part of every struggle -- today more than ever.

This isn’t about demanding or expecting perfection or purity from yourself or anyone, but rather: It’s all about being unafraid to recognize and challenge inconsistencies, contradictions, denial, and hypocrisy.

Fundamental: If we want to live up to labels like activist, radical, or revolutionary, we must do our best -- every minute of every day -- to challenge and reject classism, sexism, racism, homophobia, patriarchy, ageism, ableism, transphobia, body shaming, heteronormativity, speciesism, and all other forms of hierarchical privilege.

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