Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People Who've Had Enough by Roderick Douglass

It’s easy to feel defeated. The same fights have been happening for years. The world seems to keep getting worse. I think it’s pretty draining to see how limited the long-term change has been, especially when we reflect on the level of public discourse in the last decade. What can we do? How do we carry forward? It’s the need to address these questions that compels me to practical guides like Roderick Douglass’ Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People.

Before diving into the review, I have two notes. One is that the book leans way more heavily on the community organizing piece and there’s very little by way of actually coaching socially awkward people to get involved. The other caution is that, in researching the author for the text, I encountered some controversy. There are some claims from roughly two years ago that the author is not supportive to queer Black folk and he maybe went missing for a while? The details are hazy and I haven’t been able to parse it out yet.

The book is a contemporary look at creating change within communities. The book moves through a few different phases and modes. Partly, it’s a manifesto of beliefs; partly, it’s a history of some activist movements in the United States and contemporary instances of, for example, police brutality; partly, it’s a personal memoir and reflection. Of course, it also sometimes reads like a listicle of rules for organizing.

The book starts off with an account of the author’s criminal past, running a CoinStar scam because the machines, at the time, all used the same keys. Douglass makes the case that this is a rebellion against capitalism. The anecdote is an engaging one to start the text.

From there, the book goes through some principles and practicalities for organizing community movements. Then, the text goes into some specific tactics for agitating. The book finally builds towards some discussion of common principles and values for guiding the work. I would say that the text gives more practical and applicable tips than some of the more philosophical social justice books I’ve read, which is a welcome change, even if I don’t entirely agree with the efficacy or viability of some strategies for myself.

One of the things I really appreciated about the book is the way Douglass frames how organizations should form and operate. Essentially, everyone needs to start small and go to community events. There’s an optimistic bent about going to community events that aren’t necessarily political in nature but that aim to address community needs—maybe it’s a fundraiser for building a new park, or maybe it’s a tree planting event, or maybe it’s a film screening followed by a discussion. These all become framed as places where people can find political affinities. Douglass discourages people from starting new groups—at least without starting by looking to see if any similar groups exist. The groups should all target particular community needs and address those first. Maybe the ultimate goal is to dismantle racism, but maybe the first step is just to replace racist graffiti on a particular wall downtown. Douglass also frames community organizations as fluid and dissolvable. That’s a really refreshing approach; I often feel like I need to be part of something eternal and everlasting, but Douglass suggests that the whole point of community groups is to do a job and then either update themselves or disband. It makes the whole idea of social justice seem much more manageable.

In terms of tactics, Douglass suggests everyone “lie, cheat, and steal.” He encourages that people lie to police, for example—whether it be about their name, or giving them the wrong directions when they see a teenager running away from them, and even going so far as to perjure yourself in court to let friends off the hook. The part about stealing is quite literal: Douglass goes through 22 tips for shoplifting effectively. I don’t really see myself taking this particular form of action, but I appreciated the cheekiness of making a whole chapter about how to be a better criminal. I’d have to do some more research to see how reliable the advice is. 

In another chapter, Douglass goes into the details for effective community organizing with clear, practical suggestions. The text is nothing if not accessible. There’s a number of ideas regarding everything from how to structure your meeting agendas, how to select meeting spaces, who to hire for supporting crowd control, where to get money from, and so on and so forth. The chapter reads largely like a checklist and I can imagine it being used as such.

The latter part of the book gets more philosophical in nature. There’s a relatively lengthy discussion of voting as a tactic. I have to admit I take some issue with his line of argumentation, but I can appreciate it nonetheless. His argument is that voting provides legitimacy to a system that is fundamentally unjust; all politicians, in Douglass’ view, are fascist. I understand not wanting to provide legitimacy to the system, particularly in a two-party system. Douglass disagrees with the idea of voting as harm reduction, but I just have such a hard time believing that there’s no difference between, say, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Certainly, there are issues with Harris’ lack of care for the genocide of Palestinians—not that Trump cares, either. I just don’t believe that, had Harris been elected, Elon Musk and Doge would have been a thing or that our public discourse would be so openly racist, or that ICE would have been sent into major cities like a private militia. Voting isn’t going to change the system, and I hate the idea of providing legitimacy to it, but at the same time I can’t let go of the idea of harm reduction voting.

The ending of the book also goes into some more broad principles for organizing. For instance, about who to accept money from (or not), and how to manage the safety of members in groups. Douglass discusses the idea of crowdfunding and how to allocate funds directly to those most impacted. He also offers alternatives to raising money and focusing on tangible goods. He presents skepticism around NGOs and suggests that any group that has extra funds saved up is suspect: all money should be spent immediately on the projects the group has at hand (except, perhaps, legal fees). There’s then a whole section about the role of men within the movement and how becoming better partners and taking care of children can also free up space for their partners to lead revolutionary movements. Douglass discusses the necessity of holding men accountable for their actions when former abusers cannot be pulled from the movement entirely. I think reality gets messier, but Douglass’ optimism is fundamental to sustaining ourselves.

Overall, the book is an accessible outline for community organizing with its fair share of tips and anecdotes for how to effectively engage in community action. I appreciate its overall project: we are firmly rooted in the idea of praxis here, not too philosophical to be actionable. It seems like a worthwhile primer for people looking to get started in their communities. I’m sure there are some tips that you’d be able to apply in your own efforts.

Happy reading and happy engaging!

Whetstone by Lorna Crozier

There is a brand of quiet poetry that appeals to and influences me in my own work. To that end, I’ve returned to Lorna Crozier’s work, specifically her collection Whetstone. As with any similar collection, some of the poems resonated and others did not. It’s more about occupying the same psychic space and allowing yourself to be guided along.

The titular poem stands out as one of the highlights for me, particularly because of its vivid first lines: “The stone that sharpens stars, / their slow slice across the sky” (13). Jan Zwicky’s essay about resonance in poetry has proven enduring in the way I think about poems. Resonance often seems to use juxtaposition as a medium for finding connection, and following this idea of a stone sharpening stars in the sky, Crozier says, “it must have mingled with the gravel / on the road I run. Now its light / has reached my eyes” (13). I can see a parallel between the smattering of stars across a night sky and the stream of stones that form the gravel, every once in a while one standing out. There’s also an odd inversion here, though, because typically we’d think of the light from stars’ light taking years to reach our eyes, but the pronoun here refers to the whetstone. It intimates the slow labour of sharpening but at the same time, the stone is placing a demand on the speaker: “What does it want from me? / To be moved into another / galaxy of knives?” (13). Alternatively, the stone could be making a call “to be looked upon and left / where it has found me?” (13). The stone is given agency, while the speaker is being called towards agency. Or, perhaps there’s no difference between them: “Maybe it’s just a stone // among other stones, desireless / and unafflicted” (13). As with other poems in this mode, a small phenomenon is then extended into something much larger, more cosmic. The narrator reflects: “Does it know I am // dulled by God? / His negligence, / his under-use” (13). I think the poem, at its core, is a matter of agency and responsiveness, and ultimately the choice to either act or not act.

Crozier’s mode here feels so similar to Jan Zwicky; I notice her guidance is documented in the acknowledgements of Whetstone. This influence also emerges in the meditations on nature. The book is largely wintery, and “Prayers of Snow” sets that tone, which reads, in part, as follows:

Snow is a lesson in forgetting, a lesson in gravity,
a long loose sentence spiralling to the end of thought.
It prays to the young god robed in white, his ascent
a blizzard returning to the sky. (11)

As I suggested, there’s a kind of cosmic quality imbued to the natural phenomenon. The laws of the universe (gravity) are embodied by a particular, observable phenomenon (snow). Having tangible images like this really gives readers something to latch onto. Imagining snow as a kind of language is also delightful; the snow streams down as a “long loose sentence” and the odd inversion of a blizzard returning to the sky is a nice touch. The poem then reads as a kind of prayer and ultimately the snow “closes the gap / between drought and plenty, belief and blasphemy, / the ear and silence” (11). The idea of snow being something that joins disparate phenomena together feels true. Consider the way that an endless stretch of white snow erases distinct features and makes everything into one canvas. Snow becomes “a migration of birds / without eyes, without feet, who settle white in branches / on breasts and wings. When you stride through snow / in dreams of waking, you are a star-walker. / It prays to the soft fall of your books” (11). I like the way the snow prays to the world around it and the distinction between snow and other things fades: snow and birds are the same. The idea of being a “star-walker” every time you walk through snow also gives the poem its cosmic quality and makes sense with the idea of snow being star-like in its shape.

There are other poems that have a similar motif: a totalizing phenomenon that reveals connection. In the poem “Solitude,” for example, Crozier describes “Sometimes the dark’s so dark / nothing can move through it” (38). She specifies that the wind and the geese can’t move through it, despite how an hour ago they “charcoaled their journey from star to star” (38). I love noun-verbs, and “charcoaled” here feels evocative. Again, there’s a motif of stars that stand as nodes in a network of connection. The poem then continues to describe in second person that “you love the lake at night / because water keeps its distance / yet carries sound, crackled and clear, from the farthest shore” (38). Again, there’s these spaces that are vast and empty but serve as bridges of connection to the farthest shores. Crozier again gets more precise: “the hard notes of a party / drift through the screen from cabins / on the southern spit” (38). If you’ve ever sat by water in the darkness, you know these two emptinesses that connect: “You said / nothing moves through this dark. / But music does, and voices, / and you go on” (38).

One more poem I’d like to comment on is “The Physics of the Rose.” The poem opens with an epigraph about the electron and us living in different worlds. In describing the rose, Crozier says “each petal [is] an eyelid, blood-fused, over what / invisible eyes!” (24). The idea of an eyelid sealed shut by blood is both beautiful and horrific. Continuing to describe the rose, “fold after fold, its silence so enclosed / it seems a kind of speaking, light’s muted // hallelujah brought inside” (24). Crozier reads into silences and finds their voice. She looks into the quiet phenomena and imbues them with a voice, just as these roses speak in the silence of their folds. Later in the short poem, she describes it as “the antithesis of absence, / of stillness, its red fist unfurling / this, this and this, a daring to be open / so immoderate you want to say outrageous, / you want to say ridiculous, but can’t” (24). The idea of the rose being the antithesis of absence is a compelling phrase and emulates Crozier’s philosophy. Despite the silence, the rose speaks. Despite this, there’s a dark tone that gets couched in pretty imagery. Crozier describes the rose as “shocking as a heart cut out and set in glass” (24). The gruesome undertone draws attention to that which is otherwise quiet. The final lines of the poem then invert our expectations: suddenly we are the one being watched. She writes, “Clothed or not, you stand naked in its eyes. / Small and unadorned, / without a lover” (24). We are no longer the observer; the brilliant presence of the rose is observing us…I suppose when you stare into the rose long enough the rose stares back?

Throughout the collection, there were a number of poems I liked, a few that I loved, and a few I failed to linger on. It’s a good collection and, as with all poetry, the more time I spent thinking through it the more I was able to see what Crozier’s mission might be. It’s worth reading and I’ll stand by my philosophy that poems are best read as part of a full collection. The more time you spend with a voice, the more you’re able to hear its nuances.

Happy reading!

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman

  Take a moment to recall everything you know about René Descartes. “I think therefore I am” and all that. Did his means of death make your list? That he was poisoned by a Catholic priest who laced the communion wafer with arsenic? …What?! This is one of the surprising details that emerges in Robert Chapman’s impressive historical analysis Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism.

This nonfiction text essentially posits the thesis that the rise of capitalism created a normalizing framework that produces out-groups of disability that it subsequently exploits for its own wealth-generated ends. The book then champions the idea of reshaping society in a way that is more accessible for the neurodiversity inherent in our society. Ultimately, when we consider “disability,” or discuss ill mental health, the questions are: on what grounds? according to whom? They give the example of autism, which is seen as a disability because the world is not structured to respond to it. The fault lies with our structures, not the individuals who have been excluded from them.

The argument of the book is persuasive in its own right, but what I thought was most fascinating about the text were the historical parallels and the extraordinarily clear articulation of the central points.

In this history, Chapman describes the relationship of people in feudal society to work and disability. The thesis here is that people with disabilities were accommodated in the early days of feudalism—if you had mobility issues, you were given work in the home like sewing, while if you had difficulty in thinking clearly you might still be able to complete the menial tasks of farm life. The conception is probably a little idyllic, but nonetheless effectively establishes that each person had their place irrespective of disabilities.

Chapman then proceeds to explore the transition into a more capitalist and exclusionary mode. Returning to Descartes, for example, we see a concise and precise discussion of the philosopher’s contributions to conceptions of identity. Chapman outlines how Descartes initiated a conception of the human body which is mechanistic. (Chapman makes reference to Descartes’ interest in creating an automaton version of his daughter, though this anecdote appears to be debunked.) In any case, Descartes saw the body as animated not by a soul but by its own machinery. This emerges alongside increasing mechanization of work (and therefore the workforce). When the human body is nothing special, it becomes a machine that can be exploited for the ends of capitalism. 

The problem then becomes one of standardization. Again, the historical backdrop is pretty interesting. They describe how statistics emerged as a discipline from astronomers and astrologers trying to account for the variable appearance of astral bodies. They were searching for regularity and predictability. With the emergence of statistics as a field of study, it also led to the idea of standardization. It became a quest for the average. Capitalist logics adopted the idealism of the ‘average’ in order to increase its profitability: you produce products that appeal to the ‘average’ person. Some people argue that capitalism breeds innovation, but really it breeds the most easily sellable products on a mass-scale, meaning that the consumers which deviate from a conception of the ‘average’ user of product are left out of capitalism’s priorities. Capitalism looked for the ‘average’ needs of consumers and used statistics to render brains and consumers ‘normal’ in their consumption. This becomes even worse following Fordism and the standardized production process.

The trajectory Chapman sets out has a kind of clarity in its logic, and the byproduct is that capitalism creates in-groups and out-groups. The in-groups are people who are neurotypical and able to operate within capitalism’s structures—that is, until they burnout and enter the out-group neurodivergent class. The neurodivergent class is created as an outgroup that needs to access wellness through consumption. Capitalism wins its producers and consumers.

I appreciated that Chapman includes a chapter that addresses the nuances of mental illness. Seeing that capitalism benefits from broadening its conception of disability to create an excluded class, the temptation is to dismiss the psychiatry movement. Chapman, though, reserves a chapter for arguing against the anti-psychiatry movement. I have my own difficulties with the psychiatry movement; Foucault’s critique of the Power-Knowledge that informs the DSM always stuck with me. It does appear that psychiatry aims to normalize the human experience, which feels problematic. But, ignoring the real and authentic suffering of people with mental health concerns seems nearly as problematic as allowing capitalism to exploit them.

One interesting anecdote is Chapman’s account of the alliance between queer folk and the antipsychiatry movement. As many of you surely know, the DSM originally included homosexuality as a mental disorder and we see how antipsychiatry’s objection to the DSM formed an alliance with queer people who might otherwise want to access mental health supports but who object to the DSM’s construction of disorder. When the APA voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, it should feel like a win, but it opened the question of how mental illness is distinct from other non normative ways of being. It created a conception of the psychiatry industry as arbitrary.

Chapman also looks at the intersection of race and neurodiversity. They provide some historical notes about how antislavery movements and civil rights movements have long been at the forefront of disability advocacy. I’m confident that an entire book could be written on the intersection of disability and antiracism advocacy; Chapman offers a brief but welcome glimpse into that story. There’s also a fair amount of commentary on the development of eugenics movements—even within supposedly liberal spaces—and different philosophies towards treating psychological afflictions (or ‘problems in living’). 

Ultimately, Chapman finds a balance between a questioning of neuronormativity while still holding space for the genuine afflictions in peoples’ lives, especially those that have been exacerbated by capitalism (cf. Mark Fisher re: depression within capitalist structures). As the world becomes more reified, the notion is that minds also must become more reified. Championing neurodiversity means that we recognize a philosophy towards society: different kinds of minds are suited to different kinds of tasks.

The book was really insightful into the historical context for neurodiversity and presents a persuasive argument for the connection between the standardization of capitalism and the production of out-groups (potentially stretching the definition of mental health so far as to render everyone disabled and thus consumers within the capitalist models). I really appreciated how thoughtful Chapman is in his approach and how applicable the text feels for engaging in advocacy both against capitalism and in favour of a neurologically diverse population.

Happy reading!