On the pieing of Medea Benjamin

Well I *almost* got through the social forum without feeling disgusted or turned off but at the last moment something happened (doesn't it always?) that made me want to roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all and walk away.  Forget snarkiness and divisive infighting amongst various groups on the left.  Forget arguments about who's radical and who's not, who's a sell-out or a (god-forbid!) "a liberal", who deserves a pie in the face and who doesn't. 

But I'm going to resist that urge to retreat because I know that Bakers without Borders pieing Medea Benjamin was just one tiny litlte incident in the ocean of solidarity that characterized the US Social Forum this past weekend.  I will try to remember the powerful feeling of seeing all these diverse groups coming together, making the connections between seemingly disparate issues and creating new alliances to counter the wave of US imperialism in its various forms that threatens our world. 

Whether Ms. Benjamin is guilty or not of ideological impurity I really don't know and don't care.  Who gives a fuck if someone said something not just right at a press conference eight years ago?  And who made Bakers without Borders the Enforcers of Ideological Correctness anyway?  I don't want to be a part of a movement where I'm going to get attacked if someone else doesn't like every tiny little thing I say or do.  Forget it.  Harmless prank or not, we are not Nazis here; we on the left do allow room for disagreement, or don't we?  Not to mention that when we start pieing our own allies, it starts diluting the impact of what once was a creative form of social protest.

I think the fact that this was the only incident and that it was in such stark contrast to the overwhelming unity that this historic event created in the global justice movement is significant.  It'll take more than a pie to undo all that got accomplished over the past week.

Comments

[prof black woman]

I am so terribly sorry to keep reading about all the negative things that happened at the forum. I too tried to stick to the positives when writing up; however, I also pretty much avoided places and panels that experience told me would lead to drama and thus, wasn't exposed to much. I'm sad such an event had so much negativity. I appreciate what I see as your post's reminder that "another way [of communicating] is possible." When we learn that, finally, maybe, all the rhetoric will transform into actual practice.

[barbh]

Were you there too? Maybe we ran into each other then! Anyway this was really the only negative thing I saw there, but it was a huge conference. Overall I felt it was really positive for the most part.

[prof black woman]

I was there but I got all my registration stuff while translating for others, so I wasn't really paying much attention to anything around me.

it seems a lot of woc bloggers were there; I guess I just did not go to the right parties (or any parties) . . .

[Tony Tharp]

Just a quick reaction. Enjoyed your take on this event. I went to quite a few presentations and all were "positive" so I didn't get a sense of anything negative until hearing about the pie-in-the-face incident. But my main thing in writing is to encourage you not to be put off by those whom you might see as negative or critical of your effots. Any tiime you stick your neck out to speak your mind or live your beliefs there will be people trying to tear you down. Have the strength of your convictions and know when you've taken kindness and consideration to their limits. At some point, it's OK to tell these kinds of folks to get lost. Keep up the great blog.