The Friends that Protest (And Disagree) Together...
Reflecting on our interview with Sarah Schulman re collective power
This week, we drop a new podcast installment with our guest: radical activist, fiery intellectual, and prolific multi-genre writer Sarah Schulman.
In Part 8 of this season, we explore yet another angle on forging chosen family. Most of us have had the experience of sharing a common purpose with another person — maybe working together towards a goal —and the way that this creates a form of devotion. Even in the pursuit of a simple aim, this is a beautiful thing: You see me. We need the same things, and we work together for one another’s needs. I am devoted to your care and well-being, as you are devoted to mine.
We first worked with Sarah when we programmed and produced a Covid-era virtual event with Sarah, Laurie Anderson, and Lynn Nottage. We next spoke with Sarah while we were ideating for a short film loosely inspired by elements of our own relationship.* She was producing a play in Provincetown that summer, so we spoke on the phone with the hubbub of a gay summer mecca in the background. The working title for our short at that time, believe it or not, was “The Fag Hag Cafe.” We batted around ideas about the history of the “fag hag” epithet within gay culture, and what it meant as a character trope. In both encounters, Sarah was generous with her time, and did not gatekeep her wisdom.
This podcast episode covers so much ground that it’s difficult to single out a favorite moment. We talk about about what brings a group together, and what keeps it alive. We talk about her belief that “friendship” is MUCH more important than family. We talk about multigenerational legacy. We talk about her bleak assessments of our current political landscape. But perhaps most memorably, we talk about how to disagree, and that groups work best together by —counterintuitively—abandoning the idea of consensus.
We interviewed her for this podcast while we were on vacation in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea during the swampiest weeks of August. Though we idolize her work, we found this podcast interview to be extra humanizing. Sarah is all conviction, but Sarah is also full of contradictions. As you’ll hear in our conversation, she is proud of the work, but she resists our valorization of her activism.
In one moment, she regrets not being able to “work the system” by having brand name schooling and better navigating the mainstream. At the same time, she recognizes the necessity of the queer movement to exist in the radical rather than the mainstream; that the promise of collective liberation can only be achieved from the fringes. She wishes to be widely read and well regarded — but also doesn’t shy away from being disliked. In fact she is not only wholly unafraid of it, but accepts this as an essential part of being in a group.
This idea in particular has stuck with us. The two of us, Andrew and Amrita, have spoken a lot on the podcast about how community requires love, care, closeness, and commitment. What we have not considered on the show is that a true community not only contains room for disagreement, but requires commitment towards those we may not agree with 100% of the time. Andrew has childhood memories of his mother offering unconditional support to certain members of their church whom he knew, privately, were not her favorite people. When they are sick or suffering, we help them anyway. This is also the work of being in community with others.
Sarah recounts that in Act Up, of which she was a member (and now historian), disagreement was a feature of the organization’s functionality. When you accept that being in community with others requires discomfort, and is predicated on the fact that you may be disliked by some members of your community — then you can truly be free. Free to come as you are, with your whole self, your ideals, your fanciful notions, and your rough edges. You can show up with your full throat and your most unpopular opinions, and know that you too deserve liberation and fellowship and care and community.
*You can see The Albatross Cafe (neé Fag Hag Cafe) live and in-person by joining us at GROUP CHAT this coming Monday in the lower east side! Sign up HERE
In the meantime, bump this week’s playlist, and love each other well.
“When you accept that being in community with others requires discomfort, and is predicated on the fact that you may be disliked by some members of your community — then you can truly be free” - This is huge. And this is ultimately what we accept as normal in family, yes?
I, too, remember the days of Act Up (still have my buttons). I don’t specifically remember this aspect, but I do remember the sense of being heard and Decisions made by consensus. 🙌🧡
Jan I didn't know you had a history with Act Up, that's really cool to hear! I loved hearing about how the group was so open to a wide range of ideas. Their strategy was a sort of a powerful chaos