The account of the librarian who tucked the socialist paper out of
sight, because her husband might be outraged if he saw it, should be a
warning to all who believe that we have free speech in America. When
a piece of literature has to be smuggled into a woman's home because
her husband will go ballistic over its content, then freedom of speech
has been compromised. Freedom of expression is free only when any
idea can be floated and discussed.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/17/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistworker.org/2018/03/16/talking-socialism-in-trump-country
Talking socialism in "Trump country"
Pranav Jani, an associate professor at Ohio State University, who comes
from a family of teachers, tells what he learned in the hallways of the
West Virginia Capitol building.
March 16, 2018
Striking teachers celebrate after the announcement of a victory in West
Virginia
Striking teachers celebrate after the announcement of a victory in West
Virginia
"SOCIALISM."
The striking West Virginia high school librarian mouthed the word
soundlessly when I told her about my political views, as we stood in a
corridor of the State Capitol building in Charleston.
I smiled and expected some pushback, despite the friendly conversation
we'd had up to that point.
I was in "Trump country" after all. Not a stretch to expect that this
white, working-class woman in her 50s or 60s might have some doubts
about talking to a socialist. And a socialist of color, at that.
Instead, she said: "See? I said the word, and I didn't explode."
It was the reaction of someone who was curious about socialism, despite
being exposed to the right wing's propaganda against anything on the
left--of someone who nevertheless wanted to know what the fuss about
that particular forbidden fruit was really about.
I had met the librarian, who asked that we not use her name, some 10 or
15 minutes before. An all-out celebration was going on in the halls of
the Capitol building after it was confirmed that West Virginia's
teachers, librarians, cooks, bus drivers and other education workers had
won an incredible victory--by standing united and defiant until the
state government relented and passed the wage increase they wanted.
The librarian and a group of four or five co-workers had taken a break
to catch their breath, and we struck up a conversation. We talked about
how exhilarated they were to win. How exhausted, too, and how eager to
see their students again.
They marveled that I had come in from Columbus, Ohio to support them,
and that the strike was so important to people outside the state--while
I tried to explain why it was a privilege to witness workers in motion,
using their collective strength to stare down a state governor and
legislature.
We all took photos together, and laughed, and savored the moment of
victory.
When I said I was part of a socialist organization, and pointed to my
other comrades who had come from states even further away than Ohio, the
others were just as surprised, but still talkative and friendly.
Clearly, though, the librarian was interested on a whole different level.
The introduction of socialism--as part of an organic dialogue among
individuals, not parachuted in from above--allowed our discussion to
expand from the strike itself to the political implications of the
walkout, as well as the context in which it took place.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE LIBRARIAN told me she had "an epiphany" about four years ago, after
decades of being a Republican, watching Fox News all the time, and
believing its right-wing ideology.
She called Fox News "one of the most damaging thing that's happened to
us. I quit watching the news, quit watching television totally...When I
emerged out of that and got out from under the brainwashing from Fox
News, it was like a light bulb went off. And I started paying attention."
Wasn't it too much to say "brainwashing," I asked? People never
completely swallow and accept what the media says, do they?
But the librarian had thought about this a lot and wanted me to
understand the complete saturation of the region with Fox News, inside
and outside the home. "Around here," she explained, "it's on every
television in every hospital and doctors' office and Wal-Mart. Everywhere."
I think the importance she gave to the power of ideas and the need for
alternative ways of viewing the world was behind her interest in getting
a copy of Socialist Worker.
But as soon as she took the paper, the librarian told me she would have
to put it away, so her husband didn't see it. A Trump supporter who was
moving further to the right, she thought he would be livid at seeing a
socialist newspaper.
The librarian wasn't the only woman striker to talk to me, get a copy of
Socialist Worker, but not want to be interviewed because of concern
about husbands and neighbors.
In some cases, these family and community members held onto their
right-wing ideas, but supported the strike at the same time. In others,
the strike caused strains at home. One person told me her decades-long
marriage was on the rocks because of the strike: She was moving further
and further left, while her husband was zooming to the right.
It's been widely reported that the West Virginia school strike was 75
percent women. For good reason, we have celebrated the militancy of
women workers, coming just a few days before International Women's Day,
as a key part of the militancy in "Trump country."
But some of those conversations with women workers gave me a further
glimpse into the difficulties they had to face in becoming rank-and-file
militants and the heavy personal costs they were willing to bear for the
sake of the struggle.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I ASKED the librarian about her political epiphany, and how it came
about since she was presumably surrounded by people continued to believe
Fox News and conservative ideas. She went right ahead and shattered some
more stereotypes about West Virginia:
What really solidified it for me was that my neighbor is gay. And when I
watched the Republicans nationwide and on a local level try to take
rights from him, I said that I can't follow a party anymore that says he
doesn't deserve the same rights that I have. That changed me.
From then on, it was just like a snowball. You start looking around you
and seeing that there's so many people who need the protection of the
Constitution--and I just don't feel like the Republican Party was for that.
That was the spark. Defending someone from her community led the
librarian to rethink her worldview.
Given our friendly rapport, I probed a little bit more to ask about her
views on race. I wondered whether, four years ago, before her epiphany,
she would have been able to have such a conversation with a Brown
socialist like me.
She wanted to say very clearly that she had never been racist in terms
of discriminating against individuals. But when she described her
changed opinions from four years ago, it revealed how turning away from
the ideas of Fox News and the Republicans had been a rejection of racism
at a deeper level.
I bought the whole spiel of the Republicans throughout--you know, "You
cut taxes and it trickles down" or "Immigrants are what's doing all the
damage." But immigrants don't have the power to do the damage they say
they're doing. The people who have the power are right here in these two
houses of the legislature, and in Washington."
What an indictment of both the racist, divide-and-conquer tactics of
anti-immigrant rhetoric--and the powerful political leaders who are the
real culprits in damaging workers' lives.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I DON'T doubt, as she repeatedly told me, that the librarian is further
to the left than many of the strikers. But there were plenty of others
who broke the stereotypes that so many people, even on the left, have
had about West Virginia.
Christian, a big white guy who I might instinctively avoid anywhere
these days except on a picket line, told me he was on strike because he
wanted to be part of West Virginia's rich history of workers' struggle.
"West Virginia is once again the cradle of the modern labor movement,"
he told me.
"I only make about $34,000 a year," he said. "The promises have been
piling up, and they haven't been delivered. And people are just tired of
it."
Christian's understanding of his work as a public school teacher in the
midst of a social crisis is typical around the country. "Some of these
kids where I live don't have father figures," he said. "Not only are we
teachers, we're role models, we're big brothers, we're father figures,
we're counselors. We're so much more than just teachers."
Among the teachers and librarians and school workers who went on strike
are some, like Christian, who know they are drawing on a long history of
workers struggle. And there are others, like the librarian, who have
been rapidly rethinking their ideas about sexuality, immigration,
gender, religion, media, politicians and what it would mean to have an
alternative vision of the world.
Socialists, with our experience as organizers in many arenas of struggle
and our knowledge of past struggles in the U.S. and around the world,
can link arms with these different expressions of radicalization and, if
possible, help to spread them.
We have to be confident in projecting socialism--not as an identity to
simply declare, but as a set of ideas and practices that furthers
struggle on the ground, in real life.
At the end of the day, we're not "creating" radicalism, but joining
people who are forging their own path. In the process, we meet people
and develop our own understanding of what it means to take a stand. As
the librarian told me, laughing: "Heck, I'm a librarian, so we're
already kind of radical anyway."
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