lineage

All of my advocate idols have published many works that either explicitly outline or are suggestive of the roots of their activism lineage. When I say lineage, I am not necessarily referencing a genetic one but rather a self-constructed one. When adirenne maree brown was recording her “Witch Series” featured on How to Survive the End of the World Podcast, she includes in her interviews with featured guests a simple question:  who is in your magical lineage? She further disclosed that these people may not be deeply entrenched and well-versed in the hidden magic of this planet but really who inspired them to be an advocate. I suppose this question is posed for exposure of these otherwise unknown monumental human beings, meant to encourage her listeners to do more research on their contribution to an anti-capitalist movement, however it posed a question in my mind: who is in my lineage?  

I suppose my lineage began when I heard “Cherry Bomb” by the Runaways in 8th grade. I was immediately hypnotized by their lead singer, Charie Currie. Her deep voice and assumed feminine disposition were encapsulating. Following the death of my mother, I was looking for purpose, maybe even a way to surprise people. Her stage presence burned the idea in my brain that I wasn’t necessarily expected to fit into society’s box they made for me. Unbeknownst to me, I was actively dismantling the idea of the Italian American nuclear family in my brain and detaching myself from every familial obligation. I was a teenager, probably the most angsty I had ever been, and growing up in a lower-class neighborhood that was diseased with wide-spread drug addiction. And the first time I heard Kathleen Hanna growl at me to suck her left one, I knew I had found my niche idea of womanhood, and it was regularly being championed in riot grrrls of the 90s and punk women from the 80s. I quickly found they sought to share their gripes with the gendered structure of our society through the medium of zines. Whether it was Tobi Vail’s zine Jigsaw or Ramdasha Bikcee’s zine GUNK, I was scouring the pages, fascinated with the perceived lazy design that was in fact, calculated and profusely informative in a palatable manner.

The author, Francesca Lia Block, consistently offered her wisdom in my time of grief and growth while I was a teenager. She successfully wrote about 15 books (not in total) that I read probably more than once that still hold space on my bookshelf. She wrote relatable and twisted modern faerie tales that often romanticized the healing part of being hurt. Dangerous Angels was a particularly captivating series for me during my formative years that told five incredible love stories that existed between people, with the world, and also with self. This proved to me that there is still magic, you just have to dig deep, know where to find it, and when you do, make roots. I’ve never grown out of this belief, and I imagine that’s a big part of why I am still here, reading, learning, listening, and discovering, all for the sake of holding on to the magic I have found and maybe in pursuit of more.

I took my first women’s studies course at community college. My professor taught her dated version of the women’s movement timeline and completely disregarded the third wave of feminism we were still experiencing in 2013. Not much was taken from that course besides the fact that my professor was maybe expressing some mild form of misogyny through her lessons. When I went back to school in 2019, we were fully experiencing what I feel as though we are experiencing now, the forth wave of feminism. I decided to retake the women studies course at my community college but with an unknowing fresh lens. See, at this point, I had already been a pawn in people’s expressions of power, I felt stagnant, reliant, and defeated. Those emotions are what ultimately drove me back to school. Every video shown in my new women’s studies course, every prose read, and every single promising story of a woman from the 70s made me weep. Here I was, older than all my classmates, consistently sobbing in the front row of class over a picture of Gloria Steinem. I know she may be cliché but her ability to construct an entire collective of feminists focused on spreading the message of their activist agenda through a self-published magazine was, for lack of better words, incredibly inspiring. Revolution From Within pushed self-recognition and self-adoration (with a healthy dose of ego-maintaining practices) to top of my priority list during this time.

As I have breached the latter part of my 30 years, I am discovering my advocacy lineage enriched with feminists with varying racial, ethnic, and gendered backgrounds from around the world that have spread a more inclusive and acceptable idea of equality in my mind. Many that consider capitalist oppression on not just people existing outside of the dominant gender but the environment as well. After completing a gender studies bachelor’s program, my understanding of consumption is self-admittedly entirely progressive, and I understand capitalism as an opposing force to my understanding of an ideal society. This has forced me fully leaned into the “pleasure” part of activism where I am heeding the direction of my solar plexus, latching onto whatever I find that fits… and sticks. adrienne maree brown, bell hooks, Juju Bae, and Jezz Chung have all offered a new reality to me that centers activism based on love and social understanding. And really, I just let the rest build from that. Audre Lorde convinced me to follow my orgasmic “yes” and science fiction has offered my mind with many post-apocalyptic solutions for an egalitarian society. Octavia Butler introduced me to emergent strategy through her sci-fi novels and planted a seed that has grown like a weed. Sarah Ahmed described the feminist movement in her opening chapter in her book, Bad Feminist, as complex and flawed due to it being comprised of complexly flawed individuals. She stresses in the same chapter how feminism is experienced through sensation and can only be constructed personally by the participant, not by the sector of the movement that they participate in. I have also connected to ecofeminist, Vandava Shiva, and have bared witness her teachings in that males domination over women is being mirrored in the domination of the natural world as well (*ahem* extractive capitalism *ahem*). Amanda McCarthy, host of the Clotheshorse Podcast, has reinforced how destructive contemporary consumption is. She has opened my eyes to the global commodity chain and its destructiveness to not only the environment but how harmful it is to everyone that participates in it. All these ideas, these beautifully insightful and powerful people have been layering themselves to help me construct and reinforce my lineage.

It is irrelevant if these people in my lineage are spiritually based, adversity-induced, or bound to their exposure to pop culture and politics, they have all been linked to the sensations that have woven my story thick with activism and ignited my pursuit for change. And to the women, men, 2-spirit, non-binary and transfolk that have inspired the people who dominate my lineage: thank you.

Secret flyer made by Kathleen Hanna

Meant to be folded up to only display the word “trust.”