Today's highlight was the Toni Cade Bambara meeting this afternoon. Dr. Guy-Sheftall told us about the real TCB and conveyed how deeply she had lived her politics. She had squatted in an abandoned house in one of the "seedier" parts of Atlanta. She couldn't afford or refused to buy a new refrigerator so she had to tie a belt around the one she had to keep it closed. She didn't have a stable income and only took part time jobs so she could stay outside the capitalist system almost completely.
I don't know if I could do that. I may talk a good game but even the thought of leaving the institutions of higher learning is terrifying. I wanted the revolution to happen 20 min. ago and last just as long and when it's over I still want to be able to go to the cheesecake factory. I'm mad at myself b/c I'm still unwilling to take those radical steps like an assassination attempt, a real kamikaze mission, even simple civil disobedience like not paying taxes that are used to support an unjust war and a moralist political agenda. My activism thus far has been limited to protests and demonstrations that do little to incite the kind of change I wish to see. I do that safe government approved activism and nothing real seems to come of it. I wonder if I'll ever get to the point where I'm not afraid to go all out and live as free a life as Toni cade. I wonder if I could ever get to the point where I wouldn't need/want a bookcase full of my black feminist foremothers' works b/c it would all be in my head, that I'd become a true minimalist and shed the Banana for the thrift store. hmm . . .
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