Leading the Way: Lead Post

Allison Attenello: "Navigating Identity Politics in Activism"

I loved the opening paragraphs of Attenello's essay. She begins by describing that each person should "locate themselves." By this, she means that everybody should be able to recognize and acknowledge their bias. This includes race, class, religion, gender, etc. By being aware of one's "privileges," a writer can start to try to be as unbiased as possible, although Attenello says that writing/activism will never be entirely objective, because the way in which someone writes or what they strive for is based off of who they are as an individual. This notion led her to become "obsessed" with identity politics, "the idea of that a diverse group of people could be bound together by a set of shared experiences and that these experiences could produce a particular set of identity." I thought that this was a great opening for it acted as an admission of her inherent bias (although she would try to overcome it) and it also opened the door for her thesis that these identity politics can be both valuable and harmful in regards to activism. It promotes people working together to obtain common goals, but it also has a narrow scope and may exclude the goals/desires of those who identify differently.

She then went into a discussion about her work in the New Brunswick area. A racially and economically diverse city in central New Jersey, this story struck me close to home. The demographics reminded me of Colgate. With the presence of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, the town is seemingly divided between the local and temporary (student) populations. In New Brunswick, the problem which prompted Attenello's work was the serial rapist who target both local hispanic women and the female student population. The police response and media coverage was focused nearly in its entirety of the student attacks, which marginalized the local hispanic women. This is a serious issue which left the rights of the locals unappreciated and frightened the locals that they would not be as protected as their student counterparts.

In order to combat this violence against women, particularly in the hispanic community, Attenello attended a meeting which she assumed would be a thriving hub of activism and discussion. Instead, she was thrust into a leadership position and speaking with and on behalf of a community which she did not belong to. After learning that violence against women wasn't even their biggest concern, Attenello felt especially undeserving of her role and the challenges it presented. Working with this group allowed her to cross the divide which separated the college students from the local hispanic/immigrant population. Doing so gave her a new insight into the identity politics of a group very different from her own. Which, in her own words, "made [her] a more thoughtful, open-minded, and effective activist."

I didn't really agree, however, when she asserted that she was an "illegitimate" leader of the Unidad de New Brunswick because of her outsider status. She asserts that because she didnt share any of the identity characteristics with the rest of the members she was unfit to represent them. I think that this is a little unfair. He compassion and her willingness to speak to the members and gain an understanding, in my mind, would be enough to make up for her inherent differences. I think that she was a valuable leader for the organization for all the resources that her "outsider" status brought to the group. I do appreciate her acknowledging that by being in a leadership role she was preventing another member from stepping up and gaining empowerment through their own leadership. For the latter reason, i understand and support her stepping down.

Attenello closes her passage with a clear and concise conclusion. She says that working with Unidad de New Brunswick was an empowering experience which widened her scope of identity politics. She learned how different communities handled and viewed things, and also learned what her particular privilege awarded her as a white, college-educated woman. She brought up the role of power dynamics in relation to her seemingly authoritative identity, something which she still struggled with while working in Costa Rica. She concludes by stressing the importance for activists to be negotiators, an appeal which seems to be very important for not only her own work, but for the work of all activists!

Shira Pruce: "Blurring the Lines that Divide"

Pruce also talks about the role of bias in her essay. She opens by describing her own identity. She is Jewish, a woman, and a leader. These characteristics would later spur her activism (and her bias). While visiting the death camps in Poland, Pruce became personally effected by the horrors she was able to see and became an even stronger activists for Jewish rights. In particular, she spent a year in Israel during which time (the early 2000s) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was reaching new heights of terror. She notes, something which i found particularly interesting, that although she was in Israel and experiencing these attacks of terror firsthand, she was still an outsider due to her status as a tourist. She also notes that this perspective gave her a particular bias. Her anger and fear, for a long time, prohibited her from being objective while discussing the conflict. Her personal connection, yet her inherent distance, led her to see her own biases, and more importantly, acknowledge them and try to work past them.

After returning to the United States, Pruce was again facing attacks on Israel. This time, however, the attacks were made by her fellow students who called for the utter destruction of Israel in order to alleviate the US's problems following 9/11. After returning to Israel, she gained an important knowledge: after her previous emotionally driven experience, Pruce was given facts and figures to supplement her cause. She would later bring this rationalism back to her campus when she organized with fellow members of her community to bring awareness and fight anti-Semitism.

Importantly, Pruce began to expand her activist horizons: she no longer entirely identified as a Jew, but she also characterized herself as a woman. She realized that patriarchy was the root of many of the problems which she faced. Her marginalization, which she didnt dare talk about before her womens/gender studies, proved to her that there was work to be done not just for Jews, but for women as a whole. By characterizing women as the "other" to the male norm, patriarchy can be manipulated to make advances for women.

After participating in the Institute for Women's Leadership, Pruce was given opportunities to further her skills as an activist. This was put to test when an anti-Zionist group threatened to hots a conference at her university. In response, Pruce gathered many Jewish organizations together and had an extremely successful conference which gained public and political support and would later go on to inspire many other advocacy groups to this day. She later went on to discuss her time when rallying women together to go to Washington to support women's rights. After getting attention from NOW, Pruce was able to get over 10 buses worth of women to go and support the cause.

This was particularly important not only because of the attention Pruce was able to bring to the cause, but also because of the bridge she was able to build with another activist. She had previously known a Palestinian woman, whom she had disagreed with regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but found that they were able to unite under their common bond as a women. Pruce was able to take this realization and use it as a way to bridge the women of both Israel and Palestine. Hopefully, by having them discuss and work together for their common goals, they might be able to be more peaceful/understanding when talking about those issues which divide them.

After making the permanent move to Israel, Pruce found herself working for the Israeli Parliament, in particular in a Jewish-Christian coalition aimed with the betterment of Israel in mind. Although she said she was "in the closet" regarding her feminism, Pruce asserted that she was able to interact with people who could otherwise be considered her adversaries and work with them for a common cause: Israel.

She continues by discussing the Israeli-Hezbollah war and cease-fire, which she saw as evidence to a lack of a female voice and a clear lack of respect for human life. She also was given the opportunity to work on LGBT rights in Israel, an area which needs much support and activism.

She concludes by saying that all of these areas in which she fought so hard, whether it be for her Jewish or her female identity, were spurred by her desire to increase the female voice in leadership and activism. She further stresses the importance of women to stand up and cross the boundaries which would otherwise limit their voices and leadership. She says that it is these women who will bring about the most positive change throughout the world.