Preaching to an entangled audience?

leamirella, I think that your frustration with the particularism of awareness groups and subsequent call for unification intersects interestingly with sel209’s hesitation in creating “we’s” that are too large and unwieldy. This class has forced me (through the assigned readings and in my web-events) to problematize the “we” and explore its possibilities/limitations. Like you, I’m frustrated with the inefficacy or shortsightedness of some smaller “we”s, but I also fear losing hold of some of the “we”s I cherish by making my categories of belonging too inclusive.

In last week’s readings, Sharon Welch offers a compelling compromise to these anxieties. Throughout the reading, Welch appeals and references specific and contained communities—the white middle class, African American critics, feminist theorists—and in this way admits the delineation (necessary, historical, continued) between “we”s. In this way I think she admits that conflict and difference between groups are inevitable and necessary, and so the concept of erasing difference by creating the largest “we” possible is not only impossible (she writes that “the goal of lasting peace is illusory”), but also not desirable. Instead, she says, we can preemptively avoid the need for tragic issue politics by creating comprehensive coalitions of different “we”s. Each “we” in the coalition would care about and identify deeply with its own group politics; each “we” would also recognize both the values of each other group and the ways in which overlapping concerns created broader coalitional ideals and efforts. 

You also articulate a distinction between the “we”s that call upon others and the “you”s of listeners who are called upon (or, depending on perspective, the converse). It seems like a successful coalitional politics is dependant on every group doing the calling independently and in unison. In the culture Welch has envisioned, listening is important primarily in the productive actions it informs. So then how does a group of listeners become a group of actors? Not all of us can belong to coalitions in anything more than name, due to restrictions on time, money, etc. Does inter-group empathy and dependence depend on a reworking on the ways we prioritize our lives and work?