We walk down the steep stones under the arco de Almedina, the stones are slippery. Kim and I have only a few minutes to bring the donated clothes from the space to her car, down the baixa of Coimbra. The rain had stopped for a bit. Our arms are hurting. We find a young man to help us with the 8 bags full of clothes. Kim will bring them to a charity. The young man quietly agrees to walk to Kims car with us. We load the car and talk about where we need to rush next while he stands next to us.
“It is an effort to build community”, she says when we part ways “but what is the alternative”. We look at each other, the rain is coming back, we hug and go on in our hurry. There is an effort to community, I think while I am trying to stretch my hurting arms, walking to my next appointment, I do not remember if it was the bank but it was boring. It is effort, I am thinking, that I do not know.
There is a part of the white supremacy I grew up in (like most white europeans) that is not really determined by doing things but by the absence of things. There is a lack of community skills apparent in supremacist cultures which reinforces their supremacy – the lack of skill enforces violence as means to getting your needs met.
And one of them is effort. It is not taught as a community skill.
Supremacy is the one layer of systemic violence that is characterized by the refusal of effort – patriarchal structures burden women by uneven effort and leave men with the entitlement to do the bare minimum. White people let non-white people explain to them endlessly why it is not okay to wear dreadlocks. The one with the power lets the one without explain, work, put an effort to hold up the individual relationship.
Lack of effort shows up in every layer of violence – and it also means that we can fight it by putting effort into unjust systems.
But how?
When I grew up, my teachers and parents would tell me to never put effort when it was not directly coming back. Do not give to people who are not givng back on the same day, in the same way. Do not put effort into something that will not bring you money or fame or whatever measurement it was that was considered a good payback.
Effort was a gift only afforded transactional, trying to manipulate the world into givng back. It is asking about deserving and getting back, not about expression and connection.
It works perfectly in white supremacy because like all violence it thrives on division along the lines of effectiveness and productivity, leaving behind the parts of the world that make it livable: Communion, care and family. These entities are destroyed when we only use effort transactional. Because caring for a child will not give you that care back – in fact, good care for a child will always leave the option open that this child will not want to ever care for you back. Helping your neighbour has to invite them not helping you back, because of their resources, perspective and values. Showing up for a friend is a vulnerable act when it is not paying into the invisible bank account of supremacy and power, because we take the risk of our friend not joining the effort, nor returning or not even seeing it.
Effort, it seems, needs to be more of an expression of how we want to live and not what we expect of others. This brings several layers of questions with it, that I am wrestling with for some time:
- Does white supremacy rob the ones inheriting it of their expression? Effort as a transactional idea rather then an expression of our will to belong seems shallow, stale, taking away identity. And while I think the fact that supremacy is hurting the ones having it should NEVER be an argument to abolish it, it is a question worth sitting with it
- What do I pour effort into? In my life I am seeing myself putting effort into things I hope to get things from and not things I want to support and reversing this process is not only making me much happier, it is a political act.
- How do I measure effort? Staying with a person who is angry or sad can take much emotional effort while putting money on another thing can be not much – and the other way around
So, here is my thesis: Belonging and community is build by effort. And how we understand effort is political. Which, as always, means the inverse is true: We can change political and social realities by relearning our way to relate.
