Read on Twitter
This Podcast Has Been Declared A Riot is important. The Antifascism 101 episode is both a good entry point for newbs and a good touchstone for the grizzled supersoldier.
The panel questions about your personal antifash/militancy origins really made me think. The trap of falling into thinking you're some kind of hero is something I've wrestled with.
After the genesis of Winner Winner Chicken Dinner I found myself thinking, "Why am I doing this?". Was it really to help people or to gain clout?
Of course I wanted to help people, all of the "popular" movements always seemed to be about the grand gesture. They walked away from the mundane problems of people right in front of them. I wasn't going to do that.
But I also wasn't going to try to build something. Never asked for money, though some people did give. I wanted Winner Winner to be more about an example of what people could do that helped but was not saviory.
To my surprise something was built. A community. People looked forward to WWCD, not just for the food and movie, but because it brought people together. A lot of people didn't watch the movie. They'd get some food, or not, and just sit in the park and talk.
It really came down to one basic thing, treat everyone like a valued human being. You might make some friends.
The other question about what started you being antifash also got me thinking. When I was a teenager my parents harbored a Solidarnosc dissident named Janus. He wasn't a whole lot older than me.
This is where I learned about state oppression, why he did what he did, why he had to run. I will always carry this with me.
I recently closed the circle on this. Janus and his parents gave my parents an oil painting on cardboard from a Polish muralist named Stanislaw Preyzker. When my parents died I kept that painting.
It's really an ugly painting. The Edge Of The Woods, very impressionist. And the frame was ugly. What was I going to do with this?
I looked around for museums in Poland that might be interested with no results.
Then I found that his daughter was still alive.
Then I found that his daughter was still alive.
I reached out to her on LinkedIn and she responded in surprise. That was a painting of a place she used to play as a child. In fact there is a small figure in the center of the painting, barely recognizable, but it was a figure. It was her.
So I boxed it up nice and sent it to her. After 70 years she was reunited with her late father's painting of her.
The circle was complete.
The circle was complete.
