oh shit I just remembered a dumb as dogshit thing that happened at one of my DSA meetings a few years ago that pissed me off then and still pisses me off now

A normie fast-food working friend of mine came to a DSA meeting because she wanted to "get involved in politics" and left totally intimidated and snowed in by all the masters-degree having professionals who seemed to know much more than she did about everything

this is a person who didn't know much more than "i like bernie sanders i think he's cool." and like, she had her ged. she was a felon. she had two kids by 20 and was chronically in and out of employment, bc life is fucking hard. and she didn't feel welcome.

like, I get that we all were working class, you know? I get that even the adjunct professor who is having a hard time making bill payments is working class, but that's not.... there's a fucking difference between genuinely poor and downwardly mobile professional

anyway, I bring this up on the listserve. "this is a complaint I received. maybe we should think about how to be more welcoming to people who don't know as much as we do"

and instead of "oh my god let's figure out how to be more inclusive" I got "well, *I'm* working class and I know who Marx is, I find it insulting that you'd insinuate that working class people aren't educated" and it stopped fucking there.

I was too politically shy/insecure/MYSELF snowed in by all these fancy intellectual types to push back a little, but I wish I had. What a useless fucking intervention.

Anyway fun story that particular "working class" numbskull turned out to be a massive terf and later accused us of hounding her out of the chapter and the org for being like "uh, maybe she shouldn't be a terf and be our literal president" she was a fcking nightmare to deal with

like yes, we're all working class, that doesn't mean all working class people are created equally. my friend didn't deserve to have her intellectual insecurities and reinforced and her lack of political education shamed. she deserved a chance to LEARN HOW TO FIGHT FOR HERSELF.

what a wasted opportunity.

my friend kelsey* is still ripe for organizing. she still loves bernie sanders. we talk about him all the time. she's proactive and aggressive about advocating for herself. she's a gd working class hero. dsa should be a home for people like her.

*not real name

something she did that impressed me greatly: i mentioned to her once that she could probably get her record expunged, that that was a possibility. she just.... fucking gets it done. she calls up a lawyer, does everything she needs to do, and 2 years later, she's no longer a felon

she's potentially a tremendous organizer. we should be the kind of organization that she should be able to plug into right away, no huge intimidating learning curve. political education and actual learning, yes, but absolutely no SOCIAL learning curve.