Belonging Part Two:

Markers of Belonging: Post Number Nine of The Movement We Need

Once a group or a movement knows who it is, how does it establish a sense of openness, welcome, and connection? To do so, we must first understand some of the many ways we establish markers of belonging, that may also serve as markers to warn off those who don’t belong.

(This series of writings is an experiment—I’m writing a book and releasing it a chapter at a time on Substack, accompanied with podcasts available on Substack, Apple, Spotify, etc. This is the second part of the section on Belonging, and the ninth post in the series.)

Language:

Language is one key way in which we identify who's in and who's out. Do we speak the same language? If so, what accent do we speak it with? Is your French Parisian or Quebecois? In England, is your accent Oxbridge or Cockney, or maybe Yorkshire? In the United States, do you sound Southern? If so, Southern White or Black? New York? Brooklyn or Manhattan?

Language marks us by the words that we use. Think of all the different types of slang and specialized vocabularies, from Cockney rhyming slang to hip hop. In my youth, saying “Wow! Far out, man!” or liberally sprinkling the word ‘fuck’ into your speech marked you as far cooler than anyone in the ‘straight’ (which at the time meant simply unhip, later meant ‘not gay’) world. When Joe Biden says ‘malarkey’ it marks him as being of an older generation.

My first-generation immigrant grandparents spoke Yiddish as their mother tongue and daily language. My parents’ generation spoke both Yiddish and English, although Yiddish became more like a spice they sprinkled into a main English dish. My own generation spoke English and tended to use Yiddish for emphasis or to establish a certain level of connection: for example, once when I was attempting to buy a used truck the salesman, after determining I was Jewish, offered me ‘a special deal’ as a ‘landsman’.

Academics use specialized language, in part to express complex concepts, but also, in the competitive world of academia, to mark out areas of knowledge as turf reserved for those who belong, by virtue of earning the right credentials and learning the right vocabulary. When I was a graduate student in psychology in the early ‘80s, our department was enamored of Object Relations Theory, one of the more abstruse post- Freudian frameworks. I was also, at that time, an aspiring writer. In one of my papers, I attempted to translate the concepts we were learning back into simpler language that would make it understandable to ordinary people, including myself. The response I received from my teacher was “This is a very interesting paper, but I wish you had written about Object Relations Theory!” I realized that she actually didn't recognize the theory without the jargon.

Academia has created much theory that is helpful to the cause of liberation, and many activists have been born out of their experiences in college or university. But if we want to build a broad-based, welcoming movement, we should be aware of how language conveys who's in and who's out, as much as it conveys concepts and content. If we want people to feel welcome in a movement, we must speak in language that everyone can understand, not because people are stupid, but because speaking in simple, clear language avoids the problem of marking out turf that says ‘You don't belong!’

Part of Trump’s appeal may be that he speaks in simple language, albeit often incoherent, with an informal tone that says ‘You and I are on the same level’. I recently shared a video by Bernie Sanders, who is generally good at speaking in clear and simple ways. But one person posted this comment in response: “I agreed with everything he said except that climate change is an existential threat. Climate change is real!” I realized the writer didn’t understand what ‘existential’ means. Why not say, “Climate change is a threat to our very existence”, which is not only clear but packs more of an emotional punch?

The excesses of leftist language are deftly parodied in this video by The Onion:

Trump Voter Feels Betrayed By President Trump after Reading 800 Pages of Queer Feminist Theory

Appearance:

Life would be so much simpler if we could tell in an instant, just by looking at someone, whether they were safe or unsafe, good or evil. Of course, we cannot, and yet often consciously or unconsciously, we behave as if we could. We respond to someone's skin color, general manner of appearance, or their dress to tell us who we feel comfortable around and who we might feel nervous around. This is one aspect of prejudice so ubiquitous that some aspect of it may be hardwired into our biology. For early hominids, surviving in small bands and family groups, being able to quickly identify who you could count on for protection and who might be a threatening enemy could be a useful trait. On the football field, or in a battle, uniforms help identify which team you belong to, who is your ally and who is your opposition.

Tribal groups create markers of appearance to identify their members, whether that's a particular item of clothing or hairstyle, tattoos, piercings, or other ways to alter one's appearance. In Guatemala, for example, indigenous weavers in each village create a unique style of huipil or tunic that instantly identifies what place you belong to. Scottish clans each had their unique tartan. Religious orders may prescribe a certain habit or clerical collar. Sports fans may wear a cap or a jacket emblazoned with the name of their team.

In our groups and movements, we may not legislate the style of dress, but we often have norms that are even more powerful. I've written in an earlier work about the time I went from our Spring Equinox ritual directly to the Anarchist Book Fair in San Francisco, without stopping to change clothes. I showed up flower bedecked, in brilliant emerald green, to find myself in a sea of black. There must have been four or five hundred people at the fair, and every single other person there had worn black. I felt excruciatingly uncomfortable and out of place, even though nobody made any disparaging remarks to me. Certainly no one had sent out a directive ordering everyone to wear black. Had they done so the anarchists would undoubtedly have rebelled! But the norm was so powerful that apparently everybody else except for me had gotten the message clearly. More than anything, I felt that I didn’t belong.

Norms:

Every group and community has both rules and norms. Rules are explicit and conscious; norms are often implicit and sometimes unconscious, yet they can be even more powerful. To belong to a group means to know what the norms are, whether that’s not interrupting people when they speak, or finishing one another’s sentences to show you’re paying attention. We have norms of how we dress, how we express ourselves, how we behave to elders, what is expected behavior from children, what table manners we exhibit and how we engage in conflict. Norms cover just about every aspect of human behavior.

One of the aspects of what we call privilege is simply that of intuitively knowing the norms of the dominant culture. It's not just what cutlery you use at the fancy dinner party, it's a thousand subtle ways of interacting, or not interacting. Speak to a mostly White audience, and people will generally sit quietly and listen, barring the occasional heckler. Speak to a mostly Black audience, and people will nod, murmur encouragement or call out loud, which I find a much more satisfying experience. But a Black person who shouted out “Tell it, sister!” in a White crowd might find themselves stared at, judged, or shamed.

Those who violate the norms, knowingly or unknowingly, make clear that they do not belong. Because norms are often unconscious, we may not realize that others may have very different norms of their own. I once visited a Sami friend in the far north of Norway. I found meals very uncomfortable, because it seemed to me that every time I tried to make conversation, people quickly reverted to silence. Finally, I asked my friend whether there was some kind of cultural norm I was unfamiliar with, that people didn't talk during meals? She looked at me in some surprise. “Why would we talk?” she asked. “We're eating!”

In Germany, absolute promptness was long the norm—although that is changing somewhat today. In Mexico, time is a much looser construct. In New York, strangers meeting shake hands; in California, strangers hug, or at least, before Covid we did. Activists like to think we are free spirits, unbound by convention, but we have our own norms and conventions—flout them at your peril!

One of our dysfunctional norms is to frame disagreements as harm. Lively debate and political arguments used to be at the heart of social change movements. Now, our tendency is too often to call spirited disagreement ‘unsafe’. Social media has spawned the habit of unfriending those who disagree, deplatforming, banning and shunning rather than arguing.

Norms can also function in positive ways. I was once invited to speak at a music festival, where everyone else was at least twenty years younger than me, not to mention far better looking and more scantily dressed. I felt a bit shy and out of place. But the group had a norm that was welcoming. People would continually came up to me, held out a hand for a handshake (not the norm in California!) and say something like, “Hi, I’m ________. Who are you? You look interesting!” Imagine if we did that at rallies or demonstrations, where the norm is generally that we talk to our own friends, not to strangers.

I remember one friend, an experienced organizer and natural leader, who was always getting push-back in our activist groups for leading too strongly and being too directive. The norm was that you didn’t too obviously take leadership—especially if you were a woman! Then we went to support Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Bush’s assault on Iraq, who had started camping out in front of Bush’s Texas ranch, demanding to meet with him and ask him what her son had died for. The camp rapidly grew from her lone vigil to an encampment of thousands, many of them military veterans who were now anti-war. Suddenly, we were in a world of different norms, where my friend’s leadership was welcomed and appreciated. I remember hearing one veteran say, “This is Cindy’s mission—we’re here to support her.” My own understanding of leadership was broadened: I could see the value in supporting someone’s mission, the spirit of group solidarity and belonging that engendered. And as long as the mission-holder changed from time to time, so that many people got to experience both leadership and support, our horizontal democracy was not abandoned, but actually strengthened.

The Queer Liberation Movement had a norm of creative irreverence, with chants such as “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going shopping!” or “Your bags don’t match your shoes!” Or, my all-time favorite, albeit the most risqué, from the era of the first Gulf War: “We suck dick, we lick labia! U.S. out of Saudi Arabia!” Humor can be a weapon the powerful use to humiliate and dehumanize those less powerful. But when we can make fun of ourselves, laughter and humor signal that we are self-aware and open.

It's part of the paradox of belonging that every marker that says ‘we belong’ also potentially signals ‘and you don't!” We can be aware of this dilemma and consciously use language that is clear, simple, poetic, and inclusive. If we use more complex or specific words we can take care to explain them or anchor them in context. We can be conscious of our tendency to judge others by appearance, and do our best to resist. We could also create specific markers that symbolize the ecosystem of people together struggling for justice. Behavioral scientists talk about the ‘green beard effect’, that having some marker that indicates who in a group is most likely to cooperate can help form alliances of cooperators, who then have a collective advantage over those looking out for number one. The MAGA folks have their hats; we could develop something that indicates our cohesion without needing to demonizing others. In my younger days, we did it with long hair and political buttons. Finally, we can consciously develop norms that are welcoming, that include others and make room for disagreement, debate, and diversity.