Still Flying Close to the Sun?

A review of Cathy Wilkerson's memoir, Flying Close to the Sun, a critical analysis of the new-left, and a look at the next left using Wilkerson's analysis as a lens:

Cathy Wilkerson's recently published memoir is a text full of nostalgia for the spirit of the US New Left (c. 1960s) and also criticism of its practices and organization. Wilkerson was intimately involved in Students for a Democratic Society(SDS), a student-based organization fighting for global justice and one of its successors, the Weather Underground, a militant revolutionary organization known best for their bombings buildings occupied by the repressive forces (NYC Police Headquarters, Marin County Hall of Justice, Sacramento and San Francisco Department of Corrections), the U.S. government (U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon) or war profiteers (ITT, Gulf Oil, Anaconda Copper).

She begins with the story of her childhood, highlighting her parent's divorce, her jaunts in the woods near her home, and her adolescence at a Quaker summer camp. She writes, "The Quaker meeting made sense to me. I felt connected as part of the community . . . I thought, it was only in the freedom of the trees that people within a community could really feel God's presence." (Wilkerson 35). Wilkerson's Quaker roots brought her to Swarthmore College where she connected to student activism.

Her first experience as an activist was block organizing in Chester, Pa. She worked with residents to improve their quality of life, dealing with housing rights, access to education, etc . . . It was here she was first arrested, participating in a boycott of a mostly Black and underfunded school in Chester. Her activism continued: she acted as the DC regional organizer of SDS, an Editor at New Left Notes, the SDS journal, and as a member of the mysterious Weather Bureau.

After her work as a block organizer, Wilkerson wondered if that kind of activism was effective; she wondered if she could make a difference through established means as well, so she signed on to a congressional campaign. Of the experience, she writes:

By late September I concluded that Congress was not a strategic place to work to change public opinion about the war because congressmen constant had to worry about getting reelected. While they could attempt to educate their constituents by providing a reasonable analysis of, for instance, the war . . . they were battling an increasingly efficient mass-media campaign waged in the name of patriotism by proponents of the war. No, I thought, the energy and the leadership required to get the facts out in the face of all this misinformation had to come from the movement, and SDS was one organization trying to do that. (Wilkerson 97-98)

It is here that her dedication to SDS became apparent and she began to involve herself more deeply in the organization - finding an understanding of both the tremendous strengths and tremendous weaknesses of the organization. Many scholars, and Wilkerson's writing concurs, argue that SDS's failure was because of an intersection of its racist, sexist, and classist analysis. Anti-war movement activists, using the moniker "The Mobe," organized in a way completely male dominated and ignorant of gender dynamics. After anti-inauguration demonstrations, Mobe'ers attending a rally booed and cat-called a woman speaker off the stage. (Wilkerson 242)

The struggle with the structural problem of sexism continued into the Weather Underground. Weatherman dogma prohibited monogamy. "They argued, existing monogamous relationships between men and women held both people back from new challenges." (Wilkerson 268-269) Unfortunately, this analysis came from men, the reality of an anti monogamy stance, however was that the men in the movement had free access to sex with any women in the movement, eliminating any agency women in the movement thought they had.

Whiteness and racism dealt another blow to SDS's effectiveness. Although emphasized less in Wilkerson's work, relations with the Black Panther Party never amounted to real collaboration. Both the Black Panther Party and the Weather Bureau considered themselves revolutionary organizations, neither stepped back to reconcile the differences in their respective analysis or compromise to a degree that would have enabled close collaboration. SDSers unable to deal with their whiteness, with white privilege, prevented close working ties with the Black Power movement, alienated Black youth and doomed SDS.

Today's SDS is plagued by the same difficulties. Our membership is still disproportionately white northeastern men. However, people have realized that an important way to deal with privilege is to recognized its existence and think about how it effects your life and the lives of others. Sexism and racism still exist and only through a sustained, vigorous commitment to recognizing and interrogating the systemic inequities and their effects on people can the new SDS hope to be successful. Steps are being taken in that direction. Coalitions are being made across lines of color and class. Identity-based caucusing is an integral part of SDS decision-making. Much of these efforts find root in contemporary thinking on identity politics and cultural studies.

Is the new New Left still flying close to the sun? The temperature is getting hotter, the movement stronger, calls for revolt louder - but are we paying enough attention to systemic inequity and its role in the struggle? Collective liberation is possible: the legacy of the old SDS can inspire the course of the new.

In early 1976, like a house of cards, the organization disintegrated rapidly . . . What endured among all of Weatherman's members was a continued commitment to work for peace, justice, and change . . . Despite the mistakes and rancor, we had all tried the best we could to realize our fullest humanity during times of terror and great upheaval. (Wilkerson 377)

Wilkerson, Cathy. Flying Close to the Sun. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007.