(2) Love and anger in politics and life

RJ: It's interesting that you talk about your politics rooted in a connection to others, but you don't hesitate to talk harshly about others or to highlight things you think you do well, whether political work or carpentry. If someone called you harsh and arrogant, how would you respond?

AO: There's a difference between self-confidence and arrogance, which is self-confidence that's not well-founded. But, I have to tell you that I actually prefer being with arrogant people as long as the arrogance has some kind of foundation. That's much better than being with people who have no reason in the world to be arrogant -- stupid people. As for being harsh, well, after 90 years and a lot of work, I figure I've earned the right to say whatever the fuck I want to.

RJ: Empathy also comes bundled with a little bit of anger in you, yes?

AO: Nothing wrong with anger. But as I kid I was so angry I was dangerous. In high school, I was dangerous. There was no high school in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. So I had to take a trolley, ride five miles, to Erasmus Hall. There were three Jewish kids in that school, and life was hell for us. Those fuckers -- teachers and students -- treated us like shit. I was lucky because I already was very physical, and the Catholic kids wouldn't fuck with me too much. But I experienced extreme loneliness, and I did some things that were, under law, seriously punishable. I set fire to the school and did all kinds of shit, because I was very angry. Becoming an activist at 15, 16, gave me something to do with my anger. It was like a big valve that allowed me to be angry without blowing up.

So my first activity as a political activist -- with that mother and her children who were sitting on the sidewalk crying with their furniture sitting around them after being evicted -- was joyful. When my friends and I took that furniture back up into the apartment, it was wonderful, very healing. That was real solidarity. That's another term that means something to me, solidarity. When I hear the term chanted it makes me sick -- solidarity forever and such. Solidarity became early in my life defined as compassion for others in action, whether it was through trade unions or helping neighbors. It's beyond a political slogan. It's almost an abomination hearing people singing about solidarity who don't know shit about what it means. But at a very early age, I learned that solidarity is love in action. And if it's not an action, I don't give a shit about what you claim to love. Any kind of love without expression and action is bullshit.

RJ: There are different kinds of love, of course, including love for the people we know best in our lives -- our friends and family. What happens when that political love-in-action might conflict with obligations we might feel to those specific people we love in our lives?

AO: When I went to work in Holmes County, Mississippi, to build a community center, which was in 1964, I had three children. I moved with the understanding of my wife at the time; she agreed with what I was doing. At that point our baby girl was a year old, and the boys were 3 and 5. When I look back upon that, I can hardly believe that I did that the way I did it. I have mixed feelings about whether I would have gone had I thought about it the way I now think I should have, by thinking about the possible consequences.

RJ: For your kids?

AO: Sure. They asked, "Where is dad?" You cannot explain that to little kids. Daddy's just not there. It did damage. What disturbs me is not so much that I did it -- that I left for so long for political work and that I did damage -- but that it didn't enter my head to consider the consequences. I never thought of what it meant. That's how fucking political I was. Some people use their family responsibilities as an excuse for why they don't do anything, but there's got to be some balance. Mine might be an extreme case, but I think that many activists -- the real dedicated activists -- suffer to some degree from similar things, from a kind of tunnel vision, an inability to calculate the consequences of your conduct, for people you care about and love and whose future will be somehow affected by your choices.

RJ: Looking back, do you think you did the wrong thing by going to Mississippi for so long? Or the other ways in which political activism took you away?

AO: I did the wrong thing by not thinking about it. And if I had thought about it, I don't know whether I would have gone or not. I think activists must think about how relationships -- including marriage and children -- relate to activism. Raising good kids, for example, is a contribution to a better world.

Part 3 - Black and white

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