The Change Report™: Sarah Schulman
A conversation with an iconic writer and activist for insights in navigating challenging times with community in mind.
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When I was first introduced to the writer and activist Sarah Schulman, I was standing at the back of the auditorium at the theater at Barnsdall — and I could feel my brain grow three sizes just like the heart of the Grinch. This was a moment when part of my frontal lobe fully developed.
Why? Not to sound hyperbolic but Sarah is one of the greatest American thinkers: when I tell you she is a genius, she is a genius. Her thoughts on queerness as it relates to modern life and the intersectionality of issues felt expansive in ways that defied an already expansive moment in the mid-2010s, of national and international reckonings and reconsidering of race and class in America. Mind you, the context of my encounter was at a supremely progressive space: at Lambda Literary’s LA Litfest, where many of the nation’s top queer thinkers were speaking — and where she shone through, a piercing light, a brilliant force that I felt predestined to experience. And thank heavens I did! All because I chose to volunteer at the fest because I was trying to solidify my identity as a literary person while considering grad schools. While she did not push me to apply to schools, the encounter was a reminder that I crave to be around such intelligence, that my brain has the capacity to grow despite social media rot and the ruins of capitalism: this was one of the things that pushed me toward deepening my relationship to writing.
In the subsequent years, I’ve gone on to read many of her works, finding her thoughts on queer history and current culture to be vitally important: Conflict Is Not Abuse was a salve during the “height” of the 2010s cancel culture debate, that difference can be an excuse to apply cruelty to others; Ties That Bind helps to reveal how familial homophobia shapes our lives, that the macropolitical issue around LGBTQ+ persons manifests in our families; The Gentrification of the Mind connects the gentrification of cities and the encroaching grasp of capitalism as a means to colonize minds, to make us more insulated and less diverse; Israel/Palestine and the Queer International untangles queer, Jewish identities from the larger machine of Israel to understand how cultures and identities are used to enable occupation. As if these works aren’t striking enough, Sarah was a member of ACT UP — the 1970s and 1980s AIDS activist group originating in NYC that fought the government to recognize an epidemic which killed an entire generation of queer people and beyond — which is a crucial piece of context for her work and point of view, touching all of her work indirectly but also manifesting directly as texts like Let The Record Show. A writing professor at Northwestern, her new book — The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity — intends to offer solutions in times of crisis for coalition and community building, to help us understand that ideas of homogeny and perfectionism in movements are antithetical to progress. Action isn’t easy and comes at a cost — but to not act? That’s the real failure, which is a theme throughout all of her work.
After reading Gentrification of the Mind in August and feeling as if I had a mental realignment, I sent her a note to see if she’d be interested in an interview. She kindly agreed and, for an hour on the day the flotilla was apprehended, we chatted about this moment in time, on how to build effective movements, and what it’s like to live through fascism. While all of my interviews are beloved angels, this one is the real deal, with multiple instances in which I had to stop and hang my head, both because I was graciously corrected and in that my mind was expanding in real time. Such is the work of Sarah — and such is what happens when you’re able to share time with one of greatest thinkers of these times. Just wait for the Audre Lorde name drop!
KRF: You’ve written a lot of books and with the new book, which I haven’t read yet but I’ve read a lot about it —
SS: You know there’s a whole chapter on Barcelona?
KRF: Yes, I was reading about that! And the underground railroads for abortion during the Franco period, which I didn’t know about. I’m excited to read it for that reason! One thing — in reflecting on your work — you have an ability to weather things. It’s confidence but it’s this ability to take things in and take action, assessing situations for what they are. A lot of times we can get caught up, especially in these technologically enabled times. Is that how you’ve always been? Have you always had that assuredness? Or is that something that has been acquired?
SS: I mean, I haven’t changed much, since I was three or whatever. I have some of my same friends from then and they can attest to that fact.
KRF: That’s a beautiful quality and, to that, one thing that comes up in the new book that I feel like is a theme in your work is ideas of perseverance and that things don’t happen overnight. It can seem that way, and oftentimes social media makes that literal, when there is typically a lot more groundwork, like something that starts at a dinner party and then spreads out across a whole city into a whole state. I’m curious about ideas of time and perseverance in relation to these highly technological times, which want you — or demand of you — to forget that. It can be an obstacle to remember the long game, or that movements take a lot of work. There is no fast fashion equivalent to action.
SS: You know, you can’t control the zeitgeist as much as we would like to. And, sometimes, it aligns, and you can have a huge movement forward in a short period of time. I think ACT UP is a good example of that, right? Then there’s other times when you’re to spend decades fighting, practicing the politics of repetition, until you have the opportunity to move forward again. Right now, we’re in the middle of a fascist cataclysm — and there’s no quick fix. In many ways, solidarity right now is about building infrastructure for the future
.
KRF: It’s one of those things that isn’t sexy, or at least according to what this looks like on the internet or on a space like TikTok. It’s “not rewarding.” It doesn’t give you that sort of instant gratification, “Oh, I’m getting that sort of attention because I accomplished something!” It’s a bit of a fallacy. I’m sure you know about this, from being a writer, but I have to explain to younger writers that, yeah, you’re going to submit and you’re going to work on things and no one will ever read it. That is a shame, sure, but that’s not the point. That’s not why you do it. You don’t do it because “I want XYZ” —
SS: Well, I don’t see it that way.
KRF: Okay! [LAUGHS]
SS: Working with other people produces a lot of surprises. Right now, a lot of people are lonely because Covid and the Internet. There’s a big push to create more relationships. I’ve been on book tour for the last few months, and there are indie bookstores all over the country now. Everywhere! Because people want to be together, whether it’s collectives — and a lot of them are run by younger people, because being together means being surprised. Sometimes working with people bonds you for life. I mean, ACT UPpers are now in our sixties, seventies, and eighties, but even the ones who hate each other are bonded forever, because we changed the world. It’s a special experience. The whole thing is a process anyway: you never get to the end point. I think it is very exciting to be with other people and figuring out how to go forward.
KRF: Absolutely. It’s such a key —
SS: I’m a writing teacher, right? And I always tell people, “The discovery is in the writing.” It’s not like you know exactly what should be on the page — and then you just reproduce it on a physical object. There’s a process. It’s physical! And only by actually writing you discover what you’re writing. All of life is like that, when you’re out there.
KRF: To that point of community and being with other people, that’s exactly how solutions are born or a movement that could become ACT UP forms, or how you get a community kitchen or community garden: getting together and having these conversations about life problems, your surroundings, and all those sorts of things.
SS: We’re talking the day after the most recent Gaza flotilla was seized by Israel and people from 45 countries were kidnapped by the Israeli government illegally, in international waters. But it’s the second round of this and, now — immediately, this morning — all these civilian boats from Turkey just took off heading for Gaza. So it’s a collective correction, new approaches, and when our goal is not realized, we do it again in a different way. I mean, one of the problems with the left is that we do something and it doesn’t work — and then we do it again. And it’s like…if it didn’t work, don’t do it again. Do it in a different way!
KRF: That’s a fantastic reminder. We all need to hear that.
SS: That’s why when you write a book, you have to do drafts.
KRF: Something that resonates with me in your work — and it relates to the people in Turkey, embarking to help with what’s happening — is this idea of personal calls. You do a great job of reminding us that macro-politics infiltrates our personal lives. This is obvious, but: Ties That Bind. I sent that to my sister recently and I’m going to read it with her because she is a young lesbian in Arkansas and we both have a contentious relationship with our father who…We grew up in a military family and he has gone in the far right Catholic direction, let’s say. That is an expression of these relationships reflecting these macro ideas of homosexual and queer life that is expressed through the system, as us and him. I don’t stop and think about our relationship being a product of the military or a time period or certain geographies but, in looking at your work, I’m reminded of that and hope we can learn from that.
SS: That’s interesting, because that book took ten years to get published because nobody would publish it.
KRF: Oh, god. [LAUGHS]
SS: I have a letter from a very famous editor saying, “Well, the problem with this book is that the people who experience this already know about it, and nobody else would want to read about it.” And here we are! I think it came out in like 2010 or something so, 15 years later, people are still reading and sending it to their sister. I’m still getting mail on this book. That’s what happens when you’re a little bit ahead of the game, which isn’t always the best place to be.
KRF: Hey, I read Gentrification of the Mind for the first time recently and, to that point, it was published about fifteen years ago and was something that feels so urgent. What you write about in that book has become a sickness that has travelled to everyone because of businesses like Amazon, where your mind and your body and your house gets gentrified. That then creates NIMBYism on steroids.
SS: Gentrification changes the way that we think because, being among difference and being constantly uncomfortable, which is a healthy status quo, produces new ideas and community, homogenized or not. That book also took forever to get published. You know, for 10 years I couldn’t publish anything. I don’t know if you know that. I wrote four books! And I kept writing and then, suddenly, they all came out in two years. Four books! People thought I had a manic episode or something — but that’s not what happened. Gentrification of the Mind is another one: it’s translated, and people read it all the time. In my new book. The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, I talk about this condition called “prematurely anti-fascist.” Have you ever heard of this?
KRF: Yes, from your work.
SS: These were Americans who went to Spain to fight fascism before the US was officially anti-fascist. And then, when they came back, and it was the McCarthy era, the government said, “Oh, no: you were prematurely anti-fascist — and that is bad.” So that’s what happens sometimes, but I think it’s a good thing to strive to be, to try to look at the structures and think them through for yourself before there’s a status quo of agreement.
KRF: Yes, that I think — and, again, to the point of people in Turkey going out and doing something before the world is awake —
SS: The governments are not doing anything so the people have to do something.
KRF: I wrote about something similarly, and I don’t think people caught it: I was in a few cities across Europe for work, from London to Copenhagen to Stockholm to Paris, and each of those cities I encountered activism and protesting in the streets demanding action for Palestine. Yes, quote-unquote “things are happening” with recognizing it as a state. Sure. But that’s not —
SS: Right now, the people are very far ahead of their governments. I mean, millions of people — Tens of millions of people! — have been in the streets on every continent about Palestine. But there also are times when the courts, historically, have been ahead of the people. That has happened too — but now they’re far behind. It’s a dynamic relationship, and now we have a very rogue Supreme Court, unfortunately. It’s also funny because I went to school with Elena Kagan, who’s on the Supreme Court —
KRF: Holy shit!
SS: — We had our 50th reunion. She wasn’t there, but my classmates were like, “Poor Elena. She has to go to work with Amy Coney Barrett every day? What a nightmare!” So we sent her a classic New York bagel plate from one of New York’s best delis — but she wouldn’t accept it, because she doesn’t accept gifts. Then we were like, “Well, Clarence Thomas takes million dollar bribes! But Elena Kagan wouldn’t take a bagel.”
KRF: That is very funny. That…That says it all.
SS: That says it all. To the point, Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a recent dissent, “Hey, people: you don’t have any guarantee of rights anymore. It’s over.”
KRF: It reminds me of the book Breakneck, how China and the US are different based on who makes their society: China is a state of engineers, which can build fast trains but stifles personal liberties, while the United States is a lawyer state —
SS: Well, ours has gone rogue and they’re not abiding by laws.
KRF: That’s exactly what I was going to say. It’s fascinating, that American life is defined by literal rules that, when not paid attention to, everything deflates, proving Ketanji’s point.
SS: The moral weight is on our shoulders more now because our leaders are not not doing their jobs: they’re all involved in appeasement. I’m a professor at Northwestern and our administration is deeply involved in appeasement. The Democratic Party is a real mess! Of course, New York’s about to elect a socialist mayor, which I’m extremely proud of. New York is back!
KRF: Seriously!
SS: Our leaders are not coming through, so we have more responsibility to try to have some internal coherence, which is what I strive for. Our integrity is the only thing we can control. If you give that up, you have nothing.
KRF: From the outside — and I’m a big fan of yours — but that “pursuit of integrity” seems very natural for you. Is that true? Or do you struggle with trailblazing?
SS: I do have fears — but I’m one of those people who separates fear and action. I can be afraid and still do what needs to be done. Fear doesn’t stop me from doing right. I don’t know, that’s just a character illogical thing.
KK: That makes sense and is a really good way to reframe it. That’s a lot of people, which is so counterbalanced sometimes because that’s what the system wants, for you to behave from you to be scared still, to fear being arrested.
SS: Practically? Saying nothing actually doesn’t protect anybody — and that’s not just a statement, and that’s not just a slogan: it’s a fact, actually. My grandmother’s brothers and sisters were exterminated in the Holocaust and, when we look back at what happened to them, they never even made it to a concentration camp. They were shot in the town square, in their town now. When the soldiers came in and just shot everyone in the town square, they didn’t say, “Oh, you said something — but you didn’t. So we’re good!” It’s not like that. These people who are grabbing everyone who’s Latino in Chicago right now…t doesn’t matter if you spoke up or not. It doesn’t even matter if you have a green card or not. Doesn’t even matter…none of these things matter because we’re under fascism. So the illusion that, if you do nothing, somehow you’re going to be okay, is really delusional. It’s not real. That’s one element.
KRF: You’re exactly right…For a lot — For —
SS: You might as well say what you think to be true. Believing that something is true and not saying? It’s not gonna make your life better.
KRF: That’s absolutely true.
SS: Did you know that Audre Lorde was my college professor? Did you know that?
KRF: I did not know that!
SS: Yes, at Hunter College. She made us take out our notebooks and write down that “‘You can’t fight city hall’ is a rumor being spread by City Hall.” She made everyone write that down!
KRF: That is incredible. There are so many structures — be it your job, be it your neighborhood, be it NextDoor.com — that impose structures to what you’re saying, that are applying the “can’t fight city hall” idea. That’s not true. You can start a union. You can stop working while on the clock. You can get fired! But that could happen at any time. Your organizing, your saying something — it’s like the slogan for The Real World: stop being polite and start getting real. That really does change things.
SS: That’s why the history of ACT UP is so informative — and I wrote a 600 page book on it. I know quite a bit about it. But you have a despised group of people with no rights because, when AIDS was first identified in 1981, gay sex was illegal in the United States until 2003. I mean, in New York City, there was no anti-discrimination law: you could be fired from any job or kicked out of any apartment or denied service in a restaurant. And familial homophobia was the norm, and beating up gay people was a form of public entertainment — by the police and by straight people — and this profoundly oppressed group of people who had a terminal disease, for which there were no treatments, got together and forced the country to change against its will and saved hundreds of millions of lives. I mean…There you go. So I know that it’s possible because I’ve already experienced it.
KRF: Yeah. Yeah. That brings me to something I was curious about, the importance of recent history because that is recent history. I’m sure there are people in New York now who are queer who have no idea that they’re walking upon streets that were very different a short time ago.
SS: In my new book, I really focus on the lessons of why ACT UP was successful and one of the main reasons is because people were allowed to disagree. Jim Hubbard and I interviewed 188 surviving members of ACT UP over 18 years so I really feel like I do understand how it’s organized. ACT UP had a bottom line, it was the one-line principle of unity: direct action to end the AIDS crisis. But, within that, there’s a lot of disagreement. So in ACT UP, if you had an idea and I thought it was terrible, I would yell and scream it but, in the end, I wouldn’t try to stop you from doing it. If I didn’t like your idea…I just wouldn’t do it: I have my people and we do my idea, you have your idea. Our ideas would exist simultaneously. This is radical democracy! Radical democracy is the acceptance of difference with the bottom line. There’s simultaneity of response, and there’s all different kinds of actions going on — and that’s what made it effective because movements that try to force everyone to agree on one strategy or one analysis have all failed historically and there’s no exceptions. Because people are different! And it’s not the hardest thing in the world to accept, but you need politics or leadership that helps people be effective where they’re at because trying to force people to be somewhere that they’re not at? It doesn’t work. So none of this is moralistic: this is all practical. If you want to win, you have to allow for a difference of opinion. You have to allow for spontaneity. That’s it.
KRF: That longing for a cohesive center, that we all agree, “Oh we’re all coming from the same place” —
SS: That’s not human.
KRF: It’s not human and it’s an irony that I write about a lot, which happens online this constant —
SS: I think it’s happening less.
KRF: Good.
SS: I’ve just been on book tour for months, since the spring. I’ve been to 20 cities and I’m doing another eight cities. So I am kind of seeing people. I think there’s less perfectionism and more realization. I mean, every community in this entire country is under attack. So, the idea that you’re going to get all these people to see everything the same way? It’s not viable.
KRF: That’s refreshing to hear, because it can often feel like that is standing in the way, when the reality —
SS: People are dumber online than they are in person.
KRF: Absolutely! In person, you listen to someone and, whether you agree or not, you probably end up like what you said: you go do that over there and I’ll do this over here.
SS: I met with a group recently, and there was a group of them who wanted to do a banner draw and then this other group was like, “No, that’s a terrible idea.” and I was like, “No, you guys are not on the banner committee. These guys are the banner committee.” Like, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s a terrible idea: don’t do it. Go do what you think is a good idea!
KRF: You work directly with young people. Do you find that’s different by age?
SS: It depends but students are the most moral sector right now. They’re the ones on the front line of everything that’s good. It’s really interesting watching these kids who got into these super duper schools like Harvard and whatever, and then, in their valedictorial speech, it’s about Palestine — and then the school holds back their diploma. All you’re doing is taking these highly educated people and alienating them from your hierarchy! That’s it. You’re going to do great stuff. Students are really great. There is this kind of youth culture that I noticed going from bookstore to bookstore. It’s kind of like a genderqueer, goth, burlesque aesthetic — and it’s kind of like the new hippie or whatever. It’s in every city: they’re there. It’s kind of interesting. It’s a look. They’re plugged into all kinds of interesting things. I don’t know how many of those people are students. The more embedded people are in the hierarchy, the more afraid they are of losing their access or losing their status.
KRF: That’s something that I come back to a lot since a lot of us are boxed out of that. Why is there a need to cling to a system that has rejected you and that is breaking down, be that because of AI all the way up to a fascistic government?
SS: That’s something Trump isn’t taking into account because they’re just firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and they’re just taking away people’s SNAP and they’re taking away Medicaid and people’s health care. Where do they think all these people are going to go? In their minds, these people disappear. That’s how you end up with people voting for Mamdani.
KRF: Yes, and I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of recent news about younger people running like Mamdani. It’s exciting! And it shows who the future of America is. It’s exciting and I’m curious what your thoughts are on that.
SS: I don’t know all these people, but AOC is very effective. Both of them. Once he’s mayor? She’s going to have an incredible amount of power. She’s going to be the mafia don, and the two of them are good looking, smart, bold, and — I don’t agree with her on everything, I really agree with her on most things — and it’s exciting. And Cori Bush running back for her seat —
KRF: Oh, I didn’t know that!
SS: It’s really great. Since she was defeated by an AIPAC puppet. There are some people in Congress who, twenty years ago, were the kind of people that would lead all very left wing grassroots community groups and now you’re in government — and that’s hopeful. Rashida Talib is amazing. Everything she says is incredible. Who knows what’s going to happen? We don’t know. In the meantime, a lot of people are suffering — and that’s the problem.
People are resigning — and that drives me crazy. You have a position of power, you make a big salary, you head up some university or some museum or something — and Trump looks at you the wrong way…and you resign? Don’t resign. Lisa Cook, in the Fed, who fought them — she saved her seat. You have to fight them. You have to do appeals. You have to do all the rounds and everything instead of laying down. These university presidents who resign without ever saying the truth — like the president of Harvard never said, “Hey, these anti-semitism claims are false.” No, she just walks away. Don’t do that, people. Tell the truth and don’t resign.
KRF: Truth seems so hard to come by these days, even if it’s so powerful.
SS: I hear the truth all the time, but it’s in person and on the phone. The place you don’t hear it is like in the media or on television. MSNBC is like the Democratic Party version of Fox to the Republicans. That’s what’s hard: the public discourse is not true. But people know what’s true.
KRF: That’s a good point, which reveals where people are investing energy, which is why it’s disorienting when someone bought what was sold via the media. But whatever. One final thing, given your history, what do you think about this moment in queer history? It’s not a great time.
SS: I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Right now, we’re seeing the rise of the gay and lesbian and trans fascist. We see people like Peter Thiel, Bari Weiss — who’s about to have a big role in CBS News — and Caitlin Jenner, who was the grand marshall of the Tel Aviv Pride. She’s not even Jewish! Why did she do that? All the MAGA guys, one of the secretaries — I think of commerce — is an openly gay guy with a husband and children. What we’re seeing is what always happens is that no demographic category is inherently radical and that, in the gay movement, progressive people came out and made it safe for right wing people to come out. That’s what we have to contend with, which has a lot to do with our moment. Progressive movements have advanced on the queer question. Historicically, they hated gay people. The Communist Party wouldn’t allow gays and the Civil Rights Movement famously sidelined Bayard Rustin and the feminist movement had lesbian purges. All progressive groups now have queer and trans people in leadership, but there’s still this really weird, rarefied white gay rights sector, like the Human Rights Campaign or whatever. They have huge budgets, I don’t know why, and I don’t know what they do. I can’t even tell you the names of the people who run these groups. They don’t speak out on anything! There’s that anachronism, then there’s the rise of the gay right.
KRF: That reminds me that, at the Charlie Kirk memorial and any time Republicans get together, Grindr always goes off — and people point out that it’s because Republicans are closeted gay.
But it reminds me of a post I saw, saying that…what if this just happens because a lot of gay people are Republican versus trying to pretend that every Republican is closeted? Closeted or not, it proves your point — and I don’t think this is something the wider queer community truly really things about, that there are a good amount of right wings who just align with fascism. Everybody and every community really is the same.
SS: We’re like a lot of groups. I’m thinking of Jews, in this case. Queer people are locked in a nostalgic view of themselves as “cutting edge” when they’re not. Of course, trans people are the object of a lot of hate right now, but there’s also a dynamic here because, culturally, trans people are very advanced right now, more so than ever in history. At the same time, the state is crushing them and trying to do everything they can to break it up — but there’s more trans content in popular culture, and more people know trans people. It’s more of an option for people. It’s hard to say where all this is going to go, but the main people who are under attack in the United States are refugees. Immigrants, refugees and people who are racially different because, as the Supreme Court said, it doesn’t matter. You can be pulled aside just for being Latino.
Follow Sarah on Twitter and be sure to get her latest book The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity. Featured image by Ryan McGinley.
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