One thing I found striking when I covered county government as a reporter was the diversity of individuals and groups who would step up to advocate on various issues.
Whether it was a debate about immigration, policing, voter access, COVID-19 aid, or a host of other issues, county board meetings regularly saw speakers from a bunch of different backgrounds, races, organizations and faith groups show up to call for change.
For example, in 2019, it was remarkable to see the shear diversity of people who attended a county board meeting because they were alarmed that some of their county supervisors wanted the county to lobby against a bill in Sacramento that would call for greater ability in policing and would create tighter standards for police use-of-force. Here you had something that generally people might think of — or at least thought of then — as a “Black issue,” yet we saw speakers who were Asian, Latino, White, Native American all ionately begging their county supervisors to not oppose the bill.
My point is that on many occasions, San Diegans are willing to show up and advocate in of issues that didn’t directly impact them. Instead of settling for the status quo, posting something on social media or issuing a press statement saying they “stand in solidarity with” whatever group, they took real action.
Now that’s not to say that there aren’t some folks who engage in solidarity in a performative way — people and groups who will reference solidarity without following up their words with actions to pursue substantive change. That’s part of the reason it’s important to have a discussion about what solidarity truly means, especially when it has become a bit of a buzzword.
I reached out to some groups that are aggressively involved in solidarity efforts, and they offered some insight into what solidarity means to them.
DJ Kuttin Kandi and Grace Jun are two of the co-founders of the Asian Solidarity Collective, a group that came together in 2016 after the police-involved fatal shooting of Alfred Olango, a 38-year-old Black Ugandan refugee in El Cajon. The grassroots organization focuses on engaging Asian Americans around social justice issues, condemning anti-Blackness, building Asian solidarity “intersectionally” with Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, queer and trans people of color, as well as people from other oppressed communities.
There are a few things they pointed to when asked about what solidarity really means to them.
Kandi and Jun emphasized that a big part of it is the things you don’t see on the surface, the work people put in when the camera is not there. This could be things like consistently showing up, working to build relationships not just in your community but across others, and advocating for transformational change rather than half measures.
They said it’s also about educating yourself and recognizing ways that you may have contributed to harmful systems that perpetuated White supremacy or anti-Blackness, as well as embracing not being the focus of some conversations.
“You can show up and be okay with not being the one centered … You can actually other voices being louder than yours,” Jun said.
Kandi added that solidarity also isn’t a transactional thing.
“It’s not ‘I do for you, you do for me’,” Kandi said. “We have to humanize one another and have care and comion for one another.”
Khalid Alexander is President and founder of Pillars of the Community, a group created in 2010 originally with a focus on serving Muslims in southeastern San Diego and helping formerly incarcerated people get back on their feet. Many years ago it broadened its focus to include advocating for the entire community of southeastern San Diego through organization, education and action, such as their work related to racial profiling, mass incarceration and gang documentation by law enforcement.
Alexander similarly spoke about the importance of community building; he highlighted how the goal is transformative change that goes beyond band-aid solutions. He said that it is about recognizing that those in power benefit from maintaining power, and whether the issue is related to healthcare, police violence, deportations or the criminalization of immigrants, it’s important to make sure those in power cannot get away with treating people as less than human.
He also noted that solidarity is not the same as charity.
“Charity is often used to make yourself feel better, but it doesn’t actually change the circumstances that have led to the situation,” Alexander said. “Solidarity is standing shoulder to shoulder with people to do everything you can to change institutions.”
Alexander added that the diversity of groups engaged in solidarity work in San Diego is greater than in other cities he’s visited. It seems organizations here are willing to work on issues outside of just the community they may most closely identify with, something he credits to San Diego rarely having monolithic communities.
In a future column I’m going to highlight some of the more specific efforts that are being engaged in here in San Diego, and there are plenty. But for now I wanted to start this conversation about what real solidarity means, because it’s easy for the word to become watered down.
There were an awful lot of people, organizations and elected officials over the past year who have put out statements expressing solidarity with marginalized groups that have been under assault. Let’s just say that not all of them have lived up to that promise of standing in solidarity and delivering change.
For instance, think of all the companies and politicians who just last year d and tweeted sympathetic statements about Black lives mattering and the need to stop hate.
How many of them created stronger pathways for Blacks and other marginalized people to climb the ranks of their companies and offices, or used their significant resources and lobbying power to put pressure on elected officials to change laws and policies related to police violence against Blacks and other minorities, or promoted ways to increase opportunities for economic or academic advancement for those groups?
How many elected officials who claimed to greater ability and reforms for policing actually followed through with it in policy decisions and funding priorities?
Talk is cheap. We have to be aware of the difference between real solidarity and performative solidarity. We also have to examine ourselves, because we as a community face very real problems and it’s going to take an awful lot of us being honest, getting uncomfortable, stepping out of our groups and embracing others to show true solidarity and deliver real solutions for a better San Diego.
