this is from part of a recent conversation on the site

i'm pretty obsessed these days with that Martin Luther King quote:
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
there's something in those words that's like a shining light in the dark to me, just somehow totally reframes the conversation in this brilliant and visionary way. and it was MLK talking in the late 1960's. it's like that permaculture principle "the problem is the solution." it's something about staring straight at our fears, something about cultural evolution, about wounded healers, something that just totally circumvents the "combating stigma" dialog and takes our struggle out of the constructed "mental health" arena and puts it smack in center stage.

i like the language of the mad ones.

as in, i have faith in the power of the mad ones because they're the only ones that are crazy enough to think they can change the world and have the outlandish visions and drive to be able to do it.

i've been thinking a whole lot in recent months about what a large coalition of diverse groups could unite under in an effective and long term way. and what common language might look like. traditional anti-war organizing is clearly so demoralizing by this point. i keep reading all these books about the 60's political movements and they're so simultaneously inspiring and miserably depressing because there was so much potential back then, so many people so inspired and working together in ways we're just trying to figure out how to recreate now 40 years later, and then it was crushed so hard most of us don't even know a glimmer of our own recent movement history.

i don't know about you all but i know i want to be a part of a movement that has language to talk about power and class and race and gender without devolving into fragmenting identity politics, a movement that is full of love and actually prioritizes supporting the people in it, a movement that can collectively learn from its mistakes, a movement that knows its history and tells the stories publicly and loudly and beautifully, a movement that prioritizes community health and community support in ways that capture people's imaginations and in ways the state and corporations will never be able to, and a movement that has mad respect for wild dreams and true diversity and the ones who--by their very nature--don't fit into neat boxes and never will under any system.

a movement of the people that respects the freaks and wild ones.

i also like the language of mad ones because of the double meaning of "mad". maybe this might be potentially alienating for a mainstream movement, but goddamn there's a lot to mad about and we better be talking about it publicly with all of our love and rage. when it comes down to it, we can debate whether there are genetic components to what is now considered "mental illness" but fundamentally our message is that society is driving us mad. oppression makes people crazy. maybe some are more predisposed. but "mad ones" straight up cuts across race/class/gender lines in this way that has the potential to unite so many different groups of people.

i have been having this amazing conversation with folks from the hip hop mental health project that's just getting started in new york. as someone coming from the mostly white punk rock world its been really interesting to talk to folks who are part of a people of color led cultural movement. their analysis of power and privilege is so much deeper and clearer than that of me and my white friends struggling to figure out where we fit in to the movement. but part of what i'm realizing is that what the punk world offers is this rich tradition of celebrating madness in all its fucked up and freaky forms. growing up around punks is how i survived getting repeatedly locked up in psych hospitals without believing that there was actually something wrong with me. which i think is something to be shared. thus i feel quite comfortable in referring to my people as the "mad ones" and letting others self identify and associate as they see fit or are inspired to. it just kind of flows off my tongue at this point.

on the flipside to the hip hop thing, last week i caught a craigslist ride from oakland to portland with this young white woman and she was talking about her struggles with depression and how she comes from a really economically privileged background and feels so guilty about all the resources she has that most people never will. her class privilege is what has kept her feeling like she has a biological illness because how could she be depressed if she's so economically fortunate? it was quite a conversation driving up I-5. because i could relate to her so much. for years so much of my own shame, that has been so incredibly hard for me to talk about, has had to do with my class privilege and feeling like my problems aren't as serious as everybody else's. it must be brain chemistry, right? but what if we flipped the whole thing around and started talking about the ways that economic privilege makes people sick in the head? that in fact it's the class system itself that makes people sick. suddenly "mad ones" starts cutting across all kinds of lines. you can be a poor kid or a middle class kid or a rich kid and still be a mad one.

this is really interesting to me as far as movement building is concerned.
i got up in front of a bunch of people and started talking about this stuff a couple weeks ago at the anarchist bookfair. and the way i framed it was: fuck it, i'm crazy, i'm just going to tell you straight up what i think about class privilege and whiteness as a privileged white guy. i'm going to talk about these things that we're not supposed to talk about because i'm mad and i hope there are more of you mad ones out there that are ready to tell your stories about this stuff, because that's how we're going to be a part of an effective movement for change. so in that context being a "mad one" was about not giving a fuck about freaking people out. a rich punk rock tradition.

if we're really going to be breaking down stigma we need a term that is going to bring together everyone from the middle-age homeless schizophrenic black man that has chronic tardive dyskinesia from too much thorizine to the rich white girl who's cutting herself because she can't feel anything in her sheltered suburban life. and everyone in between. there are a lot of us out here. and clearly we need to be reframing the conversation to talk about community mental health - not individual mental illness. somewhere in this vision are beautiful mad maps of many shapes and colors and styles, the excuses for us to talk in groups about the hard stuff, about how we can support one another individually and collectively amidst it all. somewhere in there is an understanding that some people are really sensitive and good at crossing boundaries and we need spaces to cultivate those skills. somewhere in there are collectively developed skills and spaces that feel safe to talk about power and privilege and shame and can build the bridges and networks that will hold together a growing movement. maybe "mad" isn't a term that everyone is going to relate to. but i think it's worth adding to the mix.

okay, one other thing on the language tip cause it feels really important:
these days i think a lot about whiteness--about how so much of what's considered "normal" in our culture has to do with european standards of normality which are so invisible when so many of us are raised to be "color blind" and brought up with the ridiculous idea that everyone has "equal opportunity". i've been trying to figure out how to talk about how "whiteness" is actually this incredible sickness that only exists because all these other cultural roots have been severed and histories drowned in the historical melting pot. it's a sickness that's a bi-product of an evil system. and meanwhile there are so many people out there desperate for connection and community and roots. so many people so desperate for something to belong to and to believe in.

which is how we've been talking for years at the icarus project about the "monoculture" or the "monocult":
https://site.icarusprojectarchive.org/articles/underground-roots-and-magic-spells+
i would love to see this language around monoculture more widely adopted as a way of critiquing the system we live under. and i would love for the idea of monoculture to become automatically associated with white supremacy, because it totally fits.

i would love for the icarus project to become known as the mental health support organization of mad ones that got everyone talking about how whiteness and monoculture were the actual diseases. and that the solutions all have to do with respecting diversity and wildness.
there's something deep there. something that maybe will give us more tools for understanding our place in a larger movement. something that has the potential to build a lot of bridges and call out some of those elephants in the room most people seem afraid to mention.
if not the mad ones, who else is going to fucking do it?