Hello, reader. How are you doing? I’m excited–I interviewed Jacks McNamara about harm and how we can do better. Please listen and share with anyone who cares about these ideas.
Caring, inspired people form activist groups, wanting to make a better world. But despite our best intentions, we end up recreating the violence that happens all over the place. How can people who see what’s wrong in the world and want to change that, be so unskilled, to recreate the world’s violence in another way?
I’m sorry it’s so hard. We can do better. That’s why I wanted to talk to Jacks. I need insight and hints on how this harm happens, and what we can do instead.
brilliance
Jacks McNamara is a radical mental health rockstar. They are an artist, educator, organizer, and parent. Here’s their website–please enjoy.
Jacks helped form the Icarus Project long ago, which was an early radical mental health org that helped save my life when I was 30 years old. That’s when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder 1 with psychotic features, looking for new ways to understand my experiences. I searched online about bipolar disorder and found the Icarus Project.
This interview was satisfying because I got to consult a source of innovation and brilliance to talk about deep problems in organizations. Abusers harm a lot of people in radical spaces.
Jacks and I talk about power, gender, charisma, whether there’s hope. We mention the Icarus Project, New Mexico, terminology, non-profits, and accountability processes. I’m grateful Jacks said yes and we had this conversation, recorded so you can hear too.
The interview came about because I’m working on a second issue of my zine to love: abusers in radical spaces. I’m planning to pull quotes from the interview to include in the zine, which might be done within the next couple weeks.
thank you
Thank you for caring about making better ways to relate socially and come together in community. We need each other, so I’m glad we can find ways to do love in groups without harming each other.
