LETTER TO THE BALTIMORE SCHOOL

 Translucency. Adj. 1) permitting light to pass through but diffusing it so that persons, objects, etc.,

on the opposite side are not clearly visible. [Added bolding mine]

February 2020, Baltimore

Dear friends,

When Nicole and Lester and I met some weeks ago to talk about the manifesto, Nicole

mentioned that it might be helpful to the group to hear more about the concept of translucency.

Partly for personal exploration, I took a crack at writing down some of what I’ve heard and seen,

a kind of summary, a kind of brainstorming, below. And I look forward to your thoughts,

especially in light of the cool ideas and projects I hear are circulating as ideas.

As mentioned in the manifesto, “translucency” is just a name we gave to an ethic we’ve seen in

numerous places, from movement work we know of in other cities (e.g., Detroit), to the

political-economy-focused, evolving network of organizers, independent scholars, academics,

community leaders, and institutional leaders here in Baltimore that this group is a part of.

At a moment in which institutions are increasingly extractive, and increasingly inaccessible, the

intention is that people can be less vulnerable to institutions’ agendas, and gain more footing to

influence those agendas.

I know the concern of a lot of us is accountability---in communities, advocacy work, as well as

institutions---which is harder to find, even as talk of accountability abounds as part of the theatre

of neoliberalism. If “transparency” is the market’s version of an ethic of accountability, then

“translucency” is a replacement for its failures and constraints.

There are long histories, especially in movement spaces, of people who don’t cede their social

ecologies to the market’s imagination, even as they use the tools and terms of the

market---social media followers, grants and support, for instance. They know that such an act

would risk becoming more dependent on the market, on its financial resources and its

imaginaries. They know when to turn to the market (of people, ideas, as well as things), and

when to turn toward each other. This means that, although they may primarily do intellectual or

service work, and although they may not be organizers they also think, as Lester always says about

himself, like an organizer .

It is an intervention on a hierarchy of service that places actual mutual aid at the bottom, and

self-interested mutual aid at the top. Professionally and personally we’re encouraged to be

“entrepreneurial,” to work on our “brand,” and to gain followers, our acts of mutual care called

“volunteer work,” considered a “value-add,” and if we start a program of such a work we’ll be

encouraged to “capitalize on it” to better our careers. If we create a program which also benefits

an institution then that labor is considered valuable. Everyday care, or relationship-building, the

invisible work of strengthening and listening to a social network’s needs, is not. The

knowledge-creation that comes from it is not. And the resource-sharing that comes from it is not.

Here’s some ways that Baltimore people do intellectual work that uses translucency:

● They personally move between different social spaces, both institutional and

movement-based, and form relationships that are private and personal

● They perform intellectual, creative, or organizationally-generative work which is able to

think on behalf of each of these different spaces

● When they take credit they consider the ramifications for others in that social ecosystem,

and they make efforts to share resources both material and social/relational

Some people in Baltimore who come to mind in this way: Parag Khandhar’s work with worker

co-ops, likening them to immigrant communities’ practices of mutual aid; Dorcas Gilmore’s work

with co-ops, too, and on the Baltimore Legal Action team, which does work publicly as well as

behind the scenes; Marisela Gomez and others’ work with VOLAR, which builds in the Middle East

neighborhood, next to JHU, and her public health research on the effects of policing; the working group

after the uprising which eventually became the Baltimore Black Worker Center; Lawrence Brown’s

work with movement spaces, some of which he publicizes, but much of which he does not; Bilphena Yahwon,

Kimi Hanauer, and PressPress, their Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, and Collaborative Cultural work;

Rodney Foxworth, with Invested Impact (and now Common Futures, in Oakland), whose writing

and work link philanthropy spaces with movement spaces; Jay Gillen, Baltimore teacher and

one of the co-leads in Baltimore Algebra Project. And many others, including some people in this

email thread, though I won’t embarrass by naming them here.

I know that the part of the manifesto that caught people’s attention was the mentioning of

refusal, in particular a refusal to take credit. But, as an ethic, translucency is less a single tactic

than a path or orientation.

Here are some observations that kinda seem to be guiding stars:

1. Extraction is a social system, not just a financial system. Donors should not drive

content---as they currently do in nearly every area, from higher ed, to museums, to

education, lobbying and government. When institutions demand that their name gets

emblazoned on a program, or a donor’s name on a building, their values or ideas driving

a curriculum, we see this. But also when a person publicly builds their reputation around being

the “author” of justice work, or care or service; it “takes” a little social capital for them

alone, thus the expression “take credit.” There are practical as well as moral

consequences. Others may be compelled to obey the “taker’s” taste, or ideas---or

culture, gender, institutional agenda---even if all involved are sincerely collaborating with

one another.

2. There are always parts of change-work that exist “above ground,” in the public, or

where we can see, and below ground where we can’t (private, or interpersonal, or

possibly even anonymous). The different kinds are not a dichotomy, they’re a spectrum,

and they’re inseparable from each other. But only one type gets rewarded. People

might do much more work to care for one another if we weren’t being pushed so hard to

brag and virtue-signal about it, whether on social media, or within requirements on our

job, or through thinking of our “service” and “volunteer” work as in a separate and

optional category in life.

3. We don’t always have to take credit. We are encouraged to take credit, to be the

author of something, even as we are also encouraged to collaborate. But collaboration

also involves some degree of conflict of interest. Real collaboration also acknowledges

and negotiates how to share ordivide what we each potentially gain. Instead of always

looking at what we “lose” if we don’t take credit, or how things “normally” go, we should

look at what we and others receive. So, translucency also requires transgressive imagination.

4. Acts of translucency reveal hidden resources. The market’s logic can be like a

flashlight on a night with full moon. It allows to see the immediate costs/benefits in front

of us, but obscures the landscape we’re in: longer-term costs to others or ourselves,

small but crucial missed opportunities. For instance, when institutions say “community,”

it’s code: meaning “non-institutional person,” and usually that also connotes someone

with less access to money or power, and/or a person of color. This pushes “community”

projects to serve that imagined relationship, never disrupt or rearrange it. But, more literally,

community includes the people in the institution---some of whom may even be family members

of the “community” people that institutions go to such pains to prove they are “helping.”

A focus on trends (like “innovation”) can shift focus from each other and the existing potential

around us. When exploitation (even self-exploitation) is rewarded, it will limit our ability

to imagine other approaches, to see new resources, and create not just individual acts

of care but sustainable social ecosystems.

5. The solution is spectrum, not as simple as a politics of refusal---though it’s clearly linked to

and requires that work. An ethic is not an absolute; it’s a tool that should be used according to how

it can affect an outcome. There’s a wide, imaginable spectrum between work that’s anonymous,

ie “gives” nothing to the market (and “takes” nothing for the individuals), and work that we shout

from the rooftops and “take” and/or reward for. In between might be projects in which

we acknowledge our role privately but not publicly, or we put it on our resume but not social media,

or vice versa, or we blast it out there but keep our name alongside others, our specific role

held privately. Small refusals can create local adaptations, even a culture of adaptation.

These small acts are in not meant to replace the sometimes-necessary spectacular-scale refusals,

like protests, which then result in spectacular-scale institutional responses, like task

forces or working groups or new policies. But small interactions can sometimes become

a model, first in small pockets and then spreading.

In solidarity,

Ailish