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The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity
From award-winning writer Sarah Schulman, a longtime social activist and outspoken critic of the Israeli war on Gaza, comes a brilliant examination of the inherent psychological and social challenges to solidarity movements, and what that means for the future
For those who seek to combat injustice, solidarity with the oppressed is one of the highest ideals, yet it does not come without complication. In this searing yet uplifting book, award-winning writer and cultural critic Sarah Schulman delves into the intricate and often misunderstood concept of solidarity to provide a new vision for what it means to engage in this work—and why it matters.
To grapple with solidarity, Schulman writes, we must recognize its inherent fantasies. Those being oppressed dream of relief, that a bystander will intervene though it may not seem to be in their immediate interest to do so, and that the oppressor will be called out and punished. Those standing in solidarity with the oppressed are occluded by a different fantasy : that their intervention is effective, that it will not cost them, and that they will be rewarded with friendship and thanks. Neither is always the case, and yet in order to realize our full potential as human beings in relation with others, we must continue to pursue action towards these shared goals.
Within this framework, Schulman examines a range of case studies, from the fight for abortion rights in post-Franco Spain, to NYC’s AIDS activism in the 1990s, to the current wave of campus protest movements against Israel’s war on Gaza, and her own experience growing up as a queer female artist in male dominated culture industries. Drawing parallels between queer, Palestinian, feminist, and artistic struggles for justice, Schulman challenges the traditional notion of solidarity as a simple union of equals, arguing that in today’s world of globalized power structures, true solidarity requires the collaboration of bystanders and conflicted perpetrators with the excluded and oppressed. That action comes at a cost, and is not always effective. And yet without it we sentence ourselves to a world without progressive change towards visions of liberation.
By turns challenging, inspiring, pragmatic, and poetic, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity provides a much-needed path for how we can work together to create a more just, more equitable present and future.
For those who seek to combat injustice, solidarity with the oppressed is one of the highest ideals, yet it does not come without complication. In this searing yet uplifting book, award-winning writer and cultural critic Sarah Schulman delves into the intricate and often misunderstood concept of solidarity to provide a new vision for what it means to engage in this work—and why it matters.
To grapple with solidarity, Schulman writes, we must recognize its inherent fantasies. Those being oppressed dream of relief, that a bystander will intervene though it may not seem to be in their immediate interest to do so, and that the oppressor will be called out and punished. Those standing in solidarity with the oppressed are occluded by a different fantasy : that their intervention is effective, that it will not cost them, and that they will be rewarded with friendship and thanks. Neither is always the case, and yet in order to realize our full potential as human beings in relation with others, we must continue to pursue action towards these shared goals.
Within this framework, Schulman examines a range of case studies, from the fight for abortion rights in post-Franco Spain, to NYC’s AIDS activism in the 1990s, to the current wave of campus protest movements against Israel’s war on Gaza, and her own experience growing up as a queer female artist in male dominated culture industries. Drawing parallels between queer, Palestinian, feminist, and artistic struggles for justice, Schulman challenges the traditional notion of solidarity as a simple union of equals, arguing that in today’s world of globalized power structures, true solidarity requires the collaboration of bystanders and conflicted perpetrators with the excluded and oppressed. That action comes at a cost, and is not always effective. And yet without it we sentence ourselves to a world without progressive change towards visions of liberation.
By turns challenging, inspiring, pragmatic, and poetic, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity provides a much-needed path for how we can work together to create a more just, more equitable present and future.
317 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 22, 2025
40 people are currently reading
3178 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Schulman
62 books801 followersSarah Schulman is a longtime AIDS and queer activist, and a cofounder of the MIX Festival and the ACT UP Oral History Project. She is a playwright and the author of seventeen books, including the novels The Mere Future, Shimmer, Rat Bohemia, After Delores, and People in Trouble, as well as nonfiction works such as The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life during the Reagan/Bush Years, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, and Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. She is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at The City University of New York, College of Staten Island.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
January 8, 2026
To read this book you need to first accept Sarah Schulman’s style, which is: rigorously introspective first-person stories about how activist ideals are accomplished in practice. The “in practice” part is essential—her digressive stories can feel pointless if you’re expecting a very argument-driven narrative, but Schulman’s style is often to be question-driven and values-driven. As a result, the stories illuminate how she takes some ideal (here, how Jewish Americans, Americans in general, writers, and others can act to solidarity during the genocide in Gaza) and actually practices it through her actions, statements and organizing efforts.
I really revere Sarah Schulman, and this book is unyieldingly principled and compassionate. She might be one of the best models out there for pragmatic and effective activism.
There’s a touching blurb on my copy, from the writer and ACT UP–era activist Alexander Chee, which perfectly sums up Schulman’s work: “This book will save lives. How many is up to us.”
I really revere Sarah Schulman, and this book is unyieldingly principled and compassionate. She might be one of the best models out there for pragmatic and effective activism.
There’s a touching blurb on my copy, from the writer and ACT UP–era activist Alexander Chee, which perfectly sums up Schulman’s work: “This book will save lives. How many is up to us.”
June 7, 2025
it is a gift to be alive while sarah schulman is working. i'm awed by how she embodies the efforts for a morally consistent life across how she treats other people, her creative work, and her organizing. having been lucky enough to spend time learning from her irl over the past year, her consistency, curiosity, and commitment to artistic and political growth sets a stunning example, especially for younger queer people. many of the ideas she has thoughtfully championed during a time of genocide and global fascism are thoughtfully distilled here with clarity and urgency. in her nonfiction, i'm particularly struck by the value of a novelist and playwright composing nonfiction narrative. through her lens towards storytelling and understanding consequences/connections, schulman is able to successfully articulate systematic trends that shape how we create, connect, and take action.
July 26, 2025
Very much agree with the content and message, but it suffers from bland writing and too much focus on the author herself or anecdotes about her famous artist friends and their experiences of social advocacy, rather than more potent examples of solidarity by everyday people or other historic grassroots movements. Also very little analysis—mostly just kind of telling stories and then having a quick paragraph at the end of a chapter to say like, “they faced backlash but stood up for X peoples anyways!” A number of great ideas and lines but felt a bit slapdash or underdeveloped. Even the chapters on the encampment movement focus way more on the reaction by right-wing politics and university admin instead of on the acts of mutual aid or community building or deep thinking about solidarity that took place and across these spaces.
December 8, 2025
4.5 stars rounded up for its importance (I guarantee this book won't get nearly as much hype or wide readership as it warrants.)
A couple years ago I was listening to Sarah Schulman's last book, Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair, and I didn't get all the way through it, but not for the usual reasons. I was finding it to be SO vitally important that, at a certain point - maybe two-thirds through - I paused my progress until I could either transcribe a bunch of key sections or get some other people I know to also read it with me so we could talk about how it applies to situations we're deeply affected by. I felt similarly with this new work, but plugged on, simply pausing to add digital bookmarks to points throughout my checked-out library copy of this recently-published, extremely relevant book. Sarah Schulman has been doing highly important work for decades now, and there are a lot of influential folks in various activist and queer communities who would do well to absorb her writing.
Now when is Dean Spade going to have Sarah Schulman on his Love in a F#$%ed Up World podcast?!!? Because that just seems like a natural fit to me. She mentions Dean Spade at one point, in reference to his involvement in a BDS letter campaign to a particular person, if I recall.
I think the strongest section of this book, and certainly the one that shed the most light on some historical subjects for me, is the story of Jean Genet's solidarity with Palestinians and Black Panthers, including a speech given in the U.S. in defense of Angela Davis. Schulman doesn't do us a disservice, concocting some hagiography with the romanticized tones of that old, delicious ballad "Beautiful Boyz" by Cocorosie and Anohni, which was obviously inspired by Genet's life. She is unafraid to ask the difficult questions, about what we should think when there is evidence or speculation that someone's actions of solidarity are motivated in part by fetishistic lust or other non-altruistic reasons.
Her arguments are a bit weaker when dealing with issues plaguing her personally. At least once she makes a specific accusation of some named person in power at an academic institution, but has to finish the sentence with something like, "It must have been them or someone in their department." Excuse me? Ma'am, I'm sorry you've been wronged for standing on the right side of free speech, social justice, and the dialogic tradition of Judaism, but I think you need a more careful, journalistic editor, logician, or lawyer to walk through some of your comments here.
There are so many more things I want to say and discuss about this book, but it is one I feel should be processed with others who share both community or affinity and conflict, either directly or by association.
A couple years ago I was listening to Sarah Schulman's last book, Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair, and I didn't get all the way through it, but not for the usual reasons. I was finding it to be SO vitally important that, at a certain point - maybe two-thirds through - I paused my progress until I could either transcribe a bunch of key sections or get some other people I know to also read it with me so we could talk about how it applies to situations we're deeply affected by. I felt similarly with this new work, but plugged on, simply pausing to add digital bookmarks to points throughout my checked-out library copy of this recently-published, extremely relevant book. Sarah Schulman has been doing highly important work for decades now, and there are a lot of influential folks in various activist and queer communities who would do well to absorb her writing.
Now when is Dean Spade going to have Sarah Schulman on his Love in a F#$%ed Up World podcast?!!? Because that just seems like a natural fit to me. She mentions Dean Spade at one point, in reference to his involvement in a BDS letter campaign to a particular person, if I recall.
I think the strongest section of this book, and certainly the one that shed the most light on some historical subjects for me, is the story of Jean Genet's solidarity with Palestinians and Black Panthers, including a speech given in the U.S. in defense of Angela Davis. Schulman doesn't do us a disservice, concocting some hagiography with the romanticized tones of that old, delicious ballad "Beautiful Boyz" by Cocorosie and Anohni, which was obviously inspired by Genet's life. She is unafraid to ask the difficult questions, about what we should think when there is evidence or speculation that someone's actions of solidarity are motivated in part by fetishistic lust or other non-altruistic reasons.
Her arguments are a bit weaker when dealing with issues plaguing her personally. At least once she makes a specific accusation of some named person in power at an academic institution, but has to finish the sentence with something like, "It must have been them or someone in their department." Excuse me? Ma'am, I'm sorry you've been wronged for standing on the right side of free speech, social justice, and the dialogic tradition of Judaism, but I think you need a more careful, journalistic editor, logician, or lawyer to walk through some of your comments here.
There are so many more things I want to say and discuss about this book, but it is one I feel should be processed with others who share both community or affinity and conflict, either directly or by association.
April 22, 2025
Usually when books cover the topic of solidarity, it does so in more of a theoretical way. I really appreciated the way Schulman approaches it from the perspective of a seasoned activist who has both succeeded and failed in what it means to be in solidarity with others. Her examples span from her own personal life, her activism with Palestinian groups, Act Up, and her work with abortion access in post-Franco Spain. I was pleasantly surprised with the interview (near the end of the book) with Morgan M. Paige where they discuss disposability culture and suicidality in activist communities. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend checking it out.
Read
August 25, 2025Full disclosure: Sarah is my first cousin, though we are not close as adults. I often disagree with her writings, and at the same time I am always impressed by her intellect, her research, her writing ability, and her passion for justice. I was drawn to this book because of its title, something I am extremely interested in exploring.
Unfortunately, while the book is brilliantly researched, well written, and infused with that passion for justice, in the end it really doesn't examine solidarity. Rather, the bulk of the book is about genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by Israel (a position with which I thoroughly agree). The deep history of Israel's relation to the LGBTQ community is invaluable, and very rarely available.
Schulman regularly reaches through the topic of each chapter to point out moments of solidarity or behaviors which are in opposition to solidarity, but she doesn't examine what solidarity is and is not. She spends a good deal of the book profiling recent historical figures who embody solidarity (Wilmette Brown, Alice Neel, Jean Genet, and Carson McCullers). I knew little to nothing about most of them, and I found their stories valuable, but again the author and the readers have to reach through the story to find the key points about solidarity. Examples, both long and short, are great, but they aren't the same thing as analysis.
The last section of the book is a probing inquisition into a piece of the author's life. In the mid-2010s, she gave the eulogy at the memorial for a high-profile, well-loved New York City transwoman, who was a close friend of Schulman's. In consultation with other mourners, Schulman wrote and delivered a "political sermon," a deep analysis of why this woman -- and by extension transpeople -- committed suicide and the roles of suicidality, isolation, alcohol, and community in trans lives. This was apparently not the eulogy mourners were there to hear, and a fairly major internet controversy exploded. Instead of recounting much of this in detail, she reprints a long transcript of an event she did a year or so later with Canadian transwoman Morgan M. Page, in which both Schulman's speech and Page's more traditional eulogy are reprinted and then there is a deep and moving Q&A with the audience. I found it riveting, and I will think about it for a long time. Again it doesn't provide any guidance on what solidarity is and how we can think about it.
If this book was called "musings" or "My Thoughts on Palestine and LGBTQ community" or something like that, the reader might be more prepared. I'm really glad I read the book, and I'm still disappointed that she didn't turn her extraordinary intellect directly onto the topic she defined.
Unfortunately, while the book is brilliantly researched, well written, and infused with that passion for justice, in the end it really doesn't examine solidarity. Rather, the bulk of the book is about genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by Israel (a position with which I thoroughly agree). The deep history of Israel's relation to the LGBTQ community is invaluable, and very rarely available.
Schulman regularly reaches through the topic of each chapter to point out moments of solidarity or behaviors which are in opposition to solidarity, but she doesn't examine what solidarity is and is not. She spends a good deal of the book profiling recent historical figures who embody solidarity (Wilmette Brown, Alice Neel, Jean Genet, and Carson McCullers). I knew little to nothing about most of them, and I found their stories valuable, but again the author and the readers have to reach through the story to find the key points about solidarity. Examples, both long and short, are great, but they aren't the same thing as analysis.
The last section of the book is a probing inquisition into a piece of the author's life. In the mid-2010s, she gave the eulogy at the memorial for a high-profile, well-loved New York City transwoman, who was a close friend of Schulman's. In consultation with other mourners, Schulman wrote and delivered a "political sermon," a deep analysis of why this woman -- and by extension transpeople -- committed suicide and the roles of suicidality, isolation, alcohol, and community in trans lives. This was apparently not the eulogy mourners were there to hear, and a fairly major internet controversy exploded. Instead of recounting much of this in detail, she reprints a long transcript of an event she did a year or so later with Canadian transwoman Morgan M. Page, in which both Schulman's speech and Page's more traditional eulogy are reprinted and then there is a deep and moving Q&A with the audience. I found it riveting, and I will think about it for a long time. Again it doesn't provide any guidance on what solidarity is and how we can think about it.
If this book was called "musings" or "My Thoughts on Palestine and LGBTQ community" or something like that, the reader might be more prepared. I'm really glad I read the book, and I'm still disappointed that she didn't turn her extraordinary intellect directly onto the topic she defined.
May 8, 2025
Some passages from The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity:
*
“Regardless of specificity, solidarity always requires awareness, self-criticism, consciousness, the decision to act, and the need to create strategy, to build alliances, and to listen. It always requires taking chances, making mistakes, and trying again.”
*
“The US entertainment industry is one of the last places a person can find solidarity.
Most corporate-produced culture is filled with terrible values, is blatantly retrograde or – at best – meaningless, which is its own politic. The product exists to make money for people who have fun solving intense but tightly focused problems. Its social function is to create individuals who can feed the need for fame, upon which American marketing depends. A friend once pointed out to me that America’s greatest exports are film/TV and weapons, and most of the highest-grossing films and TV glorifies violence in a way that serves as advertisement for weapons.
I am not the only person who reads incredible reviews for plays or movies or TV shows that turn out to be banal, repetitive, or nonsensical. Part of the problem is that print and online critical publications are tied to the marketplace. Critics mostly write about books or actors or writers or filmmakers who have a new product on the market right now, rather than works that the critic feels illuminate our current moment.
It occurs to me that most (not all) of these institutions that drive me crazy have historically and consistently excluded, watered down, or marginalized the more interesting and necessary ideas in any given period. Risky and exciting movements of forward-thinking people were usually debased or ignored, while avoidant or repetitive work was elevated and glorified, and then given awards. This system of repetition is reinforced psychologically by the creation and strict maintenance of a scarcity-based concept of an elite. If an artist or intellectual or activist or any combination thereof is looking for non-market-based support adequate to live safely and comfortably while following their gifts full-time, it’s literally a MacArthur or nothing. Repetitive ideas are selected by gatekeepers, elevated by critics, rewarded with prizes, and branded as good and important, when they are often actually stagnant. We have collectively underestimated the ultimate danger of that entrenched cycle. It turned out to be far more sinister than just boring, as corporate entertainment sells bad values about humans being expendable and worth destroying when compared to the risk of losing social status or influence with funders. Cultural producers should be joining the large numbers of people trying to stop this war on Gaza, but either being quiet or supporting the killing is actually consistent with the norm.”
*
“What makes it so confusing is their embedded accompanying system of self-praise tell us repeatedly that the repetitive, banal ideas in mass circulation are special and deserve reward. Year after year we are told through many selections at elections, through promotions or even the Oscars, Tonys, Pulitzers, and the full range of intellectual and citizenship awards in corporate marketing venues, that irrelevant products deserve to be the focus of our attention and should be replicated. This reinforces the idea that the way things are is not only great, but the best. This merry-go-round debases and marginalizes risky, exciting movements of forward-thinking people while elevating and glorifying avoidant work that pretends away the most important questions of our time: Who has the power, and why?”
*
“It was a cultural moment that made white writers look in the mirror and wonder if we have been confusing it with a window.”
*
*
“Regardless of specificity, solidarity always requires awareness, self-criticism, consciousness, the decision to act, and the need to create strategy, to build alliances, and to listen. It always requires taking chances, making mistakes, and trying again.”
*
“The US entertainment industry is one of the last places a person can find solidarity.
Most corporate-produced culture is filled with terrible values, is blatantly retrograde or – at best – meaningless, which is its own politic. The product exists to make money for people who have fun solving intense but tightly focused problems. Its social function is to create individuals who can feed the need for fame, upon which American marketing depends. A friend once pointed out to me that America’s greatest exports are film/TV and weapons, and most of the highest-grossing films and TV glorifies violence in a way that serves as advertisement for weapons.
I am not the only person who reads incredible reviews for plays or movies or TV shows that turn out to be banal, repetitive, or nonsensical. Part of the problem is that print and online critical publications are tied to the marketplace. Critics mostly write about books or actors or writers or filmmakers who have a new product on the market right now, rather than works that the critic feels illuminate our current moment.
It occurs to me that most (not all) of these institutions that drive me crazy have historically and consistently excluded, watered down, or marginalized the more interesting and necessary ideas in any given period. Risky and exciting movements of forward-thinking people were usually debased or ignored, while avoidant or repetitive work was elevated and glorified, and then given awards. This system of repetition is reinforced psychologically by the creation and strict maintenance of a scarcity-based concept of an elite. If an artist or intellectual or activist or any combination thereof is looking for non-market-based support adequate to live safely and comfortably while following their gifts full-time, it’s literally a MacArthur or nothing. Repetitive ideas are selected by gatekeepers, elevated by critics, rewarded with prizes, and branded as good and important, when they are often actually stagnant. We have collectively underestimated the ultimate danger of that entrenched cycle. It turned out to be far more sinister than just boring, as corporate entertainment sells bad values about humans being expendable and worth destroying when compared to the risk of losing social status or influence with funders. Cultural producers should be joining the large numbers of people trying to stop this war on Gaza, but either being quiet or supporting the killing is actually consistent with the norm.”
*
“What makes it so confusing is their embedded accompanying system of self-praise tell us repeatedly that the repetitive, banal ideas in mass circulation are special and deserve reward. Year after year we are told through many selections at elections, through promotions or even the Oscars, Tonys, Pulitzers, and the full range of intellectual and citizenship awards in corporate marketing venues, that irrelevant products deserve to be the focus of our attention and should be replicated. This reinforces the idea that the way things are is not only great, but the best. This merry-go-round debases and marginalizes risky, exciting movements of forward-thinking people while elevating and glorifying avoidant work that pretends away the most important questions of our time: Who has the power, and why?”
*
“It was a cultural moment that made white writers look in the mirror and wonder if we have been confusing it with a window.”
*
October 5, 2025
The first quarter or third of the book I had a hard time getting through. Still, insights there were. If the book had continued in the same way, I might have given it only 3 stars.
The last four chapters -- starting with Ch 5 "The Case for Strategic Radicalism" and especially with Ch 8 "When Solidarity Fails"-- were amazing. 5 stars. So all in all, 4 stars.
On page 8, the author writes "The purpose of this book is to make solidarity doable." In a movement era where judgment and calling out and bureaucratic norms obfuscate instead of mentor new activists, maybe we need books like this. Sigh.
p82. <> (also see p88 where claim is made that gender is a barrier to college enrollment and success which stats no longer support)
----
p3-4. Solidarity is the essential human progress of recognizing that other people are real and their experiences matter. [...] Solidarity is the action behind the revelation that each of us, individually, are not the only people with dreams.
p7. The Spanish Civil War veterans [...] under the charge of being "prematurely anti-fascist."
p17-8. [...] what ultimately makes sophisticated, complex creative work about lesbian life unacceptable is that we see men differently than they see themselves.
p23. Certainly, as real as antisemitism is, slaughtering, starving, displacing, and traumatizing millions of Palestinians over generations doesn't help fight against it.
P27. Israel insists that opposing killing, starving, maiming, incarcerating, and displacing Palestinians is itself anti-Jewish because they falsely claim to own Jewishness.
p32. Selective recognition is the way we maintain our own sense of goodness.
p35. What is so ironic is that since 2005, the Palestinians have been offering a nonviolent solution: the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.
p36. Every person has to face their own complicities, and we start this by listening to whoever is suffering. Even if it is by our own hand. It is this transcendence that can lead us all to a better place.
p41. We have established that solidarity to change embedded injustice requires coming together across lines of power. Grasping that this is more relational than heroic makes it more possible; as seeing the conditions of other people's lives as relevant to our own creates ongoing insight and revelation, bringing us closer to reality. Solidarity is a transformative vision of the real.
p44. Our resistance grows but the killing does not stop.
p45. It makes us have to ask ourselves hard questions about what solidarity really means if it is not yet working.
p46. Even if we don't know the person, even if we don't like the person, justice is, by definition, not a popularity contest, and solidarity does not require love.
p75. Qualification seems to be a kind of propaganda, firmly in place to justify the unfair exclusions that require solidarity to dissolve.
p93. In open admissions, these talented students thrived and were appreciated and welcomed on their terms. Once they survived a selection process, they were defeated. Parts of the goal of selection is triage, to force people out, often for reasons that are unrelated to their potential contribution.
p96. And that was one of the greatest lessons I have ever learned: Say yes. Trust people. Let go. Welcome others. And include. Community is for everyone, and by operating like a community, you get the same rate of excellence and duds. But there is a lot more range.
p105. [...] even with this new inclusivity, the rotten cannon is expanded but not sorted, and so we never discover that we live with bad standards and false claims. [Is this in tension with author's resistance to criteria and standards?]
p108. When I was rejected by my own parents for being gay in 1975, my life became chaotic, and yet, as a consequence of their stupidity and cruelty, I was rescued from being embedded in a ridiculous family and a dead world.
p119-20. <> See pp122-3 re how this effected women and BIPOC leadership.
P121. My own study of history shows me that movements that try to force everyone into one analysis or one strategy always fail, and I can't find any historical exceptions. Trying to make people all agree on approaching the problem the same way is not effective, and this is because people are different and therefore can only be where they are at. It took me decades of therapy to accept this. But the fundamental truth is that people will always be different and therefore real leadership is rooted in facilitating people being effective from where they are at. [...]
As Maxine Wolfe, on of the leaders of ACT UP, often pointed out, if we action first, our theory will emerge because we have to make decisions about how to enact the action. And this is how our values are cohered. If instead we went theory first, we would be instantly polarized by theoretical differences, with nothing concrete at stake.
p125. On April 12, 2011, Omar Barghouti and I went on the progressive independent GRITtv, and he told host Laura Flanders that his vision for the future of Palestine included sexual and gender rights.
p131. IN 2008, PACBI published a sample contract that Israeli artists signed with their government when the artist was "invited" to an international event, the kind of invitation that every Israeli artist craves and must have in order to establish a broad reputation. [...]
The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the state of Israel via culture and art including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.
Yet....
The service provider will not present himself as an agent, emissary and/or representative of the Ministry.
138. By 2023, after devastating Gaza with aerial bombing, murdering over eleven thousand people, and cutting off water, food, and medicine, Israeli land troops invaded with tanks. One soldier had a photo taken of him standing in the rubble of a place he had participated in annihilating, holding up an Israeli flag, with the Star of David that once represented an ancient diasporic people, and surrounding that star was... a rainbow border.
139. What makes LGBTQ people and their allies so susceptible to homonationalism and pinkwashing is the emotional legacy of homophobia. The vast majority of queers have had oppression experiences, often in the searing realm of family [....]
143. Like Genet, I also see myself as a "friend of Palestine," and yet I do understand that that has nothing to do with whether individual Palestinians like me. Political relationships of solidarity are rife with the problem of supremacy, no matter how alienated or excluded the dominant party feels from their own societies. And it is easy to project one's own enthusiasm of connection onto the less powerful partner.
p155. Personally, my experience of Nerdeen and other Palestinian student leaders with whom I worked is that they were and continue to be very, very offended by charges of antisemitism, with which they have been harassed all their lives.
p159. Trying to self-impose deprivation [...] is a foolish effort because the end goal is to share advantage and protection, not to increase the number of people who live without it.
p171. In a constantly shifting situation like the popular protests against US complicity with Israeli violence, I practice big-tent politics. That means I look for places where I can stand with people in agreement, even temporarily, as part of a very diverse Palestine solidarity movement that includes many different kinds of people and different points of view. This means that my own precise opinions will not always be absolutely reflected by the people I generally stand with. And I have to accept that. There is an unease in coalition [....]
p173. I just decide that the collective power is more important than my individual perfectionist analysis. I worry about how to stop the violence, about being effective, and about the threat of complicity.
182. Israeli universities have been fully complicity in the destruction of all of Gaza's schools. Not one is on the record as opposing the genocide, let alone calling for a ceasefire. As a result the campaign to dismantle study abroad programs in Israel is gaining steam.
195. It is possible that Israel murdering children is contributing to anti-Jewish feelings "around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood" and that this is growing. As long as the military and social policies of the state of Israel are seen as equivalent to world Jewry -- Jews who do not live in Israel -- this will continue to be the case. So, the people who keep insisting that criticizing Israel equals antisemitism are feeding this conflation.
201. If this has happened before, I've never heard of any man risking giving up anything so that women can get fair treatment.
230. And I want to say here, that no one I know has ever killed themselves sober. [...] But, because of alcohol and depression, the fact that these conflicts were entirely resolvable eluded her completely. That there were many options eluded her.
232. We must stop killing ourselves. It is an act of violence, helping to create a violent future.
233. And then I realized the obvious. Bryn Kelly died not because of a lack of community -- she had a wealth of community. She died because she was poor and could not afford the sophisticated level of treatment and support that someone so intelligent and complex needed in order to fully live her life.
[....] I do not view Bryn's death as a failure of community, but rather as a wound on our loving, caring, yet fragile community assaulted regularly by a punitive and indifferent system. We must stop destroying ourselves, while letting the institutions that are hurting us stand unopposed. In this case, our love could not overwhelm that institutional cruelty and abandonment. But that does not diminish how much we all give each other, and the beauty and the power and the wealth of how much we all love and care. We have to stay alive, and fight like hell for the living.
257. I think that sometimes being able to connect our personal suffering to larger political frameworks reduces isolation and makes something overwhelming maybe a little more clear. I don't have to agree with everything you say, but I really like that you're saying it.
[...]. And we assumed he has this network of support and care because he was a leader, and he didn't. I just wanted to thank you first of all for this and I was just wondering waht you think about this idea, this gap in support for leaders in our community.
*** 263. [...] solidarity is about getting ready for the change that we need right now. It does not deliver when we want it or need it, but there is nothing else that can bring us closer to a justifiable future.
266. I mean, I am just as Jewish as they are. The people who are yelling at them are not yelling at me. So the anger is not about us being Jewish, but about our actions. [...] The issue at stake are politics and values.
267. Within this process, there are many challenges, including the most personal one: to strive to be coherent. [...] But being in solidarity means giving each other the approval and support, the insight and strength, the love -- if you will -- to continue to transform our relationship to status, safety, institutions, and the machinery of approval, whether from our families, our professions, the state [...]
268. There is a kind of happiness that comes from trying to be a consistent person, and sometimes that is the only obtainable goal, to try. After all, there is a pleasure in thinking for yourself that, once it finds its home, becomes rejuvenating, fascinating, and life-giving.
[...]. My motto for these coming years is: "Don't stop yourself from doing what you think is right. Make them stop you." And I hope to keep to that in solidarity with many of you.
The last four chapters -- starting with Ch 5 "The Case for Strategic Radicalism" and especially with Ch 8 "When Solidarity Fails"-- were amazing. 5 stars. So all in all, 4 stars.
On page 8, the author writes "The purpose of this book is to make solidarity doable." In a movement era where judgment and calling out and bureaucratic norms obfuscate instead of mentor new activists, maybe we need books like this. Sigh.
p82. <> (also see p88 where claim is made that gender is a barrier to college enrollment and success which stats no longer support)
----
p3-4. Solidarity is the essential human progress of recognizing that other people are real and their experiences matter. [...] Solidarity is the action behind the revelation that each of us, individually, are not the only people with dreams.
p7. The Spanish Civil War veterans [...] under the charge of being "prematurely anti-fascist."
p17-8. [...] what ultimately makes sophisticated, complex creative work about lesbian life unacceptable is that we see men differently than they see themselves.
p23. Certainly, as real as antisemitism is, slaughtering, starving, displacing, and traumatizing millions of Palestinians over generations doesn't help fight against it.
P27. Israel insists that opposing killing, starving, maiming, incarcerating, and displacing Palestinians is itself anti-Jewish because they falsely claim to own Jewishness.
p32. Selective recognition is the way we maintain our own sense of goodness.
p35. What is so ironic is that since 2005, the Palestinians have been offering a nonviolent solution: the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.
p36. Every person has to face their own complicities, and we start this by listening to whoever is suffering. Even if it is by our own hand. It is this transcendence that can lead us all to a better place.
p41. We have established that solidarity to change embedded injustice requires coming together across lines of power. Grasping that this is more relational than heroic makes it more possible; as seeing the conditions of other people's lives as relevant to our own creates ongoing insight and revelation, bringing us closer to reality. Solidarity is a transformative vision of the real.
p44. Our resistance grows but the killing does not stop.
p45. It makes us have to ask ourselves hard questions about what solidarity really means if it is not yet working.
p46. Even if we don't know the person, even if we don't like the person, justice is, by definition, not a popularity contest, and solidarity does not require love.
p75. Qualification seems to be a kind of propaganda, firmly in place to justify the unfair exclusions that require solidarity to dissolve.
p93. In open admissions, these talented students thrived and were appreciated and welcomed on their terms. Once they survived a selection process, they were defeated. Parts of the goal of selection is triage, to force people out, often for reasons that are unrelated to their potential contribution.
p96. And that was one of the greatest lessons I have ever learned: Say yes. Trust people. Let go. Welcome others. And include. Community is for everyone, and by operating like a community, you get the same rate of excellence and duds. But there is a lot more range.
p105. [...] even with this new inclusivity, the rotten cannon is expanded but not sorted, and so we never discover that we live with bad standards and false claims. [Is this in tension with author's resistance to criteria and standards?]
p108. When I was rejected by my own parents for being gay in 1975, my life became chaotic, and yet, as a consequence of their stupidity and cruelty, I was rescued from being embedded in a ridiculous family and a dead world.
p119-20. <> See pp122-3 re how this effected women and BIPOC leadership.
P121. My own study of history shows me that movements that try to force everyone into one analysis or one strategy always fail, and I can't find any historical exceptions. Trying to make people all agree on approaching the problem the same way is not effective, and this is because people are different and therefore can only be where they are at. It took me decades of therapy to accept this. But the fundamental truth is that people will always be different and therefore real leadership is rooted in facilitating people being effective from where they are at. [...]
As Maxine Wolfe, on of the leaders of ACT UP, often pointed out, if we action first, our theory will emerge because we have to make decisions about how to enact the action. And this is how our values are cohered. If instead we went theory first, we would be instantly polarized by theoretical differences, with nothing concrete at stake.
p125. On April 12, 2011, Omar Barghouti and I went on the progressive independent GRITtv, and he told host Laura Flanders that his vision for the future of Palestine included sexual and gender rights.
p131. IN 2008, PACBI published a sample contract that Israeli artists signed with their government when the artist was "invited" to an international event, the kind of invitation that every Israeli artist craves and must have in order to establish a broad reputation. [...]
The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the state of Israel via culture and art including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.
Yet....
The service provider will not present himself as an agent, emissary and/or representative of the Ministry.
138. By 2023, after devastating Gaza with aerial bombing, murdering over eleven thousand people, and cutting off water, food, and medicine, Israeli land troops invaded with tanks. One soldier had a photo taken of him standing in the rubble of a place he had participated in annihilating, holding up an Israeli flag, with the Star of David that once represented an ancient diasporic people, and surrounding that star was... a rainbow border.
139. What makes LGBTQ people and their allies so susceptible to homonationalism and pinkwashing is the emotional legacy of homophobia. The vast majority of queers have had oppression experiences, often in the searing realm of family [....]
143. Like Genet, I also see myself as a "friend of Palestine," and yet I do understand that that has nothing to do with whether individual Palestinians like me. Political relationships of solidarity are rife with the problem of supremacy, no matter how alienated or excluded the dominant party feels from their own societies. And it is easy to project one's own enthusiasm of connection onto the less powerful partner.
p155. Personally, my experience of Nerdeen and other Palestinian student leaders with whom I worked is that they were and continue to be very, very offended by charges of antisemitism, with which they have been harassed all their lives.
p159. Trying to self-impose deprivation [...] is a foolish effort because the end goal is to share advantage and protection, not to increase the number of people who live without it.
p171. In a constantly shifting situation like the popular protests against US complicity with Israeli violence, I practice big-tent politics. That means I look for places where I can stand with people in agreement, even temporarily, as part of a very diverse Palestine solidarity movement that includes many different kinds of people and different points of view. This means that my own precise opinions will not always be absolutely reflected by the people I generally stand with. And I have to accept that. There is an unease in coalition [....]
p173. I just decide that the collective power is more important than my individual perfectionist analysis. I worry about how to stop the violence, about being effective, and about the threat of complicity.
182. Israeli universities have been fully complicity in the destruction of all of Gaza's schools. Not one is on the record as opposing the genocide, let alone calling for a ceasefire. As a result the campaign to dismantle study abroad programs in Israel is gaining steam.
195. It is possible that Israel murdering children is contributing to anti-Jewish feelings "around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood" and that this is growing. As long as the military and social policies of the state of Israel are seen as equivalent to world Jewry -- Jews who do not live in Israel -- this will continue to be the case. So, the people who keep insisting that criticizing Israel equals antisemitism are feeding this conflation.
201. If this has happened before, I've never heard of any man risking giving up anything so that women can get fair treatment.
230. And I want to say here, that no one I know has ever killed themselves sober. [...] But, because of alcohol and depression, the fact that these conflicts were entirely resolvable eluded her completely. That there were many options eluded her.
232. We must stop killing ourselves. It is an act of violence, helping to create a violent future.
233. And then I realized the obvious. Bryn Kelly died not because of a lack of community -- she had a wealth of community. She died because she was poor and could not afford the sophisticated level of treatment and support that someone so intelligent and complex needed in order to fully live her life.
[....] I do not view Bryn's death as a failure of community, but rather as a wound on our loving, caring, yet fragile community assaulted regularly by a punitive and indifferent system. We must stop destroying ourselves, while letting the institutions that are hurting us stand unopposed. In this case, our love could not overwhelm that institutional cruelty and abandonment. But that does not diminish how much we all give each other, and the beauty and the power and the wealth of how much we all love and care. We have to stay alive, and fight like hell for the living.
257. I think that sometimes being able to connect our personal suffering to larger political frameworks reduces isolation and makes something overwhelming maybe a little more clear. I don't have to agree with everything you say, but I really like that you're saying it.
[...]. And we assumed he has this network of support and care because he was a leader, and he didn't. I just wanted to thank you first of all for this and I was just wondering waht you think about this idea, this gap in support for leaders in our community.
*** 263. [...] solidarity is about getting ready for the change that we need right now. It does not deliver when we want it or need it, but there is nothing else that can bring us closer to a justifiable future.
266. I mean, I am just as Jewish as they are. The people who are yelling at them are not yelling at me. So the anger is not about us being Jewish, but about our actions. [...] The issue at stake are politics and values.
267. Within this process, there are many challenges, including the most personal one: to strive to be coherent. [...] But being in solidarity means giving each other the approval and support, the insight and strength, the love -- if you will -- to continue to transform our relationship to status, safety, institutions, and the machinery of approval, whether from our families, our professions, the state [...]
268. There is a kind of happiness that comes from trying to be a consistent person, and sometimes that is the only obtainable goal, to try. After all, there is a pleasure in thinking for yourself that, once it finds its home, becomes rejuvenating, fascinating, and life-giving.
[...]. My motto for these coming years is: "Don't stop yourself from doing what you think is right. Make them stop you." And I hope to keep to that in solidarity with many of you.
September 10, 2025
I just finished reading Sarah’s book. I’m very emotional right now and I can’t recommend it enough.
July 18, 2025
I so appreciate Schulman's work and how she is still so open to learn from and with people in community and through conversation. I flagged so many pages while reading this book:
"The opposite of oppression is not only freedom but also belonging. It is the construction of a listening and acting body around the suffering person that creates a context for transformation. The standard wisdom is that we can't change other people, but other people change me all the time, for better and for worse. Both committing and allowing injustice imposes tragic change. Stopping or reducing it creates the paradigm shift, building the people power needed to realize the necessity of positive new beginnings." (3)
"First, I had already learned to question nationalism and patriotism precisely through the lens of my secular Jewish history and the alienation of my first-generation parents from American norms." (14)
"I learn from the oppressed, not the powerful, about how to define reality.
Second, my family was pathologically sexist and homophobic to a degree that was so poisonous, thorough, and punitive that I was forced to cohere a critical comprehension of the false loyalty systems families construct. After all, the family is often the first place a person experiences the pain of homophobia and sexism or, inversely, how to benefit from these oppressive systems." (17)
ACT Up as a formative activist and listening space which prompted Schulman to be open to learning about Palestinian oppression and the status quo narrative apparatus that prevented their deaths, like those with AIDS, from being recognized or valued (20)
"The bother of having to practice the politics of repetition required to raise consciousness about Palestine, the annoyance of being yelled at or slandered by supporters of the Israeli state, the fear of threats and accusations, censorship, or loss of income and opportunities, even the violence of the police or Zionist agitators, will never equal being mass-murdered or being surrounded by the death of our contexts." (47)
"Being in solidarity with Palestine means upholding an ethic of interactive, communicative engagement." (47)
"Ultimately the strategy is for people power to overwhelm corporate and state power, creating the conversations, campaigns, and debates that lead grassroots organizations to participate in the boycott and thereby change the tenor or public discourse and subsequently public values." (50)
"Forced motherhood is not enough for the newly empowered forces of regression. They want to punish women for asking for help, for being connected to others, for disobeying. Hopefully we will all soon be similarly accused." (60)
"The lesson I learned here, at the start of my adult life, was that creativity was the source of solidarity. Regardless of the obstacle or the frame, using the imagination to figure out how to take the risk was the only way forward." (73)
On criteria in academia and other contexts:
"We reward the kind of 'difference' that stays within boundaries while reinforcing our norms, and gatekeepers find this comfortable and in fact entertaining. But works that question our sense of ourselves as objective, neutral, or value-free are the works that gatekeepers reject. Because supremacy thinking is rooted in the deep-seated belief that the supreme is inherently objective. And turning that over is intolerable to people in power, who emotionally need to justify their status and access." (94-5)
"1. ACT UP was not a consensus-based movement. Their statement of unity, "Direct Action to end the AIDS crisis," emphasized direct action in contrast to social service provision. Basically, if someone had an idea that would move us closer to ending the AIDS crisis, they could do it." (120)
"My own study of history shows me that movements that try to force everyone into one analysis or one strategy always fail, and I can't find any historical exceptions. Trying to make people all agree on approaching the problem the same way is not effective, and this is because people are different and therefore can only be where they are at. It took me decades of therapy to accept this. But the fundamental truth is that people will always be different and therefore leadership is rooted in facilitating people being effective from where they are at." (121)
"This is why, throughout this volume, I maintain that the violent state destruction of Palestinian people in Gaza is related to the systematic under-education of the working class in New York City, to the imposition of mandatory motherhood through the denial of abortion rights, to the branding and enforcement of culture industry hierarchies. That all these oppressions that control individual and collective lives are imposed through false standards and fake claims of supremacy and superiority. And that we can see these structure of containment in the lives of women artists, just as we see them in congressional subpoenas and justifications for silence or even complicity. A witness has a distance of safety. A participant shares a vulnerability." (158)
After witnessing a French friend's son become a virulent racist:
"In our generation of post-1960s white progressives, we developed an understanding of ourselves as people with privileges that are unjustified, who--despite our desires to contribute to dismantling racism--have to be constantly vigilant and self-critical and open to other people's criticisms to limit the damage. And we are learning how to carry and integrate this information about ourselves, to act on it without being paralyzed by it. In Antoine's perspective, this way of thinking about one's white self is impossible. Multidimensionality equals fault. The idea of white people having to think about ourselves subjectively is something that feels to Antoine's cohort like an assault, instead of feeling enriching. It is an ideological battle between the wielding of complexity as a source of depth and complexity as a weapon of diminishment." (162)
On Carson McCullers:
"But McCullers remains the standard-bearer for white authors, and for almost twenty-five years now I have been on a journey to try to understand how she did it. Who does a white writer have to be in order to overcome the institutionalized ignorance in which we are trained and shrouded?" (210-11)
On people jumping to conclusions, assumptions:
"So, there was just this assumption that I had done something terrible on my own and all of that--this was to do with the book I've just written (Conflict Is Not Abuse), which is, How come people don't ask questions? Why do we just assume the worse? Why don't we just ask the person? You know, and part of it has to do with us not being in person with each other and I think that's one of the reasons we don't ask." (222)
From an audience discussion after a trans community member's suicide:
"Like, if a person made some political faux pas which no one is saying is a great thing--does that justify socially isolating them? I think this is one of the big problems we have in queer community. We pay a lot of lip service to prison abolition, but we don't actually internalize that in our own lives, other than outside violence, is social isolation. I work in social services, I've provided services for trans people for many years, and in every one of my funding applications the number one thing we're trying to reduce is social isolation, because when you're isolated you become hopeless, and you despair, and you also have no access to resources and people who care about you. In the queer and trans community unfortunately right now in this moment we have a tendency to, as Sarah says, catastrophize small conflicts, which, again, no one is saying there's no bad things happening, but often we're talking about very small conflicts and catastrophizing them and calling for their removal of this person from community spaces and saying, 'Oh, you can't come to this queer space anymore because you said something transmisogynistic and that was hurtful to us, so you're not allowed to come." (246)
"But being in solidarity means giving each other the approval and support, the insight and strength, the love--if you will--to continue to transform our relationships to status, safety, institutions, and the machinery of approval, whether from our families, our professions, the state, or the standards constantly fed us from corporate entertainment, which includes media. There is a kind of happiness that comes from trying to be a consistent person, and sometimes that is the only obtainable goal, to try. After all, there is a pleasure in thinking for yourself that, once it finds its home, becomes rejuvenating, fascinating, and life-giving." (267-8)
"The opposite of oppression is not only freedom but also belonging. It is the construction of a listening and acting body around the suffering person that creates a context for transformation. The standard wisdom is that we can't change other people, but other people change me all the time, for better and for worse. Both committing and allowing injustice imposes tragic change. Stopping or reducing it creates the paradigm shift, building the people power needed to realize the necessity of positive new beginnings." (3)
"First, I had already learned to question nationalism and patriotism precisely through the lens of my secular Jewish history and the alienation of my first-generation parents from American norms." (14)
"I learn from the oppressed, not the powerful, about how to define reality.
Second, my family was pathologically sexist and homophobic to a degree that was so poisonous, thorough, and punitive that I was forced to cohere a critical comprehension of the false loyalty systems families construct. After all, the family is often the first place a person experiences the pain of homophobia and sexism or, inversely, how to benefit from these oppressive systems." (17)
ACT Up as a formative activist and listening space which prompted Schulman to be open to learning about Palestinian oppression and the status quo narrative apparatus that prevented their deaths, like those with AIDS, from being recognized or valued (20)
"The bother of having to practice the politics of repetition required to raise consciousness about Palestine, the annoyance of being yelled at or slandered by supporters of the Israeli state, the fear of threats and accusations, censorship, or loss of income and opportunities, even the violence of the police or Zionist agitators, will never equal being mass-murdered or being surrounded by the death of our contexts." (47)
"Being in solidarity with Palestine means upholding an ethic of interactive, communicative engagement." (47)
"Ultimately the strategy is for people power to overwhelm corporate and state power, creating the conversations, campaigns, and debates that lead grassroots organizations to participate in the boycott and thereby change the tenor or public discourse and subsequently public values." (50)
"Forced motherhood is not enough for the newly empowered forces of regression. They want to punish women for asking for help, for being connected to others, for disobeying. Hopefully we will all soon be similarly accused." (60)
"The lesson I learned here, at the start of my adult life, was that creativity was the source of solidarity. Regardless of the obstacle or the frame, using the imagination to figure out how to take the risk was the only way forward." (73)
On criteria in academia and other contexts:
"We reward the kind of 'difference' that stays within boundaries while reinforcing our norms, and gatekeepers find this comfortable and in fact entertaining. But works that question our sense of ourselves as objective, neutral, or value-free are the works that gatekeepers reject. Because supremacy thinking is rooted in the deep-seated belief that the supreme is inherently objective. And turning that over is intolerable to people in power, who emotionally need to justify their status and access." (94-5)
"1. ACT UP was not a consensus-based movement. Their statement of unity, "Direct Action to end the AIDS crisis," emphasized direct action in contrast to social service provision. Basically, if someone had an idea that would move us closer to ending the AIDS crisis, they could do it." (120)
"My own study of history shows me that movements that try to force everyone into one analysis or one strategy always fail, and I can't find any historical exceptions. Trying to make people all agree on approaching the problem the same way is not effective, and this is because people are different and therefore can only be where they are at. It took me decades of therapy to accept this. But the fundamental truth is that people will always be different and therefore leadership is rooted in facilitating people being effective from where they are at." (121)
"This is why, throughout this volume, I maintain that the violent state destruction of Palestinian people in Gaza is related to the systematic under-education of the working class in New York City, to the imposition of mandatory motherhood through the denial of abortion rights, to the branding and enforcement of culture industry hierarchies. That all these oppressions that control individual and collective lives are imposed through false standards and fake claims of supremacy and superiority. And that we can see these structure of containment in the lives of women artists, just as we see them in congressional subpoenas and justifications for silence or even complicity. A witness has a distance of safety. A participant shares a vulnerability." (158)
After witnessing a French friend's son become a virulent racist:
"In our generation of post-1960s white progressives, we developed an understanding of ourselves as people with privileges that are unjustified, who--despite our desires to contribute to dismantling racism--have to be constantly vigilant and self-critical and open to other people's criticisms to limit the damage. And we are learning how to carry and integrate this information about ourselves, to act on it without being paralyzed by it. In Antoine's perspective, this way of thinking about one's white self is impossible. Multidimensionality equals fault. The idea of white people having to think about ourselves subjectively is something that feels to Antoine's cohort like an assault, instead of feeling enriching. It is an ideological battle between the wielding of complexity as a source of depth and complexity as a weapon of diminishment." (162)
On Carson McCullers:
"But McCullers remains the standard-bearer for white authors, and for almost twenty-five years now I have been on a journey to try to understand how she did it. Who does a white writer have to be in order to overcome the institutionalized ignorance in which we are trained and shrouded?" (210-11)
On people jumping to conclusions, assumptions:
"So, there was just this assumption that I had done something terrible on my own and all of that--this was to do with the book I've just written (Conflict Is Not Abuse), which is, How come people don't ask questions? Why do we just assume the worse? Why don't we just ask the person? You know, and part of it has to do with us not being in person with each other and I think that's one of the reasons we don't ask." (222)
From an audience discussion after a trans community member's suicide:
"Like, if a person made some political faux pas which no one is saying is a great thing--does that justify socially isolating them? I think this is one of the big problems we have in queer community. We pay a lot of lip service to prison abolition, but we don't actually internalize that in our own lives, other than outside violence, is social isolation. I work in social services, I've provided services for trans people for many years, and in every one of my funding applications the number one thing we're trying to reduce is social isolation, because when you're isolated you become hopeless, and you despair, and you also have no access to resources and people who care about you. In the queer and trans community unfortunately right now in this moment we have a tendency to, as Sarah says, catastrophize small conflicts, which, again, no one is saying there's no bad things happening, but often we're talking about very small conflicts and catastrophizing them and calling for their removal of this person from community spaces and saying, 'Oh, you can't come to this queer space anymore because you said something transmisogynistic and that was hurtful to us, so you're not allowed to come." (246)
"But being in solidarity means giving each other the approval and support, the insight and strength, the love--if you will--to continue to transform our relationships to status, safety, institutions, and the machinery of approval, whether from our families, our professions, the state, or the standards constantly fed us from corporate entertainment, which includes media. There is a kind of happiness that comes from trying to be a consistent person, and sometimes that is the only obtainable goal, to try. After all, there is a pleasure in thinking for yourself that, once it finds its home, becomes rejuvenating, fascinating, and life-giving." (267-8)
June 2, 2025
You want to fight injustice? To truly stand with the oppressed and make a difference? Then you *need* Sarah Schulman's groundbreaking book. It's not just about good intentions; Schulman masterfully unravels the complexities and potential pitfalls of solidarity.
August 31, 2025
The Fantasy & Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman
I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this profound book. I first came to Sarah’s work through The Gentrification of the Mind—one of my all-time favorites—and this one sits right beside it.
The title says it all. Schulman writes with a central focus on how solidarity can show up for Palestinians, especially in the context of the war on Gaza waged by the Israeli government. The book carries particular weight given her own Jewish heritage, and how she has long wrestled with these themes, including in Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair.
She moves through a wide range of people, essays, topics, and her own activism, always returning to the urgency of solidarity. What comes through most is her plea that we think for ourselves, outside the confines of mass media. She insists we center those who are not in the room, those for whom solidarity means everything, and she’s unflinching in showing that this often requires accepting some level of punishment. For Schulman, that price is not only worth paying—it’s essential if we want to live on the right side of history.
Schulman is one of those rare writers who can challenge you deeply while also expanding your sense of responsibility to others. Her words feel necessary in this moment of profound grief. This is a masterpiece I know I’ll keep returning to, again and again.
I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this profound book. I first came to Sarah’s work through The Gentrification of the Mind—one of my all-time favorites—and this one sits right beside it.
The title says it all. Schulman writes with a central focus on how solidarity can show up for Palestinians, especially in the context of the war on Gaza waged by the Israeli government. The book carries particular weight given her own Jewish heritage, and how she has long wrestled with these themes, including in Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair.
She moves through a wide range of people, essays, topics, and her own activism, always returning to the urgency of solidarity. What comes through most is her plea that we think for ourselves, outside the confines of mass media. She insists we center those who are not in the room, those for whom solidarity means everything, and she’s unflinching in showing that this often requires accepting some level of punishment. For Schulman, that price is not only worth paying—it’s essential if we want to live on the right side of history.
Schulman is one of those rare writers who can challenge you deeply while also expanding your sense of responsibility to others. Her words feel necessary in this moment of profound grief. This is a masterpiece I know I’ll keep returning to, again and again.
May 9, 2025
A powerful and timely piece—sharp, grounded, and deeply resonant. Exactly the voice I needed in my ear this week.
November 20, 2025
There are parts of this book that are useful and informative. At the beginning, I felt hopeful that I would gain a great deal of knowledge and perspective on activism in support of the Palestine-Israel conflict. As the book went on, I became irritated by the author's position at the center of the story, the name dropping, and the self satisfaction with which she addressed the topic.
My sense is that there are better books on this topic to read that won't come across as so self serving. What I was left with is that Sarah Schulman is an important personality in the New York activism scene, and that no one is more cognizant of that fact than she is.
My sense is that there are better books on this topic to read that won't come across as so self serving. What I was left with is that Sarah Schulman is an important personality in the New York activism scene, and that no one is more cognizant of that fact than she is.
May 4, 2025
A practical guide to actual solidarity in ever-shifting circumstances. Valuable reading for anyone working to build the relationships that will support us in the future.
December 23, 2025
“The opposite of oppression is not freedom but also belonging. It is the construction of a listening and acting body around the suffering person that creates a context for transformation. The standard wisdom is that we can't change other people, but other people change me all the time, for better and for worse. Both committing and allowing injustice imposes tragic change. Stopping or reducing it creates the paradigm shift, building the people power needed to realize the necessity of positive new beginnings. And participating in this kind of change is among the most meaningful uses of our one and only life. Solidarity is the essential human process of recognizing that other people are real and their experiences matter. It is based in learning to evaluate the state of the world by the collective and not only by our own, individual experience. Solidarity is the action behind the revelation that each of us, individually, are not the only people with dreams ” (3-4).
"Part of the fantasy of being in solidarity is a magical combination of pure motive, clean action, and predictably victorious outcome. Part of hte fantasy is that we will do everything right and give up nothing and the afflicted will love us, as we will love each other and ourselves. The bystander is often so used to being powerful without effort that they fantasize a simple change in attitude fixing the the pain of the victim. The delusion is that we are *so* entitled, we only have to intercede and the desired change will occur. The expectation can be that this new solidarity-fueled reality will produce the deepest of human relationships: friendship, with tratitude as the icing.
Well, it is not the way" (5).
"...my family was pathologically sexist and homophobic to a degree that was so poisonous, thorough, and punitive that I was forced to cohere a critical comprehension of the false loyalty systems families construct. After all, the family is often the first place a person experiences the pain of homophobia and sexism, or, inversely, how to benefit from these oppression systems. I explored these questions at length in my book *The Ties that Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. As a girl who was both smart and gay, I was betrayed by my family so that they could uphold mail and heterosexual supremacy systems. The family is where I first experienced and observed men being artificially inflated beyond their actual accomplishments and merits, a plague that has shadowed my life, contexts, and career" (17).
"The white straight woman sits between both positions as she is precariously mistrusted by both the safe and the endangered. No one admires her. Her complaint is considered inelegant. If she is not a mother, we don't understand why she demands attention. If she is, then she is always wrong until she is idealized. And yet a mother's errors have the greatest consequences. We project frustration and blame on the white straight woman. She is the hinge on which a door swings open, though when it slams shut she is the one left on the outside looking for her key. Her currency depletes rapidly and occasionally becomes branded: the emblem of brilliance ignored. She is depicted as annoying, a role" (100).
"One of the greatest obstacles toward progress toward peace and justice is fear of disapproval and desire for status. Everywhere there are people who know that killing is wrong, and that mass killing and starvation are war crimes. But they are afraid of losing opportunities and falling out of favor. Facing the decision of whether to support a powerless person is a spotlight. Who are you really? Unfortunately, there is no relationship between justice and reward or quality and reward, and I say this as a person who has experienced both reward and derision. Most behavior that is rewarded in an unjust society reinforces its operative values. But not all. Occasionally something or someone who is actually making a real contribution to a more revealed and forward-moving world is rewarded. But it is crucial not to be fooled by the allure of acceptance, as much as we all want and should have it, because people thrive with attachment and belonging. This is why we have to create communities of conscience of which we can be a part" (205).
"There is a kind of happiness that comes from trying to be a consistent person, and sometimes that is the only obtainable goal, to try. After all, there is a pleasure in thinking for yourself that, once it finds its home, becomes rejuvenating, fascinating, and life-giving" (268).
"Part of the fantasy of being in solidarity is a magical combination of pure motive, clean action, and predictably victorious outcome. Part of hte fantasy is that we will do everything right and give up nothing and the afflicted will love us, as we will love each other and ourselves. The bystander is often so used to being powerful without effort that they fantasize a simple change in attitude fixing the the pain of the victim. The delusion is that we are *so* entitled, we only have to intercede and the desired change will occur. The expectation can be that this new solidarity-fueled reality will produce the deepest of human relationships: friendship, with tratitude as the icing.
Well, it is not the way" (5).
"...my family was pathologically sexist and homophobic to a degree that was so poisonous, thorough, and punitive that I was forced to cohere a critical comprehension of the false loyalty systems families construct. After all, the family is often the first place a person experiences the pain of homophobia and sexism, or, inversely, how to benefit from these oppression systems. I explored these questions at length in my book *The Ties that Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. As a girl who was both smart and gay, I was betrayed by my family so that they could uphold mail and heterosexual supremacy systems. The family is where I first experienced and observed men being artificially inflated beyond their actual accomplishments and merits, a plague that has shadowed my life, contexts, and career" (17).
"The white straight woman sits between both positions as she is precariously mistrusted by both the safe and the endangered. No one admires her. Her complaint is considered inelegant. If she is not a mother, we don't understand why she demands attention. If she is, then she is always wrong until she is idealized. And yet a mother's errors have the greatest consequences. We project frustration and blame on the white straight woman. She is the hinge on which a door swings open, though when it slams shut she is the one left on the outside looking for her key. Her currency depletes rapidly and occasionally becomes branded: the emblem of brilliance ignored. She is depicted as annoying, a role" (100).
"One of the greatest obstacles toward progress toward peace and justice is fear of disapproval and desire for status. Everywhere there are people who know that killing is wrong, and that mass killing and starvation are war crimes. But they are afraid of losing opportunities and falling out of favor. Facing the decision of whether to support a powerless person is a spotlight. Who are you really? Unfortunately, there is no relationship between justice and reward or quality and reward, and I say this as a person who has experienced both reward and derision. Most behavior that is rewarded in an unjust society reinforces its operative values. But not all. Occasionally something or someone who is actually making a real contribution to a more revealed and forward-moving world is rewarded. But it is crucial not to be fooled by the allure of acceptance, as much as we all want and should have it, because people thrive with attachment and belonging. This is why we have to create communities of conscience of which we can be a part" (205).
"There is a kind of happiness that comes from trying to be a consistent person, and sometimes that is the only obtainable goal, to try. After all, there is a pleasure in thinking for yourself that, once it finds its home, becomes rejuvenating, fascinating, and life-giving" (268).
November 10, 2025
I devoured this one in a day–it was the first time I read Sarah Schulman. It seems like it was quickly assembled and published, there’s a bit of an unfinished quality to it. Mostly I’m feeling won over and in agreement but not everything holds up to scrutiny.
First the parts that I thought were rough:
- I wasn’t expecting it to have such a strong aspect of memoir / biography. At first it seemed like her story was being overly centered but it becomes more important in the later parts of the book.
- At the start, there aren’t really perspectives that are fresh or surprising, but it is helpful to have the history and rationales all laid out as groundwork
- The biographical aspects don’t fully land. Like a confounding section on Alice Neel that doubles as coming of age memoir. This and the section on Gentel and a French solider are all over the place and are interesting history, but are murky and go in circles
- Zizek-like screeds about the media industry are undeveloped and simplistic
- The text glosses over some thornier issues like gays with newly found rights opposing religious / homophobic / patriarchal immigrants to their country and doesn’t really dip into history before the 20th century for long
Now for the high points:
- The section on teaching community college on Staten Island is where things get interesting–a high point, and eye opening. Gives a new dimension to the right complaining about liberal professors–because they want supreme control over the students they send away just for the sake of advancing power and not education. But there is some inconsistency in tearing at standards and criteria and envisioning education for all while still promoting some students (like her “genius�� who could go to law school) of having higher potential. Equal opportunities but not equal outcomes?
- The section about ACT UP is incredible. Very helpful to see examples of a pragmatic organization determined not to nitpick each other and stayed focused on their shared and larger goals.
- The section on pink washing was eye opening. I didn’t realize this was a linchpin of the propaganda machine.
- It addresses questions I had about potential mismatch of (religious, LGBT) values between a culture who is need of solidarity and their advocates.
- And the pragmatic approach to dealing with hardline PACBI organization and avoiding factionalization was helpful to see. But there are other examples of the author embracing hardline and divisive tactics so that’s another confusing / inconsistent illustration.
The coda on suicide was a bit of a mismatch for the rest of the book but it falls into the category of important causes that the author is invested in and it’s worthwhile (and tragic) reading
First the parts that I thought were rough:
- I wasn’t expecting it to have such a strong aspect of memoir / biography. At first it seemed like her story was being overly centered but it becomes more important in the later parts of the book.
- At the start, there aren’t really perspectives that are fresh or surprising, but it is helpful to have the history and rationales all laid out as groundwork
- The biographical aspects don’t fully land. Like a confounding section on Alice Neel that doubles as coming of age memoir. This and the section on Gentel and a French solider are all over the place and are interesting history, but are murky and go in circles
- Zizek-like screeds about the media industry are undeveloped and simplistic
- The text glosses over some thornier issues like gays with newly found rights opposing religious / homophobic / patriarchal immigrants to their country and doesn’t really dip into history before the 20th century for long
Now for the high points:
- The section on teaching community college on Staten Island is where things get interesting–a high point, and eye opening. Gives a new dimension to the right complaining about liberal professors–because they want supreme control over the students they send away just for the sake of advancing power and not education. But there is some inconsistency in tearing at standards and criteria and envisioning education for all while still promoting some students (like her “genius�� who could go to law school) of having higher potential. Equal opportunities but not equal outcomes?
- The section about ACT UP is incredible. Very helpful to see examples of a pragmatic organization determined not to nitpick each other and stayed focused on their shared and larger goals.
- The section on pink washing was eye opening. I didn’t realize this was a linchpin of the propaganda machine.
- It addresses questions I had about potential mismatch of (religious, LGBT) values between a culture who is need of solidarity and their advocates.
- And the pragmatic approach to dealing with hardline PACBI organization and avoiding factionalization was helpful to see. But there are other examples of the author embracing hardline and divisive tactics so that’s another confusing / inconsistent illustration.
The coda on suicide was a bit of a mismatch for the rest of the book but it falls into the category of important causes that the author is invested in and it’s worthwhile (and tragic) reading
May 12, 2025
thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Portfolio | Thesis and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy.
this one is out wherever books are sold.
--
we have been blessed with another sarah schulman book! and there's no one i'd rather read a book on solidarity about other than her - with her long history of activism there are few humans more equipped to tell us opportunities that we can grow together as a society and how we can apply that new-found solidarity to our modern existence as witnesses of the genocide of palestinians perpetrated by israel.
i loved that this book delved into different scenarios where the existence of solidarity - or the lack thereof - changed the landscape of society. there's discussion of spanish women fleeing their countries to get abortions deemed illegal by their country and how, after they received a safe and effective procedure, they were unwilling to fight for others like them and so were a part of perpetuating the problems that they faced. there were discussions of pinkwashing from israel and how it gives a false sense of security/safety to queer people, when the unexplainable piece of the puzzle is why we're all meant to be complicit in the extermination of an entire people because an anti-lgbt country accuses them of being anti-lgbt. there's discussion about dareen tatour's poetry and poetry existing as an effective method of nonviolent resistance. sarah also writes more about ACT UP and of course about the alienation of trans and queer people resulting in a suicide epidemic.
ultimately, most of the world's problems can be solved by developing solidarity with one another. and sarah writes about how sometimes, the shape of solidarity is outside the lines of what is legal or utterly against status quo, but that we shouldn't keep those things from stopping us from doing what is right and we're all responsible for doing that.
this one is out wherever books are sold.
--
we have been blessed with another sarah schulman book! and there's no one i'd rather read a book on solidarity about other than her - with her long history of activism there are few humans more equipped to tell us opportunities that we can grow together as a society and how we can apply that new-found solidarity to our modern existence as witnesses of the genocide of palestinians perpetrated by israel.
i loved that this book delved into different scenarios where the existence of solidarity - or the lack thereof - changed the landscape of society. there's discussion of spanish women fleeing their countries to get abortions deemed illegal by their country and how, after they received a safe and effective procedure, they were unwilling to fight for others like them and so were a part of perpetuating the problems that they faced. there were discussions of pinkwashing from israel and how it gives a false sense of security/safety to queer people, when the unexplainable piece of the puzzle is why we're all meant to be complicit in the extermination of an entire people because an anti-lgbt country accuses them of being anti-lgbt. there's discussion about dareen tatour's poetry and poetry existing as an effective method of nonviolent resistance. sarah also writes more about ACT UP and of course about the alienation of trans and queer people resulting in a suicide epidemic.
ultimately, most of the world's problems can be solved by developing solidarity with one another. and sarah writes about how sometimes, the shape of solidarity is outside the lines of what is legal or utterly against status quo, but that we shouldn't keep those things from stopping us from doing what is right and we're all responsible for doing that.
February 7, 2026
“This is a constitutional solidarity, a very specific kind of person, who is able to translate her own alienation into something of value to the most oppressed people of her time. This is a solidarity of both consciousness and the unconscious, of awareness and desire and instinct.
And that it reached the person for whom the relationship of understanding was intended is a partial sign of its success. For one of the highest forms of solidarity is to let the intended recipient feel seen and supported.” — pp. 214-215, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity.
(adding this quote here so it’s in a place where I can easily return to it. I never expected Carson McCullers to come up again eight years after my AP Lang essay, but here we are.)
Developing a relationship of understanding is something Schulman so thoroughly practices throughout this book, by exploring how she and others engage in the imperfect art of building relationships that transcend immediate and personal material gains. This book is a lesson well taught; it centers the reality of unintended and misguided actions, without preaching the ideals of a fantasy.
And that it reached the person for whom the relationship of understanding was intended is a partial sign of its success. For one of the highest forms of solidarity is to let the intended recipient feel seen and supported.” — pp. 214-215, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity.
(adding this quote here so it’s in a place where I can easily return to it. I never expected Carson McCullers to come up again eight years after my AP Lang essay, but here we are.)
Developing a relationship of understanding is something Schulman so thoroughly practices throughout this book, by exploring how she and others engage in the imperfect art of building relationships that transcend immediate and personal material gains. This book is a lesson well taught; it centers the reality of unintended and misguided actions, without preaching the ideals of a fantasy.
September 7, 2025
I think this book did a lot of good encapsulating and describing some of the issues that we face in the midst of our time. I often find that older books and literature can be out of touch with the contemporary moment and have a hard time paving the way towards what genuine action looks like. I think this books suffers from a bit of that but also provided fresh insight simultaneously. I appreciate the stories but I think the tactics could’ve been fleshed out more. I agree w several reviews saying there were a lot of moments of self concern and just gassing up her achievements. She deserves the credit indeed, but I often felt like there was not really a good end goal to a lot of her musings. However, I do really appreciate her approach and especially like the sections talking about global solidarity and giving us a wide range of ideas of what solidarity looks like. It did inspire me to be more active and I have to learn to push my comfort zone in many ways. I really respect her and everything she has done for her communities and the world.
Read
September 18, 2025I appreciate Sarah Schulman's bold clarity and historical perspective, and her clear moral compass, even when it's challenging to read. The best part of this book was a final section that consists of a full transcript of an event where Schulman and another speaker discuss the group processes and conflicts leading up to the eulogies given at a friend's funeral, read the eulogies, and then facilitate an audience Q&A. Schulman's commitment, grounded in her ACT UP years, of making the funeral an opportunity to "be political" - to share what she thinks the community needs to hear - and her ethical collaborative approach are inspiring to read about. The actual content of the discussion, about suicide in the queer/trans community, is a punch in the face in the best way.
The case studies (about the "European abortion underground railroad" and "three case studies of art world solidarity," particularly the one about Joey Soloway) are really nicely concrete and clear, as are the opening musings about changing perceptions of the meaning of solidarity.
The case studies (about the "European abortion underground railroad" and "three case studies of art world solidarity," particularly the one about Joey Soloway) are really nicely concrete and clear, as are the opening musings about changing perceptions of the meaning of solidarity.
December 6, 2025
The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity lands very much in PTTC territory for me: Schulman is largely preaching to the choir who are already invested in left, queer, and activist debates. My low point was a comically niche dispute over whether Genet should be treated as saint or sinner —a question that matters to about twelve people, even if it does tie into her broader interest in how we mythologize certain figures. The core of the book is her effort to strip away the fantasy of pure, cost-free solidarity—this idea that our interventions will always work, won’t cost us anything, and will be met with gratitude—while still insisting that working toward solidarity is necessary. A lot of the arguments feel familiar if you’ve been around these conversations for a while, but the final chapter, which shifts into a transcript format, ends up being strangely satisfying: the ideas loosen up, the voice feels less didactic, and the messiness she’s describing starts to look like something you can actually live with rather than just a set of principles to nod along to.
January 25, 2026
Necessary reading in this difficult period for humans, and especially queers. I was surprised that it was so autobiographical, i.e. the book is less an essay than a personal history of a longtime activist... it's almost not about the question of solidarity and allyship. I found the last part, about Schulman's decision as a lesbian veteran of the AIDS era to give a political eulogy for her young trans friend Bryn Kelly who committed suicide, the best part of the book. However, that section is mostly a transcript of an event held in Montreal in 2016, in conversation with trans activist Morgan M. Page, and isn't exactly a piece of her own writing, though it contains the eulogy. I admire Schulman's work, in general, and am astounded by her productivity. This one feels a bit harder to love.
May 26, 2025
Another thoughtful and compassionate book from Schulman. While this book was great, it did not feel quite as deep as some of her others, and frankly, could have been a long essay. I especially could have done without the next-to-last chapter that was a transcript of a "group conversation" that felt very tenuously connected to the rest of the book, and honestly, kind of felt like it was there to pad out the page count. Nevertheless, it's a small quibble, and if you have read Schulman's other books, you'll know what to expect here. I always finish her books feeling so much smarter and this was no exception.
June 1, 2025
Ever since I read Sarah Schulman’s oral history of ACT UP she has become one of my favorites, as a writer, an activist, and moral compass. There is a lot of brilliance in this book and so much wisdom and important reflection about activism and solidarity. Some of the newer insights (to me, I mean) are about production of artistic works as a form of knowledge and the ways in which art is so controlled by gatekeepers and as a result, this profoundly limits our collective imagination. The narrative felt a little clunky at times. Sometimes there were points I literally didn’t understand and wish she has elaborated more. That’s why I only gave 4 stars.
August 19, 2025
This book felt less focused than the other two I've read by her (Conflict is Not Abuse and Let the Record Show). Nonetheless, the idea about not having criteria for solidarity (or schools) is on point I think and really helpful. I also liked the last section about Sarah's political eulogy, which really felt like an extension of Conflict is Not Abuse. It's a particularly clear example of some of the concepts from that previous book. Definitely recommended, but CiNA and LtRS are my first two recs of hers.
Read
November 9, 2025Generally a fan. A good book to think through the concept of solidarity from those with power toward those seeking more power to live with dignity and autonomy. Often the historical examples and personal anecdotes were not relatable, as they were mostly from the perspective of holding a powerful role in the world of arts and culture. Solidarity would and does look a lot different in my own life, but I still appreciate that I got to use the book as a chance to think and talk about what it looks like to constantly be acting in solidarity with others.
November 11, 2025
Schulman's history of solidarity, with a through-line related to Palestine and movements toward queer and feminist liberation, is thought-provoking. I appreciated learning the histories of ACT UP and the European Underground Railroad for abortion, which I was less familiar with. Schulman also describes the type of solidarity she is writing about as rooted in inequality; she identifies the messiness of it at the same time that it is necessary under the unequal conditions of the world we currently live in.
July 1, 2025
A fantastic book by a local AIDS history professor, who also coincidentally founded the Dyke March, that focuses on how to show solidarity, especially in the context of Palestine. She breaks down what happened at Northwestern University this last year (24 at the time of writing) with solidarity efforts with Palestine on campus and within the academic community. I will admit I had the breath taken out of me by the transcript from the community conversation around a eulogy and the differences of a political versus typical funeral, and was not expecting the degree of detail given re the suicide (and the point was to deter suicide, and point made, but fuck). Great book for our current moment.
December 26, 2025
There is very little Schulman writes here that I inherently disagree with, but the entire book is much less of a discussion on solidarity and much more a semi-self-righteous autobiography. It's more about bragging than insight. The few points the author makes I feel are pretty obvious to anyone who read the news in the past three years. Schulman's activism is remarkable, and I personally work with JVP, an organization Schulman is a board member of, and I appreciate her work there, but this book is just unfortunately not very good.
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