Pleasure Activism ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
June 18, 2023
There was controversy, back in the winter of 2006, about whether New Orleans should celebrate Mardi Gras. Hurricane Katrina had roared through the city in August of 2005, and months later, there was still wreckage piled everywhere, whole neighborhoods were still without power, and most roofs were covered with blue tarps. I remember thinking that it made no sense to celebrate: here they were, just barely functioning, and there had been so many deaths, so many thousands of people displaced, so much destroyed. How could they possibly celebrate? Even many city officials were opposed, worried that it could look disrespectful to all those who had lost so much.
But Mardi Gras went on, and it taught me something I have never forgotten: that even in the face of death and destruction – perhaps especially in the face of death and destruction – we need to have celebrations. Mardi Gras went on – smaller, of course, diminished, but unquenchable. People used humor to soften the effect of the loss. Lots of people dressed up as superheroes, wearing blue tarps as capes.
It would have been easy to say no to Mardi Gras, to insist that the money be spent on repairs and clean up. And that of course would have been the sensible, practical thing to do. Before I began going on service trips to New Orleans myself, I was a much more sensible, practical person. But the effort to restore New Orleans enlarged my heart, and turned me into a person who now understands that the parties are as important as the work and the grieving.
We see this same philosophy everywhere this weekend, including here in Gloucester, as we celebrate Juneteenth. The Cape Ann Museum is sponsoring a big party here beginning later this morning.
Now Juneteenth, June 19, is celebrated as the day that the last enslaved people in the United States, down in Galveston, Texas, finally got the word that they had been emancipated, two and half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. While Juneteenth has been celebrated in various ways ever since, it was signed into law as a federal holiday only in 2021. Of course, this increased interest and attention was the result of the protests that took place in many cities in the spring of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.
The focus of Juneteenth over the years has been celebrating with family: picnics and barbeques. Some larger cities hold parades now, and music festivals. But as you can see from looking at the schedule of events for the celebration here in Gloucester, the emphasis is always on food, music, and fun for all ages.
What we see, what is intended in these celebrations, is an opportunity for Black Joy. Black Joy: a chance to step beyond the trauma, the oppression inherent in African American history, and to simply have fun. In its own way, Black Joy is an act of defiance, much as the citizens of New Orleans danced and marched in the face of tremendous adversity. But for people of color, black joy has the added dimension of being a way of showing up in the world, a way to claim space, to say: we deserve to rest and relax and enjoy ourselves. And it makes me sad that is something that even has to be said.
The author adrienne marie brown has developed another term for the radical act of simply having fun in the midst of political unrest, oppression, and the constant striving for civil rights. She calls it ‘Pleasure Activism.’ Brown has written a book with that title, in which she sets forth a premise about healing, and happiness, that says that changing the world doesn’t have to be all about work and suffering. The weight of the activism, regardless of what work it is we choose to do in the world, can drag us down. This is especially true for Black and Brown people, who are also burdened with the weight of generations of oppression. Pleasure Activism seeks to reclaim joy in the work, joy in liberation.
The concept of Pleasure Activism is primarily intended for people of color, largely because throughout our history, they have been so excluded from so many of the ways in which humans can enjoy themselves: restaurants, swimming pools, county fairs, and so on. The list is long. People of color need additional affirmation that they have a right to enjoy themselves, a right to take up space in public, even while still working for liberation.
White people can also feel burdened by the sheer amount of work there is to do in the world, by all the wrongs that need to be righted. And white people, such as myself, can feel that it is not time to celebrate until the work is done. This is such a vestige of Puritanism, of capitalism: that we can only celebrate completion, our success. I realized that this was why I was unsure that New Orleans should celebrate Mardi Gras in 2006. They weren’t done cleaning up yet!
But in truth, the work is never done. If we wait until it is, we’ll never have a chance to celebrate. I wanted to say this to you this morning, as we come to the end of our regular church year, and have an Annual Meeting. Because there is another aspect of Pleasure Activism that Adrienne marie brown illuminates for us: that of the importance of community, of connection. In an interview, she said this: “Pleasure activism, for me, is saying it’s not just you deserving it… it’s… recognizing that you want to be part of community where everyone’s pleasure is attended to and accounted for, a community where everyone has access and time and resources to actually be able to pursue it.” Brown continued, “I do think that everyone needs to become mindful of themselves as part of interconnected systems that depend on each other for quality of life and survival.”
My friends, on this important day in the life of our congregation, I hope that we can see ourselves in those words: a place where the work never ends, but is shared, a place where we can celebrate just being human together. A place where we know in our bones that our lives are interconnected and where we can depend on each other, incomplete as the work is.
“It took a year and a half to realize the beauty in the small handfuls of beach stones.
I held a polished stone in my hand yesterday, and curled my fingers around it. I thought of all I have before me in my own life and also in our congregation. I was filled with awareness of how much there is to do, and how much I don’t even know yet, that will also need my doing. I looked at the gleaming stone in my hand, and remembered how long it takes to work with things that are hard, and how much joy and beauty comes from exactly that long work.”
May you know joy in the work, and in the connections.
Blessed Be,
Amen.
