Focus on organizing and socialism and let any friendships be natural. It’s not practical to completely separate one’s social life and political life.
Friendship doesn’t always stay that, though. Be careful and modest and never let it become a dating scene. Lefties will date but there is a huge difference between those who happen to date vs. an organization that allows or even promotes harassment, which is unfortunately very common. Similarly, nobody should be put in situations in a lefty organization where they are being sexualized or where there can be any perception of favoritism or discrimination. These should be places where one’s political contributions are what are valued.
If these things aren’t taken seriously then the org will eventually implode from not handling abusive situations appropriately and instead relying on however the current leadership team (usually defensively) responds to complaints. This is one of the worst and unfortunately common scenarios in political organizations and is a much greater threat to your organization (and people that want to work within it) than any feds or cops. The Best rule of thumb is to be humble and empathetic and plan for how you are going to handle situations with social fallout.
As a different example, you may also have people in your organization that do not get along and begin fighting. Sometimes it’s even pretty clear when one person is in the wrong and the other is not. But even then, the person that is in the wrong may weaponize anything they perceive to have caché in your organization. For example, race or gender or sexual orientation, etc. I’ve seen it happen many times. A harasser wraps themselves in an identity to deflect from their own behavior. So as an organization, you want to prepare for these scenarios because it is part of promoting comradely behavior and being a space where people actually want to be and work. And you need to develop strategies by which you will discriminate between true and false claims and reach reasonable conclusions to protect the members of your organization. Don’t worry about the image of the organization itself because if you act correctly in individual cases to protect the members of the org you can always explain what happened and why. In contrast, many lefties make the mistake of trying to protect the org over its members and this nearly always backfires.
Anyways this is how I recommend approaching the building of a space where commies can be friends. Keep the focus on organizing, education, and being a place where people can safely be. Plan for the worst so you can head it off before things get too far and so that you have tools to handle negative situations correctly.
Focus on organizing and socialism and let any friendships be natural. It’s not practical to completely separate one’s social life and political life.
Friendship doesn’t always stay that, though. Be careful and modest and never let it become a dating scene. Lefties will date but there is a huge difference between those who happen to date vs. an organization that allows or even promotes harassment, which is unfortunately very common. Similarly, nobody should be put in situations in a lefty organization where they are being sexualized or where there can be any perception of favoritism or discrimination. These should be places where one’s political contributions are what are valued.
If these things aren’t taken seriously then the org will eventually implode from not handling abusive situations appropriately and instead relying on however the current leadership team (usually defensively) responds to complaints. This is one of the worst and unfortunately common scenarios in political organizations and is a much greater threat to your organization (and people that want to work within it) than any feds or cops. The Best rule of thumb is to be humble and empathetic and plan for how you are going to handle situations with social fallout.
As a different example, you may also have people in your organization that do not get along and begin fighting. Sometimes it’s even pretty clear when one person is in the wrong and the other is not. But even then, the person that is in the wrong may weaponize anything they perceive to have caché in your organization. For example, race or gender or sexual orientation, etc. I’ve seen it happen many times. A harasser wraps themselves in an identity to deflect from their own behavior. So as an organization, you want to prepare for these scenarios because it is part of promoting comradely behavior and being a space where people actually want to be and work. And you need to develop strategies by which you will discriminate between true and false claims and reach reasonable conclusions to protect the members of your organization. Don’t worry about the image of the organization itself because if you act correctly in individual cases to protect the members of the org you can always explain what happened and why. In contrast, many lefties make the mistake of trying to protect the org over its members and this nearly always backfires.
Anyways this is how I recommend approaching the building of a space where commies can be friends. Keep the focus on organizing, education, and being a place where people can safely be. Plan for the worst so you can head it off before things get too far and so that you have tools to handle negative situations correctly.