How can we intentionally welcome activists from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and experiences?

Someone asks if I’ve been to a protest lately. I haven’t, though I keep meaning to go—each time sidetracked by practical absurdities like childcare schedules and unpaid bills. Still, I think about the idea of protest constantly. There is a moment I return to in my mind often: a brief illumination that Micah White calls a "temporary clearing," a sudden space inside all the dread or numbness where, unexpectedly, everyone sees something new. It feels like waking mid-dream to find the bedsheets tangled—a reminder that you can shift reality with just the smallest movement.

Once, we believed protests moved history forward: the petitions carefully signed, the marches choreographed through city streets. I used to see these things clearly, how they worked, who they were for. But now these same rituals seem calcified, heavy with repetition, built mostly for those comfortably buffered against consequences. In certain lights, activism can look like privilege—something for those who can risk arrest without losing homes or jobs or custody of their children.

Micah White said traditional protest forms weren't meant for the labyrinth we are now trapped in. Crypto economies. Authoritarian threats. The strange, shadowy world emerging from beneath AI's invisible hand. Protest didn't come ready for this. It couldn't know the specificity of today’s fear, the subtle sabotage embedded within systems we've come to depend upon. Now white middle-class marches seem simply insufficient—decorous rearrangements on a sinking ship.

Maybe that is why I like White’s insistence on creativity as activism’s truest form. Creativity as release—the unleashing of human potential, opening toward future possibilities, those we haven't yet learned to imagine. It feels hopeful. Is activism a form of writing? A necessary kind of storytelling? Emily Dickinson said "I dwell in possibility," and I cling to that phrase sometimes, repeating it silently, tracing each word like a mantra. Possibility is activism’s hidden engine, isn’t it? These uncanny clearings lit up briefly in darkness—each offering an ephemeral glimpse toward something more authentic, more deeply real.

We talk loosely about inclusivity, diversity—words well-worn now, almost smooth and frictionless. But truly welcoming activists whose daily lives differ radically from the comfortable activist class means confronting power plainly, honestly. It means admitting the hierarchies we carry secretly in our hearts. It means acknowledging openly that others carry wisdom different from our own, born from the rewarded heroics of simply surviving day-to-day.

So maybe protest could mean something different now. No scripts anymore, no stage-managed spectacles. Instead, an active practice: mutual aid, spontaneous collaboration, radical care. The messiness of real life becoming the point rather than the impediment. Activism abandoning the left-right divide, in favor of the human project, this deliberate act of making room. I find myself drawn to forms of protest that might allow a harried single mother or an overwhelmed delivery driver—or, let's admit it, a distracted writer—to participate fully, safely, without the weighty armor of privilege.

Imagine spaces lightly held, spontaneous, mindful of daily constraints: protest that happens within the fragile interstices of ordinary time. What would it mean to throw open doors to activists who have not yet felt welcome—who are still off somewhere isolated by poverty or obligations, who haven’t been given spaces or time or voice or trust?

I like this image: each participant as a bright spark, igniting momentarily in darkness. If we could harness enough sparks—a network forming quietly, gently—from workplaces, kitchen tables, bus rides home, it might create that sudden electric illumination, showing everyone how shockingly close we've always been to each other. And if we treasure these moments long enough, nurture and name and protect them, we might stitch them together, forming something durable beyond just one protest, one afternoon. A collective consciousness, fostered in openness toward intuitive wisdom, lived struggle, emotional truth.

It seems small, deliberately quiet—almost invisible—but what if our new actions were softer methods of rebellion? Tiny rebellions planted subtly within daily rhythms. Practical, structural changes: childcare provided, accommodating schedules, active outreach in working-class neighborhoods, voices amplified by giving real power and platform to socioeconomic outsiders. A gentle, pragmatic undoing of our own assumptions and biases—regularly addressing internal classism, collectively learning, collectively unlearning. Spaces provided, sustainment, partnerships emerging organically rather than strategically. A protest built along the lines of care, inclusion, civility, inventiveness—these quieter, stranger forms.

Perhaps from these incremental choices, these quiet acts of courage, activism will begin to breathe again. Turning into something deeply human, something open-hearted. Micah White says we have always been “the ones we've been waiting for.” And I love the precarious hope hidden inside that: we are already here, it suggests, already ready to become visible, sparks waiting for the clearing.

Every day could be protest, I realize. Every fleeting moment a place to experiment, to imagine other possibilities, to loosen the grip of habit and structure and privilege. All of it changing, rearranging—not always dramatically, but steadily, insistently, imperfectly. A form of activism that finally, simply, makes room.

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A compelling historical case study that highlights inclusive and innovative forms of activism is the struggle surrounding the Pak Mun Dam in Thailand during the 1990s. This protest, embedded within an expansive assembly known as the "Assembly of the Poor," included not only rural movements and marginalized fishing communities but also precariously employed rural migrants and urban labor activists. The protestors undertook dynamic and flexible methods, such as long-term occupation of the dam site, symbolic marches to the nation's capital, and strategic encampments in front of government buildings, effectively applying sustained pressure to address grievances related to environmental justice and socioeconomic inequalities. The Assembly, structured around decentralized leadership and a minimal secretariat, demonstrated a radical departure from traditional hierarchical leadership models, instead nurturing horizontal platforms for participation and open, collective deliberation. These actions functioned to ensure genuine inclusivity for participants across diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, directly confronting daily barriers such as economic precarity, geographic marginalization, and limited logistical resources. Significantly, participants declared in the influential Pak Mun Declaration of December 1995 that "the people must be the real beneficiaries of development," challenging both neoliberal assumptions of development policy and prevailing norms of political representation. Although these victories faced reversals and encountered severe repression over time, the Assembly of the Poor demonstrated creative tactics and a robust, open-ended organizational structure that has continued to inspire subsequent grassroots activism committed to authentic horizontalism and socioeconomic inclusivity.