JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
On the one hand, this season, the holidays, can come with a sense that cheer and joy must be infused to every waking moment. On the other hand, a lot of us deal with stress around the holidays. With that, plus increasing costs of living, messy political fights and violence at home and overseas, it can be hard to feel entitled to joy. But can channeling joy actually be a way to push back against all of that messiness? Leah Donnella of NPR's Code Switch has spent some time unpacking what it would mean for joy to be used as a means of resistance. Hey, Leah.
LEAH DONNELLA, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: So, Leah, I mean, I think that a lot of people think about joy as this sort of organic thing that you feel when things are going really well and times are good. What made you start thinking about looking into joy in this other way?
DONNELLA: Well, over the summer, I was seeing this phrase joy as resistance or joy as an act of resistance pop up all over the place. It was on my social media feeds. Activists were saying it. Politicians were talking about it, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: You're allowed to be happy. You are allowed to cultivate joy. In fact, you need to.
DONNELLA: But being a tiny bit of a curmudgeon, I'll admit I was kind of skeptical of how meaningful that idea could actually be. Like, I really wanted to understand what the connection was between experiencing joy and happiness and fighting for justice in the world.
SUMMERS: So what did you find?
DONNELLA: Well, I reached out to someone who has thought very deeply about the connection between things like joy and happiness and political activism. Her name is Adrienne Maree Brown. She's the author of a book called "Pleasure Activism," where she kind of draws out those connections. And she said, look, of course experiencing joy cannot be the only way people express their resistance.
ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN: And so I think for folks, you know, it's like, if they're not doing anything else but having the best bath ever over and over again, there might need to be (laughter) some consideration of, like, well, what else can I pick up?
DONNELLA: But Brown told me that historically, one of the tools that the powers that be have used to oppress and marginalize people is basically making them feel like they have no right or ability to feel pleasure and joy. She said when people feel like they have nothing good to live for, they have no reason to demand things that improve their lives, like better working conditions, a cleaner environment or social justice.
BROWN: And so the reclaiming of pleasure in the here and now is an important part of reclaiming the wholeness of our lives.
SUMMERS: OK, but reclaiming the wholeness of our lives - Leah, what does that look like in practice?
DONNELLA: Yeah, good question. It can look a lot of different ways. You know, I heard from dozens of people about how they actually enact that idea. Some told me it was loudly singing and dancing at protests despite the fear that, you know, being at those protests could make some of them a target. Some people told me it was connecting with friends and family for meals and just spending time with people who remind you why you actually want a better society. And some talked about, you know, reading romance novels or watching escapist TV as a way to help them imagine the kind of world they want to build.
SUMMERS: Right. But of course this is not the first moment in our history where people have been worried about the state of the world...
DONNELLA: Oh, certainly not.
SUMMERS: ...Right? So I know you also looked at some historical examples of how joy and resistance have worked together.
DONNELLA: Yeah, that's right. I spoke to the historian Kellie Carter Jackson. She's the author of a book called "We Refuse: A Forceful History Of Black Resistance." And each chapter in that book looks at a different strategy that African American communities have used to resist oppression over time.
KELLIE CARTER JACKSON: From revolution, to protection, to force, to flight, to joy.
DONNELLA: So she told me that even in the very darkest of times, people have found ways to demand joy. Like, she found historical evidence that during the slave era, enslaved women would sometimes go out deep into the forest and throw dance parties.
CARTER JACKSON: You might say to yourself, like, well, how could a slave go out and throw a party? - and, aren't they supposed to be miserable? And, you know, if we say that and say people found happiness or joy, is that problematic? Are we saying that the system is OK? And it's like, no, the system is absolutely not OK. And they are doing this in order to carve out spaces for themselves to experience joy, to experience even happiness even under the threat of being caught, of being whipped, of being sold away.
There's danger in pursuing joy as well because it can - it is always under threat. If you've ever been at a gathering of Black people, be it a sporting event or a picnic or a concert, you're always worried that something is going to squash that moment. And so you really have to be insistent on how you protect that moment.
DONNELLA: Jackson told me that insisting on those moments of joy was a way for people to remind themselves that they are fully human. They're layered. You know, they're not put on this earth just to suffer or sacrifice. And I think that lesson is still hugely relevant today.
SUMMERS: That's Leah Donnella of NPR's Code Switch podcast. Thanks so much.
DONNELLA: Thank you.
SUMMERS: And for more reporting, analysis and different views on joy as a political tool, listen to the Code Switch podcast, NPR's show about race and identity.
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