[Payment-discuss] a bit overboard?

[nick]

Deva wrote:
> I could never make money by filming activists and comrades who are struggling against oppression and then use their activity for my own gain.

Is a Zapatista collective that sells t-shirts with a picture of the
woman Zapatista squaring off with the soldier to be chastised for
exploiting the woman's struggle?  Is the beehive collective corrupt
for portraying the struggles of activists around the world and making
money off the art?  Should I be ashamed when someone puts a dollar in
our tip jar after my band plays some music that was influenced by
Fela?

This is verging on saying that not only should indymedia folks not get
paid for doing indymedia, that they also should not get paid for doing
journalism at all, and perhaps any other form of work (basically all)
that involve anyone else being oppressed or struggling.

>I absolutely will not make a profit for myself off of the loving
labor of others.

This is coming awfully close to criticizing others for failure to live
up to our own moral purity, and I don't like that.  Some of us have
privilege enough to do alot of volunteer work.  In my opinion, we
should be using every drop of that privilege to fight oppression. But
it is not anti-oppressive to be comparing other activists to ourselves
in this manner.  And besides, from everything I have read so far,
Sascha himself has never taken the salary he was allotted, so he too
has not profitted "off the loving labor of others."

I am of the non-payment camp in general, but this sort of criticism
really turns me off, especially for failing to include a discussion
about privilege.

Vlax from Oaxaca is here in Houston and he is also basically in the
non-payment camp, but he was mentioning that when media activists in
Oaxaca sell a story to FSRN it manages to take the place of several
weeks of work that they could do locally.

If we were at least limiting these criticisms to apply to those of us
who have enough money to buy an occasional plane ticket, or something,
then I wouldn't be so alarmed by the direction of this discussion.

Cat wrote:
>i can't imagine ever trying to capitalize on the courage and
sacrifices of the people whom i am usually filming. it's a gross
thought.

I think connecting this with the idea of "gross" is inappropriate.  In
conjunction with my workshop (nickcooper.com/antipowerworkshop.htm) I
have studied how labelling things as disgusting has been used
throughout the history of oppression, so seeing that word here really
caught my attention.  I don't think of UCIMC folks as "gross."

peace,
Nick