What does it mean to be a member?

Boston DSA consists entirely of its members—we are an all-volunteer group. Aside from a small staff at the national level, that’s true for every chapter. Anything that’s being done, from phone banking to strategic planning to organizing childcare for canvassers, happens because someone made the time for it, alongside demands from work, our loves, and our homes.

As democratic socialists, we aim to build a mass movement. That means knocking on doors and talking to people who come from very different social contexts. Anyone who wants to build a socialist future is welcome in DSA. If we’re going to get this right, it’s going to take kindness, unselfish curiosity, and a LOT of meetings. (Don’t worry if you can’t attend all the meetings—part of what we’re building is also a capacity for people to show up, contribute, and have a democratic say by whatever means are available for them.)

Being a DSA member means acting in solidarity, making decisions together, and keeping an eye for the long haul.

Solidarity is a recognition that we are all in this together. We can express solidarity in a lot of ways. The big, public ones are easy to see. The quiet ones are harder. It’s remembering someone’s name and pronouns. It’s putting in a little extra effort to fold chairs and stack clipboards after the big event. It’s slowing yourself down during a heated argument and taking time to listen to what someone is really saying, and where they’re coming from.

By doing the quiet things, we build an organization that is democratic, resilient, and more prepared for the long haul. If we think about building socialism as a generation-long project, and maybe one that will outlive us, it changes how we consider things. When we recognize that you could be working with someone for years to come, it changes the way we communicate. In Boston DSA, members have political debates about our strategy and make decisions democratically. We may disagree, but the ways we disagree can allow for us to work together in the future.

We also consider the long haul by taking care of each other and ourselves. Caring about anything in this historical moment means facing up to crisis after crisis, from natural disasters to ICE raids to organized harassment. We can’t react well if we’re all anxious, lonely wrecks. Reach out to people and aim for genuine human connection. When it comes to building trust and sustained dialogue, in-person meetings are better than phone calls, and phone calls are better than texting. Most forms are better than social media.

Long-haul solidarity can be gentle, but it should not be mistaken for weakness. Because we believe in the value and worth of human life, we see it as our responsibility to confront domination wherever it lives. We seek to overturn a system that tells us we’re worth less if we’re not white, or not a “real man,” didn’t go to college, or any of the countless ways we are told we are smaller or less because of who we are.

We also know that having been raised in these systems, everyone has something to learn. Everyone is a work in progress, and mass organizations are necessarily full of contradictions. Moral clarity is important, but there’s no such thing as perfect purity. None of us is perfect, and all of us make mistakes. We’re all working on becoming better than we are now.