Leslie Klein's petition (Pliego de reclamos de Leslie Klein). Robert Roth

El brother Robert Roth comparte  parte de su trabajo en curso llamado The Genius of 10th Street, con una historia ficticia donde  el anima a su amigo Arnie  a inventar una/o  personaje ficticio, Leslie Klein, que iría a presentar una petición frente a un espacio lleno de intelectuales  y activistas. Este personaje / autor hizo  una serie de peticiones ante el Caucus for Radical Concern (grupo de trabajo radical) que se han traducido parcialmente, dado su exquisito humor y sus resonancias entre intelectuales y artistas llaqtamasis

Artwork by Marguerite Z. Bunyan

1: Me gustaría que una vez al mes me llame una persona importante

2: Me gustaría estar en paneles significativos.

3: Quisiera que por lo menos dos  de mis artículos reflexivos sean publicados en revistas de prestigio

4: quisiera un pequeño simposio de fin de semana dedicado a la revisión crítica de mi trabajo y su marco teórico general.

5: No importa si escriba mucho o poco, ello no debe ser un criterio de atención o aceptación por los miembros del Grupo de Trabajo Radical

La entrega  explora también las reacciones  de apoyo y rechazo de la petición. Tomado  de The Genius of 10th Street de Robert Perron

Leslie Klein's Petition

 

 

Shortly after Arnie's mother died he was in such a state of devastation I felt I needed to do something to try and help pull him out of it. I suggested we write a piece together called Leslie Klein's Petition where Leslie Klein would  speak in front of room of  left intellectuals and activists, people Leslie felt insecure around, was always trying to impress, and demand to be paid attention to and be respected. I said Arnie, present  the rawest version of yourself. What you would ask for if you weren't embarrassed to be totally vulnerable. The important thing  to remember is that Leslie Klein should not necessarily be an  unappreciated neglected genius but someone  who like anyone else   deserves to be celebrated, paid attention to and respected. The demands should be very modest but virtually unrealizable.

 

 The name Leslie  was chosen  so you couldn't be sure if  Leslie was a man or a woman. I had no idea how important that would be in how people  responded. Some  people read him as being  a man. Others read her being a woman.  One person read it simultaneously as two separate stories.   I also later learned from my mother  that Klein  meant small. A couple of friends had  just assumed that was why we had chosen the name.

 

As Arnie dictated the petition and the demands,  I had to stop  him a couple of times and told him to be  less eloquent (something that was so much a part of him that it was almost  impossible for him not to be).   As I was writing it down I  changed a word here and there in an effort to bring it  more in  line with what I had in mind.  We looked at it and then made some small  changes. Pete Wilson copy edited it, making the speech and demands  more raw and basic.

 

To indicate that it was fiction we dated it sometime in the future. Something we had to keep doing since the future  kept coming and going. 

 

 

Arnie and I wrote this story in 1980. 

 

Leslie Klein's Petition

The following speech was delivered at the Caucus for Radical Concern during a three day conference in Shimmel Auditorium, N.Y.U., in February 1985. 

         

         Several years ago the gay and feminist movements came along and introduced a new form of consciousness. Pain and anger were expressed over concerns that weren't thought about before. Feminists and gay activists spoke out with deep seriousness; they were ignored and belittled, but they insisted on the truth of their complaints and the validity of their demands. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable. It was a long process but much of what they said and did has been incorporated as a regular part of our thinking.

         Now in that tradition I bring a new problem and a new concern, difficult and embarrassing once again, something that will cause confusion and hostility. Let me explain the background here much in the style of the earlier consciousness raising.

         I live with my father in a middle class neighborhood. I go to the neighborhood park and people say to me: What do you do? How do you earn a living? I say I have significant contacts, people in an active intellectual ambiance, people whose work appear in the Village Voice, the Nation,  the New York Times Book Review as well as several small periodicals devoted to social change. They say that sounds exciting. Does it pay? Are you respected? Do you enjoy being with those people? I say it is intense and exciting. I may be on the verge of something very big. But it's complicated; these things are hard to spell out exactly. As I say this to them I am filled with confusion and there is pain in my heart. I am telling only a half truth. I do have some connections. I know some people respect me, but I have no real sense of security and dignity.

         I sit alone at home often frustrated and sad. I feel left out of of everything: parties, study groups, conversations, meetings. Everything. Most of you never even phone me. I feel neglected. It is with this in mind that I come before you today. I feel extremely angry and frightened. I am also very embarrassed. What I am asking might seem presumptuous, but all such things will appear presumptuous at first. I repeat again that a legitimate response to what I ask might demand a new consciousness and outlook.

         I can't seem to do coherent and sustained work. I try. Occasionally I do call up the talk shows on the radio and make an intelligent statement, and every so often I will write a reflective essay. I feel the neighbors mock me behind my back, and I use my contact with you to justify myself with them. But I really don't know how I am seen in your eyes. This is a problem, I think, for many among us, which makes it a problem for all of us. This is why I have chosen to present a formal petition. In doing so I feel hesitation and ambivalence. I don't know if I will be listened to. If I will be paid attention to or will be rejected and ignored. Also even if I am listened to I don't know how much trust I can feel.

         If I am rejected and ignored I will be filled with pain, confusion and finally bitter rage. I will then likely reach out to all those similarly betrayed who will join me in my rage. I hope we will never have to come to this point.

         Now I will offer an explicit set of demands that are particular to my situation, but hold out the possibility for a solution to the problems of isolation, neglect and abandonment that I have raised. It's not a rigid formula or blueprint. On the other hand, I would not want to whittle down the force and essence of the demands I am here proposing. I want the substance and essence of them preserved without dilution or compromise.

1.    I would like a phone call once a month from a prominent person.

2.    I would like to appear three times a year on significant panels.

3.    I would like at least a couple of my reflective essays to be published in respected journals.

4.    I would like a small weekend symposium devoted to a critical review of my work and its overall coherent pattern

5.    However little or much writing I do must absolutely not be a criteria for attention or acceptance by members of the Caucus of Radical Concern.

 

 

Some people identified strongly  with Leslie Klein. Others were annoyed. A couple of people were furious. It got published in three different places. Cultural Correspondence  published it along with a striking graphic which some friends put up in their offices,  others on their refrigerators. 

One friend, a galvanizing, charismatic, deeply engaged radical feminist  called me and  said  we should get together  and talk about the piece. Over lunch she just tore into Leslie Klein.  That she wanted to piggyback on the work of others. Undermine their achievements.  That Leslie Klein was always  (yes, she said always) whining and pleading while others were doing the heavy lifting. I was startled by the intensity of her remarks. At some point I mentioned that Marty Duberman  playwright, social critic, gay rights activist,  and world renowned  historian told me he  strongly identifies with Leslie Klein. My friend with a slightly perplexed, slightly grudging smile replied,   “But he's the person  you want to have call you once  a month.” 

The piece itself took on a life of its own.   Arnie and I had to surrender  “ownership” of Leslie Klein. We had become, if anything, distant stodgy forbearers of Leslie Klein with just the  most tenuous of connections.  That is if anyone even remembered that  we had written it.

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." Jane Schroeder took Emma Goldman's declaration totally to heart,  dancing and singing at demonstrations, parties, lectures, at almost any kind  of gathering. At some point she took total possession of Leslie Klein.  Most notably at one Socialist Scholars Conference where she  handed out hundreds of copies of the petition that she had typed up and photocopied.  She had  slightly but not inconsequentially altered the text as well as the demands.  While handing them out she introduced herself as Leslie Klein.  The organizers of the conference had  no idea how to respond.  

 

This was way more than  anything Arnie and I had imagined. One part of me was totally embarrassed watching her in action. Another part was outright awe struck and exhilarated by what she was doing with it. 

A week after the  conference I attended a panel discussion.  Lucy Lippard, the great radical art critic started to speak. As she began relating a story  it slowly dawned on me that she was talking about Leslie Klein. She  smiled at me.    She spoke of seeing a woman whose name she didn't know handing  out sheets of paper at the Socialist Scholars Conference. She said it might seem pathetic, or difficult to hear, but the woman was demanding that people pay attention to her, that she felt humiliated and unappreciated by the  lack of recognition. Lucy said it is part of our work  to create a  society and  a movement  that deals, with loneliness, despair, and the humiliation and injury of  constantly being judged and evaluated.

 As Lucy spoke I  thought that maybe this is getting a little out of hand. It was disorientating  to listen to.  I started imagining, more than imagining, I was actually  visualizing  people in Tokyo and Warsaw and Sydney, Australia  talking about Leslie Klein in whatever altered form, with whatever embellishments and  alterations she/he/ they had been transformed into.  For a fleeting moment I was tempted to set the record straight. But that did seem rediculous. More importantly I felt an  overwhelming  need to rush home and call Arnie and tell him all about it.

As I write this all these years later it occurs to me that Lucy maybe, just maybe  knew what Jane had been doing, was, even now one week later,  just playing along and  extending the performance one step further.   More likely, why more likely?,  she was actually responding to Leslie Klein as a real person. Either way, Lucy underlined the importance of the issues raised. 

 

In the  early 1980s  Lucy Klein, a woman wearing wild colorful outfits and  various styles of broad brimmed hats  appeared on the scene. No one knew where she came from, what her nationality was, her age or if she had any specific political affiliations. Rumors were that Lucy was from El Salvador or Guatemala.  Others said she was here from Sydney, Australia. It was as if  she appeared out of nowhere. She had a reputation of boldly  questioning  both “legitimate” and “illegitimate authority,” a popular distinction often asserted  at the time. She was known to be either relentless and irritating, or relentless and inspiring.  No one  knows whatever happened to her.  She disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared. Her manifesto stirred deep emotions. Controversy followed her everywhere. But none of  us  have been able to locate  even one copy of the original petition.  Still even today whole books have been written about its impact.  Different versions of the petition, each one claiming to be the original,  had been  passed down through the generations by word of mouth.  Her manifesto has been alternately described  as emblematic of a  politics of  scatter shot grievances  or as  one  of liberation and transcendence. While still somewhat disputed, to me the evidence is overwhelming,  that this was when the now ubiquitous expression  “kleining it”  became part of everyday speech.