Knocking Back Division in Your Community
Writer and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom once said:
Food & Solidarity members and friends have been out knocking doors around the northeast for the past few weeks and everyone who’s done it has had a positive experience of doing it. It’s rare to find something that people feel so happy to be doing!
Still, we are aware that people have reasons not to sign up and join in with us, even though we’re bringing the leaflets and the most you need to do is bring a pen and your own coat if it’s cold.
7 Important Reasons NOT to Do Door Knocking - Excuses We Tell Ourselves (And Why They're Wrong)
I don’t know what to say!
You don’t know what to say. Of course, you don’t actually have to be in a speaking role at all, door knocking is done in pairs, and it’s better if one person is less keen to chat than the other, but you hadn’t heard that.
I’ve never done it before
You’ve never done it before. There’s a briefing to get you up to speed, and you can just watch someone who’s done it before to get the idea, but you never do new things, you were born knowing how to do all your current daily activities.
I can’t spare the time!
You can’t spare an hour (from doomscrolling). Terrible things are happening in the world, and you might hear about them an hour or so later than others and miss out on an hour of worrying about it.
I’m not sure if it will help!
You’re not sure if it will help. There's no point preventing things getting worse, we should all wait until they get far worse and at that point fighting back in any way at all will probably be illegal.
I don’t want to speak to strangers!
It involves talking to strangers. Like most people, you have some fairly vague negative feelings about talking to strangers. Of course, somewhere along the way to becoming a grown up, we all forgot that the reason kids have to betold not to talk to strangers is that it’s actually a very nice activity, but that would be weird to realise at this stage.
Having a plan give me anxiety!
Having plans gives you anxiety. Doing nothing is miserable, yet having plans gives you the feeling you wish you didn’t have them, and yet it’s usually nowhere near as bad to do the thing as the passive dread of doing things feels. Probably best to make no plans then!
I’m not the right person for it!
You’re not the right sort of person for it. You, like all other people, harbour a fear that others might be better at these sorts of tasks, they might be naturals at it. Your mere presence, which would bring so much happiness to the other people who will be door knocking with you, feels like nothing to you, because you are in your own company constantly and can’t see the light that escapes you or how important you are, and you don’t know if the little glow of happiness inside and feeling of connection to others is worth it to get, even though you really deserve every joy there is in this strife-filled world.
