As Students for a Democratic Society, we hold a commitment to:

1. Totalist Politics, meaning, that we commit to understanding and paying serious attention to race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, age, ability, and authority without elevating any but instead recognizing the intrinsic importance of each, and their entwinement, and understanding that we must confront the totality of human oppression;

2. Embodying in the present the values and institutional features we want to see in the future society–that is, having our organization, structure and practice directly reflect and exemplify to the highest degree possible the change we wish to see in the world;

3. Rejecting either advocating or employing any structures or policies that embody authoritarian, racist, sexist, heterosexist, or classist elements such as hierarchical divisions of labor or authoritarian decision making procedures that structurally elevate some classes or constituencies above others in influence and conditions;

4. Embodying in our organization and working towards in society, the value of participatory self-management whereby everyone has a say in the decisions which affect them and the resources on which they are dependent in proportion to the degree to which they are affected;

And, 5. Taking strategy seriously. We are united on the principle that our work should serve to accomplish our goals, strengthen our organization and movements, expand popular democratic control over all aspects of the society at large, and lead us on a path to social transformation, all while prefiguring the world we wish to live in.

Explanation: This document seeks to put issue a concise statement regarding our commitment to combating oppressions in a manner which struggles against each but though doesn’t elevate any in terms of “importance”. In other words, the point of this document is to state our commitment to combating capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and tyrannical forms of government- and the oppressions that each of them cause, in a manner in which treats each of them with equal seriousness and commitment.