Gene Demby in Politico Magazine (here) touts the birth of a new civil rights movement. It’s for real, he says, this social justice thing that happened in 2014. He predicts it could be even more dramatic in 2015.
He doubts not that “…a loose but increasingly coordinated network of millennial activists” is networked up. “…you’d be hard pressed to find a better megaphone than Twitter,” he says. They have a broad agenda and a serious generational rift going for them. Rallies and speeches are out along with male dominated charismatic leaders. Fannie Lou Hamer/Ella Baker style participatory democracy is in. Or so a professor of social movements informed him. These Hamer/Baker inspired grassroots leaders actually made it to the White House. Inside, outside. It’s happening. “As it goes with all histories, the catalyzing moment in this social-justice revolution is hard to pin down”, Demby proclaims. --------------- Here’s the big fly in Mr. Demby’s code switch revolutionary ointment. No movement is likely to be built by polarizing off law enforcement. Not that there isn’t good cause from time to time. Brutal, inappropriate and even murderous behavior from time to time. Deaths of innocents even. But change is not going to be delivered by Twitter and, I suspect, no one would have nailed this faster than Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker. In the real world, polarizing off law enforcement benefits three players: attention seekers (amateur or professionals like Sharpton), media (streaming compelling images that drive market share), and opportunist practitioners of backlash politics (in defense of law enforcement). Millenial sensibilities notwithstanding, these interests predominate. Perhaps more important, the vast majority of residents, whether poor or middle class, want law enforcement to successfully combat crime. This determinative reality undercuts “movement building” targeting officers of the law. Real, careful on the ground organizing - agitating, listening, learning, educating, challenging, negotiating, compromising and holding accountable - is what alters systemic relationships and delivers change. There is no alternative to this hard, risky, disciplined work. Frank C. Pierson, Jr
2 Comments
IAF organizations consistently initiate, sustain and evaluate creative solutions to complex, even apparently intractable, problems.
Locally grounded IAF organizations are capable of remarkable inventiveness in a public world starved for new approaches. The stories - a cumulative body of evidence - are legion. Among them are:
How communities overcome deep, bitter divisions, particularly racial and/or ethnic in nature, is rarely given public attention. What’s the story when nothing explodes? No conflict, no riots, no graphic images just some value driven, talented community leaders talking quietly together, developing and then executing a game plan. Evaluating progress, maybe going back to the drawing board, moving on to plan B if necessary.
Rare is the media outlet that casts even a momentary spotlight on these kinds of non- events. Many communities have negligible resources regarding what to do and how to do it when deep divisions begin to simmer to the boiling point. As a consequence they are overwhelmed by internal fissures and external grandstanding enhanced by the glare of media attention and the funding streams that follow attention when a potential flashpoint occurs. This vacuum of knowledge and skills denies communities in crisis, or on the verge of crisis, a constructive pathway to shape their own response. Al Sharpton and all the would be Sharptons should have been instructed by Ferguson leadership, “Pipe down. Stay home. Respect our desire to speak for ourselves. We know Ferguson. You don’t.” Of course it didn’t happen that way. But if accountability is to be exacted - it has to be if future social explosions are to be avoided and the conditions producing them altered - then leaders in charge of community based institutions, from law enforcement and local government, to businesses, to congregations and non profits must look to themselves, their own shortfalls, their own minimal skill sets, their own lack of capacity building, their own inability to define boundaries of respect. Powder keg communities get that way for a reason. There is a thread of disconnection, broken or non existent relationships, a lack of will and skill to do hard things together. These are the conditions that offer themselves up to outsiders including a voracious media with interests entirely unrelated to the common good. The NY Times recently covered a story that proved an exception to the rule by offering a counterpoint to Ferguson. It was about Durham, North Carolina, a place where racial tensions run hot and deep. Community leadership there led by Durham CAN, an IAF organization, disabled the conflict triggers that ignite social meltdowns when a young Latino man was shot dead while in police custody. Durham CAN’s tool kit? Smart, strategic thinking, careful relationship building, active inquiry, carefully planned public action. They pulled it off without Al Sharpton or shock troups from outside organizations bussed in or flown in to crisis monger. Racial tensions, rage, hard edged resentments aren’t going away any time soon. They are structurally built in to public life in the United States. Communities that don’t attend to the relationship building, skill learning and problem solving necessary to overcome explosive divisions are at increased risk to suffer the tragic consequences of their own shortfalls.
The IAF focus on face-to-face engagement grounds network organizations in local needs and interests.
Local stories, research, discussion and action define IAF organizations in distinctive ways. Although there are patterns of issues common to many of the organizations in the IAF network there is no central command directing what local leaders decide to take on. As a consequence IAF organizations look different, present differently, emphasize their own defining vision, plan and action. The outcomes generated by deep local grounding are typically generational in nature and evaluated on that basis. The contrast with trend hopping, poll tested angles of vision and judgment is sharp. Going deep and local requires what Ernesto Cortes, Jr calls “iterative” behavior, returning again and again to the relational work described in “Unpacking IAF Strengths Part 1”. Community institutions - congregations, non-profits, schools, unions, business organizations - connect with IAF organizations in ways that both strengthen the institutions themselves and build collaborative power for constructive action. ACTA Publications, has published a series of useful booklets on IAF organizing for relational power including "Effective Organizing for Congregational Renewal" by IAF Co-Director Michael Gecan and "Rebuilding Our Institutions" by IAF Co-Director Ernesto Cortes, Jr. You may want to read these and other ACTA publications to gain more depth of understanding of how IAF works. For clergy primarily, take a look at Rev. Art Gafke’s new book - Strong Ministry. It’s very solid and inspiring. Rev. Gafke (United Methodist) has rich experience as pastor, denominational executive, leader and organizer/colleague.
IAF organizations are built on face-to-face relationships that manifest unique organizational cultures that include local financial ownership.
Building an organization around face to face relationships requires intentional actions over time undertaken by leaders and organizers who choose to work within the IAF umbrella. The habits and practices that foster relationship building form the basis of IAF organizational culture. That culture is unique because the individuals, families, leaders and institutions so engaged are themselves unique as is the context in which they operate. Money, a necessary aspect of birthing and sustaining an organization, buttresses the mission of an IAF organization as leaders and organizers together assume responsibility for raising it. IAF relational culture is characterized by positive valuation of relationships themselves as well as the capacity for collaborative action they generate. Relationships tested in the crucible of public action when sustained over time can forge lasting political friendships within, between and outside IAF organizations. All IAF organizations invest intensively in the learning and doing of relational meetings - one to one and small groups. Probing interests, sharing narratives, challenging values, agitating individuals and institutions into action provide the grist for this relational work.
Here's my take on Tuesday.
The Democrats vaunted ground game was paper-thin-- having been absorbed by data mining, niche marketing, consultancies, big money and technologists. The historic institutional base of the ground game, where real people live and work, has been swallowed up in the process. Neophytes hired to go door to door with smart phones and talk about things they don’t understand is an ersatz ground game. A blizzard of emails and mobile spots with catchy tags is no substitute. By way of contrast, volunteers with community roots, the heart and soul of a real ground game, were few and far between. The exceptions prove the rule. While running from President Obama the Democrats also ran from the positive real impacts of the Affordable Care Act on families including insuring millions of uninsured and insuring those with preexisting conditions. The data miners, technologists and power political strategists, insulated from interest in real world outcomes like these, had grander, more lucrative poll driven insights to apply. Those of us following campaigns nationally and locally never heard a word of ACA positives. Allison Grimes evasion of her own vote for Obama was only the tip of the iceberg. The Tea Party is a far stronger “grassroots” operation than anything the Democrats have going for them right now. Freedom Works and the Koch Brothers not withstanding, Tea Party chapters have a social/political life of their own (including in Oracle, AZ) that faux grassroots “progressive” leaning organizations do not. The internet is not a substitute for face to face engagement and never will be. From this electoral cycle nobody learned anything. Neither party tried to teach anyone anything. No surprise here but such behavior is deeply disrespectful of citizen voters. We already knew that Americans were unhappy with Washington. We already knew that power and money players do their own business there regularly servicing their interests while ignoring the work of the people. The most important clues to future vitality of democratic process lie in campaigns that real people actually care about like sentencing reform, minimum wage hikes, health care, housing, school bonds and overrides (passed in Oracle, AZ), training for real high wage jobs, and proper care and attention for veterans. There’s nothing partisan about this kind of organizing. It’s not grandiose. It’s slow. It requires patience. It demands learning public skills. It requires support from community based institutions like congregations, schools, and non profits. It offers great hope in an otherwise bleak public landscape. The alternative is more of what we experienced this past Tuesday, an electoral sink hole.
Reality Check! Demographic Change Does Not Make Comprehensive Immigration Reform Inevitable9/17/2014
The outrage directed at President Obama for his flip flop on executive actions targeting immigrant detention/deportations has already run its course. Even the reform warrior Congressman Luis Gutierrez moved into reset space in a matter of 24 hours. So much for accounting for promises made and promises broken.
And so it goes in American politics. A few hands wringing, a patter of excoriation, a handful of ominous “we won’t forgets”, a plea to get out the vote and it’s on to the next new, new promise. Real world consequences be damned. President Obama’s move to defer (or deep six) executive actions, surprised absolutely no one. After all, he plays in the Big Leagues of Power where switcheroos happen all the time. In the Big Leagues word claims come cheap, actions dear. Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) leaders, funded mostly by “progressive” foundations, remain party men and women when push comes to shove and their party is overwhelmingly Democrat. Outsiders they are not. Being enmeshed in the intricacies and machinations of party politics requires lots of pivots and divots. No one, not one of them, has taken a good hard shot at the man at the top when the opportunity presented with his political chin exposed. There’s more to this than the absence of an alternative which the Republicans at this time are not. CIR leaders are either domesticated or exiled. Outside voices are faced with the cold realities of this option. Time and again, as I noted in a spring blog, who gets in to the White House for the latest confab determines media recognition and, indirectly, funding prospects for the next round of advocacy. CIR spokespersons and their funders have long viewed their core position as “inevitable”, the ultimate fixed fight. Demographics as destiny. The burgeoning Latino population sooner or later, they believe, will politically outgun their opponents. This affirmation is intended to comfort and bolster the disappointed, the bitter and the angry. But it’s also misleading and perhaps downright wrong. The inevitable future may be a very long time in the waiting and some very hard work in the making. Political change and inevitability are oxymoronic. CIR leaders and funders - taken together - have been remarkably unsuccessful in building strong local organizing drives that are deep, institutional and multi dimensional. Grounded local work is either co-opted or dismissed. More than anything else this accounts for the sporadic protests, hand wringing and plucky threats that characterize their actions. Perhaps the best way to put it is that CIR leadership has been Sharptonized, substituting snappy quotes, website and database management, and a bit of street theater for serious organizing work. Even in the best short term case - where President Obama comes through with serious executive actions that regularize the status of millions, not tens of thousands, of undocumented children and families - the thin organizational fabric on the ground is not positioned to capitalize on this eventuality or, for that matter, defend it. So much for inevitability. In real time we are experiencing the limits of an ersatz movement that hasn’t yet sunk sufficiently deep roots to turn the political tide. There is nothing inevitable about how and when this may happen.
With the Democrat’s Senate majority in peril, Team Obama has rolled the dice in favor of doing nothing. Struggling to exit a political box of his own making, the President backed away from decisive executive action on immigrant detention and deportation in favor of no action at all. As most of the media would have it, he “punted”.
While his punt is designed to cool out some of the intensity of his political opponents, the real world consequences may overwhelm his stated intentions. In the event Democrats lose the Senate, Team Obama’s immigration audible will have sown confusion among his own ranks. In the ramped up bite back by a unified Republican Congress, Team Obama, now in disarray, will confront a more formidable obstacle than his current predicament presents. Aggressive unilateral actions on behalf of undocumented families and children delivered in the face of a political defeat that includes loss of the Senate is a more perilous environment than the current standoff reflected in a divided Congress. In point of fact, having vaguely referenced his next moves in advance without actually making them he has set up a referendum on his intentions, real or fictitious. Like a quarterback tipping his opponents to his next play, Team Obama seems poised to activate a bone crushing prevent defense. Team Obama has created precisely the conditions in which real obstructive action by a unified, Republican controlled Congress becomes both possible and likely. If Republicans ascend to power in the Senate (and comfortably hold the House as universally predicted), a full blown constitutional crisis becomes possible when and if the President stays true to his most recent declarations. Before his punt, President Obama was positioned to load up and take his best shot via executive action. That time has come and, if the Republicans capture the Senate, gone. Tens of thousands of immigrant families and the well being of the nation as a whole will suffer the consequences.
Team Obama is in maximum spin mode building up their new man at HUD - the outgoing Mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro. Mr. Castro is now being touted as the architect of the San Antonio miracle in multiple media stories. The claim is that in a little over six years as mayor he was the driving force behind a remarkable urban success story. Trouble is he wasn't.
San Antonio has been refashioned by Communities Organized for Public Service - COPS - in partnership with the Metro Alliance. Julian Castro as Mayor of San Antonio was a bit player who came late to the game. Even Castro's mega hyped idea - Cafe College - is an outgrowth of a COPS sourced, decades long investment in college bound students - The Education Partnership.
When the real battle for San Antonio's heart, soul and future was fought, COPS - broad based and powerful - was there making it happen. COPS pulled the trigger for change by launching the fight for single representative city council districts in the mid 1970's . In the face of unified establishment opposition COPS carried the day in 1977. A newly democratic city was born. Relentlessly, decade after decade, COPS fought for the cut out, the shut out, the disenfranchised, the underdog. The landscape of the city was physically, socially, economically and spiritually transformed. The story continues to unfold as COPS/Metro breaks new ground in workforce development, infrastructure, living wage, college access, school reform, health care, immigrant integration, children/youth engagement and more. Send COPS Not Castro to Reorganize HUD! |
Frank C. Pierson, Jr.Frank Pierson retired after forty years of work with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) as a professional organizer. He began his career in 1971 in Chicago, moved to Queens, New York City and migrated west to work in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. He resides with his wife, Mary Ellen Kazda, in Oracle, Arizona. He may be reached at alinskynow@gmail.com Archives
June 2018
|