A Beginner’s Interpretation of Healthy Movement Building

In considering the question of how we can create healthy movements, I decided to read the article “Reflections on Movement Building and Community Organizing” by Gary Delgado. The thoughts presented in this brief post are based on what I gleaned from perusing this single source.

As a fledgling learner of the organizing field, I have started analyzing my previous misconceptions regarding community organizing for the sake of gaining a better understanding of the topics I’m studying. This analysis led me to evaluate the concept of movement work. In the past, I generally understood community organizing to mean social movements. Although I assumed there must be some differentiating factors, I equated the two terms in my vague interpretation.

Now that I’ve learned a great deal about community organizing in such a short time, I have a much better understanding of what the term “community organizing”, and the field associated with it, entails. This week, when we were asked to ruminate on the topic of movements and movement work, I came to the realization that I didn’t truly have a grasp of what a movement was, now that I had come to a deeper understanding of community organizing. I decided to do some brief research in order to gain insight on what movements are, in relation to community organizing:

What was most clear to me, from the work I read, is that there is no consensus among activists and organizers regarding the relationship between organizing and movements. That is, whether the focus should be on building social movements, or, if organizing should be about building power through the very process of organizing, influencing the public’s opinion, and in the process, a movement would be organically born (or not).

Many young activists are drawn to the idea of building mass movements due to their scale; when they see the massive scale of systematic oppression and social injustice, they feel the need to combat it at that same level.

That being said, there is another outlook which contradicts the former. In social action, a movement may not, or possibly should not, be the goal; the aim is to organize and influence the public eye; a movement is the potential byproduct of that organizational work and influence, when there is an infrastructure to support it.

According to the latter belief, the focus for contemporary movement building needs to be the internal practices and processes of the organizing taking place. When all the necessary elements and resources come together effectively, a movement may be possible. The antiquated framework of focusing on the desired result of the movement disregards the important internal components required for creating something sustainable. If the aspiration is purely building a movement, the process of creating solid leaders, community ownership, coordinating relationships and resources, as well as building massive numbers over shared sentiment, will be lost. Only organizing can create the mass needed for a mass movement—mobilizing cannot accomplish that.

As a Community Organizing student, I have to say I am swayed by the school of thought emphasizing the organizing process as the healthy way to build sustainable movements. At this point, my comprehension of the implactions of these perspectives is still shallow; I look forward to securing a deeper understanding of the relationship between social action as organizing, and social movement work.

Hillary Smith

 

References

Delgado, G. (n.d.). Reflections on Movement Building and Community Organizing. Retrieved January 30, 2018, from http://racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/ReflectionsonMovementBuildingandCommunityOrganizingv5_000.pdf

 

Rally for Dreamers

I attended a Rally for Dreamers at our local representative Ed Royce’s office last week. It was put on by the Catholic Ministries, and it was the most peaceful rallies I have ever attended. The attendees were people of all ages and many families. The speakers were Dreamers and Catholic clergy. As happens every time I attend these rallies, I was so taken with the grace and eloquence of the Dreamers. As things are getting down to the wire as far as their futures, the emotion and the sense of urgency increases. I was brought to tears many times as I listened to these young people speaking of living in fear of losing everything they have worked so hard for. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to think that because of politics you could have everything taken away from you. And they would be losing everything if the government can’t come up with a way to pass the bill to protect the dreamers. The fact that it is a bipartisan bill should be enough reason to pass a Clean Dream Act. But Trump is trying to use it as a bargaining chip to get his ridiculous wall. I wonder if he has even met any Dreamers. If he would meet would them he would see what an asset they are to this country. I wanted to share the poster from the rally. And I, along with Pope Francis and 80% of the American people, support the Dreamers. It’s time to pass a Clean Dream Act now!

Nancy White

The Personal is Political

On Saturday, January 20, I attended the Women’s March in San Jose, California. Leading up to the march, I wanted to participate again, but the logistics of juggling work and driving an hour or more felt a little overwhelming, plus I have my reservations about the Women’s March.

Ultimately, a friend of mine invited me to go with her to an art collective in the morning and head to the march from there. A community breakfast and sign making event was happening where my friend is soon going to be renting studio space. Local Color aims to take over out-of-use buildings for artistic purposes. They utilize empty spaces by providing affordable and open spaces to artists. What the little I’ve seen and heard, I’m on board.

The morning of the Women’s March we showed up to cardboard cut down to manage sign size, paints, brushes, markers, sticks, and glitter available on a handful of tables. Also, Spice Girls was playing over a sound system. We all stood around, unsure of what we wanted our signs to say, flipping through examples. Then, we’d make up our mind and slowly gather our supplies. “Are you using this teal paint?” “Do you know where the red duct tape went?” “Did you see there are fake flowers on the table by the front? I think they’d look nice on your sign.” “Ooooo, that’s a good one.” There were children as young as four or five tracking down all the purple markers to make their own signs.

Finally, we taped sticks to our signs (mine said, “smash the patriarchy” with a hammer and my friend Laura’s said, “the personal is political”) and headed a couple blocks to city hall. There was a huge crowd, people filling the streets everywhere you looked. Signs everywhere, in many languages. I would estimate half of the marchers were people of color. We walked slowly a mile or so to a park near the river where there was a rally with speakers, all of whom were women, and many were women of color. A speaker that stood out for me was Maria Gonzalez of Ya Basta Coalition, which aims to protect janitorial workers (often immigrant women working alone at night) from sexual harassment and assault. 

I returned home (/to work) and at dinner a group of women asked if I knew how the marches turned out. When I told them I had been at the San Jose march, they asked me to describe it. I said, “Well, it didn’t have the buzz of energy that there was last year.” I realized it was a stronger, more grounded feeling of, “we’re still here.”

There wasn’t chanting, there wasn’t overflowing anger, there was a sense of duty to be there. I hope this maintains true. That all those folks continue showing up, at marches, but more importantly their daily lives to fight the oppression and hate so rampant in our society.

-Anza Jarschke

 

[Image description: two people each holding a sign in front of a colorful spray-painted wall. One sign depicts a hammer and says “Smash the Patriarchy” on a banner. The other sign says “the personal is political” in orange text.] Photo courtesy of Laura.