Authentic Organizing: Ideas for Reviving the Grassroots

[Sand Castle]

So I wrote a pamphlet about my organizing experiences and how to tackle the issues of modern-day organizing. It takes more of a "macro" level approach than individual level.

It's around 40 pages long. It can be downloaded here for free, of course.

http://ourstreets.net/2015/04/12/authentic-organizing/

[The Idler]

I enjoyed reading that, thanks.

[BIXX]

care to broad stroke it for me? 40 pages is 38 more than I'm willing to read in most cases.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

One thing that the document doesn't touch on is how to deal with "the dinosaurs".

Given the real "weight" of unions, social democracy (less of a thing in the American context, I suppose), NGOs, activist cliques, etc. - how do the "good organization" and "good organizer" either take on or cooperate with these "frenemies"?

[Sand Castle]

One thing that the document doesn't touch on is how to deal with "the dinosaurs".

Given the real "weight" of unions, social democracy (less of a thing in the American context, I suppose), NGOs, activist cliques, etc. - how do the "good organization" and "good organizer" either take on or cooperate with these "frenemies"?

That is a great question, and is perhaps an essay on its own. It really all depends on the unique circumstances on the ground.

In some ways I'd say to either work around them, or work with their good elements if there are any. For example, I have dealt with plenty of cliques. While they are a pain in the ass, not all member are closed off to working on common-ground issues. It kind of goes back to what I said towards the end about the unions. There are way too many locals out there for one to truly be an expert on the struggles of local unions. So it's possible for an overall shitty union to have a local composed to decent people who are worth working with.

I know a guy in Baltimore who is part of a local with leaders he doesn't like. He has reached out to the like-minded people in the local and formed a radical union caucus. Now, he tells me that the caucus eventually died, but it was worth a shot given the conditions.

You have to really expose these roadblock organizations for what they are. That is how you take them on, you do what they should be doing and (hopefully) the people will be won over.

For example, I have worked with an organization in the local Black community that has fought to preserve historical grounds, such as former slave auction sites and former slave burial grounds. They have often clashed with established (Democrat) Black politicians such as the mayor. Instead of preserving the local history and the honor of their ancestors, instead of confronting modern racism, these politicians ignore it. But this organization was able to win people over by doing what the establishment should have been doing. They honored the dead, they educated people about history and related them to ongoing struggles, and they put up a fight to prevent the desecration of these sacred grounds. When the established politicians from the Black community said "let's build a baseball stadium near the old slave auction site and take money away from inner-city schools (their own children) to build it," this organization put up a fight to make sure it didn't happen. They exposed the established politicians for what they were, a group of wealthy people of color who were complicit (to say the least) with systematic racism.