She who stumbles

Since The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum has closed, Sylvia has asked me to re-post the first Carnival Of Radical Action (CORA) here.

Welcome to the first Carnival for Radical Action!

Fire Fly and I are pleased to dedicate this carnival to the phenomenal WOC blogger BrownFemiPower. This carnival idea is her brainchild. Fire Fly’s encouragement, along with these excellent submissions, gave it wings. So we thank her and all of you, first and foremost.

There are many reasons that people may choose to hit the pavement, the group meeting (whether as small as the local PTA or as large as the United Nations), the netroots, the writing pad, or the telephone. For example, what do you do when you notice a white male colleague acting extremely out of line with a young black female student, like in Miss Profe’s situation? Do you speak out? If so, how? What do you say? How do you say it?

Conversely, what if you know what to say and how to say it, but your support system is lacking? Like the dynamics in VJack’s situation, you need to organize and coordinate large groups of people who hold different views under a generally agreed-upon umbrella issue. How do you recruit and get some action started? Do you choose advocacy? Coordinated letter writing? Rallies? Create your own organization?

For the duration of this carnival, bloggers from across the ’sphere will offer answers, experiences, and encouragement for instituting radical change. From writing a letter to your local newspaper to coordinating a large rally with multiple organizations, there’s a little something for everyone who wants to learn about making a substantial impact. So let’s get started!

Methods of Organizing

Bloggers have offered their wisdom and experience to explain some of the nitty-gritty details of organizing campaigns, organizations, and events. These wonderful bloggers emphasise clear and effective communication both within the organizing group and with the rest of society.

The incomparable BFP offers, along with some great anecdotes, a comprehensive introduction to organizing from her experience with Incite! Women of Color Against Violence:

I wanted to post the national chapter of Incite!’s guidelines to organizing. It is a very very basic “how to” guide–it doesn’t tell you how to confront people’s hurt feelings after a major fuck up, for example. But it does give you a good place to start. One of the biggest mistakes newbie organizers make is starting too quick. The euphoria of finally deciding you have the power to make change is amazing and exhilarating. But ultimately it’s unsustainable. Recognizing that you have the power to change the world is necessary to get yourself into organizing–but recognizing that you personally aren’t going to change the world in your life time is also necessary. Thus, what you do needs to be done with that in mind–how can you lay a strong enough foundation such that your daughter, your granddaughter, your great granddaughter, can continue to build upon your work?

I offer Vox offers guidelines for groups and individuals who want to increase the public profile of an issue in the news media:

Political action that is mainly unknown or doesn’t toe the established party line goes mainly unreported unless there’s a proven demand. Smaller papers that could establish that demand are mainly limited to covering local issues with their own staff and whatever runs on the AP wire for everything else.

The thing is, though, it doesn’t have to be that way. There are plenty of ways to get important issues into the mainstream press; they just need proof that there will be reader interest.

The Organizing Experience

Activist organizing takes both skill and good organization. Radical bloggers have written about their impressions of organizations, and their effectiveness, inclusivity, and structure on all levels — from small reading groups, to large-scale social movements.

Petitpoussin talks about the co-operative skills she needed to run a successful reading series:

Over time I’ve become more and more interested in the idea of collaborative or collective projects — and I’m excited to see them developing on the blogosphere, through various carnivals, sites like AfroSpear, Ally Work, and arts and cultural projects like Birds of Lace press or make/shift magazine. When I read and think about community among activists, it’s not just about some realpolitik conception of critical mass to create change on a point. It’s about experiencing change in our daily lives, with the people we love and respect, as opposed to working ourselves ragged towards change as the ideal.

In a comment to this blog, Nena Lopez offers insight into the key questions for grass-roots organizations:

Coordination and organization of activists for a grass root operation is extremely tough.

[…]

We began by taking a poll of who wanted to assist in a leader & activist position while changing the issues throughout the nation. We had a meeting (teleconference)
First discussion, Are we a campaign or are we an organization? If we are an organization we must comply within the laws of our state and become organized. We established leaders by state, through a meeting (someone must always take meeting notes). This was the first tier at a corporate level.

In an older post at her (oldschool!) Blogspot blog, BFP posted about a number of principles and issues generated out of communities involved with Incite! Women of Color Against Violence efforts at community-based anti-violence strategies:

How do we incorporate justice into community accountability strategies? If we do not rely on the state to adjudicate cases of gender violence, then how do we ensure justice and fairness before holding perpetrators accountable? How do we ensure that we do not turn into vigilante groups? If we do develop processes do judge cases within a community context, will we just replicate a mini version of the oppressive state apparatus within our communities?

And another older post from Ideas for Change discusses the relative effectiveness of authoritarian and non-authoritarian organisational structures:

There is a problematic history of coercive, authoritarian and inadequate approaches to activist and citizen learning and political practice in Sydney, that is ingrained in many of our activist cultures.

You cannot really point the finger and make accusations, because it is actually very difficult to overcome the authoritarian cultural obstacles to useful and liberatory activism. There is a fine line between having an efficient operation, and excluding members from decisionmaking.

Micropolitics of Organizing

Once in the midst of taking action, sometimes it is hard to keep up the initial momentum. Either the initial problem is more complicated than expected, the supporters do not arrive as readily, or the chosen method falls short of the anticipated goals. Either way, there’s an obstacle. How can these obstacles be confronted? Here, bloggers speak of their experiences with obstacles and activism, and they share some insight on how to perceive them and how to keep moving along.

Fabi shares her personal experience and insights about how to prevent discouragement and unsustainability while working as an activist:

But what I want to focus on are my thoughts on radical actions specifically personal contributions to a organizing project and the feasiability, effectiveness and sustainbility of change and activism. Especially as a mother and full time worker, I divide the two becuase all mothers are working mothers, most of the time and energy is constrained so I always ask myself how is this {fill in the blank} organizing?

Sudy lays out Donna sends out a rousing cry for people to get off their asses and warns against accepting the “wait your turn” mentality:

I can see a day coming when the crowd at the bottom is going to overwhelm the few at the top. The majority of Americans are already discriminated against or oppressed in some way, but this is as it has always been. The difference is that today there are more of us discontented, alienated, and unrepresented since the turn of the century. Many of us are people of color and it’s time for us to come together and shove each other to the top and pull those behind us up too. I’m tired of us vs them in every discussion. I’m tired of people saying to each other, “I must have my important issues first, then we will get back to you”, and always it isn’t enough.

And in this post, Fire Fly discusses the impact that agitating for social justice can take on mental health in a personal and enlightening way:

The nexus of issues — mental health, social justice, and activism — is very confronting for me. In the discussions at university, I haven’t mentioned that I’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness, and I’ve been in and out of the mental health system since I was very young. For me, depression is still something I treat as private, almost secret, and a matter of managing my own time and energy. This is because I’ve felt an intense amount of stigma around it from a lot of circles, especially left activist circles.

Organizing: The Aftermath

You’ve recruited. You’ve organized. You’ve planned. You’ve laughed. You’ve cried. You’ve called and written and photocopied and mobilized. What does the final product look like? Riversider has given us an example of how organizations and volunteers all meshed together in a joint effort on May Day. It’s a photoblog journey of the day’s events, so be prepared to absorb thousands of words in a blink of an eye about activism!

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted to this carnival!
We absolutely couldn’t have done it without you!

This is a fantastic example of how networking across the internet can inspire and empower people to work together for liberation. If you can spare some money, BFP has a list of bloggers who are raising funds to go to the Allied Media Conference next month who could really use your help. We support all kinds of online organising and radical collaboration!

We hope the carnival has a long life ahead of it, empowering many more in the months and years to come. Please spread the word far and wide, and start thinking about what you’ll submit to the next carnival!

The next carnival will be hosted at Fire Fly’s blog She who stumbles. Look out for more details!
Sylvia’s Note: I’ve already set up the newest submission form for entries to be sent to Fire Fly here.

UPDATE: Fire Fly has posted a call for submissions; the deadline for carnival submissions is June 21st. If you are interested in hosting future editions, please let me know by e-mailing me at sylviasrevenge [at] gmail [dot] com.

Much love,
Sylvia and Fire Fly