Have you thanked a community organizer today?
Community organizers have done a lot for our country
By Karen Topakian
Two nights ago, on the stage of the Republican National Convention former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani seethed when he said the words community organizer. As he described the two presidential candidates resumes, he laughed when he listed this as Senator Barack Obama’s job experience.
As a former community organizer and a current funder of community organizing, I took extreme umbrage at his trademark sneer.
Later that same night, Vice-Presidential candidate and current Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, compared her job as a mayor of a small town to Presidential candidate Obama’s. “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.”
So let’s set the record straight about what organizers do. They bring people together to change the power structure and dynamic to meet the needs of the people. Sometimes organizers rally people together to fight for better housing, schools, health care. Other organizers rally people together to push for lower taxes, more jobs, a cleaner environment. And we all know that we are more effective when we speak with one voice, together. Anyway, it’s one of our rights, smack dab in the First Amendment to the Constitution, the right to petition the government.
If politicians and our government were responsive to the needs and voices of all members of the community, including the poor and the disenfranchised, then we might not need so many organizers to put pressure on our politicians and leaders.
Let’s think about where would we be without the efforts of our community organizers? Would our government have passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act? Would we have fair housing laws, affirmative action? If it weren’t for organizers would we have the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution granting women the right to vote? Talk about damn good organizers.
At the Agape Foundation we believe in organizing as path to social change. We fund lots of community-organizing efforts, have been for 39 years. Recently we funded organizing efforts to clean up abandoned lumber mills on the North Coast. We fund parents, teachers and students organizing against the growing militarization of their high schools. We fund members of the faith community organizing against the death penalty…
The next time you hear a politician smear the good name of organizers, remember that if it weren’t for community organizers, more than half of the population wouldn’t have the right to vote, let alone run for office.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
If it weren’t for community organizers then people like Sarah Palin would not have been a mayor or governor. I believe that we should NOT VOTE for those politicians that denigrate such organizers.