"These well meaning, hard-working and intelligent folks want a very neat time-lined, totally safe and predictable movement. One where, as a community, we do not publicly move until we are assured of victory. They don't want us to venture from a proscribed game plan that mostly originates out of a Washington-based political strategy to gain our freedom. They live in fear that we will move too quickly, make someone uncomfortable and put our political friends in a tough spot. Afraid to risk defeat, they believe we have to make everyone like us and be on our side. Most amazingly they seek the approval of others instead of insisting that others have to liberate themselves from their own long held myths in order to receive this marvelous gift that our community brings.
The cabal of powerful decision makers wants everything to be safe, clean and perfect before moving. Don't upset anyone, don't jump ahead of ourselves and most of all don't deviate from a well-laid plan that hopefully will eventually lead to victory. Every one of our allies has to be comfortable, the polls have to show us way ahead, and proof of victory has to be assured before trying anything new. The unpredictable grassroots could be destructive and create instability.
Sounds pretty good doesn't it? Except that it doesn't fit any model of success that I have seen in my near 50 years of organizing. In fact, my journey has proven to me that the unpredictable often is just the stimulus that movements need; victory often comes from an unplanned event that organizers could not have pulled off if they had worked years to do it. Most candidates would never be elected to office if they waited for their turn, had hard proof of victory and listened to the political pros. Our own current president is a perfect example of this fact."
21.7.09
told ya so!
If I could do the Will & Grace "told ya so" dance on the Internets somehow, I would be doing it right now. You may remember my frustration with the gays a little while back. Well, David Mixner, a former adviser of Bill Clinton, and someone who actually seems to get it (in reference to the LGBT rights movement) has this to say:
big ideas:
let's get political,
that's so gay
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I think he overstates his case and sets up a straw man. Who are these leaders who think we have to have everyone like us before we make a move? I've certainly never seen one in any position of power in the movement.
ReplyDelete"Don't move until we're assured of victory?" No one is saying that. Of course we push things forward even when we know we're going to lose the first time or the first ten times (as we've been doing with ENDA, Hate Crimes, and countless state bills).
That said, if you have limited resources, do you put them into something you can win now that helps improve LGBT people's lives and creates momentum? Or do you put resources into something that is, at best, a long shot but would be huge? Those are the questions organizational leaders deal with every day and making smart investments is their responsibility to the movement.
Should we be agitating? Sure. Does the unpredictable sometimes make a huge advance? Of course. But most progress comes from years of hard work, not a magical, unpredictable moment. No movement succeeds with out at least some significant part of it that is taking the long view and working strategically.
People who think the African-American civil rights movement was all about taking it to the streets forget that that was only one tactic. What about the NAACP carefully building up to Brown v. Board? What about legislative strategy leading up to the Civil Rights Act?
So sure, the unpredictable grassroots should do their thing--sometimes it pays off. But lets not knock the idea of actually having a strategy as a movement. He's right that most candidates would never be elected if they waited their turn. But they'd also never be elected if they didn't think strategically, plan, and work hard year after year to get elected eiter. -itp