What are we fighting for…
November 16, 2008
I have been non-partisan voter registration efforts for some years now and one line that was particularly salient (given Obama’s candidacy) during the campaign was that “People died so that you could have the right to vote.” I am excited that millions took up this call and participated in this election but what will be our generation’s clarion call? I know people died for us to have the right to vote but many more put to death their selfish tendencies as they invested their dreams in the generations to come. What do you think we should be fighting for?
UPDATE: Thankfully, there is an organization, Generation Vote that is at the forefront of defining and shaping the youth agenda.
Stay up fam,
Brandon Q.
To Attack Community Organizers is to Attack Black Political Thought
September 8, 2008
This piece is part of Day of Blogging for Community Organizing Justice: “I Am a Community Organizer”.
Republicans don’t like Community Organizers. Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin ridiculed them specifically in their speeches last Wednesday at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN. This modern crop of Republicans has demonstrated how much they hate grassroots organizing in many ways with their hatred or unionization, their damnation of dissenters inside and outside of the government, and their willingness to ignore the rights, thoughts, and actions of the people of foreign nations that they decide to invade destroy occupy “help”.
While these positions on their own are outrageous and not in line with the ideals of the America that Republicans claim to love so much, it is consistent with another thread of modern-day Republican rhetoric and practice: racism.
For every generation leading up to [and including] the current one, the only foray for Black people to better their lives collectively has been through community organizing. When I say community organizing, I don’t just mean the highly visible ones like Malcolm & Martin, I mean the invisible ones that most of us will never hear or speak of that sacrifice their time, treasure, and talents so that people’s day-to-day lives are better and that their voices are heard. This is the path that nearly all Black politicians have taken to attain the capital needed to even run for office, let alone win. For one to minimize the work of organizers is to minimize the thoughts, actions, and efforts of all minorities and underrepresented groups who wish to uplift themselves individually and as a whole.
