Eric Mann on Transformative Organizing

Eric Mann, a lifelong organizer with the L.A. Bus Riders Union and Labor/Community Strategy center, came to Causa Justa last thursday to speak about his new book, “Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer,” and his booklet prequel, “The 7 Components of Transformative Organizing Theory.”  They are essential guides to social justice organizing, and I hope anyone curious about what “organizing” actually means buys, reads, and shares the books.  His vision of transformative organizing unites radical political worldviews with pragmatical political struggles rooted in working class, community of color membership and leadership.  His vision of “the Movement” is an “international antiracist anti-imperialist united front.”  He is also a great example of a antiracist white activist.

In lieu of writing up a full account of the event, I’ve included a few of his quotes from the evening:

‎”Back in the 60’s I never would have believed that in 2012 we’d have 2.4 million people incarcerated, that we’d have our first black president, and he’d be deporting 400,000 people per year–more people in 3 years than Bush deported in 8 years. I would have not believed the realities of global warming, the mass poverty, and mass police state. I would not have believed that after the war in Vietnam, the U.S. would once again be provoked into war with the rest of the world.

We need to build a multiracial left.

My dream is not a utopia. My dream is not socialism. I feel like a Jew in the warsaw ghetto. We are going to fight the Nazis. We are going to fight the United States.

My dream is resistance.”

*          *          *

“It is important to know the ‘why’ of ‘why are we organizing?’  Everything that we do is trying to build a broad united front against U.S. imperialism.   There is a long tradition of anti-racist, anti-imperialist fighters.   We could be slaves organizing a revolt, activists during Reconstruction, labor and communist organizers in the  30’s, SDS and SNCC in the 60’s.  These were all transformative organizations.  Occupy has done a phenomenal number of things right, but they don’t come out of an antiracist, anti-imperialist, people of color-led tradition.”

*          *          *

“Most people don’t organize.  The just have opinions.

Yes, I understand, I’ve read the paper too.  But the only question I wanna hear is, ‘What are we gonna do about it?'”

*          *          *

“In black and Latino neighborhoods, we’re talking about a communities that are under military siege.  You can’t even begin working for civil rights without being [locked into] the security surveillance state.”

*          *          *

“Always be authentic to who you are.  There is not anything wrong in being who you are.  The question is, ‘Which side are you on?'”

*          *          *

“The definition of theory is the coherent explanation of random phenomenon.  Organizing is very theoretical.”

*          *          *

“If you don’t like it, then don’t be an organizer.  There are many other roles that we need in the movement, such as fundraising, research, media.  For me, I love it.  I get to meet amazing people everyday and make history.”

*          *          *

“In the 60’s, I found MLK, Malcolm X, and Fannie Lou Hamer more compelling that Judaism.  To me, The Movement is my religion.”

*          *          *

“Organizing exposes a lot of stuff inside yourself that you wish was better.”

*          *          *

“It’s like on the airlines: Put on your own oxygen mask before you put it on the baby.  There is nothing selfish about taking care of yourself first….I know you think it’s real f*kin’ revolutionary to miss all your bill payments, but seriously, pay you bills.  Register your car.  Don’t be a mess.”

*          *          *

“How can you be a revolutionary and not be about material things, like buses and housing?”

*          *          *

“Historically a successful movement requires most of its donors (not most of its money) to come from the working classes.  Movements of the poor are significantly funded by members of the middle and affluent classes who support their moral appeal.  This has been a dependable model throughout history.” (pg. 64).

*          *          *

“Fight to win.”

Occupy Oakland’s Love March

(via greendoula)

This Valentine’s Day evening Occupy Oakland marched up and down Broadway for “Love not War,” proudly proclaiming hella love for the city and people of Oakland.  The positivity was infectious.  When I arrived at the Henry J. Kaiser park on 19th and Telegraph at 7pm, I couldn’t get the grin plastered onto my face off if I tried.  Everyone was mingling, passing out valentines, dancing to Miguel’s “Sure Thing.”

Passing the Lenny Kravitz show at the Fox theater, the march left south on Broadway bursting with untraditional chants: “Everybody come on down, Oakland is a lovers town!”  And, “Love! And revolution! Is what we need for evolution!”  In the back, Laleh of the Anti-Repression Committee towed a speaker emanating Sade’s “Soldier of Love.”  Marchers gifted valentines to onlookers.  The highlight for me was the oceanic, swelling chant “WE LOVE OAK-LAND!” that became a call and response with folks on the sidewalk.

At times, rage-based chants poked through.  At one point, a young man kept yelling “Fuck the Police!,” and much of the march paused at the OPD headquarters to taunt the few officers assembled there by chanting the age-old rhyme, “You’re sexy! You’re cute! Take off your riot suit!”  That’s a great chant when riot police show up to repress a march, but the police deserved to be ignored in this context, and others kept the march moving forward.

It felt obvious at that moment that chants based in love rather than rage carry more power.  Love comes from a deep internal reservoir, and it’s collective chants make us feel united, light, and powerful.   Chants of love are so much more likely to bring smiles and reciprocated cheers from those driving by, those waiting for the bus after a long day at work, those cleaning and closing up their restaurants.  Rage, on the other hand, is exhausting.  It drains us quickly.   Even though it is justified, it turns people off emotionally and build walls between us, especially because it’s often coming from aggressive white men.

So…can we get a weekly Love March at Occupy Oakland, similar to what exists for the TAC-organized Fuck The Police marches?  I say that as someone highly skeptical of “flower-child-love-everybody-style protesting,” which is too often based in naiveté, ignorance, and the violent blinders of white privilege.  It is too often “sentimental and anemic,” in the words of King, or “infantile” and self-centered as Baldwin might say.   But there is deeper kind of love that can transform society, and this march provided a glimpse into what that culture shift could look like.   It is the love that is so powerful it dissolves our tendencies toward hate and rage.  It is the love that is expressed collectively when we take over city streets not with a permit but with our will.  It is the love that dissolves the pain and alienation we all experience in our lives for different reasons.   It is the love that builds the movement.  Justice, they say, is what love looks like in public.

“Consent yes! Cops no!” the river of marchers shouted.

There is much work to be done, of course. Instead of directing our anger at the 1% and their protectors, Occupy can use things like a Love March to focus on communicating and spinning the web of interconnection within the 99%.  When making protest signs, to cite a small example, instead of writing defiant messages to the 1%, why not write messages of love for the bus riders, students, shoppers, drivers, and street-living people who the marches always pass?  Or write messages that invite people to join in?  And beyond simple sign-making, true organizing takes incredible amounts of humility, engaging in conversations primarily to listen, and self-reflecting in order to deconstruct your own privilege.  The march, and Occupy Oakland in general, has to get more sophisticated in understanding its positionality and whiteness within Oakland, for example.  It is still largely a white thing, at least numerically.

If mass public love does become contagious, collective, powerful, and inescapable, then we really will be on the precipice of transformation.  And no, I don’t mean mass public love like awkwardly long hugs from old men who you don’t really even know.  I’m talking about a commonly understood unity based on affirmation of our shared humanity, and from that the smiles, subtle head nods, and public kindness that begins to flow between strangers.

After making a U-turn at the OPD headquarters, the march returned to Kaiser Park, beneath the giant Chamber of Commerce-funded busts of Ghandhi, King, and other social justice figureheads, where previously we’d been tear gassed and illegally kettled on Move-In Day (#j28).  A dance party ensued.  Queer and hetero couples made out.  Livestreamers danced.  Toddlers made street art.  And Leon paused the music briefly to shoutout the man who’d filmed the police kettle from his overlooking apartment.

And then Kreayshawn came on the stereo, and I knew it was time to go home.

On my way, I met a couple who asked for grocery money to hold them over until their food stamps application was processed.  And at Pizza Man, I sat across from a couple enjoying a 10pm Valentines Day meal with their young son.  In between quick sips on his soda, the boy confidently responded to something his dad had said, “But we don’t have a house.”  Their bond was palpable.

That’s what love looks like.  But not justice.

To meditate on:

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.   Power at it’s best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at it’s best is power correcting everything that stand against love.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

“Love takes off the mask we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.  I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, of grace — not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” – James Baldwin

Lessons in Moving the 99%

Last weekend I attended my first Sunday School—the Sunday school put on by the School for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) to be specific.  The 3 hour long session was called “Lesson’s in Moving the 99%,” and over 80 people packed into SOUL’s offices to participate.  If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been there, I imagine he’d have been humbly and intently listening to the next generation of organizers and youth, while of course silently celebrating his 83^rd birthday.

Sitting at the front of the 9-story high room in downtown Oakland were panelists Maria Poblet of Causa Justa Just Cause, Shaw San Liu of Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), Brooke Anderson of East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, and Tina Bartolome of SOUL—four powerful women with deep insights and experience in organizing movements for social and economic justice.

Many important topics were covered, and here are some of them.

SUCCESSES OF #OCUPPY

Anderson laid out five successes of #occupywallstreet: “1) It changed the national conversation from being about the debt ceiling and how much to cut services to bank accountability, class inequality, and wealth redistribution.  2) It has taken away the stigma of struggling economically. 3) It has named bigger targets, like Wall St., when we are so often only targeting middle-men. 4) It as put direct action at the forefront; marching can be more accessible than lobbying officials in Sacramento.  5) It’s gotten us out of our campaign silos.”