Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin made history last night, as she addressed the RNC. In her speech, she (of the lifetime NRA membership) aimed barbed verbal ammunition at Barack Obama, though many reports indicated that she would not do so; so much for reciprocating his class-drenched gesture of reminding the press corps that he, too, was the child of a teen mother, and that they should back the muck off of Bristol Palin. I know, I get it– it’s the convention. It’s a pep rally, time to rile up the fans.
Palin displayed exquisite contempt while commenting on Obama’s past work as a “Community Organizer”; and yes, that’s exactly how she pronounced it, as if the words were too strangely shaped for her mouth, as if they should be chaperoned by quotes.
But, community Organizers do extraordinary things. If you don’t believe me, look here, at one of the most revered “Community Organizers”, ever:
From last night’s performance:
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco…
Politics isn’t just a game of clashing parties and competing interests.
The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.[npr]
Well that sounds…positively…Gandhian.
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Thank you, Nikki, for inspiring this post.
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Update/nb: Please do keep in mind that I’m not a fangirl of anyone I mentioned– I don’t think Gandhi or Obama are divine, but I do respect both of them, for different reasons. Additionally, I am not comparing Obama to the most famous brown person, ever; I am trying to open a space for discussion about the phrase “Community Organizer”, since I was struck with how much disrespect it marinated in, last night.
Finally, it may be worth noting that I harbor a wee bit of ill-will towards a party I once partied with– my very name, when mispronounced in Malayalam, in an American way, means Elephant)– but unfortunately, no longer recognize.
Someone has! 🙂
People, whether formally or informally, have been doing “community organizing” for decades – they’ve been doing activities that are connected to or encompassed by community organizing for millenia. There’s all kinds of theory on organizing, people who have different opinions about what it is and isn’t, whether it should be professional or not, etc. There’s really no purpose to these comments you’re making other than to reveal your own ignorance. And if I hadn’t put the hard work and energy into learning what organizing is and what is not (to me) than I wouldn’t be so harsh, but I have, and for you to sit there and comfortably blog away and diminish the real struggle that a lot of people put into trying to help and learning about how to help is nothing short of heinous.
There are plenty of criticisms I can offer of “community organizing” in the way that Obama and a lot of other present or former professional community organizers do, and I would love to have that conversation here, so if you don’t know what organizing is, can you please step out of the way and the rest of us can have a conversation like adults. Otherwise, we can keep this up for your benefit to the detriment of everyone else involved until you finally either stfu or get bored.
I’ll never look at my local community center the same way again. Those oppressive jerks.
Jay Smooth: The Republican Hater’s Ball Chickity check @ 01:15
Thank you. My time will come. In the mean time I’ll have Obama keep the voters warmed up for me.
50 · rob said
i don’t understand the point – it seems to me that community organizing is as local as you can get – this is not some soviet era government commissar. if anything the gop’s so called “hands-off” approach still encourages state wide legislation on all the social issues they fight their culture wars on.
Yeah, I agree–they are a bunch of busy-bodies, trying to control what I eat, etc.
Indian Governor
[URL=http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=275pxmahatmasarojininaibw1.jpg][IMG]http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/5229/275pxmahatmasarojininaibw1.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sarojininaidu1eh3.jpg][IMG]http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/1632/sarojininaidu1eh3.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
I live in Chicago, and one of my semi-retired Professors who taught at UoC brought a factoid to my attention during his convincing rant about why Hill was more desrving than Barack Obama…His voters then as now, were middle and upper class whites, living in Hyde Park and associated with UoC. The neighborhoods where Barack Obama was supposed to be this giving, involved and dilligent community adviser, did not even come out to vote for him. If there wasn’t a game on, I would take the time to find the citation, but I’m sure if you want to defend it – you will look it up yourself.
and just for good measure Michelle Obama’s community organization record that was touted too.
Comparing B.O to Gandhi is an insult to his memory and legacy…this is probably the first time I’ve found something that you posted as offensive. By that yardstick, Sarvarkar was a community organizer too…
Maybe we’re speaking past each other, and if so, I apologize. What I’m trying to say is that these local community types are busy-bodies who try to tell me what to do, comment on my life, etc. in the most annoying way. An example would be a wedding I was at recently, where the bride’s mother expressed “concern” (to all and sundry) that I was asleep when she annoying called my hotel-room at 10AM (I wasn’t missing any events except for some stupid “outing” to a museum). WTF? Stop downloading your worldview (i.e., get up at 8am, or whatever) on me and leave me alone.
57 · RahulD said
Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t, then:
I’m curious what other people interested in organizing think of the formalization of the profession. The whole 2-years-of-organizing-and-then-go-to-law-school approach that Obama represents and that a lot of people I know have pursued. I would go so far as to say it’s the norm among my set (you could replace ‘organizing’ with ‘publishing’ or something else).
At the same time, having sort of done this, I can say that the lessons I learned were so useful from everything from how to deal with day-to-day things like getting my camera back from bastard-ass camera repair store that thinks they can keep it even when I asked for an estimate to thinking about and learning how to vote and approach electoral politics when none of these candidates really stand for me and my values. And at this point, I’m sick of street cred games – the most important lesson I’ve learned is that organizing is an activity, not necessarily a vocation – that things are often called organizing which are not (imo) and things are often organizing that are not called that. And the pieces of organizing (mobilization, interpersonal communication, strategizing) can exist independently so that “being an organizer” isn’t an all or nothing activity.
Anyway, just wanted to share and see if others have thoughts.
sorry: Updated links
Woman Governor: One ,two
If I said your state didn’t matter because it was representative of the Country, then what is your notion of the Country. I wonder what he would’ve said, if someone told P.A. Sangma that he couldn’t be the speaker of the house because the people of his state had less in common with the rest of the country because they were tucked farther away with half the population of a different ethnic stock than “real Indians”
58 · rob said
now i am with you, rob. hate getting up in the morning myself, old egg.
although, seriously, equating gossipy aunties with people who do grassroots work (i am not talking about obama specifically, just that there is a lot of value to low-level work in challenged communities) seems a bit of a stretch 🙂
See you at the club tomorrow eve!
I would beg to differ that a concerned bride’s mom is NOT a community organizer.
Listen, Rob. This is a community space right? Sepia Mutiny the blog? Here you can express your viewpoints in a relatively safe space to a COMMUNITY of South Asian Americans? And we may put you on blast for some of your comments, but you keep commenting – i.e. you feel empowered to express your viewpoints. And we haven’t banned you yet so that means we are open to listening. We are not really imposing our community norms as Mutineers on you. And we as SM bloggers are putting the “needs of the community ahead of ourselves” i.e. we are monitoring this blog, or blogging till the wee hours when we should be sleeping because we believe in the community that is Sepia Mutiny. We put your needs as an SM reader ahead of our owns as SM bloggers.
Bam! You’ve been community organized and you didn’t even know it. And I bet you liked it. 😉
59 · SpottieOttieDopaliscious on September 4, 2008 09:01 PM · Direct link · “Quoteâ€(?)
Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t, then:
oops! Sorry! I did not see that…my apologies Anna.
Such an equation could easily be mocked, I agree, but the point would be that this kind of community organizer gets awfully “churchy” in the bad sense of the term about what “we” need to do.
e.g. (almost) every desi aunty = community organizer? 😉
as it has been said, they want to make government just small enough to fit into our bedrooms. as others have reflected, this really is one of the things that irks me the most about the GOP – this dictation of values – family values, american values, moral values etc. esp. when, as we have seen so many times, its members preach one thing and do another.
For me, more like “community organizer” = aunty = highly annoying. 😉
67 · rob said
this is true, but it’s not like mccain and palin are holding themselves about what “we need to do” either. their rhetoric is similar when it comes to repub priorities. all speeches, be they democrat or repub, contain exhortations of this kind.
Palin talked about raising taxes by Democrats and how it will hurt small business owners…..and that Obama hardly talks about victory in wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. I think maybe Democrats should clarify that the tax increase for the “rich” will be used to fund the “victory” in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is not exactly clear for which income bracket the taxes will increase. So both sides are again using vague rhetoric. The real trouble is that the irresponsible war in Iraq created the huge budget deficit and now who will pay for the real war in Afghanistan ? It has to be funded through either cutting back on other programs, borrowing or tax increase.
Obama
Palin
isn;t the democratic proposal to put an added 1-2% on the super-rich, essentially creating a new bracket of the uber wealthy?
Hypocrisy and contradiction is the hallmark of the gun-toting bible-thumpers of the Republican Party. They claim to follow the godman Jesus who taught love and non-violence, yet they revel in war; who like Buddha taught renunciation, yet they glorify greed; who preached service to the poor and needy, yet they extol selfish individualism.
http://anna.typepad.com/herstory/2008/09/liveblogging-mc.html
58 · rob said
Tamizh Guzhag?
Nesha – God knows that the Republicans have a lot to answer for, and God willing they shall, if not here then up there. Interim, let us at least assign blame where blame is due. While I am no fan of Sarah Palin or her running mate, I do not intend to vote for the Democratic candidate either who, because of his urgent need to become the most powerful man on the planet, stooped so low that he passed Karl Rove on the way down, when he equated being called a Muslim to being smeared. Indeed, he even took the trouble of creating a web site to fight the “smears”, which is being enthusiastically promoted by desi celebrities like, Kal Penn and Mira Nair.
77 · Zainab M. said
are you kidding me? is the problem with the people who keep falsely calling him muslim and running on the fear of islamists as their campaign plank, or his saying that he isn’t?
Obama’s response. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iNvoRBF4_c
you don’t think that both of these stances present a problem? it’s not a zero-sum game. while it may be a fact that obama is not a practising muslim, he did not just say that he is not a muslim – his ultra-defense about not being a muslim reflected his belief of this as a smear, which essentially reflects a belief that being a proper presidential candidate (or indeed, a good american) is incongruent with being a practising muslim. i understand that this is politics and he is in it to win it, as hillary says, but a truly impressive – and brave – statement would have been to say that it is possible to be a practising muslim and a good american and an american leader. given that that might have been political suicide, at the very least, i would have liked to have seen less defensiveness on his part at being called a muslim. just because the other side meant it as an insult does not mean that he had to take it as such.
I LOVE this picture. That baby is sooooooooo cute!
80 · ak said
they both are, and i do see an issue. right now, while i don’t like his defensiveness, i sympathize (in a qualified manner) with obama’s hands being tied – how many battles is he supposed to fight? on real issues, though, he opposes torture, whereas sarah palin flippantly throws out a “he is worried some terrorists being tortured” line, and the entire party line keeps going on and on and on about islamic terrorists, those people out there in the middle east, and so on.
to that end, the party of mccain is definitely far more anti-muslim than the party of obama (as for the two women, he apologized personally for the actions of one of his staffers.)
80 · ak said
And consequently we would’ve been discussing Pant-Suit fashion faux pas, Hagel’s crossover appeal for Republicans to vote Democrat and why due to Tim Pawlenty being as exciting as Dan Quayle was during his VP-run, McCain was right in picking Condi instead of Pawlenty ftw.
Jon Stewart is ripping Community Organizer gate. Stop watching RNC and watch Daily show 🙂
idiots r us – “are you kidding me? is the problem with the people who keep falsely calling him muslim and running on the fear of islamists as their campaign plank, or his saying that he isn’t?”
Wasn’t he supposed to be the one who, unlike Bush W., would not over react and shoot from the hip? OK, tell me, had they called him gay or jewish, would he have reacted in a similar fashion?
84 · kal said
I WISH. I have this shit on a slight delay…and it’s still…dragging…
rob, I think it’s important to understand that community organizer != communitarian. Those are two different things. While there are many definitions of community organizing, at the end of the day it’s about those who facilitate process of people coming together to participate in their democracy. This could be as literal as getting people to vote, or it could be less obvious. It typically draws from a power imbalance between different actors/agents and allows people to work together to come up with a solution. This could easily be framed as Coase-an, as well. I don’t think community organizing is inherently good or bad — it has been utilized to effect positive and negative change, depending on your worldview, politics, etc.
The older I get, the more wary I am of this model. I think it’s important for folks in these kinds of programs to recognize that it’s like the Peace Corps — it benefits the participant more than the host community, and it generally does not lead to a permanent institutional change (although there are of course exceptions). The thing I find most concerning, however, is how the professionalization of community organizing oftentimes crowds out actual grassroots and community-based leadership. On one hand I understand the rationale; people who are doing incredible, long-term work should be compensated in part (i.e., should not have to pull two, three, or four jobs when organizing is included). On the other hand, what kind of capacity are we building when this is the level of commitment or time required?
i agree – he would have been screwed either way. however, i do think dismissing this as not a real issue undermines just how much race and religion has factored into how the war plays out on the field and at home.
88 · ak said
sorry, “real issues” trivialized the matter far more than i intended.
Camille, That seems like a very perceptive point, getting right to the heart of the issue–but, then, how is community organizing different from “local politics”? I tend to think that local politics is pretty important–i.e., should this currently “unused” piece of land be devoted to a park or to a dump–so, what is “community organizing” adding to that debate (or, maybe, it’s about some other debate–and, again, I’m not at all trying to be belligerent, I’m trying to learn something here).
Anna, you should make that “community organizer”- Gandhi – T-shirt
It was a low blow and one that might actually antagonize the Creationists on the local school boards who are pretty much community organizers. I know Gandhi is not core to the discussion, but a t-shirt with him on it saying “Community Organizer” wouldn’t work. Gandhi is pretty much a joke outside of the Indian community, you would just be driving home that it is an absurd vocation. That particular picture is problematic as it looks like he is in a hypoglycemia induced fugue state and is trying to strongarm the banana from the baby
McCain has much more decency than the typical Christianist Republican, and he had the honesty to acknowledge both the rise of Obama and the utter failure of Bush. But the rest of his speech was laden with the old Republican nostrums that have led to the massive inequalities in this country, precipitating it’s decline in the world. And he looked old. And he looked very, very tired. I am afraid his time has past. This was elegy and nostalgia and the honorable fading of a hero. It had nothing to do with the future. The intrade market has not moved even slightly in his favor.
My parents are, frankly, pretty anti-Gandhi, blaming him for giving in to the Britishers on Partition–I realize that’s a whole different debate, but, inasmuch as the topic of Gandhi’s status keeps coming up, I thought it’s worth pointing out. I’m a bit more pro-Gandhi, but I do see what my parents mean.
Dude, the whole USA is aging fast–we’re all becoming Florida. So, knock it off with the ageism–it’s not a winning argument, sorry.
I liked that 5 minutes after McCain talked about how important it is to him that we’re all Americans, the crowd responded to a protester by chanting, “U-S-A!”
Yeah, that’ll show ’em…
OMG, am I that close to the line? I don’t intend to be. . . . I guess that I think that my family is subordinated by this whole discussion. 😉
Well, MLK Jr. is considered to be a community organizer too
If you are looking for a Tee designs, I could be some help with this and this
You’re right. However, John McCain’s age + Sarah Palin’s inexperience + ideologue-ishness = big problem. So age is a relevant factor – how and why people choose to express their feelings about his age in a certain way is a different matter and I mostly agree with you about that.
http://www.cafepress.com/commorganizer
tshirts