Al Owski > Recent Status Updates

“Rather than focusing on defeating moderate and conservative candidates by building the largest coalition possible and energizing more voters to turn out—including those who did not consider themselves to be activists or a part of any movement—the left became focused on litmus tests around ideology and labels that were and are largely irrelevant for millions of people who are trying to decide... their votes.”

“The [2020 Democratic Primary] opportunity was squandered, she says, because our movements were energized around Sanders and Warren, but in a way that was insufficient to build power, because that energy was largely focused on ideology rather than base building.”

“a lot of times, I have been in political organizations where it almost functions like a clique as opposed to a place where we win shit." She wondered what it would look like for her own move- ments to focus more on building that sense of trust, painting that vivid picture of the future they sought, providing the comfort of a welcom- ing community, not a hard-to-join club.”

“that finding a group of people who think like you loud about your ideas is somehow building power. and being And while I feel most comfortable around people who think like me and share my experiences, the longer I'm in the practice of building a movement, the more I realize that movement building isn't about finding your tribe it's about growing your tribe across difference to focus on a common set of goals” (Garza)

“ "We are so small in relationship to the breadth of where 300-plus million people are politically. We need to understand that in a deep way." ... The ideas in many cases had both a powerful-enemies problem and, partly because of the exertions of those enemies and partly because of primordial realities of American political culture, a lay-public-opinion problem.”

“She wanted an expansionary progressivism... being unflinchingly radical and... making space for the non-radical. "...because we haven't done the work we've needed to do over the last thirty years to actually build a left in this country that is viable, even as we pursue that, we are going to have to figure out who else can we work with in order to get a little bit closer to where we're trying to go" ”

“ "This is the first time in my lifetime when white folks are having to grapple with racism," Garza said, "pick a side..." She added, "Whiteness, as the foundation of this nation, what established it, and what continues to be its driving engine, not just here, but around the world, is deeply entrenched...there's a context that has been developed that is requiring whiteness to account for itself." ”

“she [Garza] said, "you have moments you create, and you have moments you take advantage of." ”

“She was in a liminal space as she approached forty, no longer quite a young activist grasping at the future, to being a mentor of the struggle with lessons for a rising generation. "I find myself at thirty-nine not being an elder..," Garza told me one day. "But...I have a longer perspective. My charge at this point is to figure out how I become a bridge to help people orient in a moment that I'm also orienting in" ”

“America was in the grips of a racial reckoning that impressed Garza. "Never in my lifetime," she wrote, "have I seen this country have the kind of epiphany around race that it is having now" ”

“ "Winning," she [Garza] writes in her memoir, "is about more than being right—it is also about how you invite others to be a part of change they may not have even realized they needed." ”

“one time we did some direct action, and it really pissed off people in our coalition. We really had to figure out how do we employ multiple methods, multiple tactics, within a broad strategy to get what we wanted? Ultimately, what we were trying to do is pass this ballot measure. In the end, it wasn't about do you protest or do you have a sit-down meeting? It was about how broad can you build this coalition?”

“They wanted "calling-in strategies for not blowing up the Thanksgiving dinner conversation." She told them that before they worry about those they were trying to win over, they should look at themselves. "You have to be in a loving, healing space to call anybody in," Ross told me. "You can't do from anger, because it's just going to end up badly. So you have to assess why you're doing it. What's your motivation?" ”

“...in recent years she had devoted time and research to investigating a term long used by activists but with a lower cultural profile — "calling in." She defined it this way: "For me, calling in is a callout done with love. You're actually holding people accountable. But you're doing so through the lens of love. ”

“The culture of callouts took her back to the 1960s, when the FBI, through its notorious COINTELPRO program, infiltrated leftist organizations and sought to destabilize them by, among other things, spreading gossip and lies. The goal, she said, was "to try to splinter us apart, to make us turn on each other. So the calling-out tendency has been there as long as I've been conscious..." ”

“When fighting for justice and change, how do you bring others along those who are not there yet, and those who are actively complicit? In the movement to end oppression, is there space for imperfect allies? How imperfect is too imperfect? Do people who are part of a problem have a place in the search for solutions?”

“in a few words, it had planted a doubt about the center's theory of change. Its mission was a world without rape, and its daily work was to support women at the personal and policy levels. But now the letter prompted a question that Ross felt hadn't been considered: "You could bandage women up all you want to, but if you don't stop men from raping, what's the point? Better bandages?" ”

“...her mother found the language to connect the struggle of a Palestinian immigrant who was once homophobic to the struggle of a Latino politician who is gay. "My mom says, 'Look, this is a country where we all get to live here." In that sentence of revelation was the dream Sarsour kept chasing that instead of the movement for progress turning people away, it drew them in... ”

“Sarsour didn't know that her mother had evolved on the issue, she told me, that she had ended up in "a whole other place." She had grown in the shade. She had allowed her mind to be changed, as millions had in recent years on the question of homosexuality.”

“...she remembers telling the student, "I'm not asking you to give up anything about yourself. I just want you to know that you have to figure out how to exist with my story." Sometimes Sarsour worried that many of her allies in the progressive movement had grown too comfortable writing off people they needed, and could win over, for their cause to succeed.”

“I tell people all the time, 'I just want you to give me a chance. Let me share with you who I am, where I come from. And I will guarantee you there will be disagreements. But the question for you is not whether you disagree with me. It's whether you think that I'm a threat to your humanity. And that's the question I want you to answer.' ”

“And I said to him, 'What's up? I heard word on the street was you were coming to protest me. What happened?' And it was really profound. You know what he said to me? He said, 'Listen, I started listening to you, and I made a decision to give you a chance.' "That's it," she said. "That's all he said. And I thought it was one of the most profound things I've ever heard. That's all I want from people.”

“She remained committed to her theory of change: the building up of the power of her own community as a means of ushering in progress. Yet a part of Sarsour continued to reach for those moments when it felt possible not to overwhelm the forces opposed to the future she sought but rather to invite them into it.”

“Yes, it was not her duty to change these white women. Yes, she shouldn't have to persuade them not to erase the work of women of color and instead center those women. But she did make that effort: the work of coalition building required it.”

“"The deeper philosophy among people of color and I won't say every person of color, but the majority of people of color, particularly those that are activists and organizers—is that we understand our history," Sarsour told me. "We are very connected to movement history, and we believe that what we do is a continuation of something that came before us. I don't think white people have that same philosophy." ”

“If, on the other hand, you were willing to make a distinction between those truly bent on keeping you down (MAGA diehards) and those who shared some of your commitments while diverging with you on other things (liberal white women), you might be able to form an alliance with these latter folk, these imperfect allies. And that might give you something closer to a mass movement.”

“It was possible to feel... that the benefits of a broader mass mobilization were not justified by the costs of having your issues melt into the sea.
But there was an opposite risk, too. Activists... could stay pure, keep out of those corrupting coalitions, and end up righteously alone.”

“I think we all have appointments to keep, appointments with others to be sure, but most of all, appointments with the meaning of our journey ... And many people, I have noticed, do not show up for their appointments.”

“The task that each of us is to address is different, although collectively we may call the task individuation, the summons to individual personhood. Our gift to the world will be that separate piece we bring to the whole, but how difficult that assignment often proves.”

“Accepting the possibility of exile is also accepting the possibility of homecoming... consider the following stages of our common developmental journey: call, exile, and homecoming.”