[Oe List ...] Last Night

[John Montgomery]

Dear Friends,

 

A colleague of mine posted a blog the other day pointing out that there were
no minorities to be found in any significant numbers at the current
Republican convention. Actually, one explanation is that all those Blacks,
Latinos, Asians and youth are all there, it is just that perverse liberal
media that keeps the cameras from revealing their presence. I did see two
black men and one black woman. There was one Asian man but I really did not
see anybody obviously Hispanic. I am sure they were there.

 

Not much else needs to be said. I will be glad when our two candidates
actually debate each other. Maybe we can move beyond the cute side shows. 

 

The most telling event of the evening was both Giuliani's and Palin's
apparent ignorance about the time honored strategy of change and empowerment
represented by community organizing.  Needless to say, community organizing
is about all those people who were not present at the Republican convention
tonight. So I hope everybody had a great laugh. It's one reason; I can't and
won't vote Republican. It is the reason that tonight I made another donation
online for Obama's campaign.

 

Perhaps, a little background will help here. In the late 80s, following my
graduation from seminary, I was hired as the Executive Director of the
Institute on the Church in Urban-Industrial Society (ICUIS) in Hyde Park.
Perhaps I will come back to this work soon and talk about some of my
research, but I thought I would share a paper written by young Obama on the
subject. Maybe if Giuliani had read the paper, he wouldn't have looked so
elitist tonight.

 

http://www.edwoj.com/Alinsky/AlinskyObamaChapter1990.htm

 

During the four years I was director of ICUIS, we focused on documenting a
new trend in the traditional community organizing strategies of persons like
Saul Alinsky and the work of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). During
that time, I was able to do research on the more than 100
"congregation-based community organizing efforts" across the country and
publish several studies. In Chicago, one of the key groups facilitating such
organizing was the Gamaliel Foundation that helped organize The Developing
Communities Project and GREAT on Chicago's Southside. 

 

Obama was right in the middle of these efforts. And it is his instinct as an
organizer that makes me so interested in his candidacy. I have paraphrased
his comments more than once where he says, "What people don't get is that it
is not about me, but it is about we." 

 

That is a community organizer talking!

 

 

 

 

John C. Montgomery

monkeyltd at comcast.net

john.montgomery at acfb.org

678-468-4913 (personal)

 

Visit My Blog - Notes From the Balcony

www.monkeyltd.blogspot.com

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20080904/7b5a36a1/attachment.html