Marie G. Sandy
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
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Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
ions are not going to get feet marching. You must name who is responsible for [the problem] or those who are will slither out of reach with bromides like, “There is enough blame to go around.” —Nicholas von Hoffman, Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinsky Targeting individuals prevents the real decision makers from hiding behind the protective walls of institutions. Any campaign can have multiple targets, and it is a sign of sophistication if we can manage such a scene. If a group is looking for a vote from its city council, for example, it should target each individual member. We would not treat the entire city council as a single target because each person has different attitudes, constituencies, and interests that we need to take into account in designing tactics. —Rinku Sen, Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy In most cases it is best to target a single person rather than a group or institution. You want to generate enough outrage among your members to keep them engaged in a long-term campaign. And it’s easier to get pissed off at an individual. It’s hard to get mad at the state legislature or the city council, for example. They are too abstract and undefined. It is easier to generate outrage at the council president who is unjustly blocking your important legislation. “President Johnson doesn’t care about people suffering from addiction in our city!”
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
During the first half of the twentieth century, American culture was often grounded in tight-knit ethnic and religious groups, with many associated clubs and organizations. Cities in the United States were rich in community. It was in this context that Saul Alinsky developed his strategy of organizing existing organizations. He searched out respected “native leaders” whose opinions and directions others were willing to follow. The core challenge Alinsky faced during these early years was the history of conflict between these groups, and much of his work involved breaking down barriers of suspicion enough to allow community networks and institutions to come together to address common challenges.
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
In the previous chapter we discussed how organizers figure out what to fight for by “cutting an issue.” This chapter is about the next step: how to fight for the issues you cut.
Archive | 2015
Zeno Franco; Mark Flower; Jeff Whittle; Marie G. Sandy
Ethical considerations in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) projects focused on health often receive short shrift. Trainees from allied health professions entering community settings can encounter a range of ethical problems. These situations require careful negotiation of both professional standards and community priorities. To illustrate the specific problems and differences in worldview that can occur, this chapter explores a CBPR project undertaken by community partners at a veteran serving nonprofit organization, faculty from a Veterans Affairs hospital, and a clinical psychology postdoctoral fellow at a civilian hospital. The academic healthcare partners typically favored deontological or rule/consequence-bound ethical decision making when issues arose. In contrast, the community partner often expressed favor for a more aspirational view of health service delivery, noting that veterans often “fall through the cracks” because health systems sometimes rely on rules at the expense of optimal individual outcomes. Several specific ethical challenges encountered by the partnership are offered as a case study to illustrate the depth of differences in ethical stance between the partners. Ultimately, formally articulating the community partner’s views using “virtue ethics” as a framework assisted all parties to better communicate and negotiate differences about what constitutes best actions in community-based veteran outreach services. Considerations for supervising early career allied health professionals in complex CBPR projects are examined in the discussion.
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
What is “power”? Who has it? How do you get it? These are central questions for community organizing because the central goal of community organizing is the generation of power.
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
We live surrounded by “problems”: racism, drug addiction, pollution, joblessness, failing schools, and more.
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
We call this a history of “collective action” not “community organizing” because we include a range of the movements and even some community development efforts that we distinguished from organizing in the previous chapter. A history that attempted to limit itself more narrowly would miss many of the rich ways the organizing tradition has been deeply intertwined with these other social transformation strategies. In fact, the history of collective action in America has been one of constant cross-fertilization and debate.
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
The billboard quoted above is a classic example of a common strategy used by those in power to confuse and control ordinary people. In actual fact, the bank doesn’t care about individual clients. If you don’t live up to your responsibilities to a bank you will find this out quite quickly, regardless of how nice the tellers and mortgage brokers have been in the past.
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
Saul Alinsky was not the first community organizer. Far from it. Organizers have existed in myriad forms since the very beginnings of human civilization. Alinsky was, however, the first person in America to fully conceptualize organizing as an approach separate from labor organizing. In Alinsky’s hands, community organizing became a coherent field of action and “community organizer” became a job description. His books, Reveille for Radicals in 1946 and then Rules for Radicals in 1971, became the central texts on collective action for the organizers that followed him. Today, nearly all community organizing groups in the United States are deeply influenced by his vision.1
Archive | 2011
Aaron Schutz; Marie G. Sandy
Low-income communities and communities of color can gain power to make lasting change through community organizing, but it will only happen if people feel that they are acting on their own felt problems. This book is designed to introduce people to the craft of community organizing, and to help insure that, while community organizing has had a rich and varied tradition in the United States, we continue to sustain it as a vibrant living practice today. We hope that more people will choose to get involved in existing organizing groups or start their own.