People first

3/10

Leaving Phoenix,  I have one last thought about our PHEWA time together.

We learned it from our colleagues in the Disabilities Concerns network. People first. It was language pedagogy at first: don’t say disabled people, deaf people, the poor, the homeless...People are nouns, not adjectives and any adjective does not define a person’s identity. We have had to stop and think until we have begun to understand. A group can refer to itself in this way as a form of community identification, as in the deaf community, but it is not to the rest of us to define people by any condition which is only one aspect of who they are. People first. Liberals have a longways to go here. People first.

But it’s more than that. It’s a commitment of practice. Those of us who have been around awhile have all experienced in one movement or campaign or organization or another the idea that people can be sacrificed for the cause. Point is, it is always soemone else who gets sacrificed. And who gets to decide? On what basis? The discourse is that personal feelings are to be set aside but in all honesty, it is usually personal feelings disguised as ideology that lead to banishments and exclusions. (Our Reformed perspective on how things work makes that pretty clear. It’s the way things are...) Too easy. Too susceptible to envy, jealousy, personal stuff that pretends to be objective. 

Organizing teaches us that it’s all about relationships. Yes, we can call each other to accountability, We are compelled to do that. But the nature of the society we seek to create is already revealed in the nature of how we conduct our struggle. Any vanguard, any leadership, that seeks to act for the masses and not with the masses has already acted in a condescending, paternalistic way that destroys community. And liberals can  be the worst offenders.  People first.

It was Che who said At the risk of sounding ridiculous, the primary motivation of any revolutionary must be love. 

Or if you prefer, Jesus who said that  you can't say you love God and hate your brother or sister. 

We have decided to claim this as one of the defining principles of our PHEWA culture. People first. The rest follows. 

At the risk of seeming ridiculous

7/27

at the Minimum Wage Rally

Marching to raise the Minimum Wage

Days don’t always go the way you think they’re going to. They can  be carefully planned, then something else happens. Tracy and Hope come in and the conversation began with my running into my old friend Father Earl at the rally for a higher Minimum Wage yesterday.  (Tracy points out a lot of her workers don’t even receive that.) How Earl’s one of those 4-5 people who if they call me and ask me to be somewhere I’ll go, no questions asked. Because I know he respects my time and commitments. And will only ask when important. Some of that comes from going to jail together. 

How Earl’s married to the daughter of my first religion professor in college. (And Hope was her babysitter.) A professor who pushed me to deconstruct the religious beliefs I’d grown up with. Introduced me to the world of Tillich, Niebuhr. In some ways set me on the course to where I am now. 

And we talk about ideology. Discipline vs. rigidity. Who gets to determine where the line gets drawn. Getting kicked out of organizations, jobs,for ideological reasons.  I remembered the communist group back at the University of Bridgeport in the early ’70’s.  My role as a chaplain of sorts. How ideology could serve as a cover for all kinds of personal agendas. As bad as the church.

I told her how in the early ’70’s all kinds of communist faction groups brought young people in to work in the steel industry, to industrialize themselves, to become one with the workers. (Props for that....much of the peace movement really had no capacity to relate to the working class, to unions...) Then when the steel industry collapsed, parties began to pull people out, wanted to redeploy.   But some stayed. Those who stayed had truly come to love the city, the community. Had developed personal relationships. And it was the community that now held their allegiance, not a party or ideology. And so they took on all kinds of various roles, different jobs, still committed to economic justice.And over the years, they have made a difference. 

We have to be flexible, I tell Tracy. No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, as Alinsky said. Relationships. And as Che said,  At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.  

When vanguard groups start to lose touch with the people, when they act for, instead of with, great danger can follow. 

It’s been a good talk. 

RL comes in to talk about his office/studio. Karen has been playing her music in the sanctuary. She has some theological questions. I need to open some space to talk with Martin.

He’s run into some issues at the studio he’s lined up. Needs to make a quick arrangement to get ready for Noche’s fall performances. Time is short. Can we make a deal? This will tae some work.