Why Aren't Black Women Using What They've Got to Get What They Want: Leaving Rocks on the Ground

I was reading about young disability advocates using the electoral process to press to advance their cause:

But what is different is that this new generation of the disabled has experienced, and expects, accommodation and accessibility as a matter of course — and it has stepped up its organizing efforts, particularly within the Democratic Party, to make sure those rights are protected and even expanded. SOURCE

Imagine that, using the electoral process to get concessions out of politicians that you can cash in once they are elected. Imagine that, pressing your issues within the party to gain influence and advanced the issues that are specifically of interest to you. During the election year, politicians are doing the asking. Once they get elected the roles are reversed.

So I've been pointing out that this election cycle, where Black women apparently are going to play a pivotal role, it would be a good time to press politicians on issues of interest to us. Your issue might not be violence against women and children. Maybe it is breast cancer and diabetes. Whatever.

So I posted a computer generated response a certain candidate's office issued after a WAOD reader emailed him about Dunbar Village. I actually would have rather the candidate's office claimed to have never gotten the email. What was the response from those who decided to comment? Well, people said "oh well it is better than nothing" or came up with some excuse for why it is okay for them to ignore Black women and children. Not just on the issue of crime and violence, but on EVERY ISSUE. I don't care what candidates did five years ago. My question is what are they doing today and what do they plan to do in the future.

Some people are scared to be empowered and proud and think that they are being too demanding to come out and ask for what they want. Black woman have ridiculous amounts of power. We are a huge voting block, lead the majority of the households and control the majority of the wealth. So explain to me how we end up being the most ignored?



We may be taking on Goliath, but the Universe has given us a sling shot and some rocks. We just keep leaving the rocks lying on the ground.

Comments

[SheCodes]

You have a point here, Gina. I am juust old enough to remember the debates about making all public buildings 'handicapped accessible' as they used to say.

People were horrified when the subject first came up. They talked about how impossible the costs would be -- and how it was pure childish dreaming to believe that it was possible to retrofit tens of thousands of buildings for wheelchairs... and how improper it would be to divert those funds for a relatively small percentage of the population, even if they could, etc.

Well, accessibility advocates would not be silenced. The law was changed, and today, you can't build or renovate most buildings without serious government inspections to make sure that the building is 'accessible'.

The difference is, the disabled believed in their cause to the core, and didn't have people in wheelchairs telling them to shut up and be quiet when they complained. The split between them and the opposition was clearly defined.

The same is not true for us, because many black women have adopted a fatalistic approach and honestly do not believe that our reality can be changed. They have accepted injustice and sexual oppression as the price of being born black and female.

Some believe this to such an extent, that they embrace the oppression and try to make lemons out of lemonade by selling themselves into it and becoming abettors to subjegation and degradation.

This is why I'm searching for a new term to define black women who want to work toward empowerment and change; because the reality is... not all of us want it.

[Aaron & Alaine]

Why are black women, a powerful voting block, not getting what they want? For pretty much the same reasons that blacks across the country are time and again losing out on the critical issues facing our communities. We have a crisis of leadership. We seem to have largely forgotten how to organize around strategic objectives and marshal our people and organizational resources.

I work in community development and I see this repeated again and again. Community organizations pathetically weak in their organizational skills. Operating without strategic plans, poor board leadership, unable to run even a simple meeting with a coherent agenda. Black leadership in our communities is simply very poor, from the national organizations right down to local grassroots organizations. I imagine that if your were to survey the landscape of black organizations in your vicinity and examine organizations of women, men or both, you'll find that their goals are not particularly strategic, organizational structure, competence and execution are weak and there is very little vision or understanding of where the organization fits into the large scheme of things. The effects of this malaise of leadership skills in the black community is part and parcel of the problem you highlight, mainly how people with so much power and influence manage to exercise so little of it in their own self interest.

[SheCodes]

Aaron,

I have worked in community service and I have to wholeheartedly agree with you.

To add to your point, I have seen a several people who actually did have the organizational skills to make things happen, but they were quickly de-toothed by people who were already in leadership who wanted to keep their positions. Or lost their zeal by constant bickering and second guessing concerning strategy.

I have seen a few churches do a fairly decent job at organizing, but it's usually with an extremely charismatic leader with a host of women organizers directly beneath him. Once he's out of the picture, the program degenerates into bedlam.

[Aaron & Alaine]

The decline of black neighborhoods has often resulted in the church being the last institution left standing. But the church is as subject to this leadership crisis as are the other institutions.

I am persuaded by Gina's general proposition that black women are a major voting block, control vast financial resources and ought to be able to command greater attention from the political class than they do, but that does not appear to be the case. Why? Because black women are not ORGANIZED to press a common agenda. Talk about leaving rocks on the ground. We have potential that we don't even tap. Among black women, lets start with the major black greek letter organizations. Why is there no shared political agenda amongst that group? Same for the men too. Organized communities and constituencies are the ones that get responded too. It is not enough to complain, or to be loud or to apply pressure for a moment. You must identify your goals, establish your strategy and apply organized pressure over time. This requires organization and leadership and black organizations fail this test again and again and again.

Its like somewhere between the end of the civil rights movement and today, we lost all our organizational and leadership skills. We had them. Montgomery, the freedom riders, the NAACP's multi-year legal strategy to challenge segregation, all of that required tremendous strategic leadership over time. Somehow we got stuck in the tactics of an era long gone and failed to learn the leadership skills for the 21st century and we are paying the price.

[iman]

I think the key difference is outrage. For some reason, there's no outrage in the black community. We've come to accept things as our lot in life and have internalized our problems to an extent where we don't believe we deserve more. When you have the media constantly trivalizing racism by using terms such as "the race card", you create a society where people begin to by into this illusion that we are actually all treated equally.

I believe the apathy amoung some black woman is just part of this larger problem. Just the idea that we have this power is hard for so many woman to believe because everyday were told the exact opposite. Sites like yours and some of your blogging buddy's help address that - providing the outrage and example in harnessing our power.

[Miriam]

I agree also with the lack of leadership. But that lack is also stemming from disunity.

(1) I suspect many in the BC don't want to be "under" another black person. I may be wrong. (hate of self)

(2) Also, we are not a monolith -as people have said so many times. But that does not preclude unity and leadership.

Having leaders at different levels with better organization (even if it means modeling after say the disabled's path as Gina pointed out) can help.

Some people get turned off at hearing a BP with a PhD talking as if he's "white". Thus even if they have knowledge, its rejected by a group.

Whereas, appointing a basketball player as the unofficial leader and spokesperson may appeal to some but gets rejected by others.

But if we can see that each level or each group within the BC needs what they need... if we can see that and not shake our heads ,but instead try to work with that leader, maybe ....maybe...

[Aaron & Alaine]

I don't think we lack for outrage. There is outrage breaking out every day over one thing or another. Several blogs are talking about black people being tasered lately for example. The problem is not outrage, we have that to spare, look at the Jena and Justice dept. protests. The problem is, thats all our game is. 20,000 people in Jena and I'll bet you 10 dollars that none of the so called national organizations involved got names, numbers, email or addresses from those people so that they could be mobilized, so you could raise money, so you could enlist them on other issues. Nobody is following up with them, nor harnessing all those people to apply organized pressure on the day to day details that make up the fabric of policies that affect us.

Barack doesn't get much credit around here, but we could take a page from his book in SC. Community organizing is in his background and it showed with the Oprah events. They collected contact info for 66,000 people and his team was calling everyone the next day. The event was the sizzle but their groundwork is the steak and too many of our organizations just don't do it.

The march is sexy, but the work nobody is doing. I applaud Symphony and others trying to organize the people in Dunbar Village. Thats the real deal, but its not sexy, it will take a long time and it will be damn difficult. But those people won't be able to achieve a transformation of their situation without becoming organized in their own self interest. Thats a leadership issue. Someone has to take the lead and some people gotta follow. And we have to learn to work together across organizational lines and combine our resources. We have got to become committed to organizational competence. Because organized communities get results. Disorganized ones get jack.

[iman]

I agree w/ you aaron, but I think it goes much deeper than that. I’ve worked in community organizing for a number of years and I can tell you first hand that when people don’t have the outrage they don’t get mobilized. Community organizing has become so professionalized that the actual activism that you would see in the 70’s is toned down to the point where the results trickle in and the momentum is almost non existent. You say you work in community development, so you should know first hand how not only are so many organizations completely dysfunctional, but also how so many of them extremely financially irresponsible, almost to the point of misconduct (especially the larger, national organizations).

Outrage, doesn’t mean that everyone needs to necessarily be marching on the street. Its understanding that something is terribly wrong in your community and you have a RIGHT to live a better life. So many people feel as though they don’t have the right to the things they deserve. Hence, they don’t hold public officials accountable, they don’t hold the “organizations” that represent/serve them accountable, and they don’t hold themselves and their neighbors accountable for improving things. We need to be doing all three.

As someone else said on this post, the black community is not a monolith and no one leader is going to bring us to the promise land. But I believe there are some things we all want regardless of what walk of life we come from – freedom, safety, good lives for our children & families, equality etc. These things are all being threatened. And although the stakes may not seem as high as they were in the civil rights era, the stakes are high and we ought to be just as outraged.

[SheCodes]

While I did not support the Jena 6 march for several moral and idealogical reasons, it's my understanding that Color of Change (the grassroots organization) does have a rather extensive network and following.

It's also duly noted that their reputation and credibility came under an undeserved attack by another black 'would be' leader.

I think that Miriam is right on the money -- a lot of qualified folk who are talking the talk of genuine change are summarily rejected by the masses, and ridiculed by black mis-leaders.

So the lack of leadership is not due to the lack of qualified leaders. They exist. I have seen them. It's due to a social dynamic that rejects anyone who will not tease the ears, placate the conscience, and promote image over substance.

[SheCodes]

I cosign with Iman,

I have witnessed enough financial mismanagement to last me a lifetime. While financial incompetence is not exclusively a black trait, I have noticed that many of our organizations have extreme difficulty creating and executing a budget.

Perhaps that's an area that needs to have particular attention paid to it -- for example, all of the organizations that I am involved with have lawyers on the board of directors. Perhaps community organizations should reach out and find MBA's and CPA's to lend a hand.

[Mes Deux Cents]

Hi All,

I think a big problem is that Black women are lumped into one group. Just as Black people are not monolithic Black women are not monolithic either.

In order to organize an effective lobby, first you have to know who the lobby will represent.

Will it represent African American soccer moms, single professional Black women, Middle class or poor Black women? All of these demographics have different concerns.

First we must have organization amongst the different groups of Black women. Then we can better tell candidates what we require in order for them to get our vote.

[rjweems]

I'm a day late on this topic, but it's one I think a lot about.

We snarl at the Sharptons, Jacksons, Dysons, Smileys, etc., and rightly so, for being the media hounds that they are. But we could benefit from taking a page (one page!!) from the books of these self-anointed leaders.

I think that for all our outrage women remain modest, too modest, about jumping out there, taking the lead, pushing our ideas, leading movements, gathering troops, calling attention to ourselves, and taking credit for our work -- on a regular basis.

How many times have I teased Gina about saying that she has/had no intention of starting a movement and not wanting to be out front!

Besides commitment and persistence, it takes a lot of ego to fight for your right to something.

[Miriam]

two good points were made that I just want to highlight:

(1) rjweems said: it takes a lot of ego to fight for your right to something.

I think one consequence of this country's ways is that folks are reluctant to bring in religion or spirituality into a picture.

However my experience is that BF ARE a spiritual group. As athiest as some may be, as different religion-wise that they may be-- I truly believe based on what i've seen, heard, read, etc that BF are a spiritual bunch.

That said, I think its hard to root out a motive for a behavior if all possibilities are not looked at.

In Israel, I hear a lot of teachers that have to coax the very young and the very pious-wanna bes that "you must use you evil inclination as well to do good" i.e. there is a purpose for your ego, your anger, your selfishness, etc. The trick is not to snuff it out, but to use it for good.

Sometimes I wonder if the BF would be more motivated if a reason like this -a reason that could be more closer to their essence is said rather than political talk or talk of power.

(2) from my blog someone said, "These days many BP seem not to care... and some appear to be happy with the way things are

Now I know she didn't mean happy --but content. Content enough to moan at the hard parts and wait it out. This is probably why the organizational skills seem to be lacking in many committees.

just wanted to highlight those parts in the hopes that whatever potential leader should arise, that the whole picture should be absorbed.

[Aaron & Alaine]

@Shecodes

Regarding Colour of Change - the problem I have with them is that they are in the same mode as the NAACP and other old line civil rights organizations. They only address what they perceive as injustices done to blacks by whites and many of their individual campaigns I find to be very superficial and lacking in impact or strategic analysis.

They haven't said word boo about Dunbar Village either. So like the rest of the Civil Rights Industrial Complex, they are only concerned with accountability when it comes to other folk, but not within our community. We have more power over what happens to us than those outside of our community. The outer focus saps energy that ought to be devoted to the inner battle where victories would produce exponentially more powerful results.