I have written before on what it means to me to be part of the nonprofit community and how excited I am to one day be a nonprofit professional, so I'll get straight to the punch:
Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani made comments last week about community organizing that offended me.
Before I go on, there's a few things you need to know:
1) In full disclosure, I am a supporter of Barack Obama. However, it is important to note that my frustration stemming from the above comments has very little to do with politics, and everything to do with the complete misrepresentation of the nonprofit sector and the work my colleagues and I engage in on a daily basis.
2) I do not think that Barack Obama is the Messiah.
3) I have no ill will towards the office of mayor. The work they do is very important and I strongly believe that local elected officials have more impact on our daily lives than those good ol' boys in the District.
4) I hold firmly to the belief that the foundations of democracy are disagreement, dissent, and discourse. Please consider this post a living and breathing dialog, not a manifesto.
Alright, down to business. In the days following Palin's comment, I posted a Facebook status that read something like, "Sam has a thought for the day: Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a governor." It wasn't original, but it struck a deep enough chord with me to repeat it. The status also garnered some attention - not all positive. A quick sample:
Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani made comments last week about community organizing that offended me.
Before I go on, there's a few things you need to know:
1) In full disclosure, I am a supporter of Barack Obama. However, it is important to note that my frustration stemming from the above comments has very little to do with politics, and everything to do with the complete misrepresentation of the nonprofit sector and the work my colleagues and I engage in on a daily basis.
2) I do not think that Barack Obama is the Messiah.
3) I have no ill will towards the office of mayor. The work they do is very important and I strongly believe that local elected officials have more impact on our daily lives than those good ol' boys in the District.
4) I hold firmly to the belief that the foundations of democracy are disagreement, dissent, and discourse. Please consider this post a living and breathing dialog, not a manifesto.
Alright, down to business. In the days following Palin's comment, I posted a Facebook status that read something like, "Sam has a thought for the day: Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a governor." It wasn't original, but it struck a deep enough chord with me to repeat it. The status also garnered some attention - not all positive. A quick sample:
You should not compare Jesus to either [Palin or Obama]. How absurd.
Pilate washed his hands, I'm sure both candidates do that.
As a nonprofit major, I was insulted at the comments.
Wasn't [Jesus] extremely divisive? There was that whole turning father against son thing... He was a great organizer, but he may be history's greatest divider.
I changed my status after a few hours, knowing I needed to clarify my thoughts on the subject. The next day it became obvious that this clarification needed to happen quickly. Greg Patterson over at Espresso Pundit posted his thoughts on the debacle. "Those of us who consider Jesus to be the Messiah aren't pleased to see him belittled as a mere 'community organizer.'" A mere community organizer? I sent him an email as soon as I read the post. Greg said he would be stopping by to read my thoughts. Hi, Greg.
In any case, after a few days of thinking through things and a few more conversations, I decided that two main things need clarification:
1) By reprinting the statement, I was in no way trying to making a comparison of Obama and Jesus. Instead, I felt it (effectively) highlighted the importance of the work that organizers do. I, like Greg, consider Jesus (read: not Obama) to be the Messiah, and arguably the most important man in history. Where we differ, though, is that I believe that the work that Jesus and the Dozen engaged in was community organizing. I mean, JC and the Big Twelve basically wrote the book (too good to pass up) on organizing a group of people around a cause...
2) Community organizing and voluntary action are central to our nation's history. As a voter, and as a (future) nonprofit professional, I don't want someone living at 1600 Penn who doesn't get that. If you have an issue with the whole Jesus thing, fine. But what about Susan B. Anthony, MLK, Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, or those guys who organized a group of passionate people and started our country a couple hundred years ago? Fire departments, hospitals, and financial institutions all have historically deep roots of voluntary action. The PTA, of which Governor Palin is a proud member, is a perfect example of voluntary organization. The Boy Scouts of America, one of the most tenured and respected nonprofit organizations in our country, trained and tested Senator McCain until he was worthy of the title "Eagle Scout." Both McCain and Palin are proud card-carrying members of the NRA. Wait, "members?" Like members of an organization? Weird.
The Nonprofit Quarterly printed an editoral this week highlighting their take on the whole thing, saying that Giuliani might have less than cheery thoughts on organizing because he, "[Had] plenty of opportunity to become personally acquainted with the work of the New York Immigration Coalition, Jobs With Justice, the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development... and dozens, perhaps hundreds more [organizations]."
It's disappointing that Governor Palin doesn't realize the importance of community organizing, and that if she does add another crack to the 18 million, she's only able to touch the cieling by standing on the shoulders of giants. And last time I checked, political campaigns are run purely on voluntary action and community organizers.
When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America in the mid-nineteenth century he noted that, "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens." If I were to modernize his sentiment, it would read, "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens and the ability of its civic leaders to recognize and respect that work."
In any case, after a few days of thinking through things and a few more conversations, I decided that two main things need clarification:
1) By reprinting the statement, I was in no way trying to making a comparison of Obama and Jesus. Instead, I felt it (effectively) highlighted the importance of the work that organizers do. I, like Greg, consider Jesus (read: not Obama) to be the Messiah, and arguably the most important man in history. Where we differ, though, is that I believe that the work that Jesus and the Dozen engaged in was community organizing. I mean, JC and the Big Twelve basically wrote the book (too good to pass up) on organizing a group of people around a cause...
2) Community organizing and voluntary action are central to our nation's history. As a voter, and as a (future) nonprofit professional, I don't want someone living at 1600 Penn who doesn't get that. If you have an issue with the whole Jesus thing, fine. But what about Susan B. Anthony, MLK, Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, or those guys who organized a group of passionate people and started our country a couple hundred years ago? Fire departments, hospitals, and financial institutions all have historically deep roots of voluntary action. The PTA, of which Governor Palin is a proud member, is a perfect example of voluntary organization. The Boy Scouts of America, one of the most tenured and respected nonprofit organizations in our country, trained and tested Senator McCain until he was worthy of the title "Eagle Scout." Both McCain and Palin are proud card-carrying members of the NRA. Wait, "members?" Like members of an organization? Weird.
The Nonprofit Quarterly printed an editoral this week highlighting their take on the whole thing, saying that Giuliani might have less than cheery thoughts on organizing because he, "[Had] plenty of opportunity to become personally acquainted with the work of the New York Immigration Coalition, Jobs With Justice, the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development... and dozens, perhaps hundreds more [organizations]."
It's disappointing that Governor Palin doesn't realize the importance of community organizing, and that if she does add another crack to the 18 million, she's only able to touch the cieling by standing on the shoulders of giants. And last time I checked, political campaigns are run purely on voluntary action and community organizers.
When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America in the mid-nineteenth century he noted that, "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens." If I were to modernize his sentiment, it would read, "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens and the ability of its civic leaders to recognize and respect that work."
Cheers,
Sam
"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Sam
"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."
Alexis de Tocqueville
