Fw: Peters / The Class Divide / Oct 25

["Jack Tobin" <jacktobin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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up the revolution !

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Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 9:00 PM
Subject: Peters / The Class Divide / Oct 25


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> ==================================
>
> ZNet Commentary
> The Class Divide October 25, 2003
> By Cynthia Peters
>
> In her book, Bridging the Class Divide, Linda Stout mentions an incident
when low-income activists created a brochure that included the quote,
"Something has got to be wrong when the government spends so much money on
the military and nothing on me!" Somewhere in the production process, the
quote was "corrected" to read, "I don't understand why the government spends
so much money on the military and nothing on me." When the creators of the
brochure saw the change, they were angry: "What do you mean we don't
understand? Of course we understand! Do you think we're stupid or
something?" (p. 119).
>
> When middle-class activists approach organizing with the assumption that
they need to enlighten and educate the duped and the unaware, they may be
contributing to the class divide that exists in current social change
movements.
>
> As David Croteau, an academic from a working-class background, argues in
Politics and the Class Divide, "Workers are aware of the existence of
significant social and political problems and issues." But social movement
activists do not "fully recognize this awareness on the part of workers" (p.
151). He quotes an activist as saying, "If you're really gonna understand
[the issues], you've got to read a lot of alternative sources." In his
excellent study of "working people and the middle-class left," Croteau shows
that "this is not necessarily true. Workers have a good grasp of major issue
areas and recognize the need for change in the political sphere" (p. 152).
>
> Linda Stout, one of the founders of the Piedmont Peace Project, a
grassroots organization based in low-income communities in North Carolina,
describes middle class organizers going door-to-door with her as being
"surprised to discover that folks in our area paid close attention to
national issues. When we asked them what they thought was the biggest issue
facing our country today, many of these low-income folks said that military
spending and government waste were the cause of our local problems. We
didn't have to explain the connection to them. They had already made the
link, while many middle-class people miss those connections" (pp. 108-109).
>
> What makes someone middle class? The term refers not just to income, but
to the level of decisionmaking power a person enjoys in his or her work,
which brings with it the reward of a certain amount of power, privilege, and
perks in society. A better term for "middle class" may be "coordinator
class" (see the work of Michael Albert). Stout and Croteau use "middle
class," however, and so for the purposes of this commentary, I will too.
>
> Authored by progressives from working-class backgrounds, both of these
excellent books help illuminate the class divide that is typical in today's
social change movements.
>
> What else, besides middle-class people assuming that working-class people
"don't understand," contributes to the class divide?
>
> Trying to build on disillusionment and despair
>
> When David Croteau interviewed middle-class peace and justice activists,
he found that "the shock that activists felt at `discovering' injustice
served as a strong catalyst for action" (p. 54). Many of these activists
naturally assume that others will find the same shock and subsequent
disillusionment and anger to be motivating as well. But the working people
that Croteau talked to had never "bought the `bill of goods' about democracy
that was being sold to them by teachers, politicians, and the media." Rather
than being motivated by injustice, working people respond to it with a
"weary fatalism" (p. 55), says Croteau.
>
> Focusing on knowledge rather than action
>
> Perhaps hoping to replicate in others their own experience of discovering
injustice, middle-class activists focus too much on education. Linda Stout
says, "Many groups give educational programs without any actions assigned,
believing that knowledge about a particular issue is enough to make people
work for change. But I believe that if folks leave a program without
understanding what to do with the knowledge they have gained, they
frequently feel even more disempowered" (p. 138).
>
> Meanwhile, David Croteau argues, setting up educational forums to reveal
to people all the terrible injustice in the world is akin to asking people
to learn the details of horrible but fixed aspects of life -- things we have
no chance of changing, like the weather. "A lot of times I don't like the
weather," says one worker that Croteau interviewed, "but I don't wrack my
brain trying to think up a way to change it... If it's raining...I go
inside. I don't try to stop it from raining."
>
> Insufficiently valuing effectiveness
>
> Perhaps middle-class social change movements do not focus enough on what
they do manage to win and so they appear even more ineffectual than they
actually are.
>
> David Croteau asked Tom, a telephone company line worker, what might
motivate him to get involved in a social change organization. He answered,
"I suppose if I thought it would make a difference, I might. But I'd really
have to see how it would work -- how it was gonna change things. I'm not one
to go out and do things just to make myself feel better, you know. I need to
see some results. With what I know about these kinds of things, they usually
just kind of fade away. Nothing really gets changed."
>
> Linda Stout agrees that a challenge for progressives is to find ways to
show people that change is possible, that it is a realistic goal. "It is
important when reaching out to low-income folks, or anyone else for that
matter, that meetings be about accomplishing something. It is important to
give people an `action' assignment in every meeting. Low-income people
especially need to see concretely that they are making a difference before
they will believe it" (p. 138).
>
> Settling for the "good fight" as opposed to winning
>
> It may not be obvious to many middle-class activists to be this
goal-oriented since, as David Croteau discovered, for many of them, their
political work offers intrinsic rewards. They say that activism is
"fulfilling," "interesting," and just plain "fun" (p. 123). "To put it
bluntly, much of middle-class politics is comfortable. That is, since
participation brings its own rewards and middle-class activists generally
are not working for their own immediate interests, it often makes little
difference whether such movements are always a success for those who choose
to participate. To outsiders like the workers I interviewed, however,
continued pursuit of apparently futile efforts can seem baffling. Not
participating in social movements is similar to not voting. It is, in part,
the realization that such activities will not provide benefits" (p. 125).
>
> Stout's and Croteau's books were published in 1996 and 1995 respectively,
but the insights they yield are not reflected in how middle-class peace and
justice movements orient their activism. In this commentary, I offer only a
small portion of what middle-class activists can learn from these books. I
urge activists to buy them and study them and incorporate their lessons.
>
> People will find various ways of taking these lessons forward into their
work, but a key question to ask yourself is whether you have a way to listen
to what working-class people are saying. Many middle-class activists do not.
Or they actively block out the message because it doesn't fit with their
agenda. This is one of the ways social change movements are classist, and
therefore one of the ways we dehumanize our own movements and decrease their
chances of success.
>
> Bridging the Class Divide and Politics and the Class Divide provide
activists with a way to begin to listen to working-class voices.
>
>



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