I sometimes suspect that some progressives see President Obama’s decision to leave community organizing for Harvard Law as validation of policy and legal approaches to tackling injustice over movement-building. But Obama’s career trajectory is actually a case in point for why the Left can’t be led primarily by progressives with middle-class backgrounds and elite educations, even if they’re genuinely concerned with social justice. Organizing is hard work, and it takes a long time. It can’t be done by people who have the option of leaving for greener pastures; it has to be done by people who are embedded within and committed to the communities they’re organizing for the long run.
Because one thing is for sure: a movement consisting of middle-class supporters with a vague commitment to social justice will not succeed in addressing the root causes of its decline on its own, and it will certainly not succeed in addressing -- or perhaps even in identifying -- the issues that plague the poor and working class. As Vivien Labaton and Gara Lamarche of the Atlantic Philanthropies argue in the American Prospect, "Too often, debates unfold without the voices of those most affected informing them. To win the message wars and, more important, to make the strongest case possible for change, we need to put those voices front and center.”
Figuring out how to do this -- how to expand leadership and build a new type of movement that can not only lend power to progressive politics but help form and shape it -- is perhaps the most important challenge facing the American Left today.
Alyssa Battistoni is a writer and graduate student in geography and environment at Oxford University. This article originally appeared on AlterNet.org
Great opinion piece.
This is a large part of the reason why the "progressive¨ movement is perceived by the working class as irrelevant.
It's a movement built on a lie, and the lie is this - most progressives themselves are privileged, and are thus beneficiaries of the status quo. They are not credible change agents.
There are a number of corollaries-
* Progressives are cool with agitating for revolution in other parts of the globe - after all, they're privileged, and they know better than Iranians what is best for Iran. But they will only advocate for reform in their own country, never revolution.
* Progressives are concerned about the welfare of people who due to issues of wealth and class will never be able to live in the same neighborhood with them.If such people did move into their neighborhood, the progressives would likely leave.
* Progressives are totally engrossed in the world of blather surrounding electoral politics. They don't want to hear that both parties serve the elite. They ARE part of the elite."
* Progressives still think that the cops are their friends. And they are right, since progressives are typically "haves" who need protection from "have nots."
* Progressives are always ready to piously advocate non-violence to people who are fighting for their survival.
* Progressives are, ultimately, just a feature on the landscape of the establishment.