NORTHERN LIGHTS - Staying Positive and Building Power is the Organizers Job

Written by John Anderson

Negativity is a destructive force that needs to be weeded out like chickweed in a garden. It’s best to be on top of it, doing the continual maintenance to keep it in check — if you don’t, what you don’t want, will flourish.

Positivity, on the other hand — not to be confused with being naive or bubbly — needs to be nourished, or it will be overtaken. Mastering the duality of maintaining positivity and eliminating negativity from your group is a key organizing skill to hone.

In dutiful service, I found myself south of the border doing field training in Trumpland. A new organizer had a first-day strategy that was refreshing: assume the sale. New organizers often talk a good game in the office — many at great length — but it’s walking and talking in the neighborhoods that matters. This new organizer instantly backed up the talk inside the first door we got into. After a very quick and raw conversation about piss poor housing conditions, our new organizer ad-libbed her rap with a straight-faced, “Let me get you signed up right now, just need your bank and routing number on this card right here.” Assuming the sale got her six new members in the three days I was there.

There was also natural ability and substance going into her rap and approach — intuitive knowledge about the community helped — but the out-front positivity in the face of all the negativity was the driving force. The members we signed up were not wallowing in their bad situation — they were looking at a glass half full and ready to fight for more. Organizing only works when the organizers remain positive and reject the negativity.

Another general rule is that organizing against conflict is essential to maintaining positivity in your group. Avoiding conflict allows negativity to fester. A skilled organizer can resolve conflict while maintaining positivity throughout. Real pros see the problem before it arises, confront it, and deal with it before it seeds.

Sometimes, despite best efforts, negativity metastasizes in a group — when it does, you learn a lot about people.

In the music scene of my youth, we were all obsessed with not selling out. Hip hop in the 80s and 90s talked about something similar in keeping it real — both were about understanding the history of the culture, your place in it, the people who came before you, and maintaining the cultural integrity of the scene. I found similarities between those music cultures and ACORN’s organizing culture when I was younger, and it still resonates.

Confronting a difficult topic or situation often brings out true colors. It can end in weeding out the negativity and giving a group addition by subtraction. Other times, it clears up a misunderstanding and sets a person on their correct path in the organization. Organizing gives people a chance to redeem themselves, and stronger people learn from mistakes and adapt. None of this is easy, and it is not what you write home about. But if you get on top of it early and remain positive, wonders can happen, and more organizational power is built.

Reading the paper this morning, I got smacked once again with how bleak things are in the world. Canada’s Prime Minister is doubling down on the tar sands in Alberta and LNG development in northern BC in an effort to make Canada an energy superpower of the dinosaur-fossil persuasion. Trump is still at it — it never ends with this guy. ACORN members I spoke to while in the USA were getting desperate about receiving food stamps and having the heat on — the basics. I read that Trump is amassing troops in the Caribbean, preparing for a war with Venezuela.

All this darkness, and yet organizers remain positive, knowing that building power for low- and moderate-income constituencies is the most important job in the world. Working people want food on their plate, heat in their apartments, clean water, and good jobs — just to be able to raise their family. They are happy to join and would all rather fight for what is theirs than waste time feeling sorry for themselves. Across the world, ACORN is the light on the hill that proves things can be better (or at least less bad), and it’s our job as organizers to stay positive, keep the negativity at bay, and build as much power as we possibly can.

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