Many members of the nonprofit community went to bed a little angry and a litte hurt last night after their work and life’s calling became an object of ridicule at the Republican National Convention. "He worked as a community organizer. . . . What?" said former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani with a chuckle during an attack on the experience and credentials of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. Giulani’s comments drew an extended round of derisive laugher from the convention delegates. It was a theme which Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin would continue when she described her role as small town mayor as being “sorta like a community organizer – except with real, actual responsibilities.”
“It was despicable,” said Terry Misrahi, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Community Organizing, Planning and Development Program at Hunter College School of Social Work. “Not only don’t they understand what community organizers do but they obviously don’t respect them.”
“Fundamentally, community organizing is a strategy where regular citizens come together to make their communities stronger,” said Richard R. Buery, Jr., Executive Director of Groundwork, Inc., a community-based organization which now provides a wide range of after-school, youth development, employment training and family services in the in East New York section of Brooklyn. “Community organizing is the Montgomery bus boycott, the march on Selma and 3000 Nehemiah homes in Brooklyn. Community organizers are hardworking, underpaid people who help their neighbors.”
“Settlement Houses have been doing this since their founding,” said Nancy Wackstein, Executive Director of United Neighborhood Houses. “It is democracy. It is involving people in the decisions that affect their lives.”
Several observers expressed little surprise that Giuliani would ridicule the field. “For eight years, he was trying to hold power and fight organized communities,” said Buery.
The attacks by Palin were more of a surprise, according to others, particularly given her proud claims to past experience on the PTA and as a “Hockey Mom”. “How can you celebrate that and then voice this disregard for community organizing?” asked Buery. “An effective PTA is community organizing.” Others noted that hockey leagues, like soccer and little league baseball, are only possible because community members come together to organize. “As a mayor of a small town, she should understand how difficult it is to get people organized to get anything done,” said Buery.
“It is particularly hypocritical because so many of the people they are attacking on the one hand are the very armies of faith based compassion they are lauding on the other,” said Joel Berg, Executive Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.
“Community organizers are essential partners within the faith community,” said Rev. Joel A. Gibson, Director of Faith Based Services at Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. “They help unite people of different religions, class, and cultures around a common purpose, and build vital relationships among churches and the social service infrastructure to help feed the hungry and house the homeless.”
“Not to understand the function and the critical role of community organizers is really not to understand people who suffer in our country,” said Rev. Terry Troia, Executive Director of Project Hospitality, which itself began a grass-roots clergy response to homelessness on Staten Island. Today, the organization serves over 10,000 separate individuals every year through soup kitchens, food pantries, a homeless shelter, permanent supportive housing, substance abuse treatment and more.
“Our staff, our VISTAs and our entry-level organizers are people who are making a fraction of what they could be earning down the street,” said Berg. “To have their legitimacy as human beings and as Americans attacked is really offensive. If a Democrat had said this, we would be equally outraged.
“It is interesting that we have now made the list of villains,” Berg added. “We have joined public employees, teachers and the media. It is a bit much.”
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