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Dissing Organizers? You’re Talking About My People!

After listening to most of Rudy Guiliani’s pit bull speech at the RNC on Wednesday night (I have to admit — it reminded me so much of the bad old days here in NYC, we had to switch away from time to time) I wasn’t sure I’d be able to listen to Palin. But, of course, she was the main event.

To my surprise, I was able to listen to nearly all of her remarks. Being a production type, I was sufficiently distracted by the bizarre screen-saver style set and the furious attempts of the producer to find a non-Caucasian face that there was less need to locate a cooking show on another channel. And, as I expected, her speech made me sputteringly angry. I yelled at the television, I got up and stomped around the room, I debated her every point. And was glad that her youngest, 5-month old Trig, wouldn’t recall being used as a prop at this hate-fest.

What stopped me in my tracks was her denigration of community organizers. Stopped me in my tracks! Set aside that much of what makes Barak Obama who he is stems from his background as an organizer. Palin’s dismissive loathing of organizers hits far closer to home for me. I have colleagues here at the Task Force who are exactly that — community organizers. Our Organizing & Training folks spend their work lives and, honestly, nearly their every waking moment organizing our community. They sleep on floors, they sign up volunteers, they make sure people are registered to vote, each of them talks to thousands and thousands of people to convince them that equality really is the way to go and, best of all, they TEACH hundreds and hundreds of people how to do all these things and more. The organizers at the Task Force leave our people in any place they’ve worked smarter and much better able to take care of themselves.

Palin said, to cheers from the floor of the hall, that community organizers have no responsibility — they answer to no one. This might have been the point when I left the room for good. She was a member of the PTA, for goodness sakes — that’s organizing a community! And I bet she took that darn seriously. The task of changing a school district, a state, the south side of Chicago, is a job that hangs on people who understand responsibility and know that they’re answering, ultimately, to each person they meet. I was on past furious to think that this arena full of voters actually believed that people like my comrades here at the Task Force are simply wandering the streets with clipboards in their hands, not doing anything in particular.

There have been any number of things in this election year that have made me shout at the television or crumple up the front section of the New York Times in disgust. There’ll be more — I’m sure of it. But this hit me right where I live — and work.