Heroes and Heroines of Community Organizing
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"It is local community organizers that have struggled to āmake a way out of no way' for the besieged poor."
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used their convention podiums to heap scorn on "community organizing" as a less than worthy vocation - a job without "responsibilities." In fact, it is the community organizer who fights to stabilize America's cities, to stem the chaos deliberately induced by the rich in order to steal poor people's neighborhoods. In New York City, it is the community organizers of the Harlem Tenants Council and the Movement for Justice in El Barrio that resist displacement of the poor and working class by the forces of gentrification. In New Orleans, it is local community organizers and activists of good will from elsewhere that have struggled to "make a way out of no way" for the besieged poor of that city, half of whom have not been allowed to return home.
In this age of Disaster Capitalism, it is the rich that sow the seeds of ethnic cleansing in the heart of urban America, while community organizers attempt to put out the fires that would destroy the souls of the cities. Community organizers are the "responsible parties" in this battle between people and profits; Giuliani and Palin serve the forces of community destruction, family dislocation, and cultural theft.
"Community organizers are the āresponsible parties' in this battle between people and profits."
The symbolic boulevard of Black America, Harlem's 125th Street corridor, is slated for a massive makeover that would bring in thousands of new gentry, pricing out the current residents. From the West, Columbia University, which regards its non-white neighbors as infestations, seeks to gobble up more of Harlem. In the East, sometimes called Spanish Harlem, a multi-national real estate outfit called Dawnay Day has bought up scores of apartment buildings in a scheme that can only be profitable if the developers succeed in evicting most of the current tenants. The Movement for Justice in El Barrio plans to go to London to confront these neighborhood assassins at their corporate headquarters.
Rudolph Giuliani and Sarah Palin have some nerve to talk about "responsibility." These are politicians that front for the economic criminals who brought us the global price bubble and credit crunch - the same villains that have pushed hundreds of millions to the brink of starvation and heat our atmosphere to the point of no return. The Lords of Capital have corrupted the political classes.
What good does it do to have Black Harlem congressman Charles Rangel as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, when he conspires to find every nefarious way and duplicitous means to help drive his own constituents from house and home?
And what good did it do New Orleans, three years ago, to have a Black former Republican mayor to preside over the monstrous, post-hurricane assault on that city's African American population?
The real heroes and heroines of the Black resistance to the Lords of Capital and their political servants, are the same as they have always been: the grassroots organizers who stand with the people. Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Fannie Lou Hamer were community organizers. Parasites like Giuliani and Palin have no right to breath the same air as such giants.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
This weekās featured author is El Jones. Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University, where she was named theā¦
White supremacy should not be identified solely with self-proclaimed white nationalists. It is a centuries old, international, economic, and political system that cannot be eradicated withā¦
Dr. Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad is a Somali Kenyan and Kenyan citizen. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Horn of Africa Studies and a specialist in political science, conflictā¦
Glen Ford spoke at a May 10, 2014 Ukraine teach-in sponsored by the International Action Center in the wake of the U.S. backed coup. His words were prescient and explain U.S. actionsā¦
Ukraine is a challenge to those who claim to be on the left. War propaganda tells us to support U.S. imperialism, but even cursory knowledge of the facts shows that the U.S. and its allies provokedā¦
