# Stakeholders in democratic movements and organizations.

# Stakeholders in democratic movements and organizations. As we work to be inclusive in our organizations and campaigns, we've got plenty of participation issues to resolve.

For instance, even if there were one single best way to measure interest, it would still take a major effort to make sure those most affected have the biggest voice in the outcome. This is especially critical for gringos like myself who are relatively insulated from the worst sexist, racist, and capitalist violence. There are many problems that concern me but touch others much more immediately. It makes sense for me to pay great attention to those folks' take on the issue, because being nearer to it they are likely (though not guaranteed) to have both greater knowledge and motivation than I; they certainly have a greater knowledge of the consequences to themselves of choosing one or another course of action. But they are not always in a position to take action.

That's because even though a particular group might be the most affected by Problem X, that does not mean that Problem X is at the top of their list of concerns. Group A may have a whole host of more serious or immediate problems, so that they won't get around to ProblemX any time soon. Or at least not on the policy level. I know so much of my own life is taken up with patching together short-term personal solutions I rarely push much on government policy. Other folks are in the same position. For instance, t's hard for sick people to fight for better health care policies, or kids tossed away by the educational systemto advocate for better schools and parenting. Companies dump toxic wastes into many city neighborhoods, but the risk of cancer is not the only violence we face. If climate change trends continue, the Indian Ocean will flood the homes of tens of millions of Bangladeshis within a couple generations; but many are rightly more concerned with getting enough to eat today.

Meanwhile, less desperate but also worried folks may not want to wait for the most affected group to engage. This dynamic comes up regularly among gringos in the serious or token discussions about how to involve people of color in "our" issues. That the least privileged groups are overwhelmed with a host of problems is not the only reason why it's so difficult for single-issue groups which start out all white (or all middle class, or exclusive in other ways) find it very difficult to diversify, but it's one of them.

Then too we have to keep in mind the fact that the folks put most at risk by certain policies are usually those who risk the greatest retaliation for political action. People who can lose their lives and livelihoods through corporate and political corruption can also get fired, beat up, jailed or killed for speaking out. This means that those of us in safer circumstances have a responsibility to help out. Hence the Jobs with Justice community campaigns during unionization drives, for example, or the appeal by many rights movements to broader public opinion and intervention.

Speaking out when other folks can’t is an important role for the less affected / safer allies to play. Even more important is sharing resources so that the folks on the front lines can speak for themselves, and tackle the range of problems they face, including those of most interest to the allies.

Either way, it's notoriously hard for allies to accept for very long the leadership of those on the front lines, when the former continue to have more resources of all kinds. Further, even close allies have different interests and perspectives. I remember a colleague's comment that middle class white people are naive and careless to call for decriminalizing the other drug trade, because the mcw don't experience the devastation that drugs bring to many black neighborhoods. I feel quite sure she's wrong* , but I know her perspective is widely shared.

Another coworker remarked after a demonstration that he was tired of feeling like it wasn't OK for him, as a white professional, to speak out. It wasn't clear to me at the time whether he thought he should have a right to give his opinion, or whether he was expressing a broader frustration with having to give first place to the people who were most affected by the problem, and who had been so heavily silenced in the past.

Sometimes outside allies don't admit our own self-interest, and pretend that we're acting purely out of charity. The Revolution is so far off, we've gotten used to the idea of working for no immediate benefit (see Mansfield 9). Besides, the ideology of charity is so prevalent among my middle class that it's easy to lose sight of the understanding and practice of democratic reciprocity, of helping each other. In some ways it's easier, too, to shower benificence on the oppressed of other neighborhoods or nations, than to fight the battles in our own back yards, precisely because it's riskier to fight our own bosses.

Even so, sometimes the best way to help other communities is not to send them checks and prayers but to challenge the structures of power in our own towns and workplaces-- to pierce the belly of the beast. That's what many white activists did in the 1960s, when black leaders told them to go organize at home. It takes courage, humility and skill. A lot of the folks I met doing Central America work in the 1980s were also tackling a variety of local issues, or did so later; but some continue to focus on what happens far away.

Once in a while I see political people define their role too narrowly in other ways, based on their standing as stakeholders. As employees or consumers, as soldiers or parents or patients, as lesbians or people of color or old people, we can claim special experience, understanding, and positions of risk, that others do not have. But we should take care not to paint ourselves in a corner, as only this or that. The classic example, I think, is the way some women began to exercise political clout in the late 1800s, calling attention to a lot of important issues but limiting themselves by staking their claim based on their status as devoted wives and mothers. While winning some recognition and political changes, that strategy also reinforced the idea that women are ideally moms and haven't much purpose or credibility otherwise.

Since then women as mothers have spearheaded peace campaigns in many countries, against nuclear weapons, ethnic violence and state terrorism. In my town and scores more across the U.S. and Israel, groups like Women in Black stand against the occupation of Palestine. At least now women don't have to depend on motherhood for legitimacy.

On the other hand, we might note that the schweinerei is also adept at playing the grassroots card. Okies from Muskogee, Total Women, and by the way, where is that secret training camp that fabricates the likes of Clarence Thomas Sowell? For every Cindy Sheehan, Mom Against the War, they can produce a dozen who like it. Once I watched a bunch of pro-war moms talking about Sheehan on TV. They were in a bit of a pickle. Despite their efforts to maintain seemliness, you could see some of them really hated Sheehan. (Perhaps they didn't like the reminder that sending their own kids off to die for Halliburton is not really heroic, honorable, helpful, or meaningful in any way.) But they had to be very careful about how they criticized her. They owed their moment on national TV to their mom status, and they dared not question Sheehan's. Henry writes about the backlash to feminism:

Where do you go for help? When you get rid of one noxious behavior, another crops up behind it. Better to tolerate things as they are, the accepting majority is saying, than stir up trouble without end. Or, better yet, to negotiate quietly and hope to ameliorate the situation to some degree.
Keeping quiet is the much safer way. One can back down, but that requires justifying that action to oneself. Far easier (and less costly, personally) is criticizing, or even despising, those who do not back down, who do speak up. Disparage feminists and leaders of the womenís movement. Avoid personal confrontation or political action that could change the status quo. This approach maintains daily equilibrium and peaceful sleep at night with him (Henry 400).

In any case, while it's important for us to recognize and support dissent within front-line groups, it's neither true nor strategic to pretend these activists represent their entire communities. And the temptation to pose our sincere moms (or war vets, or school children) against brutish jihadists or CEOs --fabulous photo-ops, I know-- shouldn't mean our whole critique relies on those credentials. I write as a rich white guy, but I think this is true nevertheless.

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political moms

“Although our participants obviously want and welcome help from men, they define themselves before all else as the ‘children’s mother,’ a title they aren’t thinking about giving up. Because power and titles go hand in hand, responsibility for child rearing provides a certain amount of clout and deference within families (see Chapter 8), as well as the satisfaction that motherhood brings” (Henry 141).

" . . . [political scientist Jean] Elshtain was deeply moved by the plight in the 1980s of the 'Mothers of the Disappeared,' women who stood up to Argentina's most tyrannous government since that of Juan Perón, demanding the return of their children, most of them sons, who had been 'disappeared' because of alleged political crimes. Like the mothers striking for peace in the 1950s in America, these women were strengthened and politicized by their maternal love for their children-- not seeking to transcend their mother role" (Tobias 129).

"Women's activism on behalf of peace led too easily, it was thought, to an essentialist point of view, namely, that women are more pacific by nature than men. [Amy] Swerdlow, in whose person feminism, scholarship, and pacifism come together, admits that the women who rallied against nuclear weapons in the late 1950s 'were searching for a space in which their moral, political, and maternal stance could be translated into action.’ And it was their maternalism, she thinks, that in an era when pacifism was especially suspect made them surprisingly effective" (Tobias 172).
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Another set of perils has to do with the opportunities to manipulate categories of stakeholders. Tokenism is alive and well in many organizations-- whereby we recruit one or two folks to "represent" a great many. Sometimes these slots become links in an old-fashioned patronage network, and the appointees are both clients of the boss and gatekeepers with respect to others in their groups. Occasionally we see a particularly vicious form of tokenism, in which romantic or cynical leaders thrust one or two rank and file folks into positions of great responsibility with little training or authority. (One organization I worked with once took a woman out of the cafeteria and had her run a community workshop with little preparation.) Rather than improve recruitment and training overall, some leaders use the failures of their fake affirmative action efforts to justify turning their attentions elsewhere.

A related issue is the division of labor that often springs up in our campaigns-- professionals decide policy and strategy, while setting up rank and file folks to act as spokespersons in public. Again, it's one thing if the public role is part of training for other tasks in an organization --and if it's spread around to many people-- but quite another when it becomes no more than a false front to a group dominated by privileged people. Sometimes, in elevating one or another rank and filer to positions of prominence, and then dropping them without explanation, the behind-the-scenes decision-makers only succeed in sowing dissension and helplessness among the general membership.

We see another form of deceit when elites themselves pose as proletarian heroes. TV Rightist Bill O'Reilly lies about his supposedly impoverished background, Dartmouth grad Laura Ingraham rails against Ivy League elitists, and lots of corporate lobby groups set up phony "grassroots" organizations. Apparatchiks in Russia and China rid themselves of middle class competition by making proletarian credentials mandatory for leadership, then manufacturing such for themselves. If we cared to look, we'd also find plenty of examples on the U.S. left, e.g. privileged people masquerading as working class. It's a way to one-up colleagues in internal disputes, and also to obscure for funders a poor record of diversity. Meanwhile the rich label as "special interests" unions and grassroots groups with millions of members.

Sometimes we identify the wrong people as those who are affected most. I remember seeing Mark Shields on one of the Sunday talk shows, going on and on about how U.S. soldiers were the only people to make sacrifices in the long Iraq war. Liberals especially are tempted to do this, to show that they're down with Our Boys and Girls, despite opposing the war. But it's just not true. The people most affected are millions of Iraqis. Besides deceived, neglected and murdered soldiers and their families, other people affected in the U.S. are the millions who still don't have health insurance, can't get disaster relief, have to drink and breathe toxic waste, can't afford college or adult education, thanks to the billions Halliburton and the rest of the war industry have stolen.

* To me the impact of recreational drugs in low income areas is indistinguishable from the effects of poverty and racism. You’ve heard of crimes of opportunity? Drug abuse (as opposed to common drug use) is a prototype of crimes of lack of opportunity (for education, respect, meaningful work, and second chances). Certainly white middle class society indulges a high level of illegal drug use and abuse without as much violence and destruction as occurs in some poor neighborhoods. The violence is almost entirely a function of the criminalization of certain drugs, itself largely racist in origin. It's quite possible for the users of some drugs to hold jobs and raise families, as we see in other societies. And for truly dangerous drugs like alcohol and nicotine, we try to contain their abuse in ways much less devastating than the scorched-earth "War on Drugs".