'Hunter Gray' hunterbadbear@hunterbear.org [marxist]
2014-08-24 16:22:28 UTC
I agree it was somewhat jarring to hear newspersons toss around the "outside agitator" characterization as freely as they did at Ferguson.
In "outsider" matters, it all depends on the local situation and the nature of the "visitors" and the process by which they come.
A standard rule in community organizing is that the outside organizer enters a local situation via invitation. It can be a matter of local people contacting the organizer (s) or a group which furnishes organizers. And it's usually OK for the organizer to arrange -- wrangle -- an invitation tendered by respresentative people. But, in any case, there has to be significant grassroots consent.
Ferguson didn't have a viable social justice organizational mechanism when things erupted. ( The NAACP is often bereft of organizing skills.) African Americans at Ferguson selectively sought various kinds of help from the outside. Those who came in response to that invitation, as organizers or fellow demonstrators, functioned non-violently, an approach obviously much favored by virtually all of the local black people.
The violent types with diverse motivations -- violence for its sake alone, violence for far out sectarian ideologies, violence for material theft -- were night-timers, almost all from the outside, and obviously much resented and certainly not wanted by local African Americans. Those dubious types are virtually always anathema to grassroots people seeking significant measures of social justice.
H
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by NaÂŽshdoÂŽiÂŽbaÂŽiÂŽ
and Ohkwari'
Check out our massive social justice website:
www.hunterbear.org
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)
My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000
word introduction by me. Covers much of my
confrontational social justice organizing life to
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
Forest Fires in the West (including the life of an old-time
fire lookout: http://hunterbear.org/forest_fires_in_the_west.htm
In "outsider" matters, it all depends on the local situation and the nature of the "visitors" and the process by which they come.
A standard rule in community organizing is that the outside organizer enters a local situation via invitation. It can be a matter of local people contacting the organizer (s) or a group which furnishes organizers. And it's usually OK for the organizer to arrange -- wrangle -- an invitation tendered by respresentative people. But, in any case, there has to be significant grassroots consent.
Ferguson didn't have a viable social justice organizational mechanism when things erupted. ( The NAACP is often bereft of organizing skills.) African Americans at Ferguson selectively sought various kinds of help from the outside. Those who came in response to that invitation, as organizers or fellow demonstrators, functioned non-violently, an approach obviously much favored by virtually all of the local black people.
The violent types with diverse motivations -- violence for its sake alone, violence for far out sectarian ideologies, violence for material theft -- were night-timers, almost all from the outside, and obviously much resented and certainly not wanted by local African Americans. Those dubious types are virtually always anathema to grassroots people seeking significant measures of social justice.
H
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by NaÂŽshdoÂŽiÂŽbaÂŽiÂŽ
and Ohkwari'
Check out our massive social justice website:
www.hunterbear.org
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)
My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000
word introduction by me. Covers much of my
confrontational social justice organizing life to
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
Forest Fires in the West (including the life of an old-time
fire lookout: http://hunterbear.org/forest_fires_in_the_west.htm