Talk:Community organizing

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Definition of community organizing

Community Organizing allows idiots to organize even bigger idiots into a unified powerful group of Morons.

Is this article deteriorating? I see that Txmoil edited that non-definiton to read: "Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest and compel others to join them." With no references cited I have to think that I tend to agree, but knowing nothing about the subject I am not going to start editing this article. I'm here to ask questions about improving this article.

Please remember that a proper definition should differentiate the species of the subject being defined from the genera or class of things to which that subject belongs. "Process" is way too broad a class, rather, community organizing seems to be a variety of social action or political action. As for its species, I think it should be differentiated from the social action of religious, charity and other community service (Rotary, Kiwanis, etc.) groups, and probably from the action of political parties, insofar as community organizing seems to have wider political goals than winning elections and governing, though for all I know the ultimate goal is political power. Beyond that, I am stumped. Criticism welcome. I searched online for a good definition of community organizing but all the definitions I found were persuasive rather than descriptive in nature, that is, they talked about the ideals and purposes of community organizing rather than the practice of community organizing, which would be most helpful.

This article needs the gentle hand of a non-partisan political scientist but, due to the attention this subject is receiving in the current U.S. presidential election campaign, it appears that it is going to be a left wing haven. We can do better than this, really.—Blanchette (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

True Meaning

The US Occupational Outlook Handbook lists all job categories, jobs, salaries, etc. There are stats for current and projected job openings for the future. There is not an actual job listing for community organizer. It falls into social work. After a long search, community organizer comes up under paid for nonprofits that is a pdf file. The definition according to the government is:

Community Organizers. These activists recruit and organize members of a community to work for a cause. As part of this work, they publicize and lead community gatherings and discussions and meet with government agencies and the leaders of other nonprofits.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.53.82.135 (talk • contribs) 12:25, 11 September 2008

By the above definition, your local Marine recruiters are community organizers. They recruit and organize (e.g., by arranging physicals, transportation, documentation, etc.) members of the community to which they are assigned to work for a cause: national defense. As part of this work, they publicize and lead community gatherings and discussions (in local papers, at youth centers, veterans organizations, etc.) and meet with government agencies (e.g., state schools, employment offices) and other non-profits (such as private schools, etc.)

A good definition needs an accurate genera and differentia as I discussed above and therefore should in this case include all activities that constitute community organizing and exclude those that are not community organizing. A good definition should tell us as nearly as possible what it is that all community organizers do and that only community organizers do.

As I write the article begins: "Community organizing is a process by which people living in close proximity to each other, are brought together to act in their common self-interest." That's entirely consistent with calling up your neighbors to organize a block party! Why is it so hard to get a straight definition? Could it be that that some have something to hide here? What is the dirty little secret of community organizing? (If any, of course.) Inquiring minds want to know! —Blanchette (talk) 07:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The article opens by suggesting that community organizing is though transitivity an arm of organized crime. Essentially, it reads, "Community organizers are foot soldiers for left wing political machines." Is this really an essential aspect of community organizing? Would it belong in the 3 sentences that most people would read? Seems to me like an insult. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcmakev (talk • contribs) 01:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Questions about community organizing

It appears that the "common agenda" of community organizing is the political transformation of a fairly low-income community from an unorganized or poorly organized situation into a politically left, united voice for the purpose of achieving leftist goals. Fair enough, but is this political agenda always left-leaning? For example, does community organizing ever advocate for or 'organize' businesses in low-income neighborhoods to reduce the burdens of regulation and taxation, goals more often associated with right-leaning politics?

Is community organizing inherently urban, or are there suburban and rural community organizers? (I see that Participatory rural appraisal is mentioned -- see that article for a more balanced view than we find here.) Is community organizing an application of inherently leftist ideologies, such as Marxism? Can or does the theory of community organizing apply equally well to economically well-off communities, should one of their members feel the need to organize that community for their common interests?

Has any political scientist ever criticized community organizing for its leftist bias? This article could use some critical thinking from knowledgeable skeptics, I think. —Blanchette (talk) 00:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course there is rural community organizing. In addition to organizations that do not discriminate on rural versus urban, if you google for rural community organizing you see various organizations that even specialize in rural community organizing, such as this example and this example and this example. Community organizing crosses all political lines, and all urban-rural lines. Garkbit (talk) 03:06, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Great, but one comes to Wikipedia primarily for encyclopedia articles, not for links one can Google. If you are familiar enough with suburban and rural community organizing to make an educated use of those links, why not write a paragraph on the subject and use them as references? The same goes for community organizing that crosses all political lines. This article needs more on the practices of community organizing and more references.—Blanchette (talk) 21:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Swipe at Republicans

I don't see how defining the aspects of "Community Organizing" merit cheap shots at John McCain, Republicans, or any political entity for that matter.Applesanity (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Weasel Words?

Can we get a review of this article to check on weasel words? 208.69.44.26 (talk) 21:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

You said it. Nobody can really define what a "community organizer" is. Is it a social worker, a Vista/AmeriCorps volunteer who organizes volunteers, a community activist? What IS it? The article doesn't explain it at all.--4 September 2008 SusanNunes

Mocked

This article is so partisan and tautological that it's been mocked. Keep up those encyclopedic standards! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.13.6.71 (talk) 12:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

This article is so nonspecific that the Coalition forces' work in Iraq could be considered community organizing. Specifically: communities are brought together to fight insurgents through informing on them to Coalition Force members, and to seek leaders to lead grassroots efforts to help their community to rebuild physically and socially from the devestations of the Saddam years, the Sunni-Shia conflict, and Al Quaeda in Iraq. Oh, and "Jesus was a community organizer" too. His movement spread respect for fellow man throughout the world, first through small pockets of believers who were persecuted to their death, and nowadays through local churches giving away school supplies to neighborhood kids and other local programs. --BlueNight (talk) 14:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Someone removed the tautological stuff and replaced it with "Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek" –I would add that community organizing is also the foundation of the KKK, the German Nazi Party, and the Communist movement. This stuff remains eminently mockable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.13.6.71 (talk) 13:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

and Prohibition. 98.235.79.159 (talk) 16:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't remember Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr or Mother Jones ever calling themselves "community organizers." This unsourced stuff is obviously coming right out of the Obama campaign and has to be stricken. If you can provide a source, then it can be restored. RonCram (talk) 01:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The top of this article should read something like this: "Community organizing is a bullshit term created by commies as a thin veil for their efforts to spread propaganda and twist the truth in favor of the advancement of their commie cause." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.168.14.82 (talk) 23:37, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Clearly increased national attention to the subject in the last year

It seems pretty clear as a factual matter that the subject has gained significant national attention in the last year, in large part due to a certain political candidate. In deleting the entire para which had evolved and cites removed about national attention on the subject, anonymous user 216.96.134.62 killed factual & relevant information re more national awareness on the subject, and an extremely notable controversy in September 2008 on the subject. I've rewritten the paragraph and added back citations to demonstrate the controversy, and tried to limit POV on the intentions of the convention speakers but acknowledging the facts of the controversy. Garkbit (talk) 08:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I won't add the following citation to the article, but you can see from google trends that it's clearly entered the public conciousness in a dramatic way mid-2007 Garkbit (talk) 08:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

This article needs to be rewritten from the bottom up

"Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America's promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. From winning living wages to expanding affordable housing to improving the quality of public schools to getting health coverage for the poor and elderly, community organizers have made and will continue to make our communities and our country better for all of us.

The values that community organizers and grassroots leaders represent are not Washington values or Wall Street values but American values, that we care for each other and look out for each other and know we're all interconnected and have a valuable role to play in making our country work for all of us."

First off...who is "our"? Other nations use wiki in addition to the United States, so saying "our" history is not altogether clear.

Second off, just look at that. It looks like it was taken verbatim from a Barack Obama speech. The entire article seems to suffer from this disease. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.170.91.7 (talk) 14:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree the entire article is politicized. I came here looking to better understand what an neighbor organizer is ( I never heard of such a thing till recent events), and instead an article full of politics from both ends. Dman727 (talk) 02:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Who pays community organizers?

This article does not answer any of the real questions about community organizers. Is community organizer the same as a social worker? Are these people paid by local governments? By non-profit foundations? By political parties? Since this article is obviously about Barack Obama, what was the organization that paid him? Who hired him? If community organizer is a stepping stone to the presidency, people want to know how they can get such a job. What are the answers? This article does not have any answers.RonCram (talk) 01:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I think this point needs to be addressed in the article. Do community organizers spring from the forehead of Zeus? Someone must be supporting those folks, right? User:anonymous 9 September 2008

This is the whole problem with the issue and why it's being interjected into politics. The title is highly subjective. "Community Organizer" could be anyone from a paid (usually liberal-left) political hack to the person organizing church food drives. Obviously the Repubs are trying to portray Obama as the former, Dems the latter. The truth of his job is probably somewhere in between, but this article doesn't shed a lot of light on what precisely "community organizing" is, as it does not appear that there is a universal npov definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.72.215.225 (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Deleting my comment on old commentary. lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.164.62.112 (talk) 23:47, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Deleted Obama campaign material

I deleted this paragraph: Its only about all the Obama wannabe's

Community organizing has been called the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. Community organizers such as Mahatma Gandhi, Dr.Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Jones and have worked to achieve living wages, affordable housing, improving the quality of public schools, and expanding health coverage.

These people never identified themselves as "community organizers" or "social workers." If you can find a reliable source showing Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr described themselves as "community organizers," then you are welcome to restore it. Otherwise, this kind of material will be quickly deleted. It makes Wikipedia look like a campaign brochure for Barack Obama and brings disrepute on the community effort. RonCram (talk) 05:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• RonCram, I sincerely respect your desire to be accurate, and I respect your desire be respectful to the historical record. However, I believe your stated criterion for inclusion is not useful or fair to expect historical people to use the same words as we do today for the same things. For example, there is dispute about the exact set of people that should be referred to by the phrase "Founding Fathers of the United States" but in all cases it seems peculiar to expect anyone to scour the historical record for them specifically identifying themselves with the phrase "I am a Founding Father ..." as the standard... especially since the phrase in this context was coined in 1916, a long distance from the founding of our country in 1776. :-)

  Similarly, there are people throughout history who fought and advocated for fair treatment of workers in other countries or here in the United States. But to expect that they actually used the English phrase "labor activist" or it's most direct translation as a criterion to call them a "labor activist" seems like kinda a stretch, and not something that should be a requirement for good journalism or good encyclopedias.

  This effect isn't even limited to historical people....Even for people living today, I posit that to expect people to self-identify in a category doesn't equate to them being in a category. Suppose a man publishes 3 books of what appears to most people as poetry and he likes to say "I am not a poet. I am a merely a transcriber of a muse from another realm.". That doesn't make them not a poet from the perspective of the world or an encyclopedia. It just means they have their own frame of reference -- it does not and should not preclude them from being included in a list of poets, or from a list of poets based on what people understand poetry to actually be. For this article, let's come up with definitions of community organizing, and there might be several different and perhaps conflicting ones, and then apply that standard accordingly.Garkbit (talk) 21:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

A standard already exists for this - WP:RS. For wikipedians to go through exercise of creating definitions and standards is pretty classic example original research WP:OR Dman727 (talk) 23:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, Dman727. You are right about the definitions -- I was sloppy when I said "let's come up with...". I concur we should use good sources for describing the definitions of community organizing. We should also expect there may be conflicting definitions. My comment was perhaps poor and too long, but I was mostly commenting on the "does person X self-identify in the category Y using exactly that label?" criterion RonCram lists above cannot be absolute to determine for whether X is in set Y, given that labels or categories are sometimes decided at later points. I defer to reliable sources for the categories and how to apply them. Interested parties, please list good references on the subject. Garkbit (talk) 02:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Use of Nazi Party in Article

I find it very truthful and sincere that the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party) is listed under international community organization list.

Ndchriste (talk) 01:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Controversies

The article should include a section describing some of the controversies regarding community organizers and their work. Some people see them as courageous advocates for the dispossesed. Many others see them as at best entry level political operatives and at worst glorified shakedown artists whose primary goal is to force businesses and foundatations to subsidize make generous "contributions", most of which end up in the pockets of the oraganizers. ACORN is a prime example of this. I've seen, and worked with, some very good community organizers but they were the exception. Most of the ones I've delt with were pretty sleazy.

Woodbridge Va (talk) 18:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Race baiting??

What is race baiting linked for. Weird. Definitely some political idiocy getting in here. I'm removing it. This article is brutal... should probably just be deleted.

I believe this whole article is nothing but political propaganda. I say the discussion of deletion be brought back up. There are too many opportunites to abuse this page one way or another. Community organizing is a term that is quite political. Perhaps take this down until after November. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.190.125.48 (talk) 01:26, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Ongoing notes on other issues AaronSchutz is planning to add

• The one-on-ones process and the "Rap" of door-knocking groups and the difference between these.
• Not organizing: popular education (e.g., freire)
• Key concepts of neo-Alinsky organizing: targets, issues, tactics
• Impact of globalization on organizing
• Move social class issues into a "tensions" section, which would also question struggles over issues of "charismatic leadership"? Compare SCLC with SNCC as key example here?
• Power analysis section (also what is power from a CO standpoint)

(Note: I'm going to edit this section over time to indicate areas I'm thinking of adding/changing. Please feel free to comment.) AaronSchutz (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

One last jab at this article...

Wasn't Jesus a community organizer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.252.229.12 (talk) 04:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No.--75.136.214.35 (talk) 19:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

If you read the article, you will see that Alinsky argued that Jesus wasn't a community organizer, although some progressives have argued he was in response to Pailin. The truth depends on your definition, of course. AaronSchutz (talk) 14:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

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"Common Self-Interest?"

This term, which is used in the article, seems like an oxymoron to me. Thoughts? FitzColinGerald (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Could be "shared" self-interest. I think it's helpful to emphasize that its the self-interest of those who belong to the group. AaronSchutz (talk) 01:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I like "shared" self-interest. Go ahead and substitute it for "common" self-interest. Dwalls (talk) 21:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Lucifer?

I hadn't noticed before the added reference to Alinsky's dedication to Lucifer. As organizing is currently the focus of a broad debate between left and right, I wonder whether the reference to Lucifer, while accurate, is the kind of fact that skews the ability of a wide audience to understand Alinsky's broader vision of a truly authentic (from his perspective) democratic society. I'm inclined to cut it, but I'd like to hear what others think. Comments? AaronSchutz (talk) 01:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Rules for Radicals (1971) was not dedicated to Lucifer; it was dedicated to Irene, Alinsky's third wife. On the page following the dedication are three epigraphs, from Rabbi Hillel, Thomas Paine, and the third from Alinsky himself. In this third epigraph, which Alinsky describes as an "over-the-shoulder acknowledgement" (not a dedication), he characterizes Lucifer as "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively he at least won his own kingdom." As neo-conservative historian Ronald Radosh wrote in National Review Online, Alinsky's reference to Lucifer was done "clearly facetiously" and "tongue-in-cheek." Dwalls (talk) 20:00, 14 October 2012 (UTC) See Ronald Radosh, "Saul Alinsky: A Complicated Radical," from the August 11, 2010 edition of National Review Online, at [1]. Dwalls (talk) 20:05, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Activism and NPOV

The article states that- Activism: Activists engage in social protest without a coherent strategy for building power or for making specific social changes.[26]

Even though it is cited, it is not NPOV and it isn't even true. This statement is just a slander against activism. I am either going to re-word it or delete it.

24.236.210.221 (talk)amyanda 24.236.210.221 (talk)amyanda2000

This article has swung way LEFT from NPOV, but then again, how can you tell the truth about a certain "community organizer" without a being accused of using a RIGHT POV? TodKarlson (talk) 02:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Good Resources for content creation

http://www.angoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/19/ideas-in-action-for-land-rights-advocacy/13-10-Basic-Steps-in-Community-Organizing.pdf http://www.sagepub.in/upm-data/24165_Chapter1.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.241.52.250 (talk) 18:49, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• EllaBaker.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:59, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Organizations and activists promoting themselves

I have removed a large chunk of link spam and self-promotional content without independent reliable sources, apparently written by editors with a conflict of interest. Frankly, large parts of this article need a lot more work by interested volunteers to avoid this kind of self-promotion. GermanJoe (talk) 00:11, 26 October 2019 (UTC)