Building The Washington Grassroots Organization

Respect, Empower, Include

Prior to the Washington State precinct caucuses, Obama For America (OFA) adopted a new slogan — “Respect, Empower, Include.” Undoubtedly, this slogan was developed by someone experienced in community organizing. The concepts contained within this slogan are central to the philosophical approach of most successful organizers.

Some of us have experienced situations where OFA staff members have seemed to be the antithesis of this slogan. This doesn’t make such individuals bad nor evil. Such a situation merely illustrates the philosophical differences between traditional campaign workers and organizers. One manner of thinking is top–down, while the other is bottom–up in approach and results.

“Respect, Empower, Include” should be understood as something more than a slogan. It is something that should be held deeply within our hearts, and practiced on a daily basis.

Respect

This should be a fairly simple concept to understand. For that reason it is sometimes amazing how Respect seems to get lost even within the Obama campaign.

Respect is not something we give to only those with whom we agree. It is something to be applied universally. With such an attitude towards Respect, we are far less likely to build walls that become difficult to tear down later.

We’re not going to agree with every person all of the time. If we can Respect the differences, then we will be far more successful at working with people in areas where there is a common agreement.

At the same time, respecting differences is a learning opportunity. The more respectful we are of differences, the easier it is to find resolutions to those differences.

Finally, a lack of fundamental Respect results in situations where we intentionally exclude people. If we fail to Respect and Include, we’ll not successfully Empower people.

Empower

It’s interesting that this word is at the center of the slogan. If viewed in a different light, Empower is the axis around which Respect and Include revolve.

The primary purpose of an organizer is to Empower people in taking control of their own political destiny. If we don’t start with Respecting and Including people, we’ll never be able to Empower them.

Another fundamental component of Empowering people is to ensure that they’re successful in their activities. Starting with Respect and Include as the basis, we can take people for who they are and for that place where they find themselves in life. From there, we can give them the tools to build their own patterns of success.

Finally, in Empowering people we should never forget the age–old maxim of “there is power in numbers.” To achieve these powers in numbers, we have to be Inclusive.

Include

As we have seen, we can’t Include if we don’t Respect. We can’t Empower if we don’t Include. The three components rely upon each other if we’re to successfully achieve our objectives.

All to often people seek to exclude others based upon what they’ve heard rather than what they’ve seen. This is actually the worst type of judgment. If we seek to understand people based upon direct observations — rather than judge them based on hearsay — we’ll be more likely to find ways to Include them in the process. Objective understandings (Respect) always trumps subjective judgments (disrespect).

At the same time, we should always be cautious of those who breed division and exclusion. Such people typically have a personal agenda that is not focused on the common good. Such people rarely employ a fundamental Respect as a basic way of living their personal lives. Making subjective judgments based upon the words of such people will create dangerous levels of disunity, distrust and exclusion.

As Debby Pattin is fond of saying, “If you can't vet it, ignore it.”

Experience has shown that the best way to deal with those who seek to exclude others is to simply go around them and continue developing our efforts based upon Inclusion. Soon enough, those who seek to exclude others will find themselves working alone.

If we are seeking to end the atmosphere of divisive politics, we can’t play into the exclusion game. To play into the exclusion game robs us of the power that Inclusion can and will create. To play into the game of exclusion demonstrates a basic lack of Respect.