A Plea: STOP the politics of MARGINALIZATION

[geiger]

Send your angry emails and letters....

When something wakes me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I am not a happy camper.

I was bothered all day yesterday by headlines trying to narrow the contest down to one btwn a cackling HRC and an angry McCain, too many numerous new meaningless "endorsements," HRC's inappropriate announcement near the end of the debate of her "national town meeting" the night before Super Tuesday (like she's "pulling" something on Obama), and other responses I saw to the Obama/Clinton debate.... Couldn't quite put my finger on it until my brain worked on it overnight.

Okay, I am pissed, and at the moment too pissed to get out all my text books from graduate school, or to quote sources, and so I ask for a bit of leeway by just saying I have been involved in political campaigns, advocacy and have worked in not only in the political sector, but for non-profits, business and in educational settings. I have two master's degrees, so I'm not trying to pull anyone's leg, I'm not necessarily ranting on behalf of any candidate per se.

The day before this grand event of a debate, I sensed a stirring of consciousness, involvement, and genuine desire for contribution, that in the context of all the years of my direct personal political involvement, I truly believed I have never witnessed, felt or believed to be authentic before. So this was one of the reasons was I felt it was going to be a true contest, btwn Obama and HRC on one side and McCain and Huckabee (Huckabee, who refuses to be marginalized, as witnessed in taking on Anderson Cooper in the latest R debate). Even though I was infuriated by Wolf Blitzer's putting words into both Obama's and HRC's mouths, immediately after the debate, about their responses to his question of a joint ticket, I didn't see what was coming over the next day in the headlines, etc.

I truly believe that some people don't do this purposely, but their words and actions, in their own haste and excitement to be a "player," to add their own imprint or importance to events, such as in the case of Blitzer, effectively move others to the side, in an insidious and unthinking manner at best, arrogant and unprofessional at worst.

But when one of our best and most accomplished leaders takes her opponent to task by saying "It takes a President...," not just a rabble-rouser, when she has been one of the biggest and best rabble-rousers around, and not in a bad way, for most of her life, she needs to be taken to task. In her smugness over the "fact" that a President was the one that signed civil rights legislation into law, a little "fact" that a staffer probably uncovered for her to use, she failed to remember or learn that President Johnson had to be dragged cussing and stomping his fists into supporting civil rights legislation. Now, I am not a snob, I grew up poor, and even though that I am now a person of privilege, only because a Democrat was in office, Mr. Carter, when I started my college career, and even though I worked sometimes thirty hours a week thru college, my education was largely subsidized by the government and thus ever since I have suffered from an obsessive desire to "give back." In that regard, I am going to stand behind one of my master's degrees which happens to be in history, to DENOUNCE Mrs. Clinton for stomping on our history, and yes, indeed, the Kennedy legacy, for all of its twists and turns. It was simply an opportunistic and cynical ploy to MARGINALIZE a worthy, who she knows to be worthy, opponent. I am simply fed up with this kind of bullshit. If we are the party that's not supposed to be doing this stuff, then let's not do it. It's blind arrogance and untrue to our standards, creeds, and beliefs, as a PARTY!

I will be emailing Wolf Blitzer to complain both about a not constructive or journalistically professional question and interpretation.

But my concerns go beyond that. John Edwards made a plea that poverty be kept a front and central issue.... The youth of this country need to be continued to be LOUDLY encouraged to stay engaged: if you do, young people thirty and under, you WILL change history....

I can't begin to tell you of how many meetings and places I have gone to where I saw the nasty process of marginalization occur to people; as a woman and an advocate, it's happened to me. I've acted as advocate, translator, cheerleader. And so have many of you.

DU'er's, you know what to do. Take out your pen and paper, laptops and software, and get to work. Don't let anyone write or speak you out of this campaign. You deserve better. STAY ENGAGED.

[geiger]

1. and what I am saying, is let it begin with our own Party....

[Ninga]

K & R.

[Ninga]

2. K & R.

[geiger]

3. Thanks, Ninga, your post yesterday helped me define my thoughts.

[Bongo Prophet]

4. I like this, and it would be a very good longer conversation on the process of marginalization

...and analyze weak points to hit in fighting it.
There is a psychological angle to consider (both individual and mass), along with the strategic; and fighting it will take many forms, from raising hell with the media umpires like the right does (many-to-one), creating our own counter messages (one-to-many) into venues that then go viral (many-to-many).

Please share some ideas about the "what to do about it" or "recognize these signs" - I like the way you write - it is kinda lyrical.
Applause from a fellow run on sentencer - you had 9 commas in one of 'em. We are complex, that's all. ;)

Off to greatest, as it deserves more views...

[geiger]

5. Thank you. I understand what you are saying exactly and it is what I would like this thread to be,

except I would like for it to be documentation of a variety of experiences with the act of marginalization, not just my own. I had to go to a meeting this morning, so I didn't get a chance to express that, but I think we are on the same wavelength.

Now, I am off to the gym. Back later, hopefully to see some more of your ideas, and to remember in the mean time some more of my own. In addition to commas, you can also expect lots of semi-colons.

Thanks!

[geiger]

6. Actually, I would like to hear other people's eyewitness experiences of marginalization

and how they or others fought back.

[geiger]

7. OK, I apologize for doing this piecemeal, but today it's the only way I can "finish/start"....

From the online Encarta dictionary, here is the definition of marginalization:

to take or keep somebody or something away from the center of attention, influence, or power.

Here are some examples of where I have seen it or witnessed it:

In the educational setting: after years of being involved in political and levy campaigns, I decided that, in my children's interest I would join a community committee appointed by the Board of Education to assess and make recommendations concerning a discipline policy for the district. I start with this example because it was the first time in my adult life remembering "finding my voice," as Hillary recently claimed she finally experienced recently. I was essentially accused of being a racist for disagreeing with someone of the opposite race, and as witnesses described it to me later, it looked like I was going to jump across the table, but I kept my cool, and merely put it back at her, "so, what you're saying is because I don't agree with you (being black) and me (being a white person) that my point doesn't count. She was a retired educator of the district herself and knew better and went grey with silence.

Non-profit: Later, in the same community, as a director of an InterAgency Council, working with our Congressman, area nonprofits, and foundations, to establish an Underground Railroad Museum, also accused by another particular self-proclaimed leader of the local African-American protecting her "power," that I was attempting to steal what she deemed as history that belonged to the blacks of the community, not whites, as if we didn't even belong to the same place and shared the same pride in our heritage (good luck, still no museum, for promoting racial strife, even with the very real fact that racism still runs rampant on both sides, members of both "sides" still deriving their power from denigrating the "other" side, and whether these people do it consciously or not, I want to scream 'GROW UP"). As part of my facilitator role for a local Juneteenth celebration of the national Emancipation of slaves by President Lincoln, I saw other good hearted people, without post-secondary education, talked down to by members of the local white College "intelligentsia," and so then I would purposely and pointedly repeat back what these people had just said (me, with my two master's degrees), and then the "wise" white people, because I had once worked at The Great Liberal College, they would "listen;" it was disgusting.

In business: on a local Chamber Board, being chastised by fellow Board members and the City Manager (who I actually tho't to be on our side), after I wrote a personal, friendly U.S. MAIL delivered letter, not broadcast to the public (such as in an LTE), and also disclaimed as a private opinion, not that of expressing a uniform Board opinion, to our City Council members for purposes of encouraging them and the City Manager to aggressively support heritage tourism. All of the other Board Members that had been present at the previous board meeting had agreed to proceed in a similar "discreet manner" also, as private citizens, after a formal motion; only, I was the only one who followed through. I was told as a result (translate FEAR) that my action might cause Council to disallow the Chamber further bed tax monies, total nonsense because that's why bed tax monies exist to begin with, to give back to Chamber and Main Street entities, to encourage tourism and a potential major source of economic and community development monies. More importantly, they were pissed I was promoting "black" causes, so I sat through the chastisement and just shook my head, and soon thereafter resigned due to job changes, but also after having served as their major fundraiser and membership recruitment chair, and newsletter editor (the next newsletter editor got paid on top of it). Not worth it.

Guess what? I am more than disappointed with HRC these days; I am majorly pissed.

Folks, what did Anita Hill say? Speak to Power?

[MonkeyFunk]

8. I stopped reading at "cackling"

[geiger]

9. it's not my characterization, it's that of the media, one of my points.

[geiger]

10. but, actually, on one level, you're right: I should have put it in quotes.