Dear Photograph

This is the cutest online project I’ve seen in forever. Dear Photograph.

h/t Josh Spear

“It’s Like We Discovered Something That We Already Had”

Link Loving 15.06.11

• A protest tent-city comes to Madison, WI. Jay Kernis.
• Bankers and politicians have turned food into a betting game. Aditya Chakrabortty.
• How Ed Miliband should change his speeches. Asher Dresner.
• Which of these four is getting in your way? Seth Godin.
• How is happiness distributed intergenerationally? Angus Hanton.
• How a Cambridge grocer is fighting for the soul of his city. David Boyle.
• OAPs – the ultimate Overlooked Activist Potential. Tom Baker.
• How to be a great follower. Doug Menikheim.
• Chinatown’s new generation.

Mirror For Society

“Often society blames young people for instigating conflicts, when in reality they are a mirror for society. They reflect back to us what we don’t want to see.”

Nelsa Libertad Curbelo Cora, Barrio de Paz

America – Billy Wimsatt

I thought I’d posted this last year after my US trip, but I hadn’t. I think it is still relevant, so enjoy meeting Billy!

On the flight from Boston to San Francisco last night, I read Billy Wimsatt’s latest book (one of the benefits of being off-line for seven hours in a row..). He’s most famous for his hip-hop culture book ‘Bomb The Suburbs‘ in the 1990’s, and he’s since gone on to become a central figure in the US youth movement. (The name ‘Upski’ was his graffiti tag.) We met after a talk he gave to the Harvard Democrats Society as the political scene here enters the final days before the mid-term elections on Tuesday.

20 years in the US youth movement

The book is an honest account of the successes and failures of the youth/progressive movement in the US from 1985-2010 and parallels his own maturing process alongside the movement becoming more strategic, more collaborative and ultimately – more successful.

He set up the League of Young Voters, the Generational Alliance, worked on founding the Rich Kids Doing Good movement – getting young mini-philanthropists involved in social change (a bit like our very own Youth Funding Network), and has worked with just about every youth/social justice organisation there is! He’s focused on bringing together the different wings – cultural creatives, electoral, social justice, issue campaigns – to work together strategically, and build bridges between different silos. He now often talks about building a Super Movement (dreadful name for a nice idea) of getting active people in each precinct working together – fundraising, doing electoral work, local issue campaigns and building community.

Becoming an adult

He’s 36 years old now, so even by the generous UN definition of youth he’s definitely an adult. He now works for the Movement Strategy Center, visualising what movements will look like in the future – how they’ll use new tools, how they’ll build alliances and how they’ll start to implement those changes.

This diagram from the Center I found particularly useful – he describes how work that we do usually falls into four categories – and we need them all!

1. Resistance
2. Reform
3. Governance
4. Build Alternatives

He also shared his three rules for being a movement adult;

• be good
• get power
• don’t do anything to mess up your life (pants on, mouth shut, finances in order)

Race

Being so involved in the hip-hop/graffiti/music scene has given him a really interesting perspective on race in the US. He goes deep into his own transformation of first being ignorant about race and oppression, then being incredibly angry and guilty at his own whiteness, being hypersensitive about his privilege (to the point of not doing his job properly as an Executive Director in charge of a team of mostly queer women of colour), and finally realising that to look at people only by their skin colour/gender/sexuality/physical ability ultimately does a disservice to them as an individual. Yes, we need to have the difficult conversations about race, yes we need to acknowledge and work to overcome the systems of privilege – but being an ‘ally’ to people of colour means being a friend. We need to laugh, dance and have fun together. That’s not a bonus – that’s the whole point of it all!

He quotes Kofi Taha and writes, ‘The paradox we have to live with is that racism is real, but race is not.’

Concepts/phrases

• Power may corrupt – but so does powerlessness. If you’ve got no option but to be exploited in your work because you’re poor – you’ve been corrupted by that. We are corrupted – mind, body and spirit – by powerlessness as much as by power.
• One idea that struck me as really interesting, is the concept that Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers– that being born at a certain time is as important as any talent/practice. 1953 – for example – was the right time to be born if you wanted to become a computer/software honcho, young enough that large capacity computers were at your disposal while you were at university, but old enough to have created the start-ups that have now made it big – Microsoft, Apple etc.
• What if the same is true of social movement organisers? We’re young enough to have had technology in our pockets since our 13th birthday – mobiles, email, facebook – and especially in the US context – we’re old enough to have had good experience in campaigns, especially the Dean and Obama campaigns.
• I’ve definitely been guilty of the elitist attitude that he slams by saying, ‘It’s not okay to look down on people. It’s not okay to call them rednecks or trailer trash, to say ‘oh those evangelicals’ and roll our eyes. That’s not being progressive. That’s being an asshole.’ Zing.
• I also wanted to share this saying by Hazrat Ali Haider – an Islamic Caliph, that he quotes;Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
  Watch your words, for they become actions.
  Watch your actions, for they become habits.
  Watch your habits, for they become character.
  Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

To Read

• Importance of management skills – One Minute Manager and Good To Great
• Some sci-fi to help with future-planning – Parable Of The Sower

Peter Block On The Structure Of Belonging

Link Loving 14.06.11

• Practical advice on avoiding burn-out.
• Solitaire Townsend with her second open letter – to Larry Page of Google.
• Why are we arming the British Transport Police? David Allen Green.
• Why does Obama keep OK’ing big fossil-fuel projects? Bill McKibben.
• New Zealanders mourn the loss of their most famous sheep, Shrek.
• The Dutch left must develop the united voice required to wrest influence away from the ruling coalition government. Pim Paulusma.
• A new film about the pollination crisis. Queen of the Sun.
• The power of networking. James Altucher.

Quirky Manifesto – Wow

This is just so incredibly cool. Put your headphones on and watch this.

• Life has an inexorable urge to recreate itself – to create more life.
• Failure is a crucial part of success.
• The interests of the company are truly alligned with the interest of the inventor and the community.
• Total transparency – the information is for all.
• “Imagine a day…” (you are already being included in co-creation just by watching this video).

Quirky.

Speak The Truth, Even If Your Voice Shakes

How To Build Community

• Turn off your TV
• Leave your house
• Know your neighbors
• Look up when you are walking
• Greet people
• Use your library
• Play together
• Buy from local merchants
• Share what you have
• Help a dog
• Take children to the park
• Garden together
• Support neighborhood schools
• Fix it even if you didn’t break it
• Honour elders
• Pick up litter
• Read stories aloud
• Dance in the street
• Talk to the postman
• Put up a swing
• Help carry something heavy
• Start a tradition
• Ask a question
• Hire young people for odd jobs
• Bake extra and share
• Ask for help when you need it
• Sing together
• Share your skills
• Take back the night
• Turn up the music
• Turn down the music
• Listen before you react to anger
• Mediate a conflict
• Seek to understand
• Learn from new and uncomfortable angles
• Know that no one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this.

h/t Caspar Commons