Why They Matter
There has been a lot of discourse lately about people affected by Trump’s policies who voted for him, or perhaps didn’t vote at all. There is some significant, and justified, anger and fear of these people. There is a lot of resistance to the idea of having outreach to these folks. I want to unpack some arguments and and thoughts I have on this idea of outreach.
Outreach is a very specific type of community role. It is not for everyone. It should be done by folks with privilege and/or folks of similar demographics to their intended audience, and by those of marginalization who feel particularly called to it. At no point ever should a marginalized person feel forced into or required to do outreach roles unless they volunteer to do so.
Outreach is specifically targeted to people outside of the community. The expectation is not that people are automatically a part of the community; access to the community requires adherence to the standards and values of the community. If someone is not meeting those points of solidarity, they do not belong in the community. The goal is always to bring them to those points of solidarity, and we do that through education, through mutual aid, through conversations and relationships, through information sharing, and through meeting them where they are at.
This labor is the responsibility of those with privilege, but the idea of outreach is deeply embedded in theory.
“Now there are several programs that we have in the South, most in poor white communities. We’re trying to organize poor whites on a base where they can begin to move around the question of economic exploitation and political disfranchisement. We know, we’ve heard the theory several times, but few people are willing to go into there.” Kwarme Ture
“We must move into the white community. We are in the black community. We have developed a movement in the black community. The challenge is that the white activist has failed miserably to develop the movement inside of his community. And the question is, can we find white people who are going to have the courage to go into white communities and start organizing them? Can we find them? Are they here and are they willing to do that? Those are the questions that we must raise for the white activist.” Kwarme Ture
“how is the white community going to begin to allow for that organizing, because once they start to do that, they will also allow for the organizing that they want to do inside their community. It doesn’t make a difference, ’cause we’re going to organize our way anyway. We’re goin’ to do it….And the question is, how are white people who call themselves activists ready to start move into the white communities on two counts: on building new political institutions to destroy the old ones that we have, and to move around the concept of white youth refusing to go into the army? So that we can start, then, to build a new world.” Kwarme Ture
“Everyone has a stake in the fight against fascism. It cannot be defeated with bargaining, petitioning, pleading, “civilized” dialogue, or any other mode of response we were taught was best. Fascists have no respect for “othered” humanities. Regardless of age, gender, race, sexuality, religion, physical ability or nationality, there is a place for all of us in this struggle. We are always fighting against the odds because there is no respite in a perpetually abusive state. It can only function through this abuse, so we can only prevail through organizing grounded in radical love and solidarity. Our solidarity must prioritize accountability, and it must be authentic. Strategic organizing of this sort, organizing where we understand the inextricable linkedness of our respective struggles, is our means of bolstering the makings of a cohesive left in the United States. The time wasted on dogma and sectarianism, prejudice and incoherence among leftists is over.” Zoé Samudzi
“But what it speaks to is, I think, a deeper lack of strategy, particularly on the side of the Democrats and progressives, which says, we have to turn out folks, and we have to reach folks, you know, the new kind of silent majority who don’t vote, who don’t see anything to vote for, because nobody’s speaking directly to their issues, to their material interests and concerns. And if you just keep playing the middle, you’re going to keep alienating those folks, and they just see, in their day-to-day reality, Democrat or Republican, I’m still feeling the burden of there not being any jobs, there not being any social services, there not being much by way of educational access for my children or for the future, so why should I turn out? It’s just the same thing over and over and over again….And what we’ve been arguing for, you don’t reach them by just doing the same old same-old. You have to reach them by actually trying to develop a program that speaks to their direct interests and will put them as the central actors in the transformation and the change of what’s going on. And that’s easier said than done, but I think it speaks to an orientation that we would like to see, you know, new forces on the political scene take up throughout this country. And I think it will lead to some profoundly different results of what we’ve gotten the last 16 years.” Kali Akuno
“If we look real deep in trying to build multi-racial alliances in the United States, you know, that the way the narrative is often constructed and lived, you would think that black workers and white workers have a lot in common, but there are clearly a bunch of cultural constructs and edifices that are put in place which gives us to see our interests quite differently. We say we also have to work towards people’s aspirations, not just self-interest, because in our case, historically, that can lead to some very reactionary destructive things directed towards the black community. It’s that aspiration piece that speaks to the imagination question you have. How we tap into people’s dreams and aspirations is a critical thing that we at least speak to as part of an aim and objective that we are pursuing and have to then plan our strategies, actions and how we engage, how we factor all those different things in so it’s not just one-dimensional work.Having a vision and staying on course with that vision is very key to a long-term organising and a long-term trajectory, and keeping the morale of the different social forces that you’re engaging up, so that people understand it’s going to take a while for us to get to where we’re going, and that there can be and there should be and there must be, reforms along the way, but we have to always stay consistently orientated towards the north star to know clearly the end goal maybe far away and may seem like a moving target, but let’s not be distracted and just prop up the existing system or change little things here and there, when ultimately we’re trying to change relationships and hierarchy and exploitation and how do we stay focused on that.” Kali Akuno
“We believe that we should openly and aggressively present our best ideas, programs, strategies, tactics and plans to the working class and to our communities in open forums, discussions, town halls, assemblies and other deliberative spaces, and debate them out in a principled democratic fashion to allow the working class and our communities to decide for themselves whether they make sense and are worth pursuing and implementing.” Kali Akuno
"Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals. We look away from government for relief, because we know that force (legalized) invades the personal liberty of man, seizes upon the natural elements and intervenes between man and natural laws; from this exercise of force through governments flows nearly all the misery, poverty, crime and confusion existing in society." Lucy Parsons
"To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people." Frantz Fanon
"Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instance, it is learning to address each other’s difference with respect." Audre Lorde
"Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist." Audre Lorde
we've got to face some facts, that the masses are poor. The masses belong to what you call the lower class. When I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses. I'm talking about the black masses. I'm talking about the brown masses, and the yellow masses too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire. But we say you put out fires best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're going to fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism. You fight capitalism with socialism. We ain't going to fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary. We're going to organize, dedicate ourselves to the revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the structure of that power. Arm ourselves. All right, we have to arm ourselves and we're going to fight reactionary pigs with the international proletarian revolution. Excuse me, let me say that one more time. I said we're going to fight reactionary pigs with the international proletarian revolution, that's what it's got to be. The people have to have the power. The people belong with the power.” Fred Hampton
What we’re saying is that there are white people, in the mother country, that are for the same types of things that we are for – stimulating revolution in the mother country. And we said that we would work with anybody, form coalitions with anybody, that has revolution on their mind. We’re not a racist organization because we understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism, and we know that racism is a by-product of capitalism. Everything would be alright if everything was put back in the hands of the people, and we’re gon’ have to put it back in the hands of the people” Fred Hampton
“I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married, but rather to go about it the other way. To say to the gay rights movement, if you want to win you must join us as individuals into the civil rights movement and to say to the civil rights people if you really want to get freedom for blacks don't think you can do it by getting freedom for blacks alone. You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people. Therefore join the movement as individuals against anti-Semitism, join the movements for the rights of Hispanics, the rights of women, the rights of gays. In other words, I think that each movement has to stand on its own feet because it has a particular agenda, but it can ask other people. Now there's another reason for that. And that is if people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. And that is the chief reason that every person who is gay should join some gay organization. Because he must prove to the world that he cares about his own freedom. People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself. Incidentally, that's the reason that every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays. I don't want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.” Bayard Rustin
“The needs of the black community for adequate jobs, housing, and education can be met only by developing a political strategy that will attract a majority of Americans to a program for social change. There are whites who are unemployed and white workers whose real income is steadily decreasing as the cost of living rises. Both these groups share with blacks the desire for increased and upgraded employment opportunities. Let us build a movement with them. There are whites living in substandard housing and paying exorbitant rents. Their children attend schools that are overcrowded and understaffed. They share with blacks the desire for massively funded programs of housing and education. Let us build a movement with them also. And there are those more affluent whites of liberal persuasion who sincerely desire social justice. They too should be our allies. These are positive points around which a political majority can be built.” Bayard Rustin
Liberation for all means all. It is theoretically correct to do outreach and to educate and organize the masses of people. It is praxis to do mutual aid and knowledge-building in outreach. It is vital and necessary to educate these people because 1. They deserve the option to grow and 2. It is a part of our theory and praxis to do so.
It is the job of the outreach roles to identify people who are teachable, and to teach them. Not everyone is going to be teachable. Not everyone is going to want to be taught. There are going to be those diehard Trumpers who are actively and intentionally racist, transphobic, classist, etc. They exist and can/will cause problems during outreach, that is why it is important to train for de-escalation and for people with privilege to take on these roles. The work is not for those people. The work is for the people who are reachable, for those who are trying to understand, and those people do exist.
Arguments against outreach are understandable. Many marginalized folks feel like it is not their job (it’s not) and that they do not owe energy, education, or grace to Trump and non-voters (they don’t). I want to reiterate again that outreach is not the role of marginalized peoples unless they choose to take it upon themselves. When I write and speak about outreach, I am speaking specifically to folks with privilege, white folks, who need to be doing this labor.
The arguments against outreach are often clouded in fallacies. They make assumptions and presumptions.
One such fallacy:
A. Information is accessible
B. "I" accessed that information
C. Everyone has accessed the information
This is a Formal Modal Fallacy and a Fallacy of Necessity, the fallacy being that because both A and B are true, C must necessarily be true. It creates a necessity for C to be true, when C is not necessarily true.
This is also an example of a Continuum Fallacy. A single individual conflating their singular experience with the experience of all, equivocating that because “I” was able to access and understand information, all people have accessed and understood information.
The reality of the society we live in is that just because information exists does not make it accessible. Simply because one person managed to break free of the socialized brainwashing and propaganda does not mean that everyone has that ability or has had that opportunity. We are deeply propagandized from the moment we are able to intake stimuli through constant marketing and repressed media. We are not given the tools to learn. Creativity and critical thinking are steamrolled out of us in school. The closer in proximity someone is to the power structure, through privilege and intersections, the more they benefit from that power structure and the less likely they are to be able to identify how that power structure is harming them. Political education is one of the founding principles of programs like The Black Panthers, The Young Lords, The Young Patriots, and other groups that made strides in community building and organizing. Political education is the reason The Rainbow Coalition was so dangerous. A politically educated people are a people with a purpose. It is in the interest of the empire to keep us distracted and misinformed. Political education is a major tool in the diversity of tactics against fascism. It is vital and necessary to the movement that we do political education through outreach.
But beyond that…
Outreach is deeply vital to liberation. Outreach builds lines of co-operation. Co-operation builds solidarity. Solidarity builds our community. Our community is the working model of the better world, of the world in which liberation is for all people. When the empire eventually falls (and it will), how will we build a better world if we are still falling back on our fragmentations and divisions? What happens to these folks when the empire falls? Liberation means abolition, so there won’t be prisons. What should we do with these folks? Let them fail and starve? Let them fall apart and become destructive? Abandon them? Isolate, ostracize, alienate them? Kill them? None of these things seem liberatory.
If we hold true to our ideals, to our values, to our solidarity, we cannot, in good faith, argue against outreach to those who are reachable. It is set out in our theory that reaching these folks is not only praxis, but is necessary for the larger goal of liberatory revolution. Liberation for all in our hearts, in our minds, and in our practice.