There's something fundamentally flawed in trying to achieve mass social change through a model that says this small number of people [nonprofit staffers] is responsible for changing society fundamentally. History has shown us that masses of people are required to make mass significant change. So, delegating that to a small group of people for whom social change is a career really limits our ability to actually effect and perpetuate change. In the meantime, it creates a group of people for whom social change is a career, and along with it comes individual self-interest, opportunism, and career building - really limiting their accountability to larger political visions and to larger communities.
. . .
Scott-Heron challenged us to understand that we've all become isolated by watching television and so don't get together to create social movements, and that we're not going to see revolutionary change that way. It is important for us to recognize that the revolution will not be funded by the Ford Foundation.
Once we realize that the revolution will not be funded, then we have to figure out how we're going to make it happen with the resources, skills, and abilities that we do have. Otherwise, it's either in control of state-sponsored funding, or funded by interests that are contrary to ours.
. . .
It is definitely challenging. There's many more raise-the-rent parties, many more strains on existing community resources, and it's challenging to be trying to resource a movement for social change from the very people who are suffering the most economically and socially right now. However, when we do it that way, everyone is far more invested and feels far more ownership that when we do it the way we've been doing it [through foundations].
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Also, let's think about the process by which we do social-change work. It should be integrated in our daily lives. Each of us should do a little bit every day, instead of one person having to do it all and get paid for it. Basically, the notion is that people who are part of social movements, who need social movements, who want social movements, [should] invest in them any way they can with time and energy and resources and money and collective efforts that get things done without having to rely on Rockefeller.
INCITE!'s Andrea J. Ritchie in make/shift issue no. 2
For Sharon. Thank you.






