Tag Archives: history

Whatever happened to the Mink Brigade?

Posted on December 17, 2010 by | 1 Comment

I’m closing out this week (and my blogging year) with some reflections on what I hope is to come in 2010, a sort of Christmas list for social justice.

It can’t hurt to ask, right?

And while I’m thinking bold and grand, I figured it wouldn’t hurt, either, to at least wonder aloud why we can’t revive something out of the Progressive Era that sounds like a riot, and just the thing to shake up political coalitions in this shifting age.

As described in The Woman Behind the New Deal, the Mink Brigade was a group of wealthy, liberal young women who used their money and political connections to support progressive political causes–women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, workplace safety, children’s issues. They bailed out striking workers, pulled strings to get access to public officials, and even went to jail to protest unsafe conditions, unfair treatment, and unjust laws.

As I’ve said before, I still think our best bet is to restructure our society so that there are not such extremes of wealth and poverty.

But, as long as there are still divisions between rich and poor, organizers for social justice would be well served to figure out how we can elicit support from those who money and position make powerful allies.

While this might seem like an impossibly tall order, given the unlikeliness of these alliances, there are at least some signs of hope and some pockets of people with wealth committed to using those resources as a tool, and a platform, for good. There’s the “Gang of Four”, for example, which, while certainly not socialites risking arrest for social justice, is a promising example of really rich people investing in progressive politicians and just causes, because they want to make a long-term commitment to social change and see politics as a way to leverage more than mere philanthropy (one of them is even a member of Congress now).

Still, if what we’re after is real alliances between rich and poor, I see the obstacles to building a sort of “21st Century Mink Brigade” as multiple:

  • The distance between people in poverty and those in wealth (and how such distance makes true solidarity harder)
  • The changed profile of social workers (and the fewer connections that many social workers, especially macro-practice ones, have to rich people)
  • The decline in structures and institutions that have the ability to pull people together around social justice issues (this is connected to the first challenge; our churches and political parties and even many social justice organizations are highly segregated along class lines today)

    I would never assert that organizing such a “grasstops” strategy should be an advocate’s first priority. Our key work has to focus around amplifying the voices and stories and experiences of those most affected by the social problems we’re addressing, not providing wealthy people with opportunities to “make a difference” or “find meaning” in their lives.

    But we also have to get over ourselves, a little bit, and think strategically about how we can build bridges to those whose position in this society and economy can make, if combined with politicization and a consciousness that makes them authentically committed to social good, valuable partners in an egalitarian coalition. Just because someone has money does not make them an enemy of social justice, and writing checks is not the only role for wealthy people in a struggle for social change.

    Will this mean some uncomfortable conversations about privilege and power and ill-gotten gains? Will it mean confronting our own prejudices about people with money, and those without? Will it mean vigilance to protect our messages and avoid shortcuts that can sell out our own power?

    Yes, yes, and, of course, yes.

    But I think that the lessons of history, and some of those of history in the making, suggest that it still might be worth it.

    And, besides, you never know when you might need bail money.

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    Forgetting Perfection

    Posted on November 11, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    I wrote last month about how advocates need to get over what we don’t know, to jump into the fights where we, and what we know (partial though it is), are so needed.

    I guess I’m on a “trust me, you’re good enough” kick, because one of the pieces of Soul of a Citizen that really spoke to me is this theme, that the only two things that differentiate those who are actively engaged in social change, from those who are not, is (1) how they see the world, as demanding their involvement and (2) how they see themselves, as integral, albeit small, parts of the solution.

    In part, it relates to the concept of “good enough”, which comes from the parenting idea that caregivers should forget striving for perfection, because it really will make things worse, and should instead celebrate “good enough”, because that’s all kids really need to thrive, anyway.

    And it’s also connected to the importance of understanding and accurately assessing activist leaders and social movements current and past, because unfairly and incorrectly viewing them as larger-than-life not only inappropriately reifies them, but, more importantly, it’s also a major deterrent to the activism of the rest of us, mere mortals though we are. (That’s a big part of the reason why I care what students today are and are not learning about our history, including the history of the fight for social justice.)

    It’s not enough, then, to say, “we don’t all have to be (fill in the blank–Jane Addams, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day)”. The consolation we should instead be showering on each other goes more like, “who were they, anyway, but flawed human beings, just like us, who, nonetheless, did amazing things for justice, just like we can, too”. As an activist said in Soul of a Citizen, “it does us all a disservice when people who work for social change are presented as saints–so much more noble than the rest of us. We get a false sense that from the moment they were born they were called to act, never had doubts, were bathed in a circle of light” (p. 37). Shattering that myth reminds us that we stand just as good a chance as they did to change the world…maybe, given today’s technology and advances in human rights, even better.

    And then, we start.

    We start knowing that our skills are inadequate and our knowledge incomplete and, even, our commitment imperfect.

    We stop trying to be martyrs, always focused on the cause, because we know that others are drawn to those struggles were people are having fun and living the kind of whole, full lives that they want for themselves, too.

    We realize that standing up for our most sacred values isn’t about making ourselves into some, more noble person, but about becoming more fully human…more purely us.

    We start treating ourselves a lot more like we treat our clients–as worthy, just as we are.

    And, in so doing, we shed the last remaining excuse not to act.

    And that’s…perfect.

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    The next frontiers for voting rights

    Posted on November 9, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Amidst rather uniformly dismal election results for those of us committed to a vigorous collective response to the challenges that face us, including the truly concerning recall of judges over disputes of ideology in Iowa (a major blow to the doctrine of judicial impartiality and separation of powers), there was one bright spot:

    Kansas voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to strip the legislature of the power to deny Kansas citizens with mental illnesses the right to vote.

    It’s one of those things that I can’t imagine 289,740 people voting against really, but it’s still encouraging that 482,222 voted for it, and especially rewarding to see the grassroots campaign that mental health advocates, including a strong consumer contingent, put together to take advantage of this opportunity to educate the public about mental illness, civil rights, and the importance of equality.

    So, see–something good from November 2, 2010.

    But, especially in the aftermath of Election Day, we’ve got serious work to do, and not just to protect critical policies and continue to push for progressive advances in tax policy, the social safety net, economic recovery, entitlement reform, health care reform, K-12 and higher education and, well, just about every other aspect of American life.

    We’ve also got to make voting rights a top priority.

    We need to expand suffrage, and vigorously defend it, not just because increasing the number of people who can and do vote is a good way to ensure that we’ll be happier with the outcome. We need to prioritize voting rights, too, because it restores the American ideal of an engaged citizenry, and it makes us proud of who we are and what we can do, together.

    Our finest moments have been when we realize that the rights of citizenship are the most secure, and the most honored, when they’re extended broadly and valued deeply.

    On the list that demands our attention:

  • Commitment to easing the process of re-entry for ex-felons, and revisiting the process of even temporarily denying voting rights to those who commit crimes–this is important not just because it expands the right to vote but also because it sends a message to those who are incarcerated: “we don’t want you cut off from the society into which we’ll expect you to successfully reintegrate”
  • Defense against restrictive photo ID requirements–I want to scream every time someone says, “but you even need to show ID to see a movie.” Um, last time I checked, seeing an R-rated movie is NOT a constitutionally-protected right. Voting is. Unless we’re going to provide free, easily available photo identification to all American citizens, with exceptions for those with religious objections to photographs, requiring photo identification to vote is a poll tax, it’s abhorrent, and we can’t stand for this attack on democracy masquerading as concern with (largely invented) “voter fraud”. I almost wrecked my car when I heard about the Obama Administration dropping its legal challenge to Georgia’s voter identification requirements. This could move us back to 1964, and our nation can’t afford that.
  • Aggressive protection of voter privacy and the integrity of the election system–I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think that the private companies that manufacture voting machines are intent on overtaking our elections. But I am very concerned about two things: first, that there’s enough truth to the threat of that scenario to make some people wary of the election process and, second, that it does represent another example of turning some of our most sacred public functions over to private companies. There are some things that government should just do itself, whether or not it’s the most efficient, because to farm it out just looks bad and, well, running the democratic process is one of those.
  • A constitutional amendment specifically guaranteeing the right to vote–108 democratic nations have this language, while the U.S. and 10 others don’t. Words do matter, and having these words in the U.S. Constitution could provide the legal foundation for challenges to all of the exclusions above, too, setting the stage for a reorientation towards an affirmative right to civic participation that has to be disproven, rather than the effective opposite, which is the status quo.

    It’s time for a national conversation not just about the results of our elections but the process of them: do we want paper ballots again? what about open-source electronic voting technology? should we have mandatory public audits of elections? if so, who should conduct them? how would we engage the public in oversight of elections, and how could this make a difference in how people engage in the acts of democracy? why can’t people register to vote on Election Day?

    Did you see any violations of voting rights this past Election Day? Did your clients vote? If not, why not? What changes to voting laws might facilitate their participation? What are your thoughts about expanding suffrage rights in the next decade?

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary, Events and Calls to Action, My New Favorite Thing

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    The more things change: the case for CIR, then and now

    Posted on November 8, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    When I gave speeches about the need for immigration reform, I used to talk about how we were revisiting a lot of the same issues that plagued the nation in the early 1980s: the need for legalization for undocumented immigrants working in the country, the toll that family separation takes on our communities, and the insecurity born of a system showing obvious signs of strain. I used the point to reinforce the need to really fix the nation’s immigration system, so that we wouldn’t have to revisit these same debates and fears and tragedies every couple of decades.

    I should have gone a bit farther back in history.

    When I read The Woman Behind the New Deal last summer, there were several passages about Frances Perkins’ work overseeing the immigration department, which then fell under the Department of Labor (kind of interesting, really, given how we continue to view immigrants as valuable chiefly/solely for their labor contributions, but subsequently moved the INS to the Department of Justice (connected to our criminalization of immigrants) and then to Homeland Security (consistent with our conflation of migration and terrorism). My guess is that we’re not moving ICE to DHHS any time soon!)

    What I found most stunning was her statement to Congress when she was questioned about failures to deport some foreigners viewed by Congress as possible communists (and, therefore, deportable):

    “The problems which the immigration laws present are serious, intricate and of the highest public importance. They have a peculiar significance to the future of our country, for it is incumbent upon those who administer the immigration laws to aim at two important goals: First, to preserve this country, its institutions and ideals, from foreign forces which present a clear and present danger to the continuance of our way of living; and second, to show those aliens who together with their families are soon to become our fellow citizens that American institutions operate without fear or favor, in a spirit of fair-play, and with a desire to do justice to the stranger within our gates, as well as to the native born.” (p. 281)

    I’d stress the themes of family reunification and workers’ rights and civil liberties a bit more explicitly than she did but, in all, it’s almost eerie how easily this statement could have been made 70 years later. We still wrestle with immigration policy as a core question related to American identity: who gets to be “one of us”? And what does that decision say about the nation we present ourselves to be?

    Unfortunately, it seems that the prejudices and misperceptions about immigrants and their contributions to this country have not changed much in the past seven decades, either:

    “Many refused to believe government statistics, and they circulated reports alleging that 1 million foreign sailors jumped ship in the United States each year, or that five hundred thousand Mexicans strolled across the border in the previous decade. In her annual report in 1935, Frances blasted these accounts as “fantastic exaggerations”" (p. 191). I can picture her today, decrying those horrible “undocumented immigrants are stealing Social Security” email forwards that periodically get sent to me for debunking.

    So, here we are, generations later, still fighting the same struggles for basic decency, due process, and equal opportunity for those who happened not to share our good fortune of being born in the United States of America.

    And, here we are, as far away from an upcoming congressional election as we’re going to get, staring at two years to get comprehensive immigration reform done in this Congress.

    We’ve got to make it happen–for the families torn apart, for the bodies strewn in the desert, for the workers (immigrant and not) whose wages and bargaining position are undercut by the existence of so many who have so few rights, for the security we all deserve in knowing who’s in this country and allowing law enforcement to focus on those who truly mean us harm, and for the still-salvageable American Dream, which has never been limited just for those who’ve always been here.

    And we’ve got to make it happen because, otherwise, we could still be making the same case, and combating the same myths, in 70 more years. Except that I’m not sure we can withstand it.

    Call your members of Congress today. Tell them (you have three–call all three!) that now is the time. Do it for those who long to call America home, for those who long have but are still afraid to come out of the shadows, for those who fear change but know that this isn’t what welcoming the stranger looks like. Do it for social work, which can’t afford to sit out this important struggle for social justice and the definition of what our nation will mean. And, do it for Frances.

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    Move over, Eleanor? No, there’s plenty of room.

    Posted on August 5, 2010 by | 4 Comments

    Sarah and Angelina Grimké

    I named my daughter after Eleanor Roosevelt.

    She has a framed picture of the former First Lady, at work in the United Nations, in her room.

    So you can imagine my chagrin, when, after reading The Woman Behind the New Deal, about Frances Perkins and her role within the Roosevelt Administration and the architecture of the New Deal, I realized that (while I still think Eleanor is an amazing woman whose role in history is well-deserved) I’ve been a bit duped.

    Our history seems to only have enough room, often times, for one really monumental woman at a time. And, with Eleanor’s proximity to the President, she’s often been the one given that historical spotlight.

    So, while it was Frances Perkins whose ideas became much of the social legislation of the New Deal, and whose ability to see “the elements of disintegration in the social fabric” (p. 294) foretold the fall of France to the Nazis, and whose commitment to preventing injustice saved more refugees during World War II than any other individual in the U.S. government, and whose vision secured the role of the International Labor Organization as a voice for workers worldwide, and whose government service created much of the infrastructure that opened careers for generations of social workers, and whose belief that statistics tell human stories brought to the White House a dedication to alleviating suffering during our nation’s greatest economic tragedy…there hasn’t been much room for her in our understanding of the forces shaping the modern welfare state, or even in our social work education.

    My first instinct was to feel chagrined–I’ve been guilty of overlooking one woman’s accomplishments because of too much focus on another’s. And then I got angry–where did this instinct come from, to jump from one heroine to the next, instead of arming myself with a whole phalanx of awesome women to serve as role models for my life (and that of my daughter)?

    This isn’t just about what I name my daughter (although Frances is looking kind of appealing). In an age where textbooks are being rewritten to exclude even more of the stories of courageous campaigners for social justice, and even more of the voices of marginalized populations, what we understand about the past is increasingly important as statements about who we are, and who we want to become.

    So here’s to not just Eleanor, and Frances, but Grace Abbott and Jane Addams and Florence Kelley and Caroline Love O’Day and Mary Dreier and Bertha Reynolds and Lugenia Burns Hope and Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sarah and Angelina Grimké and the countless others I can’t wait to learn about.

    I’m not going to have enough daughters to honor them all, but my young woman still has a lot of room on her wall.

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    How we got the New Deal, and why we always need a list

    Posted on August 3, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    List, via Flickr Commons

    My favorite scene from the book The Woman Behind the New Deal is in the prologue, when Frances Perkins comes to her meeting with Franklin Roosevelt with a handwritten list of all of the initiatives she wanted to push, if she would agree to become his Secretary of Labor.

    It was a list which, for her, represented the only things worth taking on such a monumental job, so exposed to public scrutiny. For him, then, it was a sort of litmus test–if he wouldn’t agree to back her policy vision, he wouldn’t have her as his Labor Secretary.

    For us, the list was nation-changing.

    A 40-hour workweek, minimum wage, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, a federal ban on child labor, Social Security…all radical ideas then that have since become core aspects of our social policy structure and defining components of the modern social contract.

    There are two fundamental lessons to come from this almost-apocryphal story:

  • We need a list.
    Sometimes we advocates for social justice are so sure that the world is against us, so convinced that our causes are hopeless, so enamored of fighting uphill battles, that we fail to ask ourselves what we’d want if someone really offered us the chance. What seems impossible today, that we’d really like to have by tomorrow? What’s our list of our top 3 priorities, or even top 5 or 10, towards which all of our work, every day, should be focused? What would we do with tons of power, if we got it?

    Stop for a minute. Write your list, if you don’t already have one. Carry it around. And be ready–you never know who might want to see it.

  • Lists aren’t enough.
    In the completion of that same vignette later in the book, Roosevelt says to Frances as she leaves, “I suppose you’ll nag me about this forever.” (p. 124) Frances realizes that he hopes that it will be so; he knows that the country needs and deserves the changes she’s outlined, but he lacks the political courage or strength of conviction to insist on them. He has chosen her not just for the vision represented in that list, but also for the knowledge that she will force him to live up to his promises.

    The lesson for us in that is that, if we’re spending all of our time thinking through what changes we want to see in the world, we may not be cultivating the relationships and the power that we’ll need to see them realized.

    Imagine if all she’d had with her was a reminder to pick up milk!

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    Al Smith was right: why we need an inside game

    Posted on August 2, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    In The Woman Behind the New Deal, the author reveals a conversation between Frances Perkins and long-time Tammany Hall politician, Al Smith.

    Frances is trying to decide whether to accept a government position on the Industrial Commission. It would allow her to reform working conditions through the vehicle of a government entity with authority to force changes, he asserts. She demurs, not convinced that being a part of an admittedly imperfect (even corrupt) government is the best place for a social work reformer.

    “Smith chided her. ‘If you girls are going to get what you want through legislation, there better not be any separation between social workers and the government.’” (p. 77)

    When Frances relates the offer to her friend and mentor, social worker Florence Kelley, Kelley’s response was, “‘Glory be to God…I never though I would live to see the day when someone that we had trained and who knew industrial conditions, cared about women, cared to have things right, would have the chance to be an administrative officer!” (p. 77)

    Frances, obviously, took the job, which helped to launch a lifetime of service to workers through the medium of government service.

    With the benefit of history, it’s so clear that, for her, working within the government was the best place from which to enact the reforms so important to her and, ultimately, to the country.

    And that’s why this anecdote about her ambivalence is so important, and so instructive.

    What is it about social workers that makes us, often, so reluctant to enter this “inner sanctum”–the halls of government where so many of the policies that influence so much of our work, and our world, are made?

    Is it our noted discomfort with power? A concern that getting too close will compromise our ethics? Unfamiliarity with the policymaking process, that makes us feel incapable of rendering excellent service in that realm? Preference for the less formal work settings of nonprofit organizations? Inadequate guidance to steer us towards government service as a career path? All of the above?

    There’s certainly a case to be made for the outside agitator: no social movement was ever fomented exclusively by government employees, and none is likely to ever be.

    But when we think about all of the policymaking that happens through regulations, which are largely controlled by unelected bureaucrats, and when we think further about the access and influence that these bureaucrats have with elected officials, and about the media platform that those well-positioned within administrations have, to shape discussion of issues and establishment of the social policy agenda, then it seems obvious that we need some of “our people” on the inside, too.

    And what better way to get “our people” there, than by having at least some of us (read: social workers committed to social justice) go, ourselves?

    If you’re a social worker in government service now, what obstacles do you encounter in your quest for social justice? If you’re considering government work as a part of your career, what considerations are you weighing? If you’re a committed “outsider”, why? And what should social work education be doing to prepare social work advocates for successful reform work both within and without government institutions?

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    Rededicated to the impossible

    Posted on October 14, 2009 by | Leave a comment
    Drawings of slave ships were one the primary tools abolitionists used to tell the story of the atrocities visited upon those enslaved

    Drawings of slave ships were one the primary tools abolitionists used to tell the story of the atrocities visited upon those enslaved

    So I just finished reading Half the Sky. Meaning that I stayed up until 2AM two nights in a row (which, for a mom with little kids, tells you that I was REALLY serious about reading it), absolutely transfixed by the stories of gender oppression around the world and, even more so, the completely inspiring in a million ways women (and some men) who are working in creative, tireless, and mainly fiercely courageous ways to end it.

    I’m not going to write a review; here are links to some sources that have already reviewed it. But I do have several posts stemming from it swirling in my brain, so you’ll see some references to Half the Sky sprinkled throughout my writing over the next few weeks. This is the first.

    I like authors that make no secret that their writing is part of a crusade for social justice. When I met David Bacon in September, I had the chance to tell him that in person.

    The authors of Half the Sky do the same thing, right from the start. And here’s what I especially appreciated about their introduction:

    “Honor killings, sexual slavery, and genital cutting may seem to Western readers to be tragic but inevitable in a world far, far away. In much the same way, slavery was once widely viewed by many decent Europeans and Americans as a regrettable but ineluctable feature of human life…But then in the 1780s a few indignant Britons, led by William Wilberforce, decided that slavery was so offensive that they had to abolish it. And they did.” (p. xxii)

    Calls to action don’t get much bolder than that, do they?

    Think that you’re busy? That the problems you’re confronting are intractable? That you lack the funds, or the technology, or the public opinion that you need to move the needle on your social injustice of choice? Um, try abolishing slavery, unilaterally, at the height of the global slave trade, at a national cost of almost 2% of GNP per year for SIXTY years (plus one brief war and three war scares).

    Half the Sky returns to the abolitionist Brits at the end of the book, in the appropriately-titled “What you can do” chapter. There, they pinpoint as the key factor of success the abolitionist activists’ ability to document and vividly describe the horrific abuses and injustices visited upon slaves–this idea that we advocates seem to instinctively know (although sometimes forget)–that building relationships, however vicariously, and helping people to connect in meaningful ways with suffering that we will otherwise try to ignore is the best (and sometimes only) way to build inexorable momentum for dramatic social change. In fact, they cite some very powerful social research that statistics and generalized cries of alarm tend to repel solidarity and collective action, while personal stories of those impacted draw people in and can, even, compel significant sacrifice in pursuit of justice.

    So, besides really trying to influence my son to choose William Wilberforce or Thomas Clarkson as his ‘historical hero’ in the 5th grade, what do I take away from this refresher course in the thrilling history of abolition?

    Really, just a reminder of what I already know to be true:

  • There are no excuses. I’m making a renewed commitment to being the kind of person that people shake their heads at, wondering ‘what in the world has gotten into her?’ I will be unreasonably passionate about injustice. I will not pursue pragmatism.
  • We don’t win people over with logic; we win them over by igniting their love for their fellow human being.
  • We can’t wait for the numbers to look good for us. Public opinion alone is seldom sufficient for social change, and so facing significant opposition is no reason to wait.
  • No matter how hard I might think I’m working on a particular cause, or even in general, I’m not even beginning to give what women around the world are giving to their quest for justice. I can and must do more.

    After devouring Half the Sky, I don’t feel guilty. I feel emboldened. Audacious, even. And angry. And part of a much larger whole. And ready, to think really, really, really big, impossibly big.

    So I don’t apologize, if you are one of the dozens of people I’ve grabbed this week and told, “you must read this book!” I won’t apologize for asking you to write letters and give money, for telling you stories that are horrifying and galvanizing at the same time, and for not shutting up about the tragedy that is our treatment of women and girls around the world. We’ve got better tools and more inspiration than those Brits did in the 18th century. We can make this the century in which we eradicate the ills that have thus far plagued us.

    I want it to be written, “and they did.”

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