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George
McKinney
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Asian
Pacific Islander (API) Force
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profile by
Josh Chao
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Q: What
was your first involvement with community organizing?
High school NAACP,
police brutality, know your rights&emdash;in San Jose.
Idealistic, you don't know what your getting
into.
Q: What
have been your subsequent involvement?
- Electoral politic
organizing
- Educational
rights&emdash;access to higher ed. Affirm action not
issue. Tuition, financial aid. (late 80's, 89, 90,
91)
- BSU, ASSA, Student
government politics, national stuff&emdash;us
student's association. Student color-based coalition.
Student Government would attack students of color.
Students of color were less than 2% what we did was
influenced by our history, knowing what happened helped
us organize.
- Student organizing is
one part. Community organizing is much harder: Age group
is older, resources: community networks not as
developed
- Immigrants rights /
Welfare reform
- Criminal judicial
reform; Organizing around prop 184
- Affirmative
Action
Q:
What was your initial motivation?
A lot of people
observed injustice, wanted to get involved. NO particular
person. It was a realization of a negative world, wanted to
speak out. Wanted to try anything. Joined different
political organizations, people I eventually worked with
became my mentors. Their dedication, their deep political
connections.
Q: What
has sustained you in this work/commitment?
Real vision, not
giving up hope. Believing that change is possible, and
working towards that. NO ability, no time, no luxury to make
this commitment burns out. Loss of vision, disillusionment
causes burn-out. It will happen ifÖthe big if. The
nature of political organizing. If you can do small winnable
campaigns. Stuff that strikes to the core of political
structure. People did look to leftist, socialist models of
cooperation&emdash;people had a crisis.
Q: What
did you call your work if not "community organizing?"
Student
organizing, Not as focused on these labels. Community
Organizing took off in the nineties. Labor
organizing&emdash;traditional form. Community
Organizing, gained prominence as the political struggle
waned. Mass movement. Community Organizing is not as much a
people in motion feel, not like a mass movement. Mass
movement. Organizer moving towards a new mass
movement.
Q: How
would you characterize your involvement?
I've moved from
being a participant to being a leader. The issues I deal
with are broader and deeper. Cultural issues and ideology
and not just political ones. The nature of what I've done,
it's at a higher level; my outlook is much more
future-oriented, a consciousness of personal connections but
while still offering opportunities to develop people
politically&emdash;life goals.
Q: How
did you theorize about your work?
First exposure to
theory was through Mao and Lenin, and Marx. Organizing. I
studied philosophy as a field.
Q: Why
did you choose organizing for your work?
Organizing is
basic to all human activity. Management is a way of
organizing. It's my value system, what skills,
resources&emdash;best fit for yourself and what's
possible. Tension between overcommiting. Market
research.
Q: What
barriers/challenges have you faced and continue to face
now?
Racial and class
barriers primarily. Political barriers, the general state of
politics in America.
Q: What
concerns do you have about community organizing as it is now
being practiced?
Lack of democracy
in community organizing. Volunteers and people that cut the
issues; the people that cut the issue are the most
important. I find that organizations that call themselves
grass-roots. How do you involve people so that their living
up to their potential and what the could possibly do? Sexual
Harassment, there is a problem, but it's a societal
problem.
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