Posts filed under ‘Campaign for Change’
Walking the Walk – Organizing for America
Over the weekend, Organizing for America kicked off it’s first round of meetings. Organizing for America was born out of the Obama volunteer network. The idea is to keep that grassroots network going as advocates for policy issues.
Economic Recovery was the topic for the weekend meetings. There were over 50 meetings scheduled in my area alone. As with the campaign, the meeting’s were clearly defined. Pre-meeting conference calls and videos were scheduled during the week to prepare each meeting organizer. Online resources including meeting agendas, scripts and state by state recovery fact sheets were available for download. Each organizer was to report back the results online.
The meeting I attended was slightly different as it had been scheduled prior to the Organizing for America kickoff. It was a joint meeting between an Obama team fro one of Atlanta’s most affluent neighborhood’s (Buckhead) and one the city’s least affluent inner-city neighborhoods. Out of respect to that neighborhood, I’ll call it neighborhood ‘B’.
The partnership was formed during the election. After our target universe was defined and there were no priority precincts in the Buckhead area, that team was redeployed to neighborhood B. While the two areas are geographically very close, they are world’s apart in every other way. For example, the median income difference is 400%.
Back in December, before either the National Day of Service or Organizing for America were announced, these two teams decided to continue working together on issues in neighborhood B. In December, they met separately to discuss each group’s goals. This weekend was the first post election joint meeting of the two teams. I wasn’t part of either election team but was honored to be invited to participate in their meeting.
As with all things Obama, we began by sharing our stories. There was an amazing amount of brain power, experiences and diversity in the room. While other’s might focus on all the problems with neighborhood B, the neighborhood leaders displayed great pride as they shared the neighborhood’s history. Neighborhood B is skeptical of outsiders coming in with promises to change things. Over and over again, they’ve seen the outsiders either get frustrated and give up or never deliver on promises. They insisted that whatever we do as a group be done with accountability and transparency.
Break out sessions were held on healthcare, education and neighborhood improvement issues. I joined in on the neighborhood improvement discussion. The main feeling I got out of our breakout session was that neighborhood B’s leaders want to energize their own resident’s to become more engaged in planning for the neighborhood’s future. I’m reminded of our campaign philosophy – Respect, Empower, Include. I think it fit’s neighborhood B’s objective perfectly. They aren’t so much looking for us to come in and do a specific project. Instead, they are looking to us to help their resident’s to become community organizers. And, that’s exactly what we live to do. Working on the Obama campaign unleashed the inner organizer in millions of us.
So, we’ve all talked the talk, now we get to Walk the Walk.
Joan Walsh stole my look – after I stole it from the Queen of Soul
Down n Out Diva vs Queen of Soulon. Original Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP. Queen of Soulon's hat by Lonnie Lazar
Being trendy is hard work. Of course the look originally belonged to the Queen of Soul. But, I was right behind her. I adored the hat and I loved what Re-Re said about having to deal with mother nature for making it so cold the day of the inaugural address.
I “photo-shopped” myself into the spectacular hat the very next day. Except I don’t have real photo-shop – only a free knock-off. So, my version of the hat looked very low-rent – like maybe Barney had attacked me before the ceremony.
It wasn’t until a full week later that Joan began appearing in the hat. And, she didn’t even do it herself – someone else photo-shoped it for her. Though I will give her props for delegating – as every true diva should.
In my quest to stay one step ahead of hipness, I’ve changed my look. If I see Joan Walsh sporting Kanye West’s shutter shades, girl better watch her back! I’m from the country – I know how to girl-fight.
Photograph: Getty/Dave Hogan
Note to the Queen of Soul and the Queen of Soulon – it’s all good. I hope this post doesn’t offend you in anyway. This blog is meant to poke fun of me – not you.
Curried Cauliflower Causes Crazy Dreams
Bill & The Godfather of Soul prepare curried cauliflower soup in the graceland kitchen
I chose the curried cauliflower soup recipe for one reason only – it called for coconut cream thus allowing me to feed my cc addiction (hush now – cc stands for coconut cream) .
Ooooh that smell, Can’t you smell that smell
My hopes were high while I made the soup. The turmeric, cumin and curry spices induced flash-backs of a high-rise I’d visited many times during GOTV. While the building was a bit spooky, the voters were so enthusiastic. Many were Ethiopian immigrants who would be voting for the first time as new US Citizens. The most amazing, mouth-watering cooking smells drifted up and down the halls. Maybe it was because of my fondness for the place that I doubled (or was it tripled?) the soup’s spices.
The soup was pretty weak – way too thin (girls, it looks like it is possible to be too thin after all). I wasn’t going to post about the soup as it didn’t deserve a single ‘yum’ on the ‘yum, yum, yum’ scale but it did lead to a crazy dream last night.
Crazy Curried Cauliflower Dreams
My dream took place in my friend, Helen McNeilson’s parents’ old kitchen. That’s not her real name but is the fake name she has used since childhood. When we were little, the Godfather of Soul and his trusted lieutenant came to her house one cold Christmas. Legend has it that the hardest working man in show business spent a few hours playing pool with her dad who had befriended him before he became The Godfather of Soul. At some point he asked the godfather and his band mate about their families. They replied ‘Oh, they’re all out in the car waiting on us.’ The whole entourage was promptly invited inside for a few more hours of fun.
In my dream, the kitchen was exactly as it had been in the 70s. You know the kind of kitchen I’m talking about - linoleum floor, harvest gold counter-tops, avocado appliances. This time, my BFF Bill Clinton (afterall, we did “share” a stage together) came for a visit. As with all parties, we ended up in the kitchen. We charmed Bill with our wit, intelligence and natural beauty. Right before he left, Bill visited the loo. After his departure, Helen’s mum discovered that Bill had graffiti-ed his name all over the bathroom walls. Of course, she wasn’t pissed (pun intended).
Why visions of Bill?
I did a dream search for dreams about Bill Clinton but there is no known interpretation. I’m thinking it was Hillary’s fault. At her official swearing in yesterday, while Bill was standing right behind her beaming with pride, she got up and made jokes about him.
PS – this post is no way meant to judge the band Lynard Skynard, my friend Helen McNeilson, the godfather of soul, his band mate, their families, Bill or Hillary Clinton or their relationship. It’s only meant to make fun of me.
Fired Up, Ready to Go
thanks to the magic steve for spiffing up my graphic (again)
A day to give back and look back (two posts for the price of one)
For today’s National Day of Service Project, I wanted to do something in our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) turf. Since our turf included the area around the Sweet Auburn District and King Center, I thought it would be an appropriate place to spend MLK day.
I chose a center which helps the homeless transition back into the workforce. I’d visited the center several times during the campaign.
A look back
My first visit, back during voter registration, was to inquire about photo ID. If you are homeless, you can use the address of a shelter, church or family member to register to vote. However, photo ID and proof of residence can make it difficult to actually cast a ballot. Right off the bat, the director assured me that wasn’t a problem for this center as the clients have to have a photo id to participate in the program.
My Inauguration Outfit
The minute I opened the closet door yesterday, my eyes landed on a special garment. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was meant to be my inauguration day outfit. Just like everything else about the Obama campaign, my outfit has a story.
I was born in rural Georgia two weeks before Dr. King delivered his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech and a few short months before President John F Kennedy was assassinated.
While the Georgia I grew up in may have been integrated on paper, it was still very much segregated in practice. Even though school desegregation began in the 1960s, the US Supreme Court ruled that it wasn’t happening fast enough and that Southern schools had to be integrated by 1970 – the year I was in first grade. I remember the tension during that time. Even during high school, we still had a white homecoming queen and a black homecoming queen, a white prom and a black prom.
For the Obama campaign, I volunteered in an Atlanta Field Office. Knowing the history of my state and the significance of this election for those who had worked so hard before us, I was moved to see the Georgia inside those doors — a place where Dr. King’s words played out every day — a place where black/white/yellow/brown, male/female, young/old, straight/gay, rich/poor all ‘joined hands as sisters and brothers’ and where we were able to ‘sit down together at the table of brotherhood.’ In our case, the ‘table’ happened to be the many phone bank tables which grew and grew until they filled up our office and even spilled into the parking lot.
One of me received an invitation to the inaguration
Friday’s mail contained an invitation to the Inauguration. Mind you, this sounds more impressive than it is as the inauguration is open to the public – you don’t need an invitation to attend. Along with the invitation was a letter encouraging those who can’t be in Washington to sign up for a National Day of Service project on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at www.usaservice.org and to attend a local broadcast of the Neighborhood Ball with a link to www.pic2009.org for the details and schedule.
There’s been a lot of speculation all over the internets about who sent the invite, who received it (volunteers or donors?) and whether or not it was a total hoax. Apparently, 1 million of these were mailed.
I have multiple personalities with the Obama campaign because I go by my middle name but my full name appears on my checks. Like so many others, one of ‘me’ literally volunteered her bum off for the campaign. We were working so hard we didn’t have time to eat. By election day my trousers were falling off. The other ‘me’ writes checks
This means I get lots of duplicate info from the campaign but only one invitation arrived in Friday’s post. I’m happy to report that the volunteer ‘me’ was invited to the Inauguration.
BTW – we aren’t going. The check writer ‘me’ says we can’t afford it. Or, was it the volunteer ‘me’ who said she’d be too cold?
