books about class and organizing

Mon May 26 09:11:00 CDT 2008

[ed:  thanks to Lane for adding to the discussion.]

From: "Victorson, Lane A." <LVICTORSON at ssw.umaryland.edu>

A companion piece to Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas
should be Larry Bartels' What's the Matter with What's the Matter with
Kansas?, a paper he prepared for a presentation at the annual meting of
the American Political Science Association in D.C. in September 2005.
You can find it here:

http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/kansas.pdf

Bartels uses data from National Election Study surveys to test Franks's
assertions around class-related patterns and issues and if anything I
found it balanced and heartening as I come from Kansas and still hold
out for its socialist and cooperative tradition.

Lane Victorson

Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
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>  
> [ed:  thanks to Ann and  Chris for contributing.  A bit from me below 
> their two contributions.]
>
> From: curry-stevens at comcast.net
>
> To these excellent texts, I add Betsy Leondar-Wright's "Class matters: 
> Cross-class alliance building for middle class activists" put out by New 
> Society Publishers. For those ready to explore the privileged status of 
> the middle class in comparison with the poor and working class, it is a 
> phenomenal text full of practice insights that is particularly useful in 
> teaching university students.
>  
> Ann Curry-Stevens, Assistant Professor
> School of Social Work, Portland State University
>
> ***********************************************
>
> From:
> "Chris Cavanagh" <story at web.ca>
>
>
> I would recommend the work of J.K. Gibson-Graham. In particular, their 
> newest book A Postcapitalist Politics 
> <http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/gibson_postcapitalist.html> has both 
> great case studies and discussions of class. In their first book, The 
> End of Capitalism (As We Knew It) 
> <http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/gibson_end.html>, they lay the 
> foundation for an analysis of class not so much as a /thing/ that we 
> /are /but as a conjuncture of relationships within which we act. You 
> could say that they propose that class is better understood as a verb 
> than a noun. If you're a theory junky like me you'll enjoy their first 
> book - but it's heavy-going at times. The second is also loaded with 
> theory but it is more grounded in reflecting on projects to practice new 
> economic relationships. Their work has inspired a new and growing 
> interest in what they call "diverse economies" and there's a related 
> website called Community Economies 
> <http://www.communityeconomies.org/index.php>. What i love about their 
> work is the way it provides me, as an educator and organizer, with a new 
> vocabulary for talking about economics, capitalism and class. This last 
> is one that i find profoundly obfuscated (no less in Canada than in the 
> US). We've used their theory to look at our work at the Catalyst Centre 
> <http://www.catalystcentre.ca/> to understand better how, as a worker 
> co-op, we fit into a different picture of the economy than one that 
> relegates us to an "alternative" to capitalism.
>
> I think that class is one of the most dangerous conversations that we 
> can have. One that must absolutely be simultaneous (and integrated) with 
> anti-racism, feminism and other forms of oppression. In the complex set 
> of oppressions that we resist, class is the one that is most 
> threatening, of course, to capitalism. Which is partly why people like 
> Ruby Payne are so welcome by the mainstream. If class is about choices 
> then the dominant economic system (i.e. capitalism) needn't worry about 
> anything. In fact it rewards such analyses and lauds them.
>
> peace
>
> chris
>
> **********************************
>
> [ed:  while both are old, my favorite books on class that inform how I 
> think about community organizing and community development remain  The 
> New Class War by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, and Blaming 
> the Victim by William Ryan.  Both get at some of the core structural 
> issues that Chris notes.  On my to-read list is What's the Matter With 
> Kansas by Thomas Frank in hopes it may provide some understanding of how 
> people with so little could so consistently work against their own class 
> interests.]**
>
> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>   
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>>  
>> [ed: thanks to Catherine and Windy for continuing the discussion.]
>>
>> From: "Catherine Mobley" <CAMOBLE at exchange.clemson.edu>
>>
>> I'd like to echo the sentiments about Linda Stouts book. I have found
>> it to be very useful for my Policy and Social Change class.
>> Also, the books on Teaching for (and Readings on) Diversity and Social
>> Justice (by Maurianne Adams) are quite good, too.
>>
>> I, too, discovered Ruby Payne several years ago. At first, I was
>> enamored with her work. But, some colleagues have since introduced me
>> to another perspective on her books. I only present this information to
>> show another viewpoint on her perspective. I highly encourage you to
>> read the essay in Rethinking Schools about her work:
>>
>> http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/22_01/ruby221.shtml
>>
>> Just another viewpoint...
>>
>> Catherine
>>
>>
>> ***************************
>>
>> From: Windy Cooler-Stith <windy_coolerstith at yahoo.com>
>>
>> Several years ago, small son in tow, I spent all the money I had, 
>> leaving the Southern US for the first time in my entire life, on my 
>> first plane trip, to work as a volunteer for a very prominent 
>> “poor”-by-choice peace activist in Chicago. I was hoping that the 
>> experience would school me in all things ideologically to the Left that 
>> I felt I needed to know to succeed as an anti-poverty organizer in 
>> Alabama - where I was already poor-but-not-by-choice and a successful 
>> anti-poverty organizer in many ways.
>>
>> Clearly, I was working class. That unmistakable, irrational, sense of 
>> know-nothingness and incompetence in the face of middle-class formal 
>> education and culture says it all.
>>
>> I did get something of life-long ideological value out of that summer. 
>> It came from the book: Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker 
>> by Joanna Kadi. This remains my absolute favorite book about class. I 
>> have given people copies for Christmas. This is the book that taught me 
>> that I was lower-working class and what that really meant. It taught me 
>> about racism and homophobia in details and systems I had never fully 
>> fathomed on my own – or as a result of any myriad of the trainings I 
>> routinely attended. That book spoke to me like the Horn of Gabriel.
>>
>> If I could meet Joanna Kadi today I would kiss her feet.
>>
>> The book is poetic, lyrical, and beautiful at the same time is powerful 
>> and educational. I highly recommend it.
>>
>> You can order it from South End Press at: 
>> http://www.southendpress.org/search?query=Kadi&action=find_book&search_key=all
>>
>> -Windy
>>
>> *Take the 2008 Survey of Organizer Well-Being at InspiredPropinquity.com 
>> today; pass it to a friend who needs it!*
>>
>>
>>
>> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
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>>> [ed:  please feel welcomed to send other books on your favorites lists.]
>>>
>>> From: SusanGSMcGee at aol.com
>>>
>>>
>>> I discovered a book that many of you may already be familiar with 
>>> "Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing" 
>>> by Linda Stout, Founder of the Piedmont Peace Project, with a foreword 
>>> by Howard Zinn, 1996 Beacon Press.
>>>  
>>> I find that there are very few books that talk about class in specific 
>>> terms. (Another that I have discovered is Ruby Payne's Bridges Out of 
>>> Poverty) There are many books who mention class as an "aside." Linda 
>>> Stout is a feminist, a lesbian, and an organizer who focuses on class 
>>> issues in her work building an organization focused on peace. She deals 
>>> with issues such as: social change versus social services; principles of 
>>> organizing; the backlash; and redefining leadership so that it is 
>>> embodied in a group rather than an individual. She gives specific 
>>> details about how she was discouraged, discredited and discounted as a 
>>> working class organizer. She has a great intersectional analysis. Check 
>>> it out.
>>>  
>>> Susan
>>>  
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *
>>>
>>> Susan G. S. McGee*
>>> Instructor
>>> Education for /ACTION!/ (Educ 313/WS 313)
>>> 707-445-1340
>>> 707-616-7898
>>> Office: Library (lower level) 051
>>>
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