Grassroots Community Practice: Applying Alinsky ' Srulesinthe 21='
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GRASSROOTS COMMUNITY PRACTICE: APPLYING ALINSKY'S RULES IN THE 21=' CENTURY Paul Force-Emery Mackie, Ph.D., Minnesota State University, Mankato Community organizing is a core knowledge area in which social work educators often lack practical experience. This narrative traces the author s involvement in a grassroots action in his own neighborhood, where single-family homes were being excessively converted into rental units by property developers. By helping to mobilize the homeowners, the author studied how theoretical and practical knowledge from community organizing can be combined to help facilitate social change. Specifically, community organizing techniques proposed by Saul Alinsky were applied to assist the neighborhood in their campaign. As a result, the community gained a greater sense of place within the larger system, the author successfully tested theoretical concepts in a real-world setting and gained confidence as an instructor, and his students made connections between academics and practice. Introduction and place witbin the larger system. As one of The purpose of this narrative is two-fold. the co-leaders of the project, 1 successfully The first is to address a concern often applied Alinsky's ( 1971 ) rules and techniques experienced by community practice social and showed that propositions and suppositions work instructors: as a group, we often do not presented by Alinsky thirty to sixty years ago have the same bank of personal and remain effective today. In addition, my students professional experiences to draw upon for of community practice learned how to classroom examples as our micro practice successfully apply Alinsky's techniques in a colleagues. I bave observed over time that real-world, real-time event. many of us who have worked in micro or mezzo environments prior to entering the ranks Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals of the professoriate can carry these (Abbreviated) experiences into the classroom. However wben we teach macro social work, specifically Rule I : Power is not only what you have, but community organization, we are less likely to what an opponent thinks you have. have the same level of practice or real world Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of experiences to enrich and inform our teaching. your people. While this does not negate our ability to teach Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the effectively, it does limit our capacity to convey experience of the enemy. information in a core knowledge area. Rule 4: Make the enemy live up to their own The second purpose is to provide a case book of rules. study of a successful community organizing Rule 5: Ridicule is your most potent weapon. activity led by a social work faculty member, Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. which was guided by Saul Alinsky's techniques Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long (1969, 1971). This community action project becomes a drag. emerged from a grassroots effort to empower, Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. support, and lead a body of people forward to Rule 9: The threat is usually more terrifying resolve a neighborhood-based social problem. than the thing itself. Tbe result of this activity was a successful Rule 10: The major premise for tactics is the outcome for the community of focus, for me development of operations that wili maintain as a social work professor, and for my students a constant pressure on the opposition. of community organization and practice. The community gained a new sense of power, pride. REFLECTIONS • SUMMER 2009 47 Grassroots Community Practice: Applying Alinsky's Rules In the 21st Century Rule 11: If you push a negative hard and deep largely consumed with talking about the enough it will break through into its counter- problems; the realistic radical works to fix the side. problems. Whether I liked it or not, according Rule 12: The price of a successful attack is to Alinsky, I would be defined as rhetorical. a constructive altemative. I struggled with this as an educator. Rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize Looking upon colleagues teaching micro and it, and polarize it. mezzo practice, I observe the connectedness Adapted from Alinsky, S. (1971). Rules between them, their students, and the subject for Radicals. New York: Random House. matter. They are able to teach how to facilitate positive changes as caseworkers, counselors, or advocates augmented with personal knowledge and experiences. I, on the other hand, was limited to describing and disseminating theories, assigning readings and . case studies, showing videos, and citing examples of works fTom social pioneers such as Jane Addams (1893; 1902), Saul Aiinsky Personal Statement (1971), Russell Means and M. J. Wolf (1995), I am a social work educator employed in or Upton Sinclair (1906). I was aware that a mid-sized, Midwestem university. Like many access to joumal articles related to social in our profession, I am familiar with the broad welfare is limited due to the near absence of concepts of community organizing from a up-to-date, peer-reviewed, published social work perspective, having focused on it information outlining effective techniques of academically throughout my social work community organizing. Supporting this education. Professionally, I have the practice statement, Pippard & Bjorklund (2003) experience required to teach "practice" conducted a literature review of several social courses as prescribed by Council on Social welfare-focused joumals between 1995 and Work Education (CSWE) accreditation 2003 and failed to locate any articles devoted standards (CSWE, 2007), but these to identifying community organization practice employment experiences were largely techniques. That said, some empirical works grounded in micro and mezzo practice do exist conceming the role social workers environments. What about macro practice, play as community organizers (Arches, 1999; specifically, community organization and Hardina, 2003), but these are discussions about development? Had I ever actually participated how social workers can or may evaluate in a "real" community change activity? Had I outcomes, encourage empowerment, or organized people in such a way that improves identify key concepts. They lack the living conditions or place in society, or did I concreteness of describing the details, only sufficiently study it to be able to teach processes, and struggles of being a "front line" these concepts and knowledge to my students organizer. This is not to say that published with some level of confidence and works do not exist to assist in teaching competency? In one sense, I had community practice. For example, Johnson and "experienced" community organization by Grant (2005) provide a casebook displaying participating in activities via classroom and several community practice case studies. natural laboratory environments, but I had not However, this particular text is limited in that been a community leader, advocate, or it offers only a few "real world" examples of grassroots organizer—I had only leamed how community social work. Therefore, I was not to "become" these things if the opportunity only unable to share my personal experiences presented itself Discussing this dilemma, Saul in the realm of community organizing (I had Alinsky (1971) differentiated between the none), but was also largely unable to expose "rhetorical radical" and the "realistic radical." students to a body of works describing As the terms imply, the rhetorical radical is techniques of community organizing from a 48 REFLECTIONS - SUMMER 2009 Grassroots Community Practice: Applying Alinsky's Rules in the 21st Century uniquely social work perspective. Using Saul an issue in my community that called for the Alinsky's terminology, I felt that I was expertise of a community organizer who could preparing more rhetorical instead of realistic bring together a neighborhood to confront a social workers for community organizing shared problem. Given my rhetorical practice. knowledge and background, 1 volunteered. In defense of these shortcomings, I was For years, property developers reminded of the writings of Patton ( 1990) when (increasingly absentee landlords) bought older, he stated that too ofien these types of activities often tum-of-the-eentury-built houses and are not published because they do not converted them into high-occupaney rental immediately lend themselves to the parameters properties in the Washington Park of seholarly writing. I was also consoled with neighborhood of Mankato, Minnesota, a city the knowledge of what Saul Alinsky (1971) with a population of about thirty thousand wrote: residents and fifteen thousand college and university students. The aforementioned "...a man of action does not property conversions were almost exclusively have the sedentary frame of mind developed to house multiple individuals who that is part of the personality of a were either college students or young adults, research scholar. He finds it very as this type of housing is often preferred by these groups to apartment complex living. All difficult to sit quietly and write. too often, houses were converted with little or Even when provided with a no concem for esthetics, and the norm was to voluntary situation ofthat kind of maintain the properties at minimal standards. writing he will react by trying to Many of these stately, pleasant structures escape the Job of thinking and would soon devolve into eyesores with writing... "(p. 157) overgrown lawns, peeling paint, broken windows, and refuse scattered about. While I am not in full agreement with Ethnically, the Washington Park Alinsky on this statement, I appreciate his neighborhood is quite heterogeneous, with perspective. The nature and works of the European American (White) accounting for community organizer do not necessarily fit well 93.9% of the population, African American with the expectations of the research realm residents representing 3.6%, and Hispanic or or ivory tower. Reporting community action Latino individuals representing 2.2%. The techniques or outcomes can be cumbersome, remaining residents identify as Asian even awkward. Typically those engaged with Americans or members of two or more races the action are not members of academe, (U.S.