Moving From Talking About Social Action To Engaging in Social Action: Reflections on Virtual Community Organizing

by Llewellyn J. Cornelius, PhD, LCSW

     Like you, amid COVID-19, I find myself in a sea of never-ending Zoom social justice meetings. At the heart of this, many community souls are feeling frustrated because we see a lot of “talk” and “no action”—what we used to call “talking loud and saying nothing.”

    To be a part of the solution instead of being part of the problem, I started to wrap my mind around providing community training on using virtual community organizing as a means of engaging in social action during this pandemic. I started to think aloud: What would training on virtual community organizing look like that complements what we have done in face-to-face training activities? Be careful what you wish for!!! This was not my first rodeo, as I have been involved in community engagement activities throughout my career. The challenge I faced, though, was that of being careful to provide a range of virtual possibilities to meet people where they are.

    For me, it boiled down to thinking about short-term versus long-term community organizing campaigns. It also meant understanding that we demonstrate our commitment to social action in different ways, ranging from increasing our knowledge about community organizing to engaging in protest campaigns. Thus, virtual community organizing could focus on using text messaging and email blasts to get out the vote. It could also focus on using e-petitions, virtual town halls, and virtual strategic planning community meetings to fix the recent barriers to voting created by diluting sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This essay highlights pointers from a recent training activity on virtual community organizing held during the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement’s (https://www.aadmovement.org/athensantidiscriminationmovement/ ) “End School to Prison Pipeline Conference held on September 26, 2020.

Technology Caveats

    After developing the critical points for using virtual community organizing to promote social change, I made it a point to begin and end the training with a review of some essential caveats in engaging in any virtual activity. The first caveat was that we have to understand that even in a virtual space, there is no substitute for personal relationships. Also, as we engage online, we have to start building small groups of trust and fanning out to others. Five hundred friends on Facebook are not your friends.

    A second caveat was that we need to embrace the reality that people respond to being on Zoom, Youtube, Facebook Live, and other such platforms as if they are watching TV—a two-dimensional entertainment space.  We have to remind ourselves that the computer does not engage people; people engage people. A computer is only a tool for communicating. Given this potential barrier, it requires more work to bring out the spirit’s passion and conviction to energize others (hint: engage them in the interaction one way or the other).

    A final caveat was that to be inclusive, we have to be very, very careful to develop the old school community organization plan at the same time, for those who do not have access to technology. We also need to continue to work within the technology space to respond to those with different hearing or visual needs.

Virtual Organizing Key Points

    Once we had set the stage for the training process, we focused on three issues: getting ready to engage, some ways to engage in virtual organizing, and things to consider while you are in the midst of a virtual organizing campaign.

Getting ready to engage in virtual organizing

    Although we knew there was a lot that could be presented in the training activity, in the time that we had, we noted that central to getting ready for virtual community organizing was the task of assembling persons who had possessed the type of leadership and facilitation skills that would work for a virtual space. Here we emphasized the importance of having persons who were great at different forms of computer-based communications—persons who were great at crafting short and pithy text/email messages, persons who could bring out the personal story and/or context in real-time either on the phone or over the internet, and persons who could scope out both graphic and non-graphic ways of promoting the campaign (posters, spoken word, music, and so forth). We also emphasized the importance of the democratizing process (in which everyone is a co-leader), as well as slowing down the engagement process to develop trust within the team before designing and implementing a virtual community organizing campaign.

Ways to engage in virtual organizing

    Once we tackled the foundational part of virtual organizing, getting people ready, we walked through some of the ways in which one can engage in virtual community organizing. First, we emphasized that even in the virtual realm, one must not understate the importance of the “timing” of the activities. This includes being aware of the possibility that people will burn out from long sessions on the computer, summarizing throughout the process what is taking place, and being sure to provide resources that the audience can use after the event to press in more deeply that experience. We then talked about the use of text messaging, emails, or “constant” contacts for time-sensitive issues. At the same time, though, we mentioned that it was important not to burden people with too many of these “blasts.” We also talked about designing and circulating e-petitions that can be sent out over the internet to support or oppose a position. Here, we pressed in about the importance of transparency, which includes following up with people after they complete the e-petition to let them know about the impact of filing an e-petition.  

    We also focused on ways one can plan to have virtual town halls via Zoom or social media as a means to foster community discussion regarding an issue. With this, we emphasized the importance of planning out the details/logistics before the event, as well as including a concrete action plan for follow-up afterward. Again, as it relates to the importance of transparency, we highlighted the usefulness of communicating up front whether the event would be recorded and the plans you have in place for sharing recordings after the event. We also talked about the need to think carefully about when it is good to use anonymous communications and when not to use anonymous communications during these events.

Things to consider in real time  

    In the last part of the training, we talked about what we call in the community world “on the ground”—what do you do once you are engaging in real-time? We actually took a slight step back and emphasized that in any community organizing campaign, face-to-face or virtual, we need to be tactical and strategic. Here, the priceless Saul Alinsky (1971) tactics from his work Rules for Radicals come in handy.

    We noted for the audience that when you go “live,” so to speak, you will want to consider that most people look to social media now for their news and information, which is on a 24-hour cycle.  Thus, what is hot now can turn cold in a minute. We also talked about how, in virtual activities, communities are fanning out in their campaigns in a decentralized way. This makes it easier to keep the pressure on, as well as to build a power network, regionally and globally.  

Final Thoughts

    In some ways, many of the rules for radicals still ring true here. Yet, we increasingly see the use of virtual space for promoting social change.  New strategies require new tactics.  Recent examples of such virtual community organizing engagement activities include the  July 2020 boycott of hate speech ads on Facebook (Hsu & Lutz, 2020), open e-town hall meetings relating to racism (Doris, 2020), Twitter campaigns for getting out the vote for the 2020 election (Bolder Advocacy, 2020), and dissemination of virtual advocacy self-help materials (Polovitch, n.d.).  In the end, our goal is to adapt classic ways of community organizing to the virtual space we are in.

References

Alinsky, S. D. (1971). Rules for radicals: A practical primer for realistic radicals. Vintage Books.

Bolder Advocacy. (2020). Get out the vote (without getting off your phone). https://bolderadvocacy.org/2018/10/16/get-out-the-vote-without-getting-off-your-phone/

Doris, T. (2020).  West Palm town hall starts conversation on local moves against racism. Palm Beach Post. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200617/west-palm-town-hall-starts-conversation-on-local-moves-against-racism

Hsu, T., & Lutz E. (2020). More than 1,000 companies boycotted Facebook. Did it work. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/01/business/media/facebook-boycott.html

Polovich, M. (n.d.). Online advocacy from start to finish. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities. https://aascu.org/corporatepartnerships/CapitolImpact/OnlineAdvocacy.pdf

Llewellyn J. Cornelius, PhD, LCSW, is the Donald Lee Hollowell Distinguished Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice Studies and Director of the Center for Social Justice, Human, and Civil Rights at the University of Georgia.