a convention ago

I'm happy to be sitting under magnolias again, in the humidity, where it's unbearable once you step out of the circle that is the shade of the trees. I think people who don't mind heat must have grown up in hot climates (although the converse isn't always true) for we have a bit of nostalgia that helps us enjoy hot, muggy summer days.

I've been in Nashville all week for my training with Generation Change, and that training has been awesome, exceeding my expectations. Many of you asked, "What is a community organizer?", before I left to come here, and I searched for my words because I wasn't quite sure myself. Well, as I've come to understand it, it's someone who empowers other people to act for themselves. When you think about it, that's a pretty special concept: Even as the most radical of activists, you're only advocating FOR other people. Community organizers, though, train, strengthen, educate, support, strategize, do all that, but in the final analysis, they take a back seat in the movement. It was a paradigm shift that took me all week, but that I really respect.

Our exercise before lunch today was to write down our intention for our Generation Change internship/fellowship. Even though I've decided not to continue with the program, I feel that it's a helpful thing to do anyway. Maybe like public officials, I'll be more accountable if it's on paper and publicized.

My intention:
I want to learn the tools and context so that whatever community I end up in, if there's a change that needs to happen, I won't be shy about organizing people to bring about that change (and this includes my students' communities).