Lessons Learned: Electoral Organizing and Race

In the evaluation phase of Western State Center’s Voter Organizing Training and Empowerment (VOTE) Project, we held a number of conversations with participant groups to identify lessons learned through our work with varying constituencies. The following captures key lessons from discussions framed by race that took place in two separate groups: people of color who organized people of color constituencies and white people who organized predominantly white constituencies. A separate document captures lessons learned working with new citizens/immigrants, younger voters (18-24), women and small town/rural voters.

Lessons Learned Organizing in Communities of Color

• Our groups need to stay focused on mission. Both the intensity of the work and the pressure from national groups to focus on numbers detracted from our mission and program.
• It is important to strike a balance between "quantity" (the numbers game) in the short-term and building capacity for the long-term. This balance includes thinking about the following
1. Once trust is built (unless we mess up really bad) we will always have good rapport with the people we are organizing.
2. Build trust and then long term partnerships and collaborations with others.
3. Address the challenges of internal community politics and issues.  Many of these result from the fact that communities of color have not had or enjoyed political power and its benefits.
   
• It is easier for us to get information from our communities than for "outside" groups.
• The fact that this election was the first time immigrants in our state were running for high level positions helped to highlight the need for immigrants to be involved in the political process.
• Immigrant communities were fearful of registering to vote because of post-9/11 targeting of Muslims and immigrants and fear of the INS, PATRIOT Act, etc.
• Wedge issues, such as same-sex marriage, need to be addressed. This is hard work and we need to continue to do it. We found the following methods to be successful:
  1. Political education for our members.
  2. Repeated Board level discussions so that that board members could provide leadership.
  3. Achieving consensus, agreement through structured conversations.
  4. Contextualizing our discussion in our mission and commitment to equality.

Lessons Learned by White Organizations about Addressing Race

• Need to be conscious of images and language that we use in materials.
• There were fewer high profile issues campaigns explicitly rooted in race during this election cycle so it was harder for us to create opportunities to address race. We need to prioritize and pro-actively plan for opportunities to work on race.
• We need better resources to talk about immigration and sovereignty issues. These came up as wedge issues that volunteers were not prepared to deal with.

Lessons Learned by White Organizations Building Alliances across Race

• The disparity of resources and funding made collaborating with people of color organizations difficult. Sometimes white organizations need to share their resources when people of color organizations are not being funded.
• Sharing materials was a concrete way to collaborate.
• It is critical to listen and provide support as asked and invited.
• We must maintain long-term relationships rather than just working together on election outreach. In this election cycle it was challenging to prioritize relationship building because of the pressure to get high numbers.

What National and Outside Groups Need to Know

• Communication tools and messages need to be adapted for local communities and specific communities of color.
• Ethnic media is an under utilized by national and mainstream groups.
• Organizations that came into people of color communities didn't have a commitment to process. They were only focused on numbers.
• Organizations didn’t invest enough resources in people of color organizations where English was not the primary language.
• Few national groups had a plan for long-term engagement, they weren't able to build trust with immigrant communities.
• National organizations have a gap in understanding what local communities need. This is often made worse when language is a barrier.
• National organizations don't understand that immigrant communities are not all the same.
• National organizations need to prioritize a long-term approach. Don't come to any communities just for Election Day action — it can be counterproductive.