Community Organizers Put Country First

The Republicans have made it clear where their focus is this week with their convention slogan, "Country First."

With the abundance of flags, chants of "USA, USA" and tributes to those in the military, they have been laying it on thick, which is traditional at GOP conventions.

Sen. John McCain often has talked about the need for Americans to dedicate themselves to service, namely military, and he is on the money.

But a line of attack that was used consistently Wednesday night by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin calls into question whether community organizers put their country first.

Palin focused on the issue in order to attack the Obama campaign for offering up Obama's community organizing work to counter her experience as mayor and governor.

But when you examine Giuliani's and Palin's community organizer jabs — and the subsequent laughter by the Republicans in the Xcel Energy Center — the Democrats could have an opening.

After praising Palin's speech, I said Republicans can expect the Obama-Biden camp to seize on that point.

This morning, I read an e-mail from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who incorporated the community organizer argument into a fundraising appeal.

Republican operatives I talked to said the lines were brilliant and that community organizers don't play to the GOP's strength.

I disagree. And so do the many folks who have sent me angry e-mails. They include white Republicans, black Democrats and people from Small Town, USA, and Big City, America.

At a time when Americans are losing their homes to foreclosure, trying to get by after layoffs, lacking health care, and facing pressing environmental issues, it's ludicrous to slam people who aren't asking the government for handouts but are doing what they can to make their neighborhoods and cities better.

I think of my parents. When I was a child growing up in the Clinton Park neighborhood in Houston, my parents were just regular folks trying to raise their five children (sounds like Gov. Sarah Palin). They were always present at our local elementary school (sounds like Gov. Sarah Palin) and were involved heavily in our church.

But our neighborhood was dying. Drugs were ravaging it. Older homeowners were dying, and their children didn't want to live there, so they began renting to people who really didn't care.

So my parents joined several neighbors and decided to form a civic club. Others called them crazy for trying to advance their ideas, but they didn't give up.

They enlisted their children in passing out fliers and putting up signs notifying people of the monthly meetings. Only a few folks showed up, but they kept going.

And going. And going. And going.

After months and then years, we began to see progress. Stepped-up police patrols. Crack houses raided by the Houston police, DEA and FBI. Abandoned houses torn down. Weeded lots cut. More heavy-trash pickup days. New streetlights. New sidewalks. New sewer pipes. A refurbished park.

Bottom line: These average, low- to middle-income people didn't have political power. They focused on people power. They organized a community to take action.

So when Giuliani and Palin mocked community organizers, they didn't just toss a barb at Sen. Barack Obama; they also were demeaning Reginald and Emelda Martin. They were degrading the women who fought for their rights. They dissed labor activists and immigrant-worker activists, such as Cesar Chavez. They dismissed those in the civil rights movement, folks from small-town America who were sick and tired of being sick and tired. They thumbed their noses at the Nelson Mandelas of the world, who want better lives for their children.

It would have been perfectly fine for Giuliani and Palin to say Obama's community organizing days don't amount to enough experience to qualify him to be president. But when you openly laugh at and mock those hardworking Americans who are in the trenches every day, then you really don't care about "Country First" or service.

Will this be a major deal or a ripple? Likely the latter. But the one thing I know about community organizers is that they know how to organize communities. And if the McCain-Palin ticket wants to win, it better not slap those folks it will need to organize voter registration drives and pool systems to get folks to the polls.

Community organizers always are told they can't do certain things or are dismissed as meaningless. Yet they often have the last laugh.

Rudy, Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain might want to remember that.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN contributor and the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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