Group & Coalition-Building in an Anti-Oppression Framework

One common mistake is starting a campaign and then trying to recruit people to join you. Collective decision-making ensures that as many people as possible feel the ownership necessary to see through a campaign with all its ups and downs. Start by building your group or coalition, building relationships, and establishing a foundation of trust and shared principles within a broader anti-oppression framework. Center Palestinian leadership. Center other marginalized voices. Center youth. If your group is all-white or all-male, there is something wrong. Anti-oppression training and ongoing internal work by dominant groups is an important start to building effective and long-lasting coalitions (see resources below).

Know that different people and groups can contribute different things and may have different paces, capacity levels, and organizing cultures. In the long run, inclusivity and shared power are more important to the health and success of your campaign than perfection and speed. To generalize (there are always exceptions, of course), white middle-class organizing culture tends to focus on measurables and efficiency, stressing urgency and lifting up the most experienced leaders, while people of color-led organizing culture often focuses on building relationships and trust, cultivating new leadership and centering the voices of those most impacted by an issue. Understanding group dynamics and talking about issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality as a group can help avoid problems or help you handle them when they arise.

• Race: It's always present in grassroots organizing (because it’s always present everywhere). Be honest with each other about how these dynamics might be affecting your organizing. Is your group mostly (or all) white? Are the opinions and actions of Jews valued over those of Palestinians? Are you tokenizing or using the struggles of Black, Native, or Latino communities, instead of building power with them? Are you taking actions without considering that people of color are most likely to experience backlash?
  
• Class: While some people never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, many people do. Don’t inadvertently exclude people by scheduling many meetings at restaurants or requiring members to chip in financially. Be considerate of fellow organizers’ work and family commitments. Acknowledge people for showing up when they can rather than judging when they can’t or measuring who shows up most.
  
• Gender: It happens time and time again, often without intention: women do the busy and behind-the-scenes work while men become the face of a campaign. Watch out for it. If you see it, reverse it. Honor the talent of women in your group by encouraging them to do interviews, write op-eds, and speak at events. If you’re a cisgender male, be aware of how much space you take up during meetings.

Finally, remember that BDS is about Palestine, and not about you or any one person. That may sound obvious, but egos can get in the way of organizing. Some people willingly become the face of a campaign, volunteering to do every media interview or to write every op-ed. Avoid this. Giving a single face to a BDS campaign undermines the strength of BDS as a mass, diverse movement. If you have a leadership position in your organization, it is your responsibility to also make leaders out of others -- not by delegating tasks to them, but by letting go of some control and trusting them to make important decisions. Push those who claim they’re too shy or inexperienced to do interviews. It’s okay if it’s imperfect; we learn from our mistakes. Rotate meeting facilitation. Go around the table to hear from everyone. In the end, you’ll end up with less resentment, more unity and solidarity, and an environment that encourages collaboration and creativity.

Resources:

• Resource book on dismantling racism for social change groups (especially page 56 on, but earlier sections interesting too)
• Anti-racist organizations that could be hired to help design a process or lead a workshop
• Crossroads antiracism training specializes in organizational antiracist development. As with anything valuable and good, this work takes the allocation of resources, both financial and people wise. In other words, it's not cheap. But they are professionals at this and very good at what they do.
• Chris Crass' book Towards the Other America deals with communities of faith a good amount.  It is available as a pdf for free online here or can be ordered as a book.
• List of some white organizing patterns that can be unconscious but marginalizing

Case Study from the Anna at the US Campaign: We have had to very intentionally work to ensure that as we challenge privilege and injustice in the U.S. and Palestine, we are not replicating those same patterns in our own organizing. This is an ongoing process. We have moved from being a predominantly white staff and Steering Committee to a more diverse staff and a Steering Committee overwhelmingly led by people of color, especially Palestinians. Part of our process has included internal anti-racism education (workshops for our whole staff/Steering Committee, encouraging white staff to attend anti-oppression trainings, lots of reading) and developing anti-racism principles, which we used as an opportunity to educate ourselves and talk about them with member groups (including a webinar, many 1:1 conversations). Concurrent with this has been actively investing in other struggles, not in a transactional way (“we show up for BLM so they show up for Palestine”) but simply showing up, again and again, not centering or even bring up Palestine... simply being there because it's the right thing to do. Usually, this means slowing down on other things you’re doing. It also means taking feedback (not always glowing) from organizers of color for what it is: a gift. The relationships and lessons learned from that ongoing process have been invaluable and allowed our organization’s work to be successful in ways we never thought possible.