The guiding principles behind our workshop with illuminating case stories from 25
years of helping to eliminate racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism,
ageism,
classism
and
other
forms
of
oppression
Tony Harris and Jacob Holdt
OPPRESSION
EXISTS
UNIVERSALLY
IN
PRESENT
SOCIETIES
This might seem self-evident, but is usually ignored by oppression fighters. In the 20th
century many tried to idealize certain "Marxist" societies for having virtually brought an
end to racism, sexism, classism, etc., while totally ignoring how these "isms" on the
whole, had there merely found new forms of expression.
EVERY PERSON IS LOCKED INTO BOTH OPPRESSED AND OPPRESSOR
ROLES
Out in the wide world the realization that everyone in our societies has been forced into
operating within both oppressor and oppressed roles is still almost unknown and unfaced.
Until we understand the deeper nature of oppression our struggle to end it will be in vain.
We will continue looking for "the enemy out there" and thus carry on the long sad history
of desperate, bewildered human beings substituting a Czar for a Stalin, a Shah for an
Ayatollah.
OPPRESSION OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE - ADULTISM - IS THE
FOUNDATION FOR ALL FORMS OF OPPRESSION
Adultism is the first oppression all people experience. Parents must take charge of their
relationship with their children. Presenting the world as a dangerous place with murder
and hurtful people along with a "That's the way it is" attitude they instill powerlessness in
children. As new forms of oppressions are later introduced, we now accept them without
fighting back. Born with an open, zestful and cooperative relationship to everyone we are
hurt very early by this irrational behavior of adults. While we are in emotional distress,
our vast human intelligence momentarily seems to shut down and the new information is
stored wrongly or "jams up" in a tied-up knot, and we are blocked.
Since we cannot understand – or evaluate - such early information from a distress
experience, subsequent information tends to get stuck in the same pattern, which over the
years becomes chronic - or like a recording which now plays us! Finally we end up with a
"distress pattern" of rigid, illogical behavior not unlike that of our parents or other adults.
Having gone through such oppression, we then reenact our own experiences on others.
An example from racism: In my workshops young whites - especially from the South relate with tremendous pain how they in their early childhood developed deep love and
affection for their black servants. Thus they were unable to understand why their parents,
in the company of other whites, would talk in a derogatory, mocking or even hateful way
about blacks in general. In the "warm" presence of the blacks they would be
overwhelmed with flushes of guilt if their parents suddenly entered the room.
How torn such whites have been is evident to everyone who sees them break down and
cry in racism workshops. Also evident in this example is the development of the guiltfear distress pattern, which most white Americans suffer from in their relationship with
(American) blacks (who have been shaped by this racism).
The fear ingredient is also remembered in different variations by many: We sat on the bus
with our mother. A young black male got on the bus and we felt our mother pull us a bit
tighter. We didn't understand why this early message was given and it thus had a
snowballing and crippling effect on our entire relationship to blacks ever after.
OPPRESSION ONLY OPERATES, AND CAN ONLY OPERATE, THROUGH
DISTRESS PATTERNS
Oppression fighters and liberation movements in the whole world desperately need this
powerful insight about oppression. It is useful, in part, because when we see the
disheartening appearance of human beings, who we assume are good and wholesome,
acting in such oppressive, unwholesome ways it tends to destroy our morale and blight
our spirit over and over again. No person would ever agree to, or submit to, being
oppressed unless a pattern of oppression had been installed, first by the oppression of
adults in early childhood. Only the distress patterns left by adultism allow other
oppressions later to be accepted and make it possible to force a person to continue to
function as oppressed.
From sexism, we know how women through early conditioning develop emotional blocks
toward "male-oriented" learning or work and end up "accepting" a society of men
occupying all the positions of power. In the unique American brand of black-white
racism
this
pattern
is
even
clearer:
blacks are very early steered away from an academic career and often develop enormous
emotional blocks toward reading, writing etc. - causing them to start fall behind whites in
school usually from 4th grade.
NO ONE WOULD SUBMIT TO BEING OPPRESSED FOR MORE THAN AN
INSTANT UNLESS THEY HAVE ALREADY HAD DISTRESS PATTERNS
INSTALLED
A victim of oppressive forces might bide his or her time and keep a submissive facial
expression while the gun is pointed at him, but the oppressor would be overthrown very
quickly if the distress patterns of being oppressed were not internalized to enforce the
person. Newly imported African slaves in the antebellum South or Caribbean were
usually rebellious like Kunta Kinte, whereas blacks born into slavery tended to be
submissive.
More than that, no person would agree to function as an oppressor for an instant if the
patterns of oppression had not first been installed and the person then manipulated into
the oppressor role. For instance, most outside whites would feel repulsed by entering and
participating in the old southern Jim Crow system or the recent South Africa under
apartheid - systems which seemed "natural" to the native conditioned white. Likewise
American Protestants would feel repulsed by the idea of discriminating against Catholics
in Northern Ireland and American Jews by and large would not participate in settlements
on the Palestinian Westbank.
THE PERSON WHO FUNCTIONS AS AN OPPRESSOR HAS ALWAYS FIRST
BEEN OPPRESSED AND THEN MANIPULATED ONTO THE OTHER END OF
THE OPPRESSION PATTERN.
This is old human knowledge: child abusers have usually been abused themselves as
children. From classism - the institutionalized inequality between rich and poor - we get a
good insight into this process from England. How does one become "ruling class" there?
Members of workshops, who were brought up in England, often describe the oppressive
preparation for being "presented to the Queen" or how they are taken away from their
parents at an early age and sent to special boarding schools where they are tortured and
systematically degraded in the most inhumane ways: being kept as "slaves" by the older
students, running the gauntlet, etc. In later years, they are then manipulated onto the other
end of the pattern, forced to give the same vicious treatment to the younger boys in
preparation for their "ruling" role.
Or from America: How do American doctors "justify" earning more than doctors
anywhere else in the world or 10 times more than their hospital workers? Well, during the
hard years of internship they are often forced to work 30-40 hours without sleep. Without
any logical reason for letting such zombies literally hold human life in their hands, such
oppression gradually creates the feeling in them of having earned "the right" to such great
classist (and sexist!) power.
This realization or principle is met at first with indignation by victims of oppression.
"You're trying to tell me that those were innocent humans, those people who tortured and
shot and gouged out my family's eyes? You are going to tell me that Hitler, Saddam
Hussein
or
Milosovic
were
human
beings?"
Yes. It is of great support to us to realize that the most viciously functioning person in the
world was a human being underneath the distress and functioned so viciously only
because of the distress. The person who functions as an oppressor does so always and
only because he or she has first been oppressed, and with the pattern of oppression thus
installed, the person has subsequently been manipulated onto the other end of the pattern
in order to function as an oppressor.
IF WE CAN HELP THE PERSON ACTING OUT AN OPPRESSOR ROLE IN A
PATTERN TO DISCHARGE THAT PATTERN OR ASSIST THE PERSON TO
BE RID OF IT, THAT PERSON WILL GLADLY CEASE FUNCTIONING AS AN
OPPRESSOR AND WILL BECOME AN ALLY.
This principle is easy to realize when we look at the two ultimate distress patterns of
racism: on the one hand the white Klansman, on the other hand the black mugger - both
overwhelmed by feelings of hate, insecurity and rejection from mainstream society. It
really shouldn't come as any great surprise that on the personal level it is often extremely
easy to befriend them both and by giving them attention and affection we are
automatically helping to steer them away from a destructive path. In my experience they
are both starving for love and recognition, so when we reach out to them and make them
our allies we are thus actually helping to make society a less oppressive place for
everyone
to
live
in.
Yet - when confronted with their severe distress patterns most of us in daily life conservatives, liberals and radicals alike - are so conditioned into the oppressor role that
we usually forget this principle and tend to further isolate and reject them. In other words
we further ghettoize them into the condition of hurt and abuse out of which their anger
grew in the first place. Thus "we" are the actual oppressors!
Most victimized people do not act out their pain in such violent extremes, but instead
express this pain in the form of racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs or
thinking. On every campus and in every work place we can help make the atmosphere
less oppressive by making such bigots, male chauvinist pigs etc., our natural allies. Most
campuses have had a strong increase in racist and sexist incidents in recent years
reflecting a worsening of the underlying oppressive patterns in society. We know that
people are not really worse today than they were a few years ago, so this should empower
us and embolden us to seek allies much more widely, to keep up our own morale and our
strength. Let us repeat again and again:
If a distress pattern attacks you (and nothing else ever will), help is always close at hand.
This is the human being locked inside the distress pattern, the pattern's victim and your
best ally, who can be reached in ways that we are now learning to recognize.
OPPRESSION CAN BE AND IS INTERNALIZED
The realization that oppression is usually internalized will, if we can communicate it
widely enough, make a great difference in our work. If we can reach the liberation forces
of the world with this understanding, it will reinforce their strength several times over.
One of the most disheartening examples of internalization is seen in homophobia. For
centuries the oppression has been so severe that nowhere in the world have gays been
able to respond freely, kiss and hold hands in an open atmosphere without fear, and thus
have been forced underground like dissidents in the most totalitarian countries. Seeing
few positive gay role models around, young gays are unable to freely choose their true
sexual identity.
And so they end up loathing homosexuality before reaching adulthood, adopting and
internalizing straight definitions of good and bad and are forced throughout their lives
into painful, futile attempts to straighten their lives with the same crippling effect on selfimage as when blacks straightened their hair to "pass". To avoid internalization (or
frequently suicide) they are forced to leave family and friends in many native areas (such
as the Midwest and the South) for exile in ghettos (such as San Francisco, New York,
New Orleans, etc.) not unlike traditional Jewish ghettos in Europe, Catholic ghettos in
Northern Ireland or black ghettos in the U.S. But most have suffered a slow death from
internalization in futile, destructive intermarriages with heterosexuals.
MOST DAMAGE DONE BY OPPRESSION IS DONE BY ITS INTERNALIZED
FORM.
To realize this is of importance in eliminating oppression, and in discharging oppression
patterns. The blows from outside came early, they will still come occasionally,
sometimes they come viciously when the struggle is joined against oppression. But
almost all the damage done by oppression is done by its internalized persistence, by the
self-invalidations, self-attacks, attacks upon each other by the members of the oppressed
group and by the fierce attacks and competition between different oppressed groups that
otherwise would be, and can become, each other's supportive allies.
Let us repeat: The blows first came from outside, but day in and day out we wreck
ourselves, wreck each other in the internalized continuation of the attacks.
A classical example, spotted by sociologists long ago, is the game "The Dozens" played
by young U.S. black men in which the object is to remain "cool" and "calm" while
insulting each other (and their families: "motherfucker") and degrading each other in the
most vicious possible ways. The game continues on and on. Each new generation of
young black men is expected to participate in this cruel, cruel invalidation procedure. It
has been traced to its origins in the necessity for black mothers under slavery to humiliate
their male children into submissiveness in order that they could remain alive.
Under slavery, if black male children showed any trace of spirit or rebellion, this so
frightened the slave owner that they were subject to instant execution. Black mothers
deliberately kept their sons alive by humiliating them and degrading them and forcing
them into submissive patterns of behavior in which they were expected to endure without
resistance. The tactic was successful in keeping them alive; but the internalizing of the
oppression has carried on generation after generation to this day (with reinforcement, of
course, from new oppression) with all the persistence and contagion, which such patterns,
can have.
Since such patterns are not nearly as dominant in other ex-slave societies it is easy to
conclude that slavery in a way never really ended in the U.S. Which black child hasn't
heard, been affected by or even crushed by the "You ain't shit, nigger" curse uttered by
people close to them, echoing the aversive guilt-fear patterns of a distant, and thereby
seemingly "innocent" white racism? As the white oppressor becomes more and more
invisible or distant for most blacks, internalized racism is getting out of hand in these
years and threatening a near total collapse of traditional family and inner city structures,
and ultimately threatening the very fabric of American life. Thus it is clearly affecting
white lives too with oppression's age-old boomerang effect.
THE PERSON OUTSIDE A PARTICULAR OPPRESSION CAN BE
POWERFULLY EFFECTIVE AGAINST THE INTERNALIZED FORM OF
OPPRESSION
Contrary to what seems to be the reality (and, of course, is actually our fears), when
blacks invalidate each other, compete with each other, pool their discouragement and
hopelessness and the white draws back and doesn't dare say anything about black
oppression because the white is "of course not an expert and doesn't want to intrude in
"black culture" and make a fool of himself or herself," contrary to that is the reality that
an aware white in a black group can be decisively effective in interrupting the
internalized oppression simply by seeing the viciousness of it and speaking clearly from
the outside.
In one workshop several Latino women were speaking out of their internalized
oppression, of how ugly they felt and how they longed for long blonde straight hair all
the time they were growing up. One aware white man felt sincerely indignant since he
felt they were beautiful women, all of them without exception, and he spoke from his
heart when he said, "How can you talk that way? You are the most beautiful women in
the world." At first they felt he was being sarcastic and wanted to fight him, but when
they heard that he meant it, a heavy discharge (emotional release) took place. With each
other, up to that point, they could only be sarcastic.
It takes some skill to contradict oppression, but we can all help to loosen up such
emotional blocks. West Indian blacks (not so affected by American racism) have often
been of great help for U.S. blacks in identifying and discharging their emotional blocks
and have even formed organizations to help motivate American blacks not to drop out of
school or college as a result of internalized oppression. From sexism we know that for a
long time men looked on bewildered, timid, id and fumble-footed as women struggled to
liberate themselves. Now they are beginning to find out that they don't have to stand
back, ashamed of their sexism and apologizing for it forever. They can move in and be of
great assistance to the emergence of women from their internalized oppression.
And likewise with classism, which American workers have internalized to an unusual
degree. They have adopted hopelessly outdated "bootstrap" and Horatio Alger fantasies
even better than their actual oppressors - the so-called owning class - and it can be of
great help for them to be contradicted in this pattern by people from Europe where a
strong traditional working class consciousness has won many struggles. It is easy for an
outsider to see how American workers pull each other down, settle for less and often
support the most reactionary candidates working against their own deeper interests.
As a result they get very short vacations (where Europeans get 6 paid weeks), have hardly
any maternity or paternity leave (Europeans get 7 to 10 months), hardly any
kindergartens or profit sharing or decision making and control over their companies and
those on minimum wages get less than half their European counterparts (which helps
lower the wage level of salaried workers also). Without effective job security and
adequate recuperation, their productivity is far behind that of Europeans (unless they put
in more work hours!). Since this directly affects American competitiveness it is evident,
as it always is with oppression that in the long run it also hurts the oppressors.
EACH PARTICULAR OPPRESSION HAS CERTAIN FEATURES IN COMMON
WITH ALL OTHER OPPRESSION
Every oppression, for example, includes a lack of respect for members of the oppressed
group. Every oppressed group develops feelings of powerlessness, self-hate, self-blame
or self-doubt in relation to the oppressor.
EACH OPPRESSION IS ALSO UNIQUE AND NEEDS TO BE UNDERSTOOD IN
ITS UNIQUENESS
As liberation fighters we need to master the knowledge of these particular characteristics.
Some examples would be the "settling for less" conditioning of women by sexist
oppression or, the denial of education and information to U.S. blacks by white racism (a
worsening trend: in the 80's more than 20% of blacks have dropped out of college and
more are now in prison than in college). It is desirable for us to become experts on the
oppression of every group of which we are not a member (in order to be of decisive
assistance against the internalized oppression of members of the group) and to become
experts in combating the internalized oppression of our own group.
SOME PARTICULAR OPPRESSIONS PLAY KEY ROLES IN THE OVERALL
STRUCTURE OF THE OPPRESSIVE SOCIETY AND IN RELATIONSHIP TO
THE OTHER OPPRESSIONS
The oppression of the working classes, which is, in its foundations and at its core,
economic exploitation, is the fundamental oppression in society. The taking of the value
produced, from the working persons who produce it, by those in "ownership" could be
said to be what the whole society is "all about." (Internalized classism and the present
absence of any clear practical alternatives to such a society creates tremendous emotional
blocks in most people against an objective definition of the problem).
ALL OTHER OPPRESSIONS MIGHT HAVE DEVELOPED AS MEANS OF
ENFORCING CLASS OPPRESSION, AS MEANS OF DIVIDING THE
ECONOMICALLY OPPRESSED AGAINST EACH OTHER SO AS TO SECURE
THEIR SUBMISSION TO AND COMPLIANCE WITH, THEIR ECONOMIC
EXPLOITATION.
This began already in the first slave societies and continues right up to the present day.
Working people are divided along lines of gender, age, race, physical ability, size,
presence or absence of physical handicaps, sexual preference, religion, nationality,
culture, and language and are turned to oppressing each other and are thus discouraged
from uniting against the economic exploitation.
OPPRESSION OF JEWS (ANTI-SEMITISM) IN THE WESTERN AND ARAB
COUNTRIES PLAYS THE ROLE OF A "PRECEDENT-SETTER" OR AN
"OPENING WEDGE," FOR THE USE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST ALL
OPPRESSED GROUPS IN TIMES OF SOCIAL CRISIS.
The oppression of the Chinese in Southeast Asia and of East Indians in the countries of
East Africa is very similar.
Classically, Jews have been a visible, distinct minority population in the countries of their
exile who brought with them skills of survival and a highly developed culture. They, or
their leaders, have been required to function as a tool of the ruling groups of the majority
population as a condition for the Jews as a whole to be tolerated. At the same time a
continual low-level, "unofficial" campaign of anti-Jewish propaganda is kept evident
among the oppressed majority population. In times of threatened revolt by the oppressed
people of the majority population, this is replaced with violent, official anti-Jewish
propaganda. Pogroms, massacres, and expulsions are organized to turn the resentments of
the oppressed majority population, which was on the edge of rising against the
oppressors, against the Jews (or Chinese or East Indians), using them as scapegoats. This
clear strategy (the fact that Jews were generally invited to new countries shows how well
it was thought out) has been used over and over and over again in the last two thousand
years.
When the oppressors have diverted the revolutionary fervor of the oppressed into such
shameful activity, it leaves the people who threatened rebellion ashamed of themselves
and discouraged, and the Jews dispersed and plundered. Later, the Jews are re-instated in
the country where the violence occurred, or in the new place to which they fled, and
forced back into the role of visible agents of the oppressors.
This scapegoating imposed upon Jews (and upon East Indians and Chinese in other
sections of the world) has been possible in the past in part, because until recently, there
was no homeland nation with psychological power to support Jewish populations in other
countries and the homeland nations of the Chinese and East Indians were, until recently,
under colonial domination and so were almost powerless to protect their émigrés on the
world scene. The fact that a Jewish homeland was created at the expense of oppressing
Palestinians was - in the final analysis - the ultimate result not of Jews, but of rampant
anti-Semitism in the Western and Arab world. How deep anti-Semitism runs in the U.S.
is not commonly understood among gentiles. Stereotypes such as "Jews are naturally
good with money and control the economy, banks and media" are not only used by the
KKK and neo-nazi groups, but has become misinformation so socially sanctioned that
these facts surprise most Americans:
- In 1965, 45 of the 50 largest U.S. banks had no Jews in upper management. 38 of the 50
had no Jews in middle management.
- In 1979 only 15 of the 345 senior officers in the largest New York banks were Jewish,
and only three of the top 86 were. Of the 22 officers of big New York banks who were
members of the Board of Directors, none were Jewish.
- Of the 2,000 daily newspapers in the United States, Jews effectively own less than 100.
- Of the six major oil companies and their 300 senior officers, less than 25 are Jewish.
It is important to understand the hollowness of such stereotypes and the deeper reasons
for them. On the other hand, the fact that Jews in the U.S. - contrary to most other
oppressed groups - are not economically deprived as a group also needs to be
comprehended in order to fully understand oppression. Equipped with a strong cultural
identity they could internalize some aspects of anti-Semitism without becoming defeated
by them. Thus the gentile oppression has in some ways encouraged them to seek success
just as white racism has encouraged the West Indians - also called "black Jews" - to
succeed and the sense of isolation has also encouraged most new immigrants to excel).
Their common insecurity has enabled these groups to develop more refined techniques such as "Jewish guilt" - for oppressing their children with "drive" and "success" enabling
them to ultimately wind up in disproportionate numbers in higher academic institutions.
With a great intuitive understanding of oppressive patterns they have probably been
better able to create for each other the safety necessary to discharge such patterns,
through, for instance, merely being able to talk freely about their problems. This has
helped them to avoid many of the emotional blocks towards learning, etc., which ties up
the intelligence of so many other groups.
Rather than being mystified by why personal achievement at a given moment in history
seems to come easier for some groups than others, we should feel encouraged to work
together on the oppressive patterns which instills in so many children and young people
the crippling sense of powerlessness. Otherwise we tend to waste our energies on
destructive debates about "affirmative action" (through which minorities are placed in
positions, where they would have arrived naturally if they lived in a free society). How
little even liberals understand about oppression is shown in their incredible definition of
this important, but clumsy policy of countering it: "to remedy the effects of past
discrimination." Not surprisingly their ignorance is reflected in angry counter-charges of
"reverse discrimination."
To fully understand how hysterical such debates are we need to look beyond the closed
vacuum of our own society. In the coastal areas of Costa Rica, historical circumstances
have helped to make blacks an affluent upper class of landowners, which hire poor white
land workers. Listen to what these cultured blacks say about whites: "When I meet two
whites at night I cross over to the other side of the street, " "Whites carry knives and are
prone to violence," or even better: "Whites are oversexed." The poor whites can't help but
internalize such negative perceptions of themselves. As a result the blacks are succeeding
into university (often in the USA), while whites fall behind or drop out. This is what
"reverse discrimination" really is all about - the power to force another group effectively
behind, and nowhere in the USA have I seen affirmative action being capable of forcing
whites as a group behind blacks in jobs or education!
Misinformation about Jews not only leads to justification for the continued mistreatment
of Jewish people regardless of class and social status, but is also an opening wedge
designed to divide our attempts at liberation. If there is one stereotype Jews are proud of,
it is the fact that almost everywhere they are disproportionally over-represented in
liberation groups (even, in many places, in Palestinian support groups). For it is simply
impossible to go through 2,000 years of constant persecution and oppression by ruling
classes without developing a refined understanding and heightened sense of oppression.
Being true victims of the classical "divide and rule" strategies has made them far more
readily than most to reach out and seek allies.
Now where anti-Semitism in the black community is again being used to divert attention
from the underlying oppressive patterns in society, it should not be forgotten that the
great majority of whites who gave their lives in the Civil Right's struggle were Jewish.
(This, of course, does not make American Jews as a whole less racist, sexist,
homophobic, etc., than others, just a bit more committed to work on these oppressive
patterns. Perhaps we also need to add that the above was written by gentile white allies of
both Jews and Palestinians.)
ELIMINATING
ANY
ONE
OPPRESSION,
THOROUGHLY
COMPLETELY, REQUIRES ELIMINATING ALL OPPRESSIONS
AND
No one is free as long as there is one person oppressed!
(This principle is easily understood in America where everyone now lives in fear of crime
and everyone is now paying for the astronomical cost of putting more people in prison
per capita than any other country on Earth!)
This appeals to our intuition when we have our heads out of our distress, but it is also
very practical. Any example of oppression going on with another group of people drags
down and fetters our own struggle repeatedly. The white male working-class movement
has continually floundered and weakened itself, in every practical sense, by going along
with sexism, by going along with racism.
In the feudal society of the southern United States between the post-Civil War
Reconstruction period and the Second World War, the enmities assiduously cultivated
between the white sharecroppers and the black sharecroppers, the serfs of this feudal
economy, kept both groups viciously and perpetually oppressed. Neither group could
move out of the bondage as long as they tolerated the bondage of the others.
PEOPLE NEED SEPARATE DISCUSSIONS WITHIN EACH PARTICULAR
LIBERATION GROUP BEFORE THEY CAN HOPE TO COMMUNICATE
WELL TO, OR UNITE WITH, THE OTHER GROUPS
Whenever this principle has been applied, it has been very powerful. Where it has not
been applied, such as in the drift into having an oppressed group and its allies in the same
mixed support group or workshop, we develop difficulties that take time and trouble to
sort out. Each group must caucus separately first in spite of their fears of segregation and
their eager desire for unity. They must have a time to get together in the safety of their
similarities, their commonalties, or their homogeneity. For instance: children of
alcoholics and victims of ableism - handicapped people - are often under so much distress
that they need to define their own similarities before being able to join broader liberation
groups. People having the same backgrounds need to first discuss and agree on what they
want the other groups to hear from them. Once that is accomplished, they can come
together and listen to each other with respect and achieve the real unity that they would
otherwise seek too quickly or too simplistically.
This principle has been forgotten over and over. Working-class support groups, for
example, have started enthusiastically and then many times tended to wither because of
the considerable differences in backgrounds among the twenty or thirty people that
enthusiastically come out first. They have one or two good meetings and then, unsafety.
Individual members complain bitterly about "the things they had to listen to." The
underlying unity is obscured by the differences.
LIBERATION FROM OPPRESSION REQUIRES A THREE POINT PROGRAM:
ONE,
A
CLEAR
LIBERATION
POLICY,
TWO, UNITY OF THE GROUP AROUND THAT POLICY, AND THREE, THE
WINNING OF ALLIES.
The first steps are best tackled together in that the members of the oppressed group
should participate in the working out of the policy. (Not necessarily without a first draft
being written by someone else. We have found that one can write a first draft of a
liberation policy with considerable ease from outside the oppression compared to doing it
from the inside, but then the group itself should review and revise that first draft so that
they participate in working out that policy.) This will help to organize the group. To
participate in working out the policy can help to achieve unity. You will achieve the
policy and the unity at the same time. The third step is the winning of allies. This has
been known intuitively in a very few quarters, but almost all liberation movements have
neglected it, almost entirely. Almost all the liberation activities of the 60's floundered and
wasted their resources for lack of that third action, the winning of allies.