A “First-in-a-Long-Time” Working-Class Workshop
Our San Gabriel Valley (California, USA) Regional Reference Person, Victor Nicassio, recently led a first-in-a-long-time working-class workshop for the four Regions in Southern California. He was assisted by Dan Nickerson, the International Liberation Reference Person for Working-Class People. The weekend was a thought-provoking, discharge-filled handful of days. I had many highlights, starting with the workshop being attended by mostly People of the Global Majority.
Victor did an elegant job of inviting us to describe our early and current connection to the working class and then proceeded to construct a direction for creating a classless society. He used examples from his own life as jumping-off points from which to discharge. The twenty-five of us got to know him a lot better as he opened the way for us to explore our own lives in the safety of an all working-class group.
There were only two other Jews at the workshop. We led the Havdalah moment at the end of Shabbat. None of us were observant Jews, so we had to resort to “Dr. Google” [do a search on Google] for some clarification. Also, my memories of Havdalahs at other RC workshops reminded me of a sweet song we could sing together.
One of the resonant directions Dvora Slavin had given us at last year’s working-class Jewish workshop was that as working-class Jews we need to be visible. The inaccurate stereotype says that all Jews are middle or owning class. We need to contradict our internalized terror and show ourselves among the world’s working class.
Costa Mesa, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussionlist for leaders of wide world change
(Present Time 198, January 2020)