A “Going Public with RC” Workshop
I recently led a “going public with RC” workshop. I wanted us to think about going public in bolder and more strategic ways.
We were a wonderful and diverse group of forty-five RC activists who had been bringing RC to many different areas—climate change and anti-racism work; women’s, Jewish, and “mental health” liberation; the labor movement, teachers, health care, young people, artists, and more.
Classes included discharging on early defeats around being courageous, on making mistakes, on fear of failure or being attacked, and on showing people a thing we loved and having it ridiculed.
I led a class on dealing upfront and openly with emotions. I’ve found that when I can talk about emotions (discharge and re-evaluation) with confidence, as if discharging is the most natural thing to do, people are less critical. Worrying about people’s reactions seems to draw criticism.
There was a class on “internalized RC oppression”—our undischarged feelings about RC that interfere with going public.
People took turns practicing how to handle attacks, listen to irrational positions without getting defensive, and communicate about our more controversial draft policies in a relaxed way.
I did a class on strategic thinking. I first had everyone discharge any feelings about being strategic. Then I talked about choosing winnable victories to organize around. Everyone picked a liberation area and discharged about a winnable goal for it and what RC could contribute to moving it forward.
There were 7:00 a.m. classes led by others, some of whom had decades of experience in going public with RC. The classes were on building wide world organizations based on RC, doing listening projects, going public with RC policies, doing RC work on racism within organizations, bringing RC to climate change activists, setting up a support system for staff in an organization based on RC, beginning RC in new places, leading a going-public event with an RC support group, and backing [supporting] other people’s leadership from behind (a powerful leadership skill).
I tried to set a tone of all of us being in this together—those of us who have been trying things for forty years, and those who have just gotten into RC yet somehow figured out how to recruit their whole family and network of friends. We all have things to learn from each other.
I drew a diagram Sunday morning with long (tree) trunks representing our many liberation areas and with an umbrella above the trunks that I called “our united front.” Each of us needs to be able to fully bring RC to our own people—women, Native peoples, Black and Asian-heritage peoples, Jews, Muslims, men, LGBQT people, people with disabilities, working-class people, middle-class people, owning-class people, and so on. And each of us needs to be part of a united front, needs to be a “generalist” who brings RC to the whole. People discharged on where they have struggled in bringing RC to their own people and then where they have struggled to be a generalist and bring RC to everyone.
We met in Wygelian leaders’ groups in which people shared what they’d tried in going public, lessons learned, and mistakes made and then got thinking from others about unsolved challenges.
It was a joy leading this workshop. It pushed me to keep discharging so I could keep putting out what I’ve learned, inspire others, and create a safe place for everyone to learn from each other. I had a great team that thought with me every step of the way. I look forward to doing more.
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of wide world change
(Present Time 198, January 2020)