Story Tools

Printer Friendly Email to a Friend Enlarge Font Decrease Font

Related Content

Dave Barry: Read it here first, how the convention ends Palin was for earmarks before she was against them McCain to emphasize issue differences, avoid personal attacks With boost from Palin, Republicans look to November Complete McClatchy election coverage Palin's TV appeal, almost as big as Obama's, will change campaign Georgia lawmaker describes Obama, wife as 'uppity' Full text of John McCain's speech

More Politics Wire

McCain accepts party's presidential nomination McCain tells convention, nation he'll bring change Police arrest anti-war march to GOP convention Commentary: A pregnant 17-year-old isn't a personal issue Palin pregnancy reignites N. Carolina's sex ed debate Palin's TV appeal, almost as big as Obama's, will change campaign

Last 24 Hours

Hanna looms; Ike likely to follow Snake hanging from minivan is rescued Leonard a fit for Pack's new style Palin mocks the media, Obama Shimmer Wall lights up tonight

Last 7 Days

Auditors account for every drop of alcohol Aerial delivery goes awry Cooper's husband went on cleaning binge North Carolina in Hanna's path Pack down and out

Last 24 Hours

It's Palin, so it's private Hanna approaches; emergency declared Snake hanging from minivan is rescued Shimmer Wall lights up tonight N&O offers buyouts, will cut pages

Last 7 Days

Hanna looms; Ike likely to follow Cooper's husband went on cleaning binge Scandal puts Edwards' wife offstage Aerial delivery goes awry Auditors account for every drop of alcohol

Advertisements

William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers Comment on this story ST. PAUL, Minn. - New York resident Elana Shneyer said she watched with anger and anguish as her former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and Sarah Palin mocked Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer, reducing the job to little more than a punch line in their convention speeches.

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," Palin said in her convention speech.

Giuliani took a jab at Obama earlier Wednesday evening, saying that his community organizing work might be "the first problem of his resume."

"We're the Rodney Dangerfields," said Richard Green, the director of Brooklyn, N.Y., Crown Heights Youth Collective. "Crime goes down, drug use goes down, and we never get credit for our work. After all, community organizers don't do real work, they don't have any real expenses, and they're not real people."

Green, however, remembers getting a public pat on the back for his work from Giuliani.

In his book "Leadership," Giuliani praised Green for working with City Hall and Jewish community organizers for keeping the 1994 Brooklyn West Indian-American Day Parade, which ran through a racially torn Crown Heights neighborhood.

"They forged a compromise on the route and the schedule, then we spent the summer meeting with representatives from both sides and selling the compromise to both communities," Giuliani wrote of the community organizers. "It all culminated in a party at Gracie Mansion at which everyone involved attended to prepare for the parade."

Other community organizers across the country bristled at Giuliani's and Palin's speeches, saying that they showed little respect for organizers and little knowledge of the contributions of community organizers in the civil rights and women's movements.

"I thought they were uninformed and insulting to community organizers," said Shneyer, an organizer for Brooklyn's Pratt Area Community Council, a non-profit group that focuses on affordable housing, development and voter education. "I was disappointed and surprised."

"I was shocked the way they were disparaging honorable work," said Michael Leo Owens, an Emory University political science professor who specializes in urban politics and community building. "Martin Luther King Jr. was a community organizer, and all the other foot soldiers in the civil rights movement were community organizers. In every decade, we can point to community organizers. We can go biblical and say Moses was a community organizer."

The Center for Community Change, an umbrella group of 300 grassroots organizations, called Palin's remarks insensitive.

"When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn't attack another candidate," the group said in a written statement. "She attacked an American tradition - one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors."

In arguing that Obama lacked the credentials to be president, Giuliani and Palin compared the Democratic presidential candidate's job as a community organizer in Chicago to the Republican vice presidential candidate's job as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

Obama worked as a community organizer from 1985 to 1988 for a church-funded group in Chicago's South Side. His focus was organizing workers in African-American neighborhoods displaced by steel mill closings. That included outreach to politicians and pressing for things such as job training, childcare and public safety.

Ahmad Daniels, a longtime Charlotte, N.C., community organizer, said that trying to help communities that feel hopeless or helpless is "more difficult that running a big state like Alaska."

"To minimize Barack's work in the community is almost sacrilegious," he said. "She forgets the history of the United States - people touching hands, having a cup of coffee and talking about their visions."

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

McCain to emphasize issue differences, avoid personal attacks

Palin was for earmarks before she was against them

Palin aide skips deposition in 'troopergate' probe

Dave Barry: An end foretold in St. Paul

Check out McClatchy's expanded politics coverage

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

Comments Add Comment Disclaimer

No comments have been posted for this story. Log in to be the first to comment.

Comment Title:

Comment:

The News & Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.

Since The News & Observer does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The News and Observer.

If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.

Advertisements

Member of the

Real Cities Network

(c) Copyright 2008, The News & Observer Publishing Company

concept		evidence	hits	links
	$drugwar_propaganda 90% [news] [concept]	$propaganda_theme1 $propaganda_theme2 $propaganda_theme3 $propaganda_theme5 $propaganda_theme4		Classic Modern Drug Propaganda Themes in Chemical Prohibition Drug War Propaganda (book)
	$propaganda_theme1 90% [news] [concept]	"racially" "users" "user" "African-American"	4	Hated Groups (propaganda theme 1) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/druguse.htm http://www.drugwarfacts.org/racepris.htm http://www.narcoterror.org/
	$propaganda_theme2 50% [news] [concept]	"Crime" "Dangerfields" "problem"	3	Madness,Crime,Violence,Illness (propaganda theme 2) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/crime.htm http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm Distortion 18: Cannabis and Mental Illness
	$propaganda_theme3 60% [news] [concept]	"community" "communities" "American" "Americans"	27	Survival of Society (propaganda theme 3)
	$use_is_abuse 60% [news] [concept]	"drug use"	1	Use is Abuse (propaganda theme 4) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/addictiv.htm
	$propaganda_theme4 60% [news] [concept]	$use_is_abuse		Use is Abuse, Gateway (propaganda theme 4)
	$propaganda_theme5 60% [news] [concept]	"Youth"	1	Children Corrupted (propaganda theme 5) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/adolesce.htm
	$drugs 90% [news] [concept]	$various_drugs
	$chemicals 50% [news] [concept]	$alcohol		http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/chemicals.s...
	$depressant_intoxicant 50% [news] [concept]	$alcohol
	$alcohol 50% [news] [concept]	"alcohol"	2	Stanton Peele Addiction Web Site http://www.drugwarfacts.org/alcohol.htm
	$various_drugs 90% [news] [concept]	"drug"	1
	$youth 60% [news] [concept]	$propaganda_theme5		http://www.ssdp.org/
	$school [news] [concept]	"University"	1	http://www.ssdp.org/

See drug-warrior propaganda somewhere?
Submit text or a url, and bot will analyze prohibition propaganda for you!

Prohibition-era cartoons
Anti-prohibition political cartoons from Prohibition I.

Donate to drugsense please give generously!