Complaints about racist, sexist, or classist attitudes were often dismissed as wimpy, too, and most gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered organizers stayed in the closet. Balancing work and family life was a low priority because few organizers had primary responsibility for raising children. Greater diversity today creates multiple challenges in working toward mutual agreement about how to run an organization. Instead of a limited argument about the right way to do things among three or four major organizing networks dominated by white men, the arguments have multiplied, not only across a vast array of organizations, but within organizations as well. The assumptions and interpretations of people from many races, classes, cultures, genders, age groups, sexual orientations, and family structures are on the table within our organizations in a way that they never have been before.
More organizers have a personal stake in the issues they work on.
Understanding one another across our differences, and working through them, are major parts of our work. Often, the biggest crises on our staffs are not about personnel matters per se, but about power, and the struggle to assert one s analysis and do something about it. If your analysis is significantly different from your organization s, and there is no way to work through the differences constructively, look for another job. It helps to work for a number of organizations over a few years in order to get a sense of the types of organizing out there and learn as much as possible. Anyone who works as an organizer for a few years with a good reputation can find a better job.