Organizing with humility

In one of the James Lawson Institutes, a professional community organizer told us that one of the rules on their crew was that if any one of their names was mentioned in any news story that person would buy beers for everyone that day. It was a lighthearted "punishment" meant to underscore the centering of the community members, not the organizers. 

On the Portland Peace Team, we teach "listening with humility," which includes practices such as paraphrasing but not telling the person what they said. Instead, offer something like, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I think you said..." You hand them the power to control the message, showing them respect, which can serve to deëscalate them and assure them that someone is truly listening. 

At one of the Indigenous Environmental Network gatherings, this one in Oregon, I was doing some interviewing of some of the leaders in attendance for possible use at a tribal station back where I was then living, in northern Wisconsin. I approached Winona LaDuke, easily the Native American leader at that gathering of a few hundred with the most name recognition in tribal country or in the US. She told me, "Interview that young indigenous Chicana first. Then interview that Apache elder. Once you've interviewed them, I will sit with you." LaDuke was practicing what we might call organizing with humility, centering others and helping those who did some media work to do the same. This is part of consensus organizing.