Activism and Social Theory

Activism and Social Theory: Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals And Affirmative Action At first, it might seem that the policies and attitude of the grass roots radical activist of the 1960's Saul Alinsky would suggest that Alinsky as a person and Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" would support the institutional practice of modern affirmative action. Affirmative action is a program of racial integration and social advancement of marginalized groups in American society.

It attempts to integrate minorities into traditionally all-white or all-male institutions such as the military, academia, business, and the professions of law and medicine to make up for past historical and institutional wrongs and biases. But ultimately, Alinsky would suggest that such integrative efforts are counter-productive for a truly radical program to change society.

Rather than encouraging minorities and other disenfranchised groups to become angry at a society that has ostracized them and made them feel like aliens simply because they look different or have different cultural practices, affirmative action instead encourages minorities to feel grateful to an oppressive culture and societal frameworks. Affirmative action encourages minorities, women, and ethnic groups from the American margins to accept the dominant capitalist paradigm, by virtue of becoming beholden to its institutions through integrative efforts.

Power is not only what a marginalized group has, but also what the target of its destabilizing efforts thinks it has, counsels Alinsky's first rule for radicals. But accepting a Black scholarship to a largely White college becomes an admittance that a Black youth needs help from White institutions, to succeed in White society. This is an admission of a lack of power, rather than acquiring true power for his or her racial group.

To achieve such acceptance he or she must succeed in school, and often hold him or herself away from his or her community, to create a resume suitable for an all-White college.

Even more damning to the practice of affirmative action, furthermore, if found in the second caveat of Alinsky to radical groups that they must never go outside the expertise of their people, as feeling secure in one's identity "stiffens the backbone." This suggests that going to a traditionally all-Black institution might be more socially behooving to a Black man or woman wishing to destabilize the dominant paradigm -- he or she will not have to deal with White students, for example, who make him or her feel guilty about seeming or being 'too Black.' This rule also suggests that traditionally all- female intuitions may more fostering of women's collective excellence in the long run, then women of having to compete on male terms in higher education.

Affirmative action calls upon minorities to adopt hegemonic customs and enter into the dominant culture, but Alinsky suggests, stress one's difference to succeed if one is a radical, that whenever possible, a radical person must go outside the expertise of the target and look for ways to increase the insecurity, anxiety, and uncertainty of the persons in power who have disenfranchised your group in the past.

Throw off the balance of common corporate America, not by attending Harvard Business School, but by being like rap mogul Russell Simmons and marketing the language of the street to White and Black youths alike, but in Black language, on Black terms. Be like Martha Stewart and sell a feminine product, rather than concealing one's domestic aspirations, if one wishes to be a diva with a corporate empire.

In some ways, of course, affirmative actions is congruent with Alinsky's ideal that an oppressed group should make the target of its attacks live up to its own book of rules, or in Alinsky's terms, if the rule is that every letter or E-mail gets a reply, send thousands. Minority groups through affirmative action are making powerful American social and political institutions; live up to the American credo of liberty and justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness for all its citizens.

Of course, this is a credo America has never truly enforced or lived by. But by forcing American institutions to integrate through affirmative action programs, or by stressing affirmative action as the predominant road to success, in essence, oppressed groups force them to adopt a weak rather than a powerful ideological stance. They force themselves to enter into the game of playing the 'card' of the tragic and oppressed minority group.

Thus a minority group deprives itself of the power of ridicule, especially against organizational leaders, another of Alinsky's so-called potent weapons of radical activists. According to Alinsky's principle of ridicule, against humor there is no defense on the part of the oppressor, because humor is irrational, infuriating, and also works as a key pressure point to force concessions.

Thus, Black comedians like Richard Pryor who verbally challenge American stereotypes and stand outside the institutions of corporate production do more than, for example, Bill Cosby, who pays honor to the ideals of dominant American society, ideals of corporate success, hard work, and adhering to traditional career goals. Also, by denying minority or oppressed individuals humor, vitality, and a positive sense of one's current racial identity, and giving them only the status of an oppressed group, little joy is obtained for individuals through affirmative action.

The status of their identity within the institution is emotionally as well as politically and socially impoverished. Alinsky suggests that a good tactic is one the oppressed radical people enjoy because enjoyment means a person will keep doing it without urging of their supposed betters, and they will and come back to do more, out of delight and not out of duty. They'll even suggest better ideas to disturb the peace, Alinsky crows. But worst of all, fundamentally, affirmative action takes off the pressure of powerful institutions.

A powerful institution such as Harvard or Goldman Sachs lets a few qualified minorities into its fold, and thus excuses itself from adopting deeper and real changes in its still largely White, male, corporate and capitalist culture that has historically disenfranchised so many peoples. Instead, Alinsky says one must keep the pressure on such institutions from without. Never let up on the pressure, keep trying new tactics to keep the opposition off balance, and as the target perfects one approach, hit them with something new,.