The Language of Organizing and Michelle Obama's Speech....

I listened carefully this week to the speeches of the Democratic National Convention. Some were more concrete and less lofty in their promises than others. Others were highly ideological, which just turns me off anymore to politics. I'm tired of much of the talking and am ready to get us to the votes. Let's get this campaign done and the money spending over with already!! We've got better things to spend money on than another negative campaign ad, especially the ones with no imagination.

I heard a few phrases in Michelle Obama's speech that I think the pundits and analysts missed in their responses, and ones I think are lost on the majority of the public as they listened to find out about this Woman behind the Man.

She mentioned: the world as it is and the world as it should be. Many may hear these phrases as ways that the Obamas see America and where they'd like to take it. That's true. But these are phrases that are born of the Community Organizing movement. I heard them several months ago at a workshop on community organizing. The community organizer teaching us used the phrases in an exercise to help us articulate positions on an issue. Let's say the issue is healthcare. In the 'world as it is,' healthcare is available to those who can afford it. In the 'world as it should be', we imagine healthcare affordable for anyone. These phrases accurately assess a current situation and then help others imagine a better world that's beyond our current situation.

Michelle Obama stayed true to her organizing roots in the speech with the use of the phrases. A few commentators I saw made no mention of how these phrases are tools to use in moving a community from one place to another. The commentators referred to them as clever word plays. But they're more than that. They are a strategy for moving a community beyond its current state to a better one. We want folks who can articulate the world as it is and the world as it should be on BOTH sides of the aisle. It's the "world as it should be" that's at stake in this election. Should be what ... is the question that McCain and Obama will answer in nauseating and unimaginative ways. My prayer is that they go beyond trying to outrage one another with petty comments on houses and experience and get to the root of their real plans for action.