Communist Party groups have a lot of activities that a person could join if they enjoy going to protests or political history group studies. Student groups define public opinion.
The student organization structure is the most important and efficient political organizing tool available for anyone with a cause. The YMCA obviously caught on to this line of thinking because they actually funded my 16 year old son to go to a social justice leadership training program this summer for free, staying in the college dorms of Nazarene College. Naturally they spent one out of five days defining gender as a continuum but what my son understood of the discussion was that you should not be mean to confused people. They also discussed racism, sexism, classism, etc and defined the terms so that the young people could understand the linguistics of their approach, which seems to be leftist.
My son's basic experience of the summer camp was a lot of emotional support to get the kids to express how they feel about themselves, their background, experience with racism, sexism and so on. It was a chance for them to say what they have never been allowed to say before, in a group situation that was very encouraging. My son felt he broke some boundaries past his fear of public speaking. I learned from hearing about it that he feels that he does not know enough about his ethnic background to even try to represent what people think when they look at him and might want to ask about it. The experience of being expected to explain who one is, can be stressful especially to young people who are still searching for the answer to that question.
Even though I appreciate the goals of race and gender politics, we have to realize that America is like a garbage dump of people who left their country. We are the riff raff of global society. The most important part of being American and coming of age is realizing that nobody cares about you. You are totally on your own. There are beautiful merits to that approach to life too. Think of how much the sea cares about the fishermen catching the food you will later buy. The sea does not care about you and nor does politics. All a person can do is gain skill riding the waves.
Those who feel they benefited from this week long emotional and learning experience are now invited to attend weekly meetings with the goal of establishing student organizations in their various learning institutions, including high schools.
When I was in college, I belonged to the Muslim Students Association. At Wayne State University in Detroit, we had our own mosque, our own building on campus to make wudu, attend jummah, and hopefully organize. The Board of Directors was overseen by the older generation of Egyptian and Pakistani Muslim Brotherhood alumni but completely was run by the students, who even vacuumed and cleaned. toilets. But it was not only about having a place to pray.
The MSA always required a handful of students to volunteer for roles like President, Vice President, General Secretary... I was the Publication Secretary one year late 90s.
The thing with the MSA is like the Green Party today. All you have to do is show up at your first meeting and they want to appoint you to something. They really need fresh blood. Once you have a position you will be affiliated with an organization, which means you have common ground to communicate with other chapters and also you can state that you legally represent your members.
For example, you could send off a fax to your local Representative saying you represent the Muslim Students Association or any organization you decided that you belong to, and you might likely get a meeting to discuss issues with some person representing the government. You cannot do this unless you represent an organization. That is why you must join, or create one.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1615.htm
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