I've written about this before here.
My sigline speaks to this:
"If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition" Bernice Johnson Reagon
But I think there are some people who don't understand the word, or what it means in a progressive context.
When Bernice Reagon spoke those words, she was at a conference addressing women in the Women's Movement. She was speaking to the need for there to be more inclusiveness, in that movement for women of color.
She was not advocating for a "coalition" with anti-abortionists, anti-feminists, and misogynists.
Phyllis Schlafly? Not.
Coalition does not equal unholy alliance.
When Fred Hampton called for a Rainbow Coalition, which Amazing Grace discussed here recently,
Fred Hampton realized that the struggle of poor people could be most effectively addressed by coalition building among the disaffected and disenfranchised of all colors. The result was his "Rainbow Coalition". Yes, that term was coined by Chairman Fred Hampton not Jesse Jackson. With a reputation as a uniting force, he formed an alliance with the Black Panther Party, the former street gang turned activists the Puerto Rican Young Lords, the Young Patriots, a white, "Redneck" organization from Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, the anti-war group Students for a Democratic Society and the Chicano nationalist group the Brown Berets.
He was not calling for joining forces with The Posse Comitatas, or The White Citizen's Council, or the Klan.
His call was for us to come together, united to fight them.
When César Chávez. and Dolores Huerta, formed the United Farm Workers and issued the rallying cry of ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!
the "pueblo" (people) they were uniting were not those who oppressed them.
Recently I was mocked, elsewhere, for having the sig line I have.
Because I have dared to question a person who calls herself "forming coalitions" between the left and the right.
I have been called a hypocrite, because of a denunciation I made.
I say no. I am not a hypocrite. I know the difference between building coalitions and making pacts with the devil.
Grover Norquist? Hell No.
If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Please read RadioGirl's diary on this as well.
