Political and Social Change :: BRIAN STRAUB

Political and Social Change
Brian L. Straub, MSW

How do we help make a dent in this world? How do we help make positive social and political change? How can we represent the working middle and lower class? It seems that we [white males] have set up political and social systems that help to maintain the status quo and the advancement of white power and white privilege (not is the traditional KKK sense). Then, we let minorities [women, blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, etc.] make minor controlled social and political advances to influence main stream white America to believe that these minorities have “equal rights” and that “things are truly equal” and “changing”. However, the reality is that until white [male] America demand political and social equality for all, we will not see significant change towards true equality. There is a person smarter than I that discussed the idea of discrediting people and or/ideas and it goes like this. If one attempts to discredit the idea and fails, then the next step is to discredit the person to, in essence, discredit the idea by “proving” that the person is incompetent. It is a simple and easy way that we [white males] have been discrediting good ideas and persons for years, purely out of fear. We, white males, are the people who originally created these problems of inequality, therefore we [ordinary white people] need to step up to plate and join marginalized populations in the fight for true equality. The notion the marginalized populations have the ability, alone, to change the people in power and the policies and laws that these people make in order to keep individuals and groups subjugated, is a crazy. It’s crazy because white America will not let that happen, not because these oppressed populations do not have the knowledge and motivation to do it, but because we have set up systems to make sure that these populations cannot intelligently organize, communicate, and educate one another. We have set up systems where it is covertly and overtly illegal for these populations to organize, communicate radical ideas via mass media, and to truly empower each other. And, on top of it, we are creating a system of fear towards oppressed populations, therefore confusing our offspring by instilling a sense of fear towards change and other people who do not look like us.

Until we, white America demand change, sexual, political, and racial change will not happen in a drastic and wide spread fashion. So the question is how can we influence and create change while living our day-to-day lives. The answer are the answers that have been around and successfully used for years; non-violent protest, organization, and direct action. We need educate ourselves on companies, people, and organizations [political as well] that exploit people here and aboard and stop financially supporting them and start financially, verbally, socially and politically opposing them. This does not require large amounts of money; it merely requires small changes in our daily lives and decision-making. It requires us to make educated purchases, decisions, votes, and changes…that is it. We can, through small purposeful individual changes, again make a large impact on a local, national, and global level. The idea is numbers, numbers, and numbers. We, generally speaking, have the numbers, now we need to educate. We need to continue doing what we are already doing, like www.ARTish.org, giving me the medium and outlet to share my ideas with thousands of people. What a great start!!
So, in the up coming additions of my column, I will be talking about various ways to effect social and political change. The idea is to de-mystify change, to promote change, and to instill in our minds that we can still facilitate change through communication, enlightenment, education, and the distribution of these ideas to a larger number of people. The key is making it relatively easy for people to create change and to feel like they again have a voice that makes a difference. I will be giving ideas that I think will be helpful in creating change when large numbers of people participate in them. The idea is to be motivated, to resist pessimism, and to create optimism once again. It is not about be naïve, it’s about working with what we have in the systems that WE have supported and created. However, if the only thing we have is a choice, then lets use it to create the biggest change for the largest amount of people!

:: contact Brian Straub :: brianstraubmsw@yahoo.com