Transcript

Creating Activists by Building Community | Jen Cox | TEDxWaltonHigh

so I find it incredibly poignant to be talking to you today because as you probably know this is the anniversary of the women's March and I'm here to talk about creating community especially when you can't find it because when you don't have a community you have a choice you can move somewhere where you think it exists or you can stay and create it yourself I grew up in a political family that's my dad and stepmom they went to the women's March a year ago today they traveled there on a bus from Tennessee to Washington to participate so it's part of my the fiber of my being that I talk about what I believe I was raised in that kind of house we talked about politics not just about who was running for office or what was happening in our government but about injustice especially things like racism and sexism and how they become institutionalized and when I was in middle school I didn't know what that meant and those things had to be explained to me of course but it was clear that this was going to be part of our conversations all the time we weren't a family that worshiped football teams don't get me wrong my dad's a huge Gator fan but that's not what we did that we didn't have the family that said you don't talk about religion or politics in fact it was the opposite you were expected to and I knew that not only was it not okay just to be outraged it was my civic duty to try to make a difference so I was in high school in the 80s you're welcome and I went to school in st. Pete Florida and this group came to our high school one day and registered all of the seniors who were 18 to vote I don't know if you guys do that here but for me it was really exciting most people they were that excited but I grew up in a house where my dad would get his jury notice in the mail and he would talk to us about what a privilege it was to serve on the jury when most people are trying to get out of jury duty my dad would tell us about how excited he was to be able to participate in democracy so that was in me so I thought I'm finally gonna be able to vote I'm gonna be able to participate in democracy so I register it's in between classes and we're all talking about what party we registered for and I said why register Democrat and it was like everything went black because there was a pack mentality almost no one else had they had registered Republican and I had a choice in that moment was I going to quiet down maybe smooth over the discomfort that had occurred or was I going to go ahead and tell them why why I believed in those values and I chose the latter and it was curious to some people because that's me in the middle I fit most of the stereotypes for mainstream American I'm white middle class I was a good student I was passionate of the cheerleaders I was voted most involved in my high school I was editor of the yearbook I could go on and on I enjoyed all these privileges just by accident of birth and I was raised to be conscious of that but it's my responsibility to talk about that it's easier for people like me fast forward through my adult life and I'm continuing to be outspoken I worked for approach with lobbyists in DC in my 20s I did a stint with AmeriCorps when I was 30 I was living my truth it was normal that was my normal and then all of a sudden I moved from all these progressive places I had lived like Boulder and Asheville and Denver to the northern suburbs of Atlanta and I've never lived in the suburbs and I started looking for some examples of maybe people who shared my values you know bumper stickers it's evolved I just wasn't seeing them and I wasn't hearing a lot of different dinner conversations about things that mattered to me and I didn't know what to do and I was getting quieter and quieter and that was very unusual to be in your forties and all of a sudden get quiet about your values that you've been living for decades and I had many sort of mildly successful attempts at finding like-minded people over the six years that I lived here mostly because I would seek that bumper sticker and grab that person in a very creepy way and ask him if they maybe want to have coffee sometime community and so I was sitting at a soccer game for one of my kids and a parent had moved here from Maine which was another kind of shining object for me that maybe she had different values and a lot of the people that I had been and she didn't and so she introduced me to a group of people who had formed a secret Facebook group for liberal moms and I was absolutely thrilled I thought I was the only one but the secret part was really important and I thought so too I didn't want my business affected I was a little bit worried that my kids social life would be affected if I were really open about what I believed in a culture that didn't seem to accept that and then I realized not everybody can be secret if you don't look like me and you wear your marginalized status by your skin color or by who you love then you don't have a choice and I was making a choice and that's privileged and that made me very uncomfortable so I took a chance and I asked these women if they wanted to not be secret because I had contemplated going back to Denver in 2015 I had just about given up on community I couldn't find it and that was very unusual for me because I'm extroverted and I've never had a problem making friends and I'd lived here for six years and I really was having a hard time and then we all went through something a little bit crazy together and that was the presidential election for 2016 and no matter where you fall on the spectrum we can all agree that it was different you know there were there were different rules maybe maybe no rules and people started talking out loud to one another and there was a narrative and at least up here in these northern suburbs the narrative was that you were going to vote for him and not her now we didn't think we were gonna change anyone's mind that was honorable our goal was to find each other and to let this community know that we are your neighbors - then it's okay to have lots of different opinions and so 200 people showed up on a Sunday on very busy corners of East Cobb every single one of us thought we were the only one myself included people were frightened to go and once we got there it was this incredibly electrifying feeling that not only were we not the only ones people were pulling over with tears in their eyes saying I've lived here for 35 years and never thought I would see this thank you how can I join so it was an incredibly energizing experience and important to us again not to change anyone's mind but just to feel that we were together and that we didn't have to be silent anymore it started with making signs of standing on street corners but that was never going to be enough so a few months later I took to social media with some other people and formed a group called pave it blue in 48 hours we had 200 people join just by word of mouth and this is for women in metro Atlanta only in a month we had a thousand in six months we had 4,000 we're going to celebrate our one-year anniversary in March and we've already passed a 5,000 mark these were doers not just talkers that's one thing that made it different there was a lot of angst and there needed to be a channel and we were providing something for people so that they could actually feel like they were doing something if they if they weren't happy about what was happening in the country it happened to coincide with an incredible opportunity a very visible congressional race and I'm sure you all remember it in the 6th district it was a special election and you have to remember that special elections people barely pay attention let alone national attention and they were because it was the first one after the presidential election and everyone was watching to see how people were going to react and we threw our support behind the progressive candidate and that was an incredible opportunity for us because the resistance was happening across the country but we could provide real-world examples real time and so we were very enthusiastic with our support it was fun we had some things that we could do with our anxiety and our fear and our pent-up energy and we were so dedicated that that candidate often credited us publicly for running his campaign it was it was an incredible opportunity we were in the right time at the right place right place right time scratch that perfect and then the media came and all of a sudden I was on this straight learning curve vertical the New York Times CNN CBS MSNBC the Atlantic the Guardian so many I can barely even remember that including international media so France was calling and Germany and Japan Japan I was speaking to Japanese reporters and interestingly there was a campaign staffer who spoke some Japanese we pulled her out I mean it was really surreal and exciting and terrifying but I kept answering the call because I felt an enormous responsibility to my community to this group and to the candidate because everyone was watching and the other the other interesting part about the media is that usually you have to pay for that to grow a brand or a community and we had we had what was called earned media four months of PR that I never had to pick up the phone and call and it was an incredible opportunity and so that was a real interesting part about this is that you you answered the call so that they rely on you to make their deadline and then when you need them they'll answer your call so that was a fascinating part of building this community and what we found was they were interested in us because we were doers and we didn't wait and so this campaign was getting going and they weren't ready to train us as Canvassers so we said we'll train we'll train ourselves we would hold them in our living rooms they had hundreds of signs that needed to be delivered they weren't ready we said we'll pick them up we would gather and go put hundreds of signs across the districts and you know this district is three counties it's huge and we realized we needed to make it fun because if you're going to ask somebody to participate at that level you need to engage them in a way that they can see this as a trade out of their regular social life will be their activist life and that those two things now can can be the same thing and we met people where they were not everybody wants to canvass it's exhausting not everyone can was physically able to knock on doors or as comfortable talking to people so we allowed creativity to just bubble up and made sure that people felt emboldened to go ahead and wear it literally social media was crucial I know most people in this room not everybody but most people in this room have never lived in a world without it and to imagine that you could amass that many people and get them all to do go in one direction quickly without social media is is unfathomable so that was crucial we operate mostly on Facebook but we also use Twitter and we use Twitter to engage the media and candidates and elected officials and very quickly we had over a thousand Twitter followers and like I said you continue to build those relationships and Trust with the media and members of the community and with 5,000 people in a group we also realized statistically we have one and more than one of almost every profession across every industry so we could engage people and get them to take ownership of this just by tapping them and saying who's a marketer 20 hands go up right who loves to do print spreadsheets can you can you organize this data for us somebody is a podcast producer we don't have to go hire that person they're already there so that really helped people take ownership of this community too and not just sit on the sidelines they wanted to be involved and bring their talents and the ones that couldn't be the traditional Canvassers we said take some postcards write postcards have postcard parties if that's too much sit on your couch and do it by yourself because the point is to meet people where they are and give them lots of choices there are lots of ways to be an activist not just one way and before we knew it they were making stickers giving them to us by the hundreds and buttons and really picked up the baton and ran with it and it was it was so remarkable to see people who had been in such despair and fear that we're now feeling that they could contribute and find each other as well but what about when there were no campaigns we needed to offer something else that campaign ended what were they gonna do now so we teach them how to advocate down at the Capitol because here in Georgia it's called advocacy not lobbying but means the same thing we make sure they go to the local politics politicians meetings and there so that they know us as constituents we're holding them accountable that woman in the middle is Lucy Macbeth she is part of a national spokesperson for moms demand action she lives here she came home to run she's running for office now she's these are the kinds of things that were happening building coalitions with people who are doing important work registering voters nonpartisan organizations it didn't matter about the side we just wanted to make sure people were participating in democracy and speaking out against injustice making sure that the voting process is fair here in Georgia again a non partisan issue in this picture alone and remember we're less than a year old and I didn't know anybody and there was no community this woman is one of the National vice chairs at the at the national level a woman in the back works for Planned Parenthood another woman next to her is the executive director of the State House caucus the gentleman in the back ran for office twice in Forsyth County you all know the history of Forsyth County right this woman in the front was just elected to the state Senate this first time candidate would it have been easier to go back to Denver yes it would have but what I helped grow and the changes that I think I've made and certainly the changes to my life and hopefully the face of politics in Georgia made it worth it and I'm here to stay now thank you