When I started working for ACORN in 2004, I was one of only four white people employed in their North Philadelphia office. The office was in a very run-down tenement on North Broad Street, abutted by an abandoned lot on one side and a black baptist church on the other. The furniture could only described as ratty and unsuitable for anyone’s home. Most of the day-to-day work going on was in counseling. The main area of counseling was for people who had been suckered into predatory mortgages that they quickly discovered they couldn’t afford. Every day desperate people filed into the office begging for help in avoiding foreclosure.
I worked on the political side. At first, I was assigned Delaware County. Later on, I took over the Montgomery County operation, which I led right through election day. My job was to identify areas of Montgomery County that had at least 65% Democratic registration. Then I hired kids off the streets of North Philly and trained them in voter registration and get out the vote strategies. Each day I would dispatch a bunch of vans to the designated areas of Montgomery County to register voters. We never asked people to vote for Kerry or to register as Democrats, and we turned in every card (after vetting them for fraud) even when the cards were for Republicans. We relied on my research to make sure we were registering more Democrats than Republicans. The goal was to achieve a 7:3 ratio, so that we’d net four votes for every 10 registrants. This was all compliant with election law.
Three of my co-workers (people with the same job description) were fresh out of prison. They were relatively young black men from North Philly who had done their time and were happy to have full employment and to give something back to their community. Mainly, they acted as very effective mentors to the at-risk kids that were coming in in response to the jobs we were offering.
I don’t think it’s possible for most white, suburban people to really understand the culture that ACORN operates in. Just the idea that freshly released felons might be some of the most valuable role models in a neighborhood is too foreign for a lot of people to relate to. These kids didn’t have prior job experience. They didn’t have other jobs in retail or a union available to them. There were no local banks or available credit. Most of them had no picture ID, and even fewer had a government ID. Just getting their paperwork in order so that I could hire them was a nightmare. When their paychecks were late (as they often were), their heat got shut off.
The entire economy that was sustaining this community was totally off-the-grid. The people who were staying clean (meaning, out of gangs and drugs) were the ones that had worked out some kind of hustle. Some were selling bootleg movies. Others were selling t-shirts that fell off some truck somewhere. Others were selling phony docs for car registration and inspection. The successful ones were some of the most effective and energetic self-starting entrepreneurs I’ve ever encountered. They got up early and worked long hours. There is no doubt in my mind that they could succeed in legitimate small business if they had the tools and access to credit to give it a whirl.
You can call this a permanent underclass if you want, but they are not without their ambitious merchants and remarkably intelligent and (especially) resourceful people. Organizations like ACORN don’t just employ people in these neighborhoods, they fight for them. They educate them about the few legitimate opportunities that exist. They assist them when they are preyed upon.
If you walk into this scene out of the lily-white suburbs, you’re likely to be shocked at first by what you see. Things are turned upside down. The role models are felons, the clean kids are working the black market. But, spend some time there and you’ll quickly adapt and begin to see how there is dignity and fight and pride and ambition and resourcefulness and tremendous faith that sustains these communities in the face of enormous odds. Anyone who had ever seen what I have seen would never, ever, cut off all funding for ACORN or use them as a symbol of black dependency and corruption.
Come down out of your Ivory Towers and stop trying to cover your ass. Most of us got into politics to help people. ACORN is doing that every day as well as they know how.
The things is, most people don’t want to try and understand.
They just want those “dirty, cheating, lazy, lying black people” to go away and stay over there on their side of the street. Where people can feel free to criticize and demonize them from afar.
It is much more convenient if they can just keep the ACORN stereotype plugged into the minds of the country and in the conventional wisdom of the political world and punditry. That’s why we are seeing such a concerted effort to make this one videotaped incident be perceived as representative of ACORN’s standard operating procedure. Because it fits with what so many people want to be true.
Well, it’s obviously something I take very personally. This is a community that I care deeply about and they’re being demonized. It’s stirring up racial hatred as well as making it more difficult for anyone to get any assistance for these neighborhoods. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.
I understand your feelings. I know you have a deep emotional connection to the work you did with the organization. And here, as is usually the case, there is much more complexity to this whole story than we will ever see in the major media.
They sense blood in the water, and I’m afraid that this is probably going to end very badly for ACORN. Their connection to the Democratic Party and our first black President is just too much for the Village and the GOP to ignore. It is what they live for in today’s political environment. I’m afraid they will not stop until it ceases to exist.
It will still exist. You have to understand, they have so little already that it’s pretty much impossible to stamp them out. Losing the census money will hurt badly, but they’ll get by.
You are probably right. They function and serve in an environment that I can only imagine from my naive perch. Their resourcefulness is probably much greater than I could ever fathom.
thank you, Booman. you can’t imagine my disgust with those gutless pussies in Congress.
You know, I think I might just have an inkling.
While I do appreciate this diary and agree with your sentiment re ACORN and the general gutlesness of Congress, this up front, uncensured reminder of the prevailing casual misogyny reminds me why I quit coming to both Jack and Jill and BooMan during the primary season. I’ll just be heading back to my more usual corner of the internet, now, and leave you all to enjoy our secretly progressive administration on your own …
Imo your blog is the most reliably correct, day in and day out, in its analysis. Posts like this one make it clear why. Your experience and background really show. Interesting stuff–thanks.
Thank you, LM, I appreciate that.
Great post — thanks, BooMan.
Thank you Booman for having the courage to defend those that need defending the most.
Solid post and I am sicken that the RIGHT cares so little about the human race to attack an organization like this one.
I watched this interview below with President of ACORN and these undercover jack asses (or patriots to the Fox News crowd) were thrown out of dozens of offices. The cops were called several times on them as well. They duped 5 people out of 700 employees with their fake story and now ACORN’s pittance funding is yanked by pompous wing nuts and cowering Democrats while companies like Blackwater, who lawlessly kill innocent people, are still on the government’s billion dollar pay roll. Unbelievable.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/17/acorn_head_bertha_lewis_vows_action
My old office on No. Philly called the cops on them and had them physically removed after they said they wanted to pimp out 13-year olds. I would have called the FBI.
good post.
let’s remember that bob casey voted to continue acorn’s funding, specter and sestak both voted against them.
here’s the house Democrats — Altmire, Y; Brady, N; Carney, Y; Dahlkemper, Y; Doyle, N; Fattah, N; Holden, Y; Kanjorski, Y; Murphy, Patrick, Y; Murtha, Y; Schwartz, Y; Sestak, Y.
Because only Brady, Doyle, and Fattah actually have ACORN doing major work in their districts. And because Casey was a stand-up guy on this vote. Good for him.
This should have been in Vanity Fair. Seriously, this was great, Booman. You should pitch a longer version of this to them. Great stuff.
I was thinking the same thing Lisa-this needs to get out there into the general public somehow but I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
Third that. Well worth a try. Somehow we need to cut through the fake piety, and this is the kind of heartfelt honesty that might have a shot. Seriously, Boo, think about expanding and refining this and put it out there.
Thanks booman, as others have said this is the very best defense and writing about Acorn I’ve read to date. We all know your history with Acorn and your passion for it and as LM said I come here because in my mind this is the number one blog on the ‘internets’ for the best writing, passion combined with levelheadedness to be found.
Voting to defund Acorn is like a fucking punch straight to the gut and makes me ill-especially that so many cowardly dems were in on it.
You’re there when it counts, BooMan. My hat is off to you. Acorn helps those who have so little while it gets sucker punched by those who have so much. America is becoming a caricature of the land it once was. Why are the Democrats so cowardly and the Republicans so mean and selfish? Strange times, indeed.
This morning on the NJ radio, there was a report about a teacher murdered in Monmouth County. The reporter said that people expected this type of thing to happen in Camden…I switched the dial.
I’m with Jimmy Carter. He is right.
The couple that own the small apartment building I live in are prime examples of the holier, we have money, than thou parade.
They have rights that the rest of us don’t. There is nasty condescension is their dealing with the tenants. They lie with ease. The laws don’t apply to them. If it’s inconvenient, it also does not apply to them.
These smarmy cheaters are like so may of those who are jumping on any social helpers. It’s not only blacks or Hispanic people, I’m white and have had my share of snotty attitude pointed my way.
I do stand up to people like this. I do hope that what goes around, comes around.
Take away the houses, cars, credit cards and all of the trappings and put these better than us snobs into a survival situation. Then we’ll see how they behave.
It’s scapegoat time and the politicos on the right are looking for any excuse to point their fingers and yell about shameful things. Of course, if they get caught doing the dirty, well then, that’s okay, because it’s them.
Great post, Boo.
I have a number of comments about ACORN, although I no longer have my extensive collection of bookmarks to much of the information, so I’ll have to be a little sketchy but I can direct people to sources if they’re interested.
ACORN became a target of the right during legislative efforts to introduce changes in voting laws, and the thrust these proposed changes in law were voter ID requirements that would — in effect — disenfranchise voters who lacked the necessary ID. The majority of those voters are poor and vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
Curiously, the issue of voter fraud gained traction as a result of a spate of suspicious activities on the Republican side.
I’ll cut this section short — the voter fraud issue gains attention through other stories, such as the DOJ’S U.S.Attorney firing scandal, the use of the GSA for political purposes, the Siegelman conviction, Ohio’s 2004 & 2006 elections, etc.
There were some convictions associated ACORN’s voter registration efforts, most notably in Missouri (which became part of the DOJ scandal when the prosecution were announced shortly before the election in an effort the sway the election results).
The distinction between ‘electoral fraud’ and ‘registration fraud’ is pertinent here. although both are usually covered under the term “election fraud.” Duplication of registrations are a fact, since people never de-register when they move, so county clerks spend a lot of time ‘grooming’ their registration lists to remove voters who are deceased or have moved. Highly transient precincts, which are often in inner city neighborhoods, have extraordinary numbers of voters registered, even though few are actually “active” voters.
A handful (I don’t recall how many but just a few) of convictions were associated with ACORN’s voter registration drives but these were the result of turning in phantom registrations that gave the appearance of work done. In other word, someone turned in names but no voter attempted to cast a vote illegally.
Although turning in fake registrations is illegal, it pales in comparison to the crimes that were undoubtedly committed by the Republicans, but I’ll save that topic for another time. I will return to this issue later, however.
ACORN gained attention once again during the recent economic meltdown, as part of a myth spread about the influence of Carter era legislation crafted to prevent “red-lining” by lenders being the cause of banks issuing “liar loans.” ACORN’s actual contribution consisted of a lawsuit against Wells Fargo earlier in this decade for predatory lending practices, which ACORN won.
Most of the attacks on ACORN are part of a Republican myth that electoral losses were the result of voter fraud. And aspects of the illegal immigration issue are also part of this myth.
There’s little to nothing of a factual nature to justify the attacks on ACORN. This is a classic example of “motivated cognition.” Like the “stabbed-in-the-back” legend which prevailed in post WWI Germany, the attitude is explainable by the
psycho-dynamics of the conditions under which it formed.
It’s true — apparently — that ACORN draws its employees from some of worst conditions that this country offers, but I’ve also worked in these neighborhoods and I’m not shocked by the tapes, especially the one that appears to have a doctored sound track.
You do a good job from memory. That is essentially the history. And those Missouri workers we’re doing my job at the same time I was doing it in Philly. It could just as easily have been me they prosecuted.
I don’t like to hint, as I did with election fraud, but it’s too big an issue to begin to treat adequately in anything less than an extremely large post.
The Ney hearings are a fine example of how the issue was corrupted to pursue the disenfranchisement of Democratic voters.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2007/1555
Missouri was another example of the confluence of the factors I’ve mentioned. In fact, besides a couple ACORN convictions for falsifying registration forms, Missouri had so much happening that I’m still trying to figure it all out. There was a mind-boggling level of corruption going on at many levels.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/130/story/16224.html
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4691
Nicely said, booman. Thank you for the education.
Thanks for this BooMan. I’ve posted it to my FBook and Twitter.
This has been linked around, but I decided to put it up in orange, too, because people seem to like it.
Fantastic job, my man. I’ve had similar experiences.
If we had an actual “Press,” you’d be sharing this story on every network to give actual balance. Hopefully we can rally enough support for this amazing group to make them stronger than ever after this hit-job.
Do you mind if this gets copied this in full on Democratic Underground? With link, of course.
Some final comments —
Much of what has been shown on Fox is extremely dubious in nature. I invite people to take a look at the videos and listen to them carefully rather than assume they know what’s happening.
And the excerpt below is not even the problem I was thinking of. I was thinking more along the lines of how easy it is to engage people in a discussion of hypothetical or imaginary scenarios and present that discussion is if it represents a certain intent. Casual conversation frequently includes comments that are in no way intended to be taken seriously.
I will return to this issue later, since there are enough problems with the videos to warrant further discussion.
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200909180055