How Will You Help? 4 Roles of Social Change
As the Trump Administration continues to jet forward with terrifying speed and everyone else doggedly keeps pace, I’ve been speaking with many people who feel energized, involved and fired up to continue the fight. However, I’ve also spoken to a number of people who feel slightly dispirited, or who feel like they haven’t made much of an impact.
Maybe they’ve set up a monthly donation to Planned Parenthood, but it’s hard to see how much good that’s actually doing. Maybe they marched in a protest, but the initial rush of adrenaline from that is fading. Maybe they got involved with a local community organization, but so many awful things are happening nationally — does volunteering at a community center really help with any of that?
This issue, I’m discovering, is pretty common across activism! The fundamental problem is that creating real social change requires actors across a number of spectrums. Not only is it impossible for one person to create real social change, it’s almost impossible for one ORGANIZATION to create change by itself. In addition, these organizations are often not coordinating closely (and frankly, it’s often better if they’re operating independently), so this all creates a scenario where it’s very, very difficult to tell the full scale of what is going on, and where you fit into it.
We’re all tiny snowflakes swirling in the wind, so it can be hard to tell whether we’re just falling lightly to the ground or rolling down a mountain as an avalanche.
Four Roles of Social Change
One perspective that I found useful was lifelong activist Bill Moyer’s four roles of social change. Moyer created this in the 1980s as a way of outlining the four players necessary to create real social change — reformer, citizen, social change agent and rebel. I think it would be helpful to go over them! During my research I found this very helpful in helping to understand my role in resisting Trump’s agenda, as well as how my actions fit into a larger plan.
Moyer argued that each of these are important, and while there may be some tension between each of the roles, none of them by themselves are sufficient to force powerholders to create real social change. These labels apply to both individuals (protestors vs immigration lawyers) and organizations — Greenpeace plays a very different role than the World Wildlife Fund in battling climate change, for instance. In addition, all of these four roles can be performed in a positive or negative way! But if all four of these roles perform their roles well, it puts a lot of pressure on powerholders to comply with their demands.
We also have an amazing example of these four roles working together, in a very recent action — resistance to Trump’s Muslim ban. While the fight is far from over, the initial resistance was able to get a stay on the ban, which has held up in court to date. This action provides a great blueprint for future social change movements, whether they be directed at Trump, a future Republican/Democratic administration, or someone completely nonpolitical.
So, below please find an overview of each of the four roles, with a good and bad example, as well as an example from the Muslim ban action:
1. Reformers
Reformers speak to powerholders in the language of the powerful, translating the language of the grassroots activists into demands that powerholders are forced to understand and confront. This is very frequently a position filled by lawyers, but anyone who enjoys working within corporate/political structures, especially if you have relevant experience, can be of assistance here.
Good Reformers: Good reformers are able to confront powerholders through official channels, such as lobbying, legislatures, elite networking or the courts. This makes it very hard for powerholders to dismiss the social change movement as “illegitimate” or “disorderly,” because powerholders depend on the legitimacy of these same channels. In addition, because reformers often have experience working on or with the corporate/political sphere, they are better able to translate grassroots demands into concrete, actionable demands that powerholders are better able to process and can’t simply dismiss as “impossible.”
Bad Reformers: Bad reformers have spent so much time working closely with powerholders that they have ceased to identify with the grassroots base. This can cause them to be more concerned with “stability” or “order” rather than justice, leading them to become wary of huge paradigm shifts, instead trying to implement minor “realistic” policies that the powerholders favor without winning real change. When people derisively refer to the “nonprofit industrial complex,” this is what they are calling out.
Muslim Ban Example: A huge number of local immigration lawyers both within organizations and individually filed lawsuits on behalf of their plaintiffs. The ACLU is the most prominent example of a reformer organization, filing a large number of high-profile court cases against the ban. They aren’t the only one, though — a total of 20 lawsuits were filed, including one by HIAS and the International Refugee Assistant Project. In addition, a huge number of tech companies and universities filed amicus briefs in support of these lawsuits. These challenges from professional, well-recognized organizations through official channels put immediate pressure on the Trump administration in a format they were not able to easily dismiss. These challenges won a stay on the executive order and to date the Trump administration has not successfully challenged the stay.
2. Citizens
Citizens take direct action to help those affected by injustice. This can take the form of volunteering, or donations that support organizations that fill any of the other four roles. Of the four roles, citizens are the most likely to have a full-time job that is not directly connected to social change movements. These are the “ordinary people” going about their business, good patriots who love their country and its people.
Good Citizens: Good citizens directly assist those people who are affected, so they provide immediate relief to the victims and help restore their dignity. Because citizens work closely with the victims they are also able to humanize the issue and bring affecting stories to prominence in the media. Citizens add an important layer of legitimacy to social movements. Because they tend to have full-time jobs, citizens are important members of society, and the inclusion of citizens makes it very hard for powerholders to argue that “ordinary people don’t care.” The ability to label activists “un-American,” is a great tool for powerholders and the active participation of citizens quickly negates that, as citizens generally look, act and behave “American.”
Bad Citizens: Bad citizens have such a strong faith in the country and in the powerholders that they instinctively take the side of the powerholders. A focus on direct charity can lead to a myopic focus on aiding the victims, with no thought of who the powerholders are, how they profit from current policies and how they can be forced to change directions.
Muslim Ban Example: People who volunteered at airports as both lawyers and translators to help individuals and families affected by the ban, as well as everyone who donated to the ACLU and other nonprofits. This mass of people gave immediate assistance to people targeted by the ban, and immediately established the groundswell of popular support against the Muslim ban. The Trump administration was unable to label the movement as “un-American” due to the huge support of the movement by ordinary American citizens, and the amount of donations that poured in gave other activists (such as the ACLU reformers) the tools they needed to combat the Muslim ban.
3. Social Change Agent
Social change agents are organizers — they create the structures that can mobilize large groups of people to take part in the movement. While many activists end up organizing groups at some point out of necessity, social change agents get the biggest rush from organizing new groups, revitalizing memberships at old ones, building local coalitions and mobilizing people in general.
Good Social Change Agents: Good social change agents create and support organizations that can mobilize huge numbers of people, which immediately challenges powerholders trying to claim that this is a “fringe movement” or similar. Social change agents are also critical to the long-term success of a social change movement, as they create structures that continue to function and grow long after the cameras have stopped rolling and the protests have ended. These organizations empower new activists and ensure a steady pipeline of people who are informed and empowered with the necessary tools to support the social change movement.
Bad Social Change Agents: Bad social change agents create organizations that fixate on a utopian ideal with little concrete connection to the political realities on the ground. These organizations can quickly devolve into philosophical, “group therapy” type meetings that are totally divorced from the hard work of achieving actual results. In addition, social change agents who aren’t careful can create or lead organizations that are rife with white supremacy and patriarchal issues, hamstringing the movement’s ability to fully utilize its members.
Muslim Ban Example: Organizations such as the Arab-American Action Network in Chicago have done organizing in their local communities for so long that they have a base of support and a large platform, and they had the resources and experience to quickly organize a protest at O’Hare — similar groups laid the groundwork for protests across the country. In addition, this applies to community organizers working with a variety of groups around the country, both those that have done this for a while and those who are just getting started with groups like Indivisible, which is only two months old and already has a ton of local chapters across the country. These groups empowered activists with the tools and structure to resist the Muslim ban. Going forward, local groups like these will continue to be important in terms of educating, encouraging and mobilizing people around the latest actions.
4. Rebels
Rebels force the social change movement into the public eye by creating a crisis that powerholders are forced to react to. Loud, disruptive, nonviolent civil disobedience demands attention from the media, from the populace and from elites, making it impossible for powerholders to ignore the social change movement.
Good Rebels: Good rebels take nonviolent, direct civil disobedience actions that disrupt daily life and force eyeballs onto the situation. There are a million ways for powerholders to bury their actions away from public attention, and large-scale civil disobedience is disruptive enough that it demands attention. When powerholders try to argue that “this is not an issue,” a thousand people blocking a highway quickly makes it clear that is not true. This makes it impossible for powerholders to ignore what is happening, diverting them from their planned agenda and forcing them to consider the demands of the movement.
Bad Rebels: Bad rebels take increasingly militant or violent actions that turn the general public away from the movement and allow powerholders to dismiss them as “rioters.” Rebels can also become obsessed with ideological purity, dissuading people who are insufficiently strident from joining the movement.
Muslim Ban Example: All the protestors who turned out for the protests at airports for multiple days, as well as everyone who called their representative to demand that they issue a statement condemning the ban. This immediately created a crisis, putting pressure on the Trump administration to address the issue of the ban and forcing them to respond. Republicans and Democrats were both pushed to make strong statements against the ban, forcing them to stake out positions on an uncomfortable issue. This also drew a heavy amount of media attention, forcing the administration to backburner positive media stories they had planned (i.e. nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court) until they could address the issue of the ban. The protests forced this issue front and center, and still haven’t ceased as the fight continues.
Conclusion
As you can probably tell from the breakdown so far, none of these four pillars can operate independently. If reformers try to act alone, it’s easy for powerholders to simply ignore their requests without the pressure of media and popular attention on them. If rebels try to act alone, it’s easy for powerholders to paint them as “illegitimate,” or “un-American.” It’s when all four pillars are operating simultaneously that powerholders are confronted on all levels, and are forced into retreat and negotiation.
So now that you know these four roles, the question is — which one are you? You’ll probably work across multiple roles across your life, and some are going to be more natural than others. I’ve found, somewhat to my amusement, that I’m most comfortable as a rebel, but we’ll see where I go as things progress. It’s important that you consider which of these four roles is the most satisfying, and the most personally appealing, to make sure you’re energized and doing your best work. And keep in mind — you’re not alone, and there are other people out there filling other roles to push the movement forward.
We’re changing America right now — how are you going to help?
Sources: http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/bill-moyer-four-roles-of-social-change/
https://tavaana.org/sites/default/files/Bill%20Moyer%204%20Roles%20of%20Activists%20Hand-out.pdf