The Geniuses of the Moment
One of the many things our current moment of social unrest has forced me to acknowledge is the genius of community organizers. More and more I see people in the news who have cobbled together grass roots organizations, religious societies, and other advocacy groups to promote social justice, and have managed to keep them running and growing.
I can't negotiate a cocktail party. Simple tasks like introducing myself, building rapport, and even remembering names elude me. Getting people to do what you want them to do is extremely hard, and getting them to do it for no money or personal gain is as far beyond my ability as a 100 mph curveball or an ace in the Wimbledon finals. But many of these social leaders are not only able to speak to large groups, but to inspire people to commit and keep committing to great causes. This isn't just an inspirational talent, it is a kind of genius.
Yes, genius — in the same sense as the genius of great artists, Nobel winning physicists, and vaccine-discovering biologists. Genius isn’t simply about a deep knowledge of science, a prodigious writing ability, or the capacity to rend heartbreak from the strings of a cello. There is a great skill in organizing a protest, in getting volunteers to set up an event and run it with discipline, and to coax dollars from supercilious millionaires. A genius, more than anything else, is a person who can create opportunities where for ordinary people there are none. A genius of social organization figures out how to hold things together and continue a movement against the odds when people with ordinary abilities would declare the game over and go home.
Often we tend to dismiss the accomplishments of great athletes (especially black ones) as the product of natural talent, and we ignore the hard work that goes into such achievements (see Michael Jordan in "The Last Dance," as an example). But even worse is our tendency to ignore social skills that lead to social change. There is a reason great moral leaders like Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, or Mahatma Ghandi were so hard to replace once they had passed on. Their skills at managing people were extraordinary. And they worked hard at it, learning over years of success and failure how to recruit people for justice and, what is even harder, to keep them committed.
Many of the leaders of Black Lives Matter are gifted and committed individuals who have leadership abilities I could never dream of having. It is a marvelous thing to behold, and even more marvelous to watch them succeed for a change.
