Oakland Rising Electoral Training

Hi, my name is Elaine and I'm a new volunteer with APEN! I am volunteering for APEN because I am interested in the intersection between the "environment" and human values, and passionate about solving environmental problems that disproportionately affect poor, disenfranchised urban communities. When I came across APEN on the Internet, I was excited about working with them and joining their cause. This entry is about Oakland Rising's electoral training and APEN leaders' participation in it.

On December 1, APEN and PAO members met in a relatively cold and danky townhall for an elections training meeting as part of a broad-based coalition of social justice groups called Oakland Rising. This was my first exposure to the coalition and the meeting was rousing, informative, and, at the end, occasionally hysterically funny (as I will describe later on). The meeting began with informal introductions to the work of Oakland Rising's member organizations: APEN, EBASE, the Ella Baker Center, Just Cause Oakland, ACORN, and Urban Habitat. Oakland Rising's collective goal is to bolster our political influence, particularly in the upcoming 2008 elections, to advance our progressive vision and values. We are all striving for a healthier, safer, and more prosperous Oakland in which old and young can prosper, and in which we can support our communities of color.

We were briefed on the importance of electoral politics. One particularly fun, but startling, presentation involved all staff members and leaders, each representing "percentages" of Oaklanders, sitting and clustering into voting and non-voting blocs. I learned that though approximately half of all Oaklanders are registered to vote, very few in fact make it to the polls, and even fewer vote in the direction that we would like (which may sound obvious, but is an important point to make, I think). Thus, the goal of this campaign season is to register eligible voters and talk to them about our progressive values.

The last hour of the event allowed individual organizations to discuss in small groups. Our PAO members were introduced to major California propositions on the table for 2008 and had, what I should emphasize, a loud, boisterous debate. We discussed each proposition at length, describing the major pros and cons of each and taking positions for each. Individual members brought up salient objections and questions, often raising their hands in unison, if not their voices, or nodding in silent agreement. More often than not though, they booed in disagreement. All of the discussion was held in Cantonese, which at times, I barely understood. The translator did the most incredible job of keeping up with the hare-like pace of the discussion, and often "softened" the hilarity of language used. I believe that, in the end, despite the overall Chinese banquet-like quality of the discussion, PAO voters walked away a little more confident and knowledgeable about the voting process.

Photos courtesy of EBASE