{"id":420,"date":"2019-04-17T15:29:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T15:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/?p=420"},"modified":"2019-04-17T16:30:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T16:30:04","slug":"ed-whitfield-visits-madison-to-help-us-make-sure-were-making-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/2019\/04\/17\/ed-whitfield-visits-madison-to-help-us-make-sure-were-making-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Whitfield visits Madison to help us make sure we’re making a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ed Whitfield speaking in the Mutual Aid Workspace in the Social Justice Center. Photo by Charity Schmidt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MCDC was very pleased to be among the organizations that collaborated to bring social activist Ed Whitfield to town. Ed has a long history in activism dating back to his participation in the Black Power Movement, and today, he works in non-extractive finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evelyn Wright<\/a>, also a visitor to Madison, was in the audience and has written about both MCDC and Ed’s talk<\/a> at the Social Justice Center. His main point was central to MCDC’s mission:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The night\u2019s topic was \u201cMaking Sure We Make a Difference.\u201d Ed urged the coop movement to be clear about the sources of inequality and the urgency of redressing it. \u201cWe have slipped into language and thinking that miss how we got to where we are,\u201d Ed said, \u201cas if inequality were the result of chance, bad luck, or character defect.\u201d We need to be clear that it came about because of specific historical processes.<\/p>

\u201cIf a community has zero wealth, zero assets, it\u2019s because someone else has them, someone else has taken them. It\u2019s not about the color of your skin. It\u2019s the history. Something happened. People ask me, \u2018Ed, when are you going to stop talking about that old stuff?\u2019 When I don\u2019t see the impacts of it all around me anymore.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ed also has views that Madison activists need to hear and consider. For example, he’s opposed to universal basic income, because it would reinforce the existing power dynamic in our society, when we need to working to change it. That same reasoning leads to two other perspectives the audience may not have expected:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Charity Schmidt.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ed said that he doesn\u2019t favor expressing calls for social justice, for housing or health care, in the language of human rights. \u201cWho would enforce housing as a human right,\u201d he asked. \u201cThe UN?\u201d He prefers to talk about human needs, the power to meet those needs, and where that power currently resides.<\/p>

\u201cWhen we talk about power imbalances,\u201d he said, \u201cwe are talking about access to tools, and the skills to use those tools. Capital is a tool. Markets are tools. Like any tool, they are good for some things, but not others. Potatoes yes, health care and justice, no.\u201d Access to those tools and skills is fundamental to controlling our own labor, and ultimately our lives. That\u2019s why, he says, when he talks about reparations, he doesn\u2019t talk about giving people money. \u201cThey\u2019ll just spend it. We need to give people productive capability, so they have the tools to meet their own needs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the most important thing we can do to make a difference is empower people to take care of themselves, not debate who’s going to take care of them.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MCDC was very pleased to be among the organizations that collaborated to bring social activist Ed Whitfield to town. Ed has a long history in activism dating back to his participation in the Black Power Movement, and today, he works in non-extractive finance. Evelyn Wright, also a visitor to Madison, was in the audience and… Leer m\u00e1s »Ed Whitfield visits Madison to help us make sure we’re making a difference<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paWzR5-6M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}