Things You Should Know Before You Take It To The Streets

Last Updated on October 23, 2024

Before you take to the streets (or wherever your activism takes you), find your passion for the change you want to see in the world and match that to your gifts. By doing this you’ll increase your odds of making a difference for your cause. And stay motivated over the long haul.

Use my activism path shown in the Resouces section below to take a thoughtful approach to your activism.

Your Knowledge is a Gift

The gifts you bring to activism include your skills, knowledge, and motivation. So, in this post, I focus on the things you should know before you take it to the streets: your activism knowledge and cultural competence.

Inventory Your Activism Knowledge

Activist Randy Schutt created a comprehensive assessment tool called the Activist Skills and Experiences Questionnaire for activists to inventory their skills, knowledge, and experiences.

To inventory your activism knowledge, complete the ‘Activist Knowledge and Experiences” part of the questionnaire. The knowledge portion of the inventory is in The 5-Step Activism Path Workbook (formerly The What’s On Your Sign? Workbook). This inventory of your knowledge will:

• Remind you of the knowledge you’ve gained in your life.
• Remind you why you acquired this knowledge and whether you can translate it to activism.
• Prepare you to talk with others about what you know.

Another way to inventory your knowledge is to regularly pay attention to what information you seek. For example, consider the types of publications and blogs you read, media you watch, links you follow on social media, groups you join, and podcasts you enjoy.

Check Your Cultural Competence

Activists need cultural competence to make an impact. Before you take it to the streets, examine how you connect with those of diverse cultural backgrounds, recognize where you hold privilege and how it affects your work, and pinpoint your areas of growth.

What is Cultural Competence?

As you navigate the world, seek to understand others’ cultural backgrounds. This understanding is a way to ensure you connect better with others and find areas of agreement on your issue, and potentially an area on which to build influence for your cause. Cultural competence leads to better trust and responsiveness to a message.

Someone with cultural competence:

• Knows their own cultural biases and assumptions and gauges their skills and comfort level in dealings with others
• Learns about other cultures
• Tries to understand others’ experiences when working together and avoids hoisting their own experiences on others
• Is willing to reflect on their biases and assumptions

Prepare to broaden your understanding of other cultures to make your message more effective. Start with considering your background and culture and its impact on your attitudes and behavior.

For example, since I am white, I know how I have benefited from my privilege in the past and anticipate how the way I communicate and work with others may impact them or clash with their preferred styles. Diversity in activism succeeds, just as research shows diversity in for-profit organizations helps them flourish.

Evaluate Your Privilege

Privilege is a complicated concept. I like this definition:

Privilege is a system that gives unearned advantages, favors, and benefits to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of target groups, and it operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels. In the United States, privilege is often granted to people who are members of particular identity groups, such as: White people, Able-bodied people, Heterosexuals, Males, Christians, Middle and upper-class people, Middle-aged people, and English-speaking people. -Miami University

For example, I have privilege related to being white, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle-class, and English-speaking. As I am aware of my privilege, I can also honor the areas in which I don’t hold privilege. I must also recognize in the areas where I hold privilege, I may not pay attention to issues that do not affect me. Recognize how understanding culture impacts you and those with whom you work.

Privilege Examples

On the website It’s Pronounced Metrosexual, you can find lists of situations that mean you have privilege. Here are examples:

• If you are male and have a bad day or are in a bad mood, people aren’t going to blame it on your sex.
• You can go to places with friends on a whim knowing there will be bathrooms there you can use if you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth.
• If you are white, you can find children’s books that overwhelmingly represent your race.
• People will congratulation you on an engagement if you are heterosexual.
• If you are non-disabled, you do not worry about the reactions of others to your needs.

Try the BuzzFeed quiz How Privileged Are You? I found the results enlightening.

Understand Intersectionality

Intersectionality means people have multiple areas of identity. Understanding how they influence each other is essential to understanding privilege.

Intersectionality is a way to understand the complexity of people’s experiences and how the systems in which we live impact us.  For example, a disabled person may also be low-income, gay, and a person of color.

Cultural Competence and Privilege in Activism

Be aware of where you hold privilege and where you experience oppression.

Privilege provides you with advantages in your life but can be a disadvantage to activism. Activist Rex Burkholder writes,

My allies helped me realize that I was unconsciously trying to use the same strategies to get my way — using my whiteness and education as a means of power. When I was working in low-income and minority communities, this blew up in my face. Entitlement shows to others, even if you can’t see it.

Recognize how culture affects you and those with whom you work. Work to understand your privilege and how it impacts you. Identify ways you can counteract privilege.

Before You Take it to the Streets

Your knowledge is vital to your success as an activist.  So, before you take it to the streets, take time to understand your gifts, cultural competence, and privilege. And consider not heading to the streets at all, if that isn’t the right way for you to make change.

READ NEXT

Find your passion — Step 1: What is your vision?

Understand your gifts — Step 2: What are your gifts?

Be motivated — Step 3: What’s in it for you?

Find the right activism opportunity — Step 4: How can you match your gifts to the needs of the community?

Check your impact — Step 5: Are you making an impact?