Car Donation PSA

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"Maybe I can get my neighbor to donate that eyesore in her driveway, too."

Well, THAT's alienating! Are we paying attention to the economic reports on KUNM? Maybe your neighbor just feels lucky she's still GOT a car! Women earn just over half what men earn, per capita, and let's remember the "glass ceiliing." Does your neighbor still havve a JOB, even? Is she a single mom?

Should we be pointing fingers at our neighbors, or could we be looking at the changes WE can make, without policing what other people are doing?

Do we motivate people by trying to SHAME them, or encouraging empowerment and self-reliance?

There's a LOT of stuff about the self-righteous judmentalism of Fort Sumner that I detest.

But I remember Albuquerque.

EXAMPLE: I went to the Montanita Co-Op's street fair once. Booth after booth was about demading OTHER PEOPLE change: smoking laws, GMOs, NOISE levels, too much light...... Jees, if you hate your neighbors' behaviors so much, just move to Fort Sumner! You won't even have to LOOK at neighbors! Every ONE of those people at those booths drove CARS to that fair; none took the bus, rode a bike, drove a scooter. I was thinking the street fair would be about networking, education and support for ALL of us to empower ourselves out of a toxic culture. Mostly, I just found finger-pointing. I never went to another fair. I need discussions of SOLUTIONS, not nit-picking analyses of problems!

Yes, encourage people to donate cars. But remember: not all of us are affluent. That illusion of affluence is SO '80s. Young adult listeners don't even remember the days of Perrier.

Your neighbor's car is your neighbor's; worry about your OWN life. To quote Obama, who stole it from Gandhi, "We are the change we've been waiting for."

What's your neighbor's name? Is she OK? Can you help her? Would she like to car pool?

Could you both abandon addictions to internal combustion vehicles and ride electric bikes? I do, in rural New Mexico. It's not that I'm superior; I'm low income and forced to be resourceful. People out here think I'm a crazy radical, but every TIME I pick up my mail at the post office, someone admires my bike and tells me how smart it is to ride it.

Whoever wrote that, I'm sorry; I'm not picking on you, honst. And thank you for your efforts to generate funding for KUNM in these hard times. I'm just hoping we can be more gentle, less judgmental of our neighbors.

===================================reply from Mary, Development Director==========


Re: [KUNMIDEAS-L] car donation pitch
Thursday, March 5, 2009 12:16 PM
From:
"Rogi Riverstone

Mary,

We're all in this together.

A lot of what I find alienating about economic issues and the priviliged who operate community organizations is just a matter of consciousness raising. I get a chip on my shoulder, because it really isn't fair that the least privileged and most pressured of us are also required to educate others on the real issues and how to heal them.

Give you an example: I LOVE the work of performance artist/poet, Alix Olson. A lot of her work relates to the economically disadvantaged: homeless, Katrina victims, single moms, etc. She's a "red diaper baby:" one parent teaches women's studies & the other is a self-professed Socialist.

So, I go to her website to see about getting some of her work, to help inspire and encourage me as I go through my life here (cuz Heaven knows I ain't gettin none in Fort Sumner, where I'm NOW being blamed for moving into this house -- as though I knew what a hell hole it'd be -- and being threatened with having my H20 shut off cuz of a leak the drunken landlord didn't fix -- and he's in Oklahoma and refuses to do anything about it).

So, I'm at the website, and I see ONE CD would cost me a week's groceries! There's no sliding scale, no scholarship program by which sales to more affluent people might subsidize my purchase, nothing. Then, I see the product manager has a cushy life in The Hamptons, where Lesbian Nation seems to mean golf carts and cracked crab! SHOOT!

This stuff happens all the time. A lot of poor people internalize the social blame heaped on them constantly by some very reactionary forces in their lives, and don't speak out. Many aren't articulate and those who are feel defeated, frustrated and powerless to change anything.

We don't, as a rule, GIVE feedback; the potential consequences are too dangerous.

All I'm trying to do is remind the station I've supported to support me, too.

I love KUNM and truly see it a s a vehicle by which a LOT of social injustice can be transformed. But people are people; we get into habits of speaking because we get into habits of thinking. I don't think anybody's "bad" or "politically incorrect" or something because these things happen. I'm just trying to find a viable way to continue a dialogue about informed and participatory democracy, in which all of us are made welcome, beyond our limitations, so that we can find ways to overcome those limitations.

I'll probably get tarred and feathered, eventually, for speaking like this. I used to be shrill and strident about it, uppity and huffy. I still have my moments, believe me.I have good reason to feel angry and frustrated. But it's not effective to blind side someone of good intentions by dumping 53 years of struggle on them.

Thanks for hearing me. Thanks for understanding my points. Your positive feedback to my comments gives me courage and hope that I'm not being a crank or a malcontent, splitting hairs and further disempowering my community. It affirms to me that my concerns are valid and that my sense of how to have this sort of dialogue isn't completely unfounded.

Again, thanks for all your hard work, all of you. I need KUNM more than I can express. And, if I need it, so do the citizens of New Mexico.