Read on Twitter
I love @AOC & 95% of the time, I agree with her. On this though, there are some things I disagree on, things I've been thinking about for a long while, as a Muslim-American-Pakistani woman who does PR for a living: a thread 1/ https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334181687811600384
Let me start with a giant caveat: @AOC is right about PR firms, but it goes deeper even than that. The world of political consultants & PR firms is increasingly out of touch with audiences who have moved past traditional PR practices. It is their mistakes that lose us seats 2/
Yet they continue to get jobs through their connections with people in power, despite not delivering on promises, & then lay the blame at the feet of progressives, young people, women, and people of color. The political consulting world is grifting at work. 3/
Not to mention that their messaging is deeply flawed because most firms - even the "progressive" ones - have a leadership structure of mainly white men in decision-making positions. But...what if there were PR consultants whose clients were the issues, not the politicians? 4/
I do that work - long hours at lower rates just so the movement organizations, activists, & non-profits who work their butts off can have someone take the load of strategic, long-term thinking off their plates. I've built communications capacity for coalitions for 10 yrs. 5/
It's a struggle. Because of the damage traditional PR firms have caused, there is a deep distrust of "the media," any kind of messaging, & any shine on the work one brilliant individual is doing. I've had to work really hard over the years to build trust w/super skittish folk 6/
I listen to activists when they teach me things - I am not an expert on all aspects of the movement. I don't know all the fault lines in the LGBTQIA communities or the racial justice space but I'm willing to learn. I listen to activists/organizers because they are the experts 7/
Here's the thing: I'm an expert too. I'm a communications expert. Media & communications is my job. I expect my expertise to be respected - but when I tell people that progressive messages don't work, people get defensive, angry, & argumentative, worried I will dilute the msg 8/
We can win all the legal + policy battles in the world & force people to treat others better or face consequences. But that doesn't change their minds. And until we change their minds, we will be stuck in this cycle of inequality, selfishness, fear, violence, & othering 9/
"Defund the police" must be our goal. It must be our endgame. It must be our legal + policy directive. But in & of itself, it is not a message. 10/
I'm not talking abt persuading people who aren't already on board - folks aren't interested in talking to "persuadables" or "centrists" or "the mainstream," & that's fine. But ya'll: this message isn't even reaching the broader non-movement BIPOC communities that are IMPACTED 11/
Ex: I *am* an expert on countering Islamophobia. I spent years compiling a daily morning newsletter at 6 am that included every item about Muslims, hate crimes, or Islamophobia. I was entrenched in it. But when we did a focus group w/Muslim-American men + women, I was floored 12/
People who weren't entrenched in the work on a daily basis, but were from the impacted community, didn't see Islamophobia as the giant issue that I saw it as on a daily basis. There was work to be done to bring them into the work before we could broaden our base 13/
For decades, our opposition has thrived on messaging that triggers emotion. There's a social psychology component to that, & it can be used for good or evil. In this case, the fear & anxiety the opposition has steadily stoked for years has paid off right under our noses 14/
They evoke emotions by painting vivid, descriptive pictures with the stories they tell: about "death panels" that are coming for our elderly loved ones, or those immigrants bringing crime over our borders & taking our jobs, or an economy that will leave ppl in poverty 15/
By contrast, we don't paint vivid pictures, we have very passionate phrases: "defund the police," "abolish ICE," "a Green New Deal," "Medicare for all." Each of these concepts has an entire world of nuance behind it, but when left w/just the phrases, it sounds vague 16/
When we use these phrases that feel psychologically vague to everyone outside of our small, movement-based echo chamber, we give our opposition an opening: at best, those who oppose us within our own Democratic party create their own interpretations that demonize any change 17/
At worst, we give the most virulent opposition (mainly in the Republican party and the far-right) the opportunity to co-opt our message, create more fear imagery, & wrongly define it before we've had the chance to define it for others ourselves 18/
The result: again & again, we allow our opposition to create the communications paradigm & put us on the defensive instead of pushing forward on our bold, progressive agenda - which, btw, polls show most Americans AGREE with. 19/
How do we reclaim & define our messaging ourselves? By *also* appealing to emotion through vivid, descriptive storytelling. For those worried about authenticity...what can be more authentic than empowering those directly impacted to tell their stories in the simplest terms? 20/
A lay-person who agrees with you will be more attuned to a vision you give them or a story you tell than they will to concepts like "carceral violence," "systemic racism," or the endless debate about whether to use "equality" or "equity" in our language. 21/
Abigail Spanberger, Conor Lamb, & their ilk are wrong. I think @AOC @IlhanMN @RashidaTlaib @AyannaPressley @CoriBush & @MondaireJones are the future & I adore the crap out of them. But I know communications, & I desperately want to fix ours. 22/
What we remember best from the civil rights era is a vision: MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech." We rarely remember policies that got us there. I may not know the ins & outs of all the policies in the social justice movement, but I know I want my 2 little brown boys to feel safe 23/
I want us to win & keep winning. I desperately want us to get our messaging right-to be both strategic in vision & authentic to the movement. It's not easy to find that balance (trust me, I do it for a living w/prickly orgs). But it can be done. Trust the comms experts of color.
