| 21 | | 2 -- |
| | 21 | 2 -- Our Co-Directors committed two major errors this year: |
| | 22 | |
| | 23 | a -- We completely missed the importance of the Net Neutrality issue and debate. While that was a very tough campaign to enter -- for structural reasons -- we didn't try to fashion our own campaign or figure out a way to get involved. That resulted in MF/PL being marginalized from the issue and many of its proponents (some of them very important potential allies for us) and it resulted in the campaign being conducted by very liberal thinking and framing (led substantially by FreeSpeech . org) and devoid of any attention to people of color or working people. |
| | 24 | |
| | 25 | b -- We downplayed the massification of Social media use and, rather than project an inclusive stance toward it, often balanced our actions and comments in favor of criticizing it. MF/PL has never opposed the use of Social Networking sites but, because our argument was framed so sharply, we are often identified with that stance. This was primary Alfredo's responsibility. This error also garbled the discussion around Free and Open Source Software and crippled our effectiveness in espousing that critically important position. |
| | 26 | |
| | 27 | 3 -- No matter our member composition, MF/PL is view as a white organization by many activists of color. In part, this is because there is a deep-seated segregation in the left of this country and the first glimpse many organizations of color get of us is our techies. They are almost all white. In addition, the above mentioned stances on Social Networking sites and FOSS often cast us, in the eyes of people of color organizations, as technocrats, purists or eccentric scientists...and not practical activists. |
| | 28 | |
| | 29 | For that reason, our current recruitment is mainly of white people and white organizations. This, given the way the world is going, is organizational and political suicide. And, of course, it means we aren't doing our job politically. |
| | 30 | |
| | 31 | This is the most poisonous problem we now have. |
| | 32 | |
