It is an area, or should I say an arena, that even now seldom people value or understand. It has remained a vocation clearly outside of the mainstream and is therefore under valued and under appreciated by many until more recent events. There was and has been little to no mention of this career path in the media or in any manner really that is laudatory. Therefore relegating it to the likes of those who pursue it as being somewhat left of center, borderline insane and outside of the scope of the norm of professional choices that yield profit and are considered to be a "viable" career path.

In that regard, community organizers are relegated to the vestiges of being comparable to the homeless in terms of job choices. Barely tolerated and often believed to be better unseen or unheard.

Honestly, I can say that at times I have thought there actually may be a glimmer of relative truth to some of the above held views until recently. With the phenomenal rise of one lone junior United State Senator from the land of Lincoln I have been validated and affirmed in having sought community organizing as a career choice. But please allow me to step back a bit, I found that I was pursuing my career path due to an indelible impression left on me by an activist (tenant organizer) and revolutionary mother. She has had more prominence in my life around my career path as a role model. She endeavored to do all she could to provide for my sister and I as a single mom against the world.

Through my mom, I was able to see the importance of creating community wherever you are and organizing it so that your quality of life is enhanced to vibrancy! My old tenement building in New York City (where my mom still resides and is President of the Tenant Association) is legendary for having had other Harlem renaissance personas reside there. The likes of Ms. Lena Horne, Mr. Ed Cambridge Jr., Ms. Helen D. Martin helped to leave it with an alluring early pre-urban blight history.

By the time I came of age many of these community stalwarts had moved to the land of Hollywood in pursuit of more greener pastures. My mom arrived at the beginning of their departure and befriended many of them prior to their eventual relocation to the left coast. However, by the dawning of the Reagan era our building was experiencing the throes of landlord neglect with the associated lack of services inherent to those circumstances. In short, we had no heat, no hot water, drafty and defective windows, roof leaks and other symptoms of a building languishing in the ghetto.

Even now I remember coming home one day and seeing the belongings of our beautiful apartment removed as we faced eviction. I was a junior high school student at the time and my mom had to move us from a huge two bedroom apartment into a one bedroom unit (this was the one formerly occupied by our adopted aunt Ms. Helen D. Martin). After that episode, my Mom went on to organize the building and work as a paralegal for the area Community Law Office. This served to further her expertise and fuel her activism even deeper. She then began to participate in an urban homesteading movement activities by organizing a group of women to clean out abandoned properties and advocate for ownership of them. And from there, she became the Executive Director of the Lower East Side Anti-Displacement Project.

Needless to say, these early impressions left me with a tremendous resolve. While bearing witness to my mother's many activities had left their mark, by the time I went off to college I had become thoroughly convinced that I would become an attorney and return to my community to further strengthen it and serve it through similar means.

Does this sound familiar?

In my first real job I too became a tenant activist and organizer. Later, I began to train residents in landlord abandoned city owned properties to form tenant associations(TA). They then became managers of these buildings, after acquisition, as low income cooperatives; thus further, empowering themselves and strengthening the communities they resided within. I took the essence of my experiences with me to serve residents living in public housing in New York City. At NYCHA, I have served in various capacities from TA trainer and facilitator, community center director, senior center director and currently as an ad hoc Special Assistant to the Manhattan Borough Director in charge of managing special projects for the entire borough.

All of these experiences have helped to shape and mold my outlook on life and the importance of assisting the disadvantaged and disenfranchised to access power. In my humble opinion, this is at the core and center of being a community organizer. In fact, I would maintain that regardless of your title or job that this is at the core of being human. Or rather, to choose to live a life in service in contribution to your family, your neighbor, your community and beyond is well within the purview of an essentially human contextual conversation.

Having said that, I am not so naive toward the realization that many can choose to do otherwise. In fact, I am all to painfully aware of how a privileged, entitled and disconnected mindset can prevent many from accessing a different worldview - irrespective of race, class and circumstances. The rugged individualist mindset is what is professed first and foremost in society Americana.

However, does that mean you have no connection toward your neighbor's issues and concerns? I think we are at a pivotal point in this country where all of these things demand further contemplation. The times almost demand that we must now begin to realize how the presumption of entitlement is falling pray to a shifting realization toward an assumption of responsibility. Simply stated, we are all in this together and either we sink or swim together! This is the paradigm which is at the center of community organizing.

It is fitting that I pen these things on the eve of the final debate of the principal candidates for this election. The community organizer vs. the aviator. Both locked in a battle to deliver our nation to greater days and convince the United States citizenry of the importance of lifting their voice to vote for them. I must admit that while I am leaning toward the community organizer that I am reminded of the aviator's journey as well. I too believe he is attempting to organize his community and be in service to our homeland. I believe he thinks he's doing what's in her (the good ole USA) best interest as well. But alas, I think his failing is that he has lost sight of those whom he would serve.

Would he choose to postulate a Presidency that plays upon the demons of divisiveness and condescension while mocking the vocation of service towards community? Or will he too begin to wave the flag of hope? Is the maverick interested merely in an "us" vs. "them" approach to resolution or are we all the "we" that's in this together? The blame game does to me appear to be an end game strategy that does not work without a prescription to roll up your sleeves, grab your shovels and dig in. Many may have slept at the wheel but to turn this ship around will truly require all hands on deck. And toward that end, we will have to sing America the Beautiful in the wonderful syncopated rhythms of Ray Charles while grounding each hymnal phrase in this ode to Community and Organizing. Who's with me?