Diary of a community organizer

How to answer a question

Community organizing requires answering many questions from people in the community you’re trying to organize. “Who are you?” “Why are you here?” “Why should we listen to you?”

Your first instinct may be to rattle off an answer quickly so you can move the conversation along. But this is a mistake. Before you answer a question, empathize with the person asking it. Think about who they are and what is motivating their question. Is it curiosity about the answer or about you? Is it distrust of you and, if so, what’s the source of the distrust?

Your answer shouldn’t only answer the question. It should also offer an answer about who you are, why you’re there, and why the person who asked should listen to you at all.

Your moment of empathy shouldn’t substantively change your answer—that’d be dishonest. But it should help you present your answer and its delivery in a way that speaks to the deeper, implicit concern that motivates it.

I once saw a college student ask a politician a question in a public forum. The student explained that they were survivors of a high school shooting, an experience that had made them stalwart advocates of gun reform. They asked the politician why they hadn’t been more supportive of gun reform legislation during their time in public office.

Here, the student clearly presented the politician not just with their question, but also with the motivation behind it. In this…