COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

groups that are political and produce tension between the middle-class and lower-income
population. The strategies employed by these groups to facilitate social change reaches
beyond the meeting rooms and into the public spaces of the neighborhood of Oak Park
and is manifested through increased police surveillance, imposition of eminent domain,
candlelight-vigils, grass-roots projects, and door-to-door canvassing activities. These are
sources of tension among residents, they alter residents’ sense of their rights to the city.
Below, I provide descriptions of the community groups working to facilitate
social change in Oak Park. These descriptions provide insight into the types of social
conflict that is occurring in Oak Park. Each group is engaged in a power struggle to
conduct change, which interfaces in the neighborhood in various ways. Each group’s
ability to conduct change is dependent on gaining supporters throughout the
neighborhood and city. Their agendas encompass different ideological discourses that
draw and guide supporters. These community groups have social structures which are
indicative of the people who compose them. Social structures are composed of the social
traits of the people who compose them, such as social status, modes of social distance
(relational and cultural distance), degrees of interdependence between parties, the
capacity for collective action, and types of social control (Black 1995:853-854).
Thus, through the work of community organizations, a larger “colonization” of
the neighborhood is occurring—a hegemonic discourse, revitalization, is displacing and
further marginalizing the poor. Colonialism is a system of domination. Additionally,
colonial discourse is a process of exploitation and subordination, a creation of
institutional modes of control, and persuasion through linguistic description (Errington
49