Good Luck Steven

by Anna Kunkin 4:39pm Mon Jan 28 '02

annakunkin@earthlink.net

Steven I want you to know that you have my full support in your new incarnation. My mind threatens to go into overwhelm when I think of the mire that you have jumped into. Not only do you have to deal with the management of a very complicated business and the difficulties in trying to build some sort of confidence and trust with the employees and volunteers who have been working in an environment of mistrust and insecurity for years, but you have also taken on one of the most contentious, albeit inteligent and committed communities on the planet.

You have overnight become the most talked about mysterious unknown in the activist "society". Everywhere I've been the last few days, almost the first words from everybody's lips are, "what do you think about Steven Starr at KPFK"? You are suddenly under a microscope and I don't envy you that position.

That said, I have to say that having worked with you the last few months at the IMC and experiencing your love, endless energy, dedication and enthusiasm for the media movement, I think you actually might be the right person for this potentially thankless job. I overheard you saying once to someone that you had waited your entire life to be part of a movement like this, and then you poured yourself heart and soul into it. I've seen that and I believe it.

People in the local activist community are worried that because they perceive you as an outsider and not as part of the L.A. activist scene, you are not familiar with the key people and situations here; that you may not know what the important issues are here on the local scene, things that are crucial to movement building on a vital progressive community radio station.

That may be true; and yet, I have seen you work with others in the consenses based IMC, and I know that you are smart enough to attract people to you who ARE familiar with those things, and that you will listen and work collectively with the community to bring KPFK back to the people. I also think that your ability to think three steps ahead of yourself and everybody else, and your impulses to act on those insights, the very things that may have rubbed some more intellectually based and slower moving people the wrong way, are exactly what is needed in your new life. So I send you a hearty Mazeltov!