A few short thoughts...
Since getting involved in Resource Generation, I've heard a lot of framing of how white people's wealth was made off the backs of indigenous people and black people (and all people of color for that matter) so it's not really our money in the first place. At first I was resistant to that idea. "My family worked hard to earn our money! We pay workers fair wages! It's not like we made our money from oil!", I thought. But after some reflection and further learning, I came to accept this notion, recognizing that the land which we prospered from is native land (we had a lumber company for crying out loud) and that there's a lot of labor we can't trace wages for - like the people cutting down the trees, processing the trees in to wood, transporting the wood, etc . However I think after the last 2 sessions - on indigenous and black resistance - I see how not only has wealth been accumulated through the stealing of land and labor, but that the success of capitalism would not have even been possible in the first place without indigenous land and slave labor.
Some good quotes that further explain this...
"Moreover slave produced cotton played a pivotal role in the expansion of trade. This division laid the basis for a national [capitalist] economy that emerged in the U.S. between 1815 - 1865"
-Ronal Bailey
"The profits obtained [from the slave trade] provided one of the main streams of that accumulation of capital in england which financed the industrial revolution"
And if the land hadn't been stolen from the indigenous people in the first place then it never could have been used for agricultural production during slavery!
And a real life example from Sharon Martinez in Shinin the Light on White:
"My paternal grandparents migrated from Russia in the early 20th century. My grandfather worked in a New York sweat shop, a miserable job by any standards. But the economic reason why he and millions of his peers were able to get these jobs was because of the semi-slave labor of people of African descent in Southern plantations after the defeat of Reconstruction. Cotton was cheap because of the conditions under which African labored, so there was a huge market for cotton goods, which created thousands of jobs for European immigrants, including my grandfather."
I know these are some really short thoughts on a really serious and deep topic, so more to come soon...
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Session 6: The Untold Story of Slavery
I do not remember much of what I learned about slavery in grade school, but do I have a pretty clear picture ingrained in my memory of what I imagined slavery to be like: white people sitting on rocking chairs on wrap around porches while black people worked the fields, helpless in their struggle. Throughout my years of thinking about race and privilege, I've never truly taken the time to go and re-learn this history. Which is part of why I wanted to do this program in the first place.
The readings and the class on Black Liberation this week painted a much different picture than the one taught to me in school. On this side of history, we see a powerful black liberation movement that persisted through violent repression and white people consistently scared shitless of revolt.
Two articles we read this week did a good job at breaking down this history. In Vincent Harding's piece, "American Bondage, American Freedom", he offers context to the efforts whites in power went through to halt rebellion. As explained in Session 3 write up, one goal of slavery was to break up white and black solidarity in order to halt worker rebellions. Harding expands on Martinez's point on black/white tension explaining how the creation of slavery and hiring working class whites as armed forces against the increasing black population allowed the dominant class to continue to bring in more Africans to meet economic needs - aka they needed the labor! During this time african language and drums were also banned to effectively shut Africans out of both cultures and I would guess in an attempt to decrees pride and unity.
As we can see in the following examples, these efforts failed. Through looking at some of the individual events* that took place during this time, we see a pattern of repression, resistance, further repression and further resistance.
*An important note about the following list of events: I am aware that by not giving a greater context of slavery and why such extreme measures were needed, some parts of this list can serve to uphold the racist stereotype of black people as violent. If that comes up for you, I ask you to challenge yourself to think about what options beyond revolts they realistically had in finding freedom and the systems' role in creating this violence. At the same time it's important to recognize the non violent actions that were occurring at the same time, further explained below. As Harding explains:
"In a setting where slavery was considered both a natural and a legal right, where it had clearly become part of the social, economic and political structure of the nation, the fight of enslaved Africans for freedom was a critical and essential aspect of black radical struggle in America. Each person who broke with the system contributed to a rudimentary level of radical challenge. Such persons denied its legal and political power, chipped away at those parts of the economic system based on their own submissive bodies."
Also a heads up that this is a bit graffic.
-In Virginia in the early 18th century, Africans consisted of more than a forth of the population. Africans assembling together was seen as a huge danger and threat to peace. Scared of revolt, "virginia society, presaging the future of white America, could find peace only by keeping black people under surveillance and control, unallied with lower-class whites".
-In South Carolina around the same years, workers ran away, stealing their own labor. Whites were scared of more than runaways - "for blacks had so begun to outnumber whites throughout the colony that the threat of insurrection was a constant source of conversation ... a motivation for policy". Harding tells us that there was never a time that whites lived without fear of uprisings in South Carolina.
-In 1706 in New York, after Africans had "assembled themselves in a riotous manner" in Brooklyn, the governor placed an order "requiring and commanding [all officers] to take all proper methods for the seizing and apprehending of all such Negroes as shall be found to be assembled - and if any of them refuse to submit, then fire upon them, kill or destroy them."
-In 1712 in New York, Africans organized in an attempt to "destroy all the whites in the town". Those who did not die in the conflict or commit suicide were burned alive.
-In 1739 in South Carolina, twenty workers marched through town "with colors flying and two drums beating", "killing every white person who came within their reach, burned and sacked houses and barns, and eventually built up a company of some eighy marching Africans". In 1740 a group of from 150 - 200 Africans came together to attempt to take over the city, but their plan was betrayed and the fifty blacks that were seized were hung at a rate of 10 per day.
-In 1741, enslaved Africans were blamed for a series of fires and robberies, including the burning of the governor's home. Thirteen Africans were burned at stake, sixteen hanged and more than seventy banished. Later that spring three black people were burned at the stake for burning down seven barns.
-In 1756 in South Carolina, 5 Africans were killed for supposedly poisoning their masters.
-In 1769 in Virginia a group of between forty and fifty tied up two of their boses and whipped them until armed whites killed the leaders and many other of the rebels.
-In 1769 in Louisiana, a group of men and a women killed their master and tried to organize a larger insurrection. They failed and were "condemned...to death by hanging...dragged to the gallows from the tail of a pack-horse with an...halter tied to the neck, feed and hand.
-Less dangerous levels of resistance included refusal to learn how to use tool without breaking it, noncooperation, recreating religious experience.
-Hundreds of thousands of run aways - hidden in swamps, caves and forest - formed communities outside the domination of the white man. In one year in Virgina alone it is estimated that around 30,000 ran away. Not only was this a radical act of disobedience but also a creation of an alternative way of living in a "self determining black way". In 1793 the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, stating that anyone found to have escaped "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due"
-In 1774 in Massachusetts a group of blacks petitioned the legislature saying, "we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedom without being depriv'd of them by our fellow men as we are a freeborn Pepel".
-In 1787 in Philadelphia Richard Allen, Absolem Jones and friends created their own black church when denied their right to unsegregated prayer.
-In the late 18th century, the black revolutionary movement remained strong, fighting for "freedom and honor and dignity at any cost". White American resistance also remained strong, passing laws and writing letters and publishing articles against black revolutionaries. Little is known about revolts during this time as a result, except for an uprising in Lousiana in 1791, 92 and 95 and Virginia in 1793.
-Arson was also used as a form of protest - in 1793 in Albany, NY three black people were killed for apparently setting fire through the city. In 1796, blacks were blamed for fires that broke out in Charleston and New York City and Newark and Elizabeth and Savananah and Baltimore. Historian CLR James comments on the use of fire for revoltution in San Domingo, "The slaves destroyed tirelessly...They were seeking their salvation in the most obvious way, the destruction of what they knew was the cause of their sufferings; and if they destroyed much it was because they had suffered much".
Angela Davis in her piece "Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves" brilliantly argues that the role of women is often left out of the story of black resistance. During this time when families were separated and outlawed except for to make babies, women participated in the only meaningful labor, the only labor that had a means beyond creating wealth for the elite - domestic labor. Davis explains that at production, workers were so deprived of humanity that they had no desire for freedom and thus could not create visions for a world outside of slavery. However in the home, space existed to vision and dream of a different life. Thus the struggle was born out of this space.
Davis goes on to explain another aspect of the role of women: "Even as she was suffering under her unique oppression as female, she was thrust by the force of circumstances into the center of the salve community. She was, therefore, essential to the survival of the community. Not all people survived enslavement; hence her survival-oriented activities were themselves a form of resistance. Survival, moreover, was the prerequisite of all higher levels of struggle."
This is only a snapshot of all the resistance that took place during this time. To me this side of history feels so crucial to understand, both to see the bigger picture of the Black Liberation movement and the women's role in that and to recognize that since the beginning white people have been terrified of losing control and power. This mentality seems to continue so clearly today with anti-immigrant movement, based in fear that by 2050 there will be more people of color than white people in the U.S.
----------------
ALSO: check out this great audio by James Baldwin:
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Session 5: Reframing Our Concept of Land, Spirit, and Home
As my brother Joel and I run barefoot with a group of kids through the sandy shore alongside the river, 7 year old Juan Carlos and Franky climb high up in to the tree to our left, grab as many handfulls of grapes as they can, and slide back down the trunk. We crack open the large purple grapes as we continue down the path to our daily hang out spot amongst the plantain trees which make a great arena for freeze tag. The kids fly in and out of the trees with a kind of grace as Joel and trip over branches that stand in our way. After tiring ourselves out running around the trees, it's time to go swimming in the river. "Sabes como nadar?" "Do you know how to swim?" says 5 year old Diana. "Si" Yes, we respond. Again, she repeats the question. "Si, podemos nadar," I ensure her. We walk up the shore a bit in order to make up for the strong current. "Lets go in here," I ask. The kids look hesitant. "Alla vive el tigre negro," there lives the black tiger, says Diana. We continue up the river a bit, and jump in and begin to swim. The strength of the current sweeps us quickly down the river, giving the sensation that swimming is getting us no where. Finally, my feet touch sand on the other side, and I let out of giant sigh of relief. While we lay on the sandy shoreside out of breath and exhausted, the kids run around seemingly unfazed by the treacherous swim. The sense of connection these kids have to this land is unmistakable.
During my time in the jungle of Ecuador with the Cofan community I got a sense of what it looks like to be truly rooted to a place. The families I lived and spent time with there are indigenous to this land, can trace there ancestors generation after generation back to this exact place. In many ways their connection to the land is an obvious one: the majority of their food comes from the earth - mashed plantains with every meal, fish, jungle meat, and chicken as staples; fruit from the trees that have been there for generations; homes built with wood from the forest; medicinal trees used by the shaman for his traditional ceremonies and practices; seeds and fibers used by the women to weave bags and create jewelry. And at the same time I realize that their connection to this land - the less tangible and more spiritual side - is something I don't think I will ever be able to truly comprehend.
This leaves me feeling such a sense of respect and admiration for the Cofan and indigenous communities that - through genocide, forced displacement and corporate exploitation - have maintained a deep connection with the land. In our readings for this session, Chief Seattle explains his tribes' relationship to the land: "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us...Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every cleaning and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man." Loa Nieumetolu from the panel we attended on indigenous resistance also talked about connection to land in regard to her homeland of Tonga, a Pacific Island. She explained how the white folks saw Tonga and the surrounding islands as small and far from one another. However the Tonga people see the water as part of their homeland, that which connects the islands.
Recognizing this special connection, I am inspired to look towards indigenous communities for answers to our current global crises. Tom Goldtooth explains the connection between connection to land and the current crises in his piece called "In the Native Way,":
"Our elders talk about the spiritual battle that's been going on for a long time. Industrialization has always wanted to control the land, control the people. That's going on today. I believe that globalization is part of that. Globalization places no value in people, no value in religious and spiritual principles, no value in the protection of the commons. Spiritual values tie us to the importance of protecting the Mother Erath, the plants, all animate and inanitable things. When we lose that understanding, industry, development, and globalization can do what they want to do, because there are no values behind their structures. Globalization has created a system of corporate ownership above the importance of plants, living things, and humans"
Andrea Smith also challenges us to move beyond just inclusion of indigenous organizations to the re-centering our work, so that indigenous and women of color are at the core. Her work is specifically around doing this within the domestic violence movement. In her speech "Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide" she frames colonization as central to violence again women within indigenous communities. This begins as early as the original conquest, when the colonists normalized domination by instilling it through patriarchy - prior to this indigenous communities had no hierarchical structure. She explains that racism is a process where certain people are marked as unpure, so that indigenous women and land are inherently unpure, making them exploitable. This for example legitimized the raping and sterilization of indigenous women. At the same time it legitimizes using indigenous land as a toxic waste dumps. By re-centering the domestic violence movement, we see that we cannot look to the state for solutions when communities with high levels of domestic violence are experiencing - and have a history of experiencing - state violence. So I ask myself, how can we apply Smith's lesson of re-centering to all of the work we do? And recognizing the importance of the indigenous people's struggle, what does indigenous solidarity look like?
At the same time, getting a glimpse of the connection the Cofan and indigenous communities have to the land also leaves me with an overwhelming sense of disconnect from the land I have and do currently occupy. Chief Seattle explains this disconnect: "We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moved on." At the panel Loa also talked about the importance of returning home in order to heal. She explained that when you take an indigenous person away from the land, they loose their mana, or power within. When one looses their mana, they forget how to heal and take care of themselves. When asked how to heal when there is no home to go home to, she advised us to follow our hearts. My family has been rooted for three generations in the suburbs of Chicago in a town called Elgin, Illinois, but having not lived there since I was 16 and not knowing a queer or political community there, it doesn't feel much like home anymore. In Brooklyn I have a strong queer and jewish and political community of people I love, but no family rooted there. In Falls Village where I spent the fall on a jewish farm, I feel a strong spiritual connection to the place but no familial roots. Oakland is great and I feel like I can really be myself here, and I think my great uncle lived here for a while, but lets be real, that's a stretch and I just got here. And in all of these places, the land was stolen from indigenous peoples in the first place. My family is Jewish on both sides which makes me think that we're probably indigenous to somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I'm part German and part Lithuanian and have never been to either of those places, so, where does that leave me? For now, it leaves me continuing to follow my heart, knowing that amongst all of these contradictions, I will find home.
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Living off the land in Photos....
jungle grapes
fresh caught fish soup
Diana shows us the where some of the seeds come from that they use to make jewelry
Juan Carlos, Fernando and his dad and shaman Alejandro en route to go fishing
Comunidad Cofan Dureno, January 2013
During my time in the jungle of Ecuador with the Cofan community I got a sense of what it looks like to be truly rooted to a place. The families I lived and spent time with there are indigenous to this land, can trace there ancestors generation after generation back to this exact place. In many ways their connection to the land is an obvious one: the majority of their food comes from the earth - mashed plantains with every meal, fish, jungle meat, and chicken as staples; fruit from the trees that have been there for generations; homes built with wood from the forest; medicinal trees used by the shaman for his traditional ceremonies and practices; seeds and fibers used by the women to weave bags and create jewelry. And at the same time I realize that their connection to this land - the less tangible and more spiritual side - is something I don't think I will ever be able to truly comprehend.
This leaves me feeling such a sense of respect and admiration for the Cofan and indigenous communities that - through genocide, forced displacement and corporate exploitation - have maintained a deep connection with the land. In our readings for this session, Chief Seattle explains his tribes' relationship to the land: "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us...Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every cleaning and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man." Loa Nieumetolu from the panel we attended on indigenous resistance also talked about connection to land in regard to her homeland of Tonga, a Pacific Island. She explained how the white folks saw Tonga and the surrounding islands as small and far from one another. However the Tonga people see the water as part of their homeland, that which connects the islands.
Recognizing this special connection, I am inspired to look towards indigenous communities for answers to our current global crises. Tom Goldtooth explains the connection between connection to land and the current crises in his piece called "In the Native Way,":
"Our elders talk about the spiritual battle that's been going on for a long time. Industrialization has always wanted to control the land, control the people. That's going on today. I believe that globalization is part of that. Globalization places no value in people, no value in religious and spiritual principles, no value in the protection of the commons. Spiritual values tie us to the importance of protecting the Mother Erath, the plants, all animate and inanitable things. When we lose that understanding, industry, development, and globalization can do what they want to do, because there are no values behind their structures. Globalization has created a system of corporate ownership above the importance of plants, living things, and humans"
Andrea Smith also challenges us to move beyond just inclusion of indigenous organizations to the re-centering our work, so that indigenous and women of color are at the core. Her work is specifically around doing this within the domestic violence movement. In her speech "Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide" she frames colonization as central to violence again women within indigenous communities. This begins as early as the original conquest, when the colonists normalized domination by instilling it through patriarchy - prior to this indigenous communities had no hierarchical structure. She explains that racism is a process where certain people are marked as unpure, so that indigenous women and land are inherently unpure, making them exploitable. This for example legitimized the raping and sterilization of indigenous women. At the same time it legitimizes using indigenous land as a toxic waste dumps. By re-centering the domestic violence movement, we see that we cannot look to the state for solutions when communities with high levels of domestic violence are experiencing - and have a history of experiencing - state violence. So I ask myself, how can we apply Smith's lesson of re-centering to all of the work we do? And recognizing the importance of the indigenous people's struggle, what does indigenous solidarity look like?
At the same time, getting a glimpse of the connection the Cofan and indigenous communities have to the land also leaves me with an overwhelming sense of disconnect from the land I have and do currently occupy. Chief Seattle explains this disconnect: "We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moved on." At the panel Loa also talked about the importance of returning home in order to heal. She explained that when you take an indigenous person away from the land, they loose their mana, or power within. When one looses their mana, they forget how to heal and take care of themselves. When asked how to heal when there is no home to go home to, she advised us to follow our hearts. My family has been rooted for three generations in the suburbs of Chicago in a town called Elgin, Illinois, but having not lived there since I was 16 and not knowing a queer or political community there, it doesn't feel much like home anymore. In Brooklyn I have a strong queer and jewish and political community of people I love, but no family rooted there. In Falls Village where I spent the fall on a jewish farm, I feel a strong spiritual connection to the place but no familial roots. Oakland is great and I feel like I can really be myself here, and I think my great uncle lived here for a while, but lets be real, that's a stretch and I just got here. And in all of these places, the land was stolen from indigenous peoples in the first place. My family is Jewish on both sides which makes me think that we're probably indigenous to somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I'm part German and part Lithuanian and have never been to either of those places, so, where does that leave me? For now, it leaves me continuing to follow my heart, knowing that amongst all of these contradictions, I will find home.
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Living off the land in Photos....
Comunidad Cofan Dureno, January 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Intermission: Some Really Good Videos
On indigenous resistance...
Native American Activist, Author Winona LaDuke on "The Militarization of Indian Country" and Obama Admin’s "Lip Service" to Indigenous Rights
Native American Activist, Author Winona LaDuke on "The Militarization of Indian Country" and Obama Admin’s "Lip Service" to Indigenous Rights
Andrea Smith: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
And a bonus on hipster racism...
"The Best Take Down of Hipster Racism You Will Ever See"
And a bonus on hipster racism...
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Session 4: Organizing and the Day Rocks Fell From the Sky
The town of Middletown is under attack. Rocks are falling from the sky, and killing and injuring residents. A group called Emergency to the Rescue forms to respond to the situation. They set up medical relief. They send search parties to look for bodies trapped on the rocks. They create shelters for those displaced by the situation. They set up counselors for those traumatized.
At the same time another group forms trying to address the underlying cause of the falling rocks. College students in the area also come together to try and see what they can do to help.
After some time, it is discovered that a corporation in the town up on the hill is paying residents to throw rocks off the cliff, and that the corporation is part of a huge sceme to get rid of the Middletown residents in order to build a luxury tourist destination.
This was a simulation we did leading to a conversation about the balance between organizing to stop the root causes of injustice and meeting people's immediate needs.
Three interesting questions came out of this conversation for me:
1. How do we take care of basic needs in a way that changes conditions? Some great examples of this:
-The Panther's Breakfast program: provided kids with breakfast - serving 10,000 daily at one point - and creating a strong foundation in the community for organizing. The magnitude of this program was so powerful that the federal government was shamed into creating free breakfast programs.
-Tierra y Libertad's Greening the Hood program in Tuscon, Arizona: supports families, schools, and community group in growing their own food, meeting the need of providing healthy fresh local food, creating a basis of relationships from which to organize, and also decrease dependency on corporate food chains.
-Migrant Justice movement's Know Your Rights campaign: supporting families in creating plans in the case that someone in the family is detained or deported. Many organizations within the migrant justice movement, especially in Arizona, have successfully organized to get members and their family members out of deportation by putting pressure on the powers that be, thus meeting immediate needs while at the same time working to change policies that are deporting families in the first place.
2. What is crisis?
Natural crises are given more attention by the masses but there's crises happening every day right in our neighborhoods that are often not seen as so urgent - landless and homeless people without a place to call home, kids going to sleep without a sufficient dinner, undocumented folks scared to leave their homes. These are serious crises. Then why, we asked ourselves, do people come out in the masses during environmental crisis? Beyond the fact that it's sudden and tragic, there's a lot to break down here. Surely one reason is that natural disasters often have no direct target, no one direct person or corporation to blame. There is no side to choose. This also has a lot to do with race and class - when we begin to come in to relationship with people without homes, people without food, people terrified to leave their homes, we have to recognize our own privilege, and that we have these basic needs met largely because of our skin privilege. For a lot of us, this brings up feelings of guilt or shame, which are real feelings that often paralyzes us from doing the work that needs to be done. A good friend of mine once told me the saying, "it is not our fault, it is our responsibility." How can we keep this phrase in mind when thinking about the every day crises we see in our communities? And keep in mind all of the crises hidden from our view.
3. What is lost when we don't work from an anti-oppression framework?
In the case of the falling rocks, my group was the Emergency to the Rescue team. We were focused on saving lives, no time for talking about how this situation fits in to the bigger picture of white supremacy in our society, or what it meant for a group of white people to be leading the work. So we began to think about what is lost as a result. And maybe this isn't the best example since it's made up, so lets think about Hurricane Sandy relief in the Lower East Side. Over the four days I was there helping coordinate volunteers, over 3,000 volunteers came through the doors. While they came from far and wide, many were white, and many were from the surrounding "East Village" neighborhood. As an organizer in the Lower East Side for three years, I can tell you that this demographic has not historically been knocking down our doors to help save buildings from getting torn down or to stop families from being evicted. But here they were, by the thousands, waiting patiently sometimes for hours to get sent out in to the community. This was a huge moment and opportunity - in these four days, we must have knocked on each of the 15,000 public housing apartments in the community at least once and often 2 or 3 or 4 times. To my knowledge, never in the history of our organization have we reached so many doors in such a short period of time. And when is the last time thousands of middle and upper class white people entered public housing developments to connect with residents? In these days we functioned in mega crisis mode, working 14 hour days with little food or sleep. There was little time for conversation on privilege, the history of public housing, the history of racism and gentrification in the lower east side. This brings up two questions for me:
1. What did it feel like for the residents of public housing - majority people of color - when a bunch of white folks showed up at their door? Did people show up with a savior mentality? Were their instances where people said some racist shit?
2. What potential for white solidarity/allyship within the public housing movement and the movement against displacement in the lower east side was lost by not talking about these issues?
I seem to be leaving you with more questions than answers. Luckily there are three months to go. Also, many of these questions don't seem to have one true answer, but a complexity of solutions that I have not yet completely unraveled.
----------
Some good quotes on organizing from our weekly readings:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limites to tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
-Frederick Douglas
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
-Ella Baker
"People have to be made to understand that they can not look for salvation anywhere but themselves"
-Ella Baker
"You and I have in our hearts a future to build. They only have the past to repeat eternally"
-Subcomandante Marcos
"
At the same time another group forms trying to address the underlying cause of the falling rocks. College students in the area also come together to try and see what they can do to help.
After some time, it is discovered that a corporation in the town up on the hill is paying residents to throw rocks off the cliff, and that the corporation is part of a huge sceme to get rid of the Middletown residents in order to build a luxury tourist destination.
This was a simulation we did leading to a conversation about the balance between organizing to stop the root causes of injustice and meeting people's immediate needs.
Three interesting questions came out of this conversation for me:
1. How do we take care of basic needs in a way that changes conditions? Some great examples of this:
-The Panther's Breakfast program: provided kids with breakfast - serving 10,000 daily at one point - and creating a strong foundation in the community for organizing. The magnitude of this program was so powerful that the federal government was shamed into creating free breakfast programs.
-Tierra y Libertad's Greening the Hood program in Tuscon, Arizona: supports families, schools, and community group in growing their own food, meeting the need of providing healthy fresh local food, creating a basis of relationships from which to organize, and also decrease dependency on corporate food chains.
-Migrant Justice movement's Know Your Rights campaign: supporting families in creating plans in the case that someone in the family is detained or deported. Many organizations within the migrant justice movement, especially in Arizona, have successfully organized to get members and their family members out of deportation by putting pressure on the powers that be, thus meeting immediate needs while at the same time working to change policies that are deporting families in the first place.
2. What is crisis?
Natural crises are given more attention by the masses but there's crises happening every day right in our neighborhoods that are often not seen as so urgent - landless and homeless people without a place to call home, kids going to sleep without a sufficient dinner, undocumented folks scared to leave their homes. These are serious crises. Then why, we asked ourselves, do people come out in the masses during environmental crisis? Beyond the fact that it's sudden and tragic, there's a lot to break down here. Surely one reason is that natural disasters often have no direct target, no one direct person or corporation to blame. There is no side to choose. This also has a lot to do with race and class - when we begin to come in to relationship with people without homes, people without food, people terrified to leave their homes, we have to recognize our own privilege, and that we have these basic needs met largely because of our skin privilege. For a lot of us, this brings up feelings of guilt or shame, which are real feelings that often paralyzes us from doing the work that needs to be done. A good friend of mine once told me the saying, "it is not our fault, it is our responsibility." How can we keep this phrase in mind when thinking about the every day crises we see in our communities? And keep in mind all of the crises hidden from our view.
3. What is lost when we don't work from an anti-oppression framework?
In the case of the falling rocks, my group was the Emergency to the Rescue team. We were focused on saving lives, no time for talking about how this situation fits in to the bigger picture of white supremacy in our society, or what it meant for a group of white people to be leading the work. So we began to think about what is lost as a result. And maybe this isn't the best example since it's made up, so lets think about Hurricane Sandy relief in the Lower East Side. Over the four days I was there helping coordinate volunteers, over 3,000 volunteers came through the doors. While they came from far and wide, many were white, and many were from the surrounding "East Village" neighborhood. As an organizer in the Lower East Side for three years, I can tell you that this demographic has not historically been knocking down our doors to help save buildings from getting torn down or to stop families from being evicted. But here they were, by the thousands, waiting patiently sometimes for hours to get sent out in to the community. This was a huge moment and opportunity - in these four days, we must have knocked on each of the 15,000 public housing apartments in the community at least once and often 2 or 3 or 4 times. To my knowledge, never in the history of our organization have we reached so many doors in such a short period of time. And when is the last time thousands of middle and upper class white people entered public housing developments to connect with residents? In these days we functioned in mega crisis mode, working 14 hour days with little food or sleep. There was little time for conversation on privilege, the history of public housing, the history of racism and gentrification in the lower east side. This brings up two questions for me:
1. What did it feel like for the residents of public housing - majority people of color - when a bunch of white folks showed up at their door? Did people show up with a savior mentality? Were their instances where people said some racist shit?
2. What potential for white solidarity/allyship within the public housing movement and the movement against displacement in the lower east side was lost by not talking about these issues?
I seem to be leaving you with more questions than answers. Luckily there are three months to go. Also, many of these questions don't seem to have one true answer, but a complexity of solutions that I have not yet completely unraveled.
----------
Some good quotes on organizing from our weekly readings:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limites to tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
-Frederick Douglas
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
-Ella Baker
"People have to be made to understand that they can not look for salvation anywhere but themselves"
-Ella Baker
"You and I have in our hearts a future to build. They only have the past to repeat eternally"
-Subcomandante Marcos
"
Background: My Motivation
In my original application for Anne Braden, we were asked to explain what motivates the political work we do. This seemed like a good thing to share here:
I’m motivated by a belief that things can truly be different: that we don’t have to live in a world in which I have more resources than I will ever need while millions are without basic access to food, water and shelter; where skin color determines weather you get pulled over, arrested, deported or killed, where people are called illegal in a land that goes back to their ancestors; where people don’t even know their neighbor they’ve lived next to for years. But in the end I’m motivated by love – not just for the people I’ve been fortunate to work alongside - but also love for my family and the belief that they too would be happier in the world where community and human lives were valued over money and power.
While my drive to fight for justice originated through seeing the impact of U.S. imperialism in the global south, I now also root my passion in the history of my own people. As an owning class white Jew in the United States whose grandma fled the holocaust, my family has ingrained in us a story of oppression and privilege. We came here 3 generations ago as poor immigrants, and as a result of our skin color were able to assimilate to whiteness and begin to accumulate wealth. It was the immigration laws that still exist today that kept Jews from escaping the holocaust, and race that has allowed us (as in my family and many white Jews) to flourish. Knowing this history inspires me to organize my own community to fight against racism and classism via the migrant justice movement.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Session 3: Lets Talk about Whiteness
White supremacy is hella complicated. A big reasons is that it's such an intrinsic part of every piece of our society. It can also be especially difficult for white people to see. As shown by Professor Dreier's activity I discussed in entry 1, we are taught to be colored blind, to not see our whiteness. Also, the history we learn in school does a good job at hiding this story, the story of racism and genocide. So it's a lot of work to re-learn history with this lens.
A bit I learned about the origination of whiteness/racism: The idea of whiteness came from economic needs. In the early 1600s, 50 wealthy english man bought stock which included a large parcel of land in Virginia. They needed people to work the land, so they brought in poor English kids and kidnaped Africans. Conditions for both were horrific - they were whipped, nearly starved to death, denied days off. But at that point, they were all in it together. Then came the late 1680s. In an attempt to stop the series of revolts that had taken place, land owners created slave codes. Slave was equated with negro, and servant with white. Servants were given special privileges - a small plot of land, freedom dues paid in tobacco, right to challenge land owners. They were also offered the first jobs as slave patrols, a strategic move made to create further tension. These laws did a great job at breaking up the unity of the workers by tricking the white workers in to thinking they had more in common with the white wealthy landowners. We see here how slavery and whiteness were created at the same time! (From Sharon Martinez's Shinin' the Lite on White).
Andrea Smith does a grand job at breaking down how white supremacy functions in her piece "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy." She sees it functioning in three ways, or what she calls pillars:
1. Slavery/Capitalism: This logic sees black people as inherently slavable. This can been seen clear as day in today's racist prison system, which is largely filled with black folks. Before the Civil War, prisons were mostly filled with white people. However the thirteenth amendment banned slavery except for in prisons. "Black people previously enslaved by the slavery system were re-enslaved through the prison system. Black people who had been the property of the slave owners became state property."
2. Genocide/Colonialism: This logic believes hat indigenous people must disappear. This legitimizes rightfull take over of land by non indigenous people. "In a temporal paradox, living Indians were induced to 'play dead,' as it were, in order to perform a narrative of manifest destiny in which their role, ultimately, was to disappear." After the initial genocide, much effort was put in to native communities disappearing - forced boarding schools for children, sterilization, and forced christianity for example.
3. Orientalism/War: This logic sees the West as superior in opposition to the exotic and inferior "orient". This logic makes people from these nations a constant threat. This legitimizes anti-immigrant sentiment and racial profiling of Arab Americans for example. This also legitimizes the U.S. being constantly at war, and the U.S. must be at war in order to maintain white supremacy.
So then she brilliantly brings this all together: "What keeps us trapped within our particular pillars of white supremacy is that we are seduced with the prospect of being able to participate in the other pillars. For example, all non-Native peoples are promised the ability to join in the colonial project of settling indigenous lands. All non-Black peoples are promised that if they comply, they will not be at the bottom of the racial heirarchy. And Black, Native, Latino and Asian peoples are promised that they will economically and politically advance if they join US wards to spread "democracy"." Woah.
Ok I promise no more straight up article summaries moving forward. Please accept my apologies. Just couldn't help myself it's all so good!
A bit I learned about the origination of whiteness/racism: The idea of whiteness came from economic needs. In the early 1600s, 50 wealthy english man bought stock which included a large parcel of land in Virginia. They needed people to work the land, so they brought in poor English kids and kidnaped Africans. Conditions for both were horrific - they were whipped, nearly starved to death, denied days off. But at that point, they were all in it together. Then came the late 1680s. In an attempt to stop the series of revolts that had taken place, land owners created slave codes. Slave was equated with negro, and servant with white. Servants were given special privileges - a small plot of land, freedom dues paid in tobacco, right to challenge land owners. They were also offered the first jobs as slave patrols, a strategic move made to create further tension. These laws did a great job at breaking up the unity of the workers by tricking the white workers in to thinking they had more in common with the white wealthy landowners. We see here how slavery and whiteness were created at the same time! (From Sharon Martinez's Shinin' the Lite on White).
Andrea Smith does a grand job at breaking down how white supremacy functions in her piece "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy." She sees it functioning in three ways, or what she calls pillars:
1. Slavery/Capitalism: This logic sees black people as inherently slavable. This can been seen clear as day in today's racist prison system, which is largely filled with black folks. Before the Civil War, prisons were mostly filled with white people. However the thirteenth amendment banned slavery except for in prisons. "Black people previously enslaved by the slavery system were re-enslaved through the prison system. Black people who had been the property of the slave owners became state property."
2. Genocide/Colonialism: This logic believes hat indigenous people must disappear. This legitimizes rightfull take over of land by non indigenous people. "In a temporal paradox, living Indians were induced to 'play dead,' as it were, in order to perform a narrative of manifest destiny in which their role, ultimately, was to disappear." After the initial genocide, much effort was put in to native communities disappearing - forced boarding schools for children, sterilization, and forced christianity for example.
3. Orientalism/War: This logic sees the West as superior in opposition to the exotic and inferior "orient". This logic makes people from these nations a constant threat. This legitimizes anti-immigrant sentiment and racial profiling of Arab Americans for example. This also legitimizes the U.S. being constantly at war, and the U.S. must be at war in order to maintain white supremacy.
So then she brilliantly brings this all together: "What keeps us trapped within our particular pillars of white supremacy is that we are seduced with the prospect of being able to participate in the other pillars. For example, all non-Native peoples are promised the ability to join in the colonial project of settling indigenous lands. All non-Black peoples are promised that if they comply, they will not be at the bottom of the racial heirarchy. And Black, Native, Latino and Asian peoples are promised that they will economically and politically advance if they join US wards to spread "democracy"." Woah.
Ok I promise no more straight up article summaries moving forward. Please accept my apologies. Just couldn't help myself it's all so good!
Session 2: The Myth of Multiculturalism
As a kid and youth I was taught the myth of multiculturalism and tolerance: the way to solve racism is to see everyone as equal and the same. So I tried really hard to do so. It worked pretty well for me through High School, where everyone else seemed to buy in to this myth as well. And then I got to college, and everything changed. Suddenly, people were talking about race in a different way than before. Instead of lovingly poking fun at each other's differences as we did in high school, conversations around race were full of tension. Articles went back and forth between a group of white people on campus and people of color from the multicultural dorm on campus where I lived. I remember one in particular that suggested people of color be sprinkled around campus instead of being primarily placed in one dorm. I remember hearing a story about a girl who had to sleep in the lobby of the multicultural dorm because she felt so unsafe in her own dorm. I remember not totally understanding why she would ever feel this way. Then towards the end of Sophomore year there was a big movement of people from the dorm who fought to call out racism at the school by wearing shirts to some event that said "racism exist at Oxy". I remember wearing a shirt because a friend told me to so, but not fully understanding the complexities of the situation.
Beyond that, during my two years in this dorm I remained silent for the most part in this debate. I didn't yet have the understanding of race and white supremacy in our society to stand with my fellow dorm mates. At the same time, I was convinced that I understood race. I remember friends taking classes on whiteness, and convincing myself I didn't need that class. I think secretly I was just terrified of my own racism.
What I wish I had known then is that racism is not just a personal prejudice and individual act of discrimination, and that seeing everyone as equal is actually not the answer to ending racism. Rather, it is "a system, a web of interlocking, reinforcing institutions: political economic, social, cultural, legal, military, educational, all our instituions. As a system, racism affects every aspect of life in a country," as Elizabeth Martinez explains in "What is White Supremacy". By attempting to see everyone as equal we negate the fact that the system is not equal! Instead, we must recognize the inherent privileges of being white. From there we can begin to do the work of playing our part to end racism. This is at the core of anti-racism.
Chris Crass further explains anti-racism in his article "Occupy Opportunities for Collective Liberation": "By “anti-racist,” we mean engaging with white people to develop anti-racist politics, commitment, and practice as well as developing and strengthening powerful multiracial alliances and collaboration. We do this by taking action on issues impacting white communities, such as economic and environmental injustice, in ways that foreground white supremacy in the problem, anti-racist/multiracial movement building in the solution, and joining with and/or supporting similar struggles in communities of color. We also do this by joining organizing in communities of color and developing a strategy with organizers and leaders of color for bringing white people in large numbers into such struggles." Check out his piece to learn more about Catalyst framing of white anti-racist organizing.
Some notes on white supremacy: Catalyst project sees racism as the same thing as white supremacy. They use the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop definition of white supremacy: "a historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege".
Chris Crass further explains anti-racism in his article "Occupy Opportunities for Collective Liberation": "By “anti-racist,” we mean engaging with white people to develop anti-racist politics, commitment, and practice as well as developing and strengthening powerful multiracial alliances and collaboration. We do this by taking action on issues impacting white communities, such as economic and environmental injustice, in ways that foreground white supremacy in the problem, anti-racist/multiracial movement building in the solution, and joining with and/or supporting similar struggles in communities of color. We also do this by joining organizing in communities of color and developing a strategy with organizers and leaders of color for bringing white people in large numbers into such struggles." Check out his piece to learn more about Catalyst framing of white anti-racist organizing.
Some notes on white supremacy: Catalyst project sees racism as the same thing as white supremacy. They use the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop definition of white supremacy: "a historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege".
Also: Racial Prejudice + Institutional Power = Racism / White Supremacy
Session 1: Organizing with Love
Catalyst works from the framework that "we need to develop anti-racist leadership in white communities rooted in collective liberation politics and guided by strategy based in love."
What is collective liberation?
Collective liberation is the idea that we would all be better off without racism and other forms of oppression. As Chris Crass says in his piece From a Place of Love, "racism deforms the humanity of white people, by enlisting our participation in violence and by distorting our ability to understand ourselves and people of color outside of a lens of superiority and inferiority." By grounding my commitment to social justice in collective liberation, I am able to see my own investment in this work. This stands in rejection to a white culture that seeks to "help"or "save" the poor and people of color by acknowledging that fighting against racism is in our self interest as well!
What is a strategy based in love?
bell hooks says it best: "The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves from others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom."
-Bell Hooks, Love As the Practice of Freedom
Often there is a lack of love between white anti-racist organizers. There's a sense of competition over who's the most anti-racist? Who is the most down? Who has the most friends of color? Catalyst recognizes the importance of white people working together to end racism and thus works hard to create a community of love and interdependence.
One way Catalyst is working create a culture based on love is through a proposed a culture shift in the way we relate to one another:
What is collective liberation?
Collective liberation is the idea that we would all be better off without racism and other forms of oppression. As Chris Crass says in his piece From a Place of Love, "racism deforms the humanity of white people, by enlisting our participation in violence and by distorting our ability to understand ourselves and people of color outside of a lens of superiority and inferiority." By grounding my commitment to social justice in collective liberation, I am able to see my own investment in this work. This stands in rejection to a white culture that seeks to "help"or "save" the poor and people of color by acknowledging that fighting against racism is in our self interest as well!
What is a strategy based in love?
bell hooks says it best: "The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves from others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom."
-Bell Hooks, Love As the Practice of Freedom
Often there is a lack of love between white anti-racist organizers. There's a sense of competition over who's the most anti-racist? Who is the most down? Who has the most friends of color? Catalyst recognizes the importance of white people working together to end racism and thus works hard to create a community of love and interdependence.
One way Catalyst is working create a culture based on love is through a proposed a culture shift in the way we relate to one another:
-From call out culture to build up culture
-From critiquing from the sidelines to learning from the center
-From deficit based thinking to asset based thinking
-From individual focus to collective action
So far, it appears that these values are not just pie in the sky ideas but grounded in the real day to day operations of the work.
For example, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical that a lot of the training was going to be people calling each other out for being racist. Not only is that not at all what happens, but I've found quite the opposite to be true - rather, there is recognition that as white people living in the U.S., racism is deeply ingrained in all of us and that we must support each other in unlearning these lessons. Instead, there is an underlying assumption that we are all here to learn, to grow, to be challenged and that we must treat each other with compassion in order to fully engage in that process together.
So far, it appears that these values are not just pie in the sky ideas but grounded in the real day to day operations of the work.
For example, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical that a lot of the training was going to be people calling each other out for being racist. Not only is that not at all what happens, but I've found quite the opposite to be true - rather, there is recognition that as white people living in the U.S., racism is deeply ingrained in all of us and that we must support each other in unlearning these lessons. Instead, there is an underlying assumption that we are all here to learn, to grow, to be challenged and that we must treat each other with compassion in order to fully engage in that process together.
Another way they have created a room for love is by giving space for people to discuss accessibility needs. While I am used to thinking about accessibility in terms of logistical needs - ie is there wheelchair access? is it affordable? - we broadened this discussion to include what people need in order to bring there full selves to the space. It was beautiful how honest people were with their needs and how receptive the community was to meeting those needs. This feels like an important practice for me to get in the habit of, as I'm really good - per my conditioning as a wealthy white kid who has all my material needs met - at pretending "I'm fine". At the same time, I have questions around how can we ensure that in the broader movement, it's not just white folks getting their needs met? And how to balance meeting peoples needs with white-bred feelings of entitlement? And what happens when people's needs contradict each other?
Grounding Myself in the Present
As I sip on some tea and try to calm my mind until session 1 starts, I ponder how I - a "nice jewish girl" from the burbs of Chicago - ended up here in San Fransico spending the next 4 months educating myself on how to be an effective anti-racist organizer alongside 24 other white people from across the country.
Some images pop up in to my mind.
The toy drive I organized in first grade. Sitting on the floor playing cards with my host family in
Honduras my first summer there in 2004. Professor Puerto’s class on U.S./Latin American relations at
Occidental. Returning to that same home in Honduras in 2006 to find that the oldest and youngest sons had died of curable diseases. “Racism
exists at Oxy” mobilization junior year, and not being sure why. Professor Dreier’s urban policy class where he asked us to describe our
childhood using class and race, showing how white and wealthy people are blind
from the way race and class shape every experience and interaction.* Witnessing operation streamline in Tuscon, Arizona where undocumented immigrants are put on trial and deported in masses. Residents of a building I was organizing in the Lower East Side who hadn't had heat or hot water for a year. Each experience building on the prior, showing me both how there are a
whole lot of people out there in the world struggling while a select few of us have more resources that we will ever need and how these
inequalities exist not because of work ethic or intelligence, but because our
system is set up to benefit some and hold back others, because the U.S. is built on a system of racialized exclusion and exploitation.
I snap back to the present, and look around at all of the
beautiful people in the room.
In this moment I am feeling grateful for these experiences - albeit painful - and for all the people that helped guide me on my path that took me from the
suburbs of Chicago to the hills of Los Angeles to the mountains of Honduras and
Ecuador to the streets of New York City, to the fields of Connecticut and
finally to where I am today.
Because where I am right now feels like right where I am supposed to be.
And now my dad will officially stop reading this blog
because I ended my first post with a preposition.
*In this activity, we were asked to describe our childhood with race and class in every part of the description. For example, "I grew up in a middle/upper predominately white town and went to a middle class predominately white school..." etc. Then he asked who among the group sees life through this lens. The four people of color in the class raised their hands.
*In this activity, we were asked to describe our childhood with race and class in every part of the description. For example, "I grew up in a middle/upper predominately white town and went to a middle class predominately white school..." etc. Then he asked who among the group sees life through this lens. The four people of color in the class raised their hands.
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