Session 15: Organizing White Folks Where You'd Least Expect It

A conversation that took place as I was writing this at Awaken Cafe in Downtown Oakland.

Man sitting in front of me: What are you writing about?
Me: Racism.
Man: Isn't hard to concentrate here?
Me: A cafe full of white people listening to classical music in downtown oakland? I call that inspiring.
[Man looks around]
Man: Wow, everyone here is white! You never notice that.
Me: I mean, I do.
[moderately awkward silence]

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Yes, it took us fifteen session to get anti-racist organizing, the name of the program.  At first, this felt confusing to me.  Why isn't every session on anti-racist organizing? In retrospect, I see how building a foundation of knowledge on the history of how racism was developed in this country and the intersection of race and other systems of oppression is crucial to be an effective anti-racist organizer.  For example, by looking at my family's history and Jewish assimilation to whiteness I can see my stake in dismantling the system of white supremacy, for buying in to has in one sense protected us and also caused us a vast loss of our culture and traditions.  By understanding ablism I can see how valuing myself and others based on efficiency and productivity is inherently seeing people with disabilities as less valued, instead of recognizing that we each have different skills and capacity to give and that a custom of ulta productivity is also unhealthy and unsustainable.  By learning about indigenous struggles I see how there is room for the conversation of the original theft of land in all parts of the movement.

In this session we talked and read about the importance of organizing white communities.  I see this break down in two ways.  FIrst you have working class white folks who, on a daily basis are dealing with many of the same challenges as poor black folks. As discussed in the post for session 3, racism was partially created to divide working class white and black folks.  Anne Braden herself (lets be real, it's about time I quote her) does a good job at explaining this in her piece "Black Power and White Organizing":
"Our work in white community is in large part a search for a situation in which there can be a meaningful black-white alliance." She continues, "some might say that...we just want ot "use" these white people - that their needs are not important in themselves.  I don't think this is the case at all.  Certainly the inherent needs of poor white people are reason enough to organize - they, like poor black people, are ill-fed, ill-housed and lacking in opportunities for education, medical care, political expression, and dignity.  But I think what we are recognizing is that these white people will never be able to solve these problems unless they find ways to unite with the black movement seeking the same things.  All of southern history proves this to be the case".

Braden poses that this be done through building alliances between black and white folks, and that this responsibility lies on white folks, because as Stokely Carmichael said, "integration is irrelevant when initiated by black people." Braden explains,
"What I am saying is that our organizers need to have constantly on their minds this necessity for getting at the question of racism; they need to be looking for the opportunities to make it real to the people they are working with. We all know that white supremacist attitudes change fasted not by logical argument, but when people have new experiences. We need to be on the lookout all the time for ways in which we can create those experiences for people.  We need to look for situations in which white people need the strength that can come from alliances with black people on issues of common concern."

Then you have middle, managerial, and owning class white folks.  The self interest of these folks in aligning with folks of color is less material, a bit more under the surface.  In the session on class, I'll go more in to why I believe it's in all of our self interest to end the system of white supremacy.  For the sake of this post, I want to show some examples of organizations succeeding at showing white folks of all class backgrounds that fighting against racism is in their self interest, for their liberation.

In Oregon, the Rural Organizing Project (ROP) is organizing white people across the state to care about fighting against racism.  Focusing on rural mostly white communities, they work to find solidarity amongst oppressed groups - queers and immigrants, whites and people of color, working class and queers, contesting the notion that rural areas are ready for right base.  Often in Oregon racist and/or homophobic initiatives fail on the state level but then pass on the local level in rural counties.  They use many strategies to create a white base committed to fighting against racism. They integrate anti-oppression framework in to their organizing and trainings. They organize local human dignity groups, relying on local leadership to take on local issues.  They use "living room" conversations to discuss a framework for talking about immigration and from there develop rapid response teams (RRT) to respond to local issues as well as a base of people to show up in solidarity with people of color led organizations.

In Louisville, Tennessee the Fairness Campaign is dedicated to providing fairness in employment and housing for the LGBTQ community, placing racial justice as the center of their work. Founder and director Carla Wallace, and a mentee of Anne Braden told us about how Braden saw her work organizing white folks as about liberating herself.  "I have seen myself and the people I live destroyed by racism," she said.  Carla remembered Braden saying "You don't have to be part of the world of lynchers, we can choose a legacy of resilience."  The Fairness Campaign aims to show the right that they can't count on the silence of white people.  One of their campaigns - People Not Profiles, challenges the assumption that immigrants will be alone in the fight by asking white people for their papers during rallys.  Carla says that through organizing a multi racial struggle through the years she's seen that while she always assumed white folks were afraid of black folks, that they were actually just afraid of each other.

Kaitlin Breeneck of Southerners on New Ground (SONG) talked to us about a movement where everyone can be whole. SONG is a regional Queer Liberation organization made up of people of color, immigrants, undocumented people, people with disabilities, working class and rural and small town, LGBTQ people in the South.  Kaitlin talked about the blood path of right wing policy that leaves behind devastation for rural queer communities in the south.  For southern gays, having community and reducing isolation is not only a way to sustainably stay in the south but also a means of survival.  She explains how the right counts on the buying out of white people and that the powers that be get surprised when black white and brown folks are working together.  She talks about the importance of white leadership making space for leadership of color without setting up individuals for failure without adequate support.  She believes that one way to build a base of white people committed to racial justice is to show white people that we're not going to win unless we all stand together.  For example, a LGBTQ organization that doesn't want to talk about race is saying that a black gay man can only bring his gay self.  One way this plays out in their organizing is for example, sending a straight black man and white gay man out door knocking, giving them the experience of having each others back.  She also talked about the urban / rural solidarity of urban folks spreading rural actions on youtube to gain support and awareness of the campaign.

In San Francisco, California the Heads Up Collective organized to strengthen a white anti-racist/ anti-imperialist sector of activist in the Bay Area.  They saw the right as united by racism, and then left divided by it and sought to shift this dynamic. Working towards a goal of multiracial, revolutionary movements in the Bay, they operated as a formation of white anti-racist within broad bay area movements supporting grassroots organizations led by people of color and working class folks, fighting domestic imperialism, developing and supporting anti-racist analysis, practice and leadership.  They used participatory, egalitarian decision making and practiced mutual aid.  Member Rahula Janowski explains how "this isn't so much about identity politics or doing identity based work, so much as it is about looking strategically at our role as white folks."  Their work breaks in to 4 main areas: 1. support anti-imperialist/anti-racist white folks in largely white sectors of ant-war & global justice movement 2. work in solidarity with radical organizations led by people of color and working class people by providing political and material support. 3. help build relationships, trust and unity between various individuals and organizations 4. develop own skills and analysis and provide leadership within group and with movements. They particularly did a lot of work in the migrant rights movement, supporting radical organizations, organizing a larger, more effective and accountable movement of white people committed to migrant justice, building bridge between migrant right and antiwar/global justice movement, and working alongside white staff in immigrant organizations to improve practice and analysis.

I see in these examples the shifting of the question many majority white organizations ask of "how can we get people of color involved?" to the question "how can we re-center our work from an anti-racist perspective?", "how can we follow the leadership of people of color?"  Through seeing how white people have been effectively organized in unexpected terrain, I also see infinite opportunity for white communities to be organized in every corner of this country, and a whole lot of people with a whole lot of love to give just waiting for an opportunity to plug in to a movement for collective liberation.

Session 17: Mandar Obedeciendo, "Lead by Obeying,"

The Concept of a Leader

In his article "But We Don't Have Leaders", Chris Crass talks about in his organizing experience at Food Not Bombs (FNB), people often said "there are no leaders". "Our refusal of leadership was, in many ways, an attempt to share power, but it also made it extremely difficult to talk about the real power dynamics in our work and how they related to institutional forms of privilege and oppression." He continues:
"Leadership development is primarily about doing day to day work - door knocking, political education, recruitment, cooking for 100 people at a rally - and having a space to reflect and learn from the experience. Making leadership development a more formal and intentional process, for me, has been about taking responsibility for my actions and trying to be accountable to the people I work with. In rejecting leadership, I was in many ways rejecting responsibility and accountability to others and continuing the tradition of capitalist individualism. In learning to respect the leadership of others and myself, I have struggled to reclaim trust in and respect for myself, both of which I was taught to achieve only through dominating others. In working to heal myself and fight back, I have needed the leadership of others who have nurtured and developed communities of resistance and cultures of liberation."

Ella Baker also warns of having too few leaders. "I have always felt that it was a handicap for oppressed people to depend so largely on a leader, because unfortunately in our culture the charismatic leader usually becomes the leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight. It usually means that the media made him, and the media can undo him."

We do not need no leaders at all or one leader alone. Instead, we need lots and lots of different kinds of leaders: the idealist, the mentor, the achiever, the innovator, the synthesizer, the partner, the enthusiast, the advocate, the diplomat, we needs lots of them all!

Some questions asked of us I now ask you...
What kind of leader are you? Who has supported you in developing your leadership? How did they develop your leadership?  Whose leadership have you helped develop?  How can you continue supporting their development? Is there anyone else who's leadership you want to support?

Leadership Development within Grassroots Community Organizations

For me, leadership development often feels like a weighted term in the community organizing world: something that often gets pushed to the wayside in order to focus all energy on a campaign, something that turns in to a few workshops instead of a holistic integrated vision, and something that is a source of tension between organizations who compete over the number of members in leadership. In my experience organizing in NYC, I saw this play out in many ways (both in my organizing and organizing around the city): organizers taking on a lot of the work that could have been held by members; leadership development workshops without skills transferring to  the work; hierarchical one direction leadership development - i.e. organizer supporting development of key leaders vs. a bunch of leaders supporting each other's development, the development of new folks coming in, and bringing in new folks to the organization; the same two leaders speaking at every hearing, leading every action, facilitating every meeting; leaders not seeing the organization as "you" instead of "us".  Not to at all diminish the beautiful and inspiring ways I also saw community members develop in to powerful leaders through the work, but I think there is something here that needs to be addressed, for if we are winning campaigns without centering the leadership development of us all in the process, then how are we really accomplishing the vision of building power from the grassroots?  I also don't want to point blame at individual organizations or people, for I think this problem comes out of the non-profit industrial complex and how foundations breed competition and force deliverables that leave little time for intentional leadership development.  But upon reflection of our session on the matter, I'm also beginning to wonder if the problem is far greater than any amount of intentional leadership development workshops and one-on-one leader support could ever really solve.

The Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico show us what a radical structure of democracy looks like and how it allows for the participation and leadership of the entire community.  The article "Zapatismo beyond Chiapas" by Manuel Callahan explains how it requires a system "that seeks and respects the contribution of everyone, each sharing their own word. The Zapatistas demonstrated that it is possible to organize collective action based on a community wide dialogue, consensus and commitment."  They work under a system of mandar obedeciendo, or "lead by obeying," which "suggest going beyond a system of hierarchy and rank where elites are conferred the duty and right to direct...Mandar obedeciendo requires humility and a commitment to listening, neither of which can be taken for granted.  It is an invitation to a profound transformation, collective and individual.  Transformation is both necessary and integral to struggle as we provoke, incide, facilitate, inspire, listen, and work with one another with humility.

In class we learned about Ella Baker's vision for group centered leadership and model for Participatory Democracy which required the following:
1. assess conditions of exclusion, who's left out?
2. Apply corrective measures
3. Reorganize relationships

Sista II Sista (SIIS) of Brooklyn, NY shows us how a non hierarchical inclusive organizational structure allows for broad based participation and leadership.  SIIS is a Brooklyn-wide community-based organization in Bushwick. In the article "Sistas Making Moves" they describe themselves as "a collective of working-class, young and adult, Black and Latina women building together to model a society based on liberation and love. Our organization is dedicated to working with young women to develop personal, spiritual and collective power. We are committed to fighting injustice and creating alternatives to the systems we live in by making social, cultural, and political change."  They see their organization structure as a flower, with the petals representing different areas of work: "organizational development, the Freedom School program, outreach and organizing, financials, fundraising...and membership." The center of the flower is the collective which "includes the Sista Squad (young women leadership body); the collective (young and adult women who meet monthly); the advisory board and our general membership.  These bodies decide on the direction and vision of the organization together twice a year at retreats. The Sista Squad and the collective make the day-to-day decision that need to be made outside of those retreats." While SIIS no longer has paid staff, when they did, all staff were paid the same across the board. Along with having an organizational structure that facilitates leadership development, they have an intentional program called the Freedom School for Young Women of Color.  "For the first three years we didn't take on organizing projects and campaigns, instead we focused on building our base, developing collective leadership and consciousness, and supporting the organizing work of our allies.  Once we had established a strong base of members through the Freedom School, we began to develop our organizing work."

Saturday night I hosted our "end of Braden" party.  At some point in the night, a friend asked me how I was doing.  "I'm great!" I said. "I host like I organize in high chaos situations, delegate all responsibilities so that I can jump in as crisis arise.  Rachel and Tim are on the fire. Dana and Annie Morgan on the grill." I explained how during Sandy and the Obama campaign I had trained leaders to then coordinate groups of volunteers.  "But how does that develop leadership at the bottom?" she asked.  Not that 2 drinks in was a good time for intensive self reflection on organizing technique, but it left me thinking, even in times of chaos, is it possible to create structures that are inclusive and non- hierarchical? That I am not sure.  I am also not sure if it is feasible for non-profit organizations already set in an organization model and constrained by foundation dollars to radically reconstruct their model given the circumstances.  But learning about the examples above gives me hope, and leaves me feeling inspired how to further integrate these practices into all of my organizing.

And no coincidence at all, the Silvia Rivera Law Project published a report on Bottom Up Stratgies and Practices for Membership Based Organizations earlier this month.

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As the Anne Braden comes to a close, I see more and more clearly the importance of stepping up as a leader in my community and supporting the leadership of others.  Ella Baker often asked, "who are your people?" Who are my people? My people are young rich kids. Queer jews. Radical jews. Eco jews. Residents of Dundee & Elgin, Illinois.  My friends. My comrades. My family. Those are my people.

Session 13: Climbing the Ladder to Love and Resistance

This week's session was on personal transformation for collective liberation. One article that really stood out to me is "From White Racist to White Anti-Racist: The Life-Long Journey".  In the article, they lay out a "ladder of empowerment", which shows the trajectory of growth from ignorance (ie racism doesn't exist, to feelings of guilt and shame, to finally a community of love and resistance with many steps in between.  This ladder was super helpful in helping me to track my own path and in reminding me that it's a long journey from ignorance to anti-racist politics, and that we have to give each other time and space and also challenge each other to climb up the metaphorical ladder.
Rather than try to capture what they say, I'd recommend checking out the article here. Where do you fit in the ladder? Where do you want to be? In the next month? Year? 5 years? What changes can you make to get there? What resources do you have to do that? Who do you have in your life to hold you accountable to climb that ladder and sustain you at the top?

In session we focused on the idea of idealized self image and did an activity to bring awareness to the ego we bring into movement work.  Picture an iceberg.

At the top of the iceberg, peaking out of the water is your idealized self image (ISI).  This is the image of yourself you want to project to the world.  We used this to talk about the image of ourselves we project as anti-racist organizers.  Some examples of things that came up for people (remember, this is our idealized self, so it's intentionally exaggerated): "I get people of color, people of color get me", "I've got this privilege thing all figured out", "I'm good at solving problems", "I'm well resourced and helpful", "I'm open to feedback", "I have good ideas", "I'm needed in the movement", "Ugh, white people" , "Being a good anti-racist means taking up little space and never talking", "I'm efficient and effective", "I'm going to always say yes regardless of my own emotional and mental health because that's what it means to be a good ally".  These are just a few examples of how ISI plays out for different people. As you can see, although there are many different experiences that sometimes contradict each other, very few are productive in our own sustainability in the movement and our own growth and transformation.

The next part of the iceberg, right under the water, is fears, insecurities, self doubts, that are responsible for our ISI.  Some examples from the group:  "Fear of being wrong," "Fear of not having the answers," "Fear of isolation, of being alone without community," "Self worth tied to being irreplaceable in the movement," "Fear of not being the perfect anti-racist ally," "insecurity that I'm just doing this work for my own good."

The bottom of the iceberg, meant to ground us and move out of these fears, insecurities, and self-doubts, is about deep intentions, motivations, and core commitments to movement work.  What keeps me motivated is the vision of a world where people can move freely throughout the world - not forced by lack of work or violence nor prohibited by falsely constructed borders, where people can live freely where they choose - not determined by financial resources or power, but by connection to the land, and where people can love freely - whoever, wherever, and however they see fit.  My commitments to making this vision a reality is to bring my full self to the movement, leveraging my access to resources and power, while building deep and long lasting relationships grounded in love, care and interdependence.

Bonus Session: Disability Justice, Able-Body Privilege

I've been lucky to get to spend the last few months learning along side Jacob.  Jacob, who said it was okay for me to share his story with my community, is a disability rights activist who has Cerebral Palsy and Asperger Syndrome.  Time and time again, Jacob put himself out there in our sessions, bringing the struggle of disabled folks into the conversation and naming when ableism* was happening in the space.  Ableism shows up in movement in many ways, from if a space is wheelchair accessible and if it is set up in a way that is accessible for different bodies, to how the dialogue makes space for various ways of learning and expression of thoughts and feelings and incorporates the experience of people with various abilities.   I feel super grateful to have Jacob in the program first and foremost because he's a fun person and awesome friend, and also because he's really challenged me to look critically at the ways that ableism shows up in myself, in the movement, and in the system.

Reflecting back on my last few years of organizing, I'm embarrassed to admit that I have not stopped to process how ableism plays out in the same ways I've analyzed other systems of oppression: how my being "able bodied" impacts everything from the way I get around, to my ability to get a job, to the ways I'm treated in social situations, to the way my body is seen as productive in society.  There isn't really any part of the way I move through the world that is not impacted by me being able-bodied.  For years, I worked with many disabled folks in Public Housing and did not bring that reality to the forefront of my work, often booking spaces that were not wheelchair accessible because they were free and convenient for others.  I'm thankful to Jacob for pushing me to bring this reality more into my daily consciousness, but similarly to how Catalyst exist because white people should not rely on people of color to teach us about racism, able bodied people shouldn't always rely on people with disabilities to teach us about ableism.  We need to teach ourselves too!

*Ableism: The normalization of able-bodied persons resulting in the privilege of perceived "normal ability" and the oppression and exclusion of people with disabilities at many levels of society. Normalized bodies are those that are considered in the planning and designing of society under capitalism, because those bodies are deemed profitable to those who rule capitalist society. Ableist thought leads to the planning and designing of communities in ways that deny access to people with disabilities and Deaf people.  Ableism is also expressed through exclusive attitudes of non-disabled and hearing people.

As a result of the presence of this conversation in our weekly dialogue, the leadership team recommended that we self organize a workshop on disability justice to educate ourselves together.  It was startling to learn that although the 25 of us in the program have been involved in movement work for a bit, I believe that no one except Jacob had attended a workshop before on disability justice.  Myself and 4 others including Jacob stepped up to make this happen.   I came into the planning assuming there was curriculum out there that we could adapt, or people who do these type of workshops all of the time that we could call on to come teach us.  I was looking for an easy way out.  But like most things in organizing, there's no easy way out, and instead, process is a part of the lesson.

We decided to prioritize learning how ableism played out in ourselves and in the movement and to understand a bit of history.  Through research and through Jacob's networks, it became quickly evident that a workshop and timeline like we were looking for didn't exist, or at least not within our networks and internet searches.  We designed our own curriculum built off of various resources we came upon and our own creativity.  Three folks from the group did the extensive and hard research of putting together a 150 year time line of disability rights struggles.  They found a lot of really atrocious pieces of history and also some beautiful stories of resistance that came out of the struggle. It was a lot of work, but Jacob kept us motivated by constantly reminding us that "this was groundbreaking!".

Some horrific insights from the timeline:
-1851: Prominent physician in Louisiana identified two mental disorders peculiar to slaves, one which caused them to run away and one which made them lazy.
-1867: Ugly laws made it illegal for people thought of as "ugly" to appear in public.  People who broke this law were charged a penalty. This law was in place in some states up until 1971! 1971 people! Coincidentaly to my life, the first law passed in SF and the last state that withheld it was Illinois.
-1880s: Illegal for deaf people to be taught by hearing impaired teacher
-1890s: People with mental disabilities sent to asylums where they were often outside, naked and starving
-1927: Buck v. Bell Supreme Coutry decision ruled forced sterilization for people with disabilities not a violation of rights. Over 60,000 people sterilized without consent.  It is said that Hitler was inspired by the Eugenics movement in the U.S. and brought it to Nazi Germany.

Some gems of resistance:
-1935: League of Physically Handicapped formed in NYC to protect discrimination against people with disabilities by federal relief program
-1955: Group of African American patients at the "negro insane" maximum security unti in a Texas hospital rebelled against inhumane conditions.
-1962: Independent Living Movement begins when Ed Roberts, the first severely disabled person to go to college, was forced to live in the hospital because that was the only accesible housing on campus. A group called the Rolling Quads formed and won accessible housing and a office providing support for disabled students.
-1970s: Queer disabled feminist artist and activist collective emerge in the bay!
-1972: Rolling Quads creates independent living center run for and by people with disabilities. Today, there's at least 1 in every state and 40 countries!
-1977: 28 day sit in to ensure implementation of section 504, which stated that people with disabilities cannot be denied benefits and that all buildings that get federal money must be accessible.
-1980s: Group called ADAPT chains themselves to buses to bring awareness to lack of access in transportation for disabled folks
-1990s: Americans with Disabilities Act signed in to law
-2000s: Disability Justice movement takes shape, pushing root causes of disability injustice to the forefront while also creating spaces for these conversations
-2009: Students at Berkeley win fight to get disability history taught in schools in state of California
-2010: Group of disability activists set up camp in middle of Berkeley for 3 months to protest budget cuts to disability services

I find these gems incredibly inspiring, and hope you do as well!

Again, like most things in Braden, I leave with more questions than answers.  How can I incorporate disability justice into all of the work I do?  How can I make my space more accessible?  How do I ensure spaces are accessible when planning events? How do I continue to educate myself? How do I begin to deconstruct the ableism that lives within my body and the way I interact with people with disabilities?  One thing is clear however - this is work that I must do.

Interested in facilitating a workshop about disability justice in your community? Let me know and I'll send you the curriculum as soon as its finalized. margot.seigle@gmail.com.

Session 12: My Family History & How Jews Became White People

This weeks session focused on family histories and the importance of knowing where we come from in order to ground and sustain us in anti-racist work.  As part of preparation for the session, we were asked to do family history research.  Here is what I discovered through mine, with an analysis of it below:

Dad's side:

His paternal grandparents came to the U.S. from Lithuania in the 1890s due to political unrest and economic hardship.  They settled in Elgin, IL - where my family resides to this day - because it was one of only a few places in the Chicagoland area that was accepting of Jews at that time.  My great grandpa was a fruit and produce peddler - he would buy produce in Chicago and then bring it back to Elgin to sell door to door.  He started the first and still only synagogue in Elgin.

My Grandma’s family came over from Germany in the 1930s.  My Grandma Lora was first to arrive.  Her family was wealthy and she attended an elite private school and was convinced she would not be targeted there.  When she was kicked out of her school for being Jewish she decided it was time to leave.  She moved to Hyde Park, Chicago on her own at the age of 16 where her Uncle was living.  She worked retail in the city.  Right as the Holocaust was starting her sister Margot - my namesake - and her parents joined her in Chicago.  To our knowledge, the rest of the family was killed.

My grandparents met at a camp meant for young Jews to meet their partners. The agreement was that Lora would move to Elgin and move in with my grandpa Harold and his mother.  His mother - Grandma Mudi I believe - insisted on a kosher kitchen, so along with having separate dishes, Lora would have Kosher meat shipped in on the train out to Elgin.  Harold and his brother-in-law started a scrap iron business, which was very lucrative during the war because of the high demand for metal.  They would buy scrap metal and burn it down to resale.  Together, they purchased Elgin Lumber and owned both 50/50, Harold running the lumber side.  Eventually, they dissolved the joint partnership and sold each other their respective shares.  This created some sort of family feud causing a grave division within the family in which communication was basically cut off.  Elgin Lumber was changed to Seigles somewhere around then.

My memories of my grandma Lora are that we could never ask her about her experience in Germany.  She spoke Yiddush but according to my memory refused to speak it to us. She very much wanted to distance herself from her traumatic past.  My grandpa was a serious and tough loving man.  The majority of my memories of him include him sitting on a big black leather chair and him making all the grandkids give him kisses on the cheek.  After his death my Grandma funded a huge renovation of the synagogue in his memory.

Mom's side:

Her paternal great grandparents came from Bohemia of Czechoslovakia in the late 1800s.  My grandpa Herb's dad was a butcher.

Her maternal great grandparents came from Russia in the late 1800s or so.  Her grandpa was a lawyer and was of the aristocrat class, and spent a year or so in Japan as a lawyer for the WWI trials.  Bertha, her grandma was an activist and attended every hearing during the trials.

My grandparents met through friends and moved to Elgin because it was a nice town not far from Chicago with a strong Jewish community.  My grandma Cyril went to Radcliff at the age of 16 to study English and fashion.  She worked in fashion in Chicago for years and then got her real-estate license - one of the first women in the state to do so - once she moved to Elgin and practiced for 10 or so years.   My grandpa Herb went to art school and then worked at Sears decorating display windows (defying gender roles, one window at a time!).  He then worked at Merra Lee as a window dresser, Merrill Chase Art Gallery selling art after that, and finally returned to Merra Lee as a buyer for women's clothing.  He changed their last name from Freund to Friend because it was easier for people to pronounce.  They were also involved in the synagogue and had a lot of friends from that as well as a group of Catholic friends from their neighborhood.

My Grandma Cyril who passed away just over a year ago was a fierce, accepting and honest women.  When she found out I was gay she could have cared less.  She valued friends, community, family and most of all the english language.  She was quick to criticize anyone who mis-used it. My earliest memories of my Grandpa Herb were him trying to force feed me tomatoes by putting salt and then sugar on them. I hated both.  He was an avid gardener and constantly fundraising for the Elgin Symphony.

All of my grandparents lived healthy lives, passing away somewhere in the range of 90 years old.

These histories tell a story of privilege and oppression, of isolation and interdependence, of loss and survival.   When my ancestors came to the U.S., they faced huge challenges - they were discriminated against when applying for college and limited by quotes on Jewish students.  They were seen as loud, greedy, dirty and pushy among other things.  In the piece "On Being White and Other Lies", James Baldwin explains how European immigrants who arrived in the United Stated did not arrive here white, but had to make the decision to become white "because of the necessity of denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation."  He answers the questions, how did Europeans take on this false identity?: "By deciding that they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By persuading themselves that a Black child's life meant nothing compared to a white child's life."

He specifically discusses the Jewish community within this process:

"It is probably that it is the Jewish community - or more accurately perhaps, its remnants - that in America has paid the highest and most extraordinary price for becoming white.  For the Jews came here from countries where they were not white, and they came here, in part, because they were not white”

Through this assimilation to whiteness, my Grandpa Harold was able to start a successful lumber company that my dad later took over.  My Grandma Lora was able to put her history of persecution behind her and live in safety and comfort.  My Grammy Cyril – the granddaughter of immigrants fleeing their country of origin - was able to attend Radcliff.  My Grandpy Herb was able to be an artist.  All were able to live peaceful lives outside the city and escape their parents’ (and their own in my Grandma’s case) reality of overt discrimination. 

How did Jews like my family move out of poverty and in to upward mobility?

In the 1940s, the GI bill offered educational benefits and technical training to white men returning from the war, allowing them to take advantage of white collar jobs that became increasingly available in the 1950s.  In her book “How Did Jews Beomce White People?, Karen Brodkin Sacks explains, “Sons of working-class Jews now went to college and became professionals themselves according to the Boston survey, almost two-thirds of them”.  In the 1950s, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Veterans Affairs (VA) financially supported white buyers and builders in the move to the suburbs through low-down-payments and low interest long term loans.  Federal highway funding which covered 90% of highway construction cost was also crucial in suburbanization, providing a way for residents to travel easily to and from the city.  

Sacks explains: “The myth that Jews pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps ignores the fact that it took federal programs to create the conditions whereby the abilities of Jews and other European immigrants could be recognized and rewarded rather than denigrated and denied. The GI Bill and FHA and VA mortgages were forms of affirmative action that allowed male Jews and other Euro-American men to become suburban homeowners and to get the training that allowed them – but not women vets or war workers – to become professionals, technicians, salesmen and managers in a growing economy”

It is also important to breakdown what gave Jews a particular advantage. Sacks quotes Steinberg on his debunking of the myth that Jews advanced because of cultural value on education. "Jewish success in America was a matter of historical timing...[T]here was a fortuitous match between the experience and skills of Jewish immigrants, on the one hand, and the manpower needs and opportunity structures, on the other".  Sacks explains, "Jews were the only ones among the southern and eastern European immigrants who came from urban, commercial, craft and manufacturing backgrounds, not least of which was the garment manufacturing".  She continues: "My belief is that the Jews who were upwardly mobile were special among Jews (and were also well placed to write the story)." 

This allowed Jews to take advantage of positions as the middle man: the butcher, the street vendor, the money lender, the door to door fruit salesman.  As the middleman, they were often scapegoated for economic crisis and rising prices.  In more recent times, the Jewish “middleman” looks different: now a days, upwardly mobile Jews are often doctors, teachers, landlords, lawyers, placing us as the poster child for success, and hiding the mostly white, Christian corporate executives that are truly controlling the economy.  So when things like the economic collapse happens, people are often quick to blame the Jews, as those are the people they come into contact with on a much more frequent basis that have visible access to power and privilege.  Kaye/Kantrowitz in her piece “Jews in the U.S.: The Rising Costs of Whiteness” elaborates: “When a community is scapegoated, members of that community are most conscious and often feel humiliated, alienated, endangered. But the other function of scapegoating is almost as pernicious.  It is to protect the problem which scapegoats are drafted to conceal: the vast system of profit and exploitation, of plenty and scarcity existing side by side.”

This middleman history can even be tied – as I am just beginning to understand - to the occupation of Palestine, which Christian Zionist knew was too controversial and conflict creating for they themselves to occupy.  But similar to how the colonist created slavery to divide the Africans and Europeans in order to dissuade worker power and how the British created the Witch Hunts to divide the women and men (more on this to come), it is in the interest of the power elite – the 500 or so mostly Christian white men that control this country - to create tension between Jews and other ethnic groups so we blame each other instead of seeing the true enemy that hides behind closed doors and gated communities. 

In my family’s case, my great grandpa first played that role as the middle man as a fruit vendor, which provided his family the resources for his son to start the scrap metal company which provided him the resources to buy the lumber company which provided my dad and his brother the opportunity to grow this small shop to the biggest lumber company in the Chicagoland area.  Three generations of middlemen. 

I in no way want to discount the work it must have taken to start and run any of these operations, but it’s important the context for which this was made possible – both the assimilation to whiteness that took place and the skills they arrived to this country already possessing.  

My family’s assimilation to whiteness and resulting accumulation of wealth gave and has given us a sense of safety and security, but to what cost?

We have lost a lot of our culture.  Our interdependence.  Our traditions and practices.  Our language.  Our sense of community.  Our sense of connection to place.  Our stories. Feelings of fear and scarcity are ingrained in to us even when we are living a reality of safety and abundance.

As Kaye/Kantrowitz says in reflection to Baldwin's quote about Jewish assimilation:

“What have we paid? How man of us speak or read Yiddish or Ladino or Hebrew? How many of us have studied Jewish history or literature, recognize the terms that describe Jewish experience, are familiar with the Jewish calendar, can sing more than three or four Jewish songs, know something beyond matzoh balls or stuffed grape leaves? Many of us – especially secular Jews, but also those raised in some suburban synagogues where spirituality took a back seat to capital construction, where Jewish pride seemed like another name for elitism – many of us have lost our culture, our sense of community. Only anti-Semitism reminds us who we are, and we have nothing to fight back with – no pride and no knowledge – only a feeble, embarrassed sense that hatred and bigotry are wrong. I have even heard Jews, especially “progressives” justify anti-semitism: maybe we really are “like that,” rich and greedy, taking over, too loud, too pushy, snatching up more than our share, ugly and parasitical, Jewish American Princesses, Jewish landlords, Jewish bosses, emphasis on Jewish. Maybe we really deserve to be hated.”

Within this story lay many contradictions and realities hard to face.  But as one gentile in the group commented towards the end of the session, Jews have a beautiful ability to resist those parts of our history that do not feel right while at the same time reclaiming our culture in a way that is our own.  With this in mind, I continue to live in this contradiction, navigate what a meaningful Jewish practice looks like to me, and fight for a world where no one has to occupy someone else’s land to feel safe.

(A side note that these are not my thoughts alone but lessons in my own words – except for the last sentence of the last paragraph, that was my brilliant mentor - that I pulled from conversations in and outside of the Braden Program.)

Session 11: Expanding Our Vision of What's Possible

One thing we talked about in the session on white supremacy is how it distorts white people's ability to envision liberation. On this session on Visionary Politics, we strengthened our muscle to vision a different world a bit by gaining some insight as to how organizers of color in the bay area are visioning beyond what is conventionally thought of as possible.

Like Loubna Qutami of the Palistinian Youth Movement which has brought together the Palestinian voices across the world to create a common agenda for justice and the right to return.

Or Rachel Herzig from Critical Resistance which is working from an abolitionist perspective - which sees prisons as a way to constrain, control and kill a certain part of society - to destroy the prison industrial complex, or the symbiotic relationship between private and public to maintain social and political control.  She sees the practice of hope as a way to sustain the possibility of a new world.

Or Patty Berne from Sins Invalid which challenges societies assumptions about people with disabilities as asexual by creating a space for artists with disabilities, centralizing artist of color and queer artists, to create performances at the intersection of disability and sexuality.

Or Carla Perez from Movement Generation which - as explained by Gopal previously - works from a place of resiliance based organizing as to not look to the creators of the problem for the solutions.   She talked about needing to escape the lies of our times - that credit equals money, that people are illegal, that a pill can be the cure.  MG - and originally from the Zapatistas - envisions a world where many worlds fit.

Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan expands on this vision in her article Window to a New World: "The finale of the story of our victory will be a post-globalized world based on local democracies, driven to meet residents needs in an equitable way and deeply rooted in a relationship to ecological place. It will be a world where many worlds fit, where there are a million different solutions to the question of how we should meet our needs and a million different forms of local participatory economies that emerge to meet these needs"

In a break out session with Carla, she talked about how winning every time is not most important, but rather challenging current rule and the assumption of who has the right to rule who, that we must broadcast the illegitimacy of the laws.  She talked about the idea of "translocal" - coordinated efforts at a neighborhood scale, for example a climate justice campaign bringing together struggles in Richmond, CA, Black Mesa, AZ and Detroit, MI.  Because in order to create real solutions on a national level, demands must be based in local struggles and experiences, not some office in Washington.  Carla is applying this in her own life, starting conversations with folks in her neighborhood around pressing concerns.  People of all backgrounds have come together in a "pod" as they call it to create an emergency response plan and figure out who has what tools and expertise.

It hit me after the break out session with Carla how - as a result of white supremacy and working within the non profit industrial complex - constrained my brain is from truly imagining anything outside of our capitalist system which inherently perpetuates oppression and exploitation.  These conversations got me thinking - what would it look like to create a translocal campaign against urban displacement that brought together local struggles in The Mission, SF, The LES, NYC, and Pilsen, Chicago - all historically immigrant communities that are slowly becoming yuppie havens.  And what would it look like in the LES - where I organized for 3 years prior - to do broadbased local organizing around emergency response planning (the LES was hit pretty bad by Sandy) creating a sense of interdependence and trust between the diverse neighborhood residents?  Can relationships formed through this kind of organizing prepare the neighborhood for an expanded definition of emergencies? Like the demolition of housing?  

It was also good to understand PODER - the organization where I am volunteering while in the Anne Braden Program - in the context of visionary organizing.  PODER does amazing things like grow food,  run an urban campesino program for Mission youth, gain control of the development of land and lead community based planning processes.  The project I've been most involved with is an emerging  restaurant and catering cooperative started and run by members of PODER.  This is such a clear manifestation of visionary organizing, folks out of work and/or tired of working for a boss who mistreats and disrespects them taking matters in to their own hands by creating their own establishment.

While sitting doing my readings for class at the restaurant on Thursday, I came across this in Steve Williams article "Name It & Claim It":
"There are important building blocks for us to take advantage of that have already been laid: workers coops, community gardens, community land trusts, local currencies, and time dollars.  All of these experiments could be vital and vibrant parts of a powerful movement to challenge the dominance of capitalism, but alone, they do not represent a fundamental threat to capitalism.  They are too easily assimilated into capitalism's logic as progressive window dressing.  The left must understand and eventually be able to talk to people about how these projects are incompatible with capitalism and together are central features of a new, more desirable and more sustainable economic system."

Theory became practice when I translated the quote to coop member Enrique who enthusiastically wrote it down in his notebook and began to talk about how excited he was to engage with patrons of the restaurant - through art, through the menu and through conversation, about how what they are doing is different and how it and others modeled after it are vital to the sustainability of the community.

Session 7: Mismanagement of Home & A World of Fighters

This week's session on Global People's Struggles feels like the hardest to reflect on so far. A big part of me wants to just skip it and go on to the next. But - similar to the yoga class I went to a few weeks back that I hated so much I decided I had to return - I want to work past my hesitation to find some sort of reflections.

Some context:

After World War II, there was a huge re organization of imperialism* - cost became to high for direct political rule (ie colonization) so the U.S. had to become creative in how they continued to extract labor, markets and natural resources and the lowest prices. This led to neoliberalism, an economic ideology that calls for free markets and a minimal role for the government in the economy. This means free trade, privatization, cuts in social spending, among other things (Source: Global Activist's Manual). This was enacted through programs like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which gave loans to countries of the global south** which forced them in to debt forcing them to open trade, privitize public services and cut social programs. This allowed the U.S. to control resources and wealth without physical domination.

*imperialism: a global, economic, political and social system where "first world" nations control "third world" nations to gain power and profit from their labor, markets and natural resources. (Source: School of Unity and Liberation).

*global south: alternative term for countries also known as "developing" (which claims that industrialization is inherently progressive) or "third world" (which some people feel is politically outdated term after the collapse of the USSR, a center of the "second world"). Refers to countries which are economically exploited in the manner of colonies, under the project of capitalist globalization (Source: Catalyst Project)

THE CRISIS

Gopal Dayaneni from the organization Movement Generation - an urban and ecological justice organization - came to speak to us on the topic of Global People's Movements. His framing of the ecological crisis in the context of imperialism blew my mind. My attempt to summarize what he said will surely not do him justice, so check out Movement Generation's website to hear it straight from the source.

Gopal explains that "eco" is home, "ecosystem" is relationship to home, and "ecology" is knowledge of home and relationship to place. Within that eco, or home, the smallest level of society is a relationship, not an individual. He describes our current crisis as a mismanagement of home. Using these definitions, he defines ecological justice as restoration of communities in relation to the planet. What he does that I think many white environmentalist fail to do is to connect this current crisis to the legacy of imperialism. He defines imperialism as control of seed, soil, and story for land, labor and life. Crucial to imperialism is human work, as it is used to exploit resources, so we must reclaim our connection to labor in a way that does not harm the earth and restores our connection to land.

He explains that the loss of language and people as a result of imperialism has in fact put us in this ecological crisis through the collapse of cultural and biological knowledge key to a healthy ecosystem. He talks about this coming from "infinite amount of knowledge in relationship to the soil" that people have who have a connection to place. For example, when millions of Africans were taken from their land during the slave trade, we must keep in mind the loss of the infinite knowledge of that land. How has this loss of knowledge on a global scale contributed to our current climate crisis? Though it may not be measurable by current scientific indicators, it surely must be taken in to account. This framing can help us to expand our views of collective liberation - that the fight against imperialism and neoliberalism are not only for the survival of people in far away places - but for our survival as a people on this planet that is slowly killing us.

The Nowhere Collective gives us an astounding framing to help bridge diverse and unique struggles across the globe caused by imperialism and this separation of people and place:

"The fence surrounding the military base in Chiapas is the same fence that surrounds the G8 meeting in Genoa. It's the fence that divides the powerful from the powerless, those whose voices decree, from those whose voices are silenced. And it is replicated everywhere.

For the fence surrounds gated communities of rich neighborhoods from Washington to Johannesburg, islands of prosperity that float in seas of poverty. It surrounds vast empires of land in Brazil, keeping millions who live in poverty from growing food. It's patrolled by armed guards who keep the downtrodden and disaffected out of shopping malls. It's hung with signs warning you to "keep out" of places where your mother and grandmother played freely. This fence stretches across borders between rich and poor worlds. For the unlucky poor who are caught trying to cross into the rich world, the fence encloses the detention centers where refugees live behind razor wire.

Built to keep all the ordinary people of the world out of the way, out of sight, far from the decision makers and at the mercy of their policies, this fence also separates us from those things which are our birthright as human beings - land, shelter, culture, good health, nourishment, clean air, water. For in a world entranced by profit, public space is privatized, land fenced off, seeds, medicines and genes patented, water metered, and democracy turned into purchasing power. The fences are also inside us. Interior borders run through our atomized minds and hearts, telling us we should look out only for ourselves, that we are alone"

As I read about those living on the other side of these fences across the world - the 85% of the palestinian population displaced from their land, or the millions who now remain effectively trapped in a tiny strip of land under seize, or the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico who live under constant attack by both air and land in what is their native land, the migrants risking everything to cross the U.S. border as they were effectively forced from their lands as a result of U.S. trade policy, the millions - majority people of color - trapped inside the prison system, the residents of the Lower 9th ward with no where to return - I see how this metaphor (which is often reality) brings together all of these struggles and allows those of us on the other side of the fence to walk through life without realizing that what stands between most people on a daily basis does not stand between us. Bringing in Gopal's framing, we see how this large scale mis-management of home is controlled by one side of the fence while felt most intensely felt by the other.


RESISTANCE

But in seeing this atrocious reality, we must not patronize and feel pitty for those on the other side of the fence. For across the world there are and have been thousands of communities to stand up in the face of violence, oppression and physical and metaphorical fences that have been set up to keep them under domination. This is not something that school teaches us to see. Instead, we are taught that the U.S. is a big and powerful force not to be recokoned with. What a loss, because the true history and reality is beautiful humbling, and inspirational and forces us outside our learned assumptions about what change making looks like.

The Nowhere Collective continues:

"But border , enclosures, fences, walls, silences are being torn down, punctured, invaded by human hands, warm bodies, strong voices which call out the most revolutionary of messages: "You are not alone!"

And Gopal explains:

There are 3 things we can be sure of:
Economies crash
Ecosystems change
Empires crumble

In Chiapas, the Zapatistas send hurdeds of paper airplanes over the fences sending a message to the army that surrounds them: "Wake up! Open your eyes so you can see! Soldiers, we know that poverty has made you sell your lives and your souls. I also am poor, as are millions. But you are worse off, for defending our exploiters!".

And The Nowhere Collective again for the grand finale:

"The Zapatistas have joined with thousands around the world who believe that fences are made to be broken, Refugees detained in the Australian desert tera down prison fences, and are secreted to safety by supporters outside. The poor, rural landless of Brazil cut the wire that keeps them out of vast uncultiavted plantations and swarm onto properties of rich, absentee landlords, claim the land, create settlements, and begin to farm. Protesters in Quebec City tear down the fence known as the "wall of shame" surrounding the summit meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and raise their voices in a joyfull yell as it buckles under the weight of those dancing on its bend back, engulfed in euphoria even while the toxic blooms of tear gas hit."

Sources:
Nowhere Collective
Emergence: An Irrestististable Global Uprising
An Essay from the Book "We Are Everywhere: The Irrestistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism