Ethnic Studies Beyond the Academy

First published on apaforprogress.org.

Third World Student StrikeForty years ago, the students of SF State joined in solidarity with the Third World in demanding inclusion in institutions of knowledge.  For too long, the histories of people of color have been deliberately omitted from official narratives.  Stories transmitted through oral tradition within families but never recorded in the texts that lined the libraries of learning.  Languages were a private code, spoken, within the walls of your home, but forgotten when interacting outside in the world.  People of color were the invisible labor, unseen and unheard, which fueled the engines of global capitalism to expand.

The struggle at SF State successfully opened up spaces for the Third World, domestically and globally, in the academy, to represent and record our histories and stories.  This opened the way for applied research and policy organizations to elevate the importance of and its centrality in socioeconomic issues when advocating for equitable policies and practices.  Groups like the Applied Research Center, inspired by the success of SF State, sought to “” policies and programs, so that the impact of communities of color were laid explicit.  Narrative frames that concealed behind a color-blind curtain were thrown open to reveal how they served to reproduce the subordinate status of communities of color.

Ethnic Studies 40 Years LaterThe Applied Research Center will survey the successes of ethnic studies, both in theory and practice, in a panel Ethnic Studies Beyond the Academy: Theory and Action at the Grassroots this Friday, October 9, 2009 from 11:00am to 1:00pm, in Rosa Parks C, at “Ethnic Studies 40 Years Later: Race, Resistance, and Relevance”, a conference to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Third World students’ strike and the both the birth of ethnic studies as a field and a college at SF State.   This will be an interactive panel, not just two hours of talking heads, where presenters will explore their effect of ethnic studies on their ideas and strategies, as well as the impact applied research has had on the academy.
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Communities of Possibilities

This was first published on RaceWire.

Organizing Upgrade

The concept of community is an ever-shifting one.

It first becomes applied to movements for social change after World War II, when a dissatisfied social worker Saul Alinksy shifted his efforts into organizing urban communities, based on geographic proximity. He was the first recognizable community organizer that developed a model beyond just delivering goods or providing services, like the settlement houses that serviced the poor in the late 19th century. Community to Alinsky was based on physical proximity to your neighbors and the goal of community organizing was to build neighborhood, place-based, mega-organization that united various service providers, such as labor unions and churches.

But, the focus was short-sighted, trained on winning a metaphorical stop sign on your block, with campaigns guided by non-ideological and pragmatic goals, divorced of any critique of racism or sexism. This shaped the role of the organizer as an apolitical technocrat, an outside specialist, distinct from the community. Often, the leadership and staff of these bureaucratic organizations were white men, who were capable of working endless hours to get that stop sign installed.

Enter the 1960s and the global struggles of the Third World to shrug off its colonial masters. Radical movements within the U.S., who sought to eradicate poverty and institutional racism domestically, identified common interests with liberation movements abroad. This was the third world within. The same axes of oppression—racism, sexism, and capitalism—operated within communities of color at home. This new sense of community, what the Applied Research Center’s founder Gary Delgado terms as “communities of interest”, led to multiracial formations that tackled a wide variety of issues, beyond a single campaign, and prioritized indigenous leadership by community members so there isn’t a bureaucratic apparatus that mediates political activity between decision-makers and the community. Community leaders are not just members, but also teachers, analysts, as well as actors.

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A Tale of Race and Recovery

via RaceWire

Mobilization for Climate JusticeIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times…it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.*

The administration enacted the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) back in February, the largest boon to public spending and the since the New Deal, and yet economic conditions are the worst it’s ever been for people of color and single moms. Unemployment is skyrocketing close to double digits, at 9.7% for August 2009. New Census data released recently showed an increase in poverty from 12.5% to 13.2% this past year, meaning an additional 2.6 million persons now live in poverty. Certain groups experience deepened poverty rates more than others, according to the Economic Policy Institute:
• Latinos and Asians had marked increases in their poverty rates, by 1.6 and 1.4 points, respectively.
• Over one third of all Black children and almost one third of all Latino children lived in poverty in 2008.
• Nearly a quarter of all families headed by single moms lived in poverty, or 3.6 million families, in 2008.

Tracking funds from the Recovery Act has proven to be difficult because there is no centralized, authoritative source of where the money is going to and what it’s being used for. Currently, information about ARRA funds are dispersed across the federal recovery.gov website, state stimulus czars, and watchdog groups. Recipients of monies are required to report on their activities and how many jobs they’ve created because of it by October 10. But, information will only slowly trickle out to the public. Even then, there is no requirement for recipients to race or gender their data, so we have no way of knowing how much of the recovery benefits those most impacted: people of color and single moms.

We have been following the recovery and its promise to stimulate the economy while protecting the planet and its peoples through the creation of green jobs. Watch this page on October 13 for the release of our Green Equity Toolkit, ideas and resources for community and labor advocates on how to create equity in the emerging green economy. If we are to follow the directive of ARRA and the subsequent Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance to help those most impacted by the recession, then we must make and gender equity key in our planning and practices around green job creation. The toolkit will help us do that.

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Billionaires for Wealthcare

Billionaires for Wealthcare toasted the rightwing demonstrators that gathered in DC this past weekend to protest healthcare reform, legislation to stave off climate change, and all attempts to provide a for working families and folks of color.

They describe themselves as “a grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, industry lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system. We are not a political, religious or even particularly well-organized group. We’re simple folk, thrilled profiteers pouring out of our corner offices to dance on the grave of ‘Change.’ We’ll do whatever it takes to ensure another decade where your pain is our gain. After all, when it comes to healthcare, if we ain’t broke, why fix it?”

See more at their website.

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The Cruxifiction of Van Jones

Philly artist Jasiri X made a video linking the attack on Van Jones to how black and brown men are systemically discredited, especially when they are speaking truth to power and shaking up the status quo.

via Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

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Green Jobs for Navajo Youth

Nikke AlexNikke Alex, the youth organizer for the Navajo Green Jobs and the Black Mesa Water Coalition, talked with us for a few minutes while she was at the Navajo Nation Council Chamber in Window Rock, Arizona, celebrating the historic passage of the first green jobs legislation in American Indian country.

The green jobs act establishes a Navajo Green Economy Commission and Fund, which can apply for federal and local funds to create green jobs for Navajo youth, as well as sponsor small-scale, green developments that will help to provide needed services to the community.

Nikke is a member of the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah). She is Salt clan born for the Tangle People clan. Her maternal grandparents are of the Big Water clan, and her paternal grandparents are of the Red Bottom clan. She grew up in Gallup, New Mexico.

RaceWire: How do you feel now that the green jobs bill has been passed?

Nikke Alex: I feel really great, even though I’m exhausted. The real work starts now. It’s been 14 months of work to campaign to get the green jobs bill enacted. It feels really great to be at the forefront of the Indian country, to be the first nation to propose green legislation and pass it.
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Reading Harry Potter Critically

Harry as animeHere’s my review of Harry Potter that I promised Channing for RaceWire’s round-up of the new movie

Across cultures, fairy tales and myths are used to teach children the normative values of a society. Stories follow a similar template: the main character is a child that listeners can identify with. There are fantastical creatures, some good, others evil. There is a moral challenge of some sort, a test of a child’s adherence to values, which may threaten the sanctity of the world in an epic battle of good versus evil. Hansel and Gretel leave home and risk being dinner for a witch. The Little Red Riding Hood learns not to talk to strangers or grandmothers with big teeth. Poor, orphaned Cinderella can marry the prince, as long as the shoe fits.

Harry Potter is no different. But, it’s the values it preaches that begs for a closer look. This is the most popular book and movie series of our times, engaging both children and adults globally, and making J.K. Rowling a very rich lady. I’ve always been struck at how dark its view of childhood is, seen through Harry’s eyes. He is orphaned as a child, his parents killed by an evil wizard who threatens to bring the wizarding world into the Dark Side. His Muggle relatives—a delightful poke at the British bourgeoisie—force Harry to live in a crawl space under the stairs. This is the universal child of all fairy tales: unloved, alone, and neglected, but a true king/princess/wizard/genius hidden within.
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Racializing Uighurs: The Story of Internal Colonialism in China

Uighur women protesting, July 7, 2009 extends 3,400 miles from the west to the east and falls into five different time zones. Yet, the country operates on a single standard of time, eight hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, all year round based on the time zone for Beijing, the country’s capital.

A single Chinese time zone is as much a fiction as a single Chinese ethnicity; recently, this truism was illustrated in the blood of Uighur protesters. Noon for Beijing was still seven in the morning for the western province of Xinjiang, the site of recent racially motivated uprisings that started this past weekend, on July 5, 2009.

Though is often rendered ethnically homogeneous in the West’s narratives, the truth isn’t so simple. 92% of the population is members of the Han , the dominant group with a monopoly over political and economic resources. But over 120 million citizens identify as members of some other ethnic group, known in as “minority nationalities,” each with their own cultural practices, histories, and experiences. Some, like the Uighurs and Tibetans to the northwest, practice religious beliefs distinct from the Han. Others, like the Miao in the south and Koreans in the northeast, speak a distinct language. Still others, like the Hui, are indistinguishable from the Han in appearance and dialect, but practice a variation of Islam and trace their ancestry to the Muslim traders who settled in along the Silk Road.
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Black Kids on Bikes

Freedom Ride

Once a month, a movement courses through the streets of Los Angeles. Moving together, in solidarity, Black cyclists are spurred forward by the revolutions of their wheels. Each individual coming together to join the flood that takes over the streets. Their momentum stirs the air, setting in motion a gale that blows clear across the Internet to other locales like Brooklyn, New York. Biking will never be the same.

Freedom Rides, as the organized bicycle rides for the Black community are known, was started by James Spooner. The rides draw about a dozen riders of varying ages and backgrounds; women outnumber the men. Controversy also flares around the ride, as members of L.A.’s fixed gear community attacked the “segregated bike rides” as “racist”, asking if “this ride is a joke”.

James is no stranger to asking difficult questions about and racial identity. “ is a complex issue and you have to break some eggs”, he explained recently, over the phone. He authored the documentary Afropunk about Blacks in the punk scene and a semi-autobiographical narrative, White Lies Black Sheep, about a Black youth in search of himself in the white rock and roll world. Both films explore the double consciousness people of color experience in a predominantly white subculture.
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Ronald Takaki, Rest in Peace

via hapihour.org

Ronald TakakiAccording to numerous individuals, Prof. Ron Takaki passed away this week. Share your thoughts on Ron’s legacy on Facebook. We’ve lost a giant in the Asian American community. Join with me in wishing his family and friends our condolences.

Considered the father of multicultural studies, Ron was a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a preeminent scholar on our nation’s diversity.

Over 34 years, Ron taught 20,000 students, and has written twelve books which have influenced thousands more. One of them, “A Different Mirror,” won the American Book Award, and has sold over a half million copies; it is the text for anyone interested in the history — and the future — of multicultural America.
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  • About

    Yvonne lives in Berkeley, California with her partner and their four-legged family. During the day, she works at a racial justice think tank, crunching numbers to eradicate white supremacy. At night and sometimes weekends, she sits at her computer, trying to make sense of the world.

    These are the fruits of her attempts. Apologies in advance if they are sometimes sour, not always sweet, unripe or not fully ready to launch. Yvonne is working on her craft of writing and playing with using all five senses.

    Yvonne tweets, shares what she reads, makes friends, takes pictures, and watches video. Occasionally, she chats and talks on the phone. She loves hearing from you at yvonnegrapher at gmail dot com.