Category Archives: multitudes

The (fear of the) power (potentia) of the multitude is the limit of sovereign power (potestas)

We’re Still Waiting On Those Green Jobs

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via Colorlines.com

Green jobs are in the news, again. This time, Monica Potts asks where is the green economy, that was sold to America by Obama and company, in the American Prospect.

Two years ago, the rage was green jobs not jails, a clever framework by the racial justice movement to refocus environmental advocates to think about humans, not just the dolphins and rainforests, in our transition to a post-fossil fuel society. Today, however, millions have been funneled into green job training, but to what end? I’ve written on the need for green job creation, not just training before, as has Jonathan Yee on the history of job training, post-Reagan.
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Coal Mining Curbed on the Black Mesa, Paving Way for Navajo Green Economy

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A shorter version of this post first appeared on RaceWire.

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie. Sign held by a Hopi youth at a protest against Peabody in Denver, Colorado.

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie. Sign held by a Hopi youth at a protest against Peabody in Denver, Colorado.

The indigenous environmental justice movement celebrated a victory, early January 2010, when a judge ruled that Peabody Energy cannot expand its coal mining operations on the Black Mesa in northern Arizona.  Former president Bush Jr. approved a permit for Peabody in the twilight of his outgoing administration—not surprising, when you consider that Peabody’s parent holding company was Bechtel, a defense contractor with strong political ties—a permit that failed to fulfill all administrative requirements.  Groups including the Black Mesa Water Coalition filed a petition in early 2009, charging that prerequisites, such as filing an Environmental Impact Statement, were ignored, thereby making the approved permit invalid.
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Ethnic Studies Beyond the Academy

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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 race 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 “race” policies and programs, so that the impact of communities of color were laid explicit.  Narrative frames that concealed race 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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