A few more highlights from Kyler's visit

The Meeting

Some Highlights from Kyler's visit so far

My hope for the future

Click here to read an essay by my soon-to-be 13 yr. old hero, Kyler! I am taking a break from blogging for a few days to spend time with my cousin, an amazing and revolutionary young man.

3 years ago, he visited my in the Bay Area. This is how we rolled.

whitey must pay

I learned about Ward Churchill's response to being fired on the Angry Indian's Intelligentaindigena Novajoservo, where you can also read this alarming news. (Ward was also on Democracy Now this morning.)

Haiti

“It is very, very clear to those of us who watch our government and its relationship to the small countries in this hemisphere and in the Caribbean, that this administration wishes to get rid of these leaders in these three countries who don’t cry uncle, who are not puppets to our government …”
--US Rep. Maxine Waters



A recent conversation inspired me to post some thoughts on Haiti and the US/UN attacks on Aristide's Lavalas Party supporters.

Aristide, who was truly popularly elected with over 90% of the people's support, was kidnapped and ousted by the US (with help from France, the UN, and the Haitian owning class). US Special Forces took Aristide from his home to a plane, which flew him to the Central African Republic. I remember listening to the extended coverage of the coup in February of 2004 on Flashpoints and feeling overwhelmed by the urgency of the situation. I remember driving to see Carla and Deirdre in the Mission (in San Francisco) and sitting in my car, enraged and weeping.

Perhaps one of the most telling stories from the aftermath of the 2004 coup is that of Radyo Timoun, a youth-led and youth-run radio station.

Why overthrow a truly popularly elected leader? Haiti had no oil. What were the stakes for the US? I think the answers involve the ugliest and most pernicious forms of racism and capitalism.

Haiti has dared to stand up to white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism. Haiti was the first country where slaves launched an insurgent campaign for liberation, and it was the first country to demand reparations (in the sum of $21 million) from its former colonizer.

Aristide (pictured here with his family) asked France for reparations for the cruel ransom exacted from Haiti in 1825 to "permit" the abolition of slavery there. Haiti suffered under that offensive debt and finally paid off the cost of freedom to France in the 1940s. By the end of Baby Doc Duvalier's rule, Haiti was in debt again, this time because of US predatory "free trade" practices. You can read about how the US has impoverished Haiti too.

Aristide stood strong against the politics of exploitation, resisted "free trade," and sought to make Haiti's economy more autonomous and sustainable. I think the prospect of his continued success was enough to bring down the hammer. After all, the US has been particularly hard on socialist and other left-leaning countries that presented the "threat of a good example." If Haiti could do it, then other countries might try too. (I think, for example, of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Cuba, Cuba, etc., etc.)

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue dropped the claim Aristide made, of course, making clear his allegiance to the former colonizer by calling the case for reparations "ridiculous." (It's worth noting that about 1,000 French soldiers are fighting Haitians alongside US Marines and other UN forces in Haiti.)

And as if demanding reparations wasn't "uppity" enough, Aristide spoke out against the World Bank and the IMF's structural adjustment programs that decimate Third World countries.

I think even not many progressives know much about Haiti because Haitians are black and because the "spin" on Haiti is harder to make compelling. You really have to suppress a story of an unjust and illegal coup and invasion when the leader you overthrow is incredibly popular and impossible to demonize. It wasn't too hard to demonize Saddam Hussein. But Aristide, a former priest and tireless advocate for the poor, is pretty much blameless as far as politicians go. The US has led two coups to oust him (in 1991 and again in 2004) and spread stories (which remain completely unfounded) that Aristide (who has lived remarkably simply and without luxury for a politician) had ties to "drug money." I suppose they couldn't think up anything better.

Finally, a word to Fugees' fans: Wyclef is NOT a good source for any info on Haiti. The stuff he said on MTV was nonsense and horrible. I've said this multiple times on this blog, but his family is part of the owning class elites in Haiti, and they benefit from the suffering of poor Haitians. His uncle, Raymond Joseph, is a publisher of the Haiti Observateur, which is a pro-US propaganda newspaper. Joseph was appointed by Gerard Latortue to be the Haitian ambassador to the US.

Good things

Please check out the updated website of Tomoyuki Hoshino! There's lots of new stuff in English for folks who don't read Japanese!

Also, if you read Japanese, don't forget to check out his blog. I'll confess that I skim a lot of the soccer stuff, but, wow, his analyses and responses to current events are amazing.


Theodore Harris is one of my very favorite artists, as regular readers of this blog know. Please check out this review of an exhibit of his work in Atlanta!



And let's all start planning to head to Japan this time next year and join in the NO G8 2008 campaign! Click here often for updates!!

Watsonville Brown Berets are hosting a Youth & Power Conference

Click the image to see a larger version and catch the details.

PIC racism is the worst in Iowa

As I've mentioned on this blog numerous times, Iowa was named the 2nd worst place to be black in the US by the Black Commentator a few years ago, as you can read here.

Based on the new data indicating Iowa now has the worst disproportionate incarceration rate in the US, I think BC might need to put Iowa at the top of the list instead of Wisconsin. Black Iowans are imprisoned at 13.6 times the rate of white Iowans.

I've actually been saying this was the case for the past year, and the data will come as no surprise to my YEA! kids or outstanding activists and researchers such as Brad Richardson, whose steadfast attempts to document disproportionate incarceration and "contact" with the PIC/"justice" system are available to the public through the DMC Resource Center at the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice.

Whether it's in the abysmal situation facing youth of color in Iowa schools, campus hate crimes, communities like Waterloo facing racist campaigns, or the many incidents I've documented on this blog, Iowa is not a welcoming place for people of color; that's for sure.

Black August

Can anyone tell me what's up with the release date for the George Jackson movie? The YouTube preview (below) keeps disappearing. Hope this one lasts for a while. I really, really want to see this movie!

On August 7, 1970, exactly one year before my little brother was born, George Jackson's little brother Jonathon was killed. If you want to learn more, you can start by watching this clip. George was killed one year later.

Even if we reject the values of the owning class...

... the following information about mortgage foreclosures is worth considering.

I read about this report on the Angry Indian's blog.

The list of top ten cities where people are losing their homes includes at least four cities with what are considered large black populations. The population of Detroit (in the top five) is over 80% black. Atlanta is over 60% black. #1 on the list is Cleveland, which is over 50% black. And Chicago, where gentrification and "urban renewal" projects are displacing people on a daily basis, is over 30% black.

A message from Dylan Rodriguez

Click on the image to view a larger version.

Hi everyone:

As you know, the California State Legislature--in concert with the governor--recently passed AB 900, literally the most massive prison building project in the history of the planet: $15 billion will be spent strictly for prison expansion, and the state plans to create at least 53,000 new jail and prison “beds” in the immediate future.

A dedicated group of Ethnic Studies students from U.C. Riverside is taking a strong, informed stand on this issue, and has organized a presentation and community forum on the California prison system and the AB 900 prison expansion project. We invite recipients of this email to attend the forum, and to bring friends and loved ones with them.

[Above] is the flier for the event, which will take place on Monday, July 23, from 6:30-8:30 at the Ontario City Public Library, 215 East C Street, Ontario, Ca 91764.

The students have worked hard to organize this forum, and have interviewed more than a dozen southern California activists, formerly imprisoned people, and loved ones of people in prison to develop their ideas in framing this public discussion. The event will involve the local chapter of Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes (FACTS), Critical Resistance, Time for Change Foundation, A New Way of Life, and a number of other groups. All are welcome, please spread the word! We are working to have local media and the offices of elected officials (a.k.a. those responsible for passing AB 900) in attendance.

Come join us in the fight against the largest prison expansion project in the history of the world:

a Public Forum on the Prison Industrial Complex,
California’s AB 900 and AB 76, and what we can do!

Join us as students from U.C. Riverside’s Department of Ethnic Studies (under the guidance of Prof. Dylan Rodriguez) take a scholar activist stand and voice their concerns about the Prison Industrial Complex and the new legislations that are attempting a historically unprecedented prison expansion here in California.

Dylan Rodríguez
Associate Professor
Department of Ethnic Studies
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521

"If one were forced for the sake of clarity to define [fascism] in a word simple enough for all to understand, that word would be 'reform.'"

-George Jackson

Wow!! Grace Lee Boggs and Amiri Baraka on DN!

The last few minutes of this are amazing, and it kills me that it ends where it does.

No sooner had I posted the message below than I received the following, written by an Iowa City resident about an experience in a local bar.

To The Owner and Manager of Studio 13,

I am a transgendered man and I recently visited your club on Saturday night for Pride. I paid ten dollars cover to get into the bar and to celebrate with the other LGBT folks that were there. Unfortunately, I was harrassed when I attempted to use the restroom. Since your men's room does not have a stall, I found it extremely uncomfortable to use that bathroom being that I am FTM (female-to-male) and do not have a penis, therefore cannot use the urinal. When I attempted to use the women's room instead, I was accosted by your staff for trying to enter the bathroom. I tried to explain to your staff member that I was FTM and did not have a penis, therefore did not feel comfortable using the men's room. The staff person then harrassed me repeatedly and demanded that I "show him" my genitals. This was extremely inappropriate and I felt attacked and discriminated against. Finally after trying to explain to this man why I needed to use the women's bathroom, the staff woman next to him allowed me to go in. At this point, another male staff member grabbed onto my arm and refused to let me enter the women's bathroom. After being harrassed a second time, I finally left the bar and went to the establishment across the street to use the restroom.

Seeing as how you advertise your establishment as the "only gay club in Iowa City", I would think that you would be able to accomodate transgendered folks' bathroom needs who are patrons of your establishment. Unfortunately, when I visited your establishment on Saturday night, I was under the impression that it was one place in Iowa City where I could feel "safe" and accepted. Especially since your theme for the evening was celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride. I would suggest that you either construct a bathroom stall in the men's restroom or make the restrooms unisex in order to prevent further discrimination from occuring.

I am sending this email to you, as well as to everyone I know in in this community so that many people in this community are aware of your discriminatory practices regarding transgender people. Perhaps this will persuade you to change and to enlighten your staff regarding this matter.

Sincerely,
. . .

Heteroterrorism

Last semester, in my Insurgency class, my students discussed their experiences with oppression. We did an exercise some of you might know (the "step forward, step back" activity) to get a better sense of how we experience different forms of oppression. It's a really great activity that I'm happy to share with anyone who'd like it. (I first learned it from Khalilah Karim at Stanford. She introduced it as part of a consciousness-raising campaign around affirmative action.) I was fortunate to have four openly queer students in the Insurgency class, and each one of them brought so much to the discussion. Although Iowa City touts its "gay-friendly" atmosphere, my students experience a great deal of oppression, especially in spaces that are pretty unfamiliar to me (such as the streets in front of bars at night). One student, who is straight, talked about being "profiled" as gay by drunk frat-types. They called him out as he was walking downtown. Another straight student who had taken a class with me the previous year had described a similar story. The same person who had called my student out as a "fag" ended up assaulting a black student the same evening.


When we think of Sakia Gunn, Gwen Araujo, and so many others, the deadly seriousness of what my students describe couldn't be more obvious. Even in the Bay Area, Iowa Cty, or other places that purport to be "tolerant," trans- and homophobia are not hard to find. That's why these sorts of actions are so important and why I'm really glad Joshua organized this event.

Professor Kim Pearson writes about Sakia Gunn and violence directed at queer folks of color. Check out Prof. Kim's blog.

Add now to the list of the dead Satendar Singh, who was murdered by men who thought he seemed "gay." Click here to read the story on Indybay and this blog post for more information.

Speaking out against the segregated internet: an Angry Indian Op-Ed!

Click here for the op-ed by Angry Indian.

In case you haven't heard about this yet...

Update:
Please send money to:

Jena 6 Defense Committee
PO BOX 2798
Jena, LA 71342
----------------------------

"A Target in the Theater of the Backward" (1999) by Theodore Harris

To view more of the work of Theodore Harris, click here.


An all white jury, a white judge, white witnesses, and a white prosecutor in Jena, Louisiana have targeted six black youth who were victims of white supremacist aggression. One youth, Mychal Bell (17), was the first to go to trial and already faces a draconian sentence. Blaming the victim is, of course, the norm in First World "criminal justice" systems (not to mention at the level of general public discourse), and this sort of crazy-making case should come as no surprise. Race-based differential sentencing has affected everyone from Allen Iverson (who was jailed in high school after white youth targeted Iverson and other black friends in a bowling alley) to the kids you don't know in the Juvenile Hall nearest you.

You can listen to the Democracy Now report on the Jena Six and the follow-up interview with the parents of some of the sentenced youth.


The Jena case is predictable and very much the norm even though so many people insist on believing racism isn't that "big a deal" anymore. Bill Quigley has this excellent article in the Black Commentator. Please read it. Quigley breaks down the case and also provides important contextual information, such as the following:

Jena is the site of the infamous Juvenile Correctional Center for Youth that was forced to close its doors in 2000, only two years after opening, due to widespread brutality and racism including the choking of juveniles by guards after the youth met with a lawyer. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the private prison amid complaints that guards paid inmates to fight each other and laughed when teens tried to commit suicide.

The JCC for Youth in Jena was not an anomaly. Racist violence against youth of color is very much institutionalized. When kids turn up dead, hardly anyone takes notice.

Wrist-twisting (or wrist-locks) and the essentially standard use of psychiatric medication (both of which can and do make the excessive use of force and abuse harder to detect) are routine means of "controlling" young prisoners in countless "correctional" facilities that remain operational.

We in the U.S. live in a white supremacist state that continues to incapacitate youth of color to prevent challenges to white supremacist power. If you think that is an exaggeration, chances are you have never been inside a juvenile "correctional" facility. The disproportionate presence of youth of color is overwhelming – even and especially here in Iowa. (Click here to read how Iowa is the "2nd worst place to be black" in the U.S.)

Our youth prisons are part of a system of internal colonies (the PIC, Prison Industrial Complex). How else can we understand the enormous and ever-expanding resources invested in sequestering and controlling the very populations who are most harmed by existing power relations and policies (and who are, thus, the very populations most likely to organize a rebellion)? The PIC is one of the white supremacist state's main methods of preventing challenges to its power. The rampant use of psychiatric medication and violence in juvenile "correctional" institutions assists in the incapacitation of youth who are part of an oppressed population large enough to constitute an opposition of consequence.

It boggles my mind each time I encounter someone who thinks that, somehow, we have passed through and beyond a racist "phase" in U.S. history. The bedrock of the political and judicial systems in the U.S. remains and has been racism (white supremacy more specifically) from the get-go. The vestiges are evident from the letter of the law to the material reality inside prisons. A few years ago, Mike Males had an article detailing the ways in which fugitive slave laws are still at work in the ways in which abused runaways are returned to the people who abused them. If anyone can find that, please send it to me. This article provides some historical context for those who haven't had the opportunity to question the PIC.

Angela Davis says that the prison "relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism." And, she writes, the "logic of the prison becomes a way of disappearing people in the false hope of disappearing the underlying social problems they represent." Check out this book to read more!

I think it's very appropriate to think of imprisoned populations, especially imprisoned youth, as "the disappeared." White officials literally kill ("disappear") youth of color in institutional settings in a variety of ways. You can think of Martin Lee Anderson. I think his death in a "boot camp" reveals the brutality of the so-called "tough love" approach to youth "corrections."

You can think of Anthony Soltero, who shot himself after a school official threatened him with prison time for an act of civil disobedience. You can think of all the youth of color driven to kill themselves by white supremacist society.

If you haven't seen this BBC documentary report on abuse in the U.S. prison regime, please, please take the time to watch the whole thing.

I'll end by plugging the best blog out there for folks who refuse to deny the horrors of white supremacy: Intelligentaindigena Novajoservo! Please check it and check it often.

Iowa City, Your Autonomous News Service Has Arrived!

And you can find it here for now! Check out the great report on Friday's "Occupations" in Cedar Rapids.

More Hoshino in English!

Great news to report! You can now find excerpts from more of Hoshino Tomoyuki's novels, short stories, and essays on his website's English page!! I've said it before, and I'll say it here again: I think he is the most important writer of my generation. And if you do read Japanese, he's revamped his website, so check it out by clicking here.

"Fight the Rich, Not Their Wars"

The pictures above can be found at Robert Fisk's website.

Yesterday morning, some good folks went to the Linn County Courthouse, where they were sentenced for acts of civil disobedience that some of you will remember from this interview on the Insurgency Hour with Brian Shearer and Ryan Merz and also this update prior to the very popular Roger White interview.

One of the activists, Rosemary Persaud, read the following statement in court prior to the sentencing.

Why did we do this act of civil disobedience? Because we want peace. If the state's prosecutor had asked every single one of the Cedar Rapids 11 at trial this question: Why did you do this civil disobedience? I think she would have heard 11 times, the answer: Because I want peace. Because I want peace. Because I want peace. And she would hear a chorus of the same from all of you sitting here today.

But is anyone else listening? I know I have the right and I believe I have a duty as a citizen of this country, to speak up when I see my government go so badly off course. But because the current president is not listening and has never listened to the American people, I'm more determined than ever to be heard and faithfully represented at least by my elected Congresspeople.

Congress has the power to end this unjust war and illegal occupation of Iraq. They can stop funding it. We're asking Mr. Grassley as a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee to do everything in his power to cease the funding of this war.

I want to ask Senator Grassley, as someone who has spent years of service investigating fraud and waste in government spending, why he sees no waste in human life as this war goes on and on, year after year. Is not a life worth more than a dollar? It seems our Congress has lost its ability and courage to measure what matters, and has lost its moral compass to find us home. The American people want our troops HOME, to live, and we want the Iraqi people to live. It was a crime for the United States to invade Iraq and it's a crime to continue waging a brutal war for oil. Congress must stop it. They must end it now.

Sen. Grassley has, I think, made a good effort to listen to and know the people of Iowa, so we hope that he will take seriously what we offer as our best qualitites to help him do what is right. This is why we are all here today, why some of us were at his office on Monday, February 26, asking him to listen and to act. We refused to budge because we refuse to give up hope for a chance at peace. To Sen. Grassley we offer all our best qualitites because we want and demand a participatory democracy. So to start, I suggest Mr. Grassley take some of Megan [Felt]'s compassion and Tim [Gauger]'s energy and Ryan [Merz]'s commitment. Let him have David [Goodner]'s determination and Joshua [Casteel]'s understanding. Let him know John Paul [Hornbeck]'s heritage. Let him hear some of Justin [Riley]'s ideas, and ask Andrew [Alemao]'s questions, and use Conor [Murphy]'s words. Also, he can take Frank [Cordaro]'s freedom if necessary. :) Because we want peace.

As a mother I have to speak out against this war and ALL wars. As a mother, I have the responsibility to teach my children to be understanding of other people and to find ways to solve problems and settle differences non-violently. It's hard to teach your kids these lessons when their government is provoking and waging war as a means to an end.

Our children grip our hearts. They grip our hearts so tightly and so unexpectedly at times that it transforms us somehow from citizens of our state into people of the world. It's been said that when you bring a child into the world you agree to let your heart walk around outside your body. Mothers and fathers -- everywhere -- want the world to know their children, to know their dreams and their potential and their inherent goodness. Mothers want peace for everyone, not just their own children, and mothers believe peace is possible because we've learned that it's through our hearts that we're all connected in the world. Our children teach us this. So I refuse to offer my children or anyone else's children as fodder for the war machine. Instead I offer my children's hope, and I offer some of my own time spent away from tending them to help tend our world as well. Because we want peace.

This photo of Rosemary Persaud with her children (Gabe and Lily) was taken at the Iowa City ArtsFest by Mauro Heck.

As reported here, the activists were fined, and shortly thereafter, they assembled with supporters for a rally and then proceeded to Grassley's office, where they were denied the right to assemble initially. One activist, Mona Shaw, was allowed up to Grassley's office, but then federal marshalls said that only one person would be allowed inside the building at a time. The activists continued to line up to enter the building. During that time, no one who wasn't connected with the protest attempted to enter. A paddy wagon and paramedic van waited across the street from the Federal Building. Eventually, after some spirited chanting and conversations, the activists were allowed to enter in greater numbers.

As one of the activists, Tim Gauger, commented to me, the police and marshalls would not have treated a group of people of color the same way. These decisions (as to who can enter, how, when, and for what purpose) are ultimately arbitrary – if predictable. And, as Tim noted, it's easy to imagine very different outcomes if, for example, the activists had been mostly people of color instead of white people, mostly youth instead of a multigenerational group that included nuns, or mostly folks less "civil" or observant of police and other law enforcement directives in their expression of outrage and dissent. (I should note there were a few anarchists at the demonstration. We are everywhere, after all.) There is, I think, a fundamental absurdity in all of our engagements with institutions, and nowhere is that more evident than in attempts to appeal to the state's institutions. But, hey, that's just me...

After folks were let into the federal building, some of the activists went to Harkin's office down the street, where they were able to enter the building and meet with one of that senator's aides, a man named Larkin. At the end of the day, citations were issued to 19 activists (ranging in age from 20 to 72) who refused to leave the buildings. One of those activists, Ajax, had printed a number of photos (including those from Fisk's website above) to deliver to Grassley along with messages as to the material costs of this war of aggression on Iraq. Ajax has, by the way, a very cool dad, Dan Ehl.

You can read more about what transpired here and here.

You can also see some photos here.

My understanding is that Paul Street will be writing a piece about these events for Znet, so watch for that. To see Street's most recent piece, click here.

Events for Anarchists!

フィルム・フェスティバル＜アナーキー＞が日本で開催されます。ぜひご覧下さい!!


There is also an anarchists' festival in the Philippines. Click here to check it out!


All this info (and more!) courtesy of the good folks at Irregular Rhythm Asylum!

SF8: Update on the Legacy of Torture and the War on the Black Liberation Movement

Click here to listen to an outstanding Hard Knock Radio broadcast of a panel on the SF8 that took place at the US Social Forum in Atlanta!!

Click here for updates and info on how you can support the SF8!

Click here to read Kiilu Nyasha's article on the SF8 for the San Francisco Bay View!

And, if you haven't already, please listen to Nate George's interview with Claude Marks on the Insurgency Hour, which you can access here if you aren't a podcast subscriber.

If your media isn't autonomous, it's not yours!!

I am THRILLED to announce that we might soon enjoy an ICIM (Iowa City Indymedia)! On the mutual-aid heels of Velocipede and Art-Think comes an effort to create an Independent Media Collective in Iowa City. I have been wanting this ever since I arrived and am so happy that a fine group of young media activists, including Amanda Seals, are working to make this happen. Please check out the flyer below (click on the image to see a larger version), and contact these good people if you are interested in contributing!

Medea takes a pie in the face.

Thanks to Joshua for sending me this link!