Monday, December 14, 2009

Graduation!!!

So our closing ceremony was on Saturday. It's official - we're not racist anymore!!!  Just kidding. It's never been just about us being racist or not, it's been about how to fight the structural racism within our society which lives on still even if many individuals don't hold racial prejudices!

Anyways.  So it was beautiful.  Many participants spoke about the impact of the program on their beings and their work.  We heard from two speakers who really tied together the significance of organized, anti-racist whites allied with people of color led movements.  Two groups of participants presented stories of white resistance to racism via songs:


Participants of Irish Heritage sang a song about the St. Patrick’s Brigade. Irish immigrants to the U.S. that had been recruited to fight in the war against Mexico in the mid 1800s. These Irish people saw how the U.S. fighting Mexico was just like England’s war against Ireland, and actually defected from the U.S. army to fight on the Mexican side. They were later captured and executed by the U.S.



Participants of German Heritage (including me!) sang a German song of freedom of thought, which was used in many anti-censorship protests, as well as taken up by resistance to fascism and Nazi Germany.  One group in particular that used the song was the White Rose, a student group that spread leaflets against Adolf Hitler and his particular breed of violent racism. One member, Sophie Scholl, played the song (Die Gedanken sind Frei) on her flute outside of Ulm Prison, where her father was detained after speaking out against Hitler. Six members of the White Rose were later arrested by the Gestapo and executed.






And here's the 2009 graduating class of Anne Braden:


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