We got the Whole World, in our Hands

Imperialism & Global Resistance

Since I had really come of age politically with the rise of the anti-globalization movement, this week felt familiar, which actually enabled me to quickly take everything deeper. We looked at the fallout of September 11, in the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuous colonization of Palestine and the war machines that support that, the attempts of the majority nations to create an alternative world vision (i.e. the Third World project) and the success of the South African anti-apartheid movement and the Zapatista uprising.

Empires: Large, composite, multinational unit, usually created by conquest and divided between a dominant centre and subordinate peripheries

Imperialism: actions and attitudes which uphold empires (without direct political rule.)

Together we crafted a streamlined theory and definition of neoliberalism, which is also referred to as globalization, building on our understanding of the rise of capitalism from last session:

How Neoliberalism Came About, I think.
There was feudalism, which had lords and serfs where serfs still worked the land directly to meet their needs and there was little wage exchanged. Then as the serfs began to resist being lorded over, the ruling class changed the game, privatized the common lands, and forced some people into waged jobs, and others into unpaid labor – i.e. capitalism. This built up the power of European nation-states (governments) which allowed them to roam the globe and colonize 80% of the world. Then as other places began to resist, overthrow the colonizers, and create their own nation-state powers, and unite together under various coalitions, including the United Nations, the European/US ruling class, were like, crap now how do we overpower all these nation states? So they began to focus on corporate power, which doesn’t have to play in the same arena as governments – they are accountable neither to common citizens (as governments have to pretend to be) nor to the UN or other international bodies. So they started to erode the power of states. Now, corporations have more wealth and more power than most countries.

To recap: feudalism -> peasant resistance -> capitalism (state power) -> national liberation (development of Third World nations) - > neoliberalism (corporate power).

Structural Adjustment in the World and in the United States of Amerikkka
A lot of this happened via the World Bank/IMF’s structural adjustment programs, which basically preyed on countried in need, giving them loans with really strict requirements that they cut social spending (education, health, etc), stop protecting their local economy via labor unions, labor laws, subsidies, and environmental regulations, and forced them to open up to international corporations.

From here, it’s really interesting to see how similar strategies get employed in the US. In schools, for example, with things like the No Child Left Behind Act, where schools now have to “perform” according to a strange set of national standards, or lose their funding and get privatized via charter schools, whose teachers don’t have the power of teachers unions. Similarly, we looked at the sub-prime mortgage crisis, whereby oppressed peoples (people of color, poor) were given loans with really unrealistic terms and super high interest rates, which then resulted in foreclosures and thus the robbing many poor people and people of color of what little capital they’ve been able to amass. Note that in most cases, the same banks which profited from these loans are the same banks that benefit from structural adjustment-based loans to poor nations.


Some more things that stuck out:

• Just like white privilege, US citizens benefit from imperialism whether we support it or not. When people go to the gas pumps and can fill up their tanks, they are feeling the benefits of our oil wars. When we go to the grocery store and can buy bananas and chocolate and coffee, we are reaping the benefits of CIA-backed coups in central America.
• Radical movements being co-opted into the imperialist way looks like a move from struggles for LIBERATION (self-determination for all peoples) to demands for EQUALITY (one group getting the privileges of white hetero males). Two specific examples: Queers – from rebellion and deep solidarity with other oppressed people to a gay rights movement for equality (to the privileged hetero white male class) - and then a push for say, gays in the military, a military which has been constantly involved in imperialist war for the last 50 years. Women – from liberation and connection with non-privileged groups to accepting the vote/places in the economy while leaving people of color behind, to then allowing the war in Afghanistan, an imperialist war, to be framed as a feminist mission.

Anti-Imperialist Movement
We also had some rad guest speakers, and one of them laid out a framework within which to be doing just activism/organizing:

1) Starting within a strategic alliance with a rights-based approach to policy, 2) with an agenda that is mass-based and movement building, 3) characterized by grassroots, localized resistance, using 4) direct action to achieve goals.

The Readings

September 11
There was a pretty awesome speech by Arundhati Roy, Come September, available here as a video. Speaking about all the meanings and consequences of September 11, she brought up some really lucid quotes from people in power that showed some pretty intense racist ideology, namely:

• Former British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour (1919): “Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
• Winston Churchill (1937), who is often spoken of as a hero for his stances during World War II, speaking also of Palesinians: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger...I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians fo America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
• US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright spoke of the half a million Iraqi children who died because of US backed sanctions: “We think the price is worth it.”

She also quoted New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman, “The hidden hand of the [capitalist] market will not work without the hidden fist...[of the] US Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.”

Here's another shocking quote, not from Arundhati Roy's work, but from an essay by the Notes from Nowhere Collective:

“To attract companies like yours… we have felled mountains, razed jungles, filled swamps, moved rivers, relocated towns… all to make it easier for you and your business to do business here.”

– Philippines government advert in Fortune, placed in 1975

The Third World as a Collective Project

I also came to learn through the readings that the "Third World" which I long thought was a euphemism for a derogatory perspective of worlds outside US, European, USSR power, was actually a self-determined label by those countries as they organized collectively to create an alternative world vision. It started with the Non-Aligned Movement, which first organized in the 1950s to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."

The non-kinky BDSM
Want an action item? How about this? Support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel, which you can learn about here. This is a strategy that proved successful in bringing down south African apartheid.

Intro to Capitalism & Black Liberation Struggle

My Mindset
Just for context: I came into this session feeling super hectic. I had spent the morning in a harm reduction/conflict resolution training at my house, which I hadn't exactly known about or planned for. But it was fun & useful (although it also, totally surprisingly to me, spark an emotional journey over the next few days into looking at the violence in my childhood.) Then I needed to make food for the session, and figure out how to transport it, and squeeze in a phone date that I had been looking forward to being long and leisurely, but in the end I just felt rushed. So that's how I walked into session. I only had a brief moment of that Sunday afternoon emotional vulnerability that has characterized my entering of the Braden program room.

Black Liberation
Anyways, this week we were looking into slavery, capitalism, and the struggle for black liberation. I, for one, when I hear of the "Black Liberation Struggle" tend to think narrowly just of the 60s' civil rights and black power movements. The readings, and the workshop with guest presenter Akua Jackson, really reminded me that the struggle started the day Africans began being taken as slaves, and continues today. It's all been about black liberation.

Slave Resistance
The readings illustrated the continuous acts of individual and group rebellion during slave times, often remembered only for a couple of revolts and runaways. It specifically talked of maroon communities, which often included native and poor whites alongside runaway slaves - communities which not only served their own needs for freedom, but acted as beacons of hopes, inspiration, and encouragement for slaves (and thus threatening to the slave-based economic system and white supremacy), as well as actively working to free other slaves and destroy oppressors.

There was an awesome poem, "a raging of tears" by ewuare osayande that really put the post-katrina disaster side by side with slavery. I know this connection has often been made, but this poem helped me identify just how closely the lived experience was.


Ideology of Inferiority
One of the hardest things to wrap my mind around, was really how did people ACTUALLY BELIEVE that a certain group of people, in this case Africans or Native Americans, were truly designed to be treated as animals and held violently as slaves. This is key. People really believed that blacks were created to be exploited. That is how "good" people could do such brutal things to another group of people. Blacks had to write manifestos, using the language of the American Revolution, saying that they had the same faculties as white men and the Creator, that there was no reason to believe they were morally destined to be slaves. Whites were shocked and confused about why Africans were rebelling, why they were fighting so hard for their freedom. Where did this ideology come from???

We also looked at different leaders of black liberation and evaluated their approaches and historical contexts: from integrationism, cultural nationalism, militant separatism, and Back-to-Africa-ism.

Capitalism
The readings on capitalism felt blaise to me, I guess because I know a lot of this theory, and also somehow that I kind of turn off whenever Marxist theory is discussed. Communism/Marxism/Leninism seems so stuffy and male and white, so academic, I can't take it. I don't know if that's fair of me, but that's how it is. Even Marx himself said he is "no Marxist." Anyways, I would to like to hear about Marx's theories from a woman of color, maybe she'd be able to spin it in a more palatable light. Curious as to how communities of color see those theories/theorists.

In session, our talks were more productive. I realized that for USAmerikans, capitalism is so normalized, I can't even really conceive of another economic system. One friend, who recently visited Cuba, said that it was the first time that she was able to see capitalism, how it infected every way we relate to ourselves and each other. Maybe I've had that experience, but I feel pretty infected by capitalism and unable to see another way (other than some airy theory). Like one thought, when we spoke briefly of people fighting for the Americans with Disabilities Act, about how I think, of course, if someone physically can't work, it makes sense that they can't get a job. But how do I envision them supporting themselves/being supported? Do I think that disabled people don't deserve to live? No, but capitalism doesn't really leave a plan for incorporating people who can't work a job, including elderly, diabled, and homeless. Another way of thinking would have a plan (or so I'd like to think). State violence (e.g. police) often gets used to extract work and wealth out of unwilling/unable people (turning homeless/jobless folks into prisoners, who either work in the prison labor system, or provide jobs to guards and prison staff.)

Connections
General things that stood out for me in session:

• Whites had to learn how to become slaveowners. Willie Lynch (where the term "lynching" came from), came over and gave workshops on how to "break" a slave using the same strategies as "breaking in" a horse.
• When slavery was abolished, it specifically excepted convict labor. I knew this, and I knew prisons were the mutation of the slavery system, but I really didn't think about how explicitly this was legally created. I really want to learn more about prison labor within Florida. For my jail zine, I tried to do some research on that, but it was hard to find (and I wasn't that dedicated at the time.)
  
• That the May Day immigrant marches of 2006, which was an amazing day in Lake Worth, saw the largest number of people take to the streets in protest across the United States ever. The numbers of people in Lake Worth were certainly unbelievable, but I didn't know how special it was nationwide.
• That housework is so often depicted (in actual visual imagery as well as theoretically) as the realm of white women, (certainly visioned as so by middle class white feminists in their struggle), but the reality is that women of color do the majority of housework in this country.
• That at some point of time, there was an idea of a "family wage" which took into account that an entire family needed income, not just the individual worker. This didn't necessarily seek to pay women for their work, but somehow backhandedly it acknowledges that women were doing necessary work in support of the male worker, and the wage needed to cover everyone's financial needs.
• The idea of the underclass as a necessary element of society - that capitalism wouldn't function without an underclass of desperate workers keeping wages low- yes, i've known that part. But that industry wouldn't be able to pollute and destroy the earth without that same underclass, was a new spin. It is only because there are oppressed people whose land can be stolen, abused, dumped on, and polluted without political repercussion, that we have been able to enter ecological crisis.
  

Well, I think that gets at a lot of what I took.

The coaster ride begins

Months of almost unbearable excitement have finally materialized into the present - a new home, new city, and 12 hours of fun and lesson-filled program orientation, not to mention about 40 new best friends. It's like I've been standing in line for some awesome, gigantic roller coaster, bubbling over with eagerness, and this weekend was getting on the coaster car and making that initial climb - the anticipation and thrill was buzzing.

These 2 days were orientation, meaning we spent a lot of time hearing about the background of our trainers and the Catalyst project, going over program logistics, setting up small groups and partners, and delving into material enough to pique our appetites and set the tone of the coming months. Catalyst's approach is certainly fresh, as even going over program logistics meant really talking about the ways we do things and how that is influenced by white supremacy or our visions for a new world. They needed to set up both a small working group and separate support buddies; but instead of just doing that, they would have us play games and then somewhere during the game announce that the person/people we were with would be our buddy/group for the rest of the program. With the buddies, who were meant to be political and emotional support, the trainers encouraged us to get deep instantly, calling on us to identify our needs for support and even how we may resist support.

We were asked to map out the path that brought us to the program today, and it was honestly clarifying for me to identify the journey of my anti-racist and activist development. Even though I think I've told "my story" before, many new things came to light about how it has all contributed to my current perspective. I had almost kinda forgotten how much race analysis was a part of the human rights work I did in Guatemala: During the training to become accompaniers, we were reminded that we needed to be clear that we were there because we were white (and/or US citizens) and our lives were valued more than indigenous Guatemalans - so we needed to take that birth privilege and torque it and allow it to be used NOT to further world domination, but fight it; that we needed to surrender that privilege to the needs of the indigenous Guatemalans who were asking us to come protect them so that they may continue their self-determined struggle; that we there to watch and observe, but never participate, because it was NOT our struggle, and we needed to learn to be silent support instead of always dominating actors. There were more key stages in my development, of course, but this one was maybe my first huge growth experience that was losing its freshness.

In another exercise, one trainer led us through a long closed-eye visioning section, asking us to actually picture the world we are hoping to create, from what our houses and neighborhoods looked like, what institutions were around, what jobs people had, and all the way up to how people interacted globally (if it all). So often activists know what we are fighting against, and have an inkling of what we are fighting for, but don't actually spend a lot of time being concrete and specific about what our post-revolution world would consist of. Then we identified one element of our vision and brainstormed on how to organize towards that goal.

The second day opened up with the volunteer placements. A major component of the program is volunteering with a designated racial justice organization, and we talked about the purposes behind that, and how we should view our role and our behavior within that organization. Although this was directed at the specific element of this structured program, the analysis we created together is applicable to how we interact with organizations and activists of color for the rest of our lives. The way this practical, logistical discussion melded into learning and analysis of interracial relations seems to be the powerful model Catalyst will be using in the curriculum - let's look at the specifics and figure out the larger implications.

A small-group role play required us to be managers in a fruit packing company whose workers were threatening to strike. We needed to prevent the strike, but could not acquiesce to any of their demands. Instantly it seemed, most people turned to brewing up a lot of the evil schemes that bosses have historically used to break people's unity. A few of us, though, were inclined to come up with creative and loving solutions, that we all realized were most likely totally unrealistic. When it came time to report some of our strategies, the small groups began pouring out their ideas on how to poison the workers with fear, sexism, homophobia, and racism. My group playfully interjected, calling them out on their nasty attitudes and presenting our totally dreamy solution of the managers sacrificing their own salaries to provide on-site healthcare and childcare. The company CEO said we must be from the the "San Francisco branch." This exercise so easily illustrated how the different "-isms" were created and to keep people economically oppressed.

Lastly, two longtime movement activists, in their 60s and 70s, came to share their stories, their continued belief in the struggle, and some lessons and advice for us all. What stood out for me was that things happen that can either totally catalyze a movement or pass us by - and we need to sit down and study what determines that outcome. Are there things we can do to turn an awful event, such as a killing by the police, or expose on government corruption, into a powerful movement for revolutionary change? I think about the scandal around Miami city commissioners misusing affordable housing funds, and how that spawned Take Back the Land's incredibly powerful land occupation and totally boosted the leverage of organizations like Power U and the Miami Workers Center. Then how there's so much government corruption coming to light in Palm Beach County, but I've yet to see that (or help that) develop into a movement.

So, those are the major elements in my experience of Anne Braden orientation weekend. I'm certainly thrilled about the other people in the program, as new friends, crushes, and teachers. People often say that they are inspired by the people the meet, but I want to find a way to help you understand how genuine that was for me. Somehow I was worried that people in the program would be younger, less experienced, and less politically developed than me. Yes, many people are younger, even 19 years old, but they all had elaborate histories of involvement in awesome struggles that I was impressed by. It was relieving and inspiring to know that lots of people from all over the country are so deeply involved in working towards justice and that I truly will be able to learn from each person in the room. I expected I'd have 4-5 teachers during this program, but it looks more like 40-50! Heck, yeah!