Facing Race: November 2008 Archives

Watch the major speeches and full plenary presentations from the Facing Race 2008 Conference, Nov 13-15 in Oakland CA. The Conference was attended by over 900 participants. Watch the videos linked below and pledge your support for the Compact for Racial Justice. Check back to racewire.com for more followup videos and blogs on the Facing Race Conference and the Compact for Racial Justice

Major Speeches at Facing Race 2008:

* Opening Welcome Part 1 by Rinku Sen, President of ARC

* Opening Welcome Part 2 by Rinku Sen, President of ARC

* The Compact for Racial Justice: A Call to Action by Tammy Johnson of ARC

Full Plenary Presentations

* Post-Election Reflections -- Interview Examining Race in the Presidential Campaign

* Post-Election Reflections -- Full Panel Discussion

* The Compact for Racial Justice, An Agenda for Fairness and Unity -- Panel Discussion

* Race and the Global Economy -- Panel Discussion

Originally published on APA for Progress
A New World, a New Vision: ARC’s Facing Race Heralds Re-Energized Movement
By Ryan Takemiya
11/19/08

This post is late. The Facing Race conference ended on Saturday, November 15th, four days ago. And the reason I haven’t blogged about it until today is because I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking, reflecting, and internalizing the true significance of this event, and the age in which we live. We stand now at a crossroads in history. So much more has changed than simply a new president. This goes beyond Barack Obama and racial politics. I believe that the true weight of this event speaks directly to the heart of the times.

Tammy Johnson outlines Applied Research Center's Compact for Racial Justice at the 2008 Facing Race Conference.

Afro-Netizen's Chris Rabb discusses race in the presidential campaign with David Binder, a pollster from the Obama campaign.

Continue to second part of the video and a transcript of the speech

Plenaries, workshops, and speakers at the second day of Applied Research Center's Facing Race conference on racial justice, policy, and activism.

Wow - Liepollo L. Pheko is amazing!! I caught the end of her talk, she's part of The Trade Collective. She's talking about global trade and global respect for human rights in trade. She just told a story of the crocodile, and a young woman swimming across a shark and crocodile infested river and making it to the other side. When she gets there people asked her why did she do it? and How? And the young woman responded that she didn't have a why, she fell in! And then she kept going. Liepollo concluded that we may not have asked for these crocodiles, but here we are - are y'all ready to beat some crocodiles?! Crowd loved it.

Saru Jayaraman is winning my heart over now talking about how the service and restaurant economy is growing really rapidly in Detroit, and it's amazing. People forget about Detroit, she says, but there are tons of immigrant populations there who are finding ways to work in this industry, and finding living wage jobs there, and in NY, and in LA. There are problems, there is exploitation. There's a glass ceiling where workers get to a busser or runner position, but can't break through to waiter or host/hostess in fine dining. Saru's group, Restaurant Opportunities Center United, is doing work to protect workers from stolen tips and cheated wages, but also providing alternatives and opening their own restaurant, which is a restaurant at night and trains workers to advance during the day. ARC is supporting them to put a report out in January! Saru is really invigorating and clear and strategic. She is calling for a campaign where we refuse to have only lighter skinned folks in the front of restaurants, which is ones of the ways racism is being exported to US restaurants in other parts of the world, particularly Mexico. She's also going to spaces like Slow Food Nation, and saying that if we're talking about sustainable localized food sources, then better talk about sustainable living wages for workers, cause you can't one without the other, and no one is going to be able to afford your organic products if we aren't being paid fair wages! The energy of the room is lifting up!

Now Francis Calpotura of the Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action. He's sick, and says that he feels representative of the 200 million people around the world made sick by the global economy and made to move to seek opportunity. He gave a quick overview of how we ended up with the bubble-n-crisis economy we have now. Now he is reviewing the race, gender and landscape of migration - folks coming from formerly colonized countries, more women than men, countries are now exporting workers and counting on the remittances (money those workers send back to family) for huge percentages of their GDP. If these migrants were a company and their remittances a revenue, they would be the 3rd largest company in the world after Walmart and Exxon. The vision of Francis and his group is to have this population see themselves as an economic powerhouse. He says - we need to support a constituency rallying around big ideas - believers that we can change the course of history.

I am hoping someone else is also blogging this as I have to leave early, but this panel is so inspirational! And I love ending things on a global note - it is so easy to think of race as this American experience, with American icons and victories. Borders divide us, and yet the further you step back, the clearer the picture of inequality is. The same companies, board members, and powerholders; different languages but the ultimate struggle is against any sense of superiority that demands injustice as its operating modality.

Oh Francis is BRINGING it right now: "Our collective agenda is a history-altering agenda! We had to risk everything to travel to the unknown, and persevere when we were met with hateful ignorance. It's no accident that we have found ourselves here, that we had to risk everything in transformational action from below - this is the time, this is the conference, this is the moment for us to declare - our time has come."

Now Gilda Haas, who I missed before, is telling folks about her "pimped out" trailer where they are taking lessons from Strategic Actions for a Just Economy into the streets and front yards of L.A. "We need to take back the land," she says, explaining why they are running campaigns around housing, but also have a Land Trust project (where Ruckutista Tafarai Bayne works!) and are thinking about who owns space, builds on space, etc.

Saru is talking about the impacts of the current economic crisis by pointing again to Detroit - everyone says this is a recession and the businesses will close, but in Detroit a new restaurant opens every day (this reminds me of what Grace Lee Boggs is always saying - 'Detroit is what the rest of the country has to look forward to!'). People eat out when they're depressed. Saru is talking about how we need a collective agenda - none of us will get out of the recession if all of us don't - people who have BEEN in a recession, and people who are about to experience it. Business will only come around if we have money to spend in them (I think/hope she means localized economy).

Ack - my ride is here!

LOVE LOVE LOVE people talking about racial justice!

--

Total ride fake-out, she's not here, I'ma try to cover the last little bit. Missed the question, but Gilda is now speaking about the effort to build movement around the Right to the City, building off each other's genius.

The room is emptying out, which is a shame cause this, so far, is the best panel here.

Gilda is sharing how she researched economic loan efforts before mutualization and Reaganism, and discovered something called demutualization, where loans stop being within the community and start to come from outside the community.

The moderator is a handsome young man named Dorian Warren, and he just used ALL his charm to ask the panel to leave us on an uplifted note.

Francis says - there's no shortcut to where we want to go, but we have to go to the neighborhoods and workplaces where folks are struggling, it will take our commitment, that's the ONLY way to build the solidarity, relationships and vision that give us the rooted history with each other than allows a new vision to emerge.

Saru says - I really do believe in this idea of reframing this idea of collective prosperity - we all do better when we ALL do better. She's telling some really gross stories about how workers under pressure drop food, cut themselves and the blood falls in the food, burn themselves and the skin falls in the food, have to work sick and those germs get in the food. For our collective health, we must treat the most oppressed better. (note, I have been listening and writing but not looking, but I just looked up and this is a really fine panel! Its nice when that happens!) Saru continues - exploitation anywhere is exploitation everywhere, we need to get everyone to know that if we don't prosper together we won't prosper at all.

Liepollo is quoting her grandmother - "there is nothing new under the sun." She says, we are bold to think we could have self-determination, to have access to our own resources, there is nothing new. The fact that I am here, breathing, is evidence that we have not been vanished, disappeared, othered out of the landscape. We are the manys, we will not be disappeared. Let us take a breath and feel that. (tear leap to my eyes trying to blog what Liepollo is saying.)

Gilda - I don't know why anyone would do this is they were not motivated by love. I love human beings, I love you, I love the city that I live in, I love that at 57 years old I work with 22 year olds, I love working in international networks. I admire this conference, people coming not to be in their comfort zone but to stretch, break through barriers. In a racist society...we are struggling with these issues, but if we do it in a loving way, we will prevail!

And now my ride really IS here. So glad I got to stay for this!

I'm sitting here at the tail end of a wonderful panel at Facing Race called Creating a Culture of Racial Justice. This is the panel that in many ways most excites me, because I think so much of the framing of racial justice is a cultural framing. We look for art that makes us feel one, or beautiful, or illuminated. How do we make racial justice a beautiful image, full of righteous anger when that justice is not achieved, and gives people a vision of what that justice looks like, making it desirable.

Taller Tupac Amaru is doing some of the best work in the world along this vein - commissioned to make bright and gorgeous images that are politically astute.

Favianna Rodriguez of Taller Tupac Amaru just broke down how arts funding and public support, and the strength of art in movement, was in the 60s, how Reaganism really brought that to a hard stop and made it an underresourced arena. Now, Favi has a book called Reproduce and Revolt which has 200 political art pieces which they are going to put up as a database online.

Melanie Cervantes was just talking about how interconnected artists need to be in the work of organizers, of social justice lawyers. "We need to understand the legal battles, we need to be out at the marches, we need to be connected."

Samantha Chanse is speaking about how, as an artist, you can choose two paths - narratives that incorporate a lot of the issues we deal with; or art and stories that overtly reframe and issue - both are powerful. She focuses on the former: "You don't want to be dogmatic, where people feel like stop hitting me over the head! I came to be entertained - you want to strike a balance."

She went on to say, "I feel like being pissed off, for a lot of us, is a way of life - it fuels everything I do. But you may not like it! Artists are out there trying to change things. And you can show that you support or don't support the art, and support the art that works for you. There's the power of the local artist though, support the artist, help them get better!"

Here is contact information for these panelists:

www.tallertupacamaru.com
www.favianna.com
www.djpatrick.com
www.eastsideartsalliance.org
www.samanthachanse.com

By Terri Sterling, Idaho Community Action Network

The race debate today was interesting, informative and for me an accurate reflection of how leading with race can cause conflict among progressive leaders and organizers working on campaigns. The second debate really hit home for me. As a leader and organizer in Idaho, I know first hand that using a colorblind strategy to the racial inequities of an issue used to be the road to victory. We could win for everyone without addressing race. In Idaho, not talking about race seemed smart considering our lack of diversity. In trainings and workshops, we tried to address levels of racism, but were often met with resistance by members who, of course, were not racist. We wanted to build a statewide voice for all Idahoans, but we weren’t very inviting. Not leading with race was preventing us from building the multicultural organization we envisioned.

In 1998, ICAN (Idaho Community Action Network) decided to campaign around problems with the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). When we surveyed the state, we learned that problems with CHIP multiplied for families of color. We found that many Latino families couldn’t or wouldn’t even attempt to apply out of fear. ICAN decided to address the issues with the CHIP and to lead with race. Some members weren’t so supportive. The campaign ended with a huge victory, not exclusively for families of color, for all working families in Idaho. This campaign was the start of something huge in conservative, white Idaho. Ten years later, we have the multiracial organization we envisioned. We lost a few racist a**holes along the way, but what we gained is invaluable. We have built a strong diverse organization that is not afraid to lead with race. We addressed our fear and we won. The lesson learned: be explicit about race and don’t be afraid of losing. Leading with race, addressing racial justice issues, even in conservative white Idaho will not only build a powerful diverse organization, it will lead to victory.

Experts: Media perpetuated race-based vote myth
Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, November 15, 2008

The idea that Americans would not be able to get past racism and elect a black president was a myth largely perpetuated by the media, said panelists at a national conference on race Friday.

The panel, titled "Post-Election Reflections: Examining Race in the Presidential Campaign," looked at how the media addressed or avoided issues of race.

Some speakers in the discussion said the press perpetuated the idea that some groups of people would not vote for Barack Obama because he is African American.

Impressions from the first day of Facing Race, Applied Research Center's three-day conference in Oakland.

Emphasis on cross-struggle organizing, sustainability, and building a critical mass for a new political era

We’re now in the 2nd day of the “Facing Race” conference, and the Racial Justice debate has heated up. With 50 workshops spread over 3 sessions, with film screenings, and 3 plenary sessions, the Facing Race conference is the largest gathering of Racial Justice Activists in the nation. With a staggering 900+ people in attendance, the conference got off to a solid start this morning with a plenary panel examining race in the presidential campaign.

Read more at APA Progress

This is Adrienne Maree Brown checking in as a live blogger for the Facing Race Conference.

I'm at the first plenary, Post-Election Reflections: Examining Race in the Presidential Campaign. The speakers cover the range from writers to election organizers.

Unfortunately, I have arrived late, right as Donita Judge was reviewing the kinds of election protection problems we saw in the 2008 federal election. She's on point and pulling no punches, expounding on the slow down and long lines due to machine malfunction, and called out the flyers and text messages that misguided folks.

Jeff Chang is on this panel - he's our hip-hop historian, and covered Obama for Vibe Magazine (also went to Obama's rival high school in Hawaii a few years apart, though Jeff is young forever). He's being asked about how organizers interact with the lessons of the Obama campaign. Jeff is talking about how we showed increased capacity and technology supports better turnout.

Mark Q. Sawyer is speaking to how organizer lists who supported Obama will likely get turned over to the Democratic Party instead of connected to local organizing.

Moderator Manuel Pastor: What about how this campaign didn't address poor people?

Sawyer: Obama was actually brilliant - everyone loves how Edwards talked about poor people - but Obama expanded the definition of middle class to include poor people, and back door policies for low income.

Pastor: What about rhetoric?

Chang: Already there's language and redefinitions, redefining centrism as inclusive of the new majority. We ca talk about the economic stimulus process - these are all battles that are going to be waged..we need to think of our issues in a big picture and define language that, from an ethical and moral perspective, supports our progressive values.

Pastor: What about the Latino vote?

Sylvia: The Clintons built a huge support, but some folks did break off. Bill Richardson, aka Judas to the Clinton campaign, was an early turncoat. Villarigosa is joining his transition team.

Last question - is there a chance we will mythologize the Obama campaign as the perfect campaign? What went wrong?

Donita: Well I think we should ask how we will keep new voters and young voters involved. There is not an explicit right to vote in the constitution, how do we amend the constitution to give that right to everybody, so that regardless of the mythical candidate, we should all have the same power on election day, and in every election.

Jeff: It's about racial justice. If you look back at the campaign, Obama was able to draw on the metaphors and tropes of the racial justice movement, but didn't center it in his campaign, played it like Jesse Robinson. We need to assert that submerged trope, make racial justice explicit, talk about why it was at the core of his victory and move forward. Its the submerged idea in all this.

Final last question: Comment on the media driven "people of color don't like queers" crap...rephrased, the story being told is that black people voted against gay rights. What do y'all think?

Sawyer: The Black and Latino support for Prop 8 has been overemphasized, and played into long-standing conflicts between LGBT communities and communities of color. There's a lack of understanding. I got Yes on 8 mail that supported all Democratic agenda and said to vote Yes on 8; I got nothing from No on 8 - they gave a lot of money to NAACP and got nothing for it (crowd goes "mph!"). There needs to be indigenous support in communities of color built around these issues.

Pastor's closing with a story about an evangelical church across the street where he was doing voter turn-out calls. The churchgoers were doing Yes on 8 organizing, and the youth working with Pastor wanted to put on No on 8 signs and go out in front of the church. Point is, our young people are willing to push the line on this.

Pastor closing statements: This moment is about not bumming people out. This movement is about our higher selves. It's hard to invite someone to join you at a party when the party's no fun at all. The history of our work is joy, of celebration, of changing the world. We need to put the progress back in progressive. We need to celebrate what our movement has accomplished, and where we're going, even as we have a cold and steely eye towards where we're going. Remember how you felt last Tuesday as you realized the vision was moving forward. We have a lot of work ahead of us with recession impending on economic justice, but we can do this. We can do this. I guess that sounds like Yes, We Can.

Seems like everyone has been weighing in across the country on the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Out of that has grown a disturbing trend to blame Black voters who came out in support of Obama for the anti-gay legislation.

Two things have become abundantly clear in what Kai Wright calls "The Blame Game" of Prop 8: 1) Gay rights activists and advocates need to address issues of racism within the LGBT rights movement (co-opting civil rights language and imagery isn't enough to get people of color engaged), and 2) the Black community needs to address the homophobia that supposedly led people to vote 7 times out of 10 against gay marriage.

This week at Facing Race, queer racial justice advocates will begin to have these discussions. For more information, please visit arc.org/facingrace.