The Combahee River Collective Statement

A Black Feminist Statement From The Combahee River Collective

We are a collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As black women we see black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

We will discuss four major topics in the paper that follows: (1) The genesis of contemporary black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific province of our politics; (3) the problems in organizing black feminists, including a brief herstory of our collective; and (4) black feminist issues and practice.

1. THE GENESIS OF CONTEMPORARY BLACK FEMINISM

Before looking at the recent development of black feminism, we would like to affirm that we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American women’s continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation. Black women’s extremely negative relationship to the American political system (a system of white male rule) has always been determined by our membership in two oppressed racial and sexual castes. As Angela Davis points out in “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves,” black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. There have always been black women activists—some known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, and thousands upon thousands unknown—who had a shared awareness of how their sexual identity combined with their racial identity to make their whole life situation and the focus of their political struggles unique. Contemporary black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters.

A black feminist presence has evolved most obviously in connection with the second wave of the American women’s movement beginning in the late 1960s. Black, other Third World, and working women have been involved in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement itself have served to obscure our participation. In 1973 black feminists, primarily located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate black feminist group. This became the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO).

Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements for black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of us were active in those movements (civil rights, black nationalism, the Black Panthers), and all of our lives were greatly affected and changed by their ideology, their goals, and the tactics used to achieve their goals. It was our experience and disillusionment within these liberation movements, as well as experience on the periphery of the white male left, that led to the need to develop a politics that was antiracist, unlike those of white women, and antisexist, unlike those of black and white men.

There is also undeniably a personal genesis for black feminism, that is, the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual black women’s lives. Black feminists and many more black women who do not define them-selves as feminists have all experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence.

Black feminists often talk about their feelings of craziness before becoming conscious of the concepts of sexual politics, patriarchal rule, and, most importantly, feminism, the political analysis and practice that we women use to struggle against our oppression. The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and define those things that make our lives what they are and our oppression specific to us. In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression.

Our development also must be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of black people. The post-World War II generation of black youth was the first to be able to minimally partake of certain educational and employment options, previously closed completely to black people. Although our economic position is still at the very bottom of the American capitalist economy, a handful of us have been able to gain certain tools as a result of tokenism in education and employment which potentially enable us to more effectively fight our oppression.

A combined antiracist and antisexist position drew us together initially, and as we developed politically we addressed ourselves to heterosexism and economic oppression under capitalism.

2. WHAT WE BELIEVE

Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever considered our specific oppression a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. Merely naming the pejorative stereotypes attributed to black women (e.g., mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldogged), let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, indicates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries of bondage in the Western hemisphere. We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters, and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work.

This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially the most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression. In the case of black women this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.

We believe that sexual politics under patriarchy is as pervasive in black women’s lives as are the politics of class and race. We also often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously. We know that there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is neither solely racial nor solely sexual, e.g., the history of rape of black women by white men as a weapon of political repression.

Although we are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. We struggle together with black men against racism, while we also struggle with black men about sexism.

We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political- economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe the work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We are not convinved, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and antiracist revolution will guarantee our liberation. We have arrived at the necessity for developing an understanding of class relationships that takes into account the specific class position of black women who are generally marginal in the labor force, while at this particular time some of us are temporarily viewed as doubly desirable tokens at white-collar and professional levels. We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives. Although we are in essential agreement with Marx’s theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he analyzed, we know that this analysis must be extended further in order for us to understand our specific economic situation as black women.

A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the expansion of the feminist principle that the personal is political. In our consciousness-raising sessions, for example, we have in many ways gone beyond white women’s revelations because we are dealing with the implications of race and class as well as sex. Even our black women’s style of talking/testifying in black language about what we have experienced has a resonance that is both cultural and political. We have spent a great deal of energy delving into the cultural and experiential nature of our oppression out of necessity because none of these matters have ever been looked at before. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of black women’s lives.

As we have already stated, we reject the stance of lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. It leaves out far too much and far too many people, particularly black men, women, and children. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and how they oppress. But we do not have the misguided notion that it is their maleness, per se—i.e., their biological maleness—that makes them what they are. As black women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dan-gerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. We must also question whether lesbian separatism is an adequate and progressive political analysis and strat-egy, even for those who practice it, since it so completely denies any but the sexual sources of women’s oppression, negating the facts of class and race.

3. PROBLEMS IN ORGANIZING BLACK FEMINISTS

During our years together as a black feminist collective we have experienced success and defeat, joy and pain, victory and failure. We have found that it is very difficult to organize around black feminist issues, difficult even to announce in certain contexts that we are black feminists. We have tried to think about the reasons for our difficulties, particularly since the white women’s movement continues to be strong and to grow in many directions. In this section we will discuss some of the general reasons for the organizing problems we face and also talk specifically about the stages in organizing our own collective.

The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources and power that groups who possess any one of these types of privilege have.

The psychological toll of being a black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can never be underestimated. There is a very low value placed upon black women’s psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist. As an early group member once said, “We are all dam-aged people merely by virtue of being black women.” We are dispossessed psychologically and on every other level, and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change our condition and the condition of all black women. In “A Black Feminist’s Search for Sisterhood,” Michele Wallace arrives at this conclusion:

We exist as women who are black who are feminists, each stranded for the moment, working independently because there is not yet an environment in this society remotely congenial to our struggle—because, being on the bottom, we would have to do what no one else has done: we would have to fight the world.’

Wallace is not pessimistic but realistic in her assessment of black feminists’ position, particularly in her allusion to the nearly classic isolation most of us face. We might use our position at the bottom, however, to make a clear leap into revolutionary action. If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.

Feminism is, nevertheless, very threatening to the majority of black people because it calls into question some of the most basic assumptions about our existence, i.e., that gender should be a determinant of power relationships. Here is the way male and female roles were defined in a black nationalist pamphlet from the early 1970s.

We understand that it is and has been traditional that the man is the head of the house. He is the leader of the house/nation because his knowledge of the world is broader, his awareness is greater, his understanding is fuller and his application of this information is wiser. . . . After all, it is only reasonable that the man be the head of the house because he is able to defend and protect the development of his home. . . . Women cannot do the same things as men—they are made by nature to function differently. Equality of men and women is something that cannot happen even in the abstract world. Men are not equal to other men, i.e., ability, experience, or even understanding. The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silver—they are not equal but both have great value. We must realize that men and women are a complement to each other because there is no house/family without a man and his wife. Both are essential to the development of any life.

The material conditions of most black women would hardly lead them to upset both economic and sexual arrangements that seem to represent some stability in their lives. Many black women have a good understanding of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives cannot risk struggling against them both.

The reaction of black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. They are, of course, even more threatened than black women by the possibility that black feminists might organize around our own needs. They realize that they might not only lose valuable and hard-working allies in their struggles but that they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing black women. Accusations that black feminism divides the black struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous black women’s movement.

Still, hundreds of women have been active at different times during the three-year existence of our group. And every black women who came, came out of a strongly felt need for some level of possibility that did not previously exist in her life.

When we first started meeting early in 1974 after the NBFO first eastern regional conference, we did not have a strategy for organizing, or even a focus. We just wanted to see what we had. After a period of months of not meeting, we began to meet again late in the year and started doing an intense variety of consciousness-raising. The overwhelming feeling that we had is that after years and years we had finally found each other. Although we were not doing political work as a group, individuals continued their involvement in lesbian politics, sterilization abuse and abortion rights work. Third World Women’s International Women’s Day activities, and support activity for the trials of Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Little, and Inez Garcia. During our first summer, when membership had dropped off considerably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the possibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a black community. (There was no refuge in Boston at that time.) We also decided around that time to become an independent collective since we had serious disagreements with NBFOs bourgeois-feminist stance and their lack of a clear political focus.

We also were contacted at that time by socialist feminists, with whom we had worked on abortion rights activities, who wanted to encourage us to attend the National Socialist Feminist Conference in Yellow Springs. One of our members did attend and despite the narrowness of the ideology that was promoted at that particular conference, we became more aware of the need for us to understand our own economic situation and to make our own economic analysis.

In the fall, when some members returned, we experienced several months of comparative inactivity and internal disagreements which were first conceptualized as a lesbian-straight split but which were also the result of class and political differences. During the summer those of us who were still meeting had determined the need to do political work and to move beyond consciousness-raising and serving exclusively as an emotional support group. At the beginning of 1976, when some of the women who had not wanted to do political work and who also had voiced disagreements stopped attending of their own accord, we again looked for a focus. We decided at that time, with the addition of new members, to become a study group. We had always shared our reading with each other, and some of us had written papers on black feminism for group discussion a few months before this decision was made. We began functioning as a study group and also began discussing the possibility of starting a black feminist publication. We had a retreat in the late spring which provided a time for both political discussion and working out interpersonal issues. Currently we are planning to gather together a collection of black feminist writing. We feel that it is absolutely essential to demonstrate the reality of our politics to other black women and believe that we can do this through writing and distributing our work. The fact that individual black feminists are living in isolation all over the country, that our own numbers are small, and that we have some skills in writing, printing, and publishing makes us want to carry out these kinds of projects as a means of organizing black feminists as we continue to do political work in coalition with other groups.

4. BLACK FEMINIST ISSUES AND PRACTICE

During our time together we have identified and worked on many issues of particular relevance to black women. The inclusiveness of our politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives of women, Third World, and working people. We are of course particularly committed to working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression. We might, for example, become involved in workplace organizing at a factory that employs Third World women or picket a hospital that is cutting hack on already inadequate health care to a Third World community, or set up a rape crisis center in a black neighborhood. Organizing around welfare or daycare concerns might also be a focus. The work to he done and the countless issues that this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression.

Issues and projects that collective members have actually worked on are sterilization abuse, abortion rights, battered women, rape, and health care. We have also done many workshops and educationals on black feminism on college campuses, at women’s conferences, and most recently for high school women. One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to publicly address is racism in the white women’s movement. As black feminists we are made constantly and painfully aware of how little effort white women have made to understand and combat their racism, which requires among other things that they have a more than superficial comprehension of race, color, and black history and culture. Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue.

In the practice of our politics we do not believe that the end always justifies the means. Many reactionary and destructive acts have been done in the name of achieving “correct” political goals. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. We are committed to a continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice.

As black feminists and lesbians we know that we have a very definite revolutionary task to perform and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us.

——————————————————————————–

NOTES:

1. This statement is dated April 1977.

2. Michele Wallace, “A Black Feminist’s Search for Sisterhood,” The Village Voice. 28 July 1975, pp. 6-7.

3. Mumininas of Committee for Unified Newark, Mwanamke Mwananchi (The Nationalist Woman), Newark, N. J., c. 1971, pp. 4-5.”

Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence

Just heard about this awesome-looking book while reading Audrey:

Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence by Maria Ochoa and Barbara Ige

Shout Out was born of the hope that exists when women reach out to one another. Included are critical examinations, creative nonfiction, and poetry that explore a range of responses to the injustices that women worldwide sustain in their daily lives: physical abuse, murder, rape, poverty, and psychological terror.

Many of the contributors are living proof of the remarkable and inspiring work that individuals and organizations are doing to end war, rape, murder, slavery, sex trade, domestic violence, poverty, and other forms of oppression. Others chose to share their struggles, pain, and knowledge in order to educate and change the way women are maltreated.

Shout Out seeks to answer many questions, among them: How do so many women survive the violence of their daily lives? Where do they find hope? How can this violence still occur? This work gives voice to women whose stories are equally important they are difficult to fathom. The goal of collecting these expressions together is to open the dialogue and acknowledge the wrongdoing, and in so doing find out how we might enact change.

Dunbar Village: COUNTER PROTESTERS TO GREET SHARPTON FRIDAY AT DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

What About Our Daughters?:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEWASHINGTON, D.C.-November 13, 2007- When Rev. Al Sharpton descends on the Department of Justice headquarters on Friday, November 16, 2007, he’ll be greeted by counter protesters asking why he and other African American leaders have refused to publicly comment on a horrific crime against humanity committed against a Black woman and her child in a housing project called Dunbar Village located in West Palm Beach, FL.

The Dunbar Village tragedy is the horrific story of the brutal gang rape, sodomy, and torture of a 35 year old black Haitian immigrant and her 12 year old son. 10 black teens forced their way into the victim’s home at a public housing complex in West Palm Beach, Florida. The mother was forced to perform fellatio on her own son at gunpoint. The teens then cut and stabbed the mother and her son, poured cleaning solvent on their skin and in their eyes, and would have set them both on fire, but as one teen suspect reported, no one in the gang had matches. Currently, only four suspects are in custody. During the 3 hour rape and torture, not a single neighbor called 911.

The counter protest was organized by Shane Johnson after he read about the crime on the blog, What About Our Daughters? “How is it that practically every social justice organization from the ACLU to the NAACP to the SCLC knows something about Dunbar Village but refuses to speak out about it?”, asks, Shane Johnson who is a blogger and the author of Black Sapience…My .02 (http://blacksapience.blogspot.com). Johnson adds, “This protest is not to request that Sharpton and his allies march in West Palm Beach, but simply an inquiry regarding Rev. Sharpton’s peculiar silence on this issue. [READ THE REST HERE]

The Carnival of Radical Action, Sixth Edition

Dr. Elle and Vox will be hosting the undoubtedly mind blowing sixth edition of the Carnival of Radical Action: Radical History. It will be posted in early December. Radical submissions are due November 29. By radical, we mean really good stuff like the previous carnivals! Check out previous carnivals for ideas!

The RWOC put out the best, most mind blowing carnivals so I’ve only read every word of the first one at M’s which is no longer available. Maybe I’ll be able to read every word of the second, third, fourth and fifth Carnivals for Radical Action over the winter holidays:

She who stumbles: Second Carnival of Radical Action!

no snow here: Carnival of Radical Action III: The Allied Media Conference

Having Read the Fine Print: Carnival of Education- Radical School Edition, Carnival of Radical Action: Back To School edition

A Woman’s Ecdysis: Carnival of Radical Action 5: Revolutionary Change

ellephd:

Inspired by the wonderful M…“Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”

That is, according to my limited research, an African proverb that I first encountered at nubian’s site. But as a historian who minored in world history (with a focus on west central Africa) and specialized in the U.S. since 1945, I knew it to be true. Despite all that I learned in my African history courses, the Africans and their descendants whom I studied in my U.S. courses had no history, no background, no lives. They just appeared one day in Jamestown to serve English settlers. That was what the hunters’ history emphasized.

That is just one of the many reasons that for the sixth edition of the Carnival of Radical Action, Vox and I want you to explore making radical history. How do we create and participate in radical history? And how do we chronicle it? (This is a question that dominates my mind as I continually reflect on my long-term goals as a historian.)

Some food for thought:

• How do radical activists incorporate history into their activism?

• What are the processes involved in forming radical, history-shaping movements in our day and age (i.e. how do we initiate, shape, translate into action our responses to injustice and violence against and within our communities)?

• How do we learn from the past and incorporate radical themes in our work?

Vox and I are co-hosting the carnival here. You may submit posts here, use the Blog Carnival submission page, or contact Vox or me. The deadline for submissions is November 29, 2007 and the CoRA will be posted in early December.

Vox ex Machina:

Carnival of Radical Action, Sixth EditionDr. Elle and I are co-hosting the sixth Carnival of Radical Action over at her place. It’s the radical history edition! We want to see entries about creating and recording radical history, forming history-shaping movements, and how history is incorporated into activism. Please check out Elle’s announcement for more information (seriously, click the link).

The deadline is November 29, and the carnival will go up at some point in early December. You can submit entries via the blog carnival page or by contacting Elle or me.

National March Against Hate Crimes and Racism

Oh No a WoC PhD:

When: Saturday, November 3, 2007 12:00 Noon (Pre-March Rally to begin at 10 a.m.)
Where: March begins at First Baptist Church 423 Shrewsbury St Charleston, W.Va. 25301 and Marchers will proceed to Charleston W.Va. State Capitol Building for National Rally
Contact: Black Lawyers for Justice (BLFJ)
Phone: 202-397-4577 Local: (304) 657-1493
Email: shabazzlaw@aol.comSchedule: 10 a.m. est - pre-march rally against Hate Crimes at First Baptist Church 423 Shrewbury St. Charleston, West Virginia 25301
noon - March from First Baptist to W. Virginia State Capitol Building
5:00 p.m. - fundraiser for Megan and Town Hall Meeting at Rehoboth Cathedral of Christ

You can also donate money to Megan Williams defense fund directly by sending a check to:

Welana Megan Williams Fund
Chase Bank 707
Virginia St. Charleston W. VA 25301

Shawn Williams:

Black women are still seen in many circles as playing a role in the abuse that is inflicted on them. In the Megan Williams case, some have tried to minimize the actions of her six attackers because she supposedly had a relationship with one of them. Reports have all but said that she “brought it on herself” or “should have known better.”The same is true in the case of a 20 year-old Philadelphia prostitute who accused one of her customers and his friends of raping her. Judge Teresa Carr Deni who presided over the case saw it as a theft of service. “She consented and she didn’t get paid,” Deni told the Philadelphia Daily News. “I thought it was a robbery.”

The reality is black men have got to take responsibility for ensuring that black women receive both respect and protection in an environment that has scantly offered it to them. Black men no longer have to sit by and watch white racists defile our women, nor do we have to participate in the practice. We should be part of the solution, not the problem.

The tendency in this country to blame African-American women for the sexual crimes committed against them must stop. Stereotypes regarding heightened sexuality should be squashed out, even through mindless music videos attempt to skew the truth.

When we tolerate the music, tolerate the language, and tolerate the silences, we have in essence said that the degradation of our Black Women is acceptable. For the sake of our women, our girls, our families, and our future, we have to draw a line in the sand. It has to end now.

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence

(via Black Looks and Kai)

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is November 25th to December 10th. This year’s theme is Demanding Implementation, Challenging Obstacles: End Violence Against Women

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organizing strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by:

* raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels
* strengthening local work around violence against women
* establishing a clear link between local and international work to end violence against women
* providing a forum in which organizers can develop and share new and effective strategies
* demonstrating the solidarity of women around the world organizing against violence against women
* creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women

Get Involved Online
The Center will post all information about the Campaign online here.

Take Action Kit
Contact the Center for Women’s Global Leadership to receive a free copy of the Take Action Kit for the 16 Days Campaign. The action kit includes:

* a campaign profile and a description of dates
* a list of participating organizations and countries
* a bibliography and resource list
* a list of suggested activities
* a current campaign announcement
* supplemental information relevant to this year’s theme

It is better to speak

Out of the Silence, We Come: A Litany

Out of the silence, we come
In the name of nuestras abuelas,
In honor of our mamas
In the spirit of our petite filles,
In tribute to ourselves

We come crying out
Documenting the torture
We come wailing
Reporting the rape
We come singing
Testifying to the abuse
We come knowing
Knowing that the silence has not protected us from
the racism
the sexism
the homophobia
the physical pain
the emotional shame
the auction block

Once immobilized by silence
We come now, mobilized by collective voice
Dancing in harmonious move-ment to the thick drumbeat of la lucha, the struggle
We come indicting those who claim to love us, but violate us
We come prosecuting those who are paid to protect us, but harass us
We come sentencing those who say they represent us, but render
us invisible

Out of the Silence, we come
Naming ourselves
Telling our stories
Fighting for our lives
Refusing to accept that we were never meant to survive

Document the Silence

Document the Silence is a blog and a movement. Please join in.

On October 31, I’m going to share my story of silence, upload it to the Document the Silence website and wear red (the first and fourth actions below). Meanwhile, I’ll take a blogger break to take care of business.

Recent events in the United States have moved us to action. Violence against women is sadly, not a new phenomenon in our country or in the world, however, in the last year women of color have experienced brutal forms of violence, torture, rape and injustice which have gone unnoticed, received little to no media coverage, or a limited community response. We are responding to:* The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia who was held by six assailants for a month.

* Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, Florida one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child.

* A 13 year old native American girl was beaten by two white women and has since been harassed by several men yelling “white power” outside of her home

* Seven black lesbian girls attempted to stop an attacker and were latter charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11 year prison sentences

In a Litany of Survival, Audre Lorde writes, “When we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.” These words shape our collective organizing to break the silence surrounding women of color’s stories of violence. We are asking for community groups, grass-root organizations, college campus students and groups, communities of faith, online communities, and individuals to join us in speaking out against violence against women of color. If we speak, we cannot be invisible.

Join us and stand up to violence against women!

* Be bold, be brave, be red. Wear red on October 31, 2007. Take a picture or video of yourself and friends wearing red. Send it to: beboldbered@gmail.com. We’ll post it!

* Take Your Red to the Streets! Know of a location where violence occurred against a woman of color? Have a public location where you feel women of color are often ignored? Make violence against women of color visible by decorating the space in red. Be sure to send us pictures and or video of your display!

* Rally! Gather your friends, family, and community to rally. Check out the Document the Silence website for the litany we’re asking participants to read together on October 31st. Be sure to send us pictures and/or video of the event! You could even gather where you created a display!

* Share your story of silence. Share your own story of silence by uploading it to the Document the Silence website (http://documentthesilence.wordpress.com/). You can send a story in any form you’d like – as a written statement, video clip, movie, documentary, or visual art. Our goal is to document the silences within our relationships, homes, families, communities, jobs, schools, faith communities, governments, and within our world. We want you to share your story of injustice. Stories that the media, elected officials, self-appointed leaders, and organizations ignore. To upload videos and visual art pieces, please email them to: beboldbered@gmail.com

* Find an event to attend with an organization for Women of Color on the Document the Silence website.

* Be an ally. Visit the Document the Silence website to download and read resources about how to be an ally and support to women of color in your community.

Tuesday Link Love

Stuff I found interesting (in Bloglines order):

A Woman’s Ecdysis: Confronting Split Women

Black Chronicle: A Missed Opportunity

Chicago Tribune: Judge’s probation ruling called ‘revenge’

Chicago Tribune: Justice Department may probe bias in Jena

What About Our Daughters?: BREAKING NEWS!: Enough is Enough to Protest Outside the Home of Viacom’s CEO This SATURDAY!

Jack and Jill Politics: Kill a dog, go to jail, kill a Black boy and nothing happens

Question 1 - Since when did this country abandon the 12-person jury rule in CRIMINAL TRIALS?

Question 2- Another ALL WHITE JURY? Unless this was Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Wyoming…..WHY WAS THERE AN ALL-WHITE JURY?

I know that this young man was no ‘innocent’. But, he was only 14. He deserved to be written off at the age of 14? Am I not the only one offended by that? He was sent to a place like that, because they wanted to give him a chance to straighten himself out. He wasn’t sent there TO BE MURDERED.

And, that is what happened to him.

HE WAS MURDERED.

He was MURDERED by a GROUP of people….and nobody is going to be held accountable for it.

Another young Black male thrown away and discarded; murdered at will, and nobody’s responsible?

He was ONE child…they were a GROUP of ADULTS…..and, their only option was to MURDER HIM?

The demonization and dehumanization of our children to the point where we find excuses and justifications for their demise.

‘He was a bad kid’.

‘He broke the law.’

Why is it that OUR children don’t get to make ‘youthful mistakes’. Why are they not given the time to straighten themselves out. Either we want to lock them up and throw away the key, or, as in this case, just discard them altogether.

LOOK at the picture at the top of this post. Just LOOK at it. Don’t detach yourself from it. Once again this society says that OUR children aren’t worth much of anything. And, I think that’s wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

Naomi Wolf: American Tears

NewBlackMan: How Do “We” Keep a Social Movement Alive?

The Silence of Our Friends: Anti-oppression vs the civility of polite society

Electronic Village: Final Call Interview with Megan Williams

Prometheus 6: Report Ranks Jobs by Rates of Depression

Black and Missing but not Forgotten: National March against Hate Crimes: Megan Williams

NATIONAL MARCH AGAINST HATE CRIMES:
MEGAN WILLIAMS: KIDNAP, TORTURE AND RAPE VICTIM IS FOCUS OF NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION

When: Saturday November 3, 2007 12:00 noon

Location: Charleston, West Virginia. Beginning in front of West Virginia State University and Marching to the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston.

March Purpose: To bring national and statewide support to Charleston resident Megan Williams, the Williams Family and victims of other hate crimes nationwide. The Jena 6 case, the rise in the hanging of nooses and other current acts of injustices and intimidation against Blacks/African Americans will all be highlighted at this National March against Hate Crimes. Families and victims of hate crimes that are occurring throughout the nation will attend. Black Lawyers For Justice, the Williams Family and organizers are demanding that Federal Hate Crimes charges be brought in the instant case. They are also demanding Congressional hearings on hate crimes against Black residents as well a wide range of actions to combat the growing attacks on Blacks in America.

Who are the Organizers? The primary march organizers are Black Lawyers For Justice (BLFJ) and the Support Committee For Megan Williams. This march will be endorsed by at least 100 Black organizations, student groups, clergy and leaders of every stripe. An initial endorsement list will be produced on 10-15-07.

NPR: Author: ‘Rich White Kids’ Get More College Breaks

NPR: GAO: Poor Management Had Role in Boot Camp Deaths

Thinking Girl: bias

Automatic Preference: Round-Up

UBUNTU!: NEW!: “NO!” Study Guide

XicanoPwr: The Latino Challenge to Black America: Q & A With Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton, and Blog Power

“Jim Crow’s Children“
by Charles Modiano
Counterpunch
September 20, 2007″The development of Jena story is only part of a much larger “Cyber Rights Movement” that has been gaining greater ground in America in 2007. Let’s call it “BLOG POWER”! It goes a little something like this: yet another African-American teenager falls victim to Jim Crow-like criminal injustice; the injustice is covered in some local newspaper; national mainstream media completely ignores story; story spreads like wildfire across hundreds of predominantly African-American blogs; national media still ignores it; bloggers still blog; national media keeps ignoring; bloggers keep blogging on irresponsible national media; one national mainstream outlet might pick up story; bloggers keep blogging; other embarrassed national outlets might pick up story; bloggers keep blogging; finally, previously voiceless activists start to receive national media attention; bloggers keep blogging; more well-known activists such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are part of planned widespread national march; bloggers keep blogging; just days prior to the scheduled protest the charges against the young teenager have been reduced or thrown out. While there exist many examples of BLOG POWER, perhaps the greatest two in 2007 involve “The Jena 6″ and Shaquanda Cotton. But before we examine what they represent, some context might be necessary.”

[...]

“This CounterPunch article reports early local grassroots resistance and how the Lafayette public access TV show, “Community Defender,” was the first media outlet from outside Jena’s immediate area to give coverage of the case right after the arrests last December. For the next few months the story was kept alive largely by the efforts of non-corporate alternative media and, mostly, a vast network of predominantly African-American bloggers (called “the Afrosphere” amongst other names). By May you were still more likely to learn about “The Jena Six” living in England than in America. While the BBC posted an article on May 24th and aired a documentary on the case, it wasn’t until July 1 that CNN investigated the story. And it wasn’t until September where most mainstream outlets were domestically and internationally shamed into covering it. In this July 11 post, dna from Too Sense, one of hundreds of bloggers on the case, critiques the initial CNN coverage and the mainstream media’s (non)coverage prior to July.

‘the mainstream media has felt absolutely no obligation to cover the story with appropriate depth. The New York Times has not covered it at all. Neither has the Washington Post, whose vast website carry a single AP article on the subject. MSNBC has twice the AP articles on the subject the post does, which brings the grand total to two, with no original coverage on their website. Fox seems to have found one more AP article than MSNBC, with the extra one titled “White Students Removed Over Nooses,” the poor dears.’”

[...]

“The story — first exposed March 12 by Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune (note: Witt was also reported “Jena 6″ in May)– led to an unprecedented blogging blitz. In a follow-up article, Letter from Cyberspace, Witt explains:

‘every once in a blue moon, you write something that literally explodes across the Internet in ways no one could predict. That has now happened with a story I wrote nearly two weeks ago If you had Googled Shaquanda Cotton, the day before the story was published, you would have gotten zero results. On Friday afternoon, there were more than 21,000 hits. The story has been picked up on more than 200 blogs around the country, many of them concerned with African-American affairs. It has generated thousands of postings to Internet message boards And now the story has jumped across the ethernet into the physical world: Dozens of talk-radio stations across the nation were buzzing about Shaquanda last week, protests on her behalf were held in Paris, a petition- and letter-drive aimed at Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the judge in the case, Chuck Superville, is underway, and civil rights leaders from the NAACP and the ACLU to the Rev. Al Sharpton are weighing whether to get involved. I’ve written thousands of stories for the Tribune over the last 25 years, from around the nation and across the world, and I’ve never seen a reaction like this before.’

Perhaps, Mr. Witt has never seen such a reaction in part because of the relative newness of BLOG POWER. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the Cotton story was the virtual shut-out by the national mainstream media [3]. If you were to do another google search today, Ms. Cotton would receive more than 50,000 entries — almost exclusively from alternative media and bloggers. However, a CNN website search only reveals quality links on cotton bedding. Want a good deal on “400 Thread Count All Cotton Sateen Sheet Sets”? Our national media will be there for you. Want to expose institutional racism within our juvenile justice system? BLOG POWER! In his Cyberspace article Witt would go on to write:

‘But what’s particularly interesting to me has been the vehemence, and what it may tell us about the powerful new Internet communications tools we all now have at our fingertips but don’t yet fully comprehend. I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination. But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation’s schools and courtrooms, what’s clear to me is that there’s a new, “virtual” civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together.’

This powerful observation is one that hundreds of other bloggers have also already made. In this context, it should be noted that reminiscent of this week’s dismissal of Mychal Bell’s charge, Cotton was released exactly one day before Sharpton and others had planned a widespread protest. This suggests that protest marches ain’t dead yet, but have just been heavily augmented as part of a multi-pronged strategy toward achieving justice. A collaboration between new school blogging and old-school marching will allow thousands to “get on the bus” and get over to Jena, Louisiana this Thursday.”

[...]

“One must wonder if without the aid of the internet: would “The Jena 6″ ever made national mainstream news?; would Shaquanda Cotton still be locked up?”

READ MORE

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world

are the ones who do.

Canada Rules

Adbusters is calling for an open media for the people and The Right to Communicate as a new human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

We, the undersigned, are troubled by the way information flows and the way meaning is produced in our society.

We have lost confidence in what we are seeing, hearing and reading: too much infotainment and not enough news; too many outlets telling the same stories; too much commercialism and too much hype. Every day, this commercial information system distorts our view of the world. A handful of corporations now control more than half the information networks in the world.

We imagine a different system a media democracy. We see great promise in the open communications of the internet and want that openness expanded into every form of media.

As a start, we demand the right to buy radio and television airtime under the same rules and conditions as advertising agencies. We ask our media regulators to set aside two minutes of every broadcast hour for citizen produced messages.

What we ultimately seek is a new human right for our information age, one that empowers freedom of speech with the right to access the media. This new human right is: The Right to Communicate.

We hereby launch a movement to enshrine The Right to Communicate in the constitutions of all free nations, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Sign the Media Carta to Reclaim Your Mental Environment (M.E.). Ya gotta love Canada.

Adbusters came about in the tradition of the French Situationist and English punk movements. During the Paris ‘68 student uprisings, Guy Debord (Society of the Spectacle) and Raoul Vaneigem (The Revolution of Everyday Life) created subversive art or detournement (turnabout) in the form of spectacles, images and graffiti like

All power to the imagination.

I take my dreams for reality because I believe in the reality of my dreams.

Be realistic. Demand the impossible!

Beneath the pavement, the beach!

The guarantee we will not die of starvation has been purchased with the guarantee we will die of boredom.

to inspire students and workers. Malcolm McLaren was inspired by Situationism (the theory and practice of constructing situations) in France and formed the Sex Pistols in 1975.

Some current examples of subversive art or creative activism include Code Pink, The Radical Cheerleaders, The Missile Dick Chicks, Adbusters subvertising, Billionaires for Bush, Google bombing and The Kiss Float. I couldn’t get enough of the Kiss Float.

Republicans own imagery. Fox News and the Republican Party are pure performance art.

Carnival of Radical Action IV

The next Carnival of Radical Action will be at Blackamazon’s. She’s been on a roll lately meaning I have five posts to read that I will have to sit down just to read. Then I will have to go away from the computer for a while. Which usually means I will take a long nap. The last one at Nadia’s in mid-July was so frickin’ amazing I haven’t read it yet. Meaning it was so gorgeous and meaningful I will have to sit down and take another long nap. Submissions due 25 August.

THE BACK TO SCHOOL EDITION

Radical Knowledge

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. - Marian Wright Edelman

All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten. - Mark Twain

It’s the end if summer and as we prepare to start a year of ”education” Let us preface it by focusing on knowledge.

Knowledge is the forefront of all great actions, the lack of it, the acquisition of it, the concealment of it.

Radical action is almost always precipitated by a radical shift in the paradigm. How did you find out the strawberries were rotten? How did you find out you didn’t have to accept it. When did you figure out you could change the world? So for this carnival:

Know to do

Know better Do better

What do we need to know for radical action?

Resources

New Actions

New purposes

New places

New projects

What is radical knowledge?

Who has shaped your radical knowledge?

What knowledge makes/made you radical?

Primacy will be placed on NON mainstream voices.

To build a foundation we will start bottom and to the left.

Make back to school something ENTIRELY different this year.

You can submit your blog post here.

A Call For Writers

Sassywho’s friend, Charles Knight, and Kevin Powell (The Real World-New York) are launching the Liberating Masculinities Writers Syndicate this fall which will distribute commentary, reviews and short essays in the blogosphere and print media exploring the rewards for men of breaking out of the confines of conventional masculinity, building new and better relationships with women and other men, and joining in struggle against the structures of domination and violence. Charles writes:

Imagine if thousands, then millions of men joined the struggle against the structures of domination and violence inherent to the social system called patriarchy.

Imagine what could be gained if a strong minority of males fully embraced a common interest with females in liberation. Together they would have the potential to be majority in their communities and to contend for power in the political structure. That which we can hardly hope for today could rapidly become real.

It is now plausible to anticipate a deep alliance between men and women developing within a generation’s time. More males are becoming conscious of the fact that the performance of conventional masculinity does not serve them well; that only a few males take the “lion’s share” of the rewards of patriarchy and leave but scraps for all the rest. They are conscious of and dismayed by the harm conventional masculine behaviors do to women, boys, and girls.

How men and women can effectively organize resistance to the violence of patriarchy will be a central theme of our writing. We will also take time to convey stories of the love and joy available to men who break with patriarchy and commit to relationships of principled mutuality. The writers in this syndicate are themselves inspired by the feminist and GLBT movements and empowered by the realization of new gender expression and identity discovered by many brave women and men, girls and boys.

We recognize that men of differing racial, class, ethnic, and sexual preference experiences will bring unique and important perspectives to the conversation that needs to happen. We will make special effort to reach out to a diversity of writers and insist on respect for differences while learning and making our way into new territory together.

If you are interested, please contact Charles.

I Know Too Many People

This is getting ridiculous.

I’m hard core so I’ve met the most interesting (to me) people in the world. I don’t know the correlation between hard core and interesting, cool people but this has always been my experience. Maybe there’s a correlation between me and interesting and cool. Perish the thought.

I’m visiting my brother in Florida so I picked up the free student paper at the airport. Last week, Howard Dean said the House passed a college affordability act and I found out my friend Gabe (warning: cache with blue) is behind it. I’ve wondered what he’s been up to the last few years since I left Florida.

Gabe is this very driven young Cuban American organizer. He was a physics major so Richard Feynman is one of his inspirations. I remember smoking a hookah, watching a Nova special and looking through his telescope all in one night at his place.

The College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 (H.R. 2669) is the largest single increase in college financial aid since the GI Bill in 1944. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Gabe is behind this. He’s President of the US Students Association, the country’s oldest and largest national student organization. He’s the first Hispanic President of the Washington-based organization.

Lenders are subsidized so much by the government that reducing it by just 2% frees up millions of dollars that pays for Pell Grants and interest rates. Lenders get .97 to every dollar and some get .99. Congress plans to reduce the insurance it pays to lenders on unpaid loans from 97% to 95% which will cut interest rates in half from 6.12 to 3.4 percent, increase Pell Grants from $4,050 to $5,200, increase eligibility by 600,000 more students and increase the auto-zero to $30,000 meaning families making less than that will receive the maximum Pell Grant.

It is expected to pass the Senate in September but Bush wants to veto it. We need 60 Senators to veto-proof it so please contact your Senators.

He advocated for FSU to join the Workers’ Rights Consortium which oversees sweatshop labor in the making of clothing with the school logo. He got everyone but one guy in the school senate to vote to join the Workers’ Rights Consortium. I saw the one guy stand up to advocate in favor of child labor. (”Their families need moooney!”) They occupied the green with a tent city for 142 days so he was on Nightline. FSU was the third top activist campus according to Mother Jones even though it’s one of the biggest football and party schools in the nation. Last I heard the only person left to persuade was the boosters rep on the board of directors which is tough because the school is centered on football. He became school senate president on the conservative, Greek campus.

He helped found the Coalition for Active Voter Education which increased student voting by 97% on the three campuses in town. I was a very active member in most of his organizations. We set up free shuttles on all campuses during early voting and voting and held a lot of education panels. I registered voters for seven different progressive organizations that season: FSU student groups, ACORN, America Coming Together/The League of Pissed-Off Voters, The Tallahassee Voter Participation Program, The Tallahassee Practical Law Enforcement campaign, The League of Women Voters and The League of Conservation Voters; all of whom praised me for my integrity and high validity rates.

We marched on the Capitol to protest the state education budget cuts. He organized the broadest progressive coalition in school history, Fighting for Our Rights Concerning Education, with all the fraternities, sororities and racial advocacy groups marching with us. We chanted education was a right not a privilege.

He was one of eight US students chosen to meet with Yasser Arafat in Palestine to help broker peace in the Mideast.

After the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at a Florida boot camp for juvenile offenders, he organized a two-day sit-in at Jeb Bush’s office and a protest at the Capitol with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and 3,000 students that led to the closure of Florida’s violent boot camp system, the charges and arrests of the boot camp guards, a $13 million increase in early intervention programs and the firing of the state’s top law enforcement officer.

He is a George Soros Justice Fund grantee. Etc. etc.

That’s Gabe Pendas.

And yes, he said I’m cool (to a third party) so I’m interesting and cool.

Can’t Stop The Chicago Pride

Kos is a Chicagoan and I can’t help myself. His speech was very moving. We are all leaders.

This was the best part:

David Brooks in The NY Times wrote in 2005 that thanks to bloggers – those rabid flying venomous sheep - Democrats would be sure to carry just Berkeley for decades to come.

Many Democrats nodded along in agreement.

Did we listen? No.

In 2006, those respectable people said Democrats couldn’t win unless they continued cheerleading that war.

Did we listen? (No)
We weren’t that stupid.

The respectable people said that electing Howard Dean chair of the Democratic Party would doom us to perpetual minority status.

Did we listen? (No)

They said that we had to privatize social security.

Did we listen? (No)

They told us we should fear “San Francisco Liberal” Nancy Pelosi.

Did we listen? (No)

They said there was nothing nefarious about the outing of Valerie Plame.

Did we listen? (No)

They said targeting Joe Lieberman would cost us the Senate.

Did we listen? (No)

No we didn’t listen. Of course not.

And then
in 2006,
we won.

Blogger Oliver Willis recently put it perfectly:

“I used to believe that a lot of these people were just talking over my head, their discourse too lofty for a regular guy like myself. But that isn’t true.

They’re just stupid.”

I’m jealous

YearlyKos is completely sold out (in a good way) and looks like a lot of fun. Everyone including all the Dem candidates will be there. Every candidate shunned the DLC convention in Tennessee. We rule! Turns out it’s not about Kos but the progressive blogosphere. And everyone knows I love the “progressive blogosphere.”

It’s gonna be the biggest political gathering of the year and like Chicago ‘68! Something CRAZY is gonna happen! I want chaos and mayhem! If it spills out to the streets I’ll join in! I love rallies, protests and otherwise large political gatherings. Boots Riley said rallies and protests are like church for radicals.

I don’t exactly have 275 smackeroos lying around. What would I do there anyway? Sit there, agape, thinking, “Hey, there’s so and so.” I just started blogging after all.

I think the era of might is right is over and the era of right is might has begun.

On a different note, I’ve been very depressed lately because the US suffers a depression whenever there’s extremes between rich and poor. But this time, we’ve passed the point of no return and are in permanent decline.

Grassroots activism > Corporate lobbyists

Question at Open Left: What are the obstacles to your legislation and what can be done about it? Do campaign contributions play a role here? Seems like some of your opponents have some juice behind them.

Sen. Durbin: Honestly there’s much more “juice” in grassroots activism than a PAC check. Make sure you and your friends are registered to vote and make your views clear to elected officials.

Kiri Davis Wins

Rack up another win for the women of color blogosphere. Kiri Davis won the CosmoGirl Take Action film contest with her film, A Girl Like Me, after much controversy.

(via Afrobella)

Get Me Up On The Hill

Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein on impeachment:

I go back to the real vulnerability and weakness of Congress, that they don’t have anybody who can, as a chairman or even asking a question like John or me say, “Mr. Attorney General, you answer that question. This is the United States of America. Transparency is the rule here. We don’t have secret government. That’s what Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about in the Gulag. That’s not the United States of America. We pay your salary. We have a right to know ’cause it’s our duty to decide whether what you’re doing is legal and wise, not yours. Answer that question or you’re held in contempt right now.” All you need is that tone of voice. But what happens up there? “Well, would you please answer? Well, are you sure? Could you get John Ashcroft?” It’s just staggering.

All you would need is a lecture like that and they’d answer. They’d be embarrassed. You have to have a certain vision. You have to have a certain depth of conviction about philosophy and what the Constitution means, why those people died. You know the danger of unchecked power ’cause you read history. You’re not a novice. There isn’t anybody in the Congress who’s able to do that because they don’t have that background. But they don’t have that temperament.”