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From the South Bronx – Southern Louisana Rebuilding Healthy People, Healthy Families And Healthy Communities
Enjoy a wonderful spring night roofstop with ……
Film Screening: “When the Levee’s Broke” & “ Jena Six”
Music by DJ SABINE
Performance by Climbing Poetree
Words from the Womyn of Casa Atabex Ache organizing the retreat.
Womyn of COLOR Grassroots Healing Team/ Louisiana Relief Through the People
When the government in place does not respond because I am Black, because I am poor, because I am Brown, because I am an immigrant, because I am a womyn, because I’m Queer, because I am a worker, I do not have to wait. I can create what I have been asking for. Self-Determination begins when people meet their own needs to go beyond survival. Therefore, when the government does not, our needs are not forgotten.
Creating a JUST, Sacred and Sustainable World!
WHAT: A 3day self-healing & organizing retreat that the spirit and soul of organizers & activist in New Orleans .
WHEN: Thursday, MAY 29, 2008
WHERE: Bluestocking ROOFTOP, 85 Stanton Street Apt 6A
TIME: 7-10pm
DONATION: $7-$10
Rain Space: Casa Atabex Ache @ 471 East 140th Street
/ for more info call Karen @ 718-585-5540/Karen
atcasa@aol.com
Never allow anyone to be your priority while allowing
yourself to be their option.
471 East 140th Street Basement LVL
Bronx, NY 10454
718-584-5540
www.casaatabexache.org
Join the Audre Lorde Project for two days of skills-building and political discussions about power, privilege & oppression.
May 3-4, 2008
11:30 AM - 6:00 PM (both days)
lunch at 11:30 AM; snacks throughout the day
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT YOUR REGISTRATION: Friday April 25th, 2008
There are a limited number of slots available.
This training is for: Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color
*examine race, class, gender, police violence, transphobia & homophobia, immigration and health;
*develop creative strategies for fighting oppression;
*learn how to plan campaigns & actions;
*build facilitation and leadership skills; and
*share personal stories and learn about the journeys of others
Build both individual and collective power as a result of our training program!
DARE TO BE POWERFUL!
To sign up for the next training series, email the attached registration form to rmurray(at)alp.org by Friday April 25th, 2008. If your registration is accepted you will receive notification the week prior to the training.
“We are the gentlemen who work in the ocean … since the [Somali] civil war began the ocean has been our Mother.”
These are the words of the anonymous spokesperson of the Ocean Salvation Corps, a group of seafaring Somalians who refuse the label of pirate.
On Feb. 1st, the Gentlemen hijacked the Svitzer Korsakov, a tugboat on its way to break ice at Sakhalin II, a controversial natural gas project off the coast of Russia that threatens, among a great number of species and habitats, the critically endangered Western Pacific Gray Whale. They held the ship until March 18th, whereupon they released the ship and crew unharmed after receiving $700,000 as ransom.
The international media was quick to label the attack as just another strike by profiteering pirates. Since 1991, when a civil war broke out and deposed the totalitarian military rule of General Siad Barre, the 1,880 miles of Somalia’s coast have been considered a haven for piracy. Often, these pirates will claim to have the authority of one or another warlord and will hold foreign ships hostage until ransom is paid.
These men bloodlessly captured the Svitzer Korsakov in the Gulf of Aden and took the six members of its crew—including four Russian nationals, one Irish national and one British national—hostage, but they initially refused to ask ransom, claiming their intention to bring the seized vessels before justice. They had also taken control of an Omani fishing vessel. They explained themselves in an interview with Radio Garowe:
“I have contacted you after hearing reports through international media that pirates hijacked a ship after it left the port of Bossaso,” the anonymous spokesperson said. “The ships we now control have the equipment which destroyed the Indian Ocean.”
The man said that the Svitzer Korsakov was “part of the environmental destruction” and that the Omani fishing vessel had “more than 70,000 tons of fish species onboard.” He went on to say that they promised to safeguard any journalist who would like to confirm their reports first hand.
No reporter did so, of course.
The spokesperson also told the radio station that although “it has been the tradition to take ransom payment, […] we will bring these ships in front of the law.”
The hostages where unharmed during their ordeal.
It is interesting to note that since Somalia’s government has collapsed, small “fiefdom” governments have been selling licenses to allow foreign ships to overfish to a remarkable degree, resulting in further poverty for many Somalians and a increasing environmental disaster in the waters. The Svitzer was not innocent either:
The Svitzer Korsakov is a tug vessel owned by Svitzer, a Danish company. Svitzer’s parent company is Moller-Maersk, a massive energy and shipping corporation based out of Copenhagen. The boat was built in St. Petersburg and was on its maiden voyage to Sakhalin when it was captured. The Russian built, Danish owned, internationally staffed vessel was flying the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a flag of convenience that allows Svitzer to avoid taxation, labor laws and safety regulations.
On Feb. 5th, Omar Shafdero was arrested for his alleged connection to the hijackers. Omar, an employee of the Puntland Ministry of Finance—Puntland being a semi-autonomous region of Somalia—escaped jail a short time later under mysterious circumstances.
NATO was contacted and the US Navy responded. They tracked the hijackers to Eyl, a small coastal town in Puntland. On Feb. 11th, they fired upon a number of local boats under the presumption that they might be aiding the Ocean Preservation Corps. The US Navy also fired three missiles into the town, destroying the airstrip, but no casualties were reported.
On Feb. 13th, a Puntland police force raided the town and exchanged fire with gunmen thought to be re-supplying the hijackers. One police officer was injured and one unarmed civilian was killed.
By the next day, many families evacuated the town, unable to fish for fear of the US Navy, unable to stay on the mainland for fear of further violence.
The Navy continued to blockade the hijackers until March 18th, when a ransom of $700,000 was paid for the Svitzer’s release.
Whether through intention or happenstance (and there seems little reason to doubt their intelligence), the Ocean Salvation Corps struck a very controversial target. Sakhalin Island, the Svitzer Korsakov’s destination, is home to an expansive, expensive and destructive gas and oil project: Sakhalin II.
The existing resource extraction infrastructure on Sakhalin—an island off the coast of Siberia and immediately north of Japan—has already been in the habit of dumping millions of tons of waste into the island’s Aniva Bay. But the new project, estimated to provide 8% of the world’s LNG needs, will be significantly more destructive when fully operational. Over 500 miles of LNG pipeline will be run from one end of the island to the other, crossing through dense coniferous forests and over 1000 waterways. Over 100 miles will be run underwater, impeding on the only known feeding ground of the Western Pacific Gray Whale—of which there are estimated to be less than 100 individuals left. It will also impact at least 10 other endangered species, as well as destroying much of the local fishing and reindeer herding economy.
Also of interest is the area’s high level of tectonic activity, with a Richter 6 quake in 2000 and in 1995 a 7.6 Richter quake killed over 2000 on the island.
Sakhalin II is a project run by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, Ltd., a consortium led by Gazprom, a Russian government owned business. The other leading investors are Shell, Mitsubishi and Mitsui.
Already, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a prospective financer, has withdrawn support after citing the absurd level of ecological devastation that the project will cause. Banks operating under the Equator Principles—a set of guidelines for global development financing—have refused funding as well.
So far, at least three Japanese businesses are set to receive LNG from Sakhalin: Tokyo Gas, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Kyushu Electric Power Company. Korea and the USA are also set to receive LNG from Sakhalin. Russians, however, will be unable to afford the energy, as the prices have been set at the international level, rather than the Russian level.
Fortunately, Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources has put a least a temporary halt on the project, citing incomplete documentation of the environmental impacts.
The oil that spilled into the San Francisco bay was black. We are the black army.
Last night we paintbombed and vandalized a Bank of America in Berkeley. The bank is on Shattuck Avenue near the Berkeley/Albany border. The ATMs and the walls of the entrance were covered with paint and a message was left on one of the walls facing the street: THIS BANK KILLS MOUNTAINS (A).
Bank of America invests in companies which, in order to extract coal from the planet, destroy entire mountains and then dump their remains into the valleys below. this practice, known as mountain top removal, destroys hundreds of ecosystems, rivers and mountains which took thousands of years to form.
And yet Bank of America fully finances documentaries like 'Planet Earth', a spectacle designed to make humans feel sad about the rape and devastation of the planet while simultaneously rendering them completely passive. a screen cannot replace reality. An electronic polar bear is not a polar bear. Bank of America funded this documentary in an attempt to buy a 'green' image. the only reason it funded such an undertaking was to trick the population into thinking they gave a shit about the planet. Let us assure you, they do not.
Bank of America invests in many other things as well, things which we advise you to research. the black army does not wish to do all the work you should be doing.
Many other corporations invest in many other things. for example, VW and McConalds are investors in the 2008 Olympic games...
The oil that flooded the bay was not brought here by us. It was brought here by them. we are merely giving it back to them in a million different ways. The black army has no members. If you wish to join the black army, feel free.
We would like to wish everyone in San Francisco godspeed today.
-the black army
Linda Nguyen , Canwest News Service
A judge in Sydney, N.S., granted bail Sunday for two men arrested Saturday on an anti-sealing vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The two officers of the Dutch-registered vessel, the Farley Mowat, were taken into RCMP custody early Saturday following a confrontation with a coast guard ship on March 30.
The men have been charged with approaching a seal hunt without a permit.
The Farley Mowat closes in on a sealing vessel off the east coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Handout
Captain Alexander Cornelissen and first officer Peter Hammarstedt will be released on $5,000 bail, a spokeswoman with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said Sunday.
“They haven’t been released yet,” Allison Lance said Sunday. “We’re posting bail and they will be released as soon as that happens.”
If convicted, the maximum penalty is six months in jail and a $100,000 fine.
A criminal trial has been set for May 1.
Cornelissen and Hammarstedt were the only two who were criminally charged after armed RCMP officers seized the Farley Mowat, and arrested 17 of its crew members.
Everyone was brought into Sydney late Saturday night.
Lance said six crew members remain in custody by Canada Customs and Immigration because they declined to fill in immigration papers.
“They have refused to sign themselves into Canada,” she said. “They didn’t want to come into Canada. They were brought at gunpoint into Canada.”
The six have been identified as Amber Paarman of South Africa, Dan Villa, Greg Hager and Merilee Nyland of the United States, Anne Fournier of France and Merryn Redenbach of Australia.
The group have gone on hunger strike to protest their situation.
The 11 who have been released, have also staged a hunger strike in front of the jail where their fellow crew members are being detained.
Lance said the seized Farley Mowat is expected to arrive at the Sydney harbour later Sunday.
Canada’s fisheries minister Loyola Hearn defended his decision to raid the anti-sealing ship Saturday, saying that it had taken place in Canadian waters and in accordance with Canadian fisheries legislation.
He said the ship had failed to comply with warnings to proceed immediately to Sydney and continued to violate marine and fisheries regulations.
Canadian authorities allege that the Mowat endangered lives when it came close to a group of sealers on March 30, about 60 kilometres off of Cape Breton.
Nova Scotia sealer Shane Briand said at one point, the Mowat broke the ice up beneath a sealer as he stood on a floe.
Briand said the much larger Mowat harassed his ship and crew until a coast guard icebreaker arrived and put itself between the two ships.
The Fisheries Department says during the incident the icebreaker was “grazed” by the Mowat, while the Sea Shepherd Society says its ship was rammed.
In a news release Sunday, Captain Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said he is worried about images and video that were contained on computers and laptops on the Mowat now under the possession of the Canadian Department of Fisheries.
“It is these images of brutal sadistic slaughter on the ice floes that Canada is desperate to keep hidden,” he said in the statement. “What the Sea Shepherd crew have witnessed over the last two weeks has exposed the lies of Canadian government claims that the seal slaughter is inhumane.”
Watson who was en route to Sydney Sunday, called the arrests “an act of war,” claiming that the vessel had been out of Canadian jurisdiction when it was seized.
See also:
Hysterical Hearn Hatefully Harasses Harp Seal Heroes
Seal Defenders Attacked!
The Farley Mowat Has Been Illegally Stormed and
the Crew Assaulted
JOIN US THURSDAY APRIL 17TH TO RALLY, MARCH & CELEBRATE THE FIGHT FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE!
3:00pm - RALLY at Union Square (wear RED for SOLIDARITY!)
4:00pm - MARCH down Broadway
5-7:30 - Community Celebration in Judson Memorial Church (Share a FREE DINNER - $4.00 Metro Card and CHILDCARE provided!)
This Community Day of Action brings together our community to speak out against all forms of economic oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, trans and gender nonconforming people:
We rally against violence against our communities and within families; We demand accountability from the HRA and city agencies who refuse to follow the law and comply with providing non-discriminatory services for LGBT/GNC folks; Recognition that the fight for state-sanctioned marriage has eclipsed more pressing issues such as homelessness, unemployment, healthcare,immigrant-rights, police brutality; We oppose the effort to gentrify and privatize the public spaces homeless people call home, which leads to the targeting of the poor and homeless by the NYPD; We condemn the racist and xenophobic "immigration debates" in congress and oppose indefinite and mandatory detention of non-citizens.
Join us after the march and rally for a COMMUNITY CELEBRATION in Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South). Come together over dinner with performances, small groups, games (food, Metro Card and childcare provided!).
We have an ever-growing list of endorsers we are very proud to announce including:
-Ali Forney Center
-Audre Lorde Project
-Brecht Forum
-Bronx Community Pride Center
-CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
-Casa Atabex Ache
-CHAMP
-Child Care Collective/Regeneracion
-Coalition for the Homeless
-Domestic Workers United
-Empire State Coalition of Youth and Family Services -FIERCE!
-Generation Q
-Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project
-Irish Queers
-Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
-The LGBT Community Center
-Metropolitan Community Church
-Movement for Justice in el Barrio
-National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce
-NYC Association of Homeless and Street Involved Youth Organizations
-NYC Anti-Violence Project
-Q-Wave
-Sylvia Rivera Law Project
If your organization would like to join the growing list of endorsers or receive more information about endorsing or the action itself please contact Elysa (elysa.fein@gmail.com) or Reg (reginald.gossett@gmail.com) through e-mail or by phone: (212) 564-3608
Check out our facebook page!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14
We would love to have everyone's solidarity and support and see you out there with us on Thursday, April 17th fighting for economic justice within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming communities and economic justice for all!
A benefit for the In Our Hearts Network and the 123 Community Space in Brooklyn.
with:
Broadcast Live (anarchist hip-hop band from Albany)
From the Depths (new ex-Requiem & Catharsis hardcore Crimethinc. band from NC)
Brother Justice (revolutionary MC from the 512 Collective)
Agnostic Prey (post punk: members of Rabia & Oogle Orphanage 1st show)
Whack (energetic anarcho-dance Balkan influenced rhythms)
Show starts at 9pm, doors at 8pm
At John Bosch
744 Willoughby Ave
Brooklyn NY
JMZ or G trains to Myrtle Ave
Please don't bring outside alcohol and absolutely NO GLASS BOTTLES. We will have a bar that serves Liberation Lemonade along with stronger stuff.
$7-20 Donations requested
Don't forget to check out the 2nd annual 2008 NYC Anarchist Film Festival Friday and the Bookfair during the day Saturday.
Upcoming events:
April 15th ABC Political Prisoner Leter Writing Night at 123
April 20th Really Really Free Market at Pratt in Brooklyn followed by Grub a free community dinner
Get involved with In Our Hearts!
Do you have an idea you think we'd be interested in that you'd like help with, or do you want to help out with an existing project? Get in touch and maybe we can support each other. We always need volunteers to help us gather and cook food for Grub community dinners, fund-raise for political prisoners, organizing Really Really Free Markets as well as street actions and helping out at the 123 space.
--
In Our Hearts is a New York City based anarchist network made up of autonomous collectives, projects & individuals who share the goal of building a culture of resistance in the City and beyond.
123 Tompkins Ave., Brooklyn
www.123communityspace.org
www.myspace.com/anewworldinourh
Read Bombs and Shields http://bombsandshields.com/ - Stories of struggle and resistance from around the world, meant to inspire and incite strong hearts.
The Struggle for Quality Public Education: 1968-2008
Stanley Aronowitz, Sally Lee, Edwin Mayorga, Roberta Thomas & Jitu Weusi
1968 REVISITED
Co-sponsors: New York Coalition of Radical Educators & Teachers Unite
In 1968, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn, was the site of an experiment that gave local communities control of their public schools. The controversy sparked from this movement still resonates throughout the city. This panel discussion will explore the political moment that gave rise to the community control experiment and will attempt to compare it to today's context. How are NYC Communities responding to the current mayoral control of our public schools? How do these contrasting forms of school governance impact classroom teaching and learning?
Panelists include: Stanley Aronowitz, author of Education Under Siege: The Conservative, Liberal, and Radical Debate over Schooling; Sally Lee, Teachers Unite; Edwin Mayorga, New York Coalition of Radical Educators; Roberta Thomas, Independent Commission on Public Education (ICOPE) and Jitu Weusi, Teacher in Ocean Hill Brownsville.
The Brecht Forum451 West Street
(Between Bank and Bethune off of the West Side Highway)
212-242-4201
www.brechtforum.org
Thursday, April 10
7:30 pm
Sliding scale: $6/$10/$15
Free for Brecht Forum Subscribers
On Sunday morning the intersection of North 9th Avenue and 6th Street was witness to the unusual sight of approximately 30 volunteer workers digging holes, planting plants, and installing park benches on some vacant ground just north of downtown.
Consisting of a variety of concerned people, including neighborhood residents, staff of nearby businesses and non-profits, and visiting youth, the group spent most of the day building what a new sign announces to be the “Ramona-Magon Memorial Garden and Autonomous Community Park.” Created without city involvement, the new garden is meant, according to one participant, to be a protest and obstacle to the city’s proposed, and highly controversial, Downtown Links project.
Downtown Links is the latest plan to connect the Barraza-Aviation Parkway to Interstate 10, a highly contested and ever-changing scheme that has been in progress for decades. The project would include a 4-lane, high-traffic road, and the newest alignment for the road would call for it cutting right through the vacant land where the new garden is now installed. Neighborhood stakeholders are upset because this road would evict several local organizations and businesses, including BICAS (the nonprofit bicycle education organization), in addition to cutting off and isolating the Dunbar-Spring neighborhood from downtown.
Discussion and argument continue between planners, officials, and stakeholders. One Dunbar-Spring resident stated after a March 11 meeting on the issue “The way this process is happening is totally disrespectful of downtown residents and this might mean we need to make more noise…. The City Council is making the decision. They need to hear from us… how many neighborhoods, businesses, and individuals are against the new alignment and the process that created it.
Meanwhile, the volunteer gardeners plan to return to the site regularly to add to and maintain the plants, and they strongly encourage community use of and involvement in the garden.
By Darryl McMiller April 1, 2008 http://www.racialdiscoursect
I am a strong advocate of speaking the truth about race. But the reality is that most Black people - including me - don't really say what’s on their mind. This reality is the source of my own rage that Obama talked about in his speech on race at Constitution Center in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . Ellis Cose described what I feel and countless other middle class Black people in the introduction of his book, The Rage of a Privileged Class:
“Despite its very evident prosperity, much of America ’s black middle class is in excruciating pain. And that distress – although most of the country does not see it – illuminates a serious American problem: the problem of the broken covenant, of the pact ensuring that if you work hard, get a good education, and play by the rules, you will be allowed to advance and achieve to the limits of your ability.”
“Again and again, as I spoke with people who have every accouterment of success, I heard the same plaintive declaration – always followed by various versions of an unchanging and urgently put question. “I have done everything I was supposed to do. I have stayed out of trouble with the law, gone to the right schools, and worked myself nearly to death. What more do they want? Why in God’s name won’t they accept me as a full human being? Why am I pigeonholed in a ‘black job’? Why am I constantly treated as if I were a drug addict, a thief, or a thug? Why am I still not allowed to aspire to the same things every white person in America takes as a birthright? Why, when I most want to be seen, am I suddenly rendered invisible?”
The Black church (and other indigenous Black institutions, such as fraternities and sororities, Masonic organizations, and so on) is the only place that Black people can talk about the sources of their rage, take some of the edge off of it, and find a reason to get up Monday morning and go back to work and play “the game.”
Understand this: the Black Church is led by Black people and is financed by Black people. As a result, it is the only institution where Black people, like Barak Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, can speak the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
So, what is the game that Black people must play? I say must, because it is a game that every Black person who works in a predominately White environment learns to play if he or she plans to survive. It’s the “Accommodation Game.”
It is not a new game. Black people have been accommodating White people since we were first brought to these shores as slaves. We’ve been arguing amongst ourselves about the game for years. W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington argued about the game. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X argued about the game.
The question that Black people face is not whether to accommodate White people. Most Black people accepted a long time ago that they will have to play by the rules of the game.
The question Black people ask themselves is not if, but how much, do I accommodate White people.
The game asks every black person to surrender a piece of his or her humanity to get along. We make the accommodations to keep our jobs. We make the accommodations so that we can hold on to our homes. We make the accommodations so that our kids will have access to quality schools. We hope and pray that they will not have to play the game.
My problem with Obama is that I believe that he is willing to accommodate white people far more than I am willing to. Moreover, I fear that the accommodations that he is wiling to make will do more harm to Blacks’ continuing struggle for social, political and economic justice than he is willing (or able) to acknowledge.
Nearly everyone who has heard me criticize Obama for not taking a stronger stand on racial and ethnic issues tell me that he can’t take those stands; if he does, they remind me, he will not win the White House.
I believe very strongly that some Black people can’t afford the accommodations that Obama is willing to make to win the Presidency.
According to a March 24, 2008 article in the Washington Post, “The average black person in America is 447 percent more likely to be imprisoned than the average white person, and 521 percent more likely to be murdered. Blacks earn 60 cents to the dollar compared with whites who have the same education levels and marital status. The black poverty rate is nearly twice the white poverty rate. Blacks tend to die five years earlier than whites; the infant mortality rate among black babies is nearly 1 ½ times the rate among white babies. And because of long-standing patterns of inheritance, blacks and whites begin life with substantial disparities in family wealth.”
Given that most White people do not believe that they have a racist bone in their body, that racism is a thing of the past, that the average Black person is doing just as well as the average White person, and that Black poverty is the result of Black irresponsibility, not endemic racism, anyone, such as Rev. Wright, who talks about the stark realities of racial inequality runs the risk of being condemned (as Obama said of his pastor) as someone who sees race through a pre-civil rights lens, or, at worst, portrayed as a racial huckster (as much of the media establishment said of the pastor).
Rather than condemn or caricaturize Rev. Wright, let’s do something about the endemic racism that fuels his and my rage.
Kristen Thompson, April 3, 2008
Patrick Barker, 56, who is homeless, is breathing with lungs that function at 20 percent, but his name won’t go onto the B.C. transplant list until he has a home address.
His monthly $900 disability cheque isn’t enough to put a roof over his head.
“[B.C. Transplant) wants someone that wants to live ... somebody that's going to make use of [the lungs],” he said….
“I’ll admit, I feel kind of lost right now with no place to live. I’ve got a 20-year-old son. My parents still love me….There’s a little bit of pride involved there. Do I want to go beg hat-in-hand to my son? My parents are in their 80s. They’re not really in a position to look after me.”
….Allison Brown, a spokesperson for the B.C. Transplant Society, said patients need a support network and a healthy place to recover post-surgery.
“We have to make sure those organs don’t reject and make the best out of a very limited resource.”
By Richard Watson, BBC Newsnight, http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Counter terrorism police have won the right to force the author of a new book about terrorism to hand over his research.
The book is about Hassan Butt, a British citizen who admits that he acted as a recruiting agent for al-Qaeda and raised tens of thousands of pounds for terror networks.
He says he left his network after the London bombings in 2005 and is now is turning extremists away from terrorism.
Hassan Butt's co-author, an independent journalist, has been ordered to deliver draft manuscripts and notes for the book to the Greater Manchester Police.
By his own admission, Hassan Butt has been a terrorist supporter.
In an exclusive interview with BBC Newsnight, he described how he helped hundreds of British recruits get weapons training in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001.
His network was offering young British Muslims the chance to fight with the Taleban against American and British forces.
"We had built links with organisations to get trained, we had built links with organisations which could get people across the border safely and securely," he told the BBC.
He said that his network helped more than 600 British Muslim extremists get terrorist training abroad.
One such jihadi was Mohammed Siddique Khan, who led the London bombers in the attacks on 7 July 2005.
After the fall of the Taleban in late 2001, he stayed in Pakistan, making contact with Al Qaeda.
"I got involved in terrorism - I guess that's the right word to use quite frankly. As a result of it I had to leave - my name was popping up in intelligence agencies," he explained.
He fled back to his home city of Manchester where he continued to recruit for the jihadi network.
He also became an expert fundraiser, collecting between £8,000 and £9,000 a month which he would send to Pakistan via a secret underground banking system known as "hawallah".
Hawallah banking works by word of mouth; there are no receipts and no records of transactions.
"Initial fund-raising would be door to door collection, outside mosques, fund raising events. But as my reputation grew I could approach richer people and businessmen."
He said "everyone knew" what the money was for.
Hassan Butt's extreme views were being fuelled by preachers like Abu Qatada who is accused of being Al Qaeda's spiritual leader in Europe.
Abu Qatada taught that the world was divided into two halves - the righteous land of Islam and the land of unbelief or war where killing civilians was "justified".
Hassan Butt used to think that Britain was within the land of war but when he began working with teenagers in Manchester he began to question this assumption.
"I started realising it's not as black and white - how could I justify killing these people because these people are living amongst us," he says.
But he told Newsnight that it was the attacks of 7 July on London which finally changed his mind.
"I realised that the jihadi network was not killing for the sake of Islam, it was killing for the sake of causing terror and causing havoc."
He says he stopped raising funds after 7/7 and as a consequence his terrorist leaders in the middle east demanded he travel to Dubai for a meeting.
He thought they were going to reassure him about his theological concerns, but instead they told him he needed "reprogramming" in Iraq where he would be expected to join the insurgency.
Realising that would be a one-way ticket, he travelled back to the UK. He says this point, in January 2006, was when he finally left the jihadi network behind.
Since then he has been working with some of his original recruits to turn them away from terror. His message now is very different: "Muslims are living in this country and accepted¿ they're equal citizens of the same state.
"We're born, raised and are planning to die in this country, so how can this country be a land of war?"
Last July, the Home Office invited him to discuss his ideas about tackling radicalisation with Home Office minister Tony McNulty. Yet at the same time Greater Manchester Police were investigating him as a terrorist suspect.
Hassan Butt says the continued police investigation is threatening is de-radicalisation work.
He says he has offered to speak to the police and will not deny his past.
"I'm more than happy to cooperate. If they want to charge me for things I've done in the past then say that."
The police investigation into Hassan Butt's past presents a dilemma for the authorities.
Should extremists be prosecuted for their alleged crimes of the past? Or should the government and the police work with them in the hope they will persuade other extremists to reform?
The Second Annual NYC Anarchist Bookfair (2008) will host a one-day exposition of books, zines, pamphlets, art, film/video, and other cultural and very political productions of the anarchist scene worldwide, on Saturday, April 12, 2008 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. It will feature over 40 tables as well as an art gallery. Panels, presentations, workshops, and skill shares will provide further opportunities to learn more and share your own experience and creativity on Sunday, April 13th, 2008.
PRESENTATIONS, PANELS, WORKSHOPS, and SKILLSHARES SCHEDULE
CR: Conference Room downstairs from the Judson Church Offices; enter at 239 Thompson Street.
GYM: Downstairs at Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South.
NYU*: NYU Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South, 9th floor.
TL*: The Tamiment Library at NYU, 70 Washington Square South, 10th Floor.
* These will be in NYU buildings along side Judson Memorial Church and you will NEED AN ID TO ENTER
SATURDAY, APRIL 12th
11:15AM-12:30PM
Democracy and Freedom in Education (GYM)
A presentation on democratic education, how it empowers students and teachers to be free to themselves, and to take control over their own education and community.
Alan P. Berger is the Founder and Director of Brooklyn Free School Founded BFS four years ago with a group of parents, mostly from the Park Slope Food Coop, and educational activists, after working in the NYC DOE for seven years as a high school teacher and assistant principal.
Tearing Down the Walls: A No Borders Camp Reportback (CR)
This will be a report-back that will cover: (1) the concept and history of No Borders Camps; (2) what went down at the No Borders Camp in November of 2007, the first in the Americas and the first to take place on both sides of an international border; and (3) how in our North American context, the No Borders Camp presents another approach to organizing across significant boundaries of privilege and oppression. Though it occurred far from NYC and in a very different context, the questions folks tangled with at the No Borders Camp are relevant for radicals across the continent. Participants organized against the U.S. border regime in direct collaboration with those on the other side of the guns; they maintained accountability and built relationships between far-flung groups, separated by geography and vastly different experiences of privilege/oppression; and they did it all in a purposeful, anti-authoritarian manner. The successes and lessons of the 2007 No Borders Camp would be relevant to anyone hoping to organize across lines of color, class or gender in New York.
Elliott Liu is a Michigan-born anarchist now living in New York City. He works with the Anarchist People of Color network (APOC), the New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists (NYMAA), and the Regeneracion childcare collective.
The Importance of Community Needs Assessment in Activist Work (TL)
Community needs assessments are powerful and useful tools for first identifying the requirements and desires of a population, and then tailoring efforts to best meet those needs, while continually collaborating with the invested parties. Whether you are inside, outside, or somewhere in between the communities you're organizing with, we hope this discussion will illuminate ways to be a more effective activist and respond to broader needs. Anarchists frequently work with groups they may not be members of, (i.e. communities of color, impoverished populations) and it is vital that anarchists continually involve members from these groups all along the way. This workshop will provide theory and strategy for community needs assessments, including identifying the situation / problem / desired outcome, creating community-generated strategies, where members feel personally invested, and working together and collaborating to improve situations for all, while constantly evaluating if it works and relates to the group it is meant to assist.
Heather McCann is a reference librarian in the Boston area and a constant event planner. As a person who frequently works with users outside her demographic, she understands firsthand the importance of determining a person's needs and how to meet those needs with them rather than for them.
Lana Thelen works as an outreach librarian in Boston and is also a volunteer reference librarian for Radical Reference. She has experience with community needs assessments both professionally and personally and believes they are an effective tool for participating in productive activist endeavors.
1:00PM-2:15PM
An Introduction to Anarchism (GYM)
This "intro to anarchism" panel is to present two or three perspectives on what we each think anarchism is, at heart, as both a political philosophy/theory and praxis. This would give folks a wider range of notions about anarchism then simply one person presenting alone.
Cindy is a co-organizer of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and a collective member of both Free Society and Black Sheep Books in Montpelier, Vermont. She also taught at the "anarchist summer school" called the Institute for Social Ecology. Her essays appear in several anthologies, including "Realizing the Impossible: Art against Authority" and "Globalize Liberation," and she does community organizing at home and public speaking/popular education anywhere else.
Ariel is helping to organize the New York City Anarchist Bookfair, and the Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory and Research and Development (BASTARD) anarchist theory conference, and taught classes in Girl Army (women's self-defense) as well as firearm practice and safety. She has been a member of Anarchist People of Color, and contemplates the possibility of anarchist economics.
Radical Homosexual Agenda Presentation (CR)
Whether we are fighting in the streets against the NYPD or at City Hall directly confronting the Speaker of the City Council we have developed a set of tools and strategies that would prove useful to any activist engaged in a struggle to take back power from the brokers of the state. This will also have a short video.
The RHA (Radical Homosexual Agenda) believes that queer liberation extends beyond the state's recognition of our right to marry, serve in the military and be protected by the police. The state may advocate for queers or demonize queers but either way it seeks to use us as political capital. As activists we fight to take back our consent from LGBT dealmakers who would sell it to the police, the politicians and the corporations.
Is Your Computer Safe? (TL)
A presentation on basic computer and internet security issues, including PGP e-mail encryption, spyware, and internet communities.
Steve Weierman is a software engineer, Marxist-Humanist, and vegan animal rights activist. He holds a M.Sci. in Computer Science and is a moderator on a popular vegan/AR forum.
2:30PM-3:45PM
Anarchism Is The Only Hope: Lessons from the Durriti Column of The Spanish Civil War (GYM)
'Anarchism is the only hope that the working class have to improve their life and stop the exploitation. We, the Anarchists, follow this Bakinin statement : "The power pervert the man!" During the Spanish Civil War I witnessed how well organized the Anarchist Unions (Sindicados) were in Catalunya and Aragon. It's not a myth anymore. I am in close contact with the Spanish "companeros" and I see how the working class is protected against the exploitation. We need to restore the workers pride and dignity, they should join us, the Anarchists, because the capitalists will never give them a chance to improve their lives; on the contrary, they use the cheaper workers overseas. We the Anarchists are the only hope of the proletariat and day by day we are growing and become important in our class struggle.'
George Sossenko is an 88-year old veteran of the Spanish Civil War. At the age of 16, he left his home in France to fight against Franco's fascists with the anarchists of the Durruti column. A dedicated, life-long anarchist, George is still an active organizer as he travels and gives lectures on this important period in revolutionary history.
Presentation on Christiania (CR)
This presentation will be describing the largest European squatter's village, that of Christiania in the heart of Copenhagen : Established in 1971, with on average a thousand inhabitants, it is now under severe threat, following the eviction of the second largest squat in Copenhagen (Ungdomshuset) at the hand of Denmark's equivalent of the SWAT team. Christiania, even under heavy pressure from Danish authorities still manages, thirty years after its start, to live without a hierarchy !
Jean-Manuel Traimond, a writer and museum lecturer, lived four years 1980-1984 in Christiania, and later wrote a book about it, currently the only one in print in French. He has published six books with the Atelier de Creation Libertaire, two of them translated in Italian by Eleuthera, and has also translated Paul Goodman and Colin Ward into French. He was a member of Refractions, and, under the name Nestor Potkine, is a regular contributor to the Monde Libertaire.
4:00PM-5:15PM
Parecon and Anarchism: A Dialogue (GYM)
Could a new society be set up after capitalism, one which relies neither on the market nor on the state--a society based on directly democratic workplace and community councils? One such program has been called Parecon (from Participatory Economics), as developed by Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel, and others. These ideas have been critiqued by concepts from the tradition of revolutionary anarchist-communism. A dialogue will be held by representatives of each point of view, with discussion with attendees.
Wayne Price is a long time militant in labor, human rights, and antiwar struggles. A member of NEFAC (Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists), he writes regularly for www.Anarkismo.net and has a book, The Abolition of the State; Anarchist & Marxist Perspectives (www.AuthorHouse.com).
Chris Spannos, one of the staff and editors at Znet, has edited a book, Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century-- which is being published by AK Press.
Anti-Authoritarian Mutual Aid and Radical Social Work: From Direct Action to Direct Services (CR)
This session will begin with a theoretical panel addressing both challenges and possibilities of anti-authoritarian models of service provision, support services, and mutual aid. Panelists will explore historic examples, best practices, hopes and obstacles in providing services outside of traditional models which perpetuate social inequalities, oppression and stigma. Case examples on free clinics and harm reduction/syringe exchange programs will be help illustrate different paradigms and their inherent challenges. Panelists will explore alternate notions of health, care, and freedom.
Alana has been practicing yoga since 1995 and was certified as a hatha yoga teacher by the Integral Yoga Institute in 2003. She has experience instructing kids and adults and has worked with both currently and formerly incarcerated men and women. Alana first got active in anarchist politics in 2002 and has been affiliated with Anti-Racist Action, Critical Resistance and Anarchist People of Color (APOC) as well various small collectives. She is currently a member of the New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists (NYMAA) in which she participates in a number of small working groups. She is a member of the Rock-Dove Collective which seeks to connect people radical healthcare providers. Alana believes that in order to fight for and ultimately create a truly fair and free world, you must simultaneously maintain a healthy mind, body and spirit.
Benjamin Shepard, PhD Assistant Professor, City Tech/ City University of New York Department of Human Services. Shepard is the author/editor of five books including the upcoming edition, Queer Politics and Political Performance (Routledge, upcoming). A long time activist, he currently works with Times Up New York as well as the Radical Homosexual Agenda.
Crystal DeBoise, MSW co-founded and developed a comprehensive care and advocacy program for immigrant survivors of extreme labor abuse that has been in existence since 2003. She has worked extensively with survivors of interpersonal trauma and gender-related violence. She strongly believes in the political power of personal transformation and is an amature primatologist in her free time.
Eric Laursen (moderator) is a long time activist and author living in New York City.
Jamie Favaro, LMSW, executive director and founder, Washington Heights Corner Project. The Washington Heights CORNER Project was founded in November 2005 as a volunteer endeavor rooted in harm reduction and aimed towards eliminating the high-risk practices of the Washington Heights drug using community. We seek to accomplish this objective by addressing the lack of syringe access and harm reduction resources in a neighborhood that is 20% higher than New York City as a whole in terms of high-risk sexual and IDU practices.
A native New Yorker, Maryse Mitchell-Brody is a founding member of SWANK (Sex Workers Action New yorK) and is active in various struggles for sex workers rights and wellness. A community organizer since childhood, she is currently pursuing her MSW in that method, and spends a lot of time reflecting on self-determination, mutual aid, and harm reduction. She has also worked with The Icarus Project and the Rock Dove Collective. Maryse believes that in this crazy-making world, well-being is a revolutionary act.
5:30PM-6:45PM
On Being a Girl in an Activist Boys' Club (GYM)
We would like to examine the female activist experience of organizing in predominantly male groups. We will be looking critically at the idea of machoism as radicalism. If we are building an alternative society, why are the character traits that are valued in capitalism (i.e. aggression, forcefulness, unwillingness to compromise) simultaneously valued in radical politics? Why do activists perpetuate unhealthy capitalist lifestyles that emphasize working one's self to death and never pausing for self-reflection? Are women socialized to be more self-reflective than men? If women gain authority from personal experiences and men gain authority from being able to quote theory and history, do activist men have a framework for hearing activist women? Both the right and the left use 'women's issues' as a political pawn that can be held in reserve and traded in when it is politically convenient, but are activist men actually concerned with the issues facing women in our society? What is 'women's work' within activist groups? How is women's organizing and activism undervalued, disrespected, and ignored? Why do women end up feeling marginalized, silenced, and excluded? What tools are used to exclude women from decision making and leadership (i.e. 'security') and how can we safeguard against them? What barriers exist within activist circles that prevent women from realizing their power? How do we actively prevent women activists from feeling devalued and dropping out?
How do we deal with sexism in radical organizations? When issues arise with an individual activist, should we ostracize him from the community? Should we engage with him and try to work with him to make him a healthier part of our community? What are the implications of these options? On a macro level, should women who are organizing in patriarchal groups secede or separate from the unhealthy dynamic and create women's only groups? Or should we stay involved with dysfunctional organizations in the hopes of affecting change?
Let's share our collective wisdom and experience: What are some concrete survival strategies for being a girl in an activist boys' club?
Amye will be moderating the discussion "On being a girl in an anarchist boys club". She hopes for a better future.
Colia Clark is a life long activist who has experience in many different movements and struggles.
Diane Krauthamer is a New York City-based independent filmmaker and journalist, and a dedicated member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Northeast Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC). Following her seven years of experience with Indymedia, she became involved in media and press work with the IWW. In 2007, Diane toured parts of the U.S., Canada and Western Europe with presentations of her short film on the Starbucks Workers Union, titled "Together We Win: The Fight to Organize Starbucks." She also spends time writing news stories and press materials for the IWW Industrial Union 460 campaign, which organizers food retail warehouse workers in Brooklyn and Queens. As a member of NEFAC, she connects local labor struggles with a class struggle analysis while developing feminist ties in fighting patriarchy on all fronts. Along with her solidarity work in the food service and retail industry, she works as a waitress and is pursuing her Master's degree in Media Studies at the New School. She can be contacted at diane@indymedia.org.
Johannah is a long-time NYC based activist who identifies as an anarcha-feminist. Besides helping to organize this year's Anarchist Bookfair she is mainly involved in labor organizing and working with homeless youth.
Naomi Jaffe is an unreconstructed sixties radical and feminist. She has demonstrated against every imperialist war since Vietnam, was a WITCH (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) in the sixties and a member of the Weather Underground in the seventies, and today continues to act, write, and teach against racism, imperialism, sexism, and homophobia.
Building a Movement Against Capitalism through Thinking of Its Alternatives (CR)
Radicals, including anarchists and Marxists, have put forward conceptions of a different kind of society for which they struggled. Many used to think, wrongly, that the very existence of the Soviet Union or Maoist China or Cuba, whatever you thought of them as societies, was proof that another kind of society was possible and not simply utopian. But with the collapse of the USSR and the marketization of China and Cuba, the idea of a viable alternative to capitalism fell on hard times. Recent movements against capitalism and neoliberal globalization have put the idea of concrete alternatives to capitalism back on the table for discussion. We propose to discuss the possibilities for alternatives to capitalism and some of the theory behind them. This could be seen as a good way of bridging the anarchist/Marxist divide, since everyone is for a new society. And since everyone is for a new society, perhaps differing only over the means to this end, we think a panel discussion on what exactly is the end goal serves as a way of clarifying the means to achieving that goal.
Steve Weierman
Joshua Howard helped found The New SPACE (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education) and studies sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Seth Weiss helped found The New SPACE (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education) and was formerly involved in May Day Books and Blackout Books.
other presenters TBA (note: we are seeking gender balance but have not confirmed some speakers)
SUNDAY, APRIL 13th
10:00AM-12:00PM
Anarchy in the USA: The Love-Hate Relationship with Presidential Elections (CR)
Nearly as early as Hillary or Obama, anarchists were hot on the campaign trail. Plans to resist the 2008 U.S. presidential elections and especially the conventions were afoot in 2006. The German Jewish anarchist Gustav Landauer once observed in relation to "anarchist assassination politics" that they "proceed from the intentions of a small group . . . following the example of the big political parties. . . . What they are trying to say is: 'We are also political.' ... [Yet] these anarchists are not anarchic enough." His comments apply to electoralism too: being political is the right impulse, but the tactic(s) and indeed the focus are wrong. Certainly, in the United States, presidential elections represent rare instances when many people "participate." But why the anarchist fascination with something that's far from anything we'd recognize as politics? And why, if and when we choose to engage, do anarchists frequently use strategies that mirror statist and/or liberal forms, or are simply unimaginative? Perhaps, in zeroing in on presidential elections, we aren't anarchic enough either. Or conversely, perhaps this electoral moment does indeed offer us a way to spotlight the best of anarchism as a replacement for statecraft.
Cindy is a co-organizer of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and a collective member of both Free Society and Black Sheep Books in Montpelier, Vermont. She also taught at the "anarchist summer school" called the Institute for Social Ecology. Her essays appear in several anthologies, including "Realizing the Impossible: Art against Authority" and "Globalize Liberation," and she does community organizing at home and public speaking/popular education anywhere else.
12:00PM-2:00PM
Feel the Burn: Conflict Transformation and Healing in the Movement (CR)
Conflict arises. It can hurts us, can damage our ties with friends, family, and comrades, and can hinder or even destroy our movements. Conflict can also be the source of strength, strategy, truth, collective power, and freedom. This workshop will focus on the importance of addressing conflict within radical and revolutionary movements, and will offer some tools, experiences, ideas, and practices for conflict transformation.
Danielle's current work is in participatory justice in cases of violence and alternatives to incarceration. She has engaged in anti-violent, empowerment-based programs with 'at-risk' youth since she was one herself. Danielle has taught creative writing and conflict transformation in prisons and jails in Chicago and Georgia, worked with young folks caught up in the system in Harlem, trained in a variety of conflict resolution and transformation techniques, and has done extensive gang intervention work in her communities. She is a member of the Rock Dove Collective and the Watershed Center.
Ashanti Alston is an anarchist activist, speaker, and writer. A former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, he spent more than a decade in prison after government forces captured him (and the official court system convicted him) of armed robbery. Ashanti is currently co-chair of the National Jericho Movement (to free U.S. political prisoners), a member of pro-Zapatista people-of-color U.S.-based Estacion Libreand Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and is part of the Speakers Bureau of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.
2:00PM-4:00PM
The Intersection of Social Movements and Anarchism (GYM)
The question of how anarchists should relate to different social movements has always been at the forefront of anarchist thought and action. We know that social movements, in many forms, are vital to revolutionary change in a period of crisis, but we also know that social movements are complex and not always inherently anti-authoritarian or non-hierarchical. Furthermore, while such movements are gaining momentum they are vulnerable to authoritarian vanguard minorities, the opportunism of liberal politicians, the brute force of the state, and a variety of other factors. What are some current global social movements that are complementary to anarchism? How can we prefigure anarchist politics in current and future social movements? What are some tactics that we can use to preempt and combat these historical patterns? What are ways that we can strengthen or inoculate social movements to these dangers and preserve their autonomy?
This panel will start off with presenters highlighting social movements from around the world and their relation to anarchism. This will then develop into a discussion of how anarchists should/do work within these movements.
Joaquin Cienfuegos is a member of Cop Watch LA (Guerrilla Chapter) and the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities. He is a 25 year old Indigenous-Chicano male from South Central Los Angeles. Joaquin helped create the Southern California Anarchist Federation – Los Angeles Chapter. Along with other participants of the federation and a coalition called Stop Terrorism and Oppression by the Police, he helped build Cop Watch LA. Joaquin, along with the working class youth of color involved in these groups, helped form the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities, a revolutionary federation of community councils helping build a grassroots popular movement, with autonomy, self-determination, self-organization, and an infrastructure for the self-defense of oppressed people and oppressed communities.
Arya is a member of the Iran Solidarity Group and the Antithesis Collective (NEFAC-NYC). He is currently a graduate student in political science at the New School for Social Research.
Anarchism and Palestine (CR)
This presentation will include how Anarchists are currently working in Palestine (for example, Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall), ideological framework for how and why Anarchists could be involved in supporting the Palestinian struggle (which many see as a purely nationalist struggle), and an analysis of the current political climate in Palestine, from an Anarchist perspective.
Bekah Bloom is from NYC, lives in a Palestinian village and has been working in Palestine for the last 4 years. She is a co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, a non-hierarchical, politically unaffiliated (meaning not affiliated with any political party) Palestinian project that works with internationals and Palestinians to confront the Israeli Occupation using proactive Direct Action. When living in New York she was pretty active in the Anarchist community as a member of the People's Law Collective and other projects.
'Know Your Rights and Their Wrongs: How the Legal Community has Your Back' (NYU)
Activists are often familiar with the usual Know Your Rights trainings. So what happens when government repression changes? Is it enough to simply "know your rights? This workshop will provide presentation on recent repressive government tactics using examples such as the Green Scare and the San Francisco 8. The purpose of this training will be to provide attendees a foundation of KYR material and connect this material to more situations than street and protest rights. Expect more than the typical 5th amendment stuff.
Grainne O'Neill lives in New Orleans and works at the public defenders office, The Iron Rail and New Orleans Indymedia. She recently graduated from Columbia Law School, where she was active with the National Lawyers Guild, and was instrumental in starting the Green Scare Hotline. Prior to attending law school she co-founded Jane Doe Books - an anarchafeminist infoshop in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Kamau Karl Franklin is the Racial Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. He handles a wide variety of cases including criminal, civil and human rights issues. Kamau is the former Legal Program Director of New York City PoliceWatch, a sister project of the San Francisco based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. As part of his work with MXGM, Kamau has worked on works on various issues of concern to the black community including the issue of political prisoners/exiles of the Black Liberation Struggle, a "Cop Watch" program to train community members to use video cameras to monitor local police conduct, in Brooklyn, New York.
Bob Boyle is a member of the Executive Committee of the NLG-NYC and criminal defense attorney specializing in post-conviction and government misconduct litigation. He is the former staff attorney of the NLG's Grand Jury Project, Inc. Bob has represented numerous activists including Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former leader of the Black Panther Party and target of COINTELPRO who won new trial after 19 years, Osama Awadallah, arrested as a material witness after September 11, 2001. He is currently representing Mohammed Al-Moayad, a Yemeni national lured to Germany in an FBI sting operation and is acting as a consulting attorney on the San Francisco 8 case.
Beth Baltimore is a third year law student at Brooklyn Law School and a member of the National Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter Executive Committee. She worked with Grainne to develop and implement the Green Scare Hotline that is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to assist individuals arrested or subpoenaed for offenses related to environmental or animal activism. It can be reached at 888-NLG-ECOLAW.
JustUs NYC Legal Collective formed in late 2006 to fill a growing need for a grassroots legal support organization. Over the past year, JustUs has worked to write, produce, and distribute Know Your Rights materials for both activists and non-activists. Their materials provide resources to local communities and introduce community members to navigating the legal system.
4:00PM-6:00PM
Safety and Accountability in Activist Spaces (GYM)
As much as we don't like to talk about it, violence happens within radical communities. While violence takes on many forms, all of which deserve to be examined, this panel will specifically seek to address violence perpetrated by men against women outside of intimate relationships. How do we deal with assault, sexual assault and sexual harassment in our communities? If activist spaces are supposed to be healthier and safer alternatives to the world at large, how do we handle situations that violate a person's safety?
This panel would like to address the needs and concerns of all activist women regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, class, biology, ability level, age, education, or any other category that divides us. We seek to address our shared experiences of oppression as women, without ignoring the fact that 'women' are not a homogenous group and do not experience privilege or oppression uniformly. We also hope to draw from the strengths and wisdom of our different communities and learn how women who are different from each other are addressing these same issues.
Andrea is a member of the NYC chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.
Danielle's current work is in participatory justice in cases of violence and alternatives to incarceration. She has engaged in anti-violent, empowerment-based programs with 'at-risk' youth since she was one herself. Danielle has taught creative writing and conflict transformation in prisons and jails in Chicago and Georgia, worked with young folks caught up in the system in Harlem, trained in a variety of conflict resolution and transformation techniques, and has done extensive gang intervention work in her communities. She is a member of the Rock Dove Collective and the Watershed Center.
Emi is a member of the NYC chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.
The Cooptation of Radical Movements (CR)
More Information coming soon...
Political Prisoner Support in the Anarchist Movement with NYC Anarchist Black Cross Federation (NYU)
"any movement that does not support their political internees ... is a sham movement." These are the words of Anarchist and Black Liberation Movement Prisoner of War Ojore Lutalo. Belief and action on behalf of the ideals of revolutionary social justice and in some cases, anarchism, has been cause for many of our comrades and elders to be put behind bars. This workshop will address why the movement for greater participation, visibility, and ultimately, freedom for our prisoners is essential to anarchist praxis and what we can all do to make this endeavor more effective.
Brendan Story, Janine Green, Dave Solidarity are representing New York City Anarchist Black Cross, a Political Prisoner support group based in Brooklyn. Prior to its formation, we have had backgrounds in prisoner support in addition to IWW/class struggle organizing, community organizing, eco-struggles and vegan outreach, radical-acceptance feminism, to anti-racist activity. We currently host prisoner letter-writing dinners every other Tuesday nights at the 123 space in Bed-Stuy.
Email questions about the schedule or events to proposals [at] anarchistbookfair [dot] net
Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 03/10-16
Sources: Frontera NorteSur (FNS): 03/20; El Heraldo de Chihuahua: 03/12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20; La Jornada: 03/15; Cimacnoticias.com: 03/06
The families of four Mexican students murdered by the Colombian army during an illegal raid in a FARC encampment in Ecuadorian territory two weeks ago are threatening to take their case to international legal institutions. To date, the Calderon administration has not condemned the invasion of Ecuadorian territory, instead mounting a witch hunt for Mexican students who were researching the FARC as part of a 40-day visit to Ecuador. Lucia Morett, the only Mexican student to survive the attack, gave testimony this week that Colombian forces murdered most of the 22 students and FARC members who died during the attack, shooting many in the head at point blank range after they surrendered. The students were in Ecuador to participate in the Second Continental Bolivarian Conference from February 25-27. Apparently during the conference they received an invitation to visit the FARC camp. Since the students were involved in research on Latin American guerrilla movements at the UNAM in Mexico City, they readily accepted. They arrived at the FARC camp only hours before the massacre. The families of the victims are charging Colombia with illegitimate acts of war, use of fragmentation bombs (supplied by the US), assassination of prisoners, and abandonment of the wounded.
Click here to send a message to your legislator: http://www.nysut.org/cps/rde/xchg/nysut/h
All you need to do is provide your information, and the letter will automatically be sent to your representative. If you do not live in New York State, you may provide the address of your college.
TEXT OF THE LETTER:
The New York State Commission on Higher Education recently reported that public higher education in New York has suffered from severe under-funding, and now lags behind many comparable state university systems. As the Commission's report points out, "measured on a revenue-per-student basis, public peer institutions have 17 percent to 120 percent more resources than SUNY or CUNY." In fact, over the past two decades, New York State cut funding for public higher education by 28 percent - the largest decrease of any of the 50 states (source: Economic Policy Institute). As a result of this decreased funding, our public institutions have lost thousands of full-time faculty and professional staff; students have endured increasing class sizes and student access has been limited.
There is no doubt that the loss of full-time faculty and professional staff and the over-reliance on part-time faculty and staff has had an adverse impact on the quality of a SUNY, CUNY and community college education. And with enrollments steadily rising, due in large part to today's increasing necessity for a higher education, now is not the time to cut funding these institutions. In the fall of 2007, SUNY admitted its largest freshman class ever, totaling 73,302 students. Enrollment at CUNY is now at its highest level in 35 years. Large class sizes at both these institutions have a negative effect on quality. With further cuts in funding, SUNY, CUNY and the community colleges would not be able to address enrollment growth and full-time faculty needs.
Other state university systems have made full-time faculty a priority. For example, at the University of Texas almost 80 percent of the faculty is full-time. In Pennsylvania, 76 percent of the faculty is full-time. In Illinois, 73 percent of the faculty is full-time and in Massachusetts, 70 percent of the faculty is full-time. In New York, the average for both public higher education systems is below 54 percent. The part-time faculty in New York State's public universities are exceptional; CUNY and SUNY would not have survived without their commitment to our students - even while receiving a fraction of the pay of their full-time colleagues. But the institution suffers when more than half of the faculty work without research support, without adequate pay and often without even an office.
SUNY, CUNY and the community colleges simply cannot afford to take another step backwards and fall further behind other states. In tough economic times, there is an understandable inclination to cut back on investment, but this is precisely when we need to move steadily forward, investing in public higher education as the engine of our state's economy, the promise of its future.
http://www.nysut.org/cps/rde/xchg/nysut/hby Juan Forero Published on Sunday, March 30, 2008 - re-posted from The Washington Post
SAN FRANCISCO, Colombia — All Cruz Elena González saw when the soldiers came past her house was a corpse, wrapped in a tarp and strapped to a mule. A guerrilla killed in combat, soldiers muttered, as they trudged past her meek home in this town in northwestern Colombia.
She soon learned that the body belonged to her 16-year-old son, Robeiro Valencia, and that soldiers had classified him as a guerrilla killed in combat, a claim later discredited by the local government human rights ombudsman. “Imagine what I felt when my other son told me it was Robeiro,” González said in recounting the August killing. “He was my boy.”
Funded in part by the Bush administration, a six-year military offensive has helped the government here wrest back territory once controlled by guerrillas and kill hundreds of rebels in recent months, including two top commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
But under intense pressure from Colombian military commanders to register combat kills, the army has in recent years also increasingly been killing poor farmers and passing them off as rebels slain in combat, government officials and human rights groups say. The tactic has touched off a fierce debate in the Defense Ministry between tradition-bound generals who favor an aggressive campaign that centers on body counts and reformers who say the army needs to develop other yardsticks to measure battlefield success.
The killings, carried out by combat units under the orders of regional commanders, have always been a problem in the shadowy, 44-year-old conflict here — one that pits the army against a peasant-based rebel movement.
But with the recent demobilization of thousands of paramilitary fighters, many of whom operated death squads to wipe out rebels, army killings of civilians have grown markedly since 2004, according to rights groups, U.N. investigators and the government’s internal affairs agency. The spike has come during a military buildup that has seen the armed forces nearly double to 270,000 members in the last six years, becoming the second-largest military in Latin America.
There are varying accounts on the number of registered extrajudicial killings, as the civilian deaths are called. But a report by a coalition of 187 human rights groups said there are allegations that between mid-2002 and mid-2007, 955 civilians were killed and classified as guerrillas fallen in combat — a 65 percent increase over the previous five years, when 577 civilians were reported killed by troops.
“We used to see this as isolated, as a military patrol that lost control,” said Bayron Gongora of the Judicial Freedom Corp., a Medellin lawyers group representing the families of 110 people killed in murky circumstances. “But what we’re now seeing is systematic.”
The victims are the marginalized in Colombia’s highly stratified society. Most, like Robeiro Valencia, are subsistence farmers. Others are poor Colombians kidnapped off the streets of bustling Medellin, the capital of this state, Antioquia, which has registered the most killings.
Amparo Bermudez Dávila said her son, Diego Castañeda, 27, disappeared from Medellin in January 2006. Two months later, authorities called to say he had been killed, another battlefield death. They showed her a photograph of his body, dressed in camouflage.
“I said, ‘Guerrilla?’ ” she recalled. “My son was not a guerrilla. And they told me if I didn’t think he was a guerrilla, then I should file a complaint.”
Military prosecutors ordinarily initiate investigations when the army kills someone. In cases that appear criminal, civilian prosecutors take over, as they did in the slayings of Valencia and Castañeda in San Francisco. But human rights groups and government prosecutors say the initial probes have usually been perfunctory, and investigators have been under intense pressure from high-ranking military officers to rule in the army’s favor.
Such challenges have made tabulating the exact number of dead civilians impossible, though officials at the attorney general’s office and the inspector general’s office revealed recent estimates in interviews.
The attorney general’s office is investigating 525 killings of civilians, all but a handful of which occurred since 2002 and in which 706 soldiers and officers are implicated. The office has another 500 cases, involving hundreds more victims, yet to be opened. The inspector general’s office, meanwhile, is investigating 650 cases from 2003 to mid-2007 that could involve as many as 1,000 victims, said Carlos Arturo Gomez, the vice inspector general.
“Last year, the number of complaints shot up,” Gomez said. “Some have said the cause could be unscrupulous military members who want to show results from false operations. Others say it’s the product of pressure from the high command, the push for results.”
The trend has prompted concern among some members of the U.S. Congress. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, said he is holding up $23 million in military aid until he sees progress in the fight against impunity and state-sponsored violence.
“We’ve had six years, $5 billion in U.S. aid. More than half of it has gone to the Colombian military, and we find the army is killing more civilians, not less,” Leahy said in an interview. “And by all accounts, all independent accounts, we find that civilians are just being taken out, executed and then dressed up in uniforms so they can claim body counts of guerrillas killed.”
President Álvaro Uribe’s government, which has had a string of recent successes against the FARC, has defended itself against the accusations and contends they are part of an international campaign designed to discredit the armed forces. Indeed, some officials say the FARC is prodding the families of rebels killed in combat to claim the dead were civilians.
Still, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos acknowledges civilian deaths and has initiated steps that include new rules of engagement, assigning inspectors to combat units to advise commanders on the use of force and improving human rights training for soldiers.
The military has also been streamlining its justice system and transferring more cases to the attorney general’s office, which the United Nations says must have a greater role if extrajudicial executions are to be eradicated. The attorney general’s office said more than 200 members of the military have been detained as prosecutors investigate their involvement in the killings of civilians, with 13 convicted last year.
“I have said this very clearly: The soldier who commits a crime becomes a criminal, and he will be treated as a criminal,” Santos said.
Santos also has stressed, in speeches and directives, that the army’s anti-guerrilla policy should be more focused on generating desertions than accumulating combat kills, the traditional method of measuring success. “I’ve told all my soldiers and policemen that I prefer a demobilized guerrilla, or a captured guerrilla, to a dead guerrilla,” Santos said.
But the Defense Ministry’s reformers have been met by influential generals who have defended officers accused of slayings and favor a more traditional strategy for defeating the rebels.
That approach means giving field commanders autonomy and instilling a philosophy that stresses swift engagement with the rebels.
“What’s the result of offensives? Combat,” Gen. Mario Montoya, head of Colombia’s army, said in an interview. “And if there’s combat, there are dead in combat.”
Human rights groups see a disturbing trend, saying the tactics used by some army units are similar to those that death squads used to terrorize civilians. A top U.N. investigator said some army units went as far as to carry “kits,” which included grenades and pistols that could be planted next to bodies.
“The method of killing people perceived as guerrilla collaborators is still seen as legitimate by too many members of the army,” said Lisa Haugaard, director of Latin America Working Group, a Washington-based coalition of humanitarian groups.
After she interviewed a number of families of victims, she determined that in many of the cases soldiers “appeared to be going on missions, not accidentally detaining and killing people,” she said.
The highest-ranking officer implicated in extrajudicial killings is Col. Hernan Mejía.
A former army sergeant who was under Mejía’s command, Edwin Guzman, recounted in an interview how Mejía’s unit would kill peasant farmers, dress them in combat fatigues and call in local newspaper reporters to write about the supposed combat that had taken place.
Guzman, now a government witness against Mejía, said soldiers participated because they knew the army gave incentives — from extra pay to days off — for amassing kills in combat. “This is because the army gives prizes for kills, not for control of territory,” he said.
Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm
@ the Audre Lorde Project
85 South Oxford St, Brooklyn
Meditation, described as the art of focused self reflection, is a great way to balance our physical, mental and emotional states while reducing stress. ALP's Resource Center hosts holistic health events for the LGBTSTGNC community, including meditation. For more information about health and wellness programming, contact ccarter(at)alp.org
Directions:
Take the Brooklyn-bound local C to Lafayette Avenue. Exit at the South Oxford Street stair exit. Make a right and continue on South Oxford Street. The entrance to ALP is on the right, in the middle of the block.
Take the M, N, Q, R, W, 2, 3, 4, 5 or LIRR to Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street stop. Exit at Hanson Place. Walk up Hanson Place to South Oxford Street. Make left onto South Oxford Street. The entrance to ALP is on the right, in the middle of the block.
Take the G to Fulton Street. Walk two (2) blocks up Lafayette Street to South Oxford Street. Make a right onto South Oxford Street. The entrance to ALP is on the left, in the middle of the block.
Friday, April 4th, 2008
CUNY Graduate Center (Concourse Level)
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Bluestocking Books will be selling books on the Concourse Level from 4-6:30 pm
Panel 1 - Room C-197
Moderator: Kevin McGruder, History (CUNY, Graduate Center)
La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Yale University): “Possessing the Body Beautiful: “Possessing the ‘Body Beautiful’: Black Drag Queens, White Heteronormativity, and ‘Happily Ever After’ in American Cinema.”
Angelique Harris (California State University, Fullerton): “Sexuality and Homosexuality in the Black Church.”
Panel 2 - Room C-198
“Cope, Conform or Resist?: How Blacks “Use” their Blackness at Predominantly White University” (University of Delaware) An Engaging Discourse with Young Scholars.
Moderator: Yasser Payne, Black American Studies (University of Delaware)
Brittany Pearl Battle, Mamawa Lemon Fofana, LaMar Rashad Gibson, Thea James Ogunusi, Carl Suddler
Panel 3 - Room C-201
Moderator: Hank Williams, English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Donny Levit (CUNY, Graduate Center): “The Spiritual Present: The Inextricable Relationship Between Jazz and the Black Arts Movement.”
Algernon Austin (The Thora Institute): “Mapping the Afrocentric Era, 1988-1998.”
Leah M. Wright (Princeton University): “Constructions of Conservatism: Black Republicans, 1932-1964.”
Panel 4 - Room C-202
“The Politics of the Black Atlantic Body and the Body of Black Atlantic Politics: Nation, Identity, and Resistance”
Moderator: Akissi Britton, Anthropology (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Natalie Belisle (U. Wisconsin, Madison): “In the Spirit of the Ancestors: Spiritual Discourse and the Black Revolutionary Struggle in O Ano Em Que Zumbí Tomou O Rio.”
Jessica Krug (U. Wisconsin, Madison): “Social Dismemberment, Social Remembering: Contested Kromanti Identities, Nationalism, and Obeah, 1675-Present.”
Jamila Moore-Pewu (U. California, Davis): “Rebranding the Continent, Rethinking Modernity: Africa’s Image Problem” in the 21st Century.”
T.J. Desch-Obi (Baruch College, CUNY): “Embodying Honour: Liberating Enslaved Identities Through the Body.”
Jarett M. Fields (U. Wisconsin, Madison): “Blackness, the Body, and the 1968 Olympics.”
Panel 5 - Room C-203
Moderator: Deborah Vietze (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Julian Ellison: “Melanesia: Pacific Blacks in the African American Consciousness.”
Kelly Baker-Josephs (York College, CUNY): “Afrofuturism from a Caribbean Past: The Local Orientation of a Black World Vision.”
Professor Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University)
“Fragments of a Feedback Loop: Blackness in Conversation”
1:30pm - 3:00pm: Session 2
Panel 6 - Room C-197
Moderator: Jill Toliver Richardson, English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Alan R. Takeall (CUNY, Graduate Center): “Black Uplift in the New Racial Domain.”
Jacqueline Jones (Francis Marion University): “Pondering the Strange Meaning of Being Black or How Black Can I Be At Work?”
Lori Sykes (John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY): “Strategic Assimilation or Creation of Symbolic Blackness?: Middle-Class Blacks in Suburban Contexts.”
Panel 7 - Room C-198
“Theorizing the African Diaspora”: (U.C. Berkeley African Diaspora Studies Graduate Group)
Moderator: Anamaría Flores, English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Vielka Cecilia Hoy: “Race, Multiple Diasporas, and Points of Departure: Creating a Framework for Theorizing Afro-Latinos.”
Petra Raquel Rivera: “‘Soca, Reggae, Reggaetón, Tropical Mix’: Afro-Latino Spaces and Notch’s Reggaetón.”
Asia Leeds: “Redeeming Black Womanhood: Newspaper Portraits and Notions of Femininity in Marcus Garvey’s Negro World.”
Robeson T. P. Frazier: “From Mao to Yao: Chinese–African American Exchanges in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century.”
Panel 8 - Room C-201
Moderator: Rashida Bumbray (Assisant Curator, The Kitchen)
Johanna Faith Cacho Almiron (University of Hawaii, Manoa): “Still Not For Sale: Basquiat’s Blackness & The Reeboppers.”
Jordana Saggese (Santa Clara University): “Basquiat’s Blackness: Re-defining an African-American Aesthetic.”
Panel 9 - Room C-202
Moderator: Kazembe Balagun (Outreach Coordinator, Brecht Forum)
Janette Yarwood (CUNY, Graduate Center): “Deterritorialized Blackness: (Re)making Coloured Identity Among Youth in Post-Apartheid South Africa.”
Sara Nichole Artes (American University): “We are, But We Aren't: Constructing African American Identity through Cultural Heritage Performance on the US/Mexican Border.”
Alexander Lamazares (Bronx Community College, CUNY): “Afro-Cuban Aesthetics: The Africa Decade, Secret Societies, and Racial Politics.”
Panel 10 - Room C-203
Moderator: Gregory Pardlo, English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Marissel Hernández-Romero (CUNY, Graduate Center): “Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Female Literature: A Threat to an Imagined Nation?”
Katherine Baxter (University of Hong Kong): “New Black Fiction of the Far East.”
Roopika Risam (Emory University): “African American Young Adult Literature: A Black Radical Tradition.”
Ronald Tyson (Raritan Valley Community College): “The Changing Same”: Essentialized Blackness in Contemporary African American Popular Fiction.”
Panel 11 - Room C-204
“Ontologies of James Baldwin”
Moderator: Dr. Jerry G. Watts, Sociology and English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Sam Han (CUNY, Graduate Center): “An Encounter of Mitsein: The Ontology of James Baldwin’s Ethics of Victimhood.”
David Stein (Yale University): “(Re)naming/Revealing: James Baldwin's Theorizations of Racialized Formations Under the Terror of State Sanctioned Violence.”
Panel 12 - Room C-197
Moderator: Dr. Leith Mullings, Anthropology (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Yamuna Sangarasivam (Nazareth College): “‘Terrorist’ as Fugitive Slave: Blackness in the Foundations of Citizenship and Democracy.”
Robin Hayes (Santa Clara University): “African Liberation, Black Power and a Diasporic Underground.”
Juliana Smith (University of California, San Diego): “Freedom Dreams: Political Exile, U.S. Social Movements, and Post-Revolutionary Cuba.”
Panel 13 - Room C-198
Moderator: Leslie Craigo, Educational Psychology (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Jessica Ruglis (CUNY, Graduate Center): “The Graduation Rate Crisis: Adverse Consequences and the Construction of Blackness in the Context of Cultural Oppression.”
Gail Perry-Ryder (CUNY, Graduate Center): “Making Race Real: Exploring the Intersection of Race, Academic Performance and Educational Culture in Our Public Schools and Colleges.”
Brian Purnell (Fordham University): “From “Negro” to “Black”: Black Power Politics in New York City’s Public Schools During the Mid-1960s – The Story of Jitu Weusi (Les Campbell) and the Origins of the Afro-American Teachers’ Association.”
Panel 14 - Room C-201
Moderator: Lise Esdaile, English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Yale University): “Looking for Lauryn: Madness, Genius, and the Black Prophetess.”
Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Vanderbilt University): “Salvaged Tongue: Transnational Translations of English Between Black Feminists.”
GerShun Avilez (University of Pennsylvania): “‘Once You Go White’: Inter-racial Desire and Contemporary Black Female Identity in Film.”
Stacie McCormick (CUNY, Graduate Center): “From Jolly Joe's Lady Minstrels to Madea Simmons: Enduring Representations of Black Womanhood through Impersonation.”
Panel 15 - Room C-202
“How Much and What Kind of Blackness is Enough?”: (University of Delaware Black American Studies Department)
Moderator: James M. Jones, Black American Studies (University of Delaware)
James M. Jones and David Wilson: “Black Enough?: Dimensions of Blackness and Attitudes toward Black Leaders”
Carol Henderson: “Boxing' on Paper: Authenticity in the Preservation of a Black Self.”
Antonia Randolph: “Retreating from Race: The Social Cost of Erasing Black Ethnicity.”
Yasser Payne: “Street Life Black Men: A Culture of Honor, Respect and Resilience.”
Maggie Ussery: “Not Just any Job: The Development of Work-related Identity in Young, Black Workers.”
Panel 16 - Room C-203
Moderator: Dr. James DeJongh, English (CUNY, City College)
Richard Perez (CUNY, Graduate Center): “Archives, Knowledges, and Detours: Rereading the Black Atlantic with and against Ian Baucom’s Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History.”
DeWitt King (University of California, Santa Barbara): “Theorizing Black Geographies.”
Percy Hintzen (University of California, Berkeley): “The Space of Caribbean Blackness & Pedagogies & Performatives of Modern.”
Panel 17 - Room C-204
“Post(modern) Blackness”
Moderator: Tyler Schmidt, English (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Alessandra Raengo (Georgia State University): “Counterfeit Currency: Race at Face Value.”
Jonathan Gray (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY): “Black Cultural Artifacts and the Conditions of Democracy.”
Danielle Jackson: “Beyond Race: Black People and the Multicultural Idea in Contemporary Magazine Culture.”
Moderator: Dr. William E. Cross Jr. (CUNY, Graduate Center)
Ms. Mahen Bonetti (African Film Festival, Inc.)
Dr. Jacqueline Nassy Brown (Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY)
Dr. Johanna Fernandez (History, Baruch College, CUNY)
Dr. Donette Francis (English, Binghamton University, SUNY)
ACTION: Monday, March 31 at the gates of Columbia, 116th Street and Broadway, 4:30PM.
Columbia University wants to bulldoze 18 acres of West Harlem, displacing families and eliminating businesses and jobs, to develop a hazardous biotech research center, luxury housing and retail, and other facilities, in a cluster of high-rise buildings that it would exclusively control. All of Harlem, Washington Heights, Morningside Heights, and Hamilton Heights are at risk:
RISING RENTS across Upper Manhattan
HARASSMENT of Low-Income Tenants
LOSS OF COMMUNITY JOBS, businesses, and facilities
EROSION OF OUR DIVERSITY and neighborhood culture
PUBLIC HEALTH DANGER: hazardous research nearby
We stand united in opposition to this plan, and in support of healthy, community-minded development. Check out the link below to learn about the issues, compare Columbia's plan to our grassroots vision for development, and learn how to join our efforts to preserve our community.
More info at: www.stopcolumbia.org
