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Anti-Racism

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    Dispatch from Alabama: Organizing against HB 56 Ingrid Chapman February 16, 2012

    This is a message to friends, family and fellow organizers regarding the struggle in Alabama against the most extreme anti-immigrant law in the country, HB 56. The bill, titled the Hammon-Beason Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, was signed into law in June of 2011. Although it has received a lot less coverage, it is, by all accounts, even more draconian than Arizona’s SB 1070.

    I arrived in Alabama 2 days before HB 56 went into effect with the original plan of being here for 2 weeks. That turned into 3 months.  I have just returned for 6 more months to work with the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice www.acij.net. I learned about the incredibly egregious law HB 56 and I listened to my heart, which told me to respond to the call for organizing support and to go to Alabama.  Now I am living in Alabama (AL), a place I never imagined myself. Every day is incredibly challenging, full of simultaneous heartbreak and inspiration and yet I am thankful to be here, working side by side with hundreds of incredible people. I believe that from this atrocity, a movement is being born that will impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions.  I know many might not know the extent of both the crisis and the subsequent developing movement to confront it, so I want to update you and ask for your feedback and support in building a national movement against this vicious anti-immigration law.

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    Occupy Opportunities for Collective Liberation - Catalyst Project’s Anti-Racist Organizing Strategy Chris Crass December 14, 2011

    Melanie Cervantes - http://dignidadrebelde.comMelanie Cervantes - http://dignidadrebelde.comCatalyst Project, a center for political education and movement building, has compiled a list of resources for anti-racist/collective liberation work to build up the Occupy movement.  The following is an essay from the resource list, sharing key insights from Catalyst's anti-racist organizing strategy and how it relates to the Occupy movement.  The resource list will be sent out widely soon.

    The Occupy movement is one of the most profound organizing opportunities in decades, because of its mass invitation for the 99% to step forward and challenge systemic economic inequality. For white anti-racists, this is a moment when we can engage with, support, and organize hundreds of thousands of white people to deeply connect economic justice to racial and gender justice. 

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    Revolutionary Experiments Andrew Willis Garcés July 30, 2011

    OPPOSE AND PROPOSE: LESSONS FROM MOVEMENT FOR A NEW SOCIETY
    BY ANDREW CORNELL

    AK Press, 2011

    From 1971 to 1988, a group comprising several hundred “nonviolent revolutionaries” organized into collectives in cities across the country and put in motion a plan: to take down the US empire, while simultaneously uprooting oppressive behavior in themselves and the world around them. They built many Left community institutions that continue to exist today. They used militant direct action to stop weapons shipments to Pakistan—and helped coordinate an action in which 3,000 people occupied the proposed site of a nuclear plant, inadvertently popularizing a form of decision making and action prep that has become standard for large-scale direct actions. Andrew Cornell’s Oppose and Propose!: Lessons from Movement for a New Society offers us a look into this remarkable grouping.

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    Healing the trauma of post-9/11 racism one story (and melody) at a time Sonny Singh September 11, 2011

    photo by Renaud Philippephoto by Renaud PhilippeOnce the term terrorist attack was all over the headlines on September  11, 2001, something inside my 21-year-old, fresh-out-of-college self was dreadfully certain of what was coming next. Before I even had a chance to begin processing and mourning the horrific loss of thousands of lives in New York City, I was getting calls from even the most apolitical of my extended family members, urging me to be careful and “keep a low profile,” to not leave my house unless I absolutely had to.

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    The Responsibility of Radicals Esther Wang July 30, 2011

    THE NEXT AMERICAN REVOLUTION
    BY GRACE LEE BOGGS & SCOTT KURASHIGE

    University of California Press, 2011

    “What time is it on the clock of the world?” If you’ve seen Grace Lee Boggs speak, you’ve likely heard her raise this question. In her new book co-authored with Scott Kurashige, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, the 95-year-old activist offers some answers—proceeding to lay out in six essays an assessment of what stage we are at in our evolution as a species and her vision for a more human and humane century.

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    Defeating ‘White Rage’: An Anti-Racist Call to Action! Lydia Pelot-Hobbs January 1, 2010

    Since Obama’s inauguration, the right wing has mounted a major campaign to de-legitimize his administration. The past six months have seen tens of thousands of white protesters mobilized across the US, through so called “tea parties” fueled by right-wing radio and TV personalities. At a time when many working class communities are feeling the effects of the economic crisis and seeing sharp rises in unemployment and job loss—protests against the stimulus package and healthcare reform have brought with them a severe anti-black and anti-immigrant backlash, painting Barack Obama as “foreign-born,” “socialist,” and “fascist.”

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    Racist Rage: Islamophobia, the Tea Party, and Endless War Rami El-Amine December 1, 2010

    We are witnessing an unprecedented surge in racism against Muslims in the US. There is a real fear among US Muslims that if there's a successful terrorist attack on Americans, particularly on US soil, we will surely face pogroms and detention centers. The growth of the Far Right and, more specifically, the Tea Party over the last two years has contributed immensely to this feeling. While it is the US's "war on terror" that has caused and continues to cause the most harm to Muslims worldwide, the Tea Party has been key to fanning the flames of Islamophobia over the past year.

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    Turning the Tide: Migrant Rights, Barrio Defense, and New Directions B. Loewe December 1, 2010

    These days people are scared. Whether it’s fear of big government or job loss, immigration raids or foreclosure, socialism or fascism, police violence or terrorist attacks, cap and trade or ecological collapse, one thing we all hold in common is an undeniable sense of insecurity.  Which direction the country goes to resolve these fears is largely up to us. Times of crisis hand us all with the responsibility to answer the question, “How shall we be together as a people?” One of the key sites for resolving that question is the migrant rights movement and the resolution of who is and who is not considered part of the body-politic.

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    Women's Work: A Review of "Want to Start a Revolution?" Rachel Herzing December 1, 2010

    WANT TO START A REVOLUTION?
    EDITED BY DAYO F. GORE, JEANNE THEOHARIS, AND KOMOZI WOODARD

    NYU Press, 2009

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    Imprisoned Intellectual: A Review of "Meditations on Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth" Dan Berger December 1, 2010

    MEDITATIONS ON FRANTZ FANON’S WRETCHED OF THE EARTH
    BY JAMES YAKI SAYLES

    Kersplebedeb and Spear and Shield Publications, 2010

    For more than twenty years, James Yaki Sayles (also known as Atiba Shanna) was one of the most profound theorists writing from within US prisons. Yaki turned his decades of confinement into a time to theorize and a place to strategize, working to maintain connections between what was happening inside prisons and what was happening outside of them.

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