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provisional home of the College of Debtors in Defiance
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Affirmative Action Meets 21st Century White Supremacy at Berkeley
The University of California – Berkeley College Republicans staged an anti-affirmative action bake sale this week on UCB’s Sproul Plaza to protest Senate Bill 185, that would re-introduce affirmative action in the state of California. The bill recently passed in the legislature and awaits Governor Jerry Brown’s signature or veto. At the bake sale, white men had to pay the most – $2, people of color got various discounts, black men were to be charged 75 cents, and all women got 25 cents off. A demonstration was staged on Sproul Tuesday in response, with hundreds of students of color lying down throughout Sproul with signs that carried messages like “UC us now.” The campus Republicans have sparked a debate about race; whether their entitlement and kvetching will trump facts and reality, and the justified anger they produce in oppressed communities, remains to be seen. On Sproul today, the answer was clearly “no, it does not. ” However, in Jerry Brown’s office it remains an open question.
Several recent studies indicate that multiple indices of racial inequality are at Jim Crow levels. Concomitant polls indicate that most white people not only feel that enough has been done to address racial discrimination, but that white people are now an “oppressed race.” 44 percent of the general American population, surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute thought that whites are discriminated against as much as blacks and other oppressed groups. Tea Partiers and Glenn Beck have gone so far as to call for a white civil rights movement. The whining of the privileged certainly adds insult to injury, which, to use one of their metaphors, is par for the course in America historically.
This sniveling sits within a context of intense levels of racialized economic inequality, and associated police harassment and violence nationally. At the UC the “white victim” bake sale sits alongside a generation of working class students and students of color being blocked from a UC education, or finding themselves riddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, for blacks, earning every bit of a bachelor’s degree that is worth less than 80% of the white classmates they graduate with.
The University of California, which was once free, has been largely privatized, with tuition increasing over 500 percent since 1980. Tuition has doubled in the last eight years and, under a proposed budget could almost double again in the next 5 years to about $22,000 per year. This has lead to declines in black and Latino enrollment, including a drop of almost 20% in under-represented transfer students in recent years. If the angry white man can’t find liberal enlightenment in Berkeley, maybe mealy-mouthed multiculturalism isn’t enough. When whites on average have 20 times the wealth of blacks and Latinos, half effective policy reforms like affirmative action, that help more middle class white women than people of color in the first place, are not nearly enough to address intergenerational inequality that is not only failing to disappear, but is growing.
Right wing activist and former UC Regent Ward Connerly, who helped write Affirmative Action out of the California Constitution in 1996, and attempted to bar any collection of social data pertaining to race in 2003, came by to be the sole black cookie-buyer and lend support to the Campus Republicans. All three of these efforts – to end affirmative action, to try and block data that shows racial inequality and now to block the re-enactment of affirmative action – are not so much attempts to ignore or downplay race as they are efforts to erase race. However, it goes beyond that.
In reality this transcends erasing or white-washing race, and makes strides towards normalizing the existing racial inequality and re-inscribing a white supremacy where white people believe the defense and extension of their privilege is some form of “reparations” for all the years that the white race was oppressed, whenever the hell that was. These recent right wing effort, grumbling like Archie Bunker that white people are an oppressed race out one side of their mouth, while claiming that it is racist to recognize race at all, is telling.
The President of the Berkeley College Republicans, Shawn Lewis, snidely admits his racism, again equating the historic suffering of people of color and women with that of conservative, rich white men, “We agree that the event is inherently racist, but that is the point. It is no more racist than giving an individual an advantage in college admissions based solely on their race (or) gender[i].”
A generation of attacking the severely limited government programs that half-attempted to address racial inequality (affirmative action, housing subsidies, welfare) while pursuing a racist war on drugs that has three times as many blacks and Latinos in prison than in college, simply drives home the point that this has nothing to with an even playing field. Power has always given some groups the ability to not only oppress, but to construct a historically malleable morality, not only justifying the oppression, but bestowing honor and virtue to the oppressor. This has nothing to do with fairness, neutrality, or justice. This has everything to do with white privilege and white supremacy.
Mike King is a PhD candidate in Sociology at UC – Santa Cruz. He is currently writing a dissertation on gang injunctions and working on a book about the Tea Party. He can be reached at mking at ucsc.edu
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
On Birgeneau's Response to the Racist Bake Sale
Facing a national controversy about the stupid racist bake sale, Chancellor Birgeneau swooped in yesterday in a desperate attempt to appease the campus community with a tepid mass email. The UC administration is afraid of bad publicity, but it's also terrified of the rage of students, workers, and faculty who, over the past two and a half years, have confronted strikingly and explicitly racist acts (e.g. nooses) with mass direct action that threatens the university's desire for control. The UC administration's responses to those racist actions were hollow and vapid at best -- calls for "tolerance," false equivalences with the Irvine 11, and so on. As David Theo Goldberg wrote at the time,To say that the racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic incidents at UCSD, at Davis and UCSC are cases of intolerance is to imply that that those engaged in these expressions are saying awful things to and about people they reject. To call for tolerance is to address only the awful things they are saying, not the underlying and implicit rejection. It addresses the symptom, not the underlying condition of which the individual utterances are merely the manifestation. We should not say such things, it implies, even about people we find or whose behavior or culture we find unacceptable.Birgeneau's statement resembles these pathetic attempts. The problem with the bake sale, he asserts, is not its racist politics but rather the lack of civility with which it was proposed. Over at Student Activism, Angus Johnston offers the following critique:
And yesterday Berkeley’s chancellor sent out an open letter on the sale. The event, he said, was “hurtful or offensive to many” at Berkeley, though he didn’t say why. It was not the politics of the sale, he implied, that were problematic, but the form of their expression: “Regardless what policies or practices one advocates, careful consideration is needed on how to express those opinions.”This is a good point of departure, but it also seems important to emphasize the explicitly political context in which all of this is taking place as well as the history of racist but more importantly anti-racist action at the UC (and more generally throughout California and the country). The administration's key consideration, as always, is its ability to manage, that is, to channel all social tensions through the bureaucratic apparatus in order to neutralize their unpredictability and to continue to extract value from the users of the university without interruption.
Absent from each of these formal statements was any explicit statement of what exactly was wrong with the Republicans’ sale. (ASUC indicated that actually selling treats to certain students at reduced prices might violate anti-discrimination regulations, but of course actually selling stuff was never the point of the event.)
I wrote yesterday about the hundreds of non-violent protesters who have been arrested at UC campuses in the last three years, and I’ll be writing more about those events as this week rolls on. Seen in that light, the failure of ASUC and Chancellor Birgeneau to do more than merely place themselves on the side of sensitivity and civility rings hollow.
As an act of political theater, the affirmative action bake sale is a pretty paltry one. It offers a weak and overplayed analogy to the admissions debate, rehashing claims that have been batted around for ages. What makes it provocative isn’t its form but its message: that affirmative action is an immoral act of discrimination.
That’s what the College Republicans of Berkeley believe, and that is the message they are attempting to convey with their sale. They believe that affirmative action is racist and sexist against against whites and men, and there’s no polite way to call someone a bigot.
Birgeneau wants to make the debate about the bake sale a debate about how polite the Berkeley community should be. But that’s not what it’s about, on either side. It’s about who should be allowed to enroll in the university, and on what terms.
[Postcript Tuesday 2:18pm]: Yes.
(photo via @mrdaveyd)
Monday, September 19, 2011
Closing Statements in the Irvine 11 Trial
From UC Rebel Radio:
Santa Ana, California - Today court resumed with closing statements in the IrvineFor more information, check out Nora Barrows-Friedman's coverage at the Electronic Intifada.1110 case. After the jury walked in, the judge took over 45 minutes to instruct the jury as to the procedure of trial and the law including a statement that pertained to "bias", declaring that it shouldn't influence the jury's judgement. The judge also read some of the statements made by the accused during the event in which they protested Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren's Speech, but curiously the only statements read by the judge where those which called Oren a "murderer" or implied that he was akin to one.
Thereafter, the Prosecution took the stage and proceeded with their sports metaphors as usual (read previous post), arguing that the Irvine 11 had conspired to commit a "heckler's veto" of the Ambassador's Speech in order to "shut down" the event, a word that was used in a fancy overhead display in bold red letters to persuade the jury. The Prosecution then continued to lay out the case as they saw it, declaring that the Irvine 11 were guilty of violating "the rules that apply to society" since they did not heed the admonishment from Prof. Petracca of UC Irvine as he was heard to say the words "Behave yourself" in a video shown from the event. The Prosecution argued that Petracca's words (as well as Chancellor's Michael Drake's brief commentary) were in fact the "implicit customs" and "rules" of the meeting which were supposedly violated by the defendants. The Prosecution stated that the protest was "not freedom" but an example of "Anarchy". The prosecution added, "when you don't follow the law, our community breaks down" and "permitting censorship of ideeers [sic] destroys the marketplace". The Prosecution discussed that the accused could have effected their protest during a Q&A section at the end of Oren's Speech, but that the accused chose to violate the law instead.
Among other statements by the Prosecution, they argued that what happened to President Obama when someone yelled out "You lie" during an address to Congress was a very different case since what happened in Congress was "only two words" by an "individual". Other "evidence" presented by the Prosecution included several pie charts that depicted in black and red the "time" that they believed the protest lasted (as opposed to the time that Oren spoke) in order to show that the accused "substantially" disrupted the meeting. Also, a debriefing video of an unidentified person saying "we pretty much shut them down" was shown as evidence of the "intent" of the protest. Lastly, the Prosecution argued that the accused did "not resist" arrest, because it was part of their "plan" or "conspiracy".
After the Prosecution delivered their closing statement the court went to recess. During this intermission there was a Press Conference outside the courthouse with local leaders from the community in support of the Irvine 11, (See video of press conference, coming soon).
In the afternoon, the court resumed with the closing statements from Defense attorney Dan Mayfield. In his statement, Mayfield expressed that the Prosecution was leading the jury to believe that "when people are arrested they are guilty".Mayfield also argued that the pie charts presented by the Prosecution were inaccurate given that they counted the time "attributable to protesters" in which the crowd was shouting as well as when UC-Irvine Professor, Petracca chose to "hear his own voice" by expressing his "personal embarrassment" to the crowd. Upon this last reference there was the first incidence of clapping in the courtroom. Then laughter came as Mayfield introduced one of the accused as the "world's biggest teddy bears" during the part of his presentation dedicated to show that the protesters indeed had planned to "not resist" the police. Mayfield explained that the accused were very carefully planning to "abide" by the law, a word that was later emphasized by the other defense attorney in closing statements, Reem Salahi. Mayfield argued that if the planning that took place by the Irvine 11 was enough to convict them of "conspiracy" then the planning of the UCPD was also a "conspiracy" as Mayfield recalled a witness testimony from Police Chief, Hennesy stating the fact that there were "metal handcuffs" at the scene prior to the protest. Mayfield added that "Oren himself believed that he was not substantially interfered with" as he recalled Oren's statement "wishing those students" had "remained" in the room (See our previous post on the Irvine 11). Lastly, Mayfield argued that the "rules" or "customs" of the meeting were uncorroborated arguments since neither Petracca nor Drake ever took the stand to verify the meaning of their statements in court. Then Mayfield went on to have a mock witness examination of Drake and Petracca to demonstrate why it was important for them to testify to the accuracy of their statements by asking an empty chair if he [an imaginary Drake] had "other bosses" and whether they interpreted the "rules" and "customs" in the same fashion, as well as an imaginary Petracca, asking him whether he "had something to drink that evening". More laughter filled the packed courtroom (which had to employ over 5 bailiffs by the end of the day). Mayfield closed with a famous e.e. cummings poem to emphasize the importance of language.
Thereafter, Defense attorney Reem Salahi took the podium to address the jury. In her closing statement, Salahi emphasized Mayfield's argument that the UCPD's "plan" to counter the protest was planned in the same fashion as the accused "plan" for the protest. Salahi added that the statements given by UCPD Chief Hennesy were contradictory to evidence since he stated having no "prior knowledge" of a protest, when in UC-Irvine's Dean of Students, Edgar Dormitorio's statement, he mentions having found out about the plan for the protest from the Chief of Police himself. Salahi also mentioned that the Prosecution was relying on other testimony from an unknown subject since the person in the video presentation from the prosecution saying the words "we pretty much shut them down" (in reference to the meeting) could never be identified or ever brought to the courtroom. Salahi also stated that in Dormitorio's own words "no disruption would be allowed", thus violating the right to protest. Salahi then showed a series of videos which portrayed several protests taking place at the UC Irvine campus which were disrupted in the same fashion and in which "police" and "administration" "were present" and no arrest took place, thus emphasizing the disproportionate attention that this case has garnered. To close, Salahi was going to tell a personal anecdote, but the Prosecution objected as to its relevance and the judge sustained the motion. Salahi looked perplexed at first, but then she said, "I guess I can't tell you the story. I got shut down" and the crowd in the courtroom erupted in clapping and cheering.
After she sat, the judge declared a brief recess. When he returned (10 minutes late from the time he set), he admonished the crowd while the jury was still out, saying he would not permit anymore "gesturing". Then he let in the jury and told the crowd to leave and that the case would continue tomorrow morning...
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Segregation, Public Transport, and the Murder of Kenneth Harding
Bayview/Hunters Point is spatially and socially isolated, experiencing a sort of de facto segregation, from the rest of San Francisco. This separation, of course, is not a natural phenomenon but closely tied to a series of economic processes and, crucially, state planning (e.g. housing policies and the military-industrial complex). The fixture that has dominated the neighborhood through both its presence and its absence is the Naval Shipyard. Established in 1941, it generated thousands of jobs while at the same time poisoning the land, pushing out other businesses and industries, and establishing a firm economic dependency, which has continued to shape the neighborhood since the shipyard was decommissioned in 1974. Transportation has played a central role in cutting Bayview/Hunters Point off from the rest of San Francisco, erecting immense concrete barriers (the 101 and 280 freeways) and limiting paths of communication and access points (generally poor public transportation). It's no surprise that, as the above linked history points out, most San Franciscans have never been there.
Segregation doesn't only consist of physical walls or explicitly racist policies, but is also embedded in the structures and flows of the cityscape as well, in bridges, crumbling building facades, liquor stores, and, in this case, MUNI rails. This is one of the critical questions raised by the recent police murder of 19-year old Kenneth Harding, who was shot 10 times by police officers as he ran away from a fare inspection. While the mainstream media gets carried away breathlessly reporting (and later retracting) every new detail that SFPD feeds them, we are more interested in other questions: Why does SFPD patrol the trains in Bayview, while in the rest of the city the work is done (if at all) by simple fare inspectors? What insights do we get from understanding the murder as stemming first and foremost from a fare inspection?
In Bayview, the T-Third MUNI line functions as a gateway to the rest of San Francisco. Especially for youth and others who don't have access to cars, it's the primary path toward downtown and by extension to the rest of the MUNI grid that crisscrosses the city. Guarded by armed police officers who, we now know, are ready and willing to use their weapons, the Bayview MUNI station operates as a militarized checkpoint that serves as a form of population control, regulating the flow of primarily black youth into but most importantly out of the neighborhood. Even the police identify it as such. As the police chief has explained, fare inspections have been stepped up recently as a way of confiscating guns from Bayview residents who ride the trains. Fare inspections, in other words, are explicitly not about making sure people pay their fares. Rather, what they do is give the police an excuse to detain, search, and criminalize black youth in the moment that they attempt to navigate an urban landscape that has been closed off to them.
Segregation also rests on particular social relations -- again, to be clear, most San Franciscans have never even been to the neighborhood. Part of what's been so successful about the recent demonstrations against police terror in and around Bayview is not only the solidarity that they manifest but more importantly the high level of participation by residents of different neighborhoods in every action. Folks from Bayview turned out to the demo in the Mission last Tuesday; likewise, folks from the Mission and beyond have showed up at press conferences and rallies in the Bayview. Of course, the specter of the "outside agitator" (as imagined by both city officials and institutionalized non-profits) is never far off. But what seems to have characterized these moments of collaboration is something very different, a coming-together based on a recognition of points of commonality in the struggle against the police as enforcers of an unjust economic system. That such a convergence would arise doesn't require that everybody involved experience the same forms of violence -- of course they don't, and to suggest they do would be to purposefully ignore different manifestations of class/gender/race/etc -- but that they perceive the overlaps even within those differences.
"We need to shut down the T line until we get answers to our demands -- no police on trains, free trains or no trains at all. We'll make sure there are no trains at all if that's the way they want it."Once again, it comes back (especially now, in the broader context of austerity) to public transportation, the trains that connect Bayview with the rest of the city. But if segregation also appears in the form of social relations, then the arrest of Fly Benzo -- a bridge between dispersed actors organizing around police terror -- represents yet another attempt to violently reinforce the segregation that has plagued Bayview/Hunters Point for decades.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Update on the Irvine 11: Gag Orders and Free Speech
Via UC Rebel Radio, we wanted to update folks on the prosecution of the Irvine 11. As you know, these students from UC Irvine and UC Riverside are currently facing criminal charges -- not just the bullshit charges associated with the arbitrary student conduct process -- for participating in a protest during a speech given by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. They are accused of conspiring to interrupt and then interrupting Oren's speech, charges which could carry a sentence of up to six months in jail if they are convicted. The trial is scheduled to begin on August 15.
This kind of protest happens all the time, and to political figures who are far more significant than Ambassador Oren. For something like this to lead to a criminal prosecution -- let alone the convening of a grand jury! -- is stunning.
In any case, the recent update is that the judge has issued a gag order in order to prevent "potential jurors [from having] preconceived ideas about the case." The gag order applies to both prosecution and defense, but oddly is not retroactive:
It's also interesting how the politics of free speech often turns on or the legitimation of racism, with regard to both speech and practice. The LA Times article cited above takes a weird turn toward the end:
Now compare the argument Gilchrist lays out above with this interview he did on Democracy Now. The interview -- well, partial interview -- took place following a speech he tried to give at Columbia University that was interrupted when a group of students rushed the stage and unfurled a banner denouncing anti-immigrant racism. This, it seems, is the sort of thing he calls victimization. (Notably, at one point in the video a minuteman kicks one of the students in the head.) Anyway, what happens in the interview is a sort of back and forth between Gilchrist and student organizer Karina Garcia, except it ends abruptly when Gilchrist bails after Garcia begins to confront him. He just gets up, pulls out his earpiece, and walks off camera.
In this case, of course, Gilchrist doesn't want to talk with the other side and "see their point of view." The point here is obviously not that the head of the Minutemen is an asshole -- it sort of goes without saying -- but rather that the tension in his militant desire to simultaneously hear and silence speech precisely mirrors the logic of free speech more broadly.
One final image: this is what pops up on the screen after Gilchrist cuts the camera in his studio (which is located, notably, in Irvine, CA). Somehow, it's extremely appropriate.
[this post has been edited for clarity]
This kind of protest happens all the time, and to political figures who are far more significant than Ambassador Oren. For something like this to lead to a criminal prosecution -- let alone the convening of a grand jury! -- is stunning.
In any case, the recent update is that the judge has issued a gag order in order to prevent "potential jurors [from having] preconceived ideas about the case." The gag order applies to both prosecution and defense, but oddly is not retroactive:
Attorneys for the defendants objected to a protective order against them, with one attorney saying their clients "are not similarly situated" with the district attorney's office and therefore should not be subjected to the same limitations.Obviously, it's impossible to go back and erase what people have already heard. But there is nevertheless something strange about the disproportionate effects of the gag order -- it silences the present while entirely overlooking the past. There's also something interesting here about the way that "free speech" operates. In a case where college students are facing half a year of jail time for allegedly violating the right to free speech of an Israeli politician, the logic of "free speech" demands that (some) speech be silenced, and (other) speech effectively reinforced. It redistributes speech, spatially and temporally. This is where technologies like "free speech zones" and "time, place, and manner restrictions" come into play.
Attorneys for the 11 also requested that the court mandate the D.A.'s office remove other information relating to the case from its website, including removal of press releases and emails among the defendants that could be submitted to the court later as evidence. The judge denied the request, saying that there is no need to "go back and sanitize" what has already been released.
It's also interesting how the politics of free speech often turns on or the legitimation of racism, with regard to both speech and practice. The LA Times article cited above takes a weird turn toward the end:
The defendants also have critics, including prominent Jewish leaders who say they support free speech but believe the students' behavior crossed a line.There's so much going on here. Even if we totally leave aside the claims of white victimization and the odd tokenization of Louis Farrakhan, what's interesting is how the politics of free speech renders some utterances speech and others non-speech. Apparently, Gilchrist recognizes that the protesters have a "point of view," a political argument they want to express. In reality, Oren's speech wasn't prevented, blocked, or suppressed (in other words, the protest was less "effective," in absolute material terms, than the gag order) -- rather, it was delayed, or temporally displaced. And, insofar as all speech is contextual and situated, the protesters' can only make that particular argument in the way they did. It is a fundamentally different speech act to denounce the Israeli occupation while the Israeli ambassador is speaking than it is to denounce it outside the building, or the following day.
Among those who were in the Santa Ana courtroom Friday was Jim Gilchrist, founder and president of the Minuteman Project. Gilchrist, whose organization places civilian patrols on the U.S. border, said he was interested in the case because it related to 1st Amendment free speech rights.
"We need to set ground rules," Gilchrist said, adding that he was "victimized" by people interrupting speeches he's given across the country.
"Louis Farrakhan could speak [to me]," Gilchrist said. "You don't stop people from speaking. I want to talk to the accused and see their point of view."
Now compare the argument Gilchrist lays out above with this interview he did on Democracy Now. The interview -- well, partial interview -- took place following a speech he tried to give at Columbia University that was interrupted when a group of students rushed the stage and unfurled a banner denouncing anti-immigrant racism. This, it seems, is the sort of thing he calls victimization. (Notably, at one point in the video a minuteman kicks one of the students in the head.) Anyway, what happens in the interview is a sort of back and forth between Gilchrist and student organizer Karina Garcia, except it ends abruptly when Gilchrist bails after Garcia begins to confront him. He just gets up, pulls out his earpiece, and walks off camera.
In this case, of course, Gilchrist doesn't want to talk with the other side and "see their point of view." The point here is obviously not that the head of the Minutemen is an asshole -- it sort of goes without saying -- but rather that the tension in his militant desire to simultaneously hear and silence speech precisely mirrors the logic of free speech more broadly.
One final image: this is what pops up on the screen after Gilchrist cuts the camera in his studio (which is located, notably, in Irvine, CA). Somehow, it's extremely appropriate.
[this post has been edited for clarity]
Friday, May 13, 2011
Ethnic Studies Struggle Continues in Tucson
We're a little late here, but on April 26, students took over a Tucson school board meeting and chained themselves to the seats of the board members to prevent the meeting from going forward. They were protesting a resolution that would remove ethnic studies from the core curriculum of the schools in the Tucson Unified School District as a result of a bill passed by the anti-immigrant legislature at the state level (HB 2281). Despite differences in terms of the political context, there is a certain resonance with the restructuring happening at UC Berkeley, where the administration has decided to consolidate three departments -- Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies -- as part of the austerity program "Operational Excellence." Then, on May 3, when students and allies returned to the follow-up board meeting, they found that had been effectively militarized with over 100 riot cops and a canine unit. Nevertheless, they were able to intervene effectively and shut down the meeting. The Arizona Daily Star reports that the school board decided that the vote would be delayed until a public forum could be held on the issue:
The TUSD Governing Board decided Tuesday night to delay making changes to the ethnic studies program until it holds a public forum on the controversial proposal.Wonder why they're not saying when the forum will be...
Board President Mark Stegeman made the recommendation to hold off on the vote on his proposal to make some ethnic studies courses electives, capping a tumultuous four-hour meeting that included numerous interruptions, the removal of at least seven audience members and an armed police presence.
After the forum is held, Stegeman said he plans to bring the proposal back to the board. Details on when and where the forum will be were not announced.
(video via the Real News).
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Update on the Hunger Strike: Day 14
Today marks two full weeks since the hunger strike at UC Berkeley officially began. Yesterday, the Daily Cal published an article on the protest action, but for some reason claimed that the strikers were only in their tenth day without food. What, weekends don't count? The least they can do is get the numbers right! [Update: Our bad -- we got confused because the article was published on Monday with the headline that said the strike was in its tenth day, but in fact it was referring to the rally last Friday. Sorry about that.]
As we've reported here, the strikers' demands revolve around the UC administration's decision to consolidate three departments -- Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies -- under the umbrella of their austerity program "Operational Excellence." In this case, "consolidation" means cuts, including staff layoffs and what looks like it could turn into something like speed-up for faculty. While the administration has struck all the right rhetorical tones (equality, inclusion, diversity, etc), they refuse to do anything material to respond to the demands. And this when the university is selling billions of dollars worth of construction bonds to engage in massive and secretive building projects that, in at least some cases, have gone millions of dollars over budget.
The above video was filmed on May 6, the actual tenth day of the hunger strike. In addition to giving an update on the (almost) current state of the strike, some of the speakers provide some really helpful context about the history of ethnic studies. This is useful for those folks who don't know much about the Third World Liberation Front and the story of student strikes and protests (and, of course, police repression) at SF State and Berkeley that led to the establishment of Ethnic Studies as a department. Here's a pretty detailed timeline of the protests of 1968-69 at SF State.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Update from the Hunger Strike: Day 8
After the meeting, the university issued the following statement:
As usual, the administrators' deploy a sort of rhetorical sleight of hand, hiding behind patently false displays of affect. "We are moved by and are supportive of the concern that students have shown for the consequences of the current budget crisis." They make clear that they "respect" the students and go on to "reassure" them that everything will be alright. They note that talking with the students has helped them to "better appreciate" the negative effects of these budget cuts.
Don't worry about those staff members we just fired, Basri and Hesse declare. We'll take great care of them. Don't even think about them. See, we're working really hard to get them new jobs -- though they might be temporary or part time, that is, without benefits. But don't you worry about it, because did we mention that we really appreciate your concerns? Also, to replace those staff positions we've eliminated, we'll simply create two new faculty advising positions! See, it's easy -- we just shift that work onto the plates of the faculty members! We're sure they won't mind -- what else do they have going on anyway? And of course, in conclusion, we'll be happy to issue a statement about whatever you want, just as long as they don't have to actually do anything about it.
If these administrators actually cared about the protesters, their well-being, and their concerns, why would it take them a week to agree to sit down to discuss their demands? If they were actually moved, they wouldn't have had the sprinkler system system in front of California Hall turned on for the past two nights in order to force the hunger strikers to abandon their position.
The strikers understand that. Today, they participated in a protest in support of AFSCME workers at the International House, where workers earn $22,000 a year, are facing speed-up, and experience intimidation by management. During the protest, they were able to hand deliver the following letter directly to Chancellor Birgeneau himself, who has yet to make a single appearance at the hunger strike.
Dear Chancellor Birgeneau,There will be a rally in front of California Hall on Friday at noon. Come out and support the strikers and their demands!
It is with steadfast commitment and fearless determination that we write again. We have sacrificed our own bodily nourishment for 193+ hours and counting to move you to reconsider the current cuts made in Gender & Women's, African American, and Ethnic Studies. The pain we continue to endure as marginalized students and students of Color, fighting for our histories to be taught in an institution which claims to foster diversity, is a pain as constant and gnawing as hunger itself. It has been 7 days since the first meeting with Administrators, and the University has yet to show they are concerned about the physical health of the strikers who have put their lives on the line to defend a department historically attacked, marginalized, and discredited. In order for you to reconsider these cuts we would like to restate and clarify our demands.
1. To reinstate the FTE staff positions in Ethnic Studies/Gender & Women's Studies/African American Studies cut by organizational simplification under Operational Excellence (OE). [That is,] 2.5 FTE's in Ethnic Studies, .5 FTE in Gender & Women's Studies, and .1 FTE in African American Studies.
2. To end the process of Operational Excellence, specifically the "organizational simplification of OE that is threatening to cut and marginalizes the Ethnic Studies, Gender & Women's Studies, and African American Studies departments.
3. To publicly support the Legislative Resolution ACR 34, co-authored by Assembly members Ricardo Lara and Luis A. Alejo in support of Ethnic Studies in California.
(...)
4. We demand that the Administration publicly acknowledge the unfulfilled promise of the creation of a Third World College at UC Berkeley, again.
We acknowledge that you considered the last two demands most feasible, however, to agree to symbolic gestures without solid actions to back up your investment in our departments is to make empty promises.
We will continue striking until we see acknowledgment that all 4 demands which are both well within reach off the UC Berkeley administration and are acted upon in good faith.
In the words of Mario Savio:
"There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all."
Chancellor, Our bodies will continue to grind against this machine until you and your administration take action to stop it. We will not be silenced, we will not allow ourselves to get pushed aside, we will not stop until we are able to study, work and learn as equals to our peers.
We urge you to make a strong material, not just symbolic, offer to our negotiation team.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Hunger Strike Update: Day 7
The hunger strike at UC Berkeley to defend Ethnic Studies is still going strong. After more or less ignoring them for a week, the administration finally agreed to negotiations with the strikers this morning. We'll bring updates as we receive them.
Yesterday, UC Berkeley Professor of Ethnic Studies Carlos Muñoz sent out the following email which lays out some of the immediate stakes and concrete effects of the administration's unilateral decision to merge Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies together under the umbrella of its austerity program "Operational Excellence." The email also includes a statement from California Assemblyman Ricardo Lara in solidarity with the hunger strike.
Yesterday, UC Berkeley Professor of Ethnic Studies Carlos Muñoz sent out the following email which lays out some of the immediate stakes and concrete effects of the administration's unilateral decision to merge Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies together under the umbrella of its austerity program "Operational Excellence." The email also includes a statement from California Assemblyman Ricardo Lara in solidarity with the hunger strike.
From: Carlos Munoz, Jr. [cmjr@berkeley.edu]
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 12:45 PM
Subject: 10 University of California, Berkeley, students are on hunger strike due to Ethnic Studies Department staff layoffs
Dear Friends,
Budget cuts are in the process of being made in most departments on our campus. But, although it cannot be documented at this point, I agree with our students that our Ethnic Studies Department has suffered more than other departments. Last week, we lost 2.5 staff FTE. One full time and one part time (50%) member of our staff were terminated. Two other full time staff members were cut to 50% time. In addition to these recent cuts, the department previously lost two full time staff members to retirement. Those positions were never replaced. Therefore, it can be said that the department has lost a total of 4.5 staff positions.
Last week Ethnic Studies students and faculty protested the staff cuts. Ten students went on hunger strike last Tuesday. Today marks the 6th day of their strike.
I am pleased to report that Assemblyman Ricardo Lara has sent out a Press Release and a personal letter of solidarity to our students on hunger strike. His letter is attached and his PR is below. Peace, Profe
-------
For Immediate Release
Contact: Julia Juarez
(562) 445-7716
LARA'S ETHNIC STUDIES RESOLUTION SUBJECT OF HUNGER STRIKE AT UC BERKELEY
SACRAMENTO -Assembly Concurrent Resolution 34, authored by Assembly Member Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), is at the center of a hunger strike at the University of California Berkeley where students are protesting the university's lack of commitment to Ethnic Studies. ACR 34 highlights the importance of ethnic studies as an academic discipline and recognizes its research, scholarship and programs that study and teach the experiences, history, culture and heritage of African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanas/os and Latinas/os, Native Americans, and other persons of color in the United States.
"At a time when Ethnic Studies programs throughout the nation are under attack, it is imperative that we take a stand and recognize the important contributions of California's Ethnic Studies departments and programs, including their faculty, staff and students," said Assembly Member Lara.
This student led hunger strike is demanding:
1. Reinstate the FTE staff positions in Ethnic Studies cut by organizational simplification under the UC's plan for Operational Excellence
2. End the current process of Operational Excellence which seeks to consolidate Ethnic Studies with Gender and Women's Studies and African American Studies into a single department
3. Publicly support Assembly Member Lara's Legislative Resolution ACR 34
4. Publicly acknowledge the unfulfilled promise of the creation of a Third World College at the University of California Berkeley
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Contextualizing the Hunger Strike: Operational Excellence
The UC Berkeley Faculty Association has a set of documents about OE here. But we wanted to quote Chris Newfield's thoughts from last fall on Bain & Company's OE report, because he treats OE as an administrative apparatus instead of getting mired in the details:
The image is the bureaucratic version of the alien ship in Independence Day, a looming, inverted pyramid in which top dwarfs bottom and threatens to swallow it whole. Everything flows top-down, and the administrative content takes the form of goals-metrics-evaluation which are communicated to units (metrics -- assessment of performance), on down to supervisors (accountability functions) and then finally to individuals (performance metrics tied to unit goals.) Relationships are reduced to the abstract modalities of compliance embodied in assessment procedures. Management is not support for the university’s necessarily diverse creative functions but is a state of permanent evaluation. There is no respect here for the autonomy of the units -- departmental staff, student services, and technical staff for laboratories -- that are close to the “customer” (cf. “autonomous culture” as a source of inefficiency in procurement, slide 35). The tone is of control through communication, through finance, through even more of the endless audit and evaluations to which UC employees are already subject. The implicit diagnosis is that Berkeley’s employees are inefficient because they are insufficiently assessed, measured, and financially incentivized. The diagnosis is anti-humanist, at odds with current literature about both human motivation (intrinsic) and effective organizational behavior (collaboratively organized). It is also ungrounded in evidence from the Berkeley campus. The predictable effect, as I noted at the start, is that the model contained in the report is already making staff efficiency worse.In an op-ed published last week in the Daily Cal, Robert Connell, a PhD student in Ethnic Studies, frames OE in terms of diversity and specifically the departmental consolidation that provoked the hunger strike. Like Newfield, he makes the point that instead of "wrangling over statistics" we should be paying attention to the broader context and the process through which OE has been formulated and is being implemented. But Connell also brings up another important point, one that is often left out of these discussions -- the centrality of staff for thinking about campus diversity:
I don’t have first-hand knowledge of how the Berkeley campus process is unfolding this week or this month, but the public documents are not promising. There is the OE czar, central process managers, hand-picked committees making implementation decisions in smoke-free rooms, and roving HR bands hired from the outside. There is nothing there about collaborative implementation, protections for productive autonomy, bottom-up integration, non-intrusive coordination of the decentralization on which organizational creativity depends.
What rarely gets acknowledged, however, is that staffers within these departments play a significant role in cultivating campus diversity. They mentor marginalized students from various departments, assist in recruitment efforts and generally help to build a diverse sense of community, doing much of this outside of their regular paid duties. Students from many departments, both undergraduate and graduate, can attest that the terminated staffers have been vital supports to them throughout their time at Berkeley.This is important in terms of building solidarity between students, faculty, and workers -- something that the administration hopes to prevent at all costs. This is one reason, for example, they don't want union members to accompany students in negotiations, that they literally slam the door in their faces. It is notable that this happened during last year's hunger strike, when two members of AFSCME actually joined the student protesters in refusing to eat. Diversity, in other words, isn't just a question of how many students of color are admitted, as it is often treated. It's also a question of solidarity with those workers and students especially whose lives are made increasingly precarious through the administration's top-down imposition of austerity measures.
Therefore, OE, whatever its successes, deals a heavy blow to campus diversity, equity and inclusion because of the loss of individuals who are key to actually maintaining those realities. Nowhere does our coalition see evidence that OE planners took this into account.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Hunger Strike for Ethnic Studies Begins at UC Berkeley
This afternoon, after a joint teach-in on the administration's plans to consolidate Gender and Women's Studies, Ethnic Studies, and African American Studies, a group of nine students began a hunger strike in front of California Hall. Some of the strikers are veterans of last year's hunger strike as well. Their demands are the following:
1. Reinstate the FTE staff positions in Ethnic Studies cut by organizational simplification under Operational ExcellenceThe administration has released an official response, which is available here. As expected, it not only treats the strikers like irrational children, but furthermore completely fails to respond to their demands. Instead, it tries to make them disappear by asserting that, despite all available evidence, the administration in fact shares the same goals: "Our hope is to understand one another better, given that we have the same ultimate goals for equity and inclusion." Oh really. Flashback to Yudof's recent comments on what he called the UC's "compass points":
2. End the current process of Operational Excellence
3. Publicly support the Legislative Resolution ACR 34, co-authored by Ricardo Lara and Luis A. Alejo in Support of Ethnic Studies in California.
4. We demand that the administration publicly acknowledge the unfulfilled promise of the creation of a Third World College at UC Berkeley.
Yudof said the university has long operated on three "compass points" -- access, affordability and excellence.But we don't need to pick over the statements of UC administrators -- we have enough evidence right before our eyes. The fact is that through "Operational Excellence" UC Berkeley paid millions of dollars to the consulting firm Bain & Company to identify areas to "streamline" (that is, cut). As thosewhouseit reported earlier today from the hunger strike:
"We are moving dangerously close to having to say: pick two of the three. That’s my view, and the excellence is nonnegotiable," he said. "We are going to have to look at access and affordability."
This afternoon, over 100 members of a coalition in defense of Ethnic Studies gathered at Sather Gate against the impending consolidation of their departments as part of Operational Excellence. OE, it should be noted, has now been exported to UCSB, UCSF, UC Davis, and UCLA. We now have “Organizational Excellence,” “Operational Efficiency,” and God knows how many other variants. If Berkeley shelled out a cool $7 million to Bain, UCLA is using Huron, Davis ScottMadden Management, and Santa Barbara an “individual consultant.” Against this affront to Ethnic Studies under the guise of austerity, the 100-200 students and their faculty allies marched to California Hall after announcing the inauguration of a hunger strike. Eight students are now on hunger strike and stationed in front of California Hall.There's one more piece of the administration's response that's worth noting. The concluding paragraph reads:
We are concerned that some students would endanger their health [or safety!!?!] by a hunger strike, and/or negatively impact their academic performance at the end of the semester. We have offered to meet with a small representative group, and this offer remains on the table. In the meantime, you are able to exercise free speech and protest, but are also bound by the campus rules on time, place, and manner (http://police.berkeley.edu/about_UCPD/news/news_101006.html). These rules preclude overnight lodging or camping.Behind austerity measures, the threat of riot cops. But the administration's discourse is inherently paternalistic, even when it's actively engaged in threatening its students. This is reflected, to begin with, in the concern over "health [and safety]," a keyword that's been deployed frequently against student protest over the last year and a half. It also appears in the notion of "time, place, and manner" regulations, which proclaim the importance of free speech while relegating it to geographically isolated and temporally restricted areas. This is the logic of the "free speech" or "first amendment zone." Time, place, and manner -- a subject for a future post.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Update from Glen Cove Occupation
Over 300 people attended today’s Indigenous Peoples Earth Day celebration, in support of the ongoing struggle to protect the Glen Cove sacred burial ground from desecration. Many races and creeds were represented in the attendees, who included Alcatraz Occupation veterans. Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis received a guided tour of the land. News media on the scene were KPFA, KCBS, KPIX, KTVU, Indybay, and the DC Radio Coop.Also, protesters have written a detailed response to an op-ed published last Thursday in the Vallejo Times Herald. Most striking is the fact that Janet Roberson, the author of the original piece, completely left out the fact that she had not only been on the board of the GVRD for several years, but had also lived in the Harbor Homes development right next to Glen Cove. Must have slipped her mind.
Speakers included Jimbo Simmons (Choctaw), Fred Short (Ojibwa), Mark Anquoe (Kiowa), Bradley Angel of Greenaction, and a Seneca man who spoke about the Great Law of Peace. Songs and dances were offered by Pomo, Rumsien Ohlone, Miwok, and Aztec people.
It was a beautiful day. We are inspired and encouraged that even with short notice and minimal outreach, so many came from near and far in support of this work of honoring and protecting our indigenous ancestors. We send a heartfelt Thank You to everyone who was present, in body or in spirit.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Glen Cove Occupied
With bulldozers scheduled to begin work on a construction project tomorrow morning at 8 am, protesters, including many from the Native American community, have occupied the sacred burial site at Glen Cove, Vallejo (known in Ohlone as Sogorea Te). They plan to spend the night there and prevent work from going forward tomorrow:
Native American activists consider this to be the last stand in a struggle that has been going on for over a decade, since the Greater Vallejo Recreation District (GVRD) first proposed plans for a “fully featured public park” including construction of a paved parking lot, paved hiking trails, 1000 pound picnic tables and a public restroom on top of the 3500 year old burial site.For more information on the site check out www.protectglencove.org (that's where the photos are from). Also, there will be updates tomorrow on Indybay.
On Wednesday, April 13th, Sacred Site Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT), a Vallejo-based community organization, filed an administrative civil rights complaint to the State of California alleging that the City and GVRD are discriminating on the basis of race in threatening to destroy and desecrate significant parts of the Glen Cove Shellmound and burial site, for harming Native Americans’ religious and spiritual well-being, and effectively excluding Native Americans from their right to full participation in decision-making regarding the site.
The history and cultural value of the site has never been disputed. Human remains have been consistently unearthed as the area around the site has been developed. Native Americans continue to hold ceremonies at Sogorea Te just as they have for thousands of years. The Glen Cove Shell Mound spans fifteen acres along the Carquinez Strait. It is the final resting place of many Indigenous People dating back more than 3,500 years, and has served as a traditional meeting place for dozens of California Indian tribes. The site continues to be spiritually important to California tribes. The Glen Cove site is acknowledged by GVRD and the City to have many burials and to be an important cultural site, yet they are moving forward as early as Friday with plans to build a toilet and parking lot on this sacred site and to grade a hill that likely contains human remains and important cultural artifacts.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Against the Day
The new issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly includes a section called "Against the Day," in which a number of UC students reflect on the struggle over public education in California. Most of the essays focus in some way or another on the protests that took place in and around the UC during 2009-2010. From the introduction, by Christopher Newfield and Colleen Lye:
The essays collected here are all written by University of California students who were active in the California student movements of 2009–2010. These movements were the largest and most widespread campus-based actions in the United States since the 1960s. They were also remarkable for their intellectual diversity, their successful efforts to link generally disconnected issues, their systematic attempts to rethink student movement strategies, their reflections on their own internal divisions, and their escalating confrontations with local administrations and the police.Links to free downloads of the essays (via) are below the fold.
The movements became visible to the public in November 2009, when the UC Board of Regents voted for a 32 percent tuition increase -- on top of the doubling of tuition that it had already implemented over the course of the decade. But many of the group participants had been operating for years, and the conditions that reached a crisis in 2009 had been reshaping UC and its companion system, the California State University, for two decades.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Your Apathy = Your Fees
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
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