Clear bad baggage
Accept. Forgive without circumvention
Quiet all.
A sanctity of blackness.
Telling. Strong. Stronger. Braver.
This poem is a product of the Poetry for the People workshop featuring local poet, Ruth Nicole Brown. For more information on upcoming poetry events, email the.public.i@gmail.com
You know when I see someone in the street or in a class dressed in that greenish camouflage / and sometimes the cap I feel anger and resentment and guilt because it’s not their fault / just like it’s not the fault of the kids in low-income housing who idolize drug dealers (who harbor glocks and techs for each other and an understandable hatred of the police) / and want to be just like them and then they do but in our society we villainize
those people / you know, they call themselves soldiers too and with as much validity because that’s what a soldier is / someone who raises their hand when the teacher asks who will kill for the community / who will engage the enemy / who will be the one to put the gun to the heads of those who would do the same to us / I promise they would / see how they hate us when we walk into their house / and military psychologists invent terms like collateral damage and / everyone we kill is the Taliban or Al Qaeda until proven brown at the wrong place at the right time / and even those who lampoon right-wing ideologues check their critical irony at the door when those who serve are involved
The men and women overseas who fight to protect our freedom, some of them, “they don’t have a choice” / Perhaps they’re poor and can attend college no other way / perhaps the problem children of the street corner who bang with evil gangs / and run with stolen guns have no other way to feed themselves / and feel part of something larger than their own socially marginalized existence / so when they put bullets in the heads of other little children or grown-up children / you can say they do it because they have no other choice / this is their community and they fight for it and it’s true that oppression is violent / hierarchy is coercive but we always have a choice, don’t we? / We may not know it but as the tired saying goes, what about Gandhi and Martin Luther King? They had a choice, too / To that, Hollywood, the government, and the rest of the dominant culture says: what about Private Ryan and Kill Bill? / Violence is justified if you’re rooting for the good guys / The US military is the biggest, baddest gang of all
The state always has a choice before it sanctions its own violence / and we are truly fucked when we deny ourselves the subjectivity that comes with choosing not to fight in the name of empire codename Åefreedom’ / 100x as much pure cocaine as crack will get you the same jail time / A million times as many brown people as Americans could die / and we would still count the cost of war in dollars / there is a choice to regard complicity in violence as normal and honor it as courage / there is a choice before we pick up a gun and say yes sir I was born in the USA / and I will walk into that house across the sea and fix their shit up good and we’ll do it for 300 million beating hearts back home and if they don’t want us by God we’ll just defend our freedom to be there alaykum as-salaam
“A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step.”
—Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC–531 BC)
On December 1, 2010, the Illinois Senate passed SB 1716 (the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act), just a day after the Illinois House had passed it. When the bill was introduced nearly two years before, it had seemed that it would go nowhere fast. Even when the governor said that he would be willing to sign the bill, it seemed like so many campaign promises made by so many candidates, It would be forgotten after the campaign was over. Yet after winning the election, Governor Quinn continued to assert that he would sign. I was pleasantly surprised when the Illinois legislature started to take real steps toward putting the bill up to a vote. When the bill finally passed with so much support, I was shocked.
The day before the Senate passed the bill, eQuality Champaign-Urbana, a local LGBT activist group of which I’m a member, voted to have a rally on Friday, December 3, 2010, in support of SB 1716. We didn’t know what was going to happen, but we were determined to speak out about the need for LGBT equality. Fortunately, it turned out to be a celebration.
There are good reasons to celebrate, in fact almost 650 of them. This is the number of rights, benefits and protections that opposite-sex couples start to receive from the state of Illinois the moment they get married. Starting June 1, 2011, same-sex and opposite-sex couples who enter into a civil union will be able to receive those same rights, benefits and protections. Some of these include the power to make emergency medical decisions, hospital visitation rights and the right to share a nursing or hospital room. By passing this law, Illinois joins a growing number of states that give committed same-sex relationships state-level spousal protections in the form of domestic partnerships, civil unions or civil marriages.
But civil unions are not the same as marriages. While we don’t have a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Illinois, we do have a state law passed in 1996 that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. This law could be changed by a simple majority vote in the Illinois General Assembly, and The Equal Marriage Bill (HB 178 / SB 2468) would do that very thing. It would allow same-sex couples to be legally “married,” just like opposite-sex couples are. Until this law is passed, civil unions will be seen by many as second-class relationships because the same-sex couples in civil unions are not allowed by law to be “married.”
An Illinois marriage is not the same as a federally recognized marriage. Federally recognized marriage instantly gives couples over 1,000 federal rights including automatic
inheritance (even if there isn’t a will), the ability to put a partner and the partner’s children on your medical or life insurance, the ability to make a partner a US citizen (and
prevent deportation) and recognition of the marriage in all 50 states. In 1996, the United States Congress passed The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defines marriage as
being between a man and a woman. Because of this law the federal government does not recognize any same-sex couples as being married even if they have been legally married in a state that does recognize same-sex marriages. Every time they travel outside the borders of their home state they risk the chance of legalized discrimination.
The United States should grant full federal equality for all of its citizens. In order for gay and lesbian couples to have true legal equality in the recognition and protection of their committed relationships, it is necessary for the United States to have full federally recognized marriage.
The only way to do this is to repeal The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Furthermore, in the fall of 2009 the Respect for Marriage Act (HR 3567) was introduced into the House of Representatives. This bill would finally allow for full equality in marriage on a federal level.
What the Illinois legislature has done is great and it needs to be celebrated. Illinois civil unions give committed same-sex couples many important protections as well as the recognition that gay and lesbian relationships are just as loving and valid as heterosexual relationships. It also shows that Illinois values all of its citizens, not just the heterosexual ones. But civil unions are not marriage equality, not in Illinois and not in the United States. What has happened is good, but much more must be done if we are to be truly equal. Illinois civil unions are not the entire “journey,” nor are they even most of the journey, they are merely “a single step.” That, after all, is how every journey begins.
It’s important we distinguish between the civil unions and marriage. Though many religious institutions in the area provide same-sex couples with recognition before God and their friends and neighbors, a civil union is anything but marriage. Despite what anti-gay activists want to try to convince people, civil unions do not infringe on any religious institutions.
They will not/cannot be forced to recognize any same-sex relationship. They cannot be forced to hire Illinoisans in such relationships, nor can theybe forced to offer insurance benefits to the spouses of their workers in relationships they don’t approve of. This law is very explicit in its language demanding “hands off” religious institutions.
Regardless of one’s feelings about the moral and religious issues that swirl about these unique families, they do face significant and unnecessary challenges under the law that this bill will help remedy. Many same-sex couples around the nation experience discrimination at the times that are the most difficult—when a loved one is sick in the hospital, or—sadly—when a spouse has passed. Despite decades of building love, a life, a home and a family together, the law has considered these two people strangers.
The civil unions bill will help provide same sex couples with only a handful of the more than 1049 benefits given to married couples, but some of the most crucial. Spouses united in a civil union will be granted next-of-kin status in case of medical emergencies and death. The Family and Medical Leave Act will now protect these families that were previously left in the cold. Non-religious workplaces will be encouraged to provide fairer benefits to their workers. In-short, this law will help to protect the children and families of same-sex couples from unfair hardship promoted by current law.
On November 30, 2010, the Illinois Senate passed SB 1716, “Illinois Religious Freedom and Protection and Civil Union Act.” This law will grant legal recognition of same-sex
couples. Governor Quinn has pledged to sign the bill into law in early 2011. Urbana High School hosts a local chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) student group, where students can meet to discuss LGBTQ issues in a safe environment. In light of the recent passage of SB 1716, several students from the GSA wanted to discuss their views of civil unions, gay marriage, and gay rights in general. Here is what a few of them had to say:
ANNIE VALOCCHI
On why some people disagree with gay marriage
I’m always interested when people approach marriage equality from a religious standpoint, or this standpoint of “well, it’s not a right,’ or ‘it’s going to ruin the idea of the nuclear family.” I personally think that while a lot of gay couples would love to be married just to say they’re married, a lot of it is that they’re living just like a heterosexual married couple, only they’re not getting the same legal and financial rights. I don’t think civil unions address the civil rights side of it. In a way, civil unions establish a’ separate but equal’ precendent for marriage, which is something we’ve just got to keep working on. I understand the viewpoint of people who say ‘you can’t create a child, therefore you shouldn’t be married’. I don’t agree, but I see where they’re coming from. When people have been raised on an idea it’s one of those deep-set things, and I don’t necessarily think you can change their minds. People try so hard in this world to extinguish love. With all the violence that’s going on and hatred and people who are hungry, why would you put your time and energy into telling someone they can’t love someone else. That just seems so trivial to me. I really see marriage equality as my generation’s big civil rights issue. For my parents and grandparents, it was race equality. Now, I have the opportunity to give my children a world that is more accepting, where there won’t be this weird stigma connected to someone loving someone of the same gender.
On the recent passage of the “Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act” and other legal actions taken by the state of Illinois to protect persons identified as LGBTQA
It’s really cool to see how excited the gay community is about this bill. It’s cool to see a step in the right direction toward marriage equality. Laws being set in place are going to
help. It’s hard to say it’s perfect, because once you leave the state of Illinois, you’re not guaranteed any of these rights, and you still can’t file your taxes together. There’s stuff that’s missing, but it’s definitely still a good thing. There’s also an Illinois comprehensive bully act that passed in June that specifically named gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation within it so there’s more protection for LGBTQA youth.
On how Urbana High School’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) student group has affected students
I think that this club is really important for raising awareness because high school is one of the worst places for a student who is LGBTQA. High school is a place where everyone is incredibly judgmental and bullying is really bad. You hear students in the hallways using these gay slurs and they don’t even know they’re being offensive. Nobody is there correcting them or explaining why it’s not alright. A lot of people are scared of having anything to do with someone who’s gay. They’ve grown up being scared of it. They’ve never known someone who’s gay and this club puts a face on these issues, as if to say, ‘There are people in your school for whom this is the way they live. You need to accept them and they need to feel safe here.’ I think the club is important for working within
our school to create a positive image. Obviously we want to do work on issues at a higher level like marriage equality or civil unions, but it’s going to start by first changing people’s perceptions and attitudes here, within the high school.
On the response of high school students to the presence of the GSA
Both the other co-president and myself identify as straight. The biggest thing is that people don’t understand why [as a straight woman] I’m involved in this. There’s not a
lot of blatant homophobia in this school. I’m proud of that. We’ve made great strides. We have pink signs in the hall with derogatory terms that aren’t going to be accepted. We have a social justice committee. But there’s more of an underlying homophobia, which is more difficult to attack. This idea of people saying they don’t mind gay people, but then still treating them differently. Like I said, I think this world could be enhanced greatly if everyone would just be more accepting. It’s less of an issue of being gay or straight. It’s about human compassion and as humans, we should have compassion for one another, raise each other up and make each other feel like it’s okay to be ourselves.
ABEL ESBENSHADE
Why do some people oppose gay marriage?
In modern day society, I believe everyone (or almost everyone) is brought up to be heterosexual. Most people are not exposed to the concept of being gay at an early age.
When they do see [homosexuality] for the first time in middle or high school, it seems strange and is often delegitimized as a result. Most youth are pulled into the modern
social trend that being gay is wrong and a sin. When they ask their parents (if they even get to that stage), they only hear what most Christian families are taught: that [being gay] is a sin. Many grow up never having a second thought about homosexuality, let alone gay marriage, and most likely never questioning their own sexuality. Thus, the belief of homosexuality as a foreign and disagreeable thing is built. In addition to this “straight-ness” being forced upon kids, they probably hear marriage to be a spiritual bond between a man and a woman, rather than “two people who love each other.” They never stop to think that the equation could work with two men or two women, making it impossible to see that a gay couple, like a straight couple, could be in love.
What “social or cultural meanings” does marriage convey to you? Do any of these meanings prohibit gay marriage? Why or why not?
I look at marriage as something two people decide to do to make their love official in the eyes of their friends, the state, and/or God. To me, it does not seem very important to
one’s relationship, though I acknowledge that it is to others. I believe everyone is entitled to the right to marry, especially since it is no longer only a religious joining. Should persons be granted the civil right to marry someone of the same sex? Why or why not?
I believe any two people should be able to marry each other, regardless of any reason anyone else tells them not to, whether it be race, or sex, or religion. It is not that other person’s choice to make… If you don’t like gay marriages, don’t have one. Is there extra stuff you’d like to express about gay rights? As long as we are a “freedom of religion” state, religion should not cloud our ethics. As long as we protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we should protect one’s right to love.
NATALIE ORTA
Basically I feel like it’s great that Illinois has finally taken a step toward equalizing relationships of straight and gay individuals. On the other hand I’m afraid that the government will use this as an excuse to push the decision on legalizing same sex marriages even further back. As was brought up in our meeting, I’m wondering if having half a loaf will become a problem, instead of a good thing.
SOME BACKGROUND
The crisis in public education has been likened toa modern day Civil Rights crisis and a human rights tragedy. At center is the debate over educating ex-slaves. Big business insiders in seats of educational authority, like Arnie Duncan and Cathleen Black, demonstrate a corporatist shift in U.S. educational policy. Poverty and family dysfunction are blamed for Black underachievement ignoring the role of schools in serving the power elite.
As an institution of the state, public schools perform the function of labor sorting. In the global, post-industrial economy, the masses of Black children return to chattellike conditions and are sorted into increasingly privatized prisons where they become producers of low-cost commodities and consumers of incarceration-related debt.
The likelihood of incarceration correlates with 4th grade reading scores. Among 4th graders in Champaign-Urbana, 41% of African American students read below state standards compared to 15% of white students. These numbers closely approximate state figures where 44% African American and 16% white 4th graders read below standard.
Between 1980 and 2004, Illinois opened 21 prisons, bringing the total to 28. As of 2005, African Americans in Illinois were incarcerated at a rate of 2,020 per 100,000 population. Incarceration numbers mirror other social ills such as teenage pregnancy, un/underemployment, teen violence and drug use.
Educational crisis is not new to African America. Less than 60 years prior, in 1954, Brown struck down the 1896 Plessy aparteid doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ schooling.
Though Brown was of critical importance, it lacked the financial specificity to engender equality. The Blair Education Bill of 1880 could have addressed this. Sponsored by Republican Senator Henry Blair from New Hampshire, this bill would have mandated federal funding of public education using a formula based on illiteracy rates. Though its passage would have maintained separate schools, it would also have increased literacy for whites and Blacks, Blacks would have received greater benefits in a system with funding tied to actual need (as seen in illiteracy rates). Sadly, Blair was never enacted.
Most discussions over education ignore and obscure the richness of Black intellectual heritage. The great Islamic learning centers in Timbuktu and Djenne in the Malian Empire between the 15th and 17th centuries attracted enlightenment seekers from other parts of the world. Such attainments followed the intellectual prowess of ancient Egypt. More readily available to us, however, are the biographies of people like Phillis Wheatley, enslaved in the Gambia when she was 7, brought to New England, became proficient in English and Latin and was the first published African American. Many literate Africans disembarked in the Americas and found ways to preserve and perpetuate their literacy.
Education, beyond reading, writing and ciphering, was conceptualized as the transmission of intergenerational knowledge for individual and group survival. These literacies were developed in Sabbath schools through bible stories, songs, folklore, trickster narratives and adult modeling. Additionally, a number of whites were disposed to teach Blacks to read and write. Free Blacks started and maintained schools as early as 1790.
Following the unsuccessful revolts and inflammatory acts by literate men and women like Prosser, Vesey and Turner, Sojourner Truth, and Walker, prohibitions were placed on Black education. Blacks responded with improvisation, establishing schools in homes, church basements, barns, one room schoolhouses and even covered pits. Understanding the relationship between literacy and freedom resulted in radical interventions, even under the threat of death.
Since the early 20th century, citizenship and freedom schools have provided political education for African America. Following the Black Power/Black Arts Movements of the 70s and 80s, independent Black institutions formed across the U.S. These programs recognized the state’s usurpation of Black educational self-determinancy, particularly the role of the family, through compulsory, state sponsored education. Additionally, these schools produced outcomes that flew in the face of financiers and philanthropists who questioned the intellectual capacity of Blacks. A culturally centered approach recognizes all children’s ability to learn. These schools have produced students who display advanced academic, social and personal development; models that should be widely replicated in the 21st century literacy campaign.
SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION
Supplementary education is ubiquitous among immigrant groups in the UK as spaces for the preservation of their language, cultural practices, and rituals. Blacks from the Caribbean began creating supplementary schools in the 70s in response to the educational apartheid system they encountered. Large numbers of their children were arbitrarily assessed and labeled educationally subnormal and placed in special schools from which few were able to extricate themselves. The supplementary schools charge a modest fee to pay for specialty teachers and space, but for the most part they are supported by volunteers and donations. Saturday schools augment mainstream schools by providing instruction in core academic subjects as well as history and culture.
The Nubian African Community Foundation School, a Saturday school in southeast London, provided a community of caring adults to about 20 children. Classes began with a circle to learn and demonstrate communal values and engage in intergenerational dialogue. The remainder of the day was divided into 45 minute sessions of age appropriate group work in math, science, history, communications, and moral philosophy. They also shared a midday meal. Children ranged in age from 5 to 15. Mothers worked alongside younger children. Many of these programs offered adults classes on parenting, personal development, economic literacy, law, arts, history and culture.
A modern literacy movement should seek to develop intergenerational programs that draws on the cultural knowledge of the African American community, restores communal values and reclaims vital traditions such as rites of passages and life-cycle celebrations. An effective movement must be predicated on understandings of human similarities and diversity, incorporating principles of humanism and civility. It must proceed with the type of vigor and volunteerism witnessed in early African America, in Mao’s education initiatives, Castro’s campaign in Cuba and Freire’s work in Brazil’s favelas. Intervention sites include curricula, home schools, and community and school based youth development programs.
Public education should include community lectures, read-ins, adult literacy programs, and community based classes on topics relevant to African America. Blogs, websites, and social networking sites can provide additional spaces for radical interventions to animate and make accessible a Black public sphere. The cultural arts and performances also offer critical pedagogical spaces.
Education must, once again, be the singular focus of African Americans. Enhancing the educational achievement of African Americans enriches all. We must create a new, just social order. Embracing principles of truth, balance, order and reciprocity should be our guiding praxis in developing the human potential of all children.
Changing how electricity is generated is a crucial piece of solving the climate change puzzle. Current methods of electricity generation produce 40% of C02 emissions in the US, and on campus generation accounts for 68% of the UIUC carbon. In the spring of 2010, the campus enacted a Climate Action Plan which includes a commitment to source 5% of energy and electricity from renewables by 2015. For the past seven years, students at the University of Illinois have been lobbying for a wind turbine for their campus, on the south farms. The 1.5 MW turbine would supply around 1% of the campus’s electricity use, and serve as an important first step towards the University’s renewables commitment. It would reduce demand on Abbott Power Plant, the University’s coal-fired plant; the biggest source of SO2 emissions in the county. Currently, the University is in the process of reviewing bids for the turbine, but if a contract isn’t signed soon, the project is in serious danger.
The approximately 4 million dollar project relies on a 2 million dollar grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, due to expire in spring of 2011. The grant has already been extended twice, and is unlikely to be extended again unless construction is in progress by May or June. In order for this to happen, a contract will need to be approved at the January meeting of the University Board of Trustees. UI students have contributed $500,000 to the project in the form of a grant from the Student Sustainability Committee, which allocates student green fees. Students voted in 2003 and again in 2010 to fund projects of this nature with a now $14 per semester fee. Yet as students committed themselves to investing in renewable energy, the University retrenched, announcing during finals in 2008 that the project would be put on hold due to budgetary constraints. Ideally, the wind turbine would already have been installed then, but University stalling postponed it until it no longer seemed feasible. That was until 2010, when, thanks to student and faculty lobbying, the project was revived under Chancellor Bob Easter. After one close call, advocates of the project are deeply committed to seeing it through.
Most wind power developments sit in rural areas, often on property leased from farmers, and for the most part far out of sight of those who use the power they produce.
The proposed site on the south farms, near to the intersection of Philo and Old Church Roads in Urbana, is much closer to its users, and this is a good thing. Awareness of where power comes from is an important step in building public support for investment in renewable energy. Out of sight of the smokestacks of coal fired power plants, it is easy to ignore the impacts of electricity generation on our air and water quality. Coal-burning power plants, the source of most electricity in Illinois, produce the highest greenhouse gas emissions, and among the highest levels of air pollutants of any energy source. In contrast, observing wind turbines provokes consideration of energy issues and discussions over where our power comes from.
The wind turbine project is a pioneering first step toward further investment in renewable by the University and in the Champaign-Urbana area. It is vital that it happens now, while grant funding is available.
Community support, in the form of letters, emails and calls to University administration and the Board of Trustees has the power to influence the University to move faster on this project. Together, the University and the community can make this happen.
On December 8, volunteers Brian Duggan and Chris Ritzo of CuWin (Community Wireless) and the UCIMC Tech working group traveled to Detroit, MI to help build a community mesh wireless network. In four days, Duggan and Ritzo and members of the Open Technology Initiative (OTI) mounted and connected two small mesh wireless nodes, four medium-sized nodes, and one large node at four sites. The large nodes have a much greater radio reach than the smaller nodes. All nodes can be mounted on rooftops, but the small nodes can also be mounted in windows. Valuable experience was gained in hardware installation, software development and configuration for the mesh nodes. Duggan and Ritzo plan to use C
uWin as a platformgroup to implement and expand a new mesh wireless network in Urbana-Champaign. Duggan, Ritzo and OTI worked with the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DDJC) and residents of the 48217 area code in Detroit to install the seeds of what will be a dense and active community internet in the near future.
Ritzo installing a high power mesh wireless radio to allow for the sharing of Internet access
OTI donated hardware and employee labor to organized twelve residents to host small mesh wireless nodes on or in their houses.
The nascent network will initially allow users to share Internet access with each other. Currently, most broadband subscribers seek to block community access to their Internet connections through wireless access points. This works because modern consumer routers make it easy to turn on encryption and because an unwelcome user must be in range of the wireless access point—typically no farther than across the street.
A community mesh wireless network turns the ‘one subscriber, one user’ model on its head. A mesh network can allow several city blocks to utilize one consumer Internet connection. It will also allow the same users in that area to utilize more than one Internet connection at more than one residence. So the users that subscribe to Internet connections could use community organizations to recoup costs of maintaining that subscription by sharing.
Mesh networks also allow for application sharing. For example, if the residents of 48217 wanted a streaming radio station on their network, they could save money paying just the hardware costs, the bandwidth between the nodes—within the mesh network—is free. For a community like that found in the 48217 zip code, that suffers from chronic government neglect, lack of proper emergency notification systems, and the most polluted air in all of Detroit, localizing services could prove to be a primary function of the mesh network. OTI and DDJC explained that in the future, networked security cameras and air quality testers could use the mesh network as a platform for informing 48217 residents of immediate dangers and for collecting data about the dangers their community faces on a regular basis.
It has been confirmed that Travis Burr was dismissed from his position as investigator with the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office. Burr was charged with a DUI after being involved in a three-car accident, details about which have yet to become publicly available.
Burr's Mug Shot
On August 14, 2010, Burr was driving east from Sadorus when he was involved in an accident. After Sheriff’s deputies showed up on the scene and discovered that Burr was a colleague, the state police were called in to investigate. As stated in court documents, “Subject had a slight odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath and slightly slurred speech. Subject had bloodshot eyes and admitted drinking 6–8 beers since noon. Subject failed SFST’s [Standardized Field Sobriety Tests].” Unfortunately, d
ue to a policy enforced beginning in 2007 by State’s Attorney Julia Rietz, police reports describing the incident in more detail are not available to the public until after the court case is resolved. Whatever happened, it must have been serious as a DUI is not grounds for the automatic dismissal of a police officer.
Some may remember when Lisa Staples, a police detectivewith the Champaign Police Department, was found guilty of DUI while driving an unmarked squad car the wrong way on Interstate 72. After a special prosecutor was assigned to the case, Staples was granted court supervision and could continue driving. As her attorney Ed Piraino stated, “If she can’ft drive, she can’t be a police officer.” Staples was allowed to keep her job, but resigned after public outrage over the special treatment she received.
At the most recent hearing, Burr’s attorney Mark Lipton asked for a continuance. Lipton stated for a second time that he was waiting for discovery from the Sheriff’s Department, this day saying there was a booking video he has asked for. Judge Richard Klaus was surprised, saying he did not know there was video taken during booking, and he granted the continuance. Burr is due back in court on January 6, 2011 at 10:30 a.m.
After a candidates’ forum on October 20, 2010, Sheriff Dan Walsh, who has since won re-election, told me that Burr had been dismissed but would not explain the specifics. What happened on that day in August may eventually come out, but not until after Burr has been dealt with in the courts. The story has not been followed by the News-Gazette since the initial arrest. By the time the public finds out what happened, a sweetheart deal may already be sealed.
Community Radio Station Hopefuls Hula Hoop in Front of the National Association of Broadcasters, asking CEO Gordon Smith: Stop Making Low Power FM Radio Jump Through Hoops!
Saturday, December 18, 2010, just days away from the end of Congress when all unresolved bills die, the Local Community Radio act passed the Senate, after a swift victory in the House the day before.
This victory, which was the culmination of ten years of struggle by thousands of grassroots advocates and dozens of public interest groups, ushers in one of the biggest opportunities
to expand community voices on the airwaves in U.S. history. It is the first major legislative success for the movement for a more democratic media system and indicates its growing power in an age of massive media consolidation and corporate assault on a free and open internet.
The Local Community Radio Act will expand the low power FM (LPFM) service which allows for 100 watt stations to broadcast to a town or neighborhood in a 5-10 mile radius.
These stations have helped farm workers organize for economic justice, environmentalists clean up the Chesapeake, and victims of hurricane Katrina find food and shelter.
Prometheus Radio Project, which has led the ten year fight to open up the airwaves, sees LPFM as the most accessible, affordable way for communities to communicate and organize for a most just and democratic future. The stations cost as little as a few thousand dollars to build and a few hundred to operate each year. “A town without a community radio station is like a town without a library,” said Pete Tridish, co-founder of the Prometheus Radio Project. “Many a small town dreamer—starting with a few friends and bake sale cash—has successfully launched a low power station, and built these tiny channels into vibrant town institutions that spotlight school board elections, breathe life into the local music scene, allow people to communicate in their native languages, and give youth an outlet to speak.”
THE HISTORY OF LPFM
The LPFM service itself was created in 2000 by the Federal Communications Commission in response to grassroots outrage at shrinking local media. The service was then swiftly curtailed in Congress at the behest of commercial broadcasters.
Radio Free Urbana—WRFU 104.5 FM—is one of the lucky 800 LPFM stations that were licensed. This despite restrictions which have kept LPFM stations out of urban areas for the last 10 years. Since then, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has worked its connections in Congress in repeated attempts to kill the bill. They spent over $3 million
in lobbying April through June of this year on a host of issues including opposing the Local Community Radio Act.
Exploiting a procedure to allow senators to study a bill before passage, the NAB colluded with a handful of Senators to put secret holds on the bill in an attempt to stall it until the
Congressional session was over. But the grassroots fought back. Advocates contacted every Senate office to flush out the holders. They mobilized phone calls, letters to the editor, and local press until the opposing senators yielded. New holds followed. With time running out, groups as diverse as Move On, Free Press, Color of Change and the Christian Coalition created a million person e-mail blast asking people to call their Senators. This
generated thousands of calls. When the NAB put out a letter to all senators saying “thousands of slots are available across the country for new low power stations” without mentioning that these slots are largely in deserts or in wilderness areas without listeners, hundreds rang NAB phone lines in protest.
HULA HOOPING TO VICTORY
Tired of getting the run around, advocates staged a Hula Hoop Party in front of NAB headquarters December 13th to say, “Stop making community radio jump through
hoops—pass the Local Community Radio Act!” Hoopers, jugglers, stilt walkers, and circus performers offered Gordon Smith, former senator and current CEO of the NAB, a
colorful hoop shouting, “come join the future of radio!” You can watch the video at www.prometheusradio.org.
This pressure and action sparked a series of national press pieces. Finally, the bill cosponsors were able to bring the NAB to the table and get them to drop their holds. Some amendments were made that will require further work at the FCC, but the bill
emerged, providing the mandate the FCC needed to start licensing new LPFM stations.
This process could start as early as late 2011.
Taking its cue from the model developed by the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, the Prometheus Radio Project intends to help foster the creation of radio stations as future community media centers across the country to promote social justice and community expression.
“We’ve built community radio stations from coast to coast and around the country,” said
Hannah Sassaman, a longtime organizer with the Prometheus Radio Project. “The faith and perseverance of low power FM’s legislative champions, and the thousands who pushed for the Local Community Radio Act, paid off in incredible ways. After ten years of struggle, it’s stunning to know that in the next years, the FCC will work to and begin
licensing LPFMs in city neighborhoods, in suburbs and towns, and in rural areas. It’s humbling to understand that new young people will gain a love of telling stories at the
working end of a microphone or at home listening to their neighbors. And it’s powerful to know that these stations will launch leaders in every walk of life to change their communities, and this country. We look forward to launching the next generation of community stations with you.”
To learn more about low power FM community radio, visit www.prometheusradio.org.
JERUSALEM, BORDERS, SECURITY, VIOLENCE and the fate of Palestinian
refugees: these are the issues most often mentioned when
the mainstream media discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Indeed, President Bush has specifically mentioned these
issues as he tries to restart talks aimed at a peace deal “by the
time I leave office.” All of these issues are real and important,
but miss the critical reality of the conflict: Israelis control a disproportionate
amount of the resources in a land shared by two
peoples. Nowhere is clearer than in the case of water.
Cases of environmental justice generally document the
disproportionate placement of toxics and pollutants on the
basis of race or socio-economic status. The case for environmental
justice can be made as well on the basis of systematic
denial of access to natural resources. This is the
case for Palestinians and water, a classic example.
That there is unequal access to water between Palestinians
and Israelis is almost beyond dispute. In addition to a
host of Palestinian advocacy groups both in the US and in
the West Bank and Gaza, organizations ranging from the
World Bank to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem
have documented systematic and long standing disparities
in access. As a B’Tselem report states:
“Israel’s citizens, like those of developed countries worldwide,
benefit year-round from unlimited running water to
meet their household needs. On the other hand, hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians suffer from a severe water shortage
throughout the summer. The shortage drastically affects the
residents’ health and economic well-being. […] This harm
results from Israeli policy, in effect since 1967, based on an
unfair division of resources shared by Israel and the Palestinians.”
(http://www.btselem.org/English/Water/Index.asp)
As an example of the systemic nature of this problem, B’Tselem
reports on the Israeli role in denying Palestinian water
rights date to 1998, and have been issued periodically in
1999, 2000, 2001, and most recently in 2006, with the report:
“Act of Vengeance: Israel’s Bombing of the Gaza Power Plant
and its Effects.” Among the most critical effects was disabling
water treatment capability in Gaza. I add here my own experience
of living and working in Ramallah, Bethlehem, and
Hebron from 1993–1998. Especially in Bethlehem and
Hebron, I witnessed in each of those summers weeks of water
shortage where piped water was not delivered to Palestinian
families and businesses. Those with resources were forced to
pay tankers who would supply water of undetermined quality.
Those without, would make due best they could. All buildings
had rooftop tanks to store water when it arrived.
It is important to note that there have been efforts to
counter these reports by Zionist groups in the US, such as the
media watch-dog group the Committee on Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA). They argue two
things: a) That the occasional news stories by US media outlets
such as National Public Radio and the New York Times (hardly
radical pro-Palestinian news outlets) that document the disparities
in water access ignore the swimming pools and lawns
that exist in Palestinian communities; and, b) Even if there are
disparities in access to water between Palestinians and Israelis,
these are largely due to corruption and inefficiency on the part
of the Palestinians. In other words, Palestinians are surely misrepresenting
the level of disparity, and even if there are shortages
in Palestinian communities, these shortages are the result
of Palestinian mismanagement and corruption.
The existing statistics on water in Palestine supports the
counter argument. According to various sources, including
the United Nations and the World Bank, Palestinians consume
far less than Israelis. Three million West Bank Palestinians
use only 250 million cubic meters per year (83 cubic
meters per Palestinian per year). The more than 1 million
Palestinians in Gaza are estimated to have a per capita consumption
of just 70 liters per day. Six million Israelis enjoy
the use of 1,954 million cubic meters (333 cubic meters per
Israeli per year). This means that each Israeli consumes as
much water as four Palestinians. Israeli settlers are allocated
1,450 cubic meters of water per person per year. Consumption per capita might be written
off as a problem of inefficiency, lack of
maintenance of infrastructure, or other
operations and maintenance problems on
the part of Palestinians—and indeed
groups like CAMERA have used these
arguments. If that were the case, we would
find that while Palestinians consume far
less water per capita, they have equal
access to the available sources of water.
Analysis shows this not to be the case.
Let’s start with shared surface fresh
water resources. Roughly one quarter of
the water in Israel’s National Water Carrier
(the Mekorot) comes from the Jordan
River. Even though 93% of the river separates
the West Bank from Jordan (making
Palestinians full riparians) they do not have
direct access to its waters.
Israel also consumes a disproportionate
amount of the groundwater resources. The
Coastal Aquifer Basin is largely overtapped
and the Gaza Aquifer, under the Gaza Strip, is
overdrawn both by the large Palestinian population
and by ongoing Israeli mining of
groundwater. Of the water available from West
Bank aquifers, Israel uses 73%, West Bank
Palestinians use 17%, and Jewish settlers use
10%. This is enforced through restrictions on
well drilling in the West Bank, which is rarely
granted and all wells of greater than 100
meters have been prohibited since 1967.
Groups like CAMERA argue that this disproportionate
access is more than offset by
the supply of water to the West Bank. Roughly
53% of water supply to the Palestinians
comes through the Mekorot. The problem, in
addition to the water cutoffs during the summer
mentioned above, is that Palestinians
pay $1.2 per cubic meter compared to
Israelis, who pay $0.4 per cubic meter for
domestic use and $0.16 for irrigation.
The situation of access to water has been
exacerbated by the Israeli separation wall
(often referred to in the mainstream media
as Israel’s “security fence,”) implemented in
2004. According to the Water and Sanitation
Hygiene Monitoring Project, the construction
and implementation of the wall
has either destroyed or rendered inaccessible
some 50 Palestinian wells and 200 cisterns
“used for domestic and agricultural
needs by over 122,000 people.” Additionally,
the construction of the wall destroyed
35,000 meters of water pipes.
These statistics indicate the reality:
Palestinians suffer unequal access to shared
water resources as part of the ongoing occupation.
Water is crucial to public health and
economic development. Rectifying this
inequity through sincere steps toward joint
management of shared water resources will
be critical to moving toward real peace and
justice in Israel and Palestine.
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MINNEAPOLIS—THE JIMMY JOHN’S WORKERS UNION has
filed a 12-page Objection to the October 22 National
Labor Review Board (NLRB) election at 10 Minneapolis
sandwich shops, outlining a pattern of pervasive and systemic
labor rights violations that prevented the possibility
of a free and fair vote. The union election, a first in fast
food in the US, was as close as they come, with 85 votes in
favor of the union, 87 against, and 2 challenged ballots.
“Franchise owner Mike Mulligan decided to go beyond the
pale. His managers asked workers to wear anti-union pins,
fired pro-union workers, threatened a mass firing,
implemented an illegal wage freeze, tightened policies and
retaliated against union members, […] and pressured
workers to vote no. He broke the law repeatedly in order
to win, and he just barely won. That’s not right. We are
calling on the NLRB to set aside the results of this
election,” said worker and union member Emily
Przybylski Przybylsiy.
In response to his employee’s union campaign, franchise
owner Mike Mulligan hired a third-party anti-union consulting
firm, Labor Relations Inc., to prevent employees
from winning an NLRB Union election. According to documents
obtained from the Department of Labor, Mulligan
spent over $84,500 on an anti-union campaign intended to
prevent workers from unionizing.
Tim Louris, of Minneapolis labor firm Miller O’Brien
Cummins, is assisting the union pro-bono in navigating
the tricky waters of labor law. Union spokespeople say the
written objection to the election results will be available to
the public within a few days.
While filing with the NLRB to have the election results
nullified, the workers also plan to mount a campaign to
win their demands without union recognition.
“85 yes votes, in spite of 6 weeks of vicious union-busting,
is a mandate for change. There are a thousand ways
we can put pressure on Jimmy John’s to win our demands
for fair wages, sick days, consistent hours, and respect.
We’re fired up, this fight is just beginning,” said Ayo
Collins, another worker and union member.
The Jimmy John’s Workers Union, open to employees
at the company nationwide, is the first fast food union in
the nation, and is affiliated with the Industrial Workers of
the World labor union. Gaining prominence in recent
years for organizing Starbucks workers (www.starbucksunion.
org/), the IWW is a global union founded over a
century ago for all working people.
For more information: Jimmy John’s Workers Union
(Industrial Workers of the World; www.iww.org, or
www.jimmyjohnsworkers.org) Contact: Emily Pzybylski,
414-477-9803.
LOUD VOICES FROM the
worlds of business and
government have called
for people to pay a larger
share of the costs of their
maintenance. These voices
call for cutting back on
payments to working people in wages,
healthcare, retirement pensions, social
security, and welfare. Tax support for education
has dropped, and students and their
parents are called upon to pay more.
Grants for higher education are disappearing.
Some of these have been converted to
student loans, but even these are much
harder to come by. Meanwhile, the cost of
public utilities like water and power has
risen dramatically, as of course has the cost
of health care.
Conservatives scream about job losses
when the minimum wage is raised 25 or
50 cents an hour. They should save their
breath. The Illinois minimum of
$8.25/hour or the federal minimum of
$7.00/hour doesn’t matter much now; by
global standards these wages are already
way too high and the jobs long gone.
Want to see jobs come back? Try minimums
somewhere between $1.00 and
$4.00 an hour.
In a world where business and money
can and do go all over, why should any
company pay an assembly-line worker
more than the $1 per hour it costs in China
or the $2 per hour it costs in Mexico? But
while we are at it, why pay a college-educated
engineer, doctor, lawyer, accountant,
or teacher more than $12,000 to $20,000
per year? Licensing and regulation currently
protects professionals from global competition,
but that can be changed.
In addition to financial costs, the majority
of citizens are being told to give over
more of their time; between increases in
the retirement age and longer work-weeks
without overtime, the very lives of citizens
are being sacrificed to production and
profit in the name of “progress.”
All this amounts to quite a squeeze!
It may hit the “working-class” and poor
hardest, but it’s coming for almost everyone.
But how can this be? Both the U.S.
and the global economy have grown enormously
over the past few generations. In
this sense then, there is no problem
“affording” wage increases, benefit increases,
a stable social security system, and long
and secure retirements. If you look at raw
wealth and productive capacity, you’d be
misled into thinking that every generation
should be able to enjoy higher wages, better
health care, and still be able to retire
earlier than the previous generation. So
why are we talking about cutbacks instead
of increases all the time?
The answer is simple: markets are fundamental
to both the U.S. economy and
the global economy. Markets are the main
way goods and services, and jobs and payments
are distributed. However, markets
do not say, “Gee, lets see how much has
been produced; Ok, it’s a little more than
last year, so everyone will get a little more.”
Instead, in markets it’s, “ask not what the
economy can do for you; ask what you can
do for the economy;” or, what you can do
to the economy. Your benefits are directly
tied to your power for good or for harm. If
you are powerless, you’ll get no cash and
no attention.
That’s the secret. Technology has rendered
much routine labor obsolete, while
colonialism left a legacy across the world
of extremely unequal wage rates. When
placed head to head, those in “the West”
who benefited most and first from social
and technological revolutions are now the
least competitive. The more global and
technologically advanced the economy,
the less most people will be able to personally
contribute. So they will eventually
get paid less too. That’s how things work
in markets. This may be of some comfort,
though not much, to people elsewhere
who live in poverty under oppressive conditions,
and who are now getting the lowpaid
jobs. It is of much more comfort to
owners and entrepreneurs who profit
from this competition.
As productive power shifts from
Europe, North America, Japan and Korea
to countries like China, India, Indonesia,
Viet Nam, Egypt, Nigeria and Brazil—and
those places with raw material reserves—
unions, whether cohesive as in many parts
of Europe or fragmented as in the US, lose
bargaining power. The ultimate threat, the
strike, is defanged. “You want to strike?
Well, we were thinking of moving the
plant in five years anyway, maybe we’ll just
do it now.” It is worthwhile to note that
unions in China, working under conditions
more oppressive than here, have
recently been able to achieve wage gains of
ten to twenty percent a year. That’s the
advantage of not being priced out of the
market right from the start.
Union power combined with political
action pushed wages up in the old industrial
countries, and that led to an expansion
of benefits, pensions, and government-
run programs. Another secret is that
the confidence and self-respect with which
workers once formed unions gave entrepreneurs
and property owners the clue that
investment in workers can be worthwhile
when dealing with socially and technically
skilled people who know what they offer.
But the current economic situation
deprives many unions here of any power,
and with their powerlessness come
reduced wages and cutbacks in benefits,
pensions, and government programs. Since
unions cannot demonstrate how workers
here are essential, they cannot persuade or
coerce anyone into paying us. Except for
technical experts, resource owners and
entrepreneurs, we are worth less, a lot less
on the market than we have been led to
expect. Successful property owners and
entrepreneurs, making their money mostly
outside this country, don’t understand why
they should support us with their taxes any
more than necessary to avoid the worst of
social disruptions.
So when will we bounce back here?
When will all budgets be balanced and
ordinary people start again to improve
their standard of living? I don’t seriously
expect that to happen until either this
country retreats into a drastic form of protectionism,
or wage rates, working conditions
and benefits become reasonably similar
across the globe.
ABOUT TWENTY STUDENTS from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and Chicago attempted to disrupt a
Board of Trustees meeting today over tuition increases and
the re-segregation of higher education.
A member of the Urbana-Champaign community spoke
on the importance of recruitment of African American students.
The number of African Americans in the freshmen
class at UIUC was higher in 1967 than in 2010.
Another student addressed the board on diversity and
requested that the board freeze tuition. The board is planning
another hike at their January meeting.
At the end of the public comment, one student shouted
out, “Our concerns haven’t been addressed!”
Four security guards rushed toward him.
Two other students spoke up and said “Higher education
is being re-segregated!” and “We want to be listened
to!”
Security grabbed them and began to escort them out.
Other students joined in and chanted, “Tuition freeze
now!” One policeman pushed a student. Police forcefully
removed protesters from the building.
Fifty percent of UIUC students graduate in debt.
The Undergraduate-Graduate Alliance is a coalition of
student activist groups at UIUC.
THE DEMONSTRATIONS THAT have rocked
France this past week highlight some of
its differences from the United States.
The photo below, for example shows
the difference between rioting in baseball-
playing versus soccer-playing
countries. In the US, we would pick up
the tear gas canister and throw it, rather than kick it,
back at the police.
More importantly, the French have decided to take to
the streets in the millions—including large-scale strikes
and work stoppages—to defend hard-won retirement
gains. (It must be emphasised, since the media sometimes
forgets to make the distinction, that only a tiny percentage
of France’s demonstrators have engaged in any kind of
property damage and even fewer in violence, with all but
these few protesting peacefully.) French populist rage is
being directed in a positive direction – unlike in the United
States where it is most prominently being mobilised to
elect political candidates who will do their best to increase
the suffering of working-—and middle-class citizens.
I have to admit, though, that it was perplexing to watch
the French elect Nicolas Sarkozy president in 2007, a man
who campaigned on the idea that France had to make its
economy more “efficient“, like America’s. In reality, he
couldn’t have picked a worse time to peddle this mumbojumbo.
The housing bubble was already bursting in the
United States and would soon cause not only our own
Great Recession, but also drag most of the world economy
into the swamp with it. So much for that particular model
of economic dynamism.
But Sarkozy had a lot of help from the major media,
which was quite enchanted with the American model at
the time and helped promote a number of myths that
formed part of his campaign. Among these were the idea
that French social protections and employment benefits
were “unaffordable in a global economy“, and that
employers would hire more people if it were easier to fire
them, and if taxes were cut for the rich.
Sarkozy has recently abandoned one of his most politically
unpopular tax cuts for the rich, but there may be others.
But he had also promised not to raise the retirement
age for the public pension system. This has contributed to
the mass outrage at his current proposal to raise it from 60
to 62, for those taking the reduced benefits, and from 65
to 67, for full benefits. (Under the US social security system,
most people opt for the reduced benefit that is available
beginning at age 62; full benefits are available, for
those born after 1959, at 67.)
Once again, most of the media thinks the French are
being unrealistic, and should just get with the programme
like everyone else. The argument is that life expectancy is
increasing, so we all have to work longer. But this is a bit
like reporting half of a baseball score (or soccer, if you prefer).
On the other side is the fact that productivity and
GDP also increase over time, and so it is indeed possible
for the French to choose to spend more years in retirement
and pay for it.
France’s retirement age was last set in 1983. Since then,
GDP per person has increased by 45%. The increase in life
expectancy is very small by comparison. The number of
workers per retiree declined from 4.4 in 1983 to 3.5 in
2010, but the growth of national income was vastly more
than enough to compensate for the demographic changes,
including the change in life expectancy.
The situation is similar going forward: the growth in
national income over the next 30 or 40 years will be much
more than sufficient to pay for the increases in pension
costs due to demographic changes, while still allowing
future generations to enjoy considerably higher living
standards than people today. It is simply a social choice as
to how many years people want to live in retirement and
how they want to pay for it.
If the French want to keep the retirement age as is,
there are plenty of ways to finance future pension costs
without necessarily raising the retirement age. One of
them, which has support among the French left (and
which Sarkozy claims to
support at the international
level), would be a tax on
financial transactions. Such
a “speculation tax” could
raise billions of dollars of
revenue – as it currently
does in the UK – while
simultaneously discouraging
speculative trading in financial
assets and derivatives.
The French unions and protesters
are demanding that
the government considers
some of these more progressive
alternatives.
It is, therefore, perfectly
reasonable to expect that as life
expectancy increases, workers should be able to spend
more of the lives in retirement. And that is what most
French citizens expect. They may not have seen all the
arithmetic, but they grasp intuitively that as a country
grows richer year after year, they should not have to spend
more of their lives working.
An increase in the retirement age is a highly regressive
cut that will hit working people hardest. Poorer workers
have shorter life expectancies and would lose a higher proportion
of their retirement years. Workers who have to
retire early because of unemployment or other hardships
will take a benefit cut as a result of this change. And, of
course, this cut would not matter to the richest people in
society, who do not rely on the public pension system for
most of their retirement income.
France has a lower level of inequality than most Organization
for Rconomic Cooperstion and Development
(OECD) countries and is one of only five – out of 30
OECD countries – that saw inequality decrease from the
mid 1980s to the mid 2000s. It also had the largest
decrease in inequality in the group, although all of it was
from the mid 80s to the mid 90s.
France has, until now, resisted at least some of the
changes that have rolled the clock back for working people
and, especially, low-income citizens in the highincome
countries. The European authorities (including the
European Commission, European Central Bank and International
Monetary Fund) are
currently accelerating these
regressive changes in the
weaker Eurozone economies
(such as Greece, Spain and
Ireland). All of these institutions
and many politicians
are trying to use the current
economic problems of
Europe as a pretext to enact
rightwing reforms.
Polls show more than 70%
support for France’s strikers,
despite the inconvenience of
fuel shortages and other disruptions.
The French are
already sick of their rightist
government, and that is also
part of what is generating the protests. Despite the recent
electoral weakness of the Socialist party, France has a
stronger left than many other countries do, and one that
has the ability and willingness to organise mass protest,
work stoppages and educational campaigns.
The French are, in effect, fighting for the future of Europe
– and it is a good example for others. We can only hope that,
here in the United States, we will be able to beat back any
proposed cuts to our much less generous social security system,
with attacks on benefits looming on the horizon.
ABOUT 100 PEOPLE PROTESTED outside
Assembly Hall on October 23, 2010 where
for the third year there was a pro-Chief
rally organized by those wishing to revive
the University of Illinois’ racist mascot.
This year, protesters were made to stand
behind a taped-off area and watched closely
by University of Illinois police and
Assembly Hall security. There was some
confusion among officials over this practice,
as one security guard told me that
Assembly Hall was private property. When
I asked UIPD Lieut. Skip Frost, he said that
it was maintained by the University of Illinois,
therefore it was public property, but
the decision to tape off protesters had been
made by the Assembly Hall management.
The creation of such a “free speech zone,”
which has previously been enforced at
recent Democratic and Republican National
Conventions, is a serious suspension of
the First Amendment and modern method
for controlling peaceful protest.
The previous day, about 50 people met
outside Swanlund Administration Building
to protest the University’s failure to put its
racist mascot to rest. As the rally took
place, Chancellor Bob Easter was seen conducting
an interview with a local television
station in the parking lot of the building.
The protesters moved toward him and
chanted, “Chancellor Easter, don’t you
know? We don’t want this minstrel show!”
Easter began to walk off after finishing his
interview but when the crowd started
chanting “Speak with us!” he turned
around and came to address the group.
Carlos Rosa, one of the organizers, asked
the Chancellor when the band would be
made to quit using the “three-and one”
song commonly associated with the Chief
and still being played at games. The Chancellor
assured the group that the administration
was doing everything in its power
to bring the Chief’s era to a close. When
someone asked for a time line, Easter failed
to provide any dates.
THE UNIVERSITY YMCA AND THE UI STUDENT organization La
Colectiva are developing new outreach programs that aim to
build bridges with the Latino immigrant communities in
Champaign County. The two new programs are a mentorship
program with Latino high school students, and an
immigrant helpline that offers Spanish-English translation
and general information about services available locally.
Both programs are still in their initial phases of development
and will be more fully implemented next semester. But
already, the helpline is available on a limited basis, and in
December, La Colectiva will lead a workshop with Latino
high school students in Urbana about higher education.
Next semester, UI students will further the mentorship program
and help high school students with college applications
and personal statements. Other students (not necessarily
affiliated with La Colectiva) will be trained at the
beginning of next semester to volunteer for the helpline,
making this service fully operational. For more information
about the helpline, or to volunteer next semester, email
aaron@universityymca.org. This article intends to provide a
brief background to our new programs.
LA COLECTIVA
Over the past two years, La Colectiva has responded to
waves of anti-immigrant legislation across the country,
especially in Arizona, as well as several racist incidents
on campus. The students organized a series of protests
on the University Quad, a trip to a national rally in
Washington, phone-a-thons and other events.
On the national level, students advocate for the passage
of the DREAM Act, which promises a path to citizenship
for undocumented youth who have grown up in the US. At
UIUC, the students demand support for undocumented
students, both in terms of financial aid as well as safe
spaces for open and respectful conversations about undocumented
student issues. The University’s admissions policy
does not require applicants to provide social security numbers,
which allows undocumented students to apply. However,
they are not eligible for federal aid or student loans,
placing a heavy burden on students and their families who
are often low-income. Although University representatives
have at times been sympathetic to undocumented student
concerns, no official policy changes have been made.
La Colectiva also moved its base of operations to the
University YMCA from its previous affiliation with UI’s
La Casa because of what it felt to be the Y’s commitment
to social justice as well as a growingly inhospitable environment
for political activism on campus. Although the
Y strives to foster dialogue amongst UI students, faculty,
and staff, it is not officially affiliated with the University.
This allows for a more open environment for exercising
freedoms of expression and action.
In the midst of all the activism about change on a
national level and at the University, students began to recognize
a gap between their organizing on campus and the
struggles of community members in Champaign County
who face similar challenges. The campus-community
divide is exacerbated by the fact that most UI Latino students
grew up outside of the county, especially in Chicago.
In addition, community members tend to be skeptical
about student initiatives, as the perennial turnover of student
leaders creates an ebb and flow of public engagement
and a lack of institutional memory or growth.
LA COLECTIVA AND THE Y
Last semester, La Colectiva student leaders began conversations
with University YMCA staff, expressing a
desire to move out of the “campus bubble“. The Y’s new
executive director, Mike Doyle, who previously worked
at Champaign County Health Care Consumers and who
has a background in community organizing, worked
with two La Colectiva students to begin conversations
with community leaders who are in some way invested
in immigration issues locally. The focus of these
exchanges was to begin a community dialogue about
immigration and immigrant rights, and to inquire as to
what issues most directly affect the immigrant community.
Y programs would be developed from these
insights, instead of deciding in advance what the issues
are and imposing those on the community.
Over the past summer, the students, Jesse Hoyt and
Celeste Larkin, conducted about 30 interviews with
local activists, religious leaders, engaged academics,
community representatives, public officials, and business
leaders in Champaign County. At the same time, the
Y worked with the Independent Media Center to apply
for an AmeriCorps position to continue this work into
the academic year and then help build student-community
relationships. This is where I came in.
I applied to the AmeriCorps position with a background
in immigrant rights organizing in the (other) twin
cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN, and community
work with Zapatista agricultural and artisan collectives in
Chiapas, Mexico. Through my work at the Y since September
of this year, I continued the interviews with community
members, and looked into several possibilities for
responsible and sustainable student engagement. Our two
new programs, the high school mentorship program and
the helpline, emerged from this process and will continue
to adapt to community feedback.
IMMIGRANT ORGANIZATIONS IN CHAMPAIGN
COUNTY
There are already a number of community organizations
that work with Latinos and/or immigrants, either exclusively
or as one part of their general mission. Most
notably are the East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance
Center, the Latino Partnership of Champaign County,
the Multicultural Community Center in Rantoul, Cultivadores
(also in Rantoul), Champaign County Health
Care Consumers, the University of Illinois Extension, the
after-school program S.O.A.R. at B. T. Washington, Bilingual
and ESL programs in the public schools, Spanishlanguage
news on Radio Free Urbana 104.5 FM, and a
number of churches that offer Spanish-language services
like St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Most of these programs,
like the immigrants they serve, are either relatively new
(established within the past ten to fifteen years), or have
been newly created to address immigration issues. It is the
intention of the University Y and La Colectiva to play a
collaborative and mutually supportive role with these
organizations, as well as strengthen ties between university
and community members.
One of the key insights gained from our interviews is
the significant growth rate of the Latino population in
Champaign County in recent years. While the 2000
Census found that about 8,000 (or 4.1%) Latinos lived
in the county, everyone seemed to agree that the 2010
results will show a marked increase. Perhaps the most
pressing need at this historical moment is to come to
terms with our changing demographic landscape, and to
create open – but also safe and empowering – spaces for
community dialogue amongst the increasingly heterogeneous
communities of Champaign County.
In Brazil, there is no activism.
In Brazil, there are activist people.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN one and another
is that the first is a noun and as such it is
supposed to name what activists do. The
second is an adjective, and it qualifies the
person who consciously acts for change. At
least it is supposed to.
The Portuguese language allows each ’I’,
who uses it, to make nouns out of adjectives,
and so activists become activism
itself when Brazilian ’I’s use one and another
term indistinctly. So, in Brazil there is a
situation that may seem strange to those in
the United States that, while there are
activists, there is no held-in-common tradition
of activism.
This phenomenon has been creating an
environment where each ’I’ designs a society
such that the action of the individual
seems more relevant than individuals acting
together. Thus, what could be recognized
as the coordination of many for
change ends up being perceived as the initiative
of one.
I say “design a society” because I agree
with the assertion of society being what
people – like you and me – do in language
and together with others when
languaging.
If there is no coordination of ’I’s actions,
then there is no space in the public domain
for activists to compose actions together.
There is no activism as a movement in
which each ’I’ desires peculiar changes for
the benefit of those who benefit from participating
together in the designing of their
own society. By this, each ’I’s desires and
needs could be – respectively – attended
and satisfied, but currently there is no systemic
approach to the problems that call
each activist to action.
When a systemic approach to problems
is missing, seemly unrelated problems will
not be seen as intimately related. So also,
when problems are perceived apart from
the system that creates them, one consequence
may be that the effort to change
something becomes the effort to stop
something.
In Brazil, dictatorship was stopped in
1984, and yet, Brazil is still under dictatorship.
When the military dictatorship was
abolished, the change in government
proved more in name only and less in substance
or real structural changes. At the
time, what was most wanted was the right
to vote, and that was achieved.
And yet, is being able to vote the main
criterion for distinguishing one system
from another in Brazil?
Nowadays, Brazilian ’I’s use the following
terms to refer to that period: “the
rebels” and “the movement against dictatorship“.
At the time, the ’I’s moving
against dictatorship did not baptize their
movement with a word or a phrase to
name each ’I’s doings and wantings.
The lack of having a name that could
express what the efforts of the resistant ’I’s
were for left a gap, which was filled by
some other ’I’ who, maybe very intentionally,
decided to use terms that do not emphasize
the strong potential character of these
actions for change or for coordination neither
among each ’I’ nor groups of ’I’s.
Rather, the terms chosen emphasize the
character of independent events of the
actions. These terms also strongly imply the
quality of “opposition” to something, and
reinforce the object of opposition as so as to
dismiss it. As it turned out, dictatorship’s
obligation not to vote became democracy’s
obligation to vote on the ’I’s who are supposed
to represent each ’I’s interest in the
executive and legislative systems.
But corporate institutions have been
playing an essential role in government
decisions currently. Whose obligation is it
to vote on a board of directors?
My current formulation is that to state
the “againstness” to something is an invitation
to unsystematic changes, while “forness”
is an invitation to further think of
and speak about what things might replace
the current undesirable ones. And so, in
the process of finding the “how can it be
done“, ’I’s find ways to deal with language
and time “in time“. This involves languaging,
which I use when I want to talk about
organizing ways of thinking and speaking
that arise out of the past organizations of
ways of thinking and speaking. So by “deal
with language,” I mean ’I’s at least going
through a dynamic process of naming, distinguishing,
and describing.
My desire here is talk about the last
term in the list (“describing“) – but as a
noun. I use description when I want to talk
about an ’I’ observer, observing a system,
languaging it, and observing the observation
when doing it. By contrast, I use
explanation to mean an understanding of a
description, from which it is assumed the
observer contributes nothing to the observation,
with a consequence also that
description become static.
In my present frame, activism will have
been composed in Brazil – under any possible
and significant name – when each ’I’
activist has made each ’I’s problems clear
by descriptions (not explanations) and
used the public domain to provoke desired
consequences with other ’I’ activists. I
don’t know if this is democracy; I am
sure—at this now—that this is part of a
democratic society. .
November 15, 2010—We write with grave concern about
your recent use of the “Illini Alert” text-messaging system
on Monday, November 8, 2010 to report the assault in
Forbes Hall and to search for the suspect in that incident.
The use of the system in this case was, at best, an overreaction
to the incident, and, at worst, a misuse of police
power that smacks of racial profiling. To tell every member
of the campus community to call 911 if they see a “black
male, salt/pepper hair, 40-50 year old, 5’11, 170, med
build” does not increase safety on our campus. On the
contrary, through such a sweeping announcement, you
have in fact put a considerable part of the campus community
at risk, placing under suspicion valued colleagues,
coworkers, students, and visitors solely on the basis of
their race and gender. Given the local history of racial tensions,
which seem to have increased dramatically over the
past year, this kind of alert only exacerbates the very distrust
that has been so corrosive on campus and in local
communities. We believe that the use of electronic media
such as text-messaging and e-mail to issue crime alerts has
been profoundly counterproductive, with the accumulated
effect of generating widespread fear and suspicion that all
too often gets expressed through racial divisiveness.
The sexual assault of a student is a deeply serious matter
and deserves a swift and thorough response by police
and campus authorities. We are as concerned as anyone
else on this campus for the safety of our students in the
dorms and elsewhere. We also believe that it is important
that such incidents be handled in ways that do not inspire
panic or rely on racial stereotypes, but rather that educate
students, faculty, and staff about the most likely scenarios
for sexual assault and other crimes on our campus.
We condemn the use of the mass-alert (text message)
system to respond to such incidents. While it may be
appropriate to use this technology to respond to rare cases
of imminent widespread threat, such as a tornado or a
bomb scare, the text-alert system was completely inappropriate
– and, indeed, reckless — in this case. We are
extremely troubled that you could issue such an alert,
given the appalling history of racial profiling in this country.
We understand that the Clery Act requires the University
to give timely warnings of crimes on our campus, but
we believe that it is possible to meet that requirement via
other available media. We expect you, as the police chief of
a leading university, to take considerable care and responsibility
when making a decision about when or if race
should be mentioned in any communication. At a minimum,
we urge you to use every opportunity to inform the
public of the dangers of stereotyping and to remind us all
of the tremendous contributions made by all racial and
ethnic groups in our diverse campus community.
While you may have intended to protect students, faculty,
and staff, instead you have done serious damage to
the racial climate of our campus and local community. We
want you to realize that electronic crime alerts, especially
last Monday’s text message, undermine the ongoing and
often difficult work that we do in our programs and organizations
regarding race, gender, and sexual orientation,
along with our daily efforts to make this campus a diverse,
safe, and open-minded place to learn and work.
We urge you to immediately revise your policy for issuing
such alerts; to apologize to the campus community for
this irresponsible use of police power; and to confer in
meaningful and sustained ways with those of us who are
committed to the pursuit of racial and gender justice and
equity on our campus.
Sincerely,
Executive Committee of the Campus Faculty Association
Senate Committee on Equal Opportunity and Inclusion
Students for a United Illinois
Professor James Barrett, Chair, Department of History
Professor Merle L. Bowen, Director, Center for African Studies
Professor Jorge Chapa, Director, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial
Society
David W. Chih, Director, Asian American Cultural Center
Jennifer DeLuna, Assistant Director, La Casa Cultural Latina
Professor Jennifer Hamer, Faculty Co-Chair, Black Faculty and Academic
Professionals Alliance
Whitney Hamilton, President, Women of Color
Professor Dianne Harris, Director, Illinois Program for Research in the
Humanities
Professor Ronald L. Jackson, II, Head, Department of African American
Studies
Rory G. James, Director, Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural
Center
Veronica M. Kann, Assistant Director, La Casa Cultural Latina
Tony Laing, President, Black Graduate Student Association
Professor Isabel Molina, Director, Latina/Latino Studies Program
Pat Morey, Director, Women’s Resources Center
Leslie Morrow, Director, LGBT Resource Center
Professor Chantal Nadeau, Director, Gender and Women’s Studies
Program
Professor Lisa Nakamura, Director, Asian American Studies Program
Ben Rothschild, Undergraduate-Graduate Alliance
Stephanie Seawell, Co-President, Gradate Employees Organization
Professor Siobhan Somerville, Co-Chair, LGBT Advisory Committee
Regina Mosley Stevenson, Academic Professional Co-Chair, Black Faculty
and Academic Professionals Alliance
Katie Walkiewicz, Co-President, Graduate Employees Organization
Professor Robert Warrior, Director, American Indian Studies Program
