#solidarityisforwhitewomen - except it isn't

I've written before about the prevalence of white women in US and Canadian based solidarity with Latin American peace and justice movements (with some thoughts about why and what this says about international solidarity in general) - so when I first saw the twitter hashtag #solidarityisforwhitewomen I figured it was about that and was amazed that a discussion like that was trending.  It turns out that the discussion is not about international solidarity, but about solidarity amongst feminists, and in particular the lack thereof by some white feminist organizations, websites, and individuals.  It started out as pretty US centric, but the tag and discussion then spread.

Let me briefly go over the basics for those few who might have missed this phenomena.  The tag was created by Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) to express her ongoing frustration with that lack of solidarity, and particularly the lack of response to ongoing harassment of blogging feminists of color by a self declared feminist man with a high profile who continued to publish on feminist sites.  The tag was sparked by said man's very public breakdown on twitter.  He posted over a hundred tweets in an hour where he admitted publicly to the harassment, as well as to addiction and mental illness.  In response there seemed to be more concern about him than expressions of remorse over continuing to support him over the years, or remorse for not supporting his victims. 

The hashtag quickly morphed into something much larger, and became a space for women of color to speak out about various ways in which many white women, feminist organizations, and particularly websites seem to only be able to see sexism, and not how it works with racism, and how they have not shown solidarity to women of color.  The same women who work and write against male domination are often uncomfortable confronting white domination, both in society and in their own organizations.  What is ridiculous about this is that you just can't effectively address the one if you don't recognize how intertwined it is with the other.

Patriarchy and racism don't just 'intersect', they interlock, as Sherene Razack has put it.  These and other systems of domination (classism, heterosexism, etc) prop each other up.  At different times and in different spaces one or the other may be the dominant note, but one never 'trumps' another, and they never work alone.  To bring down these systems and work for a world where we are all equal requires chipping away at the various strands - looking at just one is just not effective, for either understanding the world or working to change it. 

This is all seems like a fairly standard basic argument to me, and I feel lucky to work in the discipline of geography where when you say you do feminist work it is generally not assumed (as it often still seems to be in international studies, for example) that you work on gender - but rather that you look at intertwined systems of inequality.  For example I consider my own work to be deeply feminist but in my dissertation research I focused more on how racial, passport, and class privilege were at work (together) than on gender dynamics.  In my previous research on international solidarity I did look at the experience of women, but I would not have understood what was going on if I had not also looked at race and class - there was clearly a specific dynamic involved that had to do with white middle-class women in particular. 

Unfortunately it seems many 'feminist' organizations and websites based in the US still focus on gender in ways that end up meaning they only write about and for white middle-class cis women, but without specifying or owning up to that.  Kendall, who invented the hashtag, claims that the feminist movement has argued since its inception that gender should trump race, and that this was a point of debate even amongst very early "first wave" feminists.  That seems like a sweeping statement about a whole movement to me, and I know there are many feminist organizations and sites today around the world that are working hard to understand and struggle against multiple systems of domination and the ways they work together -  but still, reading the tweets has convinced me it's still a big problem. 

I hope it is obvious that the tag is both a space for women of color to tell their truths and a call for white women to listen and learn how they can express more powerful and real solidarity, in particular meaningful solidarity with all women. It's well worth taking the time to read the tweets.  Clearly there is still much to do to decolonize feminism.

(note, a few days later the piggyback tag #Blackpowerisforblackmen was started by Jamilah Lemieux of Ebony.com, expressing frustration with black men who can only see racism, and not how it works together with patriarchy). 

I am not Trayvon Martin - now officially a meme

The great video above came out months ago, but the meme seems to have really taken off after the ruling with this facebook post.  Now there is a whole tumblr page entitled we are not trayvon martin where people are posting pics and testimonies.  They are all over the map, but I appreciate the conversation. 

more powerful to recognize that we are zimmerman?

in light of the ruling, my last post seems painfully prophetic.

my friend Jorge Salazar posted the following on facebook:

"Instead of saying "I am Trayvon Martin" it would do more good for white people [and non-Black people] in solidarity with the Trayvon Martin case to recognize all the ways they (we) are Zimmerman.

As in, if you live in a "safe" suburban or gated community that is mostly white and that is considered a "good" neighborhood because it excludes people of colour [especially excluding Black people] then you benefit from the same conditions that created Zimmerman.

If you benefit from "police protection" to your property that depends on racial profiling of people of colour [especially Black people] and brutality towards them then you take part in the same systems that create Zimmerman.

If you have the racial privilege to work, move, live in mostly white spaces and have limited contact with... [Black people], particularly "low income" ...[Black people], then you live with the same social and economic policies of casual segregation that create Zimmerman.

It's good that people recognize the injustice of Trayvon Martin's death, but if that recognition is not accompanied by the work to recognize and undo the systematic economic, social, educational and employment policies that create neighborhoods where Black people are seen as threatening trespassers - and how people benefit from this racial privilege - then no true anti-racist work can occur.

Nobody wants to say "I am Zimmerman" but until we recognize how Zimmerman reflects institutionalized racism there will continue to be more Trayvons."

: El Jone — with Melanie Matining.

studies show it is harder for all to feel the pain of 'black' people

That you may already know, but a new study shows that even people of color assume that 'black' folks actually feel less pain that 'white' folks. wacky

Slate recently carried this article, which reports:

Let’s do a quick experiment. You watch a needle pierce someone’s skin. Do you feel this person’s pain? Does it matter if the person’s skin is white or black?

For many people, race does matter, even if they don’t know it. They feel more empathy when they see white skin pierced than black. This is known as the racial empathy gap. To study it, researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca showed participants (all of whom were white) video clips of a needle or an eraser touching someone’s skin. They measured participants’ reactions through skin conductance tests—basically whether their hands got sweaty—which reflect activity in the pain matrix of the brain. If we see someone in pain, it triggers the same network in our brains that’s activated when we are hurt. But people do not respond to the pain of others equally. In this experiment, when viewers saw white people receiving a painful stimulus, they responded more dramatically than they did for black people.

The racial empathy gap helps explain disparities in everything from pain management to the criminal justice system. But the problem isn’t just that people disregard the pain of black people. It’s somehow even worse. The problem is that the pain isn’t even felt.

A recent study shows that people, including medical personnel, assume black people feel less pain than white people. The researchers asked participants to rate how much pain they would feel in 18 common scenarios. The participants rated experiences such as stubbing a toe or getting shampoo in their eyes on a four-point scale (where 1 is “not painful” and 4 is “extremely painful”). Then they rated how another person (a randomly assigned photo of an experimental “target”) would feel in the same situations. Sometimes the target was white, sometimes black. In each experiment, the researchers found that white participants, black participants, and nurses and nursing students assumed that blacks felt less pain than whites.

But the researchers did not believe racial prejudice was entirely to blame. After all, black participants also displayed an empathy gap toward other blacks. What could possibly be the explanation for why black people’s pain is underestimated?

It turns out assumptions about what it means to be black—in terms of social status and hardship—may be behind the bias. In additional experiments, the researchers studied participants’ assumptions about adversity and privilege. The more privilege assumed of the target, the more pain the participants perceived. Conversely, the more hardship assumed, the less pain perceived. The researchers concluded that “the present work finds that people assume that, relative to whites, blacks feel less pain because they have faced more hardship.”

This gives us some insight into how racial disparities are created—and how they are sustained. First, there is an underlying belief that there is a single black experience of the world. Because this belief assumes blacks are already hardened by racism, people believe black people are less sensitive to pain. Because they are believed to be less sensitive to pain, black people are forced to endure more pain.

public reading as protest

Wow, now not only yoga in Gezi, but public reading as protest?! Utterly fabulous. 

Aljazeera reports that new form of protest  has emerged in Turkey - the "Standing Man".  As they put it:

"Standing silently, and initially alone, Turkish performance artist Erdem Gunduz stood, with his hands in his pockets, facing the Ataturk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square, Istanbul, for eight hours.

With extraordinary speed, Gunduz become the latest symbol of the resistance movement. In days that followed, thousands of people would emulate his solitary act, standing silently, for minutes or hours, in places across Turkey.

The contrast with the images of tear gas clouds and water cannon could not have been greater. Faces obscured by masks and helmets were revealed to show expressions of quiet contemplation. 

Violent scenes are still occurring around Turkey, including in Istanbul once again this past weekend, but the Standing Man protests continue unabated.

The following images explore one aspect of the protest in Taksim Square, ongoing since before the communal standing took off. Public reading and informal education has been notable since the earliest days of the protest, but has since merged with the Standing Man to form "The Taksim Square Book Club".

Reading a book publicly in protest sounds like way more fun than listening to rally speeches. Lets make this tactic travel! (more fabulous photos here)

We are all Europe

I recently got an email from the Soros Foundation telling me that they have just launched Solidarity Now, a network of people and organisations working together to support those hardest hit by the crisis in Greece.  It will fund, amongst other things, solidarity centres in Greece.

Their beautiful promotional video, below, is full of romanticized slogans.  It's a bit of a stretch, even for me, to believe that 'while you are homeless, I have no home'.  Though 'if you are not safe, I am not safe' is easier to understand. And 'we are all Europe' worked unusually well since it seemed primarily to be aimed at Europeans, which is not how those sorts of slogans are usually used, as I recently wrote in a post about why I prefer 'we are all Juan' type slogans to 'I am Juan' ones.

politicians playing poor

I've posted before about this sort of thing.  This time 26 members of the US Congress lived for a week on a food stamp budget ($4.50 for all of your food for the day).  This pic was tweeted by Rep. Suzan DelBene (‏@RepDelBene) and is her trying to shop for the week on $30.

This campaign seems to be less about them trying to really understand and empathize with the poor (though it did some of that surely), as it is to raise awareness of the draconian Republican cuts to the program and how unreasonable they are.  Again, it is people using their privilege and positions of power to draw attention to difficult daily living situations of those with less privilege.

It's frustrating to me that this gets so much more attention than real poor people figuring out how to scrape by on $4.50 for food a day, but hey, if it works, I guess I'm ok with it.  Though it seems like the politician's experiences of trying to do this don't open space for the voices of people really in this situation, but perhaps drown them out.   But then, I'm not sure what mainstream coverage has been like (not much in print, but maybe tv?) - but wow, the twitter tag #SNAPchallenge includes a LOT of right wingers saying they eat on much less than that easily and why are they paying for pathetic poor people.  Very nasty stuff. 

Thoughts?

These sorts of actions are hardly new, though perhaps politicians taking them up is.  There is a book entitled 'Place at the Table: 40 days of solidarity with the poor' that gives you practical and theological guidance on how to 'eat like the poor' and donate the difference to charity (not solidarity!)  It comes from a very Christian perspective.  One danger is that these sorts of actions can come across as patronizing and essentialize 'the poor', though I'm not saying that's necessarily the case with either the Congressional campaign or this book (which I haven't read).

making space for peace in Gezi with yoga

Space for Peace is my twitter handle, and also something I think about a lot. What does it mean? How do we make it?

Well yoga in the middle of an occupation is certainly an unusual way! In this fabulous short video one of my favorite yoga teachers, Chris Chavez, leads a class in the middle of the Gezi Park protest in Istanbul.  The last time I took a class with Chris was on the beach in Vancouver and we were looking across the bay at the North Shore mountains.  I guess he has a knack for spectacular outdoor classes!

I got the link to this video from a sister blog of sorts that I highly recommend: decolonizing yoga.  

Since this video was shot the protestors have faced a massive smackdown from police.  Please take a quick minute to support them with this quick click amnesty action.  

inspired!

I am wildly inspired by how quickly and widely solidarity has grown with the protests in Turkey. 

As Koray Çalişkan, assistant professor of political science at a university in Istanbul, put it, speaking on Democracy Now! on Monday,

"Three days ago, 700 people gathered to protest this, and police gassed them. Next day, 7,000 people gathered in the same square, and the police gassed them. And on Saturday, 700,000 people came together, and then the police fled."

It started as a protest against the bulldozing of Gezi, a park in Istanbul, and has grown into a protest for freedom of expression and human rights.  One of my favorite explanations of how the protests grew, in both senses, is posted by an activist in the movement here.

The protests have been taken up across Turkey, (see the gorgeous shot of the protest at the waterfront in Izmir above) and there was even a re-occupation of zucotti park on wall street in solidarity! (see pic below)

But perhaps some of the most meaningful solidarity has been very intimate and small scale.  The government blocked the 3G network around Gezi to stop smart phones, so people and businesses around the square started posting their wifi codes so that people could use the internet to get images out.  Neighbours started putting out lemons and things to help folks affected by the tear gas (image below), and taking in people that were passing out from all the gas - apparently even some of the five star hotels around the square took people in. 

And now the union of public sector workers has declared a two day strike to protest the brutal crackdown on peaceful protests. May the solidarity keep growing! Keep spreading the word!

Here is a fabulous page to share, full of inspiring images.  

Skills for Solidarity

Skills for Solidarity is an online education program to help people who want to learn more about being a good ally that is being run right now by Lead Now.


It is designed for non-native folks who want to participate as powerful allies in the amazingly inspiring Idle No More movement in Canada.

The program has 5 lessons:

Lesson 1 - Brief historical overview (colonization, treaties, the Indian Act, residential schools, etc.)
Lesson 2 - How does this history shape and define the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada today?
Lesson 3 - What does it mean to be an ally to Indigenous-led movements in Canada?
Lesson 4 - Webinar on Indigenous solidarity
Lesson 5 - Where do we go from here?

as they put it:

"We recognize that each of these themes are massive on their own and that we will not be able to cover everything in 20-30 minutes per week. The goal of the program is to provide an introduction to the themes, but it’s up to all of us to continually explore and learn about them.

Will this program turn us all into perfect allies?  
No, but it’ll give us tools that we can use throughout our lives as we engage in ally relationships.

Throughout the program, you may feel surprised and challenged by what you are learning. You may experience discomfort at some of the concepts being presented, or the questions being asked of you.

Doing ally work includes a lot of personal self-reflection, and becoming aware of the ways in which we are all part of structural systems of power. It can be uncomfortable.

As good allies, it’s important for us to feel this discomfort because it’s necessary for change.

However, solidarity work isn’t about feeling guilty. It’s a process of continually asking critical questions and being open to making mistakes. It’s about listening, acting, reflecting, and continually learning.

This program is an introduction to the ongoing process of living into ally relationships.

By the end of this program, we will not walk away knowing everything about our nations’ histories. We will not be able to check a box or hold up a certificate that shows we are allies.

However, we will have a stronger understanding of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, a better understanding of our own role in that relationship, and a toolkit to help us continue exploring our ever-evolving role as allies. ......

And now a few questions to get you started:
1) Do you know whose traditional territory you grew up on?
2) Do you know whose traditional territory you live on now?
3) Do you know the status of that territory (contested, under treaty negotiations, governed by a pre-confederacy treaty, governed by a post-confederacy treaty)?

It’s okay if you don’t know yet - try searching online and see what you come up with. You might find contradictory information. You might not be able to find any information at all about where you live. The fact that it’s hard to find this information speaks to the complexities of approaching these topics and that’s part of what this program will be exploring."

It's intended for Canadians, but could be useful even if you're not. If you'd like to join sign up here.

peace isn't sexy?

The blog has been quiet because I've been recovering from doing two academic conferences back to back.  Bad idea.  I went from the International Studies (ISA) conference straight to the Association of American Geographer's meeting (the AAG is considering a name change by the way).  As always, in every slot there were several sessions I wanted to go to and I had trouble choosing! Really sorry to have missed so many great papers I wanted to see - but it's a sign that there's a lot of exciting work happening in geography.

I spent a long time in the sessions on Violence and Space organized by Simon Springer and Philippe LeBillon.  Too long probably. I think there were 8 sessions and I sat through 6.  Listening to so much work on violence (often with gruesome pictures and descriptions) left me feeling flattened.  I wish we had coordinated better with the four sessions that I helped to organize on Geographies of Peace.  Maybe if we had gone back and forth it would have been easier to hear.  But I was struck by how different the vibe was in the two series.  The violence sessions were in a large central room and were generally packed.  The peace sessions were in the furthest away of the conference hotels, and in a tiny room.  I guess the study of peace is still marginal in geography - unlike the ISA, which has a whole large track of peace and conflict studies sessions.

The paper that made the most impact on me in the AAG was one by Guntram Herb.  He used to teach a course called geography of war, that got a large number of mostly male students for many years.  When he changed the course name to geography of peace, he got a much smaller number of mostly female students.  Now he teaches it as geography of war and peace and gets both more students and better gender balance.  An example I will likely follow!

The final geography of peace session was one that I organized, where LA based activists from the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity spoke.  I was worried about making it a comfortable space for them in an academic setting, particularly for survivors telling harrowing stories of losing family members in the violence in Mexico.  I was unsure about the wisdom of having geographers follow that up with comments. I am pleased to report that it went really well, thanks in large part to Josh Inwood and Byron Miller, who took on the difficult task and got the tone of their thoughtful commentary just right. 

on using your privilege against the system that gives it to you

Chomsky, from the Chomsky Foucault debate:

 

Now as to how I tolerate MIT, that raises another question. There are people who argue, and I have never understood the logic of this, that a radical ought to dissociate himself from oppressive institutions. The logic of that argument is that Karl Marx shouldn’t have studied in the British Museum which, if anything, was the symbol of the most vicious imperialism in the world, the place where all the treasures of Empire were gathered, the rape of the colonies was all poured in there. But I think Karl Marx was quite right in studying in the British Museum. He was right in using the resources and in fact the liberal values of the civilization that he was trying to overcome, against it. And I think the same applies in this case.

- many thanks to Wes Attewel for this one!

solidarity qualms

I have been getting lots of photos like these in my facebook feed.  The boys here are in occupied Palestinian territory and I assume that the photo was set up by the Michigan Peace Team, an international accompaniment organization.  It seems likely some English speaking internationals also set up the photo from Kabul. 

These photos make me uncomfortable.  It seems so unfair that the bombing in Boston gets this much attention and solidarity from the places that are, at least figuratively, getting bombed BY Boston.  Of course I'm sure that's part of the point the folks in, and setting up, these photos are trying to make.  That all lives count, including theirs. 

It's also true that when I was El Salvador during the war I went on a trip through an area full of huge craters from bombs paid for by US military aid, and the Salvadorans with me went to great lengths to reassure me that they understood that the US people were not the same thing as the US government and that they did not blame me, but rather appreciated my work to try and change my government's policies.  I have gotten that message again from people in war zones in Colombia. 

So perhaps these photos could be read as a way of saying, even as your government engages in, or funds, a war against us - we distinguish you from your government.  We see you as human, and we connect with you, with love and grief.  We know this pain.  See us too.  Mourn with us too. 

I dream of a world with a flicker feed of people from Boston with signs saying thank you, we too mourn with Kabul, and Rammalah. 

great geography discussions

I was just at the International Studies conference, and now I'm looking forward to 'playing geographer' at the AAG geography conference next week, and am proud to be part of a group of folks that organized four sessions on geographies of peace.   Last year I was deeply involved in organizing for the Caravan for Peace and Justice with Dignity, which crossed the US for a month with 160 people, 50 of them family members of the dead and disappeared from the drug war in Mexico.   There have been various caravans across the US on different issues, but as I track it this was the first with international activists.

I've organized a session where several 'caravanistas' will share their reflections about how it went, including a survivor who will talk about what it was like for her to share her testimony along the way, and a caravanista from LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition .  We have two great geographers who have done work on different forms of peace activism who will comment afterwards, Josh Inwood and Byron Miller, who edited the forthcoming book Spaces of Contention: Spatialities and Social Movements.

4657 Geographies of Peace IV: Reflections on the Caravan for Peace and Peace Activisms
Friday, 4/12/2013, from 4:40 PM - 6:20 PM in Hollywood, The LA Hotel, Level 2

I will be presenting my own research on international protective accompaniment (this year I'm talking about where and when it's been done around the world and what that says about how it works) at:

4457 Geographies of Peace II
Friday, 4/12/2013, from 12:40 PM - 2:20 PM in Hollywood, The LA Hotel, Level 2

I'm also looking forward to the 'warscapes' sessions on Wednesday - and to comparing the papers and the crowds to the peace sessions on Friday!

call me hope?

I will admit to having enjoyed this video.  The music is great, as is the production, and I like the way it reminds us of all the things we have in common, across differences.   I was disturbed that Africa gets conflated and is not really an equivalent to the US category (like, say, Tanzania would have been) - but what really got me was following the link to the organization that produced it as a promo, Mama Hope.  Though it tries to present itself as a different sort of development organization, it comes across as a lot more like traditional charity than the vision of solidarity the video led me to think they might embody.  Though they may, as they say, respond to the needs and proposals of local communities - none of those seem to have involved any sort of organizing component to change the structures of power that make it necessary to go to the US to get help in, say, building a clinic.   Maybe local committees didn't ask for organizing support - but that is probably reflective both of who the people in the US talked to, and what the Tanzanians thought they could ask of them. 

Can shopping build solidarity?

well, the actual title of this fabulous video by Ananya Roy and gang is "Can we shop to end poverty?" - but she ends by arguing for a shift from responsibility to accountability, even mutuality and solidarity.  ok, I gave away the punch line, but please, watch it, you'll be challenged and moved!

(thanks to Paul Jackson, whose blog pointed me to this video.  The video is part of the #Global POV Project, which has other videos, and is an ongoing twitter conversation)

Rachel Corrie presente!

Today is the anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death.

Rachel was serving as an accompanier with the ISM in the Gaza strip, accompanying a Palestinian family that was resisting the demolition of their home by staying in it as the Israeli bulldozer came towards it.  Rachel stood in front of the bulldozer with her bright accompanier vest and was run over and killed on March 16, 2003.  She was 23 years old. 

International protective accompaniment is being done in 10 countries around the world.  Only in Palestine have accompaniers been killed and injured.  Tom Hurndall was also killed in 2004 and several others have been very seriously injured. 

The quote on this poster, from Rachel's letters, reads: "The international media and our government are not going to tell us that we are effective, important, justified in our work, courageous, intelligent, valuable. We have to do that for each other, and one way we can do that is by continuing our work, visibly. People without privilege will be doing this work no matter what, because they are working for their lives. We can work with them, and they know that we work with them, or we can leave them to do this work themselves and curse us for our complicity in killing them."

Freire on solidarity

"solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is in solidarity; it is a radical posture"  - Paulo Frerie in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1995:31)

What exactly does 'entering into the situation' mean here? In Freire's case he was working with the very poor, but he did not live a life of poverty.  He would have been far less able to do his work and make his impact if he had.  It seems to me there is more power in using one's privilege tactically, carefully, when working in solidarity with those that don't have that privilege, rather than in simply trying to give it up.  I would hope Freire didn't mean just trying on 'the situation' for a week or a month, a common tactic I've written about here before.  I don't actually think 'entering into the situation' is necessarily the best way to understand and respect what life is like for those you work and struggle alongside.

As a side note, one of the highlights of my life was to get to see Freire speak to popular educators in Morazán, one of the FMLN controlled zones of El Salvador, just after the peace accords were signed, in '92.   The energy that weekend was electric and, as I remember it, the conversations were interrupted several times a day with chants of !Viva Paulo Freire!

I am Juan vs. We are Juan vs. We are all Juan

Which do you feel more comfortable saying? I am Juan,  We are Juan, or We are all Juan?

Each of these slogans has a slightly different impact.  There really was a 'We are Juan' campaign to stop a deportation, though the link seems to be gone.  I personally like that slogan better than I am Juan, but I like We are all Juan best.  It is the closest translation to the zapatista solidarity 'Todos somos Marcos' slogan that may have started this wave, but it also seems less appropriative.  It does not imply I am exactly like Juan, or totally know his experience, but rather that I stand with him, if you attack him, you attack me.  An injury to one is an injury to all. 

I've written before about the drawbacks of 'I am X person under attack' type campaigns, such as the current ''I am Bradley Manning campaign - though it's very different when Daniel Ellsberg says it, since he really did live through a very similar persecution (please sign Daniel's petition to support Bradley).

an alternative security tactic if you're threatened with rape

warning, this entry may leave you with disturbing mental images!

So the odd alternative security advice I got for a sexual attack, and it would seem this is only useful for women, is to pee on yourself - and TELL your attacker that you just did.  The idea is to gross them out.  

Thankfully I've never had to try this, so I can't say if it works, but these are the sorts of strategies women share with each other, and the sorts of things women accompaniers have to think about.