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[Christian Davenport]

A Call to Effective Student Activism, Part 2 - One of these things is not like the other...

11/22/2015

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There used to be this children's tv show (remember tv) called Sesame Street and one of the bits they used to do concerned the idea of difference and belonging.  While individuals are debating the "new student movements" that we are seeing around the country, I wanted to put some stuff up side by side and reflect for a few minutes.

Student demands are now starting to pop up all across the country in response to a range of issues including racial discrimination in hiring, treatment, education and so forth.
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Missouri List of Demands:
Immediate
  1. We demand that by November 22, 2015, the university issue a public statement that includes the following:
    1. An acknowledgment of systemic racism in higher education,
    2. A commitment to differentiating “hate speech” from “freedom of speech,”
    3. Instituting a zero tolerance policy for hate crimes, and
    4. An explanation for moving Multicultural Services from the Division for Diversity & Inclusion to the Division of Student Affairs.
  2. We demand that all plans for the Diversity Center be published in the Standard, in Plaster Student Union, and in its designated space on campus by December 1,  2015.
    1. The official name of the office should be: Mary Jean Price-Walls Center of Diversity.
    2. We demand that Dominiece Hoelyfield be named Interim Director of the MRC until this position is permanently filled.
      1. Alongside Dominiece, a Cultural Coordinator of, ethnic background, should be recruited (from outside Missouri State University) and hired to work in the new Diversity Center.
    3. The construction of any of new buildings associated with or dedicated to diversity should be published on the university’s 10-year plan. The Office of University Advancement is responsible for funding all related projects.
    4. The Multicultural Resource Center should be left in tact during and after all construction projects related to diversity. This center is a tremendous asset to minority students.
  3. We demand that all Multicultural Services be placed under the complete jurisdiction of the Division for  Diversity & Inclusion by the beginning of the Spring 2016  semester.  
  1. Given that Multicultural services are governed by the Division of Student Affairs, the current administration is incompatible with the needs of students of color.
  2.  Last year, Multicultural Services was moved from the Division for Diversity & Inclusion to the Division of Student Affairs. This move has been marketed to students as “beneficial”; however, it has only allowed for negligence toward the concerns and needs of minority students by ill equipped faculty.
    1.  Multicultural Services is only one of the seven subsets of Student Affairs.
    2. Access to funding is limited.
    3. This paradigm allows for issues in visibility, representation, and power.
  3. Because the Division for Diversity & Inclusion in currently involved in few programs, Multicultural Services will be priority under this division.
  4. General functions, as defined by the Human Resources Department, justify the reorganization of these divisions.
    1. Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion: Promote consistency of diversity processes to positively impact student development.
      1. The Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion maintains strong collaborative working relationships among senior executives, faculty, students, staff, external constituents, and builds teams that function effectively.
      2. We deem it imperative that the Vice President reacquire this responsibility under the Division of Diversity & Inclusion.
    2. Vice President for Student Affairs: chief student-personnel officer of the University and advises the President on all matters pertaining to non-academic student life. Vice President of Student Affairs also promotes positive student relations by maintaining effective lines of communication with student leaders serving as a strong advocate for the non-academic, extracurricular, and co-curricular needs of students.
      1. The lack of communication regarding plans for the Diversity Center and for filling the Multicultural Resource Center & Programs Executive Director vacancy renders the current definition of VP ineffective.
      2. Students who utilize the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) are unaware of  the relationship between the Vice President of Student Affairs and the MRC.
    3. Assistant Vice President for Multicultural Services: Provide leadership and support for the establishment and administration of multicultural student recruiting initiatives and the development and administration of departments and programs that serve the needs of multicultural and diverse student populations.
      1. Under the current Student Affairs hierarchy, the Assistant Vice President has neglected multicultural students, and actively hindered the development of multicultural student organizations and programming. 
      2. When entering the MRC, the Assistant VP makes no attempt to address the Black students, who utilize the center the most.
      3. The Assistant Vice President has openly expressed negative and discriminatory views about students of color, both inside and outside of the MRC, to other faculty and students; therefore, perpetuating negative stereotypes.
e. To best uphold the “cultural competence” pillar of the university’s public affairs mission, Multicultural Services should be governed by an administrative cabinet member of an ethnic minority.
  1. We demand that the university request an audit from an outside party, and present a budget for all Multicultural services by the end of March 2016.
    1. This audit shall include, but is not limited to:
      1.  The “Multicultural Assistant Grant,”
      2.  And the last five fiscal years up to Fall 2015.
    2. The audit and budget should be published to the university website in laymen’s terms and made easily accessible to all interested persons. This audit should:
      1. Enumerate the channels of income for Multicultural services,
      2. Break down departmental budgets (i.e. Trio, Access Programs, and Multicultural Programs),
      3. Allow an account for the “leftover money” being used to complete the Diversity Center as well as
      4. Document the creation, restructuring and subsequent departmental shift of Multicultural Services from the Division of Diversity & Inclusion to the Division of Student Affairs.
  2. We demand that this list of demands be placed in the The Long-Range Plan which is defined on the Missouri State University’s website as a guiding document that charts Missouri State’s path toward achieving its mission. The University utilizes its Long-Range Plan to decide how to allocate resources, determine what initiatives should be pursued, expanded and dissolved, and to make other strategic decisions.
    1. The demands fulfill the defined purpose of the Long-Range Plan.
Gradual
  1. We demand the establishment of a mandatory Diversity Curriculum for administration, faculty, staff and incoming students starting with academic year of 2016-2017 in perpetuation. 
    1. This curriculum should
      1. Be designed by students, administration, and faculty,
      2. Require real-life application of the university’s pillars, and
      3. Highlight the cultural climate of the university.
    2. Classes are to be seated only and discussion-based. 
  2. We demand an increase in ethnically diverse staff and students that accurately reflects our nation’s demographics within the next five years.
    1. The number of staff and students should always be congruent with one another with the number of ethnically diverse staff leading.
      1. This will not only assist in an increase in retention rates but actively combat the negative climate on campus.
    2. Interview panels should be conducted by ethnically diverse persons.
  3. We demand that the Student Diversity Task Force be comprised, primarily, of racial, ethnic and sexual minorities.
  4. We demand a redistribution of power in Multicultural Services that allow the recruitment of more diverse staff. 
  5. We demand majors of sufficient substance that accurately reflects the history, culture and perspective of underrepresented people in America.
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Yale List of Demands:

1)  An ethnic studies distributional requirement for all Yale undergraduates and the immediate promotion of the Ethnicity, Race & Migration program to departmental status

a. The promotion of Native American Studies, Chicanx & Latinx Studies, Asian American Studies, and African Studies to program status under the ER&M department.

b. Curricula for classes that satisfy the ethnic studies distributional requirement must be designed by Yale faculty in the aforementioned areas of study

2) Mental health professionals that are permanently established in each of the four cultural centers with discretionary funds

a. More mental health professionals of color in Yale Mental Health.

3) An increase of two million dollars to the current annual operational budget for each cultural center.

a. Five full-time staff members in each of the cultural centers

b. Additional emergency and miscellaneous funds from the provost’s office to support the needs of first-generation, low-income, undocumented, and international students

4) Rename Calhoun College. Name it and the two new residential colleges after people of color.

a. Abolish the title “master”

b. Build a monument designed by a Native artist on Cross Campus acknowledging that Yale University was founded on stolen indigenous land.

5) Immediate removal of Nicholas and Erika Christakis from the positions of Master and Associate Master of Silliman College

a. The development of racial competence and respect training and accountability systems for all Yale affiliates

b. The inclusion of a question about the racial climate of the classrooms of both teaching fellows and professors in semester evaluations.

c. Bias reporting system on racial discrimination and an annual report that will be released to the Yale community.

6) The allocation of resources to support the physical well-being of international, first-generation, low-income, and undocumented students, in these ways, at these times:

a. Stipends for food and access to residential college kitchens during breaks

b. Dental and optometry services implemented as part of the Basic Yale Health plan

c. Eight financial aid consultants who are trained to deal specifically with financial aid application processes of international and undocumented students
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A little bit earlier (in 1962), there was the Port Huron Statement made by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).  This group was also composed of students but they weren't explicitly interested with racial discrimination - at least not on its own.  Rather, they were concerned with a great many things.  [Note: I will not provide the whole document here because not everyone will want to read the whole thing but if they are trying to understand what is and what is not being discussed by students today, they should.]

The excerpts of the document should reveal a great deal about the organization and their ideas:

TOWARDS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY


1. America must abolish its political party stalemate. Two genuine parties, centered around issues and essential values, demanding allegiance to party principles shall supplant the current system of organized stalemate which is seriously inadequate to a world in flux.... 

2. Mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which political information can be imparted and political participation encouraged.... 

3. Institutions and practices which stifle dissent should be abolished, and the promotion of peaceful dissent should be actively promoted.... 

4. Corporations must be made publicly responsible. It is not possible to believe that true democracy can exist where a minority utterly controls enormous wealth and power.... 

5. The allocation of resources must be based on social needs. A truly "public sector" must be established, and its nature debated and planned. At present the majority of America's "public sector", the largest part of our public spending, is for the military... Unless we choose war as an economic solvent, future public spending will be of a non-military nature -- a major intervention into civilian production by the government.... The issues posed by this development are enormous:
  1. How should public vs. private domain be determined? 
  2. when monopolization seems inevitable, the public should maintain control of an industry; 
  3. How should technological advances be introduced into a society? 
  4. How shall the "public sector" be made public, and not the arena of a ruling bureaucracy of "public servants"?
  5. America should concentrate on its genuine social priorities: abolish squalor, terminate neglect, and establish an environment for people to live in with dignity and creativeness.
  6. A program against poverty must be just as sweeping as the nature of poverty itself. It must not be just palliative, but directed to the abolition of the structural circumstances of poverty. 
  7. A full-scale public initiative for civil rights should be undertaken despite the clamor among conservatives (and liberals) about gradualism, property rights, and law and order. 
  8. The promise and problems of long-range Federal economic development should be studied more constructively. 

Alternatives to Helplessness

The goals we have set are not realizable next month, or even next election -- but that fact justifies neither giving up altogether nor a determination to work only on immediate, direct, tangible problems. Both responses are a sign of helplessness, fearfulness of visions, refusal to hope, and tend to bring on the very conditions to be avoided. Fearing vision, we justify rhetoric or myopia. Fearing hope, we reinforce despair.

The first effort, then, should be to state a vision: what is the perimeter of human possibility in this epoch? This we have tried to do. The second effort, if we are to be politically responsible, is to evaluate the prospects for obtaining at least a substantial part of that vision in our epoch: what are the social forces that exist, or that must exist, if we are to be at all successful? And what role have we ourselves to play as a social force?...

The broadest movement for peace in several years emerged in 1961-62....The results are political ineffectiveness and personal alienation....Central to any analysis of the potential for change must be an appraisal of organized labor.... As a political force, labor generally has been unsuccessful in the postwar period of prosperity....These threats and opportunities point to a profound crisis: either labor continues to decline as a social force, or it must constitute itself as a mass political force demanding not only that society recognize its rights to organize but also a program going beyond desired labor legislation and welfare improvements....

The creation of bridges is made more difficult by the problems left over from the generation of "silence". Middle class students, still the main actors in the embryonic upsurge, have yet to overcome their ignorance, and even vague hostility, for what they see as "middle class labor" bureaucrats. Students must open the campus to labor through publications, action programs, curricula, while labor opens its house to students through internships, requests for aid (on the picket-line, with handbills, in the public dialogue), and politics. And the organization of the campus can be a beginning -- teachers' unions can be argued as both socially progressive, and educationally beneficial university employees can be organized -- and thereby an important element in the education of the student radical....

The University and Social Change. There is perhaps little reason to be optimistic about the above analysis. True, the Dixiecrat-GOP coalition is the weakest point in the dominating complex of corporate, military and political power. But the civil rights and peace and student movements are too poor and socially slighted, and the labor movement too quiescent, to be counted with enthusiasm. From where else can power and vision be summoned? We believe that the universities are an overlooked seat of influence.
First, the university is located in a permanent position of social influence. Its educational function makes it indispensable and automatically makes it a crucial institution in the formation of social attitudes. Second, in an unbelievably complicated world, it is the central institution for organizing, evaluating, and transmitting knowledge. Third, the extent to which academic resources presently is used to buttress immoral social practice is revealed first, by the extent to which defense contracts make the universities engineers of the arms race. Too, the use of modern social science as a manipulative tool reveals itself in the "human relations" consultants to the modern corporation, who introduce trivial sops to give laborers feelings of "participation" or "belonging", while actually deluding them in order to further exploit their labor. And, of course, the use of motivational research is already infamous as a manipulative aspect of American politics. But these social uses of the universities' resources also demonstrate the unchangeable reliance by men of power on the men and storehouses of knowledge: this makes the university functionally tied to society in new ways, revealing new potentialities, new levers for change. Fourth, the university is the only mainstream institution that is open to participation by individuals of nearly any viewpoint.
These, at least, are facts, no matter how dull the teaching, how paternalistic the rules, how irrelevant the research that goes on. Social relevance, the accessibility to knowledge, and internal openness
  • these together make the university a potential base and agency in a movement of social change.
1. Any new left in America must be, in large measure, a left with real intellectual skills, committed to deliberativeness, honesty, reflection as working tools. The university permits the political life to be an adjunct to the academic one, and action to be informed by reason.

2. A new left must be distributed in significant social roles throughout the country. The universities are distributed in such a manner.

3. A new left must consist of younger people who matured in the postwar world, and partially be directed to the recruitment of younger people. The university is an obvious beginning point.

4. A new left must include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance, the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system. The university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political synthesis.

5. A new left must start controversy across the land, if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed. The ideal university is a community of controversy, within itself and in its effects on communities beyond.

6. A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.

But we need not indulge in allusions: the university system cannot complete a movement of ordinary people making demands for a better life. From its schools and colleges across the nation, a militant left might awaken its allies, and by beginning the process towards peace, civil rights, and labor struggles, reinsert theory and idealism where too often reign confusion and political barter. The power of students and faculty united is not only potential; it has shown its actuality in the South, and in the reform movements of the North.
The bridge to political power, though, will be built through genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between a new left of young people, and an awakening community of allies. In each community we must look within the university and act with confidence that we can be powerful, but we must look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice.

To turn these possibilities into realities will involve national efforts at university reform by an alliance of students and faculty. They must wrest control of the educational process from the administrative bureaucracy. They must make fraternal and functional contact with allies in labor, civil rights, and other liberal forces outside the campus. They must import major public issues into the curriculum -- research and teaching on problems of war and peace is an outstanding example. They must make debate and controversy, not dull pedantic cant, the common style for educational life. They must consciously build a base for their assault upon the loci of power.

As students, for a democratic society, we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program is campus and community across the country. If we appear to seek the unattainable, it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.

Now, it might not be fair to compare the students of Missouri or students at Yale to the Students for Democratic Society because maybe the former student efforts have not had their Port Huron moment (leaving that one as the odd statement).  Perhaps they have not all come together to hash out what the world could look like with some well-placed effort and then figure out what needs to be done and in what order.  Perhaps they should though. I suggest that each campus needs to have this conversation but it needs to take place with the knowledge of what the Port Huron Statement had to say for it reveals a different understanding of what was going on, what was wrong and what needed to be done.

In many ways, the new efforts look like the earlier Black Studies discussions like that in San Francisco State in 1968. But they need not have this limited focus.  The newer conversation should consult not just the ones most directly relevant but other efforts as well that were connected with a sense of societal transformation and justice as well as the important role that universities played in such efforts.  For programs have already been turned into departments, names have been changed, budgetary allocations have been made and faculty lines established. Remember when Penn State shut down because of racial discrimination and black student activism years ago.  These students won approximately a million dollars, a research center and several lines (the institution tried to recruit me for one of them).  The question remains, however not just for Penn State but all the efforts up to the present concerning the topic: what did they accomplish?  What was the aftereffect of these prior efforts?  What world were they supposed to lead to or were they simply supposed to change a few things on college campuses?  Now, developing systems of better accountability and enforcement are a new step.  Developing adequate as well as equal health care and such are also new(ish) although they actually represent a different variant of reparations to establish as well as sustain racial parity. Let us not forget that universities exist in societies.  Let us not forget that students enter these institutions for only a few years before they go out/back into the world.  The broader implications of change on college campuses must always be put back in this context and the Port Huron Statement provides one lens to think about what such a vision could look like.
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Crackers and Cheese - Tales of Rwanda, Part 27

11/21/2015

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Note: Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda during research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.  I thought that I posted all of the stories but recently I found a few and thus I will continue with posting them.

I’ve been looked at in many ways in my life.  As a student (first in Mr. Petrozelis’ class in Junior High at Simon Baruch), as a son (by my mother), as a naïve/"booksmart" fool (my grandfather), as a nigger (a shortish but memorable listing), as an athlete (most of my teachers in High School), as an intelligent charmer (an insightful few) but nothing compares to the look of the Rwandan.
 
The eyes pass over you, into you, through you, beyond you.  They see the skin tone (too light for a Rwandan but after two weeks this changes), the flesh (fattened which means ripe for the picking), the clothes (I always wore the same thing – jeans, short-sleeve shirt, ¾ timberlands), the hair (or, in my case, the lack thereof which caused me some grief cause there were no bald people there), the gait (New York all the time – fast paced, heavy footed, directed, driven, driving) and my interaction with European whites in the country or Eurites (uncompromising, guarded, aggressive and a little loud, when necessary). Now, I add "in the country" because I believe had the interactions taken place in Europe or America, they would not have taken on the character that they did - the people, personality and exchange.  To be clear: I am not saying that all European whites in Rwanda acted a particular way. I am simply saying that many that I encountered did have kind of an interesting attitude.  My witness to it and engagement with it was not as a Rwandan, however.  Rather, it was as a New Yorker and African American who was not really going to tolerate too much while visiting the motherland.
 
Now, the Rwandans appeared to like my last descriptive about not suffering fools but were simultaneously shocked as they had never seemed to see a person kind of like them treat Eurites the way I did.  Now, truth be told, I was not going out of my way to be especially mean to Eurites in Rwanda but there was a common French and/or Belgian attitude in the country that would have been unacceptable to any Manhattanite (of any race). Indeed, one woman I met from Brooklyn there let into one Frenchmen who attempted to return some meal in a manner that went way beyond demeaning with comments of "these people" and "No wonder things are so bad here with people like this".  Hells no.
 
For example, in one hotel, I waited on the cue to pick up my key at the front desk.  Some Eurite had walked in from the Bush – literally, stepping right in front of me and attempted to check in.  To this, I said “excuse me” and mentioned that I had been waiting on the line (very politely but direct, if you get my New Yawk meaning).  After ignoring me, he requested a room – in English, and as they say: “it was on.” 

As for my response, picture something like a combination of Chris Tucker, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Richard Pryor and Mike Tyson.  I just let into the guy - at that point, something got summoned from the depths.  While berating him, I stepped to his side, grabbed the key that the concierge was about to hand to him and demanded that I either be given my room key or that I would take his room, which I was sure was going to be a nice one.  At the same time, I said to the Eurite that his behavior was extremely rude and that I was not going to let this pass without reparation. 
 
Now, I was very clear about my word use and to be honest at that moment I viewed the Eurite not as any white man but as The White Man – yes, someone in the ol' characterization of the 1930's, 1940's, 1960's, 1970's...... - the oppressive individual that had enslaved Africans and African Americans, the oppressive individual that had raped my relatives, denied them jobs and prompted the police to beat in their heads.  It was amazing how quickly I let all of the politeness of Western society go.  Before I knew it, I was calling him a “cracker” and that “Africans were not going to take any abuse.”  Yes, Africans not African Americans. Now, I do not think that the guy knew what a cracker was nor that I was only part African but the point seemed to be made and taken. Indeed, a group of the staff were not exactly crowding around but they were watching and smiling broadly from diverse parts of the lobby, which was kind of odd but appreciated.
 
The response from the Eurite was pure anti-black hatred (the “how-dare-the-kaffir-step-to-me” look), mixed with a small amount of fear.  As the armed guard and manager stepped forward, I think that for a second both he and I had a feeling that they would end up siding with each of us. And, for a millisecond, I thought that I had definitely overstepped my bounds and that while I saw nothing but black faces around me, I might have miscalculated the sympathy, appreciation and back-up from my brethren.
 
Quickly though, the situation became clear: unlike the states, the brothers immediately took my side (the American trumped the French/Belgian under the new regime and African-Americans trumped Anglos).  After acknowledging that I was indeed on line and that I was to be serviced next, he was escorted to the back and the staff just kind of looked at me in a “I can’t believe he spoke to the white man” kind of way.  Now, truth be told, it was not all left to chance. I had spent the better part of several weeks schooling the staff on American history, black history, Hip Hop and thought that I was respectful to all individuals in the hotel.  The result: after a lifetime of being on the wrong end of the indignant corporate response, I finally won one.
 
Somewhat a daze, I took my key and went downstairs to get a drink.  At the bar, there was a buzz as the different waiters and ever-present ladies of the evening looked my direction and smiled.  As the waiter came over to take my order, he said that the drinks were on the house as well as a small appetizer.  When he came with my beer, he put down a plate with a wide assortment of cheeses.  Recalling the conversation upstairs, I realized that I probably called the guy cracker like 10 times.  What better to go with the cheese, I thought remembering one of my favorite comedians - Paul Mooney.  The strangest things happen in this place. 


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A Call to Effective Student Activism

11/15/2015

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Like many around the US and world, I watched what took place at the University of Missouri campus and felt a strong sense of nostalgia as well as hope.  I mean, look at the picture above.  They sit and stand, unified in purpose and politicized in the greatest tradition of young-athletic Muhammad Ali like justice seeking. It's beautiful.

This is not new or even isolated to this one campus.   Like those in the 1960/70s against the War in Vietnam, Imperialism, sexism and racism as well as in the 1980s against Nicaragua, racism (again/still) and Apartheid, which was an embodiment of war (a civil one), imperialism and racism, young people are seemingly poised to step into the realm of "contentious politics" (i.e., political engagement outside of the parameters of mainstream/sanctioned processes as well as with an element of confrontation being involved).  The similarities in topics makes sense.  Many of the issues identified earlier have persisted over time and thus it has been necessary to fire up the mechanisms of change every now and again (i.e., the Youth).  The differences in framing have also been noted previously. As stated in one article about student activism in the 1980s vs. the 1960s:


Many compare the new student activism to the radical politics of the 1960s, but most say the political techniques have changed. Although students listen to the music and wear the clothes of the baby-boom generation, the focus has shifted to effecting positive change rather than simply protesting. 

"There are as many students involved in working for change on campus today as there were in the 1960s," says Yale senior Jon H. Ritter, who has been involved in student activism during his four years at Yale. "The difference is that in the 1960s students were calling for everything at once, while students in the 1980s have more specific goals, and work on one issue at a time." 

Students today say that the activism of the 1980s, although it attracts less attention than did the protest movements of 20 years ago, is a more effective method of achieving lasting change. 


Seeing what we are observing in the world today as well as in the US in particular, it is not so clear that the 1980s were effective and we could probably all agree on the ineffectiveness of the 1960s outside of the creation of some admittedly important programs.  This is hard for me to say for I used to mention with pride that activism at my school in the 1980s (Clark University in Wooster [Woo-stah], Mass) had prompted change through divestment but we discovered later that the University had not divested but simply moved the money from a direct to a more indirect route.  While seemingly effective, therefore, we kind of blew it.  This and a failure to get a controversial tenure decision overturned revealed to many of us that student activism was a very difficult thing.  

Should we be optimistic about the current situation?  Well, forgive me on this one but no and yes.  

On the no - We should not be optimistic because prior student activists have not learned what is effective and this message has not been transferred to subsequent student bodies.  What types of issues were being protested about in the 1960s, 1970s, 1930s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s?  What tactics were used and which tactics generally worked in the short term as well as the long term across contexts (e.g., public vs. private schools, the Northeast/Midwest/South/West, in bust/boom financial times, in Republican/Democratic environs, in situations with greater/lesser mixed populations on campus or in the surrounding community)?  These are the questions we need answered as we try to forge a more effective way forward. Additionally, where is that student activist book or e-book that is distributed to freshmen/freshwomen/newbies that come on campus for the first time, like the "activist student handbook" to inform them of what the local history has been regarding how students got rights, protected them and extended them across distinct domains?  Where is the listing of tactics, places, dates and outcomes so that students can assess what has and has not worked?  Where is that generational replacement of activists on campus which need to be built yearly as the conveyor belt of students moves through the relevant institutions? 

On the yes - We should acknowledge that now/today is a new day and that we can build a better way forward.  We can address the questions above on each campus in the US as well as abroad and then we can compile our "activist student handbooks" in one spot so that students as well as faculty can begin the task of trying to figure out what has/has not worked across campuses.  This is not completely subversive as the current President of the United States of America has asked for an "Activist Citizenry".  He just didn't tell us how to get there but he doesn't need to.  We can work this out for ourselves.  

Additionally, we can acknowledge that historically there has been some discussion about the fact that prior student activists have generally not been engaged in activities with those from the communities around them. Although this has been the case generally this does not need not be the case.  Now, that said, there are some contentious histories between Universities and the towns that they have existed within stretching back to the founding of most Universities in the US.  Remember Breaking Away?  Remember School Daze?  Needless to say, the locals and the students did not see everything eye to eye nor will we in the current situation.  There are a wide variety of differences that we need to be attuned to but it is nevertheless possible.  

In the current context, we could be especially well primed for such an intersection as we appear to have some momentum addressing anti-black violence and discrimination emerging from different quarters.  At the same time, the attention to these issues varies a bit.  According to polling data, many whites do not believe that racial problems are that bad whereas many African Americans believe that they are extremely bad.  This does not bode well for alliance formation or actual effectiveness but this does not preclude it.  To change America - not just the campuses but the broader country - this rift will need to be overcome but this is also where scholarship comes in.  People have been working on how differences like those noted above can be overcome.  I will follow this piece up with some of that work but feel free to shoot some to me in the meantime.  

Now, I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that we are not working on this in a vacuum.  I am sure after the Missouri activism that athletic programs around the US are systematically working to figure out how they can isolate/protect their scholar-athletes from such influences.  Those interested in activism, however, need to figure out how such connections can be sustained as well as strengthened.  Athletes play an important role in the life of Universities as do non-athletic oriented students, alum, faculty, staff and the communities that surround them.  All should be brought together in a manner that facilitates social justice and human rights.  This should be the objective.  Also, I would be remiss in identifying that social movement activism is great for changing some things but not for others.  What is needed is a high degree of monitoring, discussion, analysis and vigilance across the distinct parts of the social change process. (see here and here).

Toward this latter end, I want to suggest a concrete beginning: if you are on a campus in the US, find some willing students as well as faculty and begin a "[insert university name here] activist student handbook".  I am currently running a class called "Saving the World or Wasting Time: Understanding the Impact of Social Movements and Activism" (click title for useful reading) and we will begin to to do this for our university starting tuesday (they don't know this yet but I'm sure they will be thrilled).  Feel free to join us.  Make note of the fact though that Thanksgiving, finals and Christmas break are coming as well as winter for much of the country.  Historically, these have not been great times to get students or faculty to focus on social justice issues.  We need not be tied to the past however.  We can change, no?  For example, regarding the upcoming weather, I am reminded of a scene from the Spike Lee film "DROP Squad" (please replace sun and heat with cold and winter as well as forgive the language: click here for relevant scene.  Get your hats y'all!

Peace




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Any World (That I'm Welcome to)...... Anti-Black Behavior, the Desire for Community & the Republic of New Africa

11/13/2015

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I always liked Steely Dan.  Strange place to start a piece concerning black nationalism but stay with me for a second.  There is just something about Steely Dan's calm melodious funk that just does the trick.  I listen to it when editing something I have written.  It doesn't get in the way like some music.  It kind of facilitates.  One song in particular has always resonated with me: Any World (That I'm Welcome to).  You probably know it:

If I had my way
I would move to another lifetime
I'd quit my job
Ride the train through the misty nighttime
I'll be ready when my feet touch ground
Wherever I come down
And if the folks will have me
Then they'll have me

Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to

Is better than the one I come from

I can hear your words
When you speak of what you are and have seen
I can see your hand
Reaching out through a shining daydream
Where the days and nights are not the same
Captured happy in a picture frame
Honey I will be there
Yes I'll be there

Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to

Is better than the one I come from

I got this thing inside me
That's got to find a place to hide me
I only know I must obey
This feeling I can't explain away
I think I'll go to the park
Watch the children playing
Perhaps I'll find in my head
What my heart is saying
A vision of a child returning
A kingdom where the sky is burning
Honey I will be there
Yes I'll be there

Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to

Is better than the one I come from


I always viewed the song as hopeful.  It suggested that if you did not currently have a home and you were not currently being embraced by some community, that it was possible that you might one day.  In some distant future, you will find your peeps, be embraced and walk right on in.

The discrimination directed against African Americans since their coming to the United States has not provided much of welcoming.  Enslavement was simply hell: beatings, torture, rape, forced labor, medical experimentation, and outright killing.  Post enslavement, things were only better in certain ways. Despite being freed from bondage, they were lynched, burnt, sent back into a version of slavery, threatened, rounded up as "vagrants" and worked in prisons, worked to the bone in factories as the lowest on the totem pole, kept out of housing, good schools, good supermarkets and rendered ever fearful that there situation could slip back into some vortex of violence reminiscent of Octavia Butler's Kindred or Haile Germ's Sankofa.  

Given this situation, it makes sense that African Americans would believe in the distant hope of democratization and democracy studied so carefully by Ralph Bunche in "The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR".  Confronted with the realities that this might not sufficiently address all of their problems, it also makes sense that blacks would try to think of some other way to be welcomed.  Indeed, this explains black interest in science fiction like that put forward by the Afrofuturists.  "Any world that I'm welcome to" - even if that world is on another planet or set in the future.  Ever see that Deep Space 9 episode where it was shown that Deep Space 9 existed in the mind of some African American set in the 1950s who
was suffering from a host of discriminatory problems. In his pain, he created the idea of Deep Space 9, which you then were led to wonder about as it was not clear if it really existed or it just existed in the mind of the oppressed black writer. "Any world that I'm welcome to".

Similarly, one could view black nationalism as an attempt to make a world, rather than wait for one to arrive and/or be handed to them.  In a version of a Tribe Called Quest lyric, black nationalists seem to have concluded that "If your state is an ass and your police force is a jerk, leave 'em both alone and create yourself a @." As I am not a rapper, I do not need to finish the line.  You get the point.  

Now, creating that place of welcoming was not an easy thing to do.  Few attempts were put forward but one that I am familiar with concerns the group called the Republic of New Africa (RNA) - the topic of my last book "How Social Movements Die".  The RNA concluded that America was not for them - indeed, they concluded that America was out to kill African Americans.  Rather than go back to Africa like Garvey and many white racists suggested, however, the RNA decided to take a different path.  They were like: we built much of the country and we still live in numerous parts of the deep south in numbers that make it look as if they were the majority. They decided that they should be given/take these states and create their own nation.  

What was this nation and what was this idea of theirs?  Steely Dan illuminates: 


I got this thing inside me
That's got to find a place to hide me

The black nation.  That was their idea.  A place where they would not no fear.  A place where all dreams hindered by the racist America could be fulfilled.  A place of peace and harmony and collective productivity.  It was "Exit" in the Albert Hirschman sense or Escaping the state in the James Scott sense.  


Perhaps I'll find in my head
What my heart is saying


​As we see the burgeoning national and international attention given to the newest version of the African American plight in the US (e.g., "Black Lives Matter") and the piecemeal efforts put forward to address them: e.g., body cameras, commissions of inquiry, talk shows and the like, it is worthwhile to look back some other efforts - ones a bit more critical and creative about both how bad the problem might be but also how dramatic the solution might need to be.  One example is that put forward by the Republic of New Africa.  Below is the government that they proposed as well as, if you read between the lines, why they proposed it.  
More soon.
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A Moral Hazard in Counter-Terror Policy?  (A Conflict Consortium Virtual Workshop Joint)

11/8/2015

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Do restrictions on civil liberties reduce terror attacks?

Earlier this week the CC Virtual Workshop featured Tiberiu Dragu‘s paper, “The Moral Hazard of Terrorism Prevention.” Regrettably, technical issues prevented us from recording the session to YouTube. That aside, we had a fun and interesting discussion.

And why not? Dragu’s provocative answer is “probably not.” More specifically, he argues that once we take into consideration the strategic interaction of government security agents and dissidents, the former will underinvest in detective work (thereby creating demand for their services), and the latter will sometimes plan more attacks than they would have had the government not restricted civil liberties (e.g., speech, association, assembly but also enhancing surveillance and domestic spying capabilities).

To produce these implications Dragu studies a dynamic game theory model involving security agency of a government and a dissident group using terror tactics. The game has two periods: in the first, the group decides whether to execute attacks, and the agency decides how much effort to expend foiling potential plots. As in any game theory model, the trick is to consider how each actor will behave in each period based on its expectations of what will happen over the course of the interaction. This is where the interesting stuff happens as the actors generate expectations about what is likely to have in subsequent periods influencing what they do in the present.

In particular, Dragu compares two circumstances: one in which, following a terror attack in period one, the government does not restrict civil liberties versus another in which, following a terror attack in period one, the government restricts civil liberties. The results of the model indicate that the security agents will work harder to foil plots in the situation with no restrictions than the one with restrictions. In part, this is explained by the fact that without the restrictions these actors have to work a bit harder to figure out what is going on. Higher levels of repression make security force agents lazy, reducing repressive action. Lower levels of repression make security force agents exert more effort, increasing the amount of repressive action that one would see. Further, depending on the values of some of the model’s parameters, the dissidents will plan more attacks. If you know that you are going to be in a situation where it will be harder to meet, plan, train and execute, then you would ramp up your dissident behavior. The paper challenges the conventional wisdom that civil liberties restrictions reduce challenges and advances the agenda that repression needs to be simultaneously disaggregated tactically as well as considered together.

The paper is part of a book length project in which Dragu draws also from his articles published in AJPS (pdf here) and APSR (pdf here). In those works, he expands the discussion to include the incentives of politicians, and the book will engage an array of models that permit him to enrich the sparse models in each of the papers. This should be an important piece.

Terrence Chapman, Ursula Daxecker and Monika Nalepa served as discussants, and raised a number of excellent suggestions ranging from modeling choices to framing and presentation to empirical implications and beyond. Dragu also engaged the group in discussion about some of his ideas for the book length manuscript as well as this individual paper. A good time was had by all.

@WilHMoo & @engagedscholar
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    Analog - The Anti-Blog

    By "Analog" I am referring to the adjective (i.e., relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position or voltage) and not the noun (i.e., a person or thing seen as comparable to another) for I wished to give voice to my thoughts which have come to me in a more or less continuous manner but which do so in a way that is not consistent in content or form. Thus you will see short stories, brief thoughts, haikus, low-kus and even a political cartoon or two. 

    Winner of Best Blog Post for 2014 by International Studies Association

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