Archive for July, 2008
Irony Isn’t Agency
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 31, 2008
A bit different than the usual stuff illvox posts on race and politics, but an important read, with themes familiar to many people of color.
Gawd, remember that hipster burlesque crap from the 90’s? I thought it was over, but no, it lives on. An article in the Kansas City Star about a “neo-burlesque” show in town is headlined thusly: “Burlesque’s practitioners find humor, art and feminism in their risqué shows”.
Fun feminism, that is.”Neo” burlesque is funny and ironic, see. So it’s rebellious and iconoclastic and artsy. The Star runs a photo to illustrate the pertinent bits of the story. The photo is of neo-burlesque practitioner Honey Valentine’s headless, enbustiered torso.
Burlesque practitioner and funfeminist Lola Van Ella says “[What’s happening now is a feminist movement in burlesque] because it’s women saying, ‘I can be ultra feminine and I can shave and wear makeup and red lipstick and G-strings and pasties. Men may or may not enjoy it, but I’m doing it for myself.’”
How is fun-feminism different from regular feminism? Not at all, except that it’s antifeminist. It’s when you capitulate to, participate in, embrace, and openly promote rape culture in exchange for approval, claiming that it empowerfulizes you.
Van Ella said that contemporary burlesque appeals to both genders and that she has as many female fans as guys. And there’s a reason: Modern burlesque performers are clearly in charge of their own destiny.
“I have nothing against commercial stripping as a business, but it is that,” she said. “It’s a sales job. But burlesque is a tease, and that is the big difference. The woman doing it is completely in control of her own sexuality. She decides. And she says, ‘I’m gonna give you this much but not any more and if you want more you’ll have to beg.’”
Are you fucking kidding me?
It sorely chaps the Twisty hide when women get all cutesy with pornulation, misconstruing irony for agency.
The idea that women’s public sexuality can so precisely mirror traditional male fantasy while simultaneously existing in a kind of pro-woman, I-do-it-for-myself alternate universe is the cornerstone of funfeminist “thought.” The flaw in this reasoning is that all women must participate in patriarchy regardless of what they say motivates their participation; patriarchy is the dominant culture, and there is no opting out. Which means there is no opting in, either. Do it for me, do it for you, whatever; the primary beneficiaries of women’s participation — willing or unwilling, ironic or sincere — in patriarchy, are men.
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Qualifying the Commitment to Self-Preservation
Posted by illvox collective in Ideas on July 31, 2008
A poster stating s/he was from the blog from which this was cross-posted requested this post be removed. Feel free to peruse this site further if you want though!
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Anticontractualism
Posted by illvox collective in Ideas on July 31, 2008
By Todd Hamilton
We must be frank about the failures both of traditional union organizing and what I will call anti-contractual organizing. From the perspective of revolutionaries it is clear how the business unions have failed, but usually controversial that revolutionary unions have failed. In the United States our inability to organize within the framework laid out by the state for unions led to the development of a critique of contracts. In fact it was less a critique of contracts than the historical role unions evolved into which is represented well by the role unions take via the contract. Specifically the union as an external body that enforces agreements upon the workplace, and channels working class unrest into avenues that can be controlled and diffused. In shops where this contractual system reigns there is generally little or no participation amongst the workers, and often greater management strength in controlling the structure and flow of work.
Yet contracts themselves contain clear positives. They give space and time to consolidate gains won that might otherwise vanish with changes in the workplace. Additionally they form a foundation around which the union can organize both internally in the shop and externally in the industry.
The IWW has for in recent times experimented with organizing via solidarity unionism (in brief: organizing without dependence on mediating bureaucracies, instead utilizing social relations and solidarity on the shop floor to directly impliment workers’ desires). These campaigns would organize without predicating elections, membership, or contracts. Many such drives were successful in that they won the gains workers sought. Workers were radicalized out of these struggles, and brought into the organization without prior political experience. Yet by and large these campaigns have a natural trajectory. They win gains, things heat up more broadly, and as gains are won they deflate. Workers tire of struggle, they move on to better work, management wises up, etc.
Alternatively some of these struggles moved towards contracts. Seeing the deflationary tendency, or based upon concrete needs particular to one or another industry contracts are viewed as a way to solidify this process. There has been much debate and writing about having “agreements” rather than contracts. This would mean one-page documents detailing simple matters like workers’ control of grievances, no at-will clause, pay increases, etc., but without no-strike clauses, outside arbitration, or management rights. Yet these practices never, to my knowledge, came to fruition. The dynamics of contractual bargaining requires significant power to impliment such contracts, and in our limited experience there was not the power to do so. The traditional way to attain such would be to build a union, win a contract, and build upon that contract (which of course is a fairy tale). This path has been pursued again and again whenever it has come up, despite widespread desires to avoid it. Why is that?
The story above I think is a familiar one to anyone who has organized as a worker (and most revolutionaries haven’t, especially not ones who leave it to the business unions to do it for them). There is a clear dynamic in these struggles that was latent to me for a long time, but is increasingly manifest. When organizing there is a dynamic between the struggles of workers and maintaining those struggles and activity. Secondly there is a dynamic within contracts between meeting workers’ needs and building towards a contract. None of these dynamics however are universal or ahistorical as I will show below. Generally speaking workers struggles tend to coalesce and dissipate around concrete issues and needs. Organizing directly can build and win struggles, but the level of agitation necessary for longer term struggle tends not to come naturally. One can build worker-organizers out of these struggles, but it is clearly a minority who is willing and interested to devote the time and resources towards perpetual organizing.
Consequently some push for a theory of organizing as building these organizers, spreading out throughout industries or regions, and then creating a base for widespread disruptions that create the conditions necessary for sustaining intense struggle necessary to transforming work. Though all such experiments are fairly young, we have not seen much success along these lines. The Anarchist Federation UK, the Sojourner Truth Organization, the IWW, the Johnson-Forest Tendency, the Northeast Federation of Anarchist Communists, etc., all have experimented with building networks of such worker-organizers without long-term success.
Likewise contractual struggles within the IWW have constantly devolved into service unionism where there are worker participation gradually withdraws as they see it is unnecessary to maintaining the gains, concessions on matters of production are made, and the union gets put in the position of managing and enforcing the workplace through the contract. Sensibly the workers identify the union with the gains and services, and engage it as such. Hostility and aversion are common as the union does exist as an outside regulating body and not the self-activity of the workers. This dynamic is well studied and discussed and doesn’t require more explanation.
The question posed by these experiences and tendencies is how we orient ourselves to workers’ struggle in times where struggle does not already exist. I won’t consider here anti-organizationalist positions or boring-from-within other business unions here, as I think there are more important questions than those debates. It comes down to our goals. Our goals aren’t to manage our own oppression within the workplace, nor is it to be the enforcer of workplace discipline. Our goal isn’t even to win particular economic gains. Instead we seek to build revolutionary class consciousness and transform social relationships amongst participants. We want to do this in a way that sustains the struggles we engage in, and provides a foundation for when opportunities arise to broaden and connect struggles into revolutionary activity.
From this perspective our means have failed us. Contractual organizing has taken us away from direct organizing, leads us away from our goals of social transformations, and has failed to build a sustainable libertarian revolutionary movement.
The direction I think we should take is to recognize both the time we live in, our capacity, and where the best use of our energy lies. There has been something missing here all along. Though revolutionaries, we have failed to build beyond daily grievances in our work. We have ignored nurturing the social networks and community crucial to maintaining proletarian organizing, and we have failed to both develop and utilize our long term vision and revolutionary goals that give substance and beauty to our struggles.
The task then is to refocus on direct organizing beyond contractualism, but from a revolutionary anti-political perspective. This would mean actively nurturing and prioritizing social relationships to fulfill the human needs we all have, and that bring us together in closer bonds of mutual love and solidarity, bonds that unite us in dark times and inspire us when we feel alone and alienated. This strategy uses direct struggles to further develop consciousness, and creates or expands prefigurative institutions that reflect our community. Our vision is our true asset, and something that builds new worlds in our hearts, and heals wounds in our souls. The fantasy that we can organize without such a vision or with a sufficiently watered down vision has watered us down, and left many wondering why we are struggling. To this end we should in our practice and our words assert the cause of mutual aid and direct action against capitalism and the state, and to build a new society born out of revolution and based on the abolition of all classes, inequity, and oppressive hierarchies. This society based on hortizontalism, communism, and our desires will be our light.
Via Bedtime Theory
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Houston: Carl Hampton Remembered
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 31, 2008
Black revolutionary Houstonians met this past weekend to observe the anniversary of the assassination of Carl Hampton, Chairman of People’s Party II, cousin of Fred Hampton, and a courageous organizer for Black self-determination. From a report:
To mark the 38th anniversary of Carl’s death, around 20 people drove to the cemetery in north Houston where Carl Hampton is buried. People placed flowers on his grave and a number of elders who were contemporaries of Carl Hampton spoke about his life and dedication to revolutionary change.
Speakers included Peoples Party II members James Aaron, Ayana and Sensei, who read a statement from Boko Freeman, and an amazing anonymous letter from someone who meet Carl in response to his death. Also long time community activists Ester King and Ovide Duncatel, and other community activists from that time who I have never met before, but all had stories about the significance of Carl to their lives and struggles.
We then drove back to the location of the Peoples Party II house, where folks from the Station Museum had set up a tent to hide from the shade, drink lemonade and read about Peoples Party II. In the evening, we walked together to the site of the Black Panther Party house (After Carl was killed they Peoples Party II was accepted as a Black Panther Party Chapter and they got a new office on Dowling Street, and later moved to 4th Ward just West of downtown) and then to the side of Wolf’s department store where Carl Hampton was shot by a sniper from a window of St. John’s Church.
There was more speaking, including some who had spoke earlier as well as the lawyer who represented Carl Hampton and a number of the black radical activists in Houston, as well as a man who was 10 years old when Carl Hampton was killed who perform a poem he had written about being inspired by the Black Panther Party.
“People’s Party II” was a name chosen in recognition of what Carl Hampton said was the first People’s Party, the Black Panthers. Photos at Houston Indymedia.
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LA: Black August 08 Events
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 30, 2008
Aug 1st, Sunrise: Opening Ceremony
Dockweiler Beach, Playa Del Rey
Aug 1st, 7p: Opening Program
So Calif Library, 6120 S. Vermont near Gage
Every Saturday in August, 7p: “Resistance Films” at the AFIBA Center/213-321-0575
Aug 2nd, 2p: “Free The San Francisco 8,” Committee to Defend Human Rights (CDHR) at the
AFIBA Center, 5730 S. Crenshaw Blvd.
Aug 7th, 7p: Elder Freeman of the Black Panther Party speaks on Jonathan Jackson, “Black Guerrilla”
AFIBA Center
Aug 9th, 2p: Pan Afrikan Women’s Day
“50 Years Later: What Role of the African Woman,” African Women’s Group, at KRST Unity Center, 7825 S. Western/562-595-1192
Aug 10th, Noon: Capoeira: Art of Resistance
Capoeira Angola Center of Los Angeles, in Leimert Park, Crenshaw and Vernon, 310-989-1269
Aug 14th, 6:30p: Panel on Black Political Prisoners/KRST Unity Center/714-612-0366
Aug 16th, 10a: Marcus Garvey Parade & Festival
Crenshaw & Adams to Leimert Park, festival begins at noon in Leimert Park, UNIA, 323-735-9642
August 17th, Sunrise: Marcus Garvey Birthday Celebration in Leimert Park, UNIA 323-735-9642
August 17th, Noon: Community Forum: Criminalization of Afrikan Youth, at the AFIBA Center
August 21st, 7p: Human Rights Advocacy, Discussion on George Jackson, at the AFIBA Center, 310-989-1269
August 23rd: Oakland, CA – Travel to the Bay Area is encouraged to attend the Black August Celebration with the Original Black August Organizing Committee
Every Saturday in August, 7p: “Resistance Films” at the AFIBA Center/213-321-0575
August 31st, Closing Program: Location To Be Determined / 213-321-0575
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Camp Turns Out Video Activists
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 30, 2008
Portland, Oregon, July 1st, 2008–– If Ira Glass and Michael Moore were college students again, they may have spent their summers at a summer camp like the one hosted by the Northwest Institute for Social Change. Each summer the Northwest Institute for Social Change turns Portland into a classroom and laboratory for a group of top-notch students from schools like Princeton, Macalester, Brown and Reed as they learn about using media as a tool to bring about positive social change. As Executive Director Phil Busse jokes, “We are creating an anti-Karl Rove army.”
Part academic bootcamp, part hands-on training, the program pairs a rigorous academic schedule with guidance from media and political players. Nationally recognized filmmakers like Robert Greenwald (“Outfoxed”) and Dennis Fitzgerald (producer of The Shins music videos) mentor the students in producing short video documentaries and local NPR producers coach students on creating effective audio pieces. As well, politicians like the newly-elected mayor of Portland, Sam Adams, and Senator Ron Wyden’s chief of staff teach seminars about the how media affects their decision-making.
Mark Saldaña, a current Fellow in the program says, “The task of articulating a moment–– one of social and political tangles, immense optimism and crushing pessimism–– becomes a lot easier when you simply trust your voice. The Institute is a place to speak, to sing, to scream. That we’re all in this together, is what it keeps coming back to.”
This year, each student will create one audio and one video project that documents a local solution that Portland is implementing to address national problems like immigration, affordable housing and global warming. Students are awarded full-ride fellowships and can earn a semesters’ worth of credit through a partnership with the University of Oregon’s Turnbull Center.
Final presentations will be hosted on Wednesday, August 13 at the University of Oregon White Stag Building in downtown Portland.
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A10: Nat’l Day Against Electoral Politricks
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 30, 2008
In order to build momentum towards the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Unconventional Denver, the RNC Welcoming Committee, and various Unconventional Action groups from across the country are calling on anarchists nationwide to mobilize against the spectacle of electoral politics on August 10th.
We will use the tenth of August to build momentum and make it clear that we are not against one party or the other, but the totality of capitalism and its protector, the state.
A few ideas include: actions targeting party headquarters, blockading recruitment centers, dropping banners, holding teach-ins, wheatpasting anti-DNC/RNC posters, doing a radical film showing, holding a benefit for local organizers in Denver and the Twin Cities, protesting a corporate donor to the conventions, etc.
Reportbacks from actions can be posted at unconventionalaction.org
Good Luck! Be creative, be militant, and be fearless!
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Seeking S. Asian Film Producers
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 29, 2008
KathaKaravan is accepting submissions from filmmakers with projects from or about South Asia that are seeking representation to financiers, producers, distributors, agents and film festival programmers. Entries may be in screenplay, work-in-progress or finished film form. Narratives and documentaries from writers, directors and producers at any career level will be considered.
Submissions accepted year-round. Quarterly deadlines for 2008-2009 are:
August 25, 2008
December 8, 2008
April 13, 2009
August 10, 2009
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Campaign in Defense of El Barrio
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 29, 2008
Solidarity Without Borders, and the Northeast Federation of Anarchist Communists – NYC are teaming up for Solidarity without Borders’ maiden party voyage to support the launch of Movement for Justice in El Barrio’s International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio. — Movement for Justice in El Barrio is a directly democratic organization fighting to ward off the aggressive corporate buyout and gentrification of East Harlem, and the displacement being caused by the disappearance of its affordable housing. The International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio is an effort to unite struggles against gentrification around the world, and create a network of allies that can support each other in local struggles to defend community autonomy and self-determination.
When: Friday, August 1st 2008 at 8:30pm til whenever
Where: 235 E 18th St. between 2nd and 3rd. Just a few blocks from Union Square.
How much: Suggested $10 donation at door and dollar drinks inside. *Free for MJB members*. Smorgasbord of assorted donated beer and mysteriously alcoholic punch drinks plus live dj!
What: *Drinking, Dancing, and Supporting Self-Determination at Judson Memorial’s Fabulous Gramercy Parsonage.
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New illvox Postcards
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 29, 2008
Now that’s what’s up!
Several people have wanted to promote illvox in their areas, and now there’s a good way to do it.
Our first-ever illvox postcard is available to you to distribute in your communities. Just use our contact form and send your address and how many you can distribute, and we’ll send you a grip at no charge.
The quote reads:
“As my people, of my nation, are colonized by the Americans, it is not an academic question… I oppose the American ruling class and puppets to whatever extent I can.” — Kuwasi Balagoon
Creative uses and photos of same appreciated!
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Seeking Images from Vincent Chin Period
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 28, 2008
VINCENT WHO? (48 minutes) – In 1982, Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments. For the first time, Asian Americans around the country galvanized to form a real community and movement. If you have any photos or images from this time period (1982-1987), we would appreciate speaking with you! Please contact us at curtischin@aol.com.
This documentary, inspired by a series of town halls organized by Asian Pacific Americans for Progress on the 25th anniversary of the case, features interviews with the key players at the time, as well as a whole new generation of activists. “Vincent Who?” asks how far Asian Americans have come since then and how far we have yet to go. Featured interviews include: Helen Zia (lead activist during the Chin trial), Renee Tajima Pena (director, “Who Killed Vincent Chin?”), Stewart Kwoh (Executive Director, Asian Pacific American Legal Center), Lisa Ling (journalist), Sumi Pendakur (Univ. of Southern California), Dale Minami (civic rights attorney), Doua Thor (Executive Director, Southeast Asian Resource Action Center) and a group of five diverse young APA activists whose lives were impacted by Vincent Chin.
Producer and co-director Curtis Chin (featured in the documentary) is an award-winning writer and producer who has worked for ABC, NBC, Disney Channel and more. As a community activist, he co-founded the Asian American Writers Workshop and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress. Co-director Tony Lam is a writer, producer, and director based in Los Angeles. A former Fulbright scholar, he currently produces “Our Role Models” on LA18, where he has interviewed over 100 outstanding leaders and talents in the Asian American community.
Presented by Asian Pacific Americans for Progress in association with Tony Lam Films and Q & A Pictures.
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Speaking Treason Fluently
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 28, 2008
By Tim Wise
Just wanted to let folks know that my essay collection, Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male, has just been released by Soft Skull/Counterpoint. In it, you can find a little more than 40 of my essays on race, institutional racism and white privilege, from 2000 to 2008. Ranging from pieces on white denial to the costs and consequences of white privilege and inequality on folks of color and whites as well, the collection covers most every conceivable racial flashpoint and subject of the past decade… Thanks in advance for your ongoing support of my work, and to many of you, for your example and mentorship as well over the years.
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Zine Submissions Sought
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 28, 2008
Forwarded from the Anarchist People of Color NYC List-serve.
The deadline for general submissions to My Baby Rides the Short Bus was July 1, 2008. We are really pleased with the strong and thought-provoking essays we have received and look forward to publishing an amazing anthology. To fill some holes we see, we will still be accepting a small number of submissions on the topics listed below (or possibly others as suggested by you). We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from dads, young parents, older parents and/or people of color. Also, we have a disproportionately high number of essays about autism, and while we will definitely consider more of those, we’d like to see contributions for parents dealing with other disabilities.
Topics:
*Working outside of the system–creating alternatives
*Living in an intentional community with a special needs kid
*Homeschooling or unschooling with special needs*Alternative treatments
*Out of home placements
*Kids growing older
*Disability activism
*Influence of parenting a child with disabilities on intimate parental relationships/relationships with other family members
Please email shortbusbook@yahoo.com to discuss a deadline. If you email us, check also in your spam folder for a response-we have been finding a few messages have been filtered out by more sensitive emails, but we respond to everyone.
Submissions should be 2,000 to 5,000 words and typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on the last page.
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ImageNation Festival
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 27, 2008
This summer ImageNation serves up the hottest Black film and music from South Africa to Sao Paulo. Held in Harlem’s historic St. Nicholas Park, this voyage through Black world culture and soul, kicks-off with Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters and music by Hard Hittin’ Harry, and closes with the side-splitting Be Kind, Rewind starring Mos Def and Danny Glover with DJ Spinna on the wheels of steel. Join us for a fun-filled summer of family-friendly entertainment and satisfy your soul.
The film festival runs from July 28th to August 18th and it takes place at the St.Nicholas Park, 135th St. & St.Nicholas Ave.
For more info visit imagenation.us or call 212-340-1874.
Imagenation, a Harlem-based organization, was established in 1997 to counteract negative images and stereotypes that are propagated about people of color, through mass media; and, to establish a chain of independent art-house cinemas dedicated to cinema of the African Diaspora. Imagenation uses independent cinema and progressive music to foster media equity, solidarity and cross-cultural exchange throughout communities of color worldwide, with special foci on the USA and South Africa.
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