By James Davis
What do radical educators think about the charge that the #OWS movement is ignoring race? Does it comport with your experience? With the accounts of others you know? Does the homogenizing rhetoric of “the 99%” obscure the disproportionate burden placed on African Americans and Latinos since the 2008 crash? Does such a strongly class-inflected movement inevitably turn race into a subordinate, epiphenomenal issue? How does the fact that the President is a Black man who polls very well among African Americans affect the way we approach these questions? Below you’ll find some links I copied from the ColorofChange email I just received.
“Occupy Wall Street’s Race Problem,” The American Prospect, 10-24-11
“Is black America sitting out “Occupy Wall Street”?,” The Grio, 10-6-11
“Reflections on #OccupyWallStreet,” Rebel Diaz Arts Collective, 9-28-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/998?akid=2250.3176.IpDJHO&t=27 Huffington Post, 10-14-11
“Call Out to People of Color,” Racialicious, 10-6-11
Kate
radicalteacherblogeditor
My now-deceased African-American mother-in-law grew up in segregated Texas and spent most of her life there. She recalled the Great Depression years of the 1930s as not making much change in the lives of her and other African-Americans at that time, because under segregation they had little or nothing, anyway, and the jobs they were allowed, no whites wanted. They lost nothing on investments because they had none.
Things have changed, but maybe not so much for some people.
http://alangorg.wordpress.com
Mondoweiss has an interesting comparative discussion of the two more or less parallel movements–the July 14 movement in Israel and the assorted Occupy movements here in the US. Each is an inspiring effort to inject a measure of social justice, notably around issues of wealth and its distribution, into the political arena.
Lessons from the Other Occupiers: A critical engagement of #Occupy and J14
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/10/lessons-from-the-other-occupiers-a-critical-engagement-of-occupy-and-j14.html
Still, this analysis faults both movements as not sufficiently inclusive–in the US racially and the Israeli equivalent–Jews only. Apparently efforts are made in both countries to include the excluded–people of color in the US and their equivalent, the Palestinians in Israel. But the very fact that these are efforts, deliberately pursued and not that successful (at least here in Boston, but apparently even in Detroit), exposes questions that radicals always need to ask and be sensitive to: what does inclusion mean, and what compromises are we, progressives and would-be radicals, willing to make for the sake of a consensus?
In the case of Israel, the irony is that initially there were two leaders to the movement, the woman who initiated the tent city’s protest and the man who is cited as the sole spokesperson/leader for it. Early on there were efforts, including by her, to make the July 14 movement responsive to Palestinians (20% of Israel’s citizens, not counting the occupied territories). But these efforts were repressed for the sake of building a consensus, as was mention of the woman’s name–so much so that I don’t remember it. The media essentially charted a path for the Israeli movement via selective coverage, and it’s a path congenial to middle-class liberals. In this way, as well as well through internal agreement and a shrug, the radical potential of the Israeli movement was neutralized. The Mondoweiss article notes that the very slogan “Occupy” is problematic in the US as well as in Israel, given the analogous fact that north America was initially occupied by European whites.
While both movements are impressive, they are in danger of becoming self-centered and in this way losing their radical edge. Each is certainly an encouraging. spontaneous, popular uprising, not unrelated to the Arab uprisings. But in all these amazingly popular efforts a crucial question is, How inclusive and representative will the results be, assuming there are results.
Thanks, James, for this post! Here’s a link to antiracist activist Tim Wise on the Rachel Maddow show:
http://youtu.be/YP8OCNWMP9g
He notes the problems of the word “occupy,” which has military and colonial resonances that are especially disturbing for many indigenous and native peoples, and also the different risks that may be at stake when white and Black people confront the police and get arrested.