[WAsummit] minneapolis update from someone who lives in minneapolis

[Louis Schoen]

Thanks very much to Lisa for her reporting and to Heather and Susan for the
work that touched off the event that drew public attention once again
unavoidably to the reality that this is NOT a "post-racial" society.  My
most frightening moment this weekend, prompted by the news Lisa and others
shared, came in looking at the National Socialist Movement's web site.  It
is an amalgam of extreme anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, multiply racist,
Hitler-apologetic propaganda highlighted at the top of the page by a
swastika.
At the same time, I was unable to visit the demonstration because a friend
drew me, instead, to a unity gathering of Dakota people focusing on their
own history, with the aim of building spiritual and community strength to
resist the continuing systemic presence of white supremacist ideology, which
sadly is no less real - and is more powerful - than the National Socialist
Movement.

People representing about a dozen Twin Cities organizations have been at
work planning a November 6-8 conference on the theme, "Overcoming Racism:
 Why Is It So Hard?"  Among keynoters will be Victor Lewis and Zeus
Leonardo, whose recent book on race, whiteness and education is a fresh
summary analysis of current critical work in the field. This effort strikes
me as a good model of the kind of collaborative anti-racist organizing
that's been discussed recently in the WASummit list serve.

Lou Schoen,
Minneapolis

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Lucy Oppenheim <OppEd at toad.net> wrote:

> Augghhh--dismaying choices of things to shout. Good news about the turnout
> and how fast it was over.
>
> I want to call attention to one group you did not mention that this event
> affected: people who wonder whether the neo-Nazis have a point and might be
> worth joining.
>
> Groups like that feed on the distress people feel in times like these.
> Various scholars* of social movements have written that such groups offer
> people who feel real pain and justifiable anger an interpretation of the
> causes of their problems. An interpretation that scapegoats powerless groups
> instead of focusing on how our institutions have created the conditions that
> caused their grievances, it's easy to grasp and it offers convenient
> targets.
>
> If you're starting to consider that message and 150 people show up to shout
> down and chase away five people carrying it you're more likely to see it as
> marginal and not want to identify with it. If you're hearing the same
> interpretation of the causes of your woes increasingly from officeholders in
> Washington and "think" tankers on the blithering-head shows on TV, not to
> mention constantly on certain radio stations, there are fewer barriers to
> buying into it.
>
> So energy put into marginalizing such groups isn't just directed to the
> committed members of those groups. It has the very important effect of
> damaging the groups' ability to project their message and recruit new
> members.
>
> *A few such scholars:
> Matthew N. Lyons
> Chip Berlet
> Sara Robinson
> Sara Diamond
> Frederick Clarkson
>
>
> Lisa Albrecht wrote:
>
>> hello all,
>> fyi, the minnesota independent is by no means a very radical on-line rag.
>> i trust twin cities indymedia for thoughtful coverage. below this email is
>> the letter that my friends, susan raffo and heather hackman (the workshop
>> facilitators), sent to many of us. they were fine w/ me sharing their letter
>> on this listserv.
>>
>> but first...there were 5 neo-nazi men. there were over 150 antiracist
>> folks, more white but many POC, especially immigrant rights people, because
>> one of our local farmers' markets is across the street from the Y, where the
>> event happened, and there are many local immigrant farmers selling produce
>> there. this particular neo-nazi group spents lots of time in southern
>> minnesota going after immigrants, so our local immigrant rights community
>> came out to the rally.
>>
>> i was in the Y helping with the workshop registration, and decided that i
>> did not want to put my energy into going outside and giving the neo-nazis
>> more attention. several friends i trust gave me the following info:
>>
>> the antiracist crowd outshouted the neo-nazi men until they walked away
>> from the Y and the police escorted them to their cars. it happened fast and
>> there was no physical violence. the outshouting including throwing of
>> tomatoes and hostile, nasty violent yelling from antiracists in the crowd,
>> and neo-nazi yelling that they'd be back. my friends felt like each "side"
>> was verbally violent. i am glad i wasn't outside, because i don't think that
>> yelling hostile comments to these men is a very effective strategy. the
>> yelling was not just, "leave our community" and "no racists here," but
>> yelling calling these men faggots, pussys and red neck illiterates.
>> interesting language choices, huh? my friends who were at the rally found
>> the behavior of a number of white antiracist people horrible. i feel
>> similarly. if this is our response, i feel like we have a long way to go. at
>> least one of the neo-nazis was young and my friends said he looked
>> incredibly afraid. is what we are doing just feeding that fear, and doesn't
>> that fear strengthen these men? one of my friends wondered what might have
>> happened if the white antiracist people circled the neo-nazis, held hands,
>> and responded back to their violent language with words like...."we are
>> white people like you, we are more similar than different, can't we talk,
>> can't we not scream at each other..." i guess we'll never know.
>>
>> in the workshop, we spent some time feeling what it was like to talk about
>> how we white people in the workshop were not only different than them, but
>> similar. (we're human, we are passionate about many things like them, we
>> care about this country, we feel afraid sometimes, we have families too,
>> etc.) at first, i was pissed at the workshop leaders because i wanted to
>> have nothing to do with neo nazis and did not want to put one iota of energy
>> into listening or responding to them, and certainly not in the workshop
>> space. but isn't it interesting that i didn't sleep the night before as i
>> was working internally to make them invisible? i certainly did have strong
>> feelings and trying to ignore my "enemies" wasn't really working.
>>
>> there was also a rally in the community where the two young black men were
>> beaten up by 3 white kids yelling horrible racial crap at them. the
>> community is a first ring suburb where there's now a large black population.
>> their rally was in a church, with lots of faith talk and over 150 attended.
>> it was also covered in our local mainstream newspapers. the neo-nazi rally
>> was also in our mainstream papers in buried spots with only several
>> paragraphs of text. the 3 young white men have been apprehended and will
>> face hate crime charges.
>>
>> below is the letter from susan and heather..... that's it from me, lisa
>> albrecht
>>
>> Greetings to all of our friends and allies,
>>
>> “Beyond Skin Deep: Uprooting White Privilege and White Supremacy One Cell
>> At a Time” is a workshop that in its simplest form is meant to help white
>> people deepen their awareness regarding systems of white privilege and white
>> supremacy, enhance their ability to challenge these systems, and ultimately
>> further their commitment to dismantling them in their own lives and in the
>> larger society. We contend that whiteness, which in this workshop we are
>> identifying as the combination of systems in this society that benefit white
>> people at the expense of people of color with ideas that say that that’s
>> okay, is destroying communities of color, dehumanizing white people, and is
>> a toxin in our society. Though not in equal measure, whiteness clearly harms
>> everyone and therefore requires deeply committed action from /everyone/.
>>
>> Importantly, as two white women, we do not claim “expertise” on this
>> subject but have designed a workshop that has combined our years of work in
>> a way that simply shares our experience, strength and hope. The result of
>> this combination is a workshop that does more than share information about
>> the framework of white privilege and white supremacy, but instead addresses
>> the ways in which this whiteness informs how we embody our thoughts, our
>> feelings and our beliefs in action to end racism.
>>
>> A white supremacist group called the National Socialist Movement plans to
>> protest “Beyond Skin Deep.” They have put out a call for the protest on
>> multiple white supremacist websites. In response, a counter-protest has been
>> organized to show solidarity with the workshop, to demonstrate in support of
>> those immigrant communities who have consistently been the target of
>> neo-Nazi activities, and to clearly demonstrate that white supremacists are
>> not welcome in Minneapolis. And while this combination of organizing is
>> powerful, it’s important to remember that it’s one moment in a long history
>> of moments of challenging racism and white supremacy by activists of color
>> and white allies who have given so much to this fight including many of the
>> organizers of today’s event. In addition, the leadership of the YWCA in
>> Minneapolis is committed to supporting this workshop and the work it stands
>> for. Already, in solidarity, we are a community working on many fronts.
>>
>> This workshop has been organized for the past two months. It was filled to
>> capacity with a waiting list two weeks ago. We take that to mean that other
>> white people believe as we do that this work is essential to the overall
>> movement to dismantle racism in this society. A week ago, we learned of the
>> neo-Nazi intent to protest this workshop, citing the event as treason to
>> whiteness. We disagree. Just to be clear, we believe that racism is
>> supported by unchallenged and unquestioned white privilege and white
>> supremacy. We believe that it is the responsibility of white people to be as
>> vigilant and to feel as much urgency about ending racism and dismantling
>> racism as people of color have for centuries. This work happens out of love
>> and a vision for a healthy and whole society where all people and
>> communities are welcome to live in the fullness and complexity of whoever
>> they are.
>>
>> As such, we will not stop the workshop nor will we cease in our work to
>> challenge whiteness wherever and whenever possible. We hold in complicated
>> balance on the one hand, the perception some have that continuing the
>> workshop is a subtle re-manifestation of white privilege, and on the other
>> hand our perception that it is our responsibility to continue for the
>> reasons stated above. We carry in our bodies the painful knowledge that many
>> folks of color do not always have the choice to respond as we do. This
>> knowledge we carefully hold alongside our commitment to fight white
>> supremacy and, in this specific moment, not allow the neo-Nazi agenda to
>> thwart our work.
>>
>> As white people whose bodies hold a history of violence directed against
>> the bodies of many communities of color, for example the attempted genocide
>> against the indigenous communities who live here, we believe it is our
>> responsibility to work against that violence every day of our lives. This is
>> not easy work, it is not uncomplicated work, and it is not painless work for
>> any of us, but we feel strongly that it is the right work and we are honored
>> to be engaging in it individually and in community with you.
>>
>> In solidarity and peace,
>>
>> Heather Hackman and Susan Raffo
>>
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