[WAsummit] white anti-racist response to the van jones attacks

[Nancy]

Sharon - Thanks for your response to my message - for moving the dialogue out another step - including all of your links to other articles in your other message - especially the Mike Ely article. I will keep sending them out to other groups.

And thanks for the correction about the founding and leadership in Catalyst - I think Chris and others on the team of the Catalyst Project are extraordinary, and I've been personally deeply impacted by both Chris and the organization. They have empowered other white folks and orgs I'm connected to as well, and I didn't mean to misrepresent your role at all. But it is a good reminder how easy it is to fail to honor and credit people and organizations in our enthusiasm, so thanks for that, and my apologies to Chris.

It was more a loving dig at your universal "yenta-ness" and support for action that we see on this listserve as well....even though the dialogue around the cyber-book study isn't flourishing at this time, it was and is a great way to edjikate us smart alecs (I did read part of Reluctant Reformers), and your offerings always stir many of us to action and thougtfulness. Maybe I just need to be more direct - thank you always, Sharon. I want to grow up to be like you...and I know I'm not alone in that appreciation. love, nancy

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Sharon Martinas 
  To: White Anti-racist Summit 
  Cc: Chris Crass 
  Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 12:28 PM
  Subject: Re: [WAsummit] white anti-racist response to the van jones attacks


  Hey Nancy,
  I appreciate your comments about Van and some background on his work.  I've known and admired him since he first came to the Bay Area in 1992.  For those who don't know him,  I just heard a short program interviewing Van about his work connecting low income youth of color to the movement for a cleaner planet, and the formation of the organization he headed up recently 'Green Jobs for All.'   (If you want to hear the interview, it might be accessible through www.thepromisedland.org.  Ask for audio of 'Visionaries in the world of work.'  It was aired today, labor day on KALW in SF.)


   I also appreciate the dialogue about what anti-racist white activists can and ought to do to address the race-baiting of Van, and the vicious attacks of the progressive work has has always done.  As always, I learn so much from all of you on this list serve. And I hope the dialogue leads to some forms of appropriate anti-racist action.


  I also want to agree with Nancy's praise of the Catalyst Project.  Catalyst does extraordinary work and its Anne Braden program to train white social justice activists as anti-racist organizers for collective liberation is a model I hope other organizations take inspiration and lessons from.


  However, Nancy's comment in parentheses "thanks Sharon Martinas" is incorrect.  While I know and have worked with many of the visionary members of The Catalyst Project for several years, I am not a member of their collective, and their decisions and the programs are what deserve the 'thanx,' not me.  What is historically correct is that many, not all, of the Catalyst Project collective members participated at one time or another in the Challenging White Supremacy workshop which I coordinated and which ended in 2005.  It is also true that many of us had and continue to have wonderful multi-generational dialogues about anti-racist organizing strategies in this era.  I learn so much from their wisdom.



  But I am not responsible, nor should I be praised, for the powerful and path-breaking work they do.  That praise goes to Catalyst Project collective members, not to me.



  Just wanted to set the record straight.



  much love and respect to all,  sharon







  On Sep 6, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Nancy wrote:


    Dara - I think Labor Day weekend is a perfect time for your communication. I think you are dead on. As a white woman I resonate with what you are saying, for sure. Organizing white folks for racial justice has never been more important. The right wing forces seem to be just warming up with the hate mongering. It is easy for us whiteys to just go "tsk tsk" and think our individual actions are enough.

    I've followed Van Jones for years, sent students to Cop Watch who had been assaulted by police, heard him and was inspired by his "cross-over" to connecting race and ecological issues - and was thrilled he was on the national team. I had hoped he was one voice from the progressive community who would have the ear of Obama. When he began to be attacked, I wrote letters of protest - probably on Color Lines and Truthout. This is the first I've heard of his resignation. I'll follow up with the standwithvan site.

    His treatment by the popular media and his resignation is one more indication of how skewed politics and stands for justice in this country remain. Loud statement about who runs this country. How and when do we collectively throw down the gauntlet? What would it be to launch a large inclusive movement or series of actions? Lakoff states that the progressive voice can't be heard because it uses intellect rather than appealing to the public's emotional responses. 

    AWARE has been trying to organize white folks for some years, and they have supported the beginning of a similar organization in Oakland we call Saturday Dialogues which has public meetings every 6 weeks. And Catalyst has been doing great work for years (thanks Sharon Martinas). And the UNtraining provides extensive personal work with white people. But we are small groups, and outreach is limited. Our UNtraining/Saturday Dialogue group attended The White Anti-racist Summit for that reason, and this continuing group is the best connection I have which includes activist white folks, and here we are. Doesn't justify any of it.

    Predominantly white liberal organizations and institutions seem to be key - the "white field" is hard to penetrate. Sierra Club is struggling with a newly elected Asian female president who wants to "reach out to People of Color." Progressive single-issue groups from old lesbians, Marxists, Buddhist meditation groups, universities, non-profits and governmental orgs I've been associated with are generally unconscious about their racism and it is hard to pin down. White privilege and white racism is slipperty. Effective action in those orgs is challenging without getting scapegoated and losing all influence. Diversity trainers shake their heads in corporations trying to deal with the white folx.  

    I'm not currently active in any of those orgs, but the whites I know who are (Greenpeace, Zen Centers) are working hard to wake up their colleagues - with sometimes sparce results, even if they are the designated diversity director. I am newly active in a group within the American Psychological Association that is struggling to get the APA to take a stand against psychologists involvement in torture. Clearly an ethical issue with race at the base of it, and folx are refusing to pay dues, resigning, writing articles in professional journals, holding symposiums at APA conventions, etc. Yet the power base refuses to move on it - there is lots of money and prestige involved, and there you go. (It isn't all white psychologists who are involved with the military around torture, of course, but we are primarily torturing People of Color).

    On a personal level, a friend of mine recently reminded me that when I sign petitions or write letters, to make sure I am identified as a 66 year old white woman, or my comments just go into the hopper, and doesn't say - here is one white woman who doesn't support any of the BS. That is a small thing, but now I make sure I identify myself.

    I will continue to write, sign petitions, encourage colleagues to take action on all of this and work within organizations I'm part of for the broader anti-racist agenda. But as far as effective organized action among whites - and solidarity with groups of Color to counter the power we are seeing from the right, I don't have a clue. Anyone in our list-serve have a really good sense of it? Isn't this why Sharon Martinas was trying to get us to read and discuss "Reluctant Reformers"? The record of white folx in movements has been pretty clear.

    Effective intervention still seems unclear. And we do not yet have a "movement" in the sense of the Civil Rights era, etc.  the Rightwing DOES have an effective movement afoot. I too am terrified about the rise of Fascism. Even worse, as one academic pointed out, at least the Fascist movements were committed to full employment for the population. That isn't part of the current agenda.

    Dara, I would like to use your colleague Blain's article with some of the white groups I'm connected with. (As well as a connection to Taj whom he mentions). I don't want to simply forward this message, which I will do, but use it as a powerful statement about what it takes to step up as white folx, and to challenge us. I know when I read it, I have an initial knee jerk defensive reaction - "I'm not like that, I'm one of the good white progressives" but then I have to see he is talking about my people and I am one of them, so what have I done, and am I gonna do beyond what I am doing? I want to have my white colleagues to examine that as well.

    Can you send the source?

    Thank you for your provocative communication. I look forward to hearing from others. 
    In solidarity, nancy arvold

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Dara Silverman
      To: White Anti-racist Summit
      Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 8:16 AM
      Subject: [WAsummit] white anti-racist response to the van jones attacks


      Hey All,

      I know it's a holiday weekend and all, but I would love to hear some perspective from others on the whole Van Jones scape-goating and and his resignation. 

      I haven't worked with Van closely, but I've heard about him for years, and we travel in similar circles.  

      This website highlights ways to support him individually-http://standwithvan.com/

      I'm more interested in the systemic questions, especially what it raises for white people highlighted by my colleague Ludovic Blain below.  

      Any thoughts about action to take that could be useful? Not just in this situation, but for future situations because this won't be the last?

      Percolating,

      dara silverman



      Can white liberals keep their eye on the prize when racism comes a knockin?
       9/6/09 at 2:42am


      If you want a more collective approach go read Taj's excellent piece about 'Wake up call. The attack on Van is an attack on all of us.'

      I've been disappointed by white liberals and progressives' unwillingness and incompetence combating racism for 20 years. This Van Jones resignation is yet another example.

      As i can see, the NAACP, Equal Justice Society and Color of Change explicitely supported him. On the white side, treehugger and Grist did. Where's Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, and NRDC, who together must represent more than $100 million of mostly white liberals money. They either took a dive because Van is black, or they incompetently let the right set the terms of debate before entering. Either way America deserves better greens.

      For those who attack Obama for not defending Van--do you really expect Obama to be out in front of $100 million of white lefty heft? How are we gunna complain about him not doing what our white lefties won't even do? In other words, don't attack the WH for being spineless without attacking NRDC, Sierra Club, EDF and Greeenpeace for being spineless as well.

      Lets remember--the most radical thing said by any national figure about racism (not race) in the recent past was Obama saying the white cop acted stupidly. That didn't go so well.

      In my political lifetime POC have been let down by white national liberal organizations on this by white greens, on welfare deform by white feminist groups, on prop 8 by white gay groups, by white communications organizations on any number of issues including cali props 187 and 209, and i feel like the list can go on and on. and although some examples are froma decade ago, are white liberals any better on racism now?

      Are there organized white liberals that can be trusted to commit to their issue when the right attacks with racist wedges? Note here i am NOT saying are there white fellow travelers on the racial justice path. i am setting the bar much lower--can organized white liberals keep their eye on THEIR prize when the right's racism comes a calling? And do note, i'm saying 'organized'--tim wise is great (and cc'd here), but there's no national white groups listening to him.

      If the answer is no then we are truly on the path to fascism. Although whites will be a minority in most of our lifetimes, that'll only be true if we make it that far. And if white progressives won't and can't oppose racism, then we'll have to do something better in order to make it that far.

      If white liberals can't oppose racism we have a bigger disaster on our hands than climate change, because America's commitment to white supremacy, if left unchallenged, will prevent us from dealing with the other important issues of the day, like climate change. As long as white liberals think these are parallel, rather than continuous tracks, they will continue to fail miserably.

      And the world and it's humans of all races can't take too many more failures.

      yes, that was a kumbaya ending because i really wanted to write "and the world and all it's races can't take many more white failures."





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