br0es we did some cr8zy shit ! [pt.2] aka the expansion pack michelle // dec. 2019
HELLO AGAIN! this was originally intended to be part of my “br0es we did some wild shit” zine, but the overview + analysis of the cultural centers campaign ended up taking up too much space in proportion to the other sections. i was trying to add all this context and detail to make it useful for people not part of the campaign, outside of uchicago, and/or not in school when all this work was happening. AND THEN, while i was doing that, i also remembered some good moments from the campaign(!) as well as some organizing tools that have helped me, which i’ve also decided to include. consider this an expansion pack aka pt.2 to the other zine (creds to jessica for this language/idea) with a deeper reflection of the cultural centers campaign as i saw it, 20172019. in many ways, i am indebted to the #CulturalCentersNow campaign and everyone who has been in it these past few years. i, along with the majority of you all, had never organized before this campaign, and this space was truly one where we learned + grew together, while having some really fun times :’)
——— ** small note: i date things here according to quarters / academic year. so fall = sept-dec. [new year] winter = jan-march. spring = april-june. i omit writing quarter.
READERS CAN HAVE LITTLE A BACKGROUND ON UC UNITED uchicago united (uc united) emerged in spring 2017 out of tensions fueled by countless racist incidents over the years that created a campus environment hostile to many people of color, particularly Black and/or FGLI students. if you are at a PWI, you are probably familiar with this. a racist, construction worker-themed party held by the fraternity phi delta gamma (fiji) on cinco de mayo was simply the spark that pushed mecha de uchicago, organization of black students, african caribbean student association, organization of latin american students, panasia solidarity coalition, arab student association, and muslim student association to band together as uc united (i was a 1st yr at the time and one of the panasia reps!). the idea was, instead of responding to individual events, we would come together to proactively organize for structural change so that things like this--and more--would not happen again. uc united has grown a lot over these past 2+ years. arab student association and muslim student association are no longer formally in the coalition due to their own capacity, though may rejoin in the near future. currently uc united looks like 4 working groups, 3 of which have active campaigns--cultural centers, ethnic studies, and care not cops (which is a collaboration with students working against prisons)--and a 4th “comms� working group. comms has evolved to focus more on archiving student
activism, in addition to supporting social media during actions and planning the quarterly QPOC party on campus. there is also a “core” that consists of at least 2 liaisons from each multicultural student organization, as well as people who have been really involved in the working groups. there’s often overlap, but the point is for all orgs in the coalition and all working groups part of uc united to be present during “core” meetings. this is to make sure all our campaigns and orgs are staying connected in the work. i won’t go into it too much here, but i think it’s important to note that there have been ongoing challenges as well as so much growth (and we are still growing!) that has happened within this structure. coalitions are not easy, but this structure has been really worthwhile and has helped us 1. stay grounded, 2. learn how to work together in non-disposable ways, and 3. grow our base and collective power. all of these different parts of uc united overlap in the way that they are meant to build the power of students of color on campus, which is connected to combating white supremacy in the multiple ways it manifests in the university (i.e. toxic stress culture, institutional policies + structure, knowledge production, gentrification + policing of surrounding neighborhoods), which also means that our fights are tied with other groups on campus, in the city, nationally, globally. none of us are free until we are all free! but we focus on organizing uchicago (mostly undergrads) hehe. for more info on the history of student activism at uchicago, you can check out the 2019 + 2018 DisOrientation Books (bit.ly/DisO-19; bit.ly/DisO_Book18). alternatively, all of UC United’s zines can be found at issuu.com/ucunited.
IN THE BEGINNING... like i said in pt.1, when uc united first started and i took lead on the campaign,, i did not know what i was doing AT ALL. i mentioned not having a clear understanding of the core of organizing (building relationships, building power), but i also didn’t have a clear, articulated vision for cultural centers. i just knew that i wanted a real community--partially an asian/asian american one, which i always had growing up in queens, nyc, but also in general (i spent first year feeling very lost + lonely). i had been to yale’s asian american house before, and saw also what seemed to be like strong solidarity among different poc, based on student activism that i had seen. my younger sibling also started attending stanford when i was a second year and was really involved in their asian american activities center (A3C, or “a-cubed-c”). i heard firsthand about the community + support the center provided, as well as saw the growth they experienced as a person + leader. the first few things we did as a working group was an art installation and a photo campaign that, when boiled down, was just about raising awareness about our campaign. we wanted to get support among the student body, so we could demonstrate that there was a widespread need among students for these centers. through the art installation + photo campaign, we got people to vocalize why they thought we needed cultural centers and/or what they would want to see in it.
we brought out the art installation from Q’s apt for the 2nd care not cops occupation (spring 2019). litchrally,, shout out to the troopers vicki, tyler, urvi, maya, and apoorva who were planning on carrying it all the way to the quad during that hot spring day because it wouldn’t fit in tyler’s car, UNTIL a community member offered to help with his truck. poc #solidarity. then afterwards, me and lilly carried the whole thing (taken apart) to the center for identity + inclusion to see if we could leave it there. raja (what a snake!) said absolutely not, even if we left it outside in the back, and just watched us as we tried--and failed--to fit it into the marty’s zipcar (bless up for marty for responding to my desperate call for help on facebook). we ended up leaving it outside in the back of the race center (csrpc) for a couple weeks that summer (lol, we were so done with it at that point, we were fine with leaving it out to gather mold) until our dear friends from the library agreed to take it in. what a time!
this did have an impact because cultural centers became a topic of conversation, but i wouldn’t say this is organizing. we weren’t thinking about how to actively connect these people into the campaign, and we/i didn’t have much in mind as an end goal beyond a vague idea of cultural centers. at that point, the way i thought about making change was very much focused on how to meet with the right people, have them really listen to us, so that they could be convinced by the moral superiority of our anti-racist politics and/or the sheer intensity of our collective will. this initial period was helpful in figuring out how to articulate why cultural centers (space, resources, concrete structural support), but it was totally not grounded in power or strategy and did nothing to actually help us move towards cultural centers.
BACKGROUND + HISTORY OF DIVERSITY WORK @ UCHICAGO uchicago was pushed through student mobilization to form a diversity advisory council in 2015 and release a campus climate survey in 2016. the latter was an “official” report that basically affirmed what students had been saying for years: uchicago is racist. these efforts were spearheaded by vincente perez (AB’16) and jaime sánchez jr (AB’15) and part of a larger list of demands. it’s no coincidence that the diversity & inclusion initiative (d&i) was announced in 2017. d&i is housed at the provost level, which means it applies + manages all schools at UChicago (i.e. college, biological + sciences division, law school etc.). melissa gilliam was chosen to head this initiative and promoted to vice-provost as a result. choosing melissa, a black woman from the medical school, to be the face of d&i is strategic--admin’s mobilization of identity politics to swerve criticism for an empty initiative. word on the street though is that melissa didn’t actually want this role, but took it for increased funding for her research lab. her priority has been to increase diversity of faculty, which HAS led to a new wave of pretty dope POC hires, but other than that, the initiative is pretty bogus and SUPERFICIAL (think corporate diversity vibes). she has demonstrated an unwillingness to work with others (including but not limited to uc united!), and instead pushes people to conform to her specific (limited) vision / process (it’s her way or the highway baby!). but we knew this!
no real change will happen through an university-sanctioned initiative that is driven through its top-down bureaucracy. center for identity + inclusion (ci+i) / 5710 s. woodlawn was established as an umbrella entity in 2015 to encompass the office of multicultural student affairs (omsa), office of lgbtq student life (lgbtq office), and the newly established student support services (sss; serving first-generation, low-income students). pretty sure there were students unhappy about this. 5710 was built in 2008 through years of student efforts to house omsa and lgbtq+ office. since then, it has also been under-invested in. the distinctions between ci+i, omsa, lgbtq+ office, and sss can be kind of confusing for those new to and/or unfamiliar with uchicago, but there is not much real distinction, and you can basically think of the ci+i as one (smoll) center for anyone with any kind of marginalized identity run by people affiliated across offices. most people i know use ci+i and the names of the various offices interchangeably (i do this with ci+i and omsa), except when they want to point to specific staff / programming. ci+i/omsa has a history of being chronically underfunded and having high staff turnover. since i started school in 2016 to now, every single staff has come and gone except for ravi. i don’t think ci+i has had a long-term director since its inception, and omsa hasn’t had a long-term director for 4+ years. in 2018, raja bhattar and ethan zagore were hired as the director of ci+i and omsa respectively, but both left suddenly in summer of 2019 (hmmmm‌). there are a few people in ci+i that i like, but overall, i think the ci+i is pretty shit and offers no real support to
students. it’s like, just there. all the times ci+i/omsa has said “no” to us has been kind of depressing, especially for those of us in uc united who have been consistently involved in or use the center. there is just no demonstrated willingness to work with us (except ethan! who was the best for the year he was there). i feel like for so long we/i had an attachment to ci+i/omsa because it’s something in a midst of nothing, and we’re so used to defending it because we don’t want to see it gone, but it’s like, what does it actually do? TBH, the center for the study of race, politics, and culture (csrpc) / 5733 s. university is more of a multicultural student center than ci+i ever has been, just from the support it provides.
WE
ORGANIZING
as i mentioned in pt.1, our campaign started to feel like an actual campaign once we began to incorporate some organizing tools + ways of thinking of strategy. these really helped focus our campaign and give direction to our work. i remember sitting in r001 with the a few other people who were in the working group at the time (shout out to kathryn, paola, and josue!), leading them through these tools that i had only just been led through a couple days ago (by someone who had also recently learned it). these are some organizing tools that have brought more focus and clarity to me, especially with the cultural centers campaign. you can find way more comprehensive explanations of these online. i’m just including what has been personally useful for me and tips / things to watch for based on my experience. power mapping especially helpful in figuring out your strategy (specifically who you’d want to and/or don’t need to mobilize) and your target(s), ie. who holds the power to make decisions, and/or who has influence over the decision-maker(s) affecting your issue. specifically on targets: admin will claim there is no one person who makes all the decisions. melissa told us this a lot in the beginning, and it’s not entirely false. there isn’t any one person who can OK cultural centers. also, there are mid-level admin
(with little to some influence) and powerful donors (with loads of influence) who can impact decisions to varying degrees. it can be helpful to figure out who those are and map them out. BUT the bigger point is that this--defaulting to university bureaucracy--is a tactic used to shift culpability into the vague + general and shield individual admin. there ARE people with a TON of influence and power within the university--more so than you would initially think--even as they claim to have no knowledge of the daily happenings + decision-making of the university. uchicago president robert j. “bobby” zimmer is really good at this: playing dumb. if we ever met with him, he’d probably tell
us that we should go talk to someone in the bureaucracy with diversity & inclusion in their title, who’d tell us that they don’t actually have the power to do what we want to do. but after several meetings with melissa, we finally got it out of her that cultural centers are out of the realm of possibility because it is “not within the vision of the university.” this, of course, was really frustrating and bewildering (like ok...but what if students want it??), but actually is good information that shows how zimmer is exactly who we should be targeting. as president, zimmer’s primary job is fundraising for uchicago. while he doesn’t actually manage the daily ongoings of the university, as the person who interfaces with wealthy donors to convince them to donate, he IS the one who shapes the university’s priorities and trajectory. in other words, he’s the real one steering the ship, even while he has all his cronies carrying out his plans (creds to kosi for articulating this so clearly). so if cultural centers are not in the vision of the university, we want to target zimmer--who shapes that vision--to make priorities that center people over profits be the ACTUAL priorities of the university. you can do this by putting pressure on your target’s priorities (ie. self-interest, or what they care about), which for the university, is usually profit + prestige, in the form of rankings + reputation. imo, it’s super important that you can articulate why a specific person is your target, beyond the fact that they are at the top, are the most visible etc. like why exactly this administrator and not some other administrator / donor? targets and strategies can shift as your campaign goes on, but i think it’s important
to be clear + specific for yourself, within your campaign, and especially for incoming members, without defaulting to buzzwords. if things aren’t clear + convincing for ourselves (some tells: energy is low, meetings often quiet, people dragging feet on tasks, tendency to default to a single person to authorize decisions), then we have to talk about it, figure things out, and/ or shift things around. my gauge for when things are good: our strategy grounds us in the work and each other, and we are moving together, tight, focused, and sure.
spectrum of allies helpful in naming how you want to focus your limited capacities + energies as a group, and figuring out exactly who you want to move. the point is that you want to focus the bulk of your energy in building power by bringing people onto or closer to your side, not squabbling it out in small, empty fights with people who don’t want to change. don’t bother with convincing That
guy who’s always trying to start fights in the facebook posts, showing up to counterprotest etc. this kind of overlaps with power mapping, which is why i think this tool is a more helpful for getting clear about who and where your supporters are in a very concrete way (for student groups and admin), and how specifically you will be mobilizing each section. setting goals power mapping helps clarify what makes sense for the direction, purpose etc. of your strategy, but it’s helpful to also come up with goal posts. specifically what you want to do in the: •
short-term (2-3 years; or when the upperclassmen of the campaign have graduated)
•
mid-term (4-5 years; we use this range because it’s like, aiming to beat the generational turnover)
•
long-term (10 year, or horizon goal)
it’s easy to come up with a laundry list for each column, esp in the beginning, but i think that’s why it’s really important to revisit + evaluate: is this really our goal? will this actually bring us closer to what we want? be ambitious, dream big. (a summary of the strategy we came up with that winter 2017 can be found at the end). the point of tools like this isn’t to create the perfect diagram of the situation. i think these are most useful when used to help us critically evaluate our campaign / context, get us focused, and reveal to us the next moves we need to make. sometimes, the
next move is to meet with somebody and figure out precisely what their self-interest + stance is, regarding our specific issue. i wish we had done that a little more in the beginning actually, figuring out exactly how a certain key administrator was against or for us. like, we now know what melissa is like, but we didn’t know about anyone above her. what exactly do zimmer + other upper admin care about? who influences who? have the board of trustees heard about this? i don’t think this information would have made us more powerful, but it may have helped with direction. you definitely don’t need to know everything before acting, just as you shouldn’t bulldoze ahead without having a clear analysis on power. you can learn a lot by trying a lot of different things and coming back to re-evaluate together. don’t let information paralyze you! i think it’s helpful to revisit these tools every so often. sometimes just going through the process and talking it over with everyone can be helpful in getting everybody on the same page, plus get people used to thinking about power + strategy. ALSO organizing is pretty messy and nonlinear, as much as we try to go about it in an organized, strategic way. there are constantly conversations happening behind closed doors, people who you thought were in support or in opposition to you (whether because of their identity, politics, interpersonal relationships, words, past actions etc.) who reveal themselves to actually be somewhere else when it comes to your specific campaign. it’s good to stay sharp, dynamic and pivot when you need to!
PLAYING THE GAME OR BEING PLAYED? as part of the diversity & inclusion initiative, melissa began a project that formed small focus groups to do “participatorydesign (PD) research process” throughout winter (2018) and come up with a solution about issues related to race, socioeconomic status, and lgbtq+ to be presented together midspring (2018). this “PD research process” sounded good in theory, but served to de-politicize the process of making change. the process forced us to engage with admin as individuals and not an organized group. it also regulated the way we worked, making us conform to an “approved” process of making change: we were told to leave the work we had done before at the door, to be “more creative” in thinking of solutions and not fixate on a single answer (as in, drop cultural centers and figure out the palatable, cosmetic, band-aid “solutions” that will fit into the university as it exists now so we can maintain the status quo). this project was helpful though in, at the very least, giving us a deadline to reach towards (presentation day for research groups). the campaign had felt a little aimless since the beginning started because even though we were working towards a cultural center, it felt vague and in the distance. we lacked more immediate, “winnable” short-term goals--which isn’t to say we hadn’t spent time to think of some because we had--but having a concrete date to reach towards definitely helped energize us. that spring quarter (2018), we published an op-ed in the school
paper with the specific intention of framing physical space as a crucial factor in what we want. we had developed this focus because in several previous meetings with melissa, she had tried to sideline us by saying how various existing offices on campus could meet our “needs”--but our point was that we needed something concrete and physical to call ours. the publishing of the op-ed would be timed to happen a couple days before our #OccupyOMSA action, where we got students to “fill up” our multicultural center (visualize the necessity of space) and disrupt the final diversity & inclusion presentations (emphasize that they can’t go on ignoring us).
the meeting after the action, of course, did not lead to cultural centers. campaigns are won “on the streets” and not in meetings (creds to byul, a chicago organizer, for this helpful framing), and we knew in the beginning that this whole process would not get us what we wanted. at the time, we/i had chosen to partake in this process to make a show of attempting to work with admin and demonstrate that we had “exhausted all options” when this attempt ultimately failed. i agree that it’s a big question whether or not student activists need to 1. legitimize themselves by going through admin’s fake processes or 2. demonstrate that they “exhausted all options”, especially because there’s not that much time. one of admin’s tactics is to wait out students knowing that the pace of the quarter, exams, summer, and graduation will eventually eat away at the momentum of our mobilization. in general, it’s a waste of time + energy to try and legitimize yourself to admin. the most “legitimate” bodies of making change, which often take the form of committees, are unable to make real change by design. HOWEVER, not engaging with admin at all on principle will limit the change you are able to effect. like anything, admin meetings are a tool and should be used with care, as part of a larger strategy, and while staying rooted in your core values. i know that we as students may also feel a need to legitimize ourselves to our peers, so we don’t look like randos yelling for no reason. that’s when archiving student activism, admin bullshit, and doing a good job of building out the work so newer student organizers can concretely feel that they are inheriting
a fight, is really helpful to counteract this. as an underclassman, uc united felt like a wave of something new. and in some ways it was--there hadn’t been a coalition like this before--but at the same time it was the same things that students before us were thinking about, and it’s the same thing that students at other schools are fighting for. we’re not alone in this. i think if i went back in time with the knowledge i have now, i would still have proposed for us to participate in this PDresearch process/presentation. we were really early into our campaign at that point. most of us didn’t have organizing experience. we didn’t have much reach in the student body, hadn’t mobilized many people into our campaign, and didn’t have a clear focus. yes, we could’ve done this outside of this focus group, but i think it was useful to expose how fake admin was and direct that already existing anger into our campaign. this isn’t to say i think every campaign needs this--trang (cool philly organizer and sweet friend) intro’d me to the movement saying that sometimes it’s just a matter of time, place, conditions. BUT i WOULD have proposed we engage differently in the PD-research process, and instead: •
thought of the focus group meetings in winter as a way to agitate + mobilize other people who were interested in diversity work but lacked a power analysis--esp since most of them were from across different schools! basically approached participating in their process as a way to coopt it for our own purposes + to build a broader coalition. would’ve been easy to do since there was a lot of openness to the meetings, and melissa was not present for most.
•
used the research we had to do for this process as a way to base build. the interviews we did were essentially, or very similar, to organizing 1:1s where you get a sense of what people care about, what matters to them, what are issues they see themselves or their people facing etc. used these interviews as a way to bring people into our work.
•
done way more base building and leadership development outside of PD-research project, especially during the winter, and especially to develop more organizers.
•
been more clear internally of what we wanted to get out of the momentum and meeting we would get with melissa. what is the strategy/timeline beyond this spring quarter?
but! there are definitely others in uc united who would think differently for very valid reasons that i would’ve agree with too. ultimately, #OccupyOMSA was a good way to show our power to melissa and the recently hired directors for the current center raja + ethan (who were also present at this presentation). it was also a way for all of us students in the room to feel our collective power. melissa was forced to listen to us, explain herself, backtrack on the more dismissive things she had said, and voice a commitment to work with students. we visibilized our power again when we exposed her on social media for refusing to meet with us after the action and got tons of people to email + call her to secure us the meeting.
CAMPAIGNS ARE WON ON THE STREETS, NOT IN MEETINGS there were some small “wins” we got through that meeting with melissa to be applied to the existing multicultural center (i.e. “let’s talk” therapists in the center, “affinity space” events). though honestly i don’t even consider them wins now because they are nothing close to what we actually wanted and are not leading us closer to what we wanted. [see chart @ end of section for more info >>>] but this is all in retrospect. like i mentioned in pt.1, in combo with raja and ethan being so open to meeting with us, these superficial changes gave us the (VERY false) impression that we had allies in the form of these mid-level administrators, and that working with them could get us something. this set us up to direct our energies in really misguided ways the following year. i already talked about this in pt.1, but i think it’s important to reiterate: DON’T BE FOOLED INTO THINKING NICE ADMIN ARE YOUR ALLIES. at the end of the day, admin are HIRED to manage students. while meeting with raja + ethan provided us with more or less useful information, i wish we met with them less and instead devoted energy to developing a good, long-term strategy and building relationships with more people. in the end, those meetings were ultimately a distraction because they led to nothing.
melissa and raja followed the same pattern, common to administrators doing diversity / student-facing work: •
they act friendly, mild-mannered, and assure you that they’re hear to listen and help
•
as you work with them, you find them constantly pushing back against you or trying to redirect you in initially soft ways. this makes you think that with more time + energy, you can convince them to be on your side.
•
the more you push, the more they are explicit in trying to shut you down. this is usually when they start busting out the diversionary tactics, like criticizing the way you are approaching them or the problem, sending you on meaningless tangents (usually by asking for more research), and/or shutting down conversations altogether.
•
you decide to abandon all efforts to try and work with them. when you meet with them to push them on things, they blame YOU for not trying to work with them. it’s clear at this point that they never had an interest in advocating for you in the slightest.
our own spaces, sense of ownership, ie. cultural centers.
in-house therapists. for students to get therapy in a familiar space. way for poc students to have greater access to counseling (wait times often take weeks to months).
what we asked for (demands)
“affinity spaces”, where main room in ci+i was reserved for 2-hour event for a specific affinity group (Black, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander/Desi American, Native). typically planned with little active involvement by cultural student orgs beyond turnout (sometimes without notifying us), primarily organized by staff +/ student advisory council (who are not always connected with main cultural orgs, so don’t reach out). in the format of just providing dinner. passive engagement. not at all what we want.
rotating, walk-in, “Let’s Talk” therapists in ci+i. i went to one of these, aND he JUST gave me info about student counseling services! thanks but no thanks. i could’ve found that info online or from friends >:// not many people utilized this service, imo because of lack of outreach (in a grassroots organizing way), but also because, structurally, ci+i lacked depth of relationships with the student populations to overcome students’ reservations, internalized stigma, tendency to prioritize studies over well-being.
what we got
opportunities to break isolation within our cultural groups, across schools. container for us to come together and build relationships, build power. something that would help us move towards cultural centers. practice selfdetermination.
address mental (un)wellness, unique pressures poc students face, toxic culture of stress & isolation. part of this is structural and not something that can be fully resolved through just therapists, which i now realize with care not cops.
what we really wanted (vision)
<< guide to admin meetings >> based on a workshop given by byul (ty byul!!) ###
!! ADMIN MEETINGS ARE A TOOL !! admin meetings are not to:
• • • •
compromise get wins replace mobilization show them your plans
THEIR GOALS = DISEMPOWER • demoralize, distract, delegitimize + scare us • “good faith” // maintain moral high ground • waste time
OUR GOALS = SHOW OUR POWER • make demands clear • show you know your stuff • intel (get specifics of insider view) • legitimize us
ADMIN TACTICS • discredit / threaten students • deny everything • divide + conquer • claim it is “out of our hands” • send in puppet, ie. mid-tier admin somewhere in the bureaucracy with no real decision making power • “look at this cool thing we are doing though,” like committees (token student, no power, a distraction)
OUR TACTICS • present united front, refer to massive movement • set the agenda, call the questions • have roles, with different energies if applicable (ex. nice, agitational, emotional) • affirm, answer, redirect (back to your talking points) • set deadline, establish next meeting, assign follow up • be clear on what victory means internally
A HEE HEE HA HA FROM THAT SPRING highlight of that spring (2018) was when we disrupted the common book initiative, a project brought to campus by raja. the point of the initative was to get everyone on campus across different schools to read this one book (the best we could do by thi bui; tbh a book i had been wanting to read) by giving away a bunch of free copies, organizing events to talk about the book, and culminating in thi bui coming to campus. like the PD-research process, sounds good in theory but completely devoid of a power analysis and an effort to make real change. honestly hearing about this initiative made me so mad. like, RAJA,, you heard about all these concerns poc had and you’re going to start a book club!?!? while also refusing to genuinely work with student groups on this beyond nominal ways... lmfao make that make sense. the common book initiative only highlighted how much diversity work SUCKS and DOESN’T WORK, NOT because of a lack of funding or that people are slow to change mindsets (what melissa would say), but because it’s COMPLETELY MISGUIDED. our priority shouldn’t be to humanize ourselves to white students/administrators, to bring a diversity of narratives--it should be to support + build up the power of a students of color. as long as admin have the ultimate decision-making power, and their priorities are to increase rankings + endowment, nothing will change.
we had learned about the common book initiative in fall, expressed some dissent and animosity but whatever--we had other things to care about. however by spring, we had gotten pretty fed up with how little progress our campaign had been making. we were like, why don’t we reach out to thi bui, have her shout out our campaign when she comes speak on campus. i knew that she had been involved in some anti-deportation work in the southeast asian community in california, so we thought, well might as well try since she seems down. i got her email from an organizer friend (also doing anti-deportation work) and wrote an email to her explaining the situation and our ask. i think back on this and am just like,, LOL, can’t believe we were ballsy like this. she never really responded to my original email so we didn’t know what had happened. but DAY-OF, an hour before her event was supposed to happen, we got an email blast saying that the event was cancelled for unforeseen reasons. l m a o ! we found out a week later from someone on the inside that thi bui had cancelled because of our email (and an email from someone in the community!?), and that raja and melissa were pretty angry about our little stunt. we never claimed it as a win publicly though and didn’t do anything specific or big with it, except to try and push ci+i/raja on some things. it helped us a bit, but i definitely wish we were more public about it. highkey tho it was hilarious.
WE NEED TO BE PREPARED TO WIN
by the end of that spring, and especially by the beginning of this year (‘19-’20), we shifted the campaign to foreground student power (i wrote more about this in pt. 1, about why it was important to foreground student power). we had realized that while many people knew about cultural centers campaign, most people couldn’t articulate our specific narrative for why. most people would be for cultural centers for more resources for poc, but it was always more than just resources: •
how can cultural centers be a container that supports the building + sustaining of student power?
•
how can we have cultural centers help break down walls, redirect resources, and build together different groups within and outside the university (workers, grad students, faculty, community members, grassroots organizations)?
as i said in pt.1: cultural centers is the short-term goal. we need to be prepared to win that so that we can move on to build something bigger and truly transform university of chicago to an anti-racist campus.
TURNS OUT WE DIDN’T DO TOO BAD
while writing this, i ended up taking a look back on the goals we first created back in winter 2018, my 2nd yr, when we first solidified as a real organizing campaign. wow! this made me kind of feel,, it’s like when you re-read a journal entry from years ago, after you’ve gone through some crisis and lost some faith in the path you took, and realize that, actually, you’re actually been doing alright, more than you thought, all this time. two years later, almost all of the people that initially helped think of the direction of the campaign are no longer active in the campaign / have graduated. and yet, we’ve stuck more or less to our goals + have grown in the ways we dreamed of and more. and TBH we haven’t even reached our final form! just this past quarter, our analysis has sharpened, we’ve gained new member + retained those members, and we’re heading into the spicciest year yet. ###
— GOALS* — short-term: 2 yrs, spring 2018 >> spring 2020 •
connect with multicultural student orgs, faculty (goal: 10), other undergrads+grads (goal: turnout base is 500), other universities (goal: 7), and alumni
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scope out upper admin, trustees + get a meeting with them
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make cultural centers politically possible (central component in discourse on how to support marginalized students)
mid-term 5 years, spring 2018 >> spring 2023 •
establish cultural centers as a space of real inclusion, empowerment, poc politicization
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built strong coalitions + communities of poc on campus
long-term: horizon •
for cultural centers to build consciousness + empower poc students and support building sustainable student power to push uchicago to be anti-racist, anti-colonial, etc.
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uchicago to become truly inclusive, as in actively engage in anti-racist work--ex. reparations — MISSION** —
The Cultural Center Working Group was formed to articulate + fight for UC United’s demand for the creation of University funded Cultural Centers, specifically a Black Center, a Latinx Center, and an Asian/Asian American Center that stand independent of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.
— OUR GUIDING FRAMEWORK* — •
Cultural Centers should NOT be created on newly acquired University properties or contribute to the gentrification of Hyde Park + the surrounding neighborhoods. The centers will be open and accessible to the community.
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We believe in creating a truly inclusive university environment for students of color, meaning a campus where we have the material, educational, + emotional support needed to thrive + build community with each other.
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Students of color hold many identities. Culture is not a monolithic experience. Identity is not fixed. Cultural Centers would operate using an intersectional framework + support student’s full being.
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Cultural Centers will ultimately serve as a space for poc to build power with each other + develop the leadership skills to effect social change locally and globally.
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Cultural Centers should provide extracurricular opportunities + support that will facilitate the flourishing of intercultural and political dialogue, engagement in arts and culture, and self-determination for students of color.
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Each center will be the product of student input, as in the community of that center should define what they want the center to be like. As such, we are open to other Cultural Centers being established beyond the ones listed.
——— * paraphrased and/or edited for length ** written collectively in fall 2018, my 3rd yr.
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