A How-To Guide for POC* Charting New Strategies for Social Justice Organizing!!!!! Volume 1
* This how-to guide was created in the Dismantling the Ivory Tower Network Gathering at the 2015 Allied Media Conference in a group think with other brilliant, futuristic, brave cohort of disabled, trans, queer, community accountable people of color connected to colleges, universities, and academic centers who want to chart new strategies for social justice organizing. Invested in social justice, we want to make organizing our guiding principle on AND off campus. This guide is available as a PDF for free/libre/gratis at dismantlingacademia.tumblr.com. We recommend printing on 8.5 x 11 in paper. Feel free to use, adapt and remix material you find here and use it to dismantle the Ivory Tower wherever you are! Compiled by: Van Bailey Moya Bailey Kai Green Jessica Marie Johnson Any mistakes are ours. Send questions, concerns, love notes and more to dismantlingacademia@gmail.com [insert Creative Commons license - http://creativecommons. org/licenses/]
On June 17, 2015, a white supremacist gunman entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. He sat with the congregation of “Mother Emanuel� for an hour before opening fire and killing nine church members. We speak their names now: Rev. Clementa Pinckney Cynthia Hurd Sharonda Coleman-Singleton Tywanza Sanders Myra Thompson Ethel Lee Lance Susie Jackson Daniel L. Simmons Depayne Middleton Doctor
No justice, no peace.
I dismantle the Ivory Tower with…. an Agenda! Thursday June 18, 2015 10:00am - 5:30pm (Breakfast, lunch and dinner are on your own though there will be snacks available in the session throughout the day) 9:00-10:00am: Breakfast on your own 10:00 - 10:05am: Opening Remarks ● Introductions ● Overview of the Day 10:05 - 10:30am: Group Introduction/Icebreakers/ Group Agreements 10:30 - 10:50am: Reflections on Your Experiences in the Academy - 10 minute break 11:00 - 11:20am: Narrating your journey through the Academy: When and Where do you enter? Why and how do you stay? 11:20 - 12:00pm: The Ivory Tower: Good, Bad & Ugly 12:00 - 1:00pm: Lunch on your own 1:00-1:30pm: Dismantling the Ivory Tower Mix-tape Challenge 1:30-4:15pm: Station Rotation ● Power Bloc(ing) in the Academy ● Freedom Dreaming Pedagogies Build connections & leverage academic privilege or ● HOW TO NOT BE TERRIBLE ● The Lauren Olamina Plan: Make Your Go Bag - 10 minute break 4:25 - 5:30pm: Closing Time (Group Discussion/Collective Poem/Soul Train Line)
[Gonna insert a photo here...or maybe a collage?]
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by‌. loving myself and my trans siblings of color breathing, moving resonating, and feeling with my whole body. tearing them a new asshole on public platforms mentoring students from marginalized communities, tearing down silos between departments, and bringing an intersectional lens to my work choosing self-care, loving myself. knowing that I'm worth it and workin it building and sustaining relationships with "the community" making black studies 4 everybody advocating for myself and other Black people writing & helping publish research exposing the oppression embedded in the Ivory Tower's structure. by being a visible person in the sciences, sharing and mentoring with my peers not letting the academy define my worth existing finding music to dance to and then bringing MY PEOPLE be true to myself and standing firm in it. building networks of knowledge sharing outside the academy fighting the acculturation that one feels is necessary to prevail in a predominantly white-dominated academic and social environment
by staying true to myself and my community reminding myself that this is a hustle & a strategy, not a guarantee or a home teaching youth I work w/ (mostly survivors) about trauma and making clinical terms used on them accessible & understandable. with love. creating space where we can find, hold, love and be vulnerable with one another making cool things with community artists outside waking up and getting 'shit done'. chipping down the weakness in its foundation killing the institution softly by speaking the truth being unapologetic about who I am and the legacy of my ancestors by succeeding within it but not allowing it to define my success working up with friends starting where I am unapologetic about my identity getting you to stop fucking up my gender pronouns remembering to breathe remembering my rich history of fugitivity and existing as such - that is - being there to steal from it. fighting for open access to knowledge/ information and academic democracy exposing what the "Ivory Tower" IS NOT. Not sacrificing my personal values for academic ones. flooding the streets of babylon with cosmic joy Group Poem. Created by Dismantling the Ivory Tower Network Gathering participants on June 18, 2015. Compiled by Daniel Cooper.
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….POWER BLOC(ING...)
Power Bloc(ing) in the Academy Dismantling the Ivory Tower Network Gathering AMC 2015 This was a group think. If there are mistakes or questions email Van at drvanbailey@gmail. com
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What is needed for us to strategically block and re-direct power to Queer People of Color in the academy? ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Must build advocacy communities for education and policy decisions Fostering circular conversations between faculty, staff, and students Understand that being a faculty member is a form of labor Build solidarity with adjuncts Find commonalty between faculty, students, and staff Recognize the violence and oppression in the academy Creating boundaries, “I am not your quota.” Moving away from the individualism and isolation in the academy and build collectives Find money within to fund POC only gatherings Creating solidarity with students in order to keep our courses alive. “Let’s take classes together.” Reporting and documenting experiences outside of HR Learning the art of “shaming” institutions to create change Keep showing up for one another Interdisciplinarism, collaboration is always needed Addressing elitism and the harm it causes We must find our people and hold onto them How do we take knowledge, resources, and pay our communities to educate within the ivory tower? Our concepts of “staff” must include ALL, including custodians and other laborers
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Find money for “lesser known” names Create stipends and time release for committee work What would it mean for our communities to RUN universities? Demand FREE Tuition We need to power block with our K-12 communities Learn from community colleges and adopt that model. Why must everything be achieved in four years? What it mean for us to go when these classes are NEEDED in our lives? People go in and out of the academy all that time and that’s okay. We must learn outside of the classroom. Put our classes in neighborhoods. Create alternative classrooms. What would it mean to teach a course in a local garage? We must leverage the student voices Start in K-12 and teaching civil disobedience Put our most vulnerable at the center of the work Funding student organizing Having students be a part of hiring, including faculty Students should have the power to grade. In fact, DISMANTLE the grading system. It removes competition, which dismantles capitalism. Force the institution to investigate their own oppressive tendencies Create structured accountability Demand “healing” requirements in the curriculum Define productive spaces Reminding and reshifting our multicultural spaces We must create our own pools of money. The “We got you” fund. We must create our own liberation and freedom Discovering committees and where money is flowing and placing our folks (who have capacity) on those committees.
I dismantle the Ivory Tower with….Freedom Pedagogy ○
Freedom Dreaming Pedagogies When I think of Freedom Dreaming Pedagogies, I think of… ●
We need to allow for and affirm the value of holistic, mind, body & spirit learning
We acknowledge that a particular kind of writing is valued in the academy. We want to help our students delve into and become comfortable with this kind of writing, but we also want them to value other modes of writing and communication that might not be “scholarly” ■ ■
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We must talk about power in the classroom, on campus, in the academy at large ○ How can the classroom become a practice space for the future world we wish to live in?
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Make knowledge accessible ○ Address language barriers especially with ESL students
Center other kinds of writing/reading (poetry, plays, literature, film, music) Regular journal writing assignments (multiple writing responses)
Help students see fault in tokenization and exclusion ○ Compartmentalization of student/teacher, grad/undergrad labor ○
Lack of conversation between departments (Especially important for joint appointments)
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Maintain dialogical practices
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Embodied knowledge is devalued uncompensated Labor
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Place books on library reserve, make online copies available, consider book costs when putting syllabi together
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Student activism is devalued uncompensated labor for the institution
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How do we navigate real community building and ideas of sharing when classrooms for P.O.C.s are major sites of extraction?
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Disperse power in the classroom via flexible curriculum, diverse opinions, social media (hashtags#)
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Help students access the tools available that they might not be aware of (tutors, writing center, one on ones)
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Challenge normative paradigms by moving away from solely focusing on critiquing as the way of asserting mastery
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Help students think creatively; knowledge is not to be acquired simply for career orientations ○ Students and professors may have different goals (grades, scholarship, jobs vs. intellectual/academic goals of understanding the content) ○
What is fixed in academia? What can we negotiate? (Re: Workload, due dates, drafts, using pass/fail, grades based on labor---conversation about how professors of color sometimes have to work with
I dismantle the Ivory Tower with….Freedom Pedagogy
Freedom Dreaming Pedagogies ○
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Navigate power, professionalism, accessibility, ect. by setting and maintaining personal boundaries as student and professor
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Use your title (privilege) and presentation as tools for survival and self preservation ■ Using different presentations of self in language, content and presentation ■ What does it mean to be professional? ■ When/how can you challenge professionalism? ■ Choosing when to be vulnerable-- when are you safe and with whom? (Students and Professors must ask themselves these questions)
Call out & Call in (regarding problematic statements made in the classroom)
Add stakes beyond the grade/classroom (i.e. organize an event together)
Is Academia a “safe space”? How do we navigate it? What does/would “safe space” in academia look like? Is safety a false narrative? ○
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Brave Space V. Safe Space (Brave Space should be our new model)
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Code Switching (Unapologetically) ○ Embracing culture V. Assimilation?
How do we address sexual violence? How do we let students create their own spaces? (IG, Twitter, Blog)
How do professors/students not become made to be the “representative” of a whole group?
Establish a healthy student/professor dynamic in the beginning of the class (boundaries, expectations, be open to change)
Encourage Collective work (not “group projects”) to build skills that have a tangible application or goal ○
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Queer studies is an academic field not an extension of the QSA (or is it?) You can ask the same question about Black studies and other Ethnic and Cultural Studies fields. ○ How do we manage those expectations? ○
We Value and affirm different kinds of knowledge and expression in the classroom (There are parameters, but there is still room for free space) ○
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(cont.) students of color who have other things going on outside the classroom that affect them inside the classroom—how can we help these students succeed? What success means might be different depending on the situation)
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What translates?
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What is sacred? (Perhaps some things don’t belong in the classroom)
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….NOT BEING TERRIBLE
Build connections & leverage academic privilege or HOW TO NOT BE TERRIBLE ●
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Exploit institutional resources towards the community’s benefit ○ e.g. inviting community people in to speak ○ speaker fees for local community leaders/organizers ○ work to get money early and not as a reimbursement ○ financial literacy on how to best compensate equipment ○ academic space being used in multiple ways ■ like a cafeteria for a community dance party ○ getting rid of superiority in solidarity ○ everyone gets what they need ○ bring your full self to the community interaction ○ let the community use your voice when they want to do ○ be a part of their work show up and do things ○ connect your efforts in the classroom/community to student enrollment by suggesting community members are potential students or that students like service learning to make institutions will support the project ○ being strategic with how to get institutional support ■ subsidize tuition for local folks Publicize already available university resources ○ e.g. which buildings/libraries are accessible free classes at the library for over 60 which departments are willing to partner and let use office space ○ Using public outcry to make the institution act ○ free university training/event newsletter for the community ○ making community folks feel safe and welcome on campus ■ letting folks know about the barriers to their being on campus and working to remove them
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Do community based participatory research - Researchers have methods and community members have expertise in their communities ○ be a servant leader ■ how can your work be useful to the community ○ Build ongoing and sustainable relationship w/ a community organization ■ e.g. developing curriculum/research in conjunction with community ■ framing which calendar (academic or community takes priority and convincing the institution why this is a good idea ○ prioritizing community outcomes and criteria over and above academic-driven outcomes ○ community is diverse there are politics within a community ■ who you talk to first matters; learn the community hierarchy ■ be honest w/ the community about what you want and what your are trying to do and its potential impact ■ don’t force folks to say what you want them to say collaborate with local organizations/ don’t try to do ○ stuff on your own no “problem solving” without engaging the community ○ on what the problems are and how to solve them ○ work “with” the people not “for” the people ■ reconstruct or build new structures exchange between the community ■ ■ listen to the community to amplify their needs don’t prescribe a solution you are merely a tool ■ of amplification ■ community leader dinners ● not a one time thing ● accountability long term investment ■ community town halls
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….NOT BEING TERRIBLE ●
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Pull all this info together in one place so folks don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time ○ Imagining America might be a place to share what we’ ve created ○ H-Net ○ Professional Associations (ALA, ASA, NWSA, etc.) ○ share knowledge on how to do community work well and ethically as academics Help students to understand the context of the communities that they will be serving so they don’t go in thinking that they are doing communities a favor ○ they need education about the communities they are servicing and humility when engaging with community. they need to understand why someone might be angry ○ teach students about not going into the community with a savior mentality ○ students don’t get training or orientation towards the communities they go into. ○ think three times before sending students out in the community ○ we don’t get training or orientation for teaching Don’t fetishize the community ○ who are the people? What is your audience for your research? ○ don’t presume the norms of the community Create informal community learning circles ○ professors explain econ ideas at free open talks to the public ○ profs share what they know in accessible language ○ consciousness raising groups ○ creating space temporary cyphers where people can get in ○ Work study students can make announcements in community spaces
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Create community IRB ○ checklist created by community orgs to do work with them, examples ■ Chucos/free LA ■ participatory action research at CUNY ■ canadian aboriginal aids network ■ Shawn Wilson Research is Ceremony ○ if you don’t have access to a Community IRB even if it’s not official you can still try Address gentrification by academics ○ can we do this ethically? ○ what can we provide the communities? ○ getting involved in the city and the community ○ local hiring initiatives ○ academics owe the city and its people bc it has profited on the dislocation of communities ○ invest in the community Know that the university does more bad than good ○ “walking in a good way” is another way to say don’t be terrible ○ Create a list of people at institutions in your region/city who aren’t terrible ○ peer based support and mentoring that happens in both social and formal spaces ○ clearing house of researchers that say what kind of work you do so community can find you based on the skills you could bring to them
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….NOT BEING TERRIBLE ●
Negotiate your role as an academic ○ don’t lead with your status in the academy ○ don’t use your academic status if it isn’t necessary ○ translating the research more accessible to the community two types of writing ○ code switching- being able to educate at all levels both academic language and less jargon filled for folks not in the academy ○ getting caught up in academic language can alienate POC from POC ○ not over identifying w/ being an academic ○ when it’s useful use the title but also know when to shut up ○ sit watch listen ○ slow down and check in ○ be a good listener w/o waiting to respond immediately ○ due diligence ○ check your research ○ getting to know each other ○ knowing that you have limitations/boundaries someone else might be better to do a certain research ○ project ○ self care is important to boundaries ○ bring the protest to the workers ○ build out build horizontally not vertically ○ acknowledge the hierarchy and try to undo it ○ fight for the things people need ○ don’t keep doing events/projects that don’t don’t work ○ move outside of the institution ○ understanding our privilege Who gets prioritized for academic jobs - move ■ to get rid of predominately black women who work in administration for grad students who can’t get a tenure track job
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….GO BAGGING
The Lauren Olamina Plan: Make Your Go Bag This guide was created to face the painful reality many social justice oriented people of color connected to academic institutions face: Do we stay or do we go? At some point, sooner or later, we are faced with having to choose justice and our community or losing or giving up our universityaffiliated jobs. Informed by author Octavia Butler’s visionary praxis and Earthseed, the religion founded by one of Butler’s iconic characters, Lauren Olamina, we see the cracks in the structure widening and we know current system is unsustainable. Like Lauren, we spent time building our go-bag, brainstorming which tools, skills, and bursts of inspiration we needed to cultivate to leave the academy behind. As we talked, laughed, and debated with each other, we realized a powerful truth--the very act of building our go bags, regardless of whether we stayed or left, was in and of itself an important act of self-reliance and self-care. We rediscovered our own superpowers and our go bags became a process that brought us back to ourselves, nurtured our own homegrown brilliance, and rekindled ancestral knowledges.
Go Bag Toolset #1 - Thinking Differently ● ● ●
trans-industry thinking differently cross-disciplinarity
Go Bag Toolset #2 - Use Your Time Differently ● ●
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using “service” to leverage skills think about how to make our own schedules [as a way to bring the GOOD out of the Tower and into a new place] Value diverse experiences Building intentional communities Nepotism - get some or nah? Taking what you need (including community connections inside and outside of the academy) to make you stronger Maintaining multiple communities (inside and outside of the academy) for full self development ○ There is a struggle to keep all of this going, but still valuable Summer consulting or on top of term responsibilities? Get your M.A. on the way Managing and leveraging time and space within institutions to be able to pack a go-bag
Go Bag Toolset #3 - Be Honest About What You Want ● ●
finding ways to continue to teach ourselves Task: Have a self-reflection session
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….GO BAGGING
The Lauren Olamina Plan: Make Your Go Bag (continued…) ●
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Where are you now and where are you going? Career-wise ○ varies according to stage and skill set Leaving the job or leaving the academy? Leaving or quitting? ○ Do you need a break instead of leaving? ○ Do you need to transition to staff/admin/dept?
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Go Bag Toolset #4 - Get Your Self (Care) Together ●
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[how to] self care and [how to manage] (PTSD) ○ related to this was [finding, cultivating] self love Find financial care Cultivate/Define your support systems CONFIDENCE Don’t be afraid to hype yourself up Worth not based on ONE job ○ [figure out] what do you value of yourself ○ what do others value of you Think big - beyond the degree/title as a means to an end Build networks of suppport
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Strategic time off may give time to find options Self reflection, care and bowing out strategically ○ Strategic use of good will and university accomodations Finding and conversing with people with shared struggles in white-dominated institutions; power of co-creating outside of the institution (especially creatively!) Therapy! FInding band-aid people when you need them (e.g. amid transitions) ○ Having the courage to name the nature of your relationships (e.g. acquaintances) Power in making sense of the emotional labor you must do that others do not ○ Language
Go Bag Toolset #5 - You Already Have the Skills You Need to Survive ● ●
Use skills from outside of the academy ○ social media [Do] public writing ○ Media sites will ask how many Twitter followers you have
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….GO BAGGING
The Lauren Olamina Plan: Make Your Go Bag (continued…) ● ●
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Skillset translates outside “how” Build power with students and others in the academy ○ Example of almost failed tenure cases that got reversed when students mobilized Maintain credentials Maximize access and use of resources on your way out ○ maternity leave and medical leave use as “transitin time” ○ unemployment insurance ○ COBRA ○ family medical leave Keep a few connects in the academy (be strategic Self promotion - websites, articles, blog, etc ○ Build a power base and make it known (discourages the academy from messing with you)
Go Bag Toolset #6 - If You Don’t, You Can Build Them… ● ●
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[Have/Build a] Website (a tool) Being aware of openings - current cv/resume to match, academy vs. corporate ○ Know the schedule of job markets ○ Know where to look [for postings] Planning if possible how you can be strategy/setup next position Learn H.R. policies Tailor resumes to new jobs (research what is needed) Leaving the U.S. (debt is cancelled for expats) Undergrads who drop out - what kind of things do they need in their Go Bag?
Go Bag Toolset #7 - Acknowledge/Accept How Difficult it Will Be ● ●
Dealing with others disappointment/badge of failure? Free to go vs staying = honoring shared fate of family ○ Stay = base level of qualifications for lower-power populations to compete
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by….GO BAGGING
The Lauren Olamina Plan: Make Your Go Bag (continued…) ●
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Accessing health services/self care in process of evaluating situation/following through Individually led “diversity” initiatives = if I leave, what will happen? ○ Implications beyond self of leaving Opportunity to grow others before you go/ finding allies or people to pass the torch to; what will you do to ensure the work continues? Being overworks; capitalism coercing people to remain in unhealthy situations ○ What can and can we not do? ○ Thinking about a go bag can be helpful for self-worth even if you ultimately decide to stay How do we prepare to leave our communities? (Who we depend on spiritually, among other ways?) and manage that loss?
I dismantle the Ivory Tower by‌.DOING IT
How Do YOU Dismantle the Ivory Tower? What tools do you need? What skills do you already have? What privileges and habits do you need to unpack and dismantle yourself before you begin? Fill in your social justice goals and brainstorm how you plan to get there here.
2015 Participants
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