The Decolonizer, September 2015

THEDECO LO NIZER September 2015

Bernie Sanders and BLM

Haitian Deportations in D.R

Trans Women of Color are in Danger

#M4BLFREE Conference

TABLEO FCO NTENTS What is THE DECOLONIZER?

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Report Back: M4BLFREE

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BlackLivesMatter, Bernie Sanders, and Racial

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Barriers in Language Decolonizing Body

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Haitian-Dominicans Face Mass Deportation

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Rachel Dolezal and Passing for Black

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Brief Histories: Mother Emanuel AME Church

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Where is the War on White Terror?

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Decolonizing Culture

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The Liberation Funnies

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Trans Women of Color are in Danger

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Who Will Survive America?

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Decolonizing Our Mentalities One Step At A

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Rachel Dolezal and Passing for Black

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Where is the War on White Terror?

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Haitian- Dominican Deportation

Time Track the Movement 19

BLM and Bernie Sanders

The recent BLM interruption of Bernie exposes White liberal racism

Trans Women of Color are in Danger

14 Track The Movement

5 Report Back: A group from the Ithaca Community attends the #M4BLFREE first Black Lives Matter Conference in Cleveland

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W HATISTHEDECO LO NIZER? THE DECOLONIZER transgresses all introductions.

THE DECOLONIZER is the frustration of the people.

THE DECOLONIZER does not explain themselves.

THE DECOLONIZER is the thorn in the side of cist- heterosexual domination.

THE DECOLONIZER does not answer any questions.

THE DECOLONIZER remembers history.

THE DECOLONIZER seeks liberation

THE DECOLONIZER is hot water in the face of patriarchy.

THE DECOLONIZER is a series of negations

THE DECOLONIZER is the yell of the people.

THE DECOLONIZER is the interruption of white supremacy

THE DECOLONIZER is the stone in the shoe of imperialism.

THE DECOLONIZER does not care if you are not a racist.

THE DECOLONIZER does not care about your one friend of color.

THE DECOLONIZER does not care if you are uncomfortable.

THE DECOLONIZER is not interested in your white liberalism.

THE DECOLONIZER is concerned with freedom.

THE DECOLONIZER is an act of love

THE DECOLONIZER is the return of the Third- World Solidarity front.

THE DECOLONIZER #cannotbreathe

THE DECOLONIZER is the thumb in the eye of empire.

THE DECOLONIZER says "Viva la Raza"

THE DECOLONIZER is the aggression of the people.

THE DECOLONIZER transgresses all introductions.

Report Back#M4bLFREE:Movement for BlackLivesNational convening

By Nicole LaFave On July 24, 2015 the Movement for Black Lives Convening took in Cleveland, Ohio.

Approximately 1,500 brown and black bodies flooded the Cleveland State University campus.

Black people from across the globe traveled to the Midwest in hopes of garnering the rejuvenation to continue the movement for Black Lives. The purpose of this convening was to empower people of the African Diaspora to lead their own movement to dismantle structural and systemic racism. The very essence of this convening was to create a safe space for black voices and concerns to be heard; a space filled with love, healing and resilience.

Beautiful afros, dreadlocks, Senegalese twist and other forms of African hairstyles were sported by the beautiful black men, women and children in attendance. "Good morning beautiful black people,? was heard by a group of teens from the Greater Ithaca Activities Center summer camp. Huge smiles filled the faces of this group of teens. How often does one hear such a greeting on the streets from a stranger? This greeting set the tone for the rest of the weekend which was filled with black love, hope and strategic planning for the rebirth of what it means to be Black in America.

The weekend consisted of three days of workshops centered around political education, cultural strategy, community based research, movement- building and envisioning a future where black mothers and fathers don?t have to worry about the safety of their children. "My nephew is turning 16 in two weeks, I am praying that he makes it to his birthday?, said a young woman sitting next to me in the auditorium. I felt tears swelling in my eyes, as I looked at my one year old son who I brought to Cleveland with me. Is this what I have to look forward to as a mother of a young brown son?

Am I no longer looking forward to the milestones that my white friends have the luxury of looking forward to? Am I no longer looking forward to him walking across the stage at his high school and college graduation? Within minutes, I reminded myself why I was here, to begin the blueprint for a better future for all the brown and black children in my Ithaca community.

As we walked through the campus, spoken word and poetry filled the air from black brothers and sisters. Graceful black bodies participated in gentle yoga and tai- chi. This is what racial healing looks like is all I could think of as I walked through this nirvana of black beauty. Amanda David, a local herbalist and healer from Ithaca, New York was one of many volunteer healers at the convening. "The trip and the conference were literally EVERYTHING! Life changing, life affirming, life giving?, exclaimed David.

Many may argue that there is no traumatic stress felt by one due to racism. However until you are followed in your local Target by a security guard, told that you are beautiful 'f or a black woman', or have someone stroke your hair as if you are a pet, you will never underside the side effects or harm of being exoticized, marginalized and discriminated against due to the color of your skin.

This three day weekend gave many black people the energy they needed to continue to fight for equality for all black lives. How does one stay healthy and happy while engaging in social justice work? Is it possible to be healthy and happy while fighting for racial justice and end to white supremacy?

The Movement for Black Lives Convening proved that there must be more spaces created that allow black people to organize, support and strategize in their movement towards creating a better future and a better world where black people can thrive and not merely survive.

BlackLivesMatter,BernieSanders,andRacial BarriersinLanguage

By Bud Gankhuyag The highly publicized disruption of a Bernie Sanders speech on August 8th in Seattle, Washington, caused by BlackLivesMatter (BLM) activists Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford, has sparked widespread condemnation and even outright dismissal of the entire movement for black lives. Many are unable to make sense of why these activists interjected a speech of an outspoken socially progressive candidate; others have reasoned that this act was indeed senseless. By taking such a reactionary and antagonistic stance, however, critics are bypassing any consideration of the perspectives of the activists and importantly the very reasons behind their choices. Instead, what has taken the place of critical understanding is an ignorant ascription of lack of intelligence and political acumen, accusations that are racial and gendered. Demonizing BLM and movements for racial justice only serve to bolster the relative privilege and myopia of white progressivism.

As activists Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford firmly stood on stage, juxtaposed to a silent, deferred Sanders. They welcomed the Senator to the city that has spent $200 million to imprison black children and houses a police force riddled by use of force, racial profiling, and scandals throughout the year. They left the stage after five minutes, but not before commemorating the one- year anniversary of Michael Brown?s death and declaring to Sanders that the BLM movement will persist regardless of who is elected president. The crowd of mostly white Sanders supporters quickly expressed their outrage; when Johnson pressed to the crowd that "it is time that we honor [the life of Michael Brown] here and now,? one heckler claimed "we?ve already done it! ? On public facebook comments responding to videos of the incident, angered Sanders supporters called the two women "uneducated on politics? and "Idiots? This is why you do your research, so you don?t make yourself, cause and people look like idiots. What a shame.?

These two activists have received criticism from all angles, including from those within BLM. Anyone can choose to disagree with the strategy, but there is a difference between an informed, political disagreement and a disagreement via ignorance. What has happened in response to this incident is not an informed debate, but swift condemnation.

These scathing reactions reveal the schism of racism within liberal movements that have long been hiding underneath so- called progressive rhetoric. To the woman who shouted that remembering Mike Brown?s life was no longer relevant: how thinly veiled must your support for black lives have been to say such a wanton remark? Are you sure you support black lives, or for that matter, the principle of equality which you supposedly support?

Such inflammatory comments suggest that these activists were emotionally overwhelmed, overly critical of Sanders, and/ or merely unintelligent.

However, this public usurpation was not spontaneously done, but strategically orchestrated; the activists knew that such an act would force both the Sanders campaign and the nation as a whole to pay attention to BLM. Their act was a political choice, not a spontaneous act based only on emotional outrage. Yes, emotions were part of the equation, but to label this display as one of pure sentimental lunacy assumes that these women of color cannot think on their own and cannot stand on their own two feet. This assumption omits the fact that they were standing up for a conscious movement, a movement that is fighting the reality that black lives are being taken by police forces across the nation, that black Americans make up just over one- tenth of the nation?s population but nearly half the prison population, and that 13 of 19 transgender murder victims in 2015 have been women of color (already exceeding last year?s count).

For black communities, it is difficult to ignore these facts, but because white people are less threatened by these heinous systems, they feel they can more easily disavow from these issues.

Such is why when Bernie Sanders, the progressive symbol of alleviating class inequality and spiraling corporatism, is interceded by two black women who speak on black lives, outrage ensues. For Johnson and Willaford, though, times are too urgent not to express rage, subvert the dominant political narratives that shut out conversations on black lives, and fight to make vital voices heard. For those of us on the outside looking in, we should not enforce a paternalistic attitude that prescribes methods of action, but instead join them and follow their leadership in the struggle for racial justice.

The incident in Seattle was preceded by another interjection by BLM spokespeople in an event that highlighted Sanders and former Maryland governor and presidential candidate Martin O?Malley. Before these incidents, Sanders did not have a specific platform on racial justice.

Now, he has been forced to take a clear stand on racial justice and has put pressure on Hillary Clinton and other democratic candidates to do the same.

These charged interactions between BLM and presidential candidates reveal a deeper issue behind intercultural dialogue. Behind political disagreements are barriers that prevent two parties from understanding each other?s perspective. But agreement is not necessary for understanding each other, only a willingness to hear the other side. In the unequal terrain of identity politics, both sides can be guilty of refusing to acknowledge the other, but it is often the advantaged group who can live through this misunderstanding without consequence to themselves.

Under the inescapable context of power, the meanings and symbols behind words are often not the same for the privileged and the oppressed.

We hear what we choose to hear, without thinking of the subjective meaning behind each statement. In order to mitigate this dissonance, we must get rid of any notion of objectivity, interrogate our own individual position in structures of power, and consider the complex reasons why people do and say what they feel is necessary. If you are confused about the actions of BLM activists, research why certain choices were made, and think about the urgency behind the cause for which they fight. Resorting to accusations of stupidity and refusing to consider multiple perspectives hide the underlying ideological factors to the use of language in politics. These inexcusable shortcuts do not only enshroud political misinformation, but they more fundamentally work to orchestrate such divides.

DecolonizingBody O ntheW ellnessTip Many of us know from experience that the way we feel mentally and emotionally is deeply intertwined with our physical health. The 'brain- belly' connection can manifest as that euphoric feeling after eating cheese and chocolate, or the gut- wrenching pains of digestive distress when our anxiety reaches a new plateau. Often we find media instructing us to address our weight using food, and our mental health using drugs - - while past and emerging research on more holistic practices suggests that food and the nutrients locked within can solve both physical and mental health problems. Nutrients such as B vitamins, vitamin C, healthy and balanced dietary fats, iron, selenium, magnesium and zinc have all been implicated in depression, anxiety, and a range of other mood disorders. Evidence suggests that for some, these nutrients in either normal or mega- dose quantities can preclude the need for or enhance the intended effects of pharmaceuticals in healing the mind and body. Self care through eating a whole foods, minimally processed and plant- focused diet is peaceful and personal way of breaking your reliance on Big Pharma, living sustainably, and improving your quality of life.

Natasha Eziquiel-Shiro, MS Nutrition, Food & Wellness Consultant

Seasonal FarroSalad

W hat isinSeason?

Now that summer is coming to a close, it's really nice to make late- night pastas with FRESH marinara sauce. Or roast tomatoes, onions, garlic & hot peppers to make a delicious salsa to store for the chili seasons ahead.

Here's an easy recipe for nutritionista- approved, Seasonal Farro Salad!

Farro is a type of wheat grain that you can use just like rice.

It is high in vitamins A, B, C & E. It's been used for thousands of years in the Fertile Crescent, and has even been found in Egyptian tombs. This recipe takes about an hour to make, serves 8, and can be made ahead to enjoy throughout the week for a delicious snack or side to any meal.

Base: 1 1/ 2 cups dry farro, cooked in salted water. Cook until it's soft but still slightly chewy, drain and place in a bowl to cool.

Dressing: The classic ratio is 1:3, acid to oil. Mix up 1/ 2 C olive oil with 2 tablespoons acid (favorite vinegar, lime or lemon juice, add more if you'd like). Add two hearty pinches of salt, black pepper, a clove of minced garlic and 1/ 2 cup finely diced onion. Let this sit while the onion and garlic mellow.

Mix- Ins: Start with two cups of favorite herbs, like torn basil and chopped cilantro, or mint and parsley. Add a 1/ 2 cup of chopped nuts or seeds such as pistachio, sunflower, walnuts, or cashew.

Make this recipe seasonal by adding local fresh vegetables, aiming for 5- 6 total cups of vegetables. SautĂŠe or roast what you don't like to eat raw. In late summer, try leeks, eggplant, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes or whatever vegetables are in their second harvest of the season. For fall and winter, greens like kale or collards, beets, winter squashes, apples, pears, are all great choices.

What's in season? Almost everything!

Shanta Carr, Macro Mamasita, Casual Farmer, & Whole Community Project Intern

Cherry Tomatoes All kinds of kale Ground Cherries Peaches Apples Green Beans Tomatillos All kinds of tomatoes Broccoli Eggplant Snap Peas Sweet Corn All kinds of melons

Pair this salad with proteins such as a lentil and bean stew, grass- fed cheeses, or sustainable- sourced seafood.

Enjoy!

Dominican- Haitians flood processing centers as DR prepares for mass deportation.

By Dubian Ade You are an undocumented Haitian who has lived in the Dominican Republic for generations. Your family has made a home here, your children born onto this soil. You moved here for work; in fact you were recruited here by the Dominican government under its bilateral agreements of 1959 and 1966. You and your relatives have worked on Dominican plantations cutting sugar cane for more that thirty years.

June 17th was the deadline declared by Dominican government for you to register for a two- year visa. After this date you face mass deportation.

The lines stretch around the corners of buildings with people who had camped outside of the registering offices since 3 AM in the morning. People are confused and pleading. Some whisper the need for special documentation from Haiti. You have no documentation from Haiti. You have no connection to Haiti as you have lived in the Dominican Republic for most of your life. You have no place to go back to in Haiti. You and your children will most likely be homeless.

You know that anti- blackness is not new in DR. In the 1930s Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo enforced the ethnic cleansing of more than 20,000 black Haitians in what came to be called the parsley massacre. Black Dominicans who could not pronounce the Spanish word ?perejil? were identified as Haitian and murdered.

Colorism among light- skinned Dominicans and self- hatred run deep like the wounds of the colonial period. Over 80%of Dominicans have African ancestry, yet only 5%identify as Black or Afro- Latino/ a. Dominican nationalism prides itself on its Spanish- European heritage.

You have seen many black Dominicans bleach their skin.

You stand in line awaiting the chance to be registered. Two women are having a conversation behind you, one wielding her fists in the air. She speaks of Henry Claude Jean, a Haitian- Dominican who this past February was found hanging in a public square in Santiago. He was killed by a Dominican lynch mob.

Dominican-Haitians FaceEthnic CleansingandMass Deportation

There is talk of other killings: of anti- immigrant mobs dragging Haitians out of there homes and killing them across the country. But, because no one can come up with their birth certificates, in the eyes of the Dominican government these victims have never existed.

In 2013 the Dominican Supreme Court ruled that Haitian immigrants and native Haitian Dominicans born as far back as 1929 would be striped of their Dominican citizenship.

1929! Your two children, who were born on Dominican soil are now without a country.

It has been hours and the line is still not moving. It is almost sunset. This is supposed to be the last day for registration. If you do not get documentation today you could be ejected from the country as early as tomorrow. They say that mass deportation does not begin until August. 40,000 Haitians have already fled DR. There is talk that Haiti won't be able to house all of the deportees.

There is an infinite number of people ahead of you. Their shadows swallow the ground in which you stand.

DesperatelyRunningfromW hiteness: Rachel Dolezal andPassingfor Black

Consciously undertaken or not, Dolezal couldn't bear the idea of confronting any limitations on her identity and desires. Positioning herself as a "white victim" whose exclusive or limitless rights were facing restrictions, Dolezal thought best to jump ship into Black identity before any more limits were imposed on her white entitlements.

Why would Dolezal go to such extreme lengths to escape her white identity?

By Dr. Paula Ioanide

I interpret Dolezal's move to pass as Black to be motivated by a number of factors.

One of those factors has to do with the fact that whiteness is afforded numerous privileges, but moral authority is not one of them. That is, when it comes to pursuing anti- racist justice, white identity is rightfully suspected of potential fraud, co- optation, and of fleeing back into white advantage when the going gets tough. This does not mean individual white people can't genuinely pursue justice; it simply means that sustaining moral integrity as a white anti- racist activist requires a perpetual confrontation with the ways white embodied identity is virtually equated with (and continues to benefit from) the oppression of white supremacy.

Dolezal's move into a Black identity sought to escape this burden of having to prove her commitment to anti- racism through actions rather than an embodied identity.

Most people forget that the structure of white advantages in the U.S. was obtained at a monstrous moral price. It was gained through the active and/ or complicit processes of denigrating, excluding, and violating people of color. This moral price is regularly concealed in U.S. society through the perpetuation of systematic ignorance about the country's real history. Its cover- up requires a normative structure of denial and disavowal in most white Americans. Even with this systematic ignorance, many people somehow know and feel that white supremacy, and its entrenched association with white identity, is grounded in moral illegitimacy. This is unconsciously betrayed each time a white person preemptively states, "I'm not racist" long before anyone has accused them of racism.

In the U.S., the genealogy of Black struggle stands as a symbol of moral authority. The soul of the United States manifests when marginalized and oppressed people attempt to expand notions of democratic praxis, calling upon the nation to live up to its ideals.

Dolezal's claim of "reverse racism" against Howard University speaks to her participation in a white structure that resents the idea that Black people might have the right to create their own exclusive spaces without whites or that certain institutional positions of leadership (e.g. in the NAACP) should perhaps be off limits to whites.

Black people have always been at the center of the struggle for America's soul; they have been instrumental in the prospect that America might obtain a semblance of collective moral integrity. For Dolezal, who wanted to be seen as an "authentic" anti- racist educator and activist, passing for Black afforded her a way to shed the moral depravity attached to whiteness. In anti- racist activist spaces, white identity is situated in a perpetual place of non- belonging: people of color's justified suspicion prevents automatic affinity and inclusion while white people's racism also feels alienating.

The irony of Dolezal's passing for Black is that, methodologically, she employed the most classic white practices to gain the belonging she coveted. While trying to capitalize on the symbol of moral authority afforded to Black anti- racist struggle, Dolezal defaulted back into the classic tenets of white immorality by lying, deceiving, and positioning herself as a gatekeeper who authenticated or de- authenticated those similarly in pursuit of anti- racist justice. The recent disclosure of Dolezal's "reverse racism" lawsuit against Howard University when she still identified as white testifies to another factor motivating Dolezal's desire to pass for Black.

In her hallmark essay "Whiteness as Property," Cheryl Harris describes how white Americans were institutionally, legally and socially afforded exclusive rights to use for most of U.S. history (including the use of black bodies and labor). Placing limits on those exclusive rights- - as happened in the eras of Reconstruction and civil rights- - has resulted in some of the most remarkable patterns of collective white resentment. Extending long overdue opportunities to people of color (through policies such as affirmative action) is sufficient to generate a crisis in the normative structure of white American narcissism, which cannot bear the thought of sharing.

The third potential motivating factor for Dolezal's passing for Black has to do with one of the most guarded secrets about normative white identity: a profound jealousy of people of color. Whether it's because people of color seemingly have "community" and "culture" in ways that white people lack, or because they are the inventors of "cool," the social alienation of white identity has bred an underlying jealousy for the meaning and purpose that appears to structure the lives of people of color. Perhaps the greatest irony of white identity is that in giving up its soul in exchange for materialist advantages, it is perpetually haunted by a desire for soul and meaning. Dolezal oozes with a neurotic jealousy for the meaning and purpose that often necessarily emerges from the experiences of Black suffering. She has to create this suffering (as made clear by her numerous claims of anti- Black hate crimes) in order to construct her meaning and purpose. It's as if the suffering resulting from Dolezal's white alienation (clearly evident in the structure of her family) seeks reprieve and redemption through yet another immoral act of appropriating Black suffering as her own.

It is easy to default into the enjoyments of demonizing and condemning Dolezal. Certainly, only Dolezal can confront her responsibility to redress her wrongs. But Dolezal is simply an extreme and complicated case of what is normative to the structure of white identities who stay passively complicit or actively aggressive in perpetuating the lies, denials, deceptions, and appropriating acts of white supremacy. There is another way to live white identity in America. It requires persistent confrontations with our complicity in racism, conscious or unconscious. It requires a constant commitment to anti- racist feminist struggles as white people who are courageous enough to contend with and change the advantages and moral depravity we've been endowed with, not to run from it.

For a more extensive analysis of some of these points see Ioanide's new book The Emotional Politics of Racism: How Feelings Trump Facts in an Era of Colorblindness.

BRIEFHISTO RIES:MO THEREMANUEL AMECHURCH

By Dubian Ade

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1816 in the midst of protests. White Methodists in Charleston announced plans to build a shed directly on top of a black burial ground. In response over 4,000 blacks decided to part from the white Methodist church and to establish a religious institution of their own. Under the ministry of Rev. Morris Brown and Denmark Vesey, Mother Emanuel came to be the epicenter of black religious life in Charleston.

The church was a target for white citizens and city officials. City and state ordinances prohibited black worship after sunset without the presence of a majority white congregation. White terror consistently descended upon Mother Emanuel. Service was routinely interrupted and dispersed. Charleston authorities accused the ministry of teaching blacks reading and writing, which was against state policy. By 1818, whites had stormed the church and arrested 140 freed and enslaved blacks in violation of the state?s anti- literacy policy. Ministers were fined and given lashes.

Port rait of Denmark Vesey, a Caribbean ex- slave who had been inf luenced by the Hait ian Revolut ion.

Denmark Vesey was an ex- slave who bought his freedom and became a prominent preacher and leader at Mother Emanuel. As the harassment continued, Vesey preached scripture from the Old Testament.

The insurrection was set for for June 17, 1822, exactly 193 years to the day of the Charleston massacre. Vesey?s plan was foiled by Charleston authorities and Vesey was hung along with 34 others. Rev. Morris Brown was ejected from Charleston and the church was burned to the ground.

Emanuel AME continued still, even after the complete outlaw of black churches in 1834. Holding service in underground basements became tradition. After the Civil War, Mother Emanuel was formally reorganized and in 1891 her current location was erected.

The Church was a center for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at its pulpit in 1962. Today, Mother Emanuel is the oldest historically black church in the South; one of the most historic monuments in Charleston and it is one of the oldest AME ministries in the country. Its historic and religious importance for black people in this country cannot be overstated.

W HEREISTHEW ARO NW HITETERRO R?

By Dubian Ade

The events that took place on June 17th were nothing less than a domestic terrorist attack; an act of White terror. It is comfortable to speak of terrorism in the Middle East, to speak of an arbitrary "them? which disguises neo- colonialism, exploitation, and the mountain of murders due to United States drone warfare.

But White terror must never be talked about. White terror must never be mentioned. And, if things are going well, white terror has never existed.

White terror is everywhere. It is the invisible hand that does what some white Americans wished they could still do. It fulfills a need, fulfills a demand for violence, a violence leveled specifically at people of color. And, if one follows the rationale of America all of the way, white terror is the logical outcome. In a country whose economics depended (and continues to depend) on the enslavement of black bodies and whose empire rests on the wholesale slaughter of indigenous people, white terror in the United States is indeed a national heritage.

And heritage, as we know, is so very dear to us.

Emanuel AME is but one amongst a sea of black churches that have been targeted by white terror.There was the string of Southern black church burnings at the start of the Reconstruction era in the late 1800s.There was the appalling level of Klansmen attacks during the Jim Crow 50s and 60s.

There was the infamous 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. There was the 1996 burnings of both Little Zion Baptist Church and Mount Zoar Baptist Church in Alabama and the 18 month string of more than 40 church fires in North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee.

There was the 1997 burning of Macedonia Baptist Church in Texas. There was the 2010 firebombing of Faith in Christ Church in Texas. And of course, the many instances of white supremacist attacks throughout the centuries that have gone unreported.

Weeks after the June 17th shooting, six predominantly black churches have been burned in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee. Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina was burned completely to the ground. Investigators claim the fire was caused by a lightning strike. Yet in 1995 this same church was burned by a group of Ku Klux Klan members.

It is not unusual. Only bloody and hideous. It is not surprising. Only atrocious and abominable.

Clearly the violence of Dylann Roof belongs to a long tradition of white supremacist desecration. Some may call it a heritage. Yet the prevailing discussions, speeches, and statements from public officials have sought to render this history invisible. White mental illness rhetoric has been used to reduce this obscenity into an isolated incident. Dylann Roof was merely a ?nut case? or a ?wack job? whose actions are the furthest away from White America.

But white terror takes on many forms. Sometimes it's the mass shooting of an historically black church. Sometimes times it's red- lining. Sometimes it's racially targeted mass incarceration. Sometimes it's being shot in the street by a white police officer and left to bleed for four hours. Sometimes it's being call a nigger by a passing car on your way to work. But most times it is being told ?you speak so well.' Most times it is watching white people cross to the other side of the street. Most times it is being watched in a store, in a bar, in a laundromat. Most times it is poverty.

O NW HITETERRO R(cont) Dylann Roof was captured and taken into police custody in Shelby, NC about sixteen hours after the shooting. Officers handled him with care.

He was not tackled to the ground. He was not placed in a choke hold. He was not pinned. He was not body slammed. He was not billy clubbed. He was not tased. He was not detained. He was not pistol whipped. He was not gagged. He was not flung. He was not gassed. He was not bum- rushed.

He was not beaten. He was not hurled. He was not flogged. He was not pummeled. He was not shot.

And when Dylann Roof said he was hungry, officers took him to Burger King.

Meanwhile, ten miles away from Emanuel AME Church Walter Scott, a fifty year old unarmed black man was shot and killed by a white police officer on April 4th, 2015. Images of him fleeing a traffic stop and then shot multiple times in the back flooded social media. One image showed officer Michael Slager standing over Scott, his face firmly planted in the ground.

White terror takes on many forms.

The killing of nine black people in Charleston occurs in this context: in a country where black lives are routinely and systematically destroyed. In this context, racist outbursts of violence cease to be isolated incidents and become evidence of something more severe.

When American drones fly over Iraq and Afghanistan to destroy, desecrate, and dismember South Asian women, men and children the question always remains:

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

Where is the war on white terror?

DecolonizingCULTURE Bookof themonth:

W O rdof themonth:

The Emotional Politics of Racism

TA- NEHI SI COATES In his latest work Between the World and Me, Ta- Nehisi Coates gives a masterful personal and literary account of race in America. Coates writes of his experiences and realizations in the form of letters to his adolescent son.

Powerful, griping, poignant, and timely, Coates writes during a era when black bodies become hashtags on social media outlets, and the violence of state policing is caught on mobile video. In great strides Coates comes to terms with the construction of race as a fixture of American empire.

With stop- and- frisk laws, new immigration policies, and cuts to social welfare programs, majorities in the United States have increasingly supported intensified forms of punishment and marginalization against Black, Latino, Arab and Muslim people in the United States, even as a majority of citizens claim to support "colorblindness" and racial equality. With this book, Paula Ioanide examines how emotion has prominently figured into these contemporary expressions of racial discrimination and violence.

How U.S. publics dominantly feel about crime, terrorism, welfare, and immigration often seems to trump whatever facts and evidence say about these politicized matters.

W O rdof themonth:

documentaryof themonth:

M ulticultur alism

CONCERNI NG VI OL ENCE

This months word is multiculturalism. Many use this word to legitimize structures of power, superficially promote inclusion, and erase the experiences of people of color. THE DECOLONIZER has come up with their own definition.

Multiculturalism (noun): The radical reintergration of experiences across ethnic, geographical, historical, gendered, sexual, class and racial lines which centers the oppressed and their experience of systemic oppression.

Multiculturalism is NOT people of various skin tones standing next to each other in a brochure.

Multiculturalism is NOT that one Black guy at your job. Multiculturalism is NOT that one Bengali friend you have. Multiculturalism is NOT ordering Chinese food. Multiculturalism is NOT talking salsa classes. Multiculturalism is NOT drinking fair trade coffee. Multiculturalism is NOT wearing dreadlocks. Multiculturalism is NOT converting to Buddhism...

We could go on and on.

Multiculturalism used in a sentence: "The active recruitment of people of color and centering of their voices in the organization was a wonderful show of multiculturalism"

This 2014 documentary written and directed by Gรถran Olsson is based on Franz Fanon's famous 1961 essay Concerning Violence. The film explores through archival footage the mechanisms for understanding Third- World decolonial struggles in Africa. Narrated by Ms Lauryn Hill, the film relies almost exclusively on excerpts taken from Fanon's landmark essay.

TheliberationFunnies Art byDesdenCamacho

TransW omenO f Color areInDanger:W hy Recent Killingsof TransW omenO f color Must becentered

By Dubian Ade Trans women of color are in danger. Kandis Capri. Elisha Walker. Ashton O Hara. All trans women of color whose murders have surfaced within a twenty four hour period. From the time this article was written 19 trans women had been killed since January of this year. 17 of them have been trans women of color. The most recent being Tamara Dominguez who was killed as recently as August 17th when an SUV repeatedly ran her over. The death toll is increasing this very second.

And these are only the killings that are reported.

The onslaught of violence leveled at trans woman, and specifically trans woman of color has reached ghastly proportions in 2015, and has already surpassed homicide numbers in 2014, which saw 14 trans deaths.

The most disturbing thing about these killings is the deafening silence that has fallen upon news media outlets and activists alike even as issues affecting trans women of color begin to surface.

Issues regarding trans women of color must be understood with regards to patriarchy, racism, transphobia and transmisogyny. And they must be understood as structural.

According to the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, Black transgender people are eight times more likely to live in extreme poverty in the United States. This is compounded by their status as people of color (in 2013 about 27.2%of Blacks and 25.6%of Latinos were in poverty according to the United States Census Bureau).

This is compounded even further for trans women of color who are indeed women who experience the violence of systemic gendering through housing, employment, and public accommodation discrimination.

Trans women of color are more likely to be in poverty not only because of their status as a people of color and not only because of their status as women but also because of institutionalized transphobia and discrimination preventing them from being employed, and having decent housing. Due to systemic marginalization many are forced into jobs as sex workers, a dangerous line of work dominated by cist- hetero male aggression and patrolled by war- on- drugs policing. Many are subjected to sexual abuse and increasingly violent run- ins especially with police.

This past March, Mya Hall, a trans woman of color was shot and killed by a security guard in Baltimore after making a wrong turn into NSA headquarters.

The silence regarding this killing is appalling: this too was an instance of policing violence along with the killings of Freddy Gray, Mike Brown, and Eric Garner.

Discussions regarding black lives must be decentered from male dominance and allow for Mya Hall's name to be raised to the surface along with the many more names of trans women of color who have been killed this year. #SAYHERNAME is a movement that seeks to shed light on the violence leveled at women and trans women of color. #SAYHERNAME aims to bring the names of those women who were martyred to the forefront in an effort to support a gender- inclusive approach to racial justice that centers all lives of color equally. Due to their work, issues regarding trans women of color are gaining more exposure.

During the Black Lives Matter convening in Ohio, a group of insurgent trans and non- conforming people of color righteously inserted themselves into the conference discussion to confront anti- trans and transphobia sentiments among black and brown audience members. They did so because it was a matter of survival.

I repeat: trans women of color are in danger. The recent killings of trans women of color should be considered a state of war. For too long we have sat by and allowed the violence against trans bodies of color to go unreported and unrecognized. By the end of this article we would have already learned more names of the martyred. To them, we say rest in power.

W hoW ill SurviveAmerica?

ShadeSchuler Shade Schuler was a 22 year- old trans Black woman who was found July 29th decomposed in a vacant field in Dallas, Texas. She has been consistently mis- gendered by news media outlets. She is the thirteenth transgender person to be killed and the eleventh trans woman of color killed in the United States this year.

IndiaClarke India Clarke was a 25 year- old trans Black woman who was found beaten to death in Tampa Bay, Florida July 21st. Clarke has been constantly mis- gendered by news media outlets adding insult to injury. India Clarke was indeed a black trans woman, not a cross- dresser.

KandisCapri Kandis Capri was a 35 year- old trans Black woman who was shot and killed August 11th in Phoenix, Arizona. She has been consistently mis- gendered by news media outlets. Capri is the sixteenth trans woman to be killed in the United States this year.

ElishaW alker Elisha Walker was a 20 year- old trans Black woman who was found inside a house in North Carolina early this August. She has been frequently mis- gendered by media outlets. Latin Kings gang member Angel Dejesus Arias has been charged with her death but will not face any hate crime charges. There is no hate crime statue in North Carolina.

TamaraDominguez Tamara Dominguez was a trans Latina woman who was killed August 17th in Kansas City, Missouri. She was repeatedly and intentionally run over by an SUV. She is the seventeenth trans woman to be killed in the United States this year.

Amber Monroe Amber Monroe was a 20 year- old trans Black woman who was shot and killed on August 8th in Detroit, Michigan. She is the twelfth trans person to be killed in the United States this year and the tenth trans woman of color.

AshtonOHara Ashton O Hara was a 25 year- old genderfluid person who was killed on july 14th in Detroit, Michigan. O Hara was found in the same Detroit park that Amber Monroe would be found.

K.C.Haggard K.C Haggard was a 66 year- old trans Black woman who was fatally stabbed on July 23rd in Fresno, California. Video of her death shows her being call towards an SUV and then stabbed in the neck by a passenger.

She called for help as pedestrians walk past her, before she collapsed.

W hoW ill SurviveAmerica?(Cont) SandraBland Sandra Bland was a 28 year- old Black woman who was found dead in Waller County Jail July 13th days after her arrest by a state trooper during a traffic stop. Dash cam and amateur video shows Texas state trooper Brian Encinia demanding Bland get out of her vehicle or "I will light you up." Bland was then slammed to the ground.

Though authorities claim suicide her death at Waller County Jail is being investigated as footage from the jail cell appears to be edited.

Samuel DuBose Samuel Dubose was a 43 year- old black male who was shot and killed on sight by Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing July 19th. Footage from Tensing's body camera has been released and shows Tensing approaching the vehicle with his gun drawn. Tensing lied about engaging in a struggle with DuBose who appears calm in the video. Tensing has been indicted and charged with murder. His bail was set at one million yet Tensing made bail and has since been released as he awaits trial.

Rest InPower

DecolonizingO ur MentalitiesO ne Stepat ATime

By Emilio Paqcha Benites It is hard to believe but my culture, along with many other indigenous cultures around the world, continues to suffer robbery at many levels by the new colonial powers just the same way our ancestors did. Incalculable amounts of gold, silver, copper, diamonds and other material goods were among the first few things that were (and continue to be) exploited with little or no opposition and with little or no benefit to indigenous peoples.

A greater crime, which persists today is one much more valuable than any material goods. Since the beginning of the exploration conducted by European colonialists, indigenous knowledge was seen as inferior, archaic, backwards and non- worthy of development. Ironically, indigenous knowledge has been the equal victim of robbery and exploitation without any compensation for those who own it, which, by the way, is communal ownership. Obviously, this indicates that our knowledge was not as inferior as they said it was but it is this ideology which has kept us indigenous people from opposing this greater crime. Although in my culture, the past, present, and future are one, it is important to analyze them as separate in order to have a clear understanding of what is happening today with our knowledge and pride as well as the present robbery which we continue to be victims of.

Documentation has finally confirmed that the information presented by indigenous people for centuries is not a folklore or tale. In it, it says that colonial powers stripped away our pride and implanted shame and dependency. This was accomplished by following three stages of terror, which are still used today. The first stage was to simply kill Indigenous people for practicing their indigenous traditions and costumes. Once their labor was found useful, torture and terrorizing was implemented. Finally, if this did not do the job, conversion to the inferiority and superiority ideology were presented by schools, missionaries, anthropologists and of course by community members with colonized mentalities.

Although the three stages continue to be used by those in power, the last stage is the greatest threat to indigenous pride and knowledge.

My family and I became nomads after my father got captured and tortured by a U.S. and Peruvian sponsored terrorist organization called Sinchis. They killed many indigenous Andean people who saw an opportunity to end the colonization process by accepting an alliance with a Maoist communist movement called Sendero.

Such alliances forced those in power to reinforce and increment the three stages of terror. My father, I guess, was lucky to be in the second stage and not the first, as were many indigenous intellectuals who until today are seen by the mass media as the "terrorists." As we took refuge in many different houses, we were always presented with the idea that the Sinchis were liberating us from the terrorists Sendero. This never made sense to us because terror came from the other side, but we did not question this because those who were presenting the information were "knowledgeable people" such as the media, teachers, city people, police and leaders. There were probably more attacks in this way than there were with weapons and brute force. This psychological manipulation of course did not come alone. Part of making us believe in an alternate reality was to also present the idea that our thoughts and customs were inferior and in the process of extinction.

I remember back in school a teacher told me that we got lucky that Christopher Columbus discovered us so we could become civilized. Other members of the community, who had also already succumbed to that ideology, helped reinforce the argument by presenting visual and verbal examples of the uncivilized: indigenous people with their clothes and bodies dirty from working like animals in the fields; peasants chewing coca leaves and paying tribute to the earth before and after working; people dancing and singing in a language so foreign to the dominant Spanish.

All these images and more were descriptions of what my family and I were. For us, and for many people who were in the same situation, it was enough to not only feel shameful of our own culture, but to welcome the western ideology. The third stage was put into effect at least at that time.

Unfortunately for those in power, many indigenous people, including members of my family were lucky enough to have gone through a process of conscious decolonization to a level in which we are able to analyze our experiences and history and now have decided to counterattack and stop the robbery by validating our own knowledge and bringing back honor and pride to indigenous people around the world. The process of globalizing this has always been present and this essay, followed by others in the future are only one more tool, which I hope will accelerate such process.

Bibliography: Indigenous communal knowledge for the mere purpose of decolonizing our mentalities.

TRACKTHE MO VEMENT August,2015

#JusticiaparaLx5

#SDPUCnoKXL

The July 31st torture and murder of Photojournalist RubĂŠn Espinosa in Veracruz sparked thousands of demonstrators to take to the streets of Mexico demanding justice for Espinosa and four other women who were also murdered. The murders have been widely regarded as an expression of state repression and terror of the Mexican government. Espinosa is the thirteenth reporter from Veracruz to be murdered since 2011.

On July 26th over 400 protesters including 70 on horseback marched across the Missouri River in South Dakota in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline. The proposed pipeline would run through key indigenous territory protected by treaty. The resistance ride from the Four Directions was organized by a coalition of native and non- native grassroots organizers just as the state Public Utilities Commission began its review of the project?s permit recertification. The growing indigenous resistance is putting pressure on both the Commission and TransCanada.

#M4BLFREE The first Black Lives Matter national convening took place in Cleveland, Ohio July 24th through the 26th. Black people from within the African Diaspora from across the globe attended this three day conference covering many issues for furthering the movement for black lives. The larger discussion featured a powerful call to consciousness from the black trans community.

#FREEBAPUSURATSINGH Bapu Surat Singh Khalsa is an United States resident of Lanthrop, CA who has been on a hunger strike in Punjab, India since January 16th, 2015. His demand is for the release of Sikh political prisoners held by the Indian government long after their sentences. The 83- year- old Khalsa has been arrested and force- fed at least three times for exercising his right to peaceful protest. Now as his protest has surpasses its 200th day, a White House petition has been started demanding President Obama?s recognition of Khalsa and his expedient action.

#BLACKLIVESMATTER, #UnitedWeFight, #BLACKAUGUST BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin?s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and dead 17- year old Trayvon was post- humously placed on trial for his own murder.

BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti- Black racism that permeates our society. Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes.

August 10, 2015 was BLM Day of Resistance. The day organized by Ferguson Action Group marked the one year anniversary of the death of Mike Brown. Tyrone Harris Jr. was shot by four St. Louis County police detectives during the protest march in Ferguson August 9th.

special ThanksToO ur Contributing W riters: Dr. Paula Ioanide Bud Gankhuyag Emilio Paqcha Benites Nicole LaFave Natasha Eziquiel-Shiro Shanta Carr

Call For Submissions Do you have something to say with regards to race, class, gender, sexuality, and its intersections with colonialism today?

Do you have something to say with regards to these intersections in the Ithaca community? Then we want YOU to write for THE DECOLONIZER! Please send all submissions to thedecolonizernewsletter@gmail.com. Poetry is very welcomed.

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