The Decolonizer Annual Journal, 2015-2016 by THE DECOLONIZER

THEDECO LO NIZER Journal, 2016

TABLEO FCO NTENTS 1

What is THE DECOLONIZER?

Burning Devotionals

Letter From The Editor: The Birth Of THE DECOLONIZER

Eid Is Across The River (cont)

Native Women Are In Danger

Catching Up With Young People

Decolonizing Our Mentalities One Step At A Time

MLK Hates You

Straight, No Chaser

Decolonizing Touch

Fuck You And The Horse You Road In On

How To's

# BlackLivesMatter, Bernie Sanders, And Racial Barriers

Straight, No Chaser

Eid Is Across The River

Brief Histories

Trans Women of Color Are In Danger

Decolonizing Touch

Appropriation of History/ Histories

A History of the Guatemalan Civil War

To the Officers

Straight, No Chaser

On Boko Haram

The Collective "We"

Do You Find Us Unsettling?

A Letter to "Robert"

How To's

in Language 12

Eid Is Across The River

Decolonizing Touch

Straight, No Chaser

Report Back # M4BLFree

How To's

Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Feminisim, I Need You

Obama's Legacy

Dominican Haitians Face Mass Deportation

Decolonizing Our Mentalities One Step At A Time

Desperately Running From Whiteness

Straight, No Chaser

Letter FromTheEditor:TheBirthof THE DECO LO NIZER By Dubian Ade

We have never chosen assassination. This is the first lesson I have learned from The Decolonizer. Instead, we have chosen to dream.

For a year now I have had the privilege to work on The Decolonizer. I call it a privilege because in my place, it could have well been any colonized body who, confronted with this war against humanity decided to wield our voices. I call it a privilege because as a cis- Black man I know there are many Indigenous people, femmes, queer, and trans people of color who could have done a better job than I. I give my gratitude, love and reverence to those people. What this publication is, what this publication is supposed to be is the embodiment of revolt. Use this publication as a means to revolt. Sharpen the edges of this publication. Burn the pages to set fire to the master's house. Use this Publication as a weapon. The Decolonizer tells you how to use its text. This is a practical text. We imagine The Decolonizer on the front lines of anti- colonial struggle. Imagining it as the guerrilla in the Lacandon jungle, the stone thrower in Palestine, and the protester in Ferguson. If we allow ourselves, we may also imagine The Decolonizer as all of us. All of us that is, who affirm that famous Frantz Fanon quote "the last shall be first and the first last" or that Zapatismo war cry "everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves." Those of us who have already decided the end of colonization and the beginning of our destinies as human beings. When I first witnessed the birth of this publication I could not know the affect it would have on me personally. I was coming firmly into my own understandings of colonialism, after a long and intense internal struggle about violence, insurgency, and its place in resistance movements. What I began to understand is that the colonial situation is inherently violent, unable to dismantle itself and will respond to all efforts to dismantle it with a viciousness that seeks to thoroughly assassinate.

Fanon says that the dreams of the colonized are always of muscular prowess: "I dream I am jumping, swimming, running, climbing; I dream that I burst out laughing, that I span a river in one stride, or that I am followed by a flood of motorcars which never catch up with me. During the period of colonization, the native never stops achieving their freedom from nine in the evening until six in the morning." "What is The Decolonizer?" People usually ask me. I say The Decolonizer is dreaming. It pushes with both hands to expand the limits of our imaginations, imaginations that have been severed by the violence of colonization. We reimagine ourselves as the agents of our own liberation. We imagine the possibilities revolt, the destruction of the system, the formation of our destinies. The Decolonizer asks us to dream of the death of the colonized and the birth of humanity. In so many words, we are imagining ourselves as humans. A Zapatista once said: "the great world power has not yet found the weapon to destroy dreams. Until it does we will keep on dreaming, that is to say, we will keep on triumphing." And in this way, we have already triumphed. So when those who have invested themselves in slavery and mass genocide attempt to squander our dreams, our response is to revolt. We revolt against all of the forces that mean to suppress and regulate our voices. This is the second lesson I have learned from The Decolonizer. We do so because we recognize all efforts to police the voices of the oppressed to be in cooperation with the policing state, and an extension of white supremacist settler colonial patriarchy. We have no interest in appearing dignified and respectable in the eyes of a colonizing power who has already demonstrated its levels of barbarism and savagery. What do we have to prove to such a power? The Decolonizer, for many reasons, has shown no remorse to those people of color who, having gained some benefits from the exploitation of Black and Brown people, have deiced to become the mouthpieces of white supremacy. They have proved to be some of the greatest enemies of the people, while professing to be experts in

anti- racist diversity and inclusion education and even hold workshops on such topics! All the while sabotaging efforts by other people of color to produce meaningful change and strategically plotting against them. This has been the context in which The Decolonizer has been developed. In the mad dash for grant funding and institutional monies, people have capitalized on the suffering of poor communities of color and have maneuvered subversive control. They have subsequently decided to sell themselves on the auction block. I had wondered when the initial push back against The Decolonizer had started what had prompted such a reaction. I soon learned the third lesson The Decolonizer had to teach me. That our unapologetically insurgent voices will always be demonized and marked for isolation. Such is the policy of white supremacy because such voices of decent pose a clear threat to established structures of power. Which is precisely why The Decolonizer must continue. The necessity of inserrectional publications that are explicitly against colonization could not be more clear during this historical moment. It could not be more clear in the context of Black Lives Matter, a movement that has torn off the liberal vial of "post- racialism" and "post coloniality." It could not be more clear with the rise of Trump- fascism. In the context of global decline, we begin the work of birthing our dreams. The Decolonizer has stood as an example of what radical love looks and feels like. An undying and unwavering love for ones freedom. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Fabina Benites Colon for her bravery, guidance and steady hand in the lessons of indigenous knowledge. I own a deep debt of gratitude to Nicole LaFlave, who had helped me conceive of this child that had not yet been conceived. Her fierce honesty and dedication ripple through the pages of The Decolonizer. I lovingly thank Dr.Asma Barlas, whose Race and Colonialism class shook me to the core and provided the very foundations for this project. I also want to send a special thanks to Audrey Cooper and all affiliates for being that conservative faction of antagonism that only sharpened the voice and the blade of The Decolonizer.

Until Victory,

Letter FromTheEditor:TheBirthof THE DECO LO NIZER

NativeW omenAreInDanger:IndigenousW omenand theSexTrade By Dubian Ade Native women are in danger. Around the country, Native woman are disappearing from their communities at an alarming rate. Three Indigenous women have been found dead in northern Minnesota since May of 2015. 52 year- old Lisa Isham, 31 year- old Rose Downwind, and 44 year- old Dawn Reynolds were all killed in between the months of May and December. Two more have disappeared. In Canada. Tina Fontaine was found dead in the Red River August of 2014. Her death sparked a national inquiry. Media coverage of these deaths and disappearances have been sparse and inadequate. Police and local authorities have shown no interest in investigating. Low- income Native women and two- spirit people live in a constant state of fear. Five hours from Minnesota in the oil- rich fields of North Dakota, scores of men toil working the oil boom that recently swept the area of the Bakken. The discovery of the Parshall Oil Field in 2006 prompted the creation of thousands of jobs and nearly double the population from 20,000 to 40,000 people. It also prompted the emergence of sex- trafficking rings which formed around the worker markets. Servicing the violent sexual appetites of oil workers, low- income Native women are often abducted from surrounding reservations. Oil companies are absolutely complicit in the sexual violence and commercial human trafficking occurring in the Bakken. Some of those companies include Exxon Mobil, Hess, US Energy, Marathon Oil, and Conoco Phillips. The abduction and sex- trafficking of Indigenous women is not limited to Bakken. In Montana, the trafficking of Native women has increased 15%within the last year according to the Montana Native Women's Coalition. Although trafficking statistics of Native women remain scarce, according to Indian Country Today journalist Victoria Sweet research from related studies suggest that Native women and girls are disproportionately affected by the human trafficking industry. According to the Justice Department at least 61%of Native woman have been assaulted in

their lifetimes. Native women are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted then women from other ethnic groups. 1 in 3 Native women are likely to be raped in their lifetime. In Minnesota 25%of women arrested for sex- work identified as Native American but Natives represent only 2.2%of the total population. In Anchorage, Alaska 33%of women arrested for sex- work identified as Alaskan Native but Natives represent only 7.9%of the total population. In Vancouver, Canada, 52%of sex- workers identified as Native when only 7%of the total population is Indigenous. The Save Wiyabi Project, an advocacy group dedicated to addressing violence against Native women, has tracked more than 1000 death and disappearance cases of Indigenous women in the United States. In Canada, more than 1200 unsolved murder and missing cases of Indigenous women have been reported. Many more go unreported. Oil fields, forestry projects, fracking operations, trucking and shipping routes, lumber yards, shipping ports, construction sites, are all hotbeds for sex trafficking.Traffickers will target young low- income Native women, many of whom are abducted, abandoned, or are runways between the ages of 15 and 20. Often times traffickers will befriend these women, give them nice things, and get them use to a life on the run. Then they will "groom" them for the markets in the cities or in places like the Bakken. 32.4%of Native children live in poverty. 50 to 80 percent of trafficking victims have been involved in the foster care system at some point in their lives. From the 1940s to the 1960s at least one third of Native children were placed in the foster care system. In foster care, Native girls in particular are vulnerable to sex- traffickers who will often use drugs and other means to indoctrinate commercial sex- workers. Many young girls involved in the sex trade were either abandoned or choose to run away from the conditions on the reservation. Many suffer from inter- generational trauma. Sexual violence against Indigenous women in this country dates all the way back to Columbus. Native women were sold as slaves to European colonizers. Columbus himself condoned the gang rape of Indigenous women. The state sponsored forced re- locations of Native tribes destroyed Indigenous families. Native children were forced to go to the Christian boarding schools where they were sexually abused and beaten.

Misty Upham, Native Actress The exotized and eroticized images of Native women make them even more desirable for trafficking markets. The hyper sexual images of the "Pocahontas" pervade mainstream media and pop- culture. White women want to wear headdresses with dream- catcher earrings and be sexy native princesses for Halloween. Everywhere the Native woman's body is rendered disposable, objectified and dehumanized. Native actress Misty Upham went missing on October 5, 2014 in Auburn, Washington. She was best known for her role in the award- winning 2008 film Frozen River, in which she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Upham was last seen leaving her family's home on the Muckleshoot Reservation after going through emotional distress. Misty Upham body was found a week later at the bottom of a ravine. According to the medical examiner, Upham died of blunt- force injuries. Police refused to help with the investigation. They did not send a search party when Upham went missing. Local authorities claimed that her disappearance did not fit the criteria for a full- fledged investigation. Volunteers made up of family and fiends had to find Misty's body on their own. Charles Upham, Misty's father, was told that a witness saw two men beat his daughter and throw her down the ravine. No arrests have been made. Native women are in danger.

DecolonizingO ur MentalitiesO neStepAtA Time By Emilio Paqcha Benites A first step to decolonizing our mentalities is to be aware of the characteristics of a colonized mentality. Here is a list to get started: Manipulating or letting someone else manipulate nature to satisfy the desire of a non-necessary commodity. Eating food without thinking about the sacrifices that took place to produce it. Throwing any amount of food away knowing that someone is dying of hunger somewhere in the world. Fantasizing about wealth even though it means the poverty of someone else. Putting a monetary value to education, health, and food. Equating intelligence with social status or skin color. Bel ieving t hat racism doesn't exist . Thinking that poverty is the result of a person's bad choices. Thinking that a capitalistic society gives every one equal opportunity to succeed. Believing that borders are the doors to a distinct culture. Thinking that the only person right is you. Thinking that there is a unilinear way to evolve as a society. Admiring a society while assuming that their misfortunes are a result of its existence. Accepting poverty. Thinking that we are individual beings. Believing that violence and destruction is human nature. Separating the past present and future as different times in our lives. Believing that there is only one way to reach God...

..to be continued by those who are in the process of decolonizing their mentalities.

FuckYouAndTheHorseYouRoadInO n By The Decolonizer Hillary, Bernie, or Trump? Everywhere Americans are asking the question. Especially white liberal Americans who feel it is a pressing point of conversation. You know, the ones who flaunt the "Vote for Bernie" buttons pinned to their shirts. Their eyes glistening, waiting for a chance to bring up the election in conversation. Just waiting, even when the election has no relevance to the conversation.

The Decolonizer says F* * * you and the horse you road in on Ah, election season. A time of excitement, presidential debates, and jokes about how small Donald Trump's hands are. It seems like everyone has election fever. Arguments break out on Facebook over who should have won last nights debate. White tears over Bernie Sanders' declining campaign are enough to send to Flint, Michigan. Hillary has somehow gotten people to accept the fact that she is a snake in the grass: "at least you know what you what you are going to get with her." Which is oxymoronic since she has yet to produce a consistent political platform. Trump can belch the entire English alphabet and is therefore a shoe- in for the republican nomination. The presidential election of 2016 made into a season of America's Got Talent. In the midst of all this excitement one thing remains glaringly obvious: The United States is an illegitimate settler- colonial state who never had a democratic process to speak of.

Your election is trash, illegitimate, and settler- colonial The Decolonizer throws- up a little in their mouth every time someone mentions the 2016 election. It is regrettable that they even have to talk about it here in this form. Every election is a ritual in which the colonizing empire validates its continual existence. Everyone who votes is affirming that fact, that the empire is indeed legitimate and worthy of our input in selecting the next sovereign.

No, you do not actually vote for the president, stupid Your voting power, if any, amounts to the ability to vote an "elector" in the Electoral College. There are 538 electors total in the Electoral College. Your state gets a number of electors based on the general number of seats your state has in the Senate and House of Representatives. It takes a majority 270 elector votes to elect the president. You don't elect the president, you elect electors who vote for the president. What little significance your vote might of had is smashed by the lobbyists and special interest groups, who intercept and influence electors at both state and federal levels. It is the illusion of representative government. Your vote doesn't mean sh* t.

Sit the F* * * down Bernie Sanders you are no revolutionary Bernie Sanders, the Left's democratic- socialist heroine, has been using the language of revolution to sell his presidential campaign. He talks of taking on Wall Street and big business and saving the vanishing middle class. What if anything is revolutionary about this? What about his spiel is different from The "Trust- Buster" Theodore Roosevelt, whose entire campaign was about taking on big corporations in the early 1900s. Theodore Roosevelt, by the way, was probably one of the most racist colonial white supremacist this empire has ever seen. White liberals say: "But Bernie, he marched on Washington during the Civil Rights Movement! And he got arrested! "

To which, the Decolonizer says "get the f* * * out of here" Bernie Sanders was a one- time student activist who coincidentally wound up at the March on Washington in 1963. Even if he did play a significant role (which he didn't) what would a 1963 photo of him getting arrested have anything to do with his commitment to Black liberation in 2016? Is the 1963 March on Washington the only thing Bernie Sanders has done for Black people? Its okay white liberals, we'll wait.

revolutionary. The notion that you could elect a revolutionary in a settler- colonial state is a contradiction. The very act of running means you have to omit the land and the people upon which this empire rests.

As long as this is occupied land, no presidential election is legitimate The first peoples of this land have and continue to be raped, killed, and displaced for the sake of this colonial government. Why, as we speak the destruction and exploitation of indigenous people continues. Every conversation about the 2016 elections means to hide, distort, or otherwise ignore this fact. Everyone, even supposedly "radical" activist are guilty of this omission. The "anything but Trump" argument has no weight when indigenous women are being killed and sold into sexual slavery. Anything but Trump, anything but America. Non- Indigenous people of color in particular, who also benefit from being settlers on occupied land need to check themselves. Especially those Black folk who are pulling for Hillary Clinton because "Clinton" is a vestige of something familiar. Do not continue to support the occupation of this land by casting your consent into the electoral process of this empire. Instead, be willing to move the conversation towards the decolonization of the United States.

So F* * * you and the horse you road in on The lesser of three evils is not a choice. Empire will never elect to eliminate itself, and will never present to its people the choice to eliminate it. The people themselves have to choose to eliminate it. One will never be able to vote revolution, regardless of how nice the Bernie Sanders slogan sounds. The revolution will not occur at the ballot box, nor will it be counted by the Electoral College. The revolution will require you to get off your ass and battle the empire. It will require you to challenge the colonizing hypocrisy of this so- called country. It will require you to say , the next time someone asks you who you are voting for: "F* * * you and the horse you road in on."

There is another reason why Bernie isnt a

EidIsAcrossTheRiver By Jie Wu 1. It?s almost Eid, I thought to myself: I need to go across the river and visit the teachers and students at Talimi Haq School. The school is a non- formal educational center run by Howrah Pilot Project in an industrial workers?settlement, populated mostly by Muslim households, in the city of Howrah, India. Here, students and volunteer teachers address each other as sister and brother, using the Urdu terms ?baji?(sister) and ?bhai?(brother). A few days ago, Amina baji had invited me to school for the upcoming Eid- al Fitr festival. Eid, also known as the "Feast of Breaking the Fast,? celebrates the completion of ? the twenty- nine or thirty- day period of fasting from dawn to sunset undertaken by many Muslim residents in Priya Manna Basti, where Talimi Haq School is located. During Eid celebrations, people eat special foods, wear new clothes, offer prayers, share gifts between friends and family and go to attend Eid fairs. In 2014, I had the chance to celebrate Eid with the students and teachers at Talimi Haq School. For more than six months, I had been working as a volunteer English teacher and researcher there. As a researcher, I looked into how residents from Howrah and Kolkata (cities on opposite sides of a river) related to the river Hooghly (also known as the Ganga, or Ganges) that flows in between. I had hoped to be able to grasp the complex relationships between people and the Hooghly river in the contemporary context of globalization. I alternated my time between the roles of researcher and English teacher in the school. After three months of difficult research work, I had hit a major wall. I started questioning myself and the motivations behind my research. Would my work at all benefit the students and teachers of Talimi Haq School? Sometimes the answer seemed to be no, and so I dedicated more time and effort towards my other role as an English teacher in the school. I thought that perhaps I could contribute more to the students by teaching them English rather than selfishly collecting data for my personal study and possible publication. It was during my short stint as an English teacher in Talimi Haq School that I came to realize that I was infected with a dangerous syndrome ? the White Man?s burden. This syndrome can be described as a seemingly selfless desire (in reality being selfish because it is a personal desire) to "civilize" and save the non- white peoples from their perceived savagery and ignorance.

"Boatman Crossing the River," photo by Jie Wu The British novelist and poet, Rudyard Kipling, popularized this term after writing the poem "White Man?s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands?. In this poem, Kipling called upon the U.S. to take on the burden of empire, similar to what Britain and other European nations had done, in order to civilize and save the non- white peoples, whom he referred as "your new- caught, sullen peoples, half- devil and half- child.? Although I am not "white", I could see that my privileges as a Chinese American, brought up and educated in Portugal and later in the U.S., led me to becoming infected with the White Man?s burden syndrome.

It was only my mind that urgently needed to be saved from its teacher- and- savior complex, something ingrained in the global system of neo- colonialism and neo- imperialism. English teaching, if not carefully and consciously undertaken, is a powerful tool of submission, domination and colonization of non- English speaking peoples, which in most cases also means non- White people. After slowly discerning the imperialism of English teaching, I took up the role of an assistant to the local teachers and helped them in whichever ways I could. I observed that the change in my attitude made it easier for me to get along with the other teachers, but I could still sense I arrived in India proudly armed with a Cambridge there was some kind of gap or invisible barrier TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) that prevented me from fully understanding certificate. I thought that this English teaching and connecting with the teachers and certificate and my previous experience as an students of the school. I thought about this English tutor for a literacy NGO made me more often. I would ask myself: What it is that than qualified for the new teaching assignment separates me from the students and teachers at Talimi Haq School. I saw myself as the foreign at Talimi Haq School? Is it language, culture, teacher who would "save" the students from their class, caste, gender, privilege or religion that chronic English learning problems. Direct in- field pushes us away from each other? experience quickly proved to me how unqualified and untrained I was to teach the students at the As time flowed by like the river Hooghly these school. For instance, my inability to speak Hindi existential questions lay unanswered in my or Urdu, communication failures and cultural consciousness. After a nine- month stay in differences made it very difficult for me to teach India, doing research and English teaching, I the students at this center. I also saw how local returned in December 2014 to visit my family teachers could teach the students in a much in Lisbon, Portugal. Back in Lisbon, the more efficient, sustainable and culturally specific memories of India being with the teachers and way than I could. I was humbled and thus began students of Talimi Haq School kept returning my ongoing effort to cleanse myself of the to me. I tried suppressing them but all my disease of the White Man?s burden. efforts were in vain. What it is that separates me from the students and teachers at Talimi My teaching experience at Talimi Haq School Haq School? Is it language, culture, class, caste, taught me about how there was nobody and gender, privilege or religion that pushes us nothing at all within my sense of ?I?? the away from each other? egotistical teacher, to "save."

"Boatman Crossing the River," photo by Jie Wu

Straight,NoChaser Raci sm and Reparati ons By Patrice Lockert Anthony I do not want simple economic reparations (in any amount) for Black Americans. I do believe that White America owes Black America. I do not believe that what has been done thus far through conscience, and/ or legislation, in any way, makes up for what has been done throughout history, or is being done now. I think that the vast majority of White America, when it comes to Black America, are irresponsible, and cannot think its way out of a paper bag when it comes to race- based issues. There is entirely too much lack? for that to happen. There is a lack of consciousness. There is a lack of accountability. There is a lack of culpability. There is a lack of desire. There is a lack of will. While these things are true; White America cannot apply critical reasoning to the problem at hand (their problem made mine). Here is the two- fold problem around economic reparations for Black America: One: There is no amount of money in this very wealthy nation (or the world), that would serve as anything more than a very tiny band- aid trying to cover the gaping wound that is racial hatred and treatment of blacks in America. That is obvious to me, and I daresay to many others. Hundreds of years of slavery, decades of Jim Crow, followed by many, too many, decades (into the present) of pernicious policies, rules of behavior, and acculturation to wrong- thinking and wrong doing by both civil society and the official types who are paid to serve, protect, care for, educate, govern, etc., all of America?s citizens. Two: and perhaps less obvious is that White Americans have, all along, sought ways in which to avoid having to face the egregious nature of their wrong doings. They have also, in many ways, and many times, sought to apply the band aid rather than seek, and work for, the cure to this deadly disease of racism. If then, knowing that, we gave them the out of paying economic reparations . . . what then? Do we believe that the psychology of the racist would somehow magically dissipate? Do we believe that having paid us off; suddenly White America would climb onto the heretofore assiduously avoided bandwagon, to talk about, work through, and heal, the diseased rift of consciousness, that ripping our ancestors from the Motherland and enslaving them, put into play? I have no confidence in such a belief. Once the monies have been paid out; I believe the conversation will be shut down and whenever cries of ?that?s unfair? or ?that?s racist? rend the air, the response will be a categorical, ?No. No, we?ve paid that debt. We?ve given you the economic means to pull up on the boot straps. It?s on you now. You can?t blame us anymore.?

That is where all these current arguments are coming from about how it?s all about ?class? issues. As if the only reason black Americans are in prison in gargantuan disproportionate numbers, engaging in destructive behaviors, being beat down by bad cops, getting politically tricked out of voting, dying in ways that are far beyond suspicious, etc., is only because we lack the economic means to access success.

In faith~

Do any of my readers, of whatever makeup, actually believe that nonsense? Remember this. There is always a "Why??. There is always a, "HOW??. You must ask yourselves what happened (within the specific construct of race relations in America) to create the economic disparities? When that question is answered honestly; you will understand why approaching the issue as purely economic (class- based) is erroneous and disingenuous. Black America isn?t less achieving because of class- based issues. Black America is "behind? because of racial intent, race- based planning, and race- based design. It is what it is because of an accrual of damage (psychic, emotional, educational, legal, civil, etc.). Our presidents were involved. Our supreme court judges were involved. Our senators and representatives were involved. Our business communities were involved. Our medical professionals were involved. Our military was involved. For hundreds of years continuing into the present day the cultural, and often legislated, law of the land was to have Black Americans legitimized as lesser human beings and lesser citizens. To behave as if that isn?t so is to, at the very least, behave stupidly. Somewhere in the middle it is to be behave as ignorantly irresponsible. At the very worst, to deny it is to be somehow less than human (somewhere below three- fifths).

HowTo's HowtoO rganizeARadical Assembly The radical assembly is an organized, at times underground convening of activists from all over the movement. The assembly is formed for the purpose of collectively identifying the conditions of oppression, articulating the politics of the movement, and solidifying the means for resistance. The radical assembly draws on the ideas, connections, and experiences of all of those in attendance for the purpose of movement building. According to Peoples Movement Assembly.org (PMA) the assembly "in essence and operationality, is a decolonizing process. The assembly is an ?open space? and an open door for people to come into the social movement and become active participants and players. The open space can be considered a jet propulsion that pulls-in all the social movements to the assembly and allows equal/equitable participation (without rank or hierarchy) in a horizontal and direct participatory democracy." Learn more about PMA assemblies by visiting their website: http://www.peoplesmovementassembly.org/

Step 1: Identify The Movement Start with the movement or movements that you are interested in organizing around. What are the key concerns? Who are the key players? How will you connect multiple movements together? What would be the assembly's focus? You can also begin to think about reach. Is the assembly for local organizers? Is the assembly national? International?

Step 2: Form An Organizing Committee The organization of a radical assembly seems like a daunting task without a team of people willing to help and pull resources. This should be composed of people from all areas of the movement and wherever possible leadership should be held by radical women and trans women of color. Above all, members of the committee must trust each other and be willing to work with one another. The organizing committee will be responsible for developing the assembly program, outreach, securing the assembly venue, and any costs that might be required for the assembly.

Step 3: Form Assembly Agenda, Program, And Framework The organizing committee should together come up with a program, agenda, and guiding framework for the assembly. What are the key concerns of this assembly? How long is the assembly? Will there be speakers? Will there be workshops? Will there be open forums? How will time be organized? Long-term and short-term action steps can also be considered. The assembly should facilitate the sharing of ideas and the building of networks. Most importantly, there should be a framework for how the assembly space is organized. How are we centering women and trans women of color? How are we centering those who are most affected? Are people with privilege asked to be conscious of the space they take? How will we address the oppression happening within the space?

Step 4: Mobilize The People To Attend Once an agenda, format, and venue are confirmed, the organizing committee can begin outreach. There should be list of key organizers and activist that the committee would like to be in attendance. There should also be a broad outreach of networks and organizations to contact. If the assembly is underground, outreach should be very selective to prevent infiltration. Only trusted organizations and contacts should be reached. If the assembly is public, utilize all avenues to broadcast the assembly to the people.

Step 5: The Assembly You are finally ready to organize the assembly logistics. Members of the organizing committee should have clearly assigned rolls from coordination all the way down to speakers, facilitators and even food. There should also be a means for documenting what happens at the assembly via note-takers, audio, and video. Make acommodations for differently-abled people including sign language interpreters. Any restrooms should be made gender neutral. Afterwards, it is the responsibility of the organizing committee to synthesize this materials and follow up with those who attend.

IndigenousKnowledgeSystems By Fabina Benites Colon I remember like it was yesterday. The Summer of 1989. All I could hear my mother chanting over and over again was "agarrense de las manos! " So, we held hands tight- - me and my four siblings, my grandmother and my mother- - as we ran confused and lost across the airport to find our airline to board the plane. I was excited to leave Lima, Peru, but I didn't expect what was waiting for us in the United States. I was 7 years old when I arrived to the Bronx, NY with my family. Being the youngest child in my family, my cultural history and identity was nurtured through all the amazing stories I heard from my siblings, parents, and my grandmother. Although I don't remember much about Peru, the stories took me through a mental journey that felt so real and triggered all my five senses. I know we left our home village in the Andes mountain of Peru because of a civil war where Peruvian and U.S. sponsored military were persecuting indigenous families and barring us from our rights. Identifying as an indigenous person has been an interesting journey. I remember about 20 years ago, it was explicitly tied to being inferior, savage, under- developed, illiterate, poor, ignorant, etc. I always got the message that our goal was to "mejorar la raza," which actually meant to "whiten our race" and leave our traditions, language, values... our entire CULTURE behind. This was an act of violent cultural rape, which is present today and a living function of colonialism. Today, I realize that not much has changed except for the additional component of people romanticizing with indigeneity. It's still all those negative things, but it's now also exotic! But, resistance also exists in ways that have sustained cultures through strategies that created an illusion that we surrendered and our indigenous cultures are extinct. One strategy my family used has been the power of stories and art. Growing up, I always felt fascinated by the stories my parents would tell me, some of which I thought were fictional, but overall great stories. It wasn't until I was in high school when I started hearing repeats of my mother's stories. These stories came from "professional experts" - - mostly white men with Ph.D.?s- - that take indigenous knowledge and present it to the world as if they owned this new breaking discovery.

One day, as I helped my mother cook, she told me a story about her adventures when she was a young girl. I listened carefully as I pealed potatoes that still had soil on them. My mother stopped to tell me that it?s good to eat the peal. I explained that the potatoes still had soil. And, she followed to tell me that soil is good to eat too. She told me that she and her friends used to go down the hill to the lime trees and they would split a lime, sprinkle a little soil and suck on it. Of course, to many, this story didn?t really sound normal. Actually, this practice has been associated with an eating disorder called "Pica.? Most recently, our genius P.h.D?s are now ?discovering? that soil is beneficial to our health. In a recent issue of YES Magazine, I read an article written by Daphne Miller M.D. How to Eat Like Our Life Depends On It which talks in more depth about soil as a natural way to support the immune system and flex your internal mechanisms. So, now that science agrees, and it?s been "proven by an expert? it?s officially normal? and is now even part of high- end restaurant menus! Ummmm (sigh! ) If you come visit my mom and dad, they can teach you a few more things that may take you another decade to "discover.?

I used to just laugh and ignore these "new breaking discoveries" that are currently (and historically) informing leadership development, community capacity building, pedagogy, physical/ mental health and nutrition, neuroscience, social justice movements, etc. But no more. I will no longer allow colonizers to exercise continuous violent cultural rape in my presence. So, now I am in the practice of re- informing and reclaiming what is rightfully indigenous knowledge. These are NOT "new discoveries." We will acknowledge, embrace, and honor the impact and position that our indigenous knowledge has had on guiding equitable and inclusive social, environmental, and human sustainability. INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE BELONGS TO NO ONE, BUT IS FOR EVERYONE INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IS SAVING OUR WORLD, YOUR LIFE INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE = DECOLONIZING CULTURE INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE = INDIGENOUS POWER

Dominican-HaitiansFaceEthnicCleansingandMass 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.

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.

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.

DecolonizingO ur MentalitiesO neStepat 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.

DesperatelyRunningfromW hiteness:Rachel Dolezal andPassingfor Black 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Rachel Dolezal 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.

Report fromKolkata:BurningDevotionals By Sophia Terazawa

Four. One. The neighborhood called Jubilee Park in Kolkata is exceptionally quiet at dawn. For the time being, the street dogs have ceased their nightly howling melodrama. There are three patrolling the block below my window? all muscle and limp? they growl and bark and bite at each other for their rightful place as alpha male. The fights erupt from the tiniest infractions. A bump on the shoulder. A look. The regular brawls are quite exhausting to hear at midnight, as everyone bleeds and nobody sleeps. But like I said, the theatrics inevitably end at dawn, and it is in this moment that one can feel the silence of this city. I am sometimes awake at this time to write, as I write now, when a dream pries open my eyes and chokes out the sound of what needs to be said. And I think what needs to be said is the smell of holy places? mosques and black churches? burning in America.

Homes of worship are combustible places. The sight is more immediate from a television screen in West Bengal? a grainy video from a cell phone of the fire, the yelling, the grief. A mosque burns, and a young man howls into the shirt of another. One elderly nun is raped in a church. A temple falls. Bangladesh is there. Nepal is there. Pakistan is not too far away either. There are conversations all the time with the people of Kolkata? some hushed at the vegetable stalls of Lake Market and some roaring at the universities, in Esplanade, a blocked intersection of Ballygunge. It is an insistent demand for justice, and though my language fails me in some instances, I am witness to the calls for accountability, peace, and equality for all by any means necessary. "What in the hell is going on over there?? A Bengali professor had demanded to know, as we sat over tea and politics. I replied that yes, Niladri, it is hell over there. America is hell. In the name of progress and freedom, the country is a falsehood for the hungry, the tired, the poor, and worst of all for the policed. There are images of hate, and then there is the reality of hate. I did not have to leave that place to see the difference.

Two. My flat in Jubilee Park is a dusty ten minute walk from the Tollygunge tram depot, and somewhere between the two, the dogs are finally napping. They are a pile of legs and heavy, fresh torn bodies. I imagine each morning that they are finally friends. I also imagine my mother working. She is a refugee in a new country that once bombed her previous country, and I imagine her paycheck in U.S. dollars. I imagine her laugh lines, the ones that deepen around her eyes with every passing year, the ones that fold and break easily into hysterics. She laughs, even when she is hurting, and I think about this before writing, but I cannot write, not yet. I cannot write until the first call to prayer.

Five. There is something peculiar that happens to rage, as the morning light becomes brighter, and the street vendors begin shouting. There will not be another call to prayer until midday. It is more difficult to write poetry at a time like this, but the words come fluidly. It reeks of kerosene and old teakwood, the history still fresh, and there? buried inside the muscle and flesh of such history burning mosques, temples, and churches? is the responsibility to write about the ashes. I do not believe that the dead ask for immortality, as I believe the dead bury no names. And I believe in chaos as much as I believe in grace.

Three. The mosque is so close that I can hear the man clearing his throat before the microphone. It is a soft cough, a gentle cough, and he could shatter the spirit in two if he could? however mournful the previous day, however high the body count rises, however brown and black the faces of his murdered children around the world? yet he does not halve anything but the silence. In this place and in this time, he is the song and glory that pierces the distance between Kolkata and South Carolina. And it is precisely here that I write about devotion in flames.

To read more of Terazawa's work pl ease visit www.sophiat erazawa.com

CatchingUpW ithYoungPeople:NeoLibralism, Resistance,andMLKDay From the Annual MLK Community Luncheon Address at Beverly J. Martin Elementary School January 18, 2016 By Russell Rickford "Neoliberalism? is a funny word. It doesn?t mean ?liberal? according to today?s definition of that term? someone who thinks the government should be actively involved in reforming society. No. The ?liberal? in neoliberalism comes from the 19th century meaning; that is, complete freedom from government interference. So ?NEO? liberalism, in part, means a return to an era in which there was next to no economic regulation or taxation. But neoliberalism is much more than that. Neoliberalism is an especially aggressive, especially brutal form of capitalism. It has ruled our lives, and the lives of most people on the planet, since the late 20th century. What else does neoliberalism mean? Neoliberalism means growing insecurity, unemployment or underemployment for most of the people in the Global North (the rich countries), and economic devastation for most of the people in the Global South (the poor countries). Neoliberalism means austerity (except for the bankers). It means the crushing of labor unions, the decline of wages, the shredding of the safety net. It means sending jobs overseas. It means the billionaire class sucks up 95%of the economic gains since the Great Recession of ?08- 09. Neoliberalism means desperation and downward mobility. It means your life is increasingly precarious. You?re swimming in debt. You think you?re running in place, but you?re actually falling behind. Neoliberalism means even white, middle- class people are dying sooner. (As it turns out, your whiteness won?t protect you.) Neoliberalism means obscene inequality. It means the redistribution of the world?s wealth to the top 1%. EIGHTY people now hold the same amount of wealth as the world?s 3.6 billion poorest people. In the U.S., 400 individuals have more wealth than 150 million citizens. The Walton family, owners of WALMART, have more wealth than 42%of American families combined.

Neoliberalism means privately run prisons and privately run healthcare. It means billionaires privatizing our public schools and annexing our great cities.Neoliberalism means decay. It means climate change, the destruction of our planet, the neglect and deterioration of our infrastructure and our public institutions. It means that children in Flint, Michigan are dying of lead poisoning as a result of that city?s foul, orange- hued tap water. Flint is largely black and largely poor. They?re drinking toxic waste. If you think it can?t happen to you, you haven?t been paying attention. Neoliberalism means widespread ignorance and spiritual starvation. In its lust for profit and world domination, neoliberalism unleashes the most reactionary and vulgar elements of society. The fascists. The bigots. The warmongers. This is not civilization. It?s barbarism. This is not what King had in mind when he said we would reach the Promised Land. Who can live elegantly under the neoliberal regime? How can we teach our children decency in such indecent times? The only way to salvage our humanity, to leave our children something besides war and debt and misery, is to fight! So as I close, I urge you to join the General Strike that is unfolding in many pockets of the world, from South Africa to Saudi Arabia. From Ferguson to Baltimore. From Yale to Mizzou to Ithaca College. Today, many of our young people recognize the imperative to resist. They recognize the truth of what the democratic freedom fighter Ella Baker said back in 1964: ?We who believe in freedom cannot rest.? These young people are calling for a new social contract. Some of them, particularly those organized under the banner of ?Black Lives Matter? and ?Fight for 15,? are calling for the reconstruction of democracy. They?re calling for living wages, dignified jobs, a worker?s bill of rights, and the protection and rebuilding of unions. They?re demanding fully funded healthcare, social services, and public schools. They?re seeking universal childcare, full access to reproductive health, an end to racist mass imprisonment, police terror, and the colonial occupation of the Palestinian people.

Some of our young people are now in open rebellion against neoliberalism and its accomplice: global white supremacy. They?re determined to create a massive crisis for the system? a crisis of dissent. They have begun to engage in civil disobedience. Boycotts. Work stoppages. Marches. Rallies. Creative disruption. I think Martin would have been pleased. As our brother Cornell West has said: ?The litmus test for realizing King?s dream was neither a Black face in the White House nor a Black presence on Wall Street. Rather, the fulfillment of his dream was for all poor and working people to live lives of decency and dignity.? So let?s be like King. Let?s catch up with our young people. Let?s demand a humane economy and an end to war. Let?s become nuisances. King was a deeply flawed man. As flawed, perhaps, as you and me. If he was great, he was great because some small but determined segment of the people rose up and said ?enough.? They launched a general strike. They didn?t hold no picnic. They didn?t have no love- fest. They analyzed their objective conditions. And they went to battle. So I leave you with the words of the beautiful Fred Hampton, chairman of the Chicago Black Panthers, one of the spiritual descendants of King, and Malcolm, and Ella, who was murdered in his sleep by the mad- dog cops and federal agents in 1969. Comrade Fred said: ?People say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don?t fight racism with racism. We?re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don?t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.? Thank You. Venceremos! Free Palestine! Russell Rickford is an Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University.

CatchingUpW ithYoungPeople:NeoLibralism, Resistance,andMLKDay

DecolonizingTouch ?Decolonizing Touch? is a monthly column about love and intimacy. If the revolution will not be televised, then the erotic, the heartbreaks, and interpersonal relationships most certainly will go unseen. But I believe that what happens in private is the most radical space of all. What does it mean to desire the Other? How does it feel to need the oppressor? I hope to answer these questions (and more) in my column.

W h at's Love Got To Do W ith It?

(?What's Love Got To Do With It?? Illustration by Sophia Terazawa)

By Sophia Terazawa

He was nothing more than a street cleaner, but he sang beautifully? with such gusto and dignity, in fact, that no revolutionary could help but fall in love with this man, who swept Saigon?s dusty avenues by day and led Party rallies by night. If Uncle Ho had a canary, this man could lead an entire choir to liberation. He sang for the hearts of many. He sang for dear Vietnam. But why did he have to go and marry my sister, too? Thus began my mother?s dreadful story of how romance should claim no space in war.

OHH, WHAT?S LOVE GOT TO DO, GOT TO DO WITH IT? 34

HowTo's HowtoO rganizeAG eneral Strike A general strike is a massive workers shut-down that is designed to bring productivity to a complete standstill. General strikes can be city, county, state, or nation wide and always involve the collaboration of a large-scale labor force. The reasons for organizing a general strike can vary. In a traditional strike workers will stop going to work for a particular period of time until worker demands are met or other goals are achieved. But general strikes have also been organized in collaboration with armed resistances movements in order to weaken colonial governments. As a weapon against colonial power, general strikes can be very useful and if organized correctly can bring an oppressive regime to it's knees. However, the general strike also has the potential to be very dangerous for workers and their families if alternative resources are not provided during the shut-down.

Step 1: Identify the Goals of the General Strike Start by listing possible goals for the outcome of the strike. Why strike? What will come out of striking? What will be the scope of the strike (city, state, nation-wide)? List demands if any. If there are any strategic dates or time frames in which the strike should take place also list them.

Step 2: Form an Organizing Group for the General Strike

Step 4: Build Out Popular Support Through a Campaign of Escalation Organize a series of rallies and street protests that energize the people in preparation for the strike. Make political posters advertising the strike. Utilize mass actions to broadcast the strike to workers.

Step 5: Mobilize Alternative Resources

Form a group of organizers from various labor sectors that will help with the general strike. Make sure that they can be trusted. Keep an eye out for infiltrators and informants. Lock down possible dates for the strike.

A massive worker shut-down means people will need other means to sustain themselves. A effort must be made to collect food, water, and other resources. Gather the appropriate amount of resources for how long the strike will take place. If the strike will go on indefinitely, have an action plan for retrieving resources. This might mean looting or other means.

Step 3: Contact Labor Unions

Step 6: The General Strike

Garnering large-scale worker participation in the strike is one of the most important things that will make the general strike successful. Local labor unions can make good collaborators and can offer useful resources. Although many may shy away from the politics of a general strike, others still might be willing to offer support. Labor unions are excellent avenues to reach workers.

When the strike begins it might be useful to continue with street protests to sustain popular support. If negotiations occur your bargaining power will be dependent how long the strike can be sustained. A stockpile of resources will ensure the strike can be sustained for as long as possible. If the general strike is in conjunction with an armed movement, coordinate and time the strike accordingly.

EidIsAcrossTheRiver By Jie Wu

4. The river of time flows to Friday, July 17th 2015:

3. Here I am in Lisbon, writing and reviewing my experience in India. Through the process of writing, I am trying to answer the questions that I have neglected ever since my first trip to India in 2014. What it is that separates me from the students and teachers at Talimi Haq School? Is it language, culture, class, caste, gender, privilege or religion that pushes us away from each other? As I journey back to my memories and field- notes of India, I am meeting long- lost friends, all introduced to me by Ramaswamy. S.D. Burman, the Bengali singer and composer, softly sings: "O re majhi, o re majhi, o mere majhi, mere saajan hain us paar? ? These lines roughly translate to, ?Oh boatman, oh boatman, oh my boatman, my beloved is on the other side ...? Paulo Freire, the Brazilian philosopher and educator, joyfully instructs: "Delve beyond the oppressor- oppressed dichotomy.? Frantz Fanon, the Martinique- born psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary, assertively prescribes: "Most of your existential doubts, confusions and delusions are sourced from the neo- colonial, racist upbringing and education which you have been imparted.? And I finally meet Milarepa, a Tibetan Buddhist yogi, also introduced by Ramaswamy, compassionately expounding, "When you lose all differentiation between yourself and others, then you will be fit to serve others.? Through this process of writing, it finally clicked within my consciousness that the multi- dimensional Hooghly river which separates Kolkata and Howrah (the river that I used to research) mirrors the separation between my conception of ?I?and that of my beloved ones on the Other side ? the teachers and students at Talimi Haq School. Hence, similar to my past frequent journeys across the river Hooghly from Kolkata (where I used to live) to visit the school in Howrah, I have to set out on an internal journey beyond my sense of "self?,across the powerful currents of class, caste, culture, religion, gender and privilege, in order to finally reach the Other shore ? where Amina baji, Binod bhai and all the other teachers and students of Talimi Haq School wait for me to come and celebrate Eid festival with them as true brothers and sisters. I look inside myself. I am afraid of this journey. I am afraid to see reality as it is. I am afraid of starting this self- stabbing process that would cut through layers and layers of my sense of "I" and finally expose all the contradictions of my experiences in India as a foreign scholar and English teacher in India, who shifts between two worlds: the world of the Hindu upper- middle classes and the world of the Muslim basti- dwellers.

It?s almost Eid. I need to go across the river and visit the teachers and students at Talimi Haq School. Outside, the monsoon rain falls gently. I?m at Ramaswamy?s upper- middle- class family house in Kolkata. The city of Kolkata, historically known as Calcutta, was set up as an English trading post in 1690 on the eastern bank of the river Hooghly. It grew and expanded from a cluster of three villages named Sutanuti, Gobindopur and Kalikata to become one of the most important colonial capitals of the British Raj in India. Raj is a Hindi word that means rule. During and after British colonial rule of India, Calcutta has experienced major migration influxes, which contributed to the cosmopolitan character of this city. Ramaswamy?s family house was built after his grandparents decided to move to Calcutta from South India, via Bombay. His grandfather had purchased a plot of land and built this two- storied house on it. Ramaswamy had showed me a few photos of when his family had first moved into the house. The neighbourhood comprised mostly of empty plots of land but now it is full of houses. I look around the room I?m staying: a wide square room with three windows, a large mattress on the floor in the middle, a computer desk, two wardrobes, a dressing table with a big mirror, and two doors. One door faces west and it leads to a small corridor that connects to the living room. The living room has a couch and three chairs encircling a small table, shelves full of Ramaswamy?s varied collection of books, an old photo of Mahatma Gandhi sitting among a massive crowd, a statue of the Buddhist deity Manjushri, and his family?s collection of statues of various Hindu gods and goddesses and antique ritual objects. The other door in my room faces south, which leads to Ramaswamy?s comfortable and relaxing wide- view veranda. In this special space, I have had many important conversations with Ramaswamy and his friend Nilanjan, about life in Kolkata and other existential topics. This veranda is painted in a mild, relaxing green and is supported by a structural column. One of the three windows in my room faces south towards the veranda, the other two face east, towards the neighbor?s house. Opposite the south facing window, there is a dressing table with a big mirror that is half- covered with a thin white sheet. On top of the dresser stand most of my books, and the books lent to me by Ramaswamy. There are books on the Ganges river, the Hooghly river,

on the history of Calcutta, the Portuguese and the Bandel Church, post- colonialism, Buddhism, Christianity and now as I take a close look at my collection, I notice that there are no books about Islam or Muslim cultures. This is quite perplexing since I used to work with the teachers and students at Talimi Haq School who are all Muslims. Although there are about 23.3 million Muslims in China, according to the 2010 Pew Research Center data, my ethnic Han Chinese family upbringing did not really educate me about the existence of Muslims in China and around the world. My family was more into Chinese folk Buddhism (from my father?s side) and Evangelical Christianity (from my mother?s side). After my parents migrated to Portugal, I was admitted into a Portuguese public school. It was during Portuguese history classes that I was taught how Muslim "invaders" from North Africa had conquered almost the whole of the Iberian Peninsula until the Catholic kingdoms united and expelled them. I was taught how "we? (although I was considered to be an "oriental?), expelled the "Others,? the Muslim invaders from North Africa. I was confused during this section of History class. On the slightly brighter side, there was a small section in the History book that taught about the rich cultural, linguistic and scientific contributions made by these Muslim "invaders? to Portugal. For instance, I learned how Muslims introduced new architectural styles, efficient water irrigation techniques, promoted the planting of orange, lemon and olive trees in the southern region of Portugal and popularized the use of Arabic numerals as a substitute to Roman numerals. Who were these "invaders? actually? Let?s say a person is born in Portugal into a Muslim family, would they still be considered Muslim "invaders?? History got even more confusing after 9/ 11 happened. My child- like mind, exposed to the terrifying images of the destruction of the Twin Towers on the media, was immediately held captive by the post- 9/ 11 global wave of fear, ignorance and anti- Muslim propaganda about how Muslim equals Terrorist. I remember becoming very afraid of Muslims and all that was related to Islam. Then I went on to college in the U.S. when I was eighteen- years- old.

BRIEFHISTO RIES:TheStonewall Uprising Demonstrators chased police around the corners of Christopher Street until the crowd eventually dispersed. By 4 AM Christopher Street was cleared.

By Dubian Ade It was a Friday night in June, 1969. The crowd of drag and street queens, transgender, lesbian, bisexual, and gay siblings gathered quietly outside the door of the Stonewall Inn awaiting entry. If you were LGBTQ in New York City, Stonewall was the only place you could go if you wanted to dance openly. Gay bars were formally outlawed and by the late 1960s a city crackdown was under way. The only reason why the little establishment was allowed to exist was because of the small weekly cash envelopes exchanged on the corners of Christopher Street to keep the police away. Because of their underground nature, gay bars became monopolies for organized crime. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the Genovese crime family. Stonewall?s condition was poorly kept and its customers were generally exploited. The operation tapped into the most marginalized groups in Manhattan. The place had no liquor licence, there were no fire exits and no running water. Alcohol was watered down and police raids were frequent and humiliating. But Stonewall quickly became the hub for LGBTQ nightlife and attracted all kinds of people from closeted Wall Street executives to low- income sex workers. The bar did not make its money on alcohol sales. The bar made its money through the blackmail of closeted Wall Street employees. Mafia activity took place upstairs where drug sales and sex work also provided revenue. LGBTQ people of color were regulars at Stonewall. Trans women of color in particular played an important role in leading the eventual insurrection. Their names are Miss Major Griffin- Gracy, Marsha P Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera. At about 1:20 AM on June 28th, 1969 eight New York City police officers raided the bar. During a raid all of the lights would come on and customers were forced to line- up with their IDs. Women who were not wearing three pieces of "feminine? clothing were immediately arrested. People dressed in full drag were escorted to the bathroom by a police officer to confirm their gender. After the harassment and molestation, some people were free to go.

The following Saturday night thousands of people gathered outside of Stonewall. Some people returned from the night before, while others had heard of the rebellion and came out of curiosity. Street queens, trans and homeless sex workers gathered where there was nowhere else to go. The crowd spilled onto adjacent streets. Marsha P. Jonson (Left) and Sylvia Rivera (Right) On this night however, the people refused to cooperate. Trans people and drag queens refused to be escorted to the bathroom. Queer women and men refused to provide ID. LGBTQ people of color resisted excessive police force. Lesbians fought off police frisks and sexual advances. People who were allowed to leave did not leave right away and began gathering in large numbers outside of Stonewall. Over 150 people surrounded the outside of the bar. Officers had decided to arrest everyone who remained in the building, but patrol forces had not yet arrived on the scene. It was the tipping point; the straw that broke the camel?s back. The first real resistance came from trans customers inside of the bar. One lesbian woman was escorted out of the bar and into a police wagon. She complained repeatedly that her handcuffs were too tight. She was pushed forward. She shoved back. There was a struggle. The woman was then struck in the head with a billy club. The crowd frothed at the mouth. Bottles were thrown from all directions. Windows were broken. Tires were slashed. Wagons were turned over. The crowd had multiplied to over 600 people, with more arriving from neighboring streets. The trans women who were shoved into the police wagons escaped, some running back inside Stonewall. Black trans woman Miss Major Griffin- Gracy fought alongside other trans women of color until she was struck in the head by a police officer and taken into custody. Street marches began against the police, with trans women and drag queens doing Rockette style kick routines singing: "we are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls.? Everything inside of the Stonewall Inn was completely smashed. Fires were started. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, was at the front lines of the struggle along with Puerto Rican trans woman Sylvia Rivera who was one of the first to a throw bottle a the police. "Im not missing a minute of this, its the revolution! ? she yelled.

The police arrived soon after. Garbage cans were lit on fire. Bricks were hurled. The Rockette kick lines had started again as Marsha P. Johnson climbed on top of a lamp post and dropped a heavy bag onto the roof of a police car. Windows were shattered in exploding molotov bottles. When police seized demonstrators the crowd convulsed to take them back. Many demonstrators were beaten bloody by police officers. Sporadic actions had continued for days afterward. By Wednesday night a crowd of over a thousand people gathered again outside of Stonewall where the violent struggle against the police continued until Thursday morning. When the smoke cleared, the modern LBGTQ movement had been begun. Many LBGTQ organizations were formed soon after the Stonewall Rebellion, including the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance. Most importantly was the formation of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) founded by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, which helped homeless trans youth and sex workers. Miss Major Griffin- Gracy would establish the Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) many years later. Over the years the Stonewall Rebellion has been whitewashed and appropriated by the white male homosexual community. Gay liberation movements following the aftermath of Stonewall have intentionally excluded transgender women of color and erased their leading role in the movement. The story of Stonewall has been told for the purpose of centering cist gay white men, which is not historically accurate. It must be understood and accepted that transgender women of color were at the forefront of the events that took place on June 28th 1969.

Cl air de Lu n e

(?MĂši ? u ? ? Xanh ? Illustration by Sophia Terazawa)

By Sophia Terazawa

Decolonizing love requires awe. Oracles would have me thinking otherwise. Recognize strangers touching dead bodies as another kind of embrace, and the camera watches strangers sending bullets hugging strangers as voyeur, a drone kissing children in the field. The fire takes it all. I?m tired. Are you? My uncles were oracles. My uncles carried ships on their backs. Once, they swam like queens, my uncles. The water takes it all. * Before I even learn how to walk, my mother tosses me into the shallow end of a pool. To survive in this world, she knows I must learn how to drown.

Appropriationof History/Histories/ By Ariel Lawrence The sun never sets on the British Empire; according to colonial rhetoric nor did it cease to exist. The denial of colonized histories was a strategic method for maintaining the History of the colonizers superiority. This method exemplifies the level to which the term Appropriation was transformed during colonialism. "Colonial discourse thus transfers the locus of desire onto the colonized object itself. It appropriates territory while it also appropriates the means by which such acts of appropriation are to be understood." (Spurr, 28). Therefore, by delegitimizing the value of the colonized history, colonialism appropriates History itself, even denying the colonizer's own history before conquest as antiquity; the colonizer and their progeny begin their Historical life by conquest. What the colonizer was not aware of during this process was that by establishing colonial history as both universal and ceaseless, the status of colonizer can never be removed. The reality of the colonial relationship is that one cannot exist without the other, and this dependency, though systemically unequal for the colonized, still holds the colonizer in relation to the oppressed; the History of the colonizer without the muted presence of the colonized is hollow and profitless since it is the very negation of colonized which shapes the experience of the colony. It is this colonial relationship, unable to sustain itself, that led the the colonizer of yesterday to create the narrative of metaphysical racism- that still stigmatizes the colonized body- that leads the colonizer of the Post- Colonial to use appropriation to rationalize its affects today. To be sure it is quite tiring to maintain the racist structures required to rob a people of their history and try to continue to coexist with them today. To maintain these structures, which demands "all efforts of the colonists" to make the colonized "socially immobile" (Memmi, 74) the colonizer will always resort to colonial racism as a rationale for his unjust actions. This colonial racism in reality is "neither biological or metaphysical but social and historical" (Memmi, 131), however its pluralistic application over the colonized body

creates a narrative where the mere difference of culture between the colonizer and the colonized is mapped as an inherent negative for the oppressed. By first signifying the "gulf" between the colonizer and colonized and then exploiting that difference so that it serves the interest of the colonizer and makes "fact" the backwardness of the colonized, a mythology of inhumanity stigmatizes the "colonized's basic nature" (Memmi, 71). Therefore if the colonized society is in fact "diseased," that disease is blamed on that of the colonized in order to maintain that the colonizer is ultimately "healthy.? The modern interpretation of this same practice is presented in Spurr's text as the colonized's desire to be appropriated. After citing writing that praises Third World practices for mimicking that of the West, Spurr writes "The West seeks its own identity in Third World attempts at imitating it; It finds its own image, idealized, in the imperfect copies fabricated by other cultures" (Spurr, 36). Similar to the rationalization by the colonizer that he is superior that the colonized are inherently lacking, the Post- Colonial stretches it further to say that Third World mimicry of the West solidifies that superiority as fact. The West's "gesture of appropriation which represents itself as the desire to be appropriated" (Spurr, 39) seeks to root the colonizer's justifications of his actions in the very hearts of the colonized; it implores the oppressed to not only accept their role as the colonized, but to love it, and in turn, love the colonizer (Memmi, 37). This need to be loved, the desire to be appropriated and see Western ideology ring throughout colonized lands, is an attempt on the colonizer to see itself as singular and spectacular having robbed the colonized and themselves from any identity outside the colonial imagination, a desperate last attempt to live in the decaying colonial society. The appropriation of colonized history required a metageography that linked the colonized body to the colonized land and created from that conflation a language which appropriates both. To understand the "primitive" nature of the colonized, the colonizer compresses its attitudes of the colonized body with the physical landscape, both of which in the "Western psychology," according to Chinua Achebe, are set up as a "foil...a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison [with] Europe's own state of spiritual grace" (Conrad/ Norton, 337). In Heart of Darkness the natives of the Congo are often described with

the same ambiguous language applied to the landscape. "I made out deep in the tangled gloom," Conrad writes, "naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes- the bush was swarming with human limbs in movement, glistening, of bronze colour" (Conrad, 45). Marlowe views the native people and the wilderness as one entity, drowning in the "prehistoric" nature of their existence. Despite his confession that the river Thames had also "been on of the dark places of the Earth" (Conrad, 5) it is with the vantage point of modernity which allows him to judge the land and people as "savage." This necessity to, as Spurr describes, "establish a connection between the moral standing of a people and its climatic evironment" (Spurr, 41) is an act of negation in which the colonizer, confined to the space of the colony and removed from his mother country, must reestablish domination in Europe's geographical superiority. Imperialism is established then in cartography, in the dynamic of the centre and periphery, so that the "mother country," being inherently Europe, will "eternally remain the mother country" (Memmi, 62). Despite the material wealth gained from colonized territories and all of the social and economic benefits the colonizer gains from being in the colony, the space must never be regarded above the mother country which acts as a "collective super- ego" for the colonizers. Colonized land is then marked as chaotic and the mother country as the home of "moral and logic" (Memmi, 60). This again, is a rationalization required for the sustaining of the colony. If the colony, once filled with promise of enterprise for the colonizer ultimately fails, it is not because of the inevitable crumbling of the colonial society but it is because of the moral lack imposed by the native people. Therefore, just like the dark jungle of Conrad's Congo, it is the stolen land and oppressed people who are the ultimate cause for Kurtz's mental depravity. To solidify the very landscape of the colony as inherently inferior to the Western mother country justifies the West's constant rewriting and muting of History. The reality that the colonized is "condemned to lose his memory" (Memmi, 103). Their history is "assigned [and] certainly not of his people" (Memmi, 105), they speak a language which was not created for them, celebrate holidays which do not acknowledge them, and exists in a system which, even at its most basic function, depends on their spiritual death. The implication of this is a Historical amnesia created by the colonial imagination which entraps both the colonized and the colonizer to always be dependent on one another, since there was never a real time, according to colonialism, that the two were not locked in this endless power struggle.

ToTheO fficers By Leah Grady Sayvetz On a Tuesday morning in early November, on my way driving to work, I was stopped at the bottom of Elm street by a traffic jam, not atypical for 8am on a week day. Thinking nothing of it, I patiently waited for vehicles to move on so that I could pull out onto Floral Ave. The car ahead of me seemed somewhat thoughtless in how they had stopped across a lane of traffic on Floral and did not appear to be moving. An elderly black man turned up Elm, having just come from the Martin Luther King Blvd bridge, and stopped his car next to mine to let out his passenger, a middle- aged black man. As I saw these two men say good bye, I realized that the driver of the car ahead of me, a white man, had just jumped out of his vehicle and was now pointing a gun at the younger of the two black men. It suddenly became clear that we were surrounded by undercover police. Dear Officers, That Tuesday, did you feel like you did your job well, pursued justice, kept our community safe, by staging this surprise arrest of my neighbor, a black man? Had you been told- perhaps you yourselves had even collected evidence to suggest or confirm- that this individual was committing crimes? Did these supposed crimes have anything to do with illegal drugs? Were they violent or nonviolent crimes? I want us to stop and think, first, before even answering these questions. Before even asking them, really. For here we are on a Tuesday morning in rush hour traffic and here is the scene you have staged for everyone to watch and learn: You are armed white men pointing guns at a black man. What message does this send to those of us who happen to drive by? To those of us who are white, does it perhaps reinforce the myth that blackness is criminal? To those of us who are white does it perhaps reinforce the myth that black lives don?t matter? I would claim yes. To anyone driving by who is a person of color, does this scene perhaps reinforce the very real fear that they or their loved ones could be stopped by the police at any time for little or no reason at all, to have guns pointed at them, to be interrogated, dehumanized, shot, killed? What about black and brown children in the car being driven to school, who see you with your guns pointed at a black man this morning? You know that these children hear the news so often of yet another black body slain by police or security guards with no criminal prosecution of the murderer. What kind of fear do you think your show of force this morning instills in these beautiful children? A real and founded fear. Ok, now if you?ve thought about that, but you still feel justified because you were doing your job to ?fight crime,? I want us to have this conversation: How can you call ANYTHING that my neighbor may be accused of a CRIME, when the real and monstrously enormous crimes of our governments and corporations go unchecked and unaddressed? The real crime is every single mother, father, and child without adequate housing. The real crime is every child not fed good healthy food. The real crime is every youth, every adult, not employed, not employed meaningfully, not paid a living wage. The real crimes is mass incarceration of people of color, of poor folks. The real crime is the theft of trillions of dollars from US tax payers to build weapons, to invade other countries, to torture. The real crime is our governments?complete disregard for Native treaties, leaving our Native brothers and sisters without land, homes, food, work, clean air, clean water, clean soil. The real crime is the imprisonment and forced slave labor of over 2 million people in our country, most for nonviolent offenses, for crimes of poverty, for the crime of being abandoned and targeted by the system, for the crime of being black, for the crime of being poor. The real crime is so many millions of Americans who don?t have access to health care. The real crime is Wall Street making billions of dollars off the whole mess, off of even our visits to the doctor. The real crime is mothers and fathers who fled here for their lives and their children?s lives, who are being deported and taken from their families. The real crime is our export of violence and poverty to resource- rich countries so that we can enjoy cheap fossil fuels and cheap factory goods. The real crime is our flying drones which kill children, fathers, mothers, blowing up wedding parties, tribal counsel assemblies, assassinating anyone anywhere in the world without due process. The real crime is our rape of the earth, our extraction of fossil fuels, releasing carbon into Earth?s atmosphere in quantities to ensure the planet?s warming and climate catastrophe. The real crime is White Supremacy which built this country by the massacre, enslavement and displacement of its original inhabitants, by the kidnapping and enslavement of 12.5 million Africans (?How Many Slaves Entered The US?? Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jan. 6, 2014. theroot.com). The list of crimes goes on, far beyond the end of this paragraph, beyond the end of this page. When will our law enforcement begin to address these?

O nBokoHaram By Umeek Adams

What is Boko Haram? What will they do? What they?ve done all along? Boko Haram (which loosely translates to western education is a sin) is a militant islamic group that was founded in Borno, Nigeria in 2002 by a young, charismatic preacher named Mohammed Yusuf. He believed Imperialists had imposed an un- Islamic or western way of life upon Muslims in 1914 when Nigeria was formed by British colonial authorities. The concept was to impose Sharia law (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria turning it into a Islamic State. It?s important to note before 2009 Boko Haram didn?t use violence as their tactic to overthrow the government. That all changed after a "crackdown? in July 2009 when members of the group refused to follow a motorbike helmet law and were brutalized by Nigerian police. This led to an armed uprising in the northern state of Bauchi against authorities and spread into Borno, Yobe, and Kano which resulted in the slaughtering of 800 people. Mohammed Yusuf peacefully surrendered to police during the "crackdown? was arrested, interrogated and shortly after executed after police claim he attempted to escape but witnesses say it was a extrajudicial killing. Following the slaying of their leader Boko Haram went underground. They conducted kidnappings, bank robberies, and other illegal activities to finance the group and stockpile weapons. They emerged just a year later with a new leader named Abubakar Shekau whose character would usher in a new wave of militant tactics Nigerians would come to describe as"pure evil.? Boko Haram would earn the infamous title of Deadliest Terrorist Group in the world. In September 7, 2010 50 militants attacked a prison killing five and releasing 700 inmates. Shekau implemented more terroristic tactics in August 2011, when a suicide bomber rammed a car into a United Nation Headquarters in Abuja killing 23 people and injuring more than 75 others. After this attack in 2011 the CIA, FBI, and The Justice department all urged for Boko Haram to be added to the list of foreign terrorist organizations, but a State Department under Hillary Clinton declined to have them added to the list. It wasn?t until 2014 that Boko Haram was added to the list after 276 girls were abducted in the middle of the night from their school dormitory (some escaped in events following but 219 remain missing). The abductions started a worldwide outcry. In the years since Boko Haram has killed thousands of Nigerians in mass gatherings of people such as markets and refugee camps using suicide bombers. Boko Haram has sold at least 2,000 women and girls into sex slavery, and burned down countless villages and churches displacing 1.6 million people. What's the difference between Boko Haram/ ISIS and colonists/ imperialists? The only difference is we can acknowledge one's ?pure evil? nature and hold them accountable and the other we DON'T! We will continue to live in a society with deception, greed, and terror, that was built on deception, greed, and terror.

O nBokoHaram

DoYouFindUsUnsettling? By The Decolonizer So, you find The Decolonizer to be unsettling eh?

The Decolonizer says: Good. That means that it is working. Colonizing settlers who live on Indigenous lands should never feel comfortable. Colonizing settlers who had benefited from chattel slavery should never feel comfortable. Colonizing settlers who benefit from global white supremacy should never feel comfortable. You'd give anything to be comfortable here. Here, in this place made of blood and flesh and bone. This hollowed out carcass one is supposed to call a country. We are uncomfortable here every day. Imagine the discomfort of being impaled by the steel columns of United States white supremacist settler colonialism. Imagine what it feels like to be a person of color in prison, in the barrio, on a reservation. Imagine what it feels like to have someone erase your name. To be Black, Brown, and woman. To be trans, Black and homeless.

You should be as unsettled as we are. Your comfort means everything to you. With guns you have taught us how to value your comfort. That we must keep our mouths and legs shut. That when you slide the knife into us, we must not scream. We must take it, repeatedly, and not make a sound. Many have bled to death trying to keep you comfortable. You taught us that your comfort is a valuable resource. When we are told "you are one of the good ones, you are not like the others" we know it means: "I am comfortable around you. You are obedient and fit to eat the crumbs off of my dinner plate." Many Uncle Tom's have died trying to eat the crumbs. You taught us that making white people feel uncomfortable could be the difference between life or death. When we walk into a store or walk down the street we had better not look suspicious.

You taught us that your comfort kills.

And it does not matter what we do. Because the fact that we are still breathing is enough to insight discomfort in you.

You are amazed at our benevolence. You are fearful of our anger. You worry about our retaliation.

When white domination is made into the status quo any interruption of power is likely to feel uncomfortable for you.

And when we do retaliate, when we decide to resist the oppression we are faced with on a daily basis, you have always reacted violently. You have smothered our voices. You have punished us for expressing our anger as you continue to destroy us. You have ousted us for refusing to cooperate with you, for refusing to be dominated. You have censored us, thrown us in jail, killed us.

You are only comfortable when you are dominating. You are only comfortable when we are dominated. Because that is how it has always been. Because people are comfortable with what they know. Because you are used to lives being measured by your comfort level. Whole economies have been built around your comfort. Homes and fences and cars have been built. Amenities, fancy restaurants, exotic vacation getaways, full body massages: your comfort is capital. And police, lets not forget police! Police everywhere. Around the corner, at the door, down the hall, safeguarding your comfort. Protecting you and your property. Police keeping you safe, making you feel comfortable. With police around you don't have to do any of the killing. They'll do it for you!

The settler colonial state is built around your comfort. The settler colonial project has always been about your comfort. In fact, it has gone through great pains to convince you that you are a citizen of the United States. That you belong here. That this is your country. It has fed you tales of history that make you feel comfortable here. It has passed laws that make you feel comfortable khere. It has fought wars to make you feel comfortable here.

But lets face it, you aren't REALLY comfortable here. If you were you wouldn't need any of these things. No, you are not really comfortable here, because you know that you shouldn't be here. You'd give anything to forget what has happened here. Where ever you walked you've had to step over the dead bodies to get there. Whenever you have eaten you have had to rinse the blood off of your hands. You'd give anything to be comfortable here. You are uneasy. You are apprehensive. You are nervous. You know that at any moment we might be justified in bringing the violence to you that you have brought to us.

You have told us that we make you feel uncomfortable. We are done being the casualties of your comfort.

The Decolonizer cares so little about your comfort that it is laughable. Do you find us unsettling? Did you actually think The Decolonizer gives two shits about your comfort? If you are unsettled perhaps it is because we want you to be. Maybe then you will be motivated to unsettle this country. There is another meaning for the word "unsettling." Unsettling, as in perpetually insurrectional in opposition to United States empire. Unsettling, as in the abolition of settler colonial white supremacy. Unsettling, as in dismantling the structure of colonial white supremacist patriarchy. Unsettling, as in interrupting the voice of white supremacist domination. Unsettling, as in removing the oppressive occupation of indigenous lands.

"Unsettle," you know, as in end your occupation on this land and/ or get the f* * * out. This country needs to be unsettled. Everyone in this country should be unsettled. And if you are not uncomfortable yet then you are probably part of the problem. The Decolonizer is not here to comfort you or hold your hand. You are not supposed to feel good about colonization, you are supposed to do something about it.

HowTo's HowtoStageaCoup A coup is an organized over throw of a government or administrative structure. The coup aims to uninstall an oppressive and exploitative regime in order to put a new structure in place. There are many examples of non-violent coups throughout history. For instance, the Philippine Revolution of 1986 forcefully removed the repressive regime of President Ferdinand Marcos with out any bloodshed. However, given the nature of repressive governments, many times coups do require the use of armed force. Coups must always be popular movements supported by a large majority of the people. If a coup is not supported by the masses it is not morally sound. Many unpopular coups have been supported by the United States government in order to usurp democratically elected administrations and install puppet governments. Such actions are counter-revolutionary and can expect to come up against resistance from the people.

Step 1: Identify the reasons for the Coup Begin by building a case for the insurrection. Outline the failures of the current administration, the corruption and the repression in detail. Highlight the ways in which the repressive government has violated the rights of the people. Also, highlight the ways in which the repressive government refuses to concede its power and therefore leaves the people with no other option. The case for the insurrection should be easily accessible to the people.

Step 2: Build Popular Support for the Coup The most important step in this process is to build out popular support from the people. This would involve the organization of rallies, actions, assemblies, and anti-government campaigns. Popular support can also come in the form of resources. When one has exhausted all forms of non-violent protest and has built a considerable base of popular support, all of the pieces are in place to begin with the organizing of the coup.

Step 3: Make Clandestine Preparations for the coup Meetings for the actual planing of the coup should be underground. Make sure people invited can be trusted. Scrutinize all information received. Obtain detailed information of all the administrators and the floor plan of the administrative building if possible. Have this information ready yet do not rely on this information. Identify if weapons will be needed and at what capacity. Set possible dates. Finally, agree to leave the fate of the new governmental structure to the people. Do not plan to install into power any member of the planing group. Assume that the current administration already knows a coup will be taking place. Plan accordingly. Have an exit strategy.

Step 4: Organize a Campaign of Escalation Organize a series of street protest designed to escalate the situation between the administration and the people. Each street protest in the campaign is meant to build momentum and maximize the popular support already in place for a coup.

Step 5: Conduct the Coup On the very last day of the campaign, rally the people to storm the streets of the administrative building. Lead the people to enter the building if possible. If not possible lead a separate group that can enter from a different entrance. Rush the administrators and remove them from power.

EidIsAcrossTheRiver By Jie Wu The ferry continues journeying forward. I see two black spots in the middle of the river. The ferry is going straight into these objects. What are these? Floating objects or people swimming in the river? I turn my head and I try to watch this closely. I wonder if I should warn the ferryman about it. I look at the ferryman, he looks like he is seeing it but he acts as if nothing is there. I look around, everybody is acting normal. In the meanwhile, the ferry is getting closer and closer. I prepare myself for any crashing sound. No crashing sounds, no screams, nothing. I look into the river below. Young tanned males started climbing up the sides of the ferry. They grab the hanging tires and climb up. Almost naked and wearing some swimming shorts, they climb on top of the ferryman?s cabin, splashing water all around and decide to jump? I remember how Farida baji told me about one of her cousins who died while swimming in the Hooghly river. The Hooghly river is known to be quick and merciless at taking lives, specially the lives of young slum- dwellers who decide to swim in it. The ferryman turns off the noisy diesel engine and turns sideways to park in the ferry dock. There are many young males swimming in the river. One male swimming in between the ferry and the dock lets out a loud scream, pretending to have been stuck in between. I looked to check, he disappeared into the water. Other passengers hurriedly walk out of the ferry. I notice that a few others walk out with a smile, admiring the young swimmers and the fun they are having. I think to myself, I wished I could swim in the river like these boys without caring about death and disease. The ferry has arrived in Ramkrishnapur Ghat, on the western bank of the Hooghly river. This ghat is also known as Chintamani De Ghat and it has recently been renovated by the Howrah Municipal Corporation. Groups of young males are swimming in the river, enjoying themselves. Some older males are taking a bath in the river and others are washing their clothes. Further away, a woman is washing the dishes with the river water. Under the banyan tree, a group of males relax and are playing cards. I notice that there are several empty rickshaws parked on the side of the road. Many rickshaw pullers living in the neighboring slums don?t have adequate access to water and sanitation, therefore they come to the river to fulfill their basic needs like bathing, washing clothes and sometimes toilet. I exit the ferry, cross a short pathway and I hand out my ferry

ticket to the ticket man who rips it apart. Pieces of ferry tickets fall like snow into the river below. I step out of the ghat, some rickshaw- pullers immediately come and ask me if I want a ride to G.T. Road. Some are familiar faces because I used to ride the rickshaw a lot which costs me usually around 10- 20 rupees. I decide to walk towards G.T. Road, the road which leads to Talimi Haq School in Priya Manna Basti. The famous G.T. Road or Grand Trunk Road is one of Asia?s oldest and longest roads connecting South Asia with Central Asia. It spans from its eastern end in Shibpur, Howrah to its western end in Peshawar, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, and was built by the ruler Sher Shah. The present name "Grand Trunk Road? has been attributed to the British colonizers who used this road to assert their dominion over South Asia. Much earlier and even during Mauryan times (322 to 185 B.C.E), a big portion of this road was named as "Uttarapatha? which translates to "The Road to North? from Sanskrit. This was a historical trade path along the Ganges river, going towards former empires in Central Asia. Xuan Zhang, the Buddhist pilgrim- traveler, is said to have travelled along this historical road while visiting kingdoms in South and Central Asia during his long journey from China to India. I stroll past old industrial buildings, a Hindu burning ground and a Hindu basti to finally arrive at G.T. Road. I take a left turn and start walking towards Priya Manna Basti which is located opposite the Howrah Jute Mill. Priya Manna Basti used to be a large vacant plot of land located near the Hooghly river. During the British colonial period, it was owned by two Englishmen named John and James Chew who later passed away in a horse carriage accident. Their heirs decided to sell it to Jitendranath Manna. With the rise of Howrah Mills, Ganges Jute Mill and Burn Standard & Company, migrant workers started arriving in Howrah and they paid rent to put up huts in areas like Priya Manna Basti. I have arrived near the betel shop where they sell breath fresheners and chewing tobacco, I turn right into a small alley and I have officially arrived at Priya Manna Basti. As I walk straight, there is a small tea shop where middle- aged Muslim men sit and sip milky tea. A little further on my left side, a young teenager is forcing food into a goat. With his left arm, he held the goat and with

his right hand he pushed the food into the unwilling goat. He says "Hello? with a half- curious, half- mocking tone and we shared a handshake. With a small head- nod, I continue walking and turn left. Teacher Amina?s brother sat in front of his snack shop conversing with his neighbors. I come towards him and greet him with "As- Salaam- Alaikum,? we share a handshake and I see his wife crouched in the kitchen. I also greet her with "As- Salaam- Alaikum.? She replies with a small head- nod as she continues cooking. Their little daughter Angel is sleeping inside. I continue walking towards Talimi Haq School which is located right opposite Amina brother?s shop. I climb a dark staircase without any light and I have finally reached my destination ? Talimi Haq School. 6. As I walked into Talimi Haq School?s half- open door, Amina and Farida turned silent for a few seconds, as if startled. We exchanged our common Urdu greetings with "As- Salaam- Alaikum." I saw Amina wiping away her tears and with a contained smile, she asked me why I didn?t come to visit the school for almost a week. I replied, "Sorry baji (elder sister), I was very busy writing some essays.? I looked at Amina and noticed that her face was a little swollen and she looked sick. "Are you feeling ok baji?? I asked. "No bhai (brother), I?m not feeling well.? My mind started wondering whether I had come to visit Talimi Haq School at an improper time. There were no students around; it was very silent and depressing. After a moment of silence, Amina resumed her conversation with Farida. As I saw both of them continuing their conversation, my mind slowly relaxed. At least Amina baji was not faking that everything is well, that she was not suffering. "This is a sign of trust,? I thought to myself. Ms. Amina Khatoon, whom students and teachers call "Amina baji?, is a first generation descendant of a migrant worker who moved to Howrah. Her father, a Bengali Muslim from a village in Murshidabad, had decided to shift to Howrah in order to have more income to sustain the whole family which included his parents, wife and three children. After her father took a job as a home guard in Howrah, the rest of the family joined him to make a living in Priya Manna Basti.

ALoveNoteToIthaca By Bud Gankhuyag

I write this and speak to honor the lives stolen by police brutality and racism and to interrogate the structures that house the people who practice murder as an institutional weapon against people of color. From Cleveland, Ohio, where Tamir Rice was gunned down by police in a matter of seconds, to Hempstead, Texas, where Sandra Bland was falsely arrested and ?found? dead in her cell, to our very own Ithaca and Binghamton, where the families of Shawn Greenwood, Keith Shumway and Salladin Barton have had to bury their loved ones murdered by local law enforcement, the same enforcement that patrols your streets every day.

As locals put on their 9- 5 clothes and pretend that our town is forgiven from historical trauma, as shoppers and pedestrians across town pursue their next material item, we must rise and shout out that business cannot go on as usual, because the inaction behind everyday events is a silent approval of the injustice that is equally an everyday event. So when they say "business must go on,? they might as well be honest and say "white supremacy must go on.?

All the meanwhile, our city promotes itself as the beacon of liberal and progressive values. They say that Ithaca is 10 square miles surrounded by reality, but in truth, the reality is all around us! Is your progressivism really effective when you would rather promote your organic farm than actually acknowledge the land as that of the Cayuga Nation, a nation that has still to this day not been recognized as sovereign in their native homeland?

Is it really meaningful when the same federal tax dollars that pave our roads and fund our schools is from the same pool of money that sends missiles to towns in Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan and abroad? What about their roads, their infrastructure, their schools?

So let us throw the veil out and see what is really taking place here: the people of this town would rather practice yoga and sip on their imported tea than speak out against Islamophobia and anti- Sikh violence. People in this town find that a better use of their time is not going to a black lives matter rally but to reggae night, salsa night, or any other multicultural event that lets them feel less racist. Being apolitical is itself a political choice.

If you are someone who helps keep Ithaca ignorant and complacent, then be honest with yourself and say that you are part of the problem. In this town and all across America, injustice does not only drag on. It continually reproduces itself when people choose to take no stand against it. So I urge everyone to pop their conceptual bubble of Ithaca, rethink your own positions in structures of power, and decide if you either want to resist against forces that marginalize and subjugate people of color everyday, or continue to be a faceless cog in the machine of white supremacy.

TheColonizer andtheColonizedinthePost-Colonial By Ariel Lawrence It is imperative that we first acknowledge we are in fact children of the Post- Colonial. Our proximity with colonization can not be compared to that of a century ago. The beast has reformed and reshaped itself, not to the point where it is unrecognizable, but distorted and normalized. The influence of colonial discourse shapes the very way we begin to think about oppression, whether it be of others or ourselves. Its discursive language mandates how we name ourselves, its mythological imagery paints our bodies and manipulates our self fashioning; its past, successes and failures, frames the view of our futures. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a view of colonialism in antiquity when "vegetation rioted the earth and the big trees were kings." Society no longer permits its members to speak of the landscape and cultures of colonized peoples with the same brutal honesty as Marlowe narrates. Since the emergence of colonialist critique, Africans are no longer just "savage," no longer described as "black shadows of disease" with "faces like grotesque masks". However, the sentiments which shaped the structures that permitted such language have not died, nor have they been subdued by the might of academia. It continues to thrive, and it thrives on its children. David Spurr concludes his text on colonial discourse in journalism and travel writing by citing that the ultimate resistance to colonialism requires the "intervention of forces outside of the West" meaning "new structures that combine and transcend what already exists." The reason why we cannot imagine a world beyond those structures is because as a collective, the Post- Colonial has been robbed of its histories. Colonialism feeds off the idea that Empire is eternal, that it has, in our History, always been there and always will be. This broken historical imagination entraps both the colonizer and the colonized in dehumanization. Although we are aware of a time when colonialism did not exist, that time, for both the colonizer and the colonized, is placed on the pedestal of antiquity, unable to be touched or approached. Despite the celebration of the colonizer's past or the exoticization of the colonized's "premodernization", neither period

is functional for either group today. "The liquidation of colonization," Albert Memmi writes, "is but a prelude to complete liberation, to self- recovery" (Memmi, 151) and while colonial discourse moves the process forward another step, it brings the Post- Colonial society no closer to its ultimate goal. The need is to imagine beyond colonialism in order to remember past the West.

Colonizer In Ithaca, we wade through a field of leftist colonizers. Color blind Ideology and the myth of the "post- racial" society has created a wave of disavowal for this country's racial history and its imperialist present. The word is synonymous with "racist" and, in looking at the reaction of someone after they have been accused, it is almost the worst thing that you can call someone.

"In Ithaca, we wade through a field of leftist colonizers." The image of the colonizer has been strategically distanced from society's self perception, it is pulled backwards to the proud steel- breasted conquistador or the leather whip wielding plantation overseer. These Historical images acknowledge the existence of the colonizer but present it as an abstraction. It is the same blurry image of "The Man", the white patriarchal ghost in the night that takes responsibility for the genocide, rape and terror that so many people want to forget. As Memmi states, the colonizer retains a certain power, divorced from mere politics or economy, that is inherent to the colonial situation; the colonizer maintains the power to attempt refusal. Memmi writes "the colonized is not free to choose between being colonized or not" (Memmi, 86), the only choice provided to the colonized it to accept or die. To be white in this country, and to be "the one who knows" about colonialist discourse, it is a given that they will identify with the colonizer so as to not be seen as ignorant of their privilege. Many students on campus project the persona of the leftist colonizer, they just call themselves liberal.

It is this student, educated in a school system that celebrates Black History Month despite never having to confront the (usually brown skinned) working poor in their neighborhoods; who were raised by parents that taught them to be "hardworking" and "open- minded" individuals like their ancestors; the student whose understanding of colonization is that it was simply an occurrence of the past which can never be repeated. It is these students who, while in the comfort of the collegiate atmosphere, protest for the first time in their lives, mimicking the photographs of the 1950's and 60's despite believing that the work of those decades in fact solve most of society's flaws. These students, take on the role of the colonizer because they can, because it is their burden and discomfort to "refuse [colonial] ideology while continuing to live its actual relationships." (Memmi, 20). The urgency to help oppressed people is an attempt to rationalize their existence, the "destiny" of the colonized matters to the colonizer because "[they] hope to go on living in the colony" (Memmi, 36). While it is acceptable to permit the freedom of the colonized, it is not acceptable for this to exist outside of the narrative of home that is so familiar to the colonizer. One of the most extreme images of the colonizer is that of the paternalist, whose rhetoric, while seemingly toxic, has been completely normalized in the Post- Colonial. Memmi describes the actions of the paternalist as "charitable racism" (Memmi, 76). An offset of "white man's burden," the paternalist sees any contribution to liberation as "gifts and never duties" therefore acknowledging that in the colony "[they] have no duties and the colonized have no rights" (Memmi, 76). In his chapter on appropriation, Spurr cites a description of one colonial officer witnessing the native peoples of the Congo shopping in a European established market place, a sight which moved the officer to become "endowed with the honor of paternity" (Spurr, 33). This perpetuates the idea that colonized people, "acquiescence to the colonial system as approval of Western ideals" and that "a colonized people is morally improved and

O nSterotyping The act of stereotyping succeeds by transferring the reasons for inequality and difference onto the oppressed.

By Bud Gankhuyag

After almost 250 years of slavery (1619- 1865), generations living under Jim Crow, decades of discriminatory housing policy and de jure segregation across the country, and the squalor of millions of men, women, and trans people of color in the prison industrial complex, white people have the audacity to believe that black and Latinx Americans are wholly responsible for the persistence of racial inequality.

Before Malcolm Little became Malcolm X, his complicated life led him from being a top student to being imprisoned for a decade for burglary. His status as an iconoclastic speaker was famously preceded by the fast- paced criminal lifestyle he led in Boston that eventually spiraled into his decade- long incarceration. Even before this period of his life, however, he was once a high- performing, enthusiastic student at Mason Junior High School in Michigan, where he participated in basketball and the debate team, among other activities. One day at school, Malcolm shared with his white male teacher that he wanted to pursue law, only to receive a devastating psychological blow that would affect him for the rest of his life. "He kind of half- smiled and said, "Malcolm, one of life?s first needs is for us to be realistic. Don?t misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you?ve got to be realistic about being a nigger. A lawyer - that?s no realistic goal for a nigger. You need to think about something you can be. You?re good with your hands- making things. Everybody admires your carpentry shop work. Why don?t you plan on carpentry? People like you as a person you?d get all kinds of work.?1 It was then that I began to change - inside. I drew away from white people. I came to class, and I answered when called upon. It became a physical strain simply to sit in Mr. Ostrowski?s class." Having been visibly distraught from these words yet too shaken to confide in others, Malcolm soon after transferred to another school in Boston, only to later drop out and be led into crime, targeted by the police state and branded as another number in the prison industrial complex. Mr. Ostrowski?s words were particularly incisive because they stunned Malcolm?s capacity to make independent judgments of himself. His words forced Malcolm to turn against his own mind, to fall below the thin ice from which he stood into a paralyzing state of cognitive dissonance, unable to sift his personal truth from his teacher?s violent conjecture.

"Grieving is a pattern that is cut and fitted around my mind,? once wrote Sophocles in Electra.2 Similarly, little Malcolm Little was forced to falsely grieve his humanity, complexity and youthful drive, robbed and killed by his teacher as quickly as it first sprout. It was this very insistence, the forcibility of it all, of the racialized ascription of character that led Malcolm to believe those very things being said about him. Stereotyping, or in other words, the culturally endorsed power exercise of the erasure of individuality by a group of people against another, is a more elusive surgical instrument in the master?s toolbox; because it can be neatly packaged in an ostensibly benevolent presentation, it can often be a more effective means of perpetuating oppression than explicit, vitriolic bigotry. Stereotypes are labels that are naturalistically argued and culturally affirmed, deliberately depoliticized in order to accomplish the goal of burying the very politics that creates these stereotypes. The word itself often evokes a phenomenon that supposedly contains no political or historical context, as if the widespread labelling of an entire group of people landed as mere serendipity on the lap of the oppressor. Is the word not the result of a compartmentalizing relegation of an entire factory of historical and political processes to a more isolated form? Does it not at least point to something more than a label?

Similarly, why do men demoralize and objectify women, only to call them sluts or tell them they are at fault when raped? Why is the stereotype that indigenous people are lazy alcoholics still a contemporary cultural artifact? Why do cisgender people continue to estrange transgender people? How many transphobic people have actually met a single transgender person? And all of this stereotyping occurs while we tell ourselves that we are not racist, sexist, or transphobic. It has proved easier for us to colonize, displace, gentrify, appropriate, and depoliticize than to look at ourselves as possible reasons for the condition of today?s world. Seven months into my current occupation, a co- worker approached me and tried to endear me with her observation that I behaved like ?the stereotypical Asian male.? On top of the embarrassment and insult, this moment provided me the confirmation and clarity I needed on how others perceive me in this predominantly white- populated workplace, where I cannot work the same work as my white counterparts without being arbitrarily ascribed a label to which I did not consent. According to white folks, they have personalities, and we are reduced to stereotypes. If I make a misstep, I am given a shrug or ignored altogether; when I succeed, I am showered with praise. I expect the treatment would be different if I were black. Then again, I would also expect the treatment of people of color to be different if white people were not racist.

1 Malcolm

X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as Told to Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine, 1964), 43- 5. 2 Anne Anlin

Cheng, Melancholy of Race (New York: Oxford, 2001), vii.

Report fromKolkata:TheLiberationFront By Sophia E. Terazawa On May 19th, 1890, Ho Chi Minh was born.

I did not want any hand- shaking. I did not want congratulations, and above all, I feared the status of martyrdom granted to a people who had to choose between dying to the sounds of revolution and dying to the silence of bullets passing through. I want to say this again. My mother chose the latter.

On May 19th, 1925, Malcolm X was born.

Here the U.S. Consulate rested its lily white buttocks, where demonstrators rechristened the building?s mailing address after the very country its administration was bombing. As I write this now, the U.S. Consulate still stands on the street named Ho Chi Minh Sarani! This was the triumphant report presented upon my arrival to Kolkata, the beating heart of India?s radical protest movements against imperialism with a fiercely transnational conscious. Only recently seizing independence from the British Empire in 1947, the people of India knew very well that the bloody path to decolonization was far from over. They cheered on a soft spoken poet from Vietnam, as he rallied the small country to fight back against domination by three empires at the same time? France, Japan, and the United States of America. Between 1945 and 1975, Kolkata stood in solidarity with David against Goliath, except David was not biblical in any sense of the righteous word. No, David wore the face of my terrified mother, and she was fleeing with her life from Saigon. On November 14th, 2014, I arrived in this city that still bore scars of British colonial rule and partition. I also carried a hunger for proof that the Third World Liberation Front still existed, that transnational solidarity was not simply the mirage of multi- colored fists romantically painted across a wall to please its global audience.

Who erases the heart of Global Solidarity? Amnesia. An audience is at once live and deaf. Celebrate the comfort of velvet. One voice

Amar nam tomar nam Vietnam! On May 19th, 1970, a mass of university students and artists marched through Kolkata, India. Under the watchful gaze of a scorching pre- monsoon sun, brown youth raised their fists and with a shout? "Hands off Vietnam! ?? they stopped at Harrington Street.

Who kills Black men?

radiates from the crowd. She speaks English because she had no choice in learning it.

On January 3rd, 2015, I sat in a dusty office above the traffic?s din on Esplanade Row. My fingers pecked at each other nervously, as I contemplated never returning to the Indo- Vietnam Solidarity Committee. Less than three feet in front of me, its president, Geetesh Sharma, cleared his throat and demanded that I attend more events with him. He recited the famous slogan that once incited his organization to stand with my mother?s people, "My name is, your name is Vietnam." He reiterated how I should be thankful for everything he did for me. I began to cry. This was not the transnational solidarity I had imagined. The night before, the white bearded man? a respected journalist who wrote passionately about Kolkata?s protest movement in support of my mother?s country? had invited me to an international poetry festival. At the door, he beamed with pride as he presented me to the event organizers.

My body is a meteor, bursting against the charade of wars won. My tongue is Agent Orange, and my eye, it expels radiation. I walked across the stage, slowly turning my back to the audience. My knees were trembling with rage, but I was also afraid. When they started to clap, I suddenly spun around and continued shouting without a microphone from the scratches in my notebook.

Who has shackled our minds? "She will read a poem about Vietnam at the opening ceremony,? he demanded.

Who has shackled the ability to feel something more profound,

Before I could utter a word, the organizers rushed away to edit the itinerary, visibly apprehensive to put an unknown artist in front of a packed auditorium but quick to please Geetesh. I, too, was startled by his spontaneous decision to introduce me like this, for the festival was to commence in less than 15 minutes, while I was unprepared to share anything at all.

awful, devastating than the PERFORMANCE of poetry?

On stage I pulled a notebook out of my bag to scribble something new before the host would announce my name at the end of a list of eminent poets. They had gathered from around the world to present the beauty of their countries through lyric. However, my pen refused to budge on paper. How could I write about Vietnam? I was only half my mother?s daughter after all. With a Japanese name and an American tongue, my split selves prevented nationalistic sentimentality.

I DON?T BELONG HERE! I DON?T BELONG HERE! I?M UNCOMFORTABLE HERE! I WANT TO BE WITH BLACK LIVES! HANDS UP! DON?T SHOOT!

My eyes closed before the silent auditorium. END COLONIALISM NOW!

Suddenly, the image of Malcolm X alongside Yuri Kochiyama flashed across my mind. If I could not write about Vietnam, perhaps I could write about the wounds of Liberation. If I could not sing pleasant truths, perhaps I could burn and burn and burn. In a flash I completed a poem around my exiled Vietnamese body. This is what I said:

Who kills Black men? Who erases the heart of Global Solidarity? Amnesia. An audience is at once live and deaf. Celebrate the comfort of velvet. One voice radiates from the crowd. She speaks English because she had no choice in learning it.

My body is a meteor, bursting against the charade of wars won. My tongue is Agent Orange, and my eye, it expels radiation.

HumanizationO ver Domination ?We had fed the heart on fantasy, The heart?s grown brutal from the fare.? -William Butler Yeats By Tayor Graham Humanization is the original vocation of the people, affirms Paulo Friere in his formative text, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed.? Conversely, dehumanization is a distortion of this practice of becoming more fully human. For Freire, however, this does not make dehumanization any less real, for dehumanization is a historical fact. The practice of dehumanizing and the state of being dehumanized stem from an unjust order. In this climate of dehumanization, Freire proposes his pedagogy for the oppressed, a method of humanizing through which "the oppressed liberate themselves and their oppressors as well? (44). Freire?s path for illuminating and changing reality can be criticized as overly idealistic, and, in fact, the author admits as much, affirming that his pedagogical approach stems from his "trust in the people? (40). Yet, the process of becoming, as outlined by Freire, serves as a method for restoring humanity in the structure of domination that exits today in the United States. In his preface to Frantz Fanon?s ?Wretched of the Earth,? Jean- Paul Sartre named North America the ?super- European monstrosity? and anointed what exists there as ?racist humanism,? for "the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters? (Fanon 26). Here we have a complication to the traditional notion that humanization within the colonial situation exists in a binary: on one side, the oppressor holds all of the humanity stolen from the oppressed, who exist at the other end of the pole, dehumanized. Sartre suggests the humanity of the oppressor is distorted, wretched and impure in the ways in which it was obtained and maintained. Freire, it seems, would agree that "no one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so? (85). This stands on a premise that one is not born fully human, but gains humanity "through humanizing actions that, in turn, affirm men and women as beings in the process of becoming?? that they are unfinished and so then is their reality (84). In terms of the United States, two different realities emerge, both resulting in dehumanization: humanity stolen from the oppressed by systems of domination, and a distorted humanism gained by the oppressors through the same structures.

Historic oppression pervades within the United States and affects its citizens in widely different ways. The experience of the indigenous community varies from that of the black community, which differs greatly from that of the white community. Therefore, it is important to make clear that humanity in the United States has historically been stolen from marginalized communities through domination. To deny suffering to anyone or to measure one?s pain against another?s is to deny the other their humanity, and withholding humanity from the other is inherently destructive and dehumanizing to the individual doing the refusing. Therefore, each individual in the United States experiences a wretched form of humanism as a result of the country?s dominating structures. In its international dealings, the United States has created itself in the "image of a monster? and continues to exist in the midst of its colonial domination. It has risen to such hegemonic power that it might as well have enslaved the entire world, as it continues to enslave and dehumanize those who are lashed to its systems internally. If the colonizer "owes the fact of his very existence to the colonial system,? the United States owes its humanity to the colonization of its land and its continued imperial domination in far corners of the globe. This false humanity is solidified, in part, because the United States exists as an ahistorical society. It is apparent to those who study the brief and violent history of the United States that a very small faction of its population has constructed its history. This alienates a large portion of the country?s population from its history, an act that dehumanizes those who are excluded. It also separates those writers of history from a truthful historical reality because they have engaged in a process of mythicization. The narrative of the United States has been obfuscated to a degree that no one could name themselves within a truly historical reality, a necessary requirement for someone to exist as a full human, according to Freire. Freire suggests that the act of humanizing is a collaborative process that takes place through the "naming of the world,? or the defining of reality. Naming the world, for Freire, means gaining the understanding of one?s realistic place in the world in order to transform reality and liberate oneself. He insists that banal monologue and mechanical action bookend the struggle for greater humanity. Hence, his course for regaining humanity takes a path between these two extremes. His process of naming the world takes place in partnership through the act of dialogue,

which finds balance between "action and reflection.? In its authentic form, dialogue, as "an encounter between men, mediated by the world,? has the power to transform reality. Through the process of naming the world in dialogue, of revealing it, the various limit situations presented by the colonial superstructure are faced. Dialogue becomes the method for gaining political consciousness and, in a truly revolutionary sense, becomes difficult and painful work. On his deathbed in Washington D.C., Frantz Fanon lamented that "Americans are not engaged in dialogue; they still speak monologues.? It is true that the very same conditions, which have led to the dehumanization of the people of the United States, also hinder their ability to dialogue effectively and authentically with one another. According to Freire, dialogue requires certain preconditions, notably: humility, faith and a profound love for the world and for people, which is impossible within the structure of domination in the United States. Yet, there exists a chance for fostering Feirian dialogue in the United States. That chance at dialogue, which in turn is our main hope for renaming a world of domination, resides in love. For Freire, love is the perpetual force animating all processes of liberation. True love takes one outside of oneself into dialogue with the world, and is anti- individualistic at its core. It requires an encounter with the other, and inspires both oppressor and oppressed to exist beyond what the system has given them and has told them to be. This process of loving in order to dialogue serves as our only hope to rename the world in which we are dominated. To love is to meet domination with optimism. Such love does not constitute a naĂŻve, Utopian faith in the future; rather, it indicates a form of active, uncompromising hope in the possibilities of what humans can do in dialogue with each other. In the face of oppressive domination that has stratified the United States, love, containing a powerful faith in people and the world, is the only hope for liberation. The revolutionaries "must [affirm] their love of life? because it is love that will guide them and exist as the reason they struggle.

Straight,NoChaser Truth or Conseq uences By Patrice Lockert Anthony There are so many reasons to not write this column. Among them are, "Will people still like me?? "Am I being too radical?? "What if people don?t understand what I?m saying?? There are many others. Folks who speak their truths have fallen to those who worship false idols since humans discovered language. The false idols of what it means to belong: politics, race, class, and popularity, are high on that list. These are topics treated as gods of war. They are false gods What of truth? What of the consequences for speaking it? And what of the consequences for not writing (or speaking) it? How long can we, as Americans, continue to shred truth and behave as the proverbial ostrich [praying that the various elephants in the room won?t stampede]? We live lives of desperation, seeking manna, and settling for debt, dreams deferred, political lies, and a superiority that goes no deeper than the color of someone?s skin. Privilege has become a by- word, as common and as ill- used/ defined as diversity. It?s a confusing word for folks looking for a sandbar or other physical escape. I have privilege. Though African American and female (and frequently judged because of it), I have a career, an Air Force dad (which made me a military brat with traveling privileges), and I am highly educated. And by highly educated I mean well- read. So I?ve traveled a bit, read a lot of books, and had a fair bit of schooling. This is one way of understanding privilege. Here?s another way of understanding it, but you?re going to have to pay attention. I arrive at my office. It?s late, but that?s when I get my best writing done. As I enter, two gentlemen (white) are descending the stairs. We don?t know each other, but we exchange words, a few laughs, and as they reach the bottom, I start to climb. I get half way up when another gentlemen (also white) arrives at the top of the steps. He says, "Hi? then asks if I?m waiting for someone. I answer "No, I have a key to my office.? It isn?t a strange response I?ve given. It?s a calibrated response. My response is calibrated to the subtext in his question. He was questioning my right to be there in the building. After I?d made it clear (key to my office) that I had a right to be there, I continued to climb the stairs. From behind me, the man delivered another question, ?So I can?t help you?? I answered, "No.? He followed with, "Can you lock this door (the entrance)??

By this time I was tired of subtext. I turned back to him and asked a question of my own. "Do you not have a key to lock the door?? He nodded yes. I responded with, "Then please do.?

In faith~

What we understand to be societal norms is what gave the situation it?s irony, and ultimately, it?s humor. I had on nice jeans, a mock turtleneck, and Merrill mocs (even on sale they cost upwards of 90 dollars), and my briefcase. This guy had long unkempt hair, a tie- dyed t shirt, a multi- layered skirt/ skort, and was barefoot. Nothing but privilege, based on race, had him (persistently) asking those questions of me. Based on how we each looked (what we were each wearing), who should have been questioning whom? That?s a trick question for some. The correct answer is neither, of course. I looked "wrong? to him for no other reason than my skin color. His privilege allowed him to completely ignore societal norms as to what "fit? and what didn?t, and so he never got past the question of, "Did I belong? This isn?t about judgment for what he was wearing. It?s about his failure to see past my skin. I was hoping that in my responses, which refused to give credence to his race- based privilege, he would experience enough frustration to question his assumptions. That?s what I want more people to do (particularly those with privilege). Until more people do, I guess I?ll keep writing, telling my truth, and dealing with the consequences.

Dear ChristianHomophobe:IAmAFuckingPersontoo By Rosi AlmĂŠstica

I am an angry WOC. That?s all you?ll know about me for now because you?ve managed to piss the fuck out of many communities. After the Pulse shooting, I?ve become sick and tired of your bullshit hypocrisy. You posted about being supportive of me and I chose to believe such lies. Talking about, praying for my aching community and shit. Y?all managed to make it about pro- Islamophobia and pro- Second Amendment rights, which makes me sick to my stomach. The biggest massacre since Wounded Knee and y?all fuckers want to talk about "These damn Muslims in my country, they?re damn terrorists! ?. Well shit, I guess I?m a fucking terrorist too having Mediterranean blood in me. But here?s the fucking facts: you see, we?re people. We are your mail persons, cashiers, and other professions but we hide. We hid because of people like the killer who hates people like me. The Jewish community still stings over Auschwitz, The Islam religion is continually attacked after 9/ 11, Sikhs are getting killed for wearing a turban. Blacks, Latinxs, and other marginalized groups are still hurting. The LGBTQIAP+ community is stinging. It feels like a gunshot wound and the Dr. can?t find the source of bleeding. Furthermore, people would believe that POC would be the majority responsible for mass killings. But yet again, you?re wrong! According CNN, "some 64%of the shootings were done by white men?. Another fucking crazy statistic from USA Today, "96%of these mass killings are committed by men.? How long does the white man have to blame the Black, Hispanic, Middle- Eastern communities to realize that these crimes have been done by mostly white people? How much time does it take for White cis- het America to realize that gay people are killed all the time and it?s never in the media? To pick at the white christian brain, where in the bible does it mention homosexuality is an abomination? Sodom and Gomorrah yeah,yeah, yeah. But dude, that shit was back in time of the Jewish book, because the Christian Old Testament is there as a reminder of what NOT to do. So as a fucking WOC who?s bisexual, STOP BEING HYPOCRITES and let me breathe. I am a fucking person too. I am a college student and I demand that my wounds heal by themselves. Don?t protest our funerals, our celebrations and our Pride marches. We have been hurt too much too recently.

Aint IRevoltin' By The Decolonizer

Aint we t he st uf f of your wil dest night mares? The st uf f t o make whit e America scream? Aint we the menace to society? Aint we the constant threat? We carry our transgressions on our bodies. You can see where the whip landed to punished us. See the scars from jumping over this barbed wire fence. The cuts from escaping boarder patrol. A dress against a male bodied woman. Having sex with who ever the fuck we are attracted to. Using our bodies like sludge hammers. Smashing the shit out of gender binaries. Crushing white supremacist patriarchy. You were a little more than disturbed. Embarrassed at your own longings, the way they twist and warp under the weight of gendered repression.

If you aint revol t in' you aint shit Once upon a time a colonizer landed on Indigenous lands. And Indigenous people discovered him, swinging a machete in the forest. He was the most savage thing anyone had ever seen. And he brought with him all of his ideologies. He brought colonialism, white supremacy, racism, ablism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, class oppression, orientalism, and Christian hegemony. And he made structures and institutions of power out of these things. And they connected and layered on top of each other in many ways, in many ways they were inseparable. And what brought it all together was something called settler colonial white supremacist patriarchy. And the indigenous people revolted against this, as did all people of color under oppression. And they proved...

If you aint revol t in' you aint shit

Meaning, if you aint revolting against colonialism, white supremacy, racism, ablism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, class oppression, orientalism, and Christian hegemony...

You aint shit Back to gendered repression, sexual repression, anti- queerness. We revolt against these things not because we went to a vigil. We revolt against these things not out of charity. We revolt against these things because all of us must transgress the gender and sexual binaries that were brought here by colonialism.

We have made the slow trot away from asking questions like "why do they hate us?" to questions like "why not revolt tomorrow?" "why not revolt today?" Things arent going to get much better. Things are going to shit. With our suffering in our collective memories we will learn to hold each other better. It is because we know what it is like to suffer. It is because we will have learned to hold each other for our survival.

All of us must revolt against how we have been conditioned and the violence that has been done to our humanity. There are consequences to revolt. We bare the scares of what has been done to us for resisting. We have been killed, tortured, raped, beaten for resisting. As we are dripping in our own blood they call us repulsive. Say we are obscene. Say that we are revolting.

The Decol onizer says: Fucking right we are. If you aint revol t ing you aint shit .

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