Facing Race 2016

Screen Shot 2016-12-06 at 2.41.52 PMFacing Race Conference 2016
Largest multi-racial, multi-issue, intergenerational national gathering dedicated to racial justice
2300 people in Atlanta, GA
My notes from the conference

“A cohesive multiracial movement is our best hope.”
Rinku Sen, ED of Race Froward and Publisher of Colorlines

“We gotta show folks what it looks like when we love and protect each other. Within our movements, we have to give each other the benefit of the doubt more often… And understand our different roles.”
-Linda Sarsour, ED of Arab American Association of New York

“We’re stronger if we are not only united, but coordinated.”
-Alicia Garcia, Co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter

Here are the top things that I left feeling clear that these need our attention.

  1. Fierce Urgency — A fascist moment is coming. The only thing that will stop it is us. A cohesive multiracial movement is our best hope. Rinku Sen
  2. Organize and Be Community — Invest in each other. Our fates are intertwined. We need to unlock the humanity of this country. Alicia Garza. Organize. Find each other. Bring forth a system that works for the good of all life on mother Earth. This is our responsibility. This is why we are here. Live the power of the people.
  3. Top priority is Protection of the Most Vulnerable — undocumented immigrants, Muslims, queer and trans, Blacks, women. Designate sanctuaries. Find ways to let people know who they can call, where they can go. Create local first response teams that can take the place of government institutions. Teams include roles such as witnesses, copwatchers, medical and mental health people, legal people.
  4. Radical Imagination is needed right now. Keep imagining radically different potentials for this next stage of our existence.
  5. Our Issues Are All Interconnected. Various movements and efforts must unite. We have to double down on what deep solidarity in practice looks like. We’re stronger if we are not only united, but coordinated. Alicia Garcia This includes all the suffering people.
  6. Whiteness — We must talk about, understand and address Whiteness — Whiteness is an identity formed out of violence and trauma. We must address it head on to move beyond its grips.
  7. History holds so many keys to what has already happened that we can learn from and not replicate. I am listening to the audio of the book the People’s History of the US and it is so valuable to understand the institutional and systemic racism this country was built upon
  8. Media. Who is telling it and what the narrative being told is, is key. Pay attention to who you get your media from. Create media.
  9. Ancestors & Future generations – The ancestors are with us. And we act in service to future generations. Avenging the suffering of our ancestors and earning the respect of future generations.

Learning from Indigenous Leadership

I am humbled to be baring witness to how Native people are demonstrating leadership for change. (Their) land is being violated and sacred sites destroyed. Treaty crimes are being perpetrated against them. The great Sioux Nation is demanding that they be dealt with honorably, as the sovereign nation that they are. They are holding the United States accountable to its treaties.

Their front line resistance actions are prayer, ceremony, and song. Nearby they’ve set up camps with others who are devoted to protecting the water. They care for one another and provide school for the learners.

Meanwhile…

United States law enforcement are responding with violence, force, intimidation, harassment and erroneous charges.

There is a pattern to the ways that law enforcement are treating people who are standing up for human rights right now, people on the front lines in the United States. There are similar tactics of intimidation and violent force being used. Journalists covering these stories are being arrested, receiving severe legal charges, and their equipment and footage confiscated and destroyed. Legal observers are even being arrested. This is happening at Standing Rock, in Charlotte with the Charlotte Uprising, and we even saw versions of it here in Asheville in response to calls for accountability when a police officer killed Jai “Jerry” Williams.

These are important times that we are living in. The video below is an interview with a Madison, Wisconsin Alder Council member who was delivering the City of Madison’s solidarity resolution to Standing Rock in person. She shares her experience at the camp, of being arrested while serving as a legal observer, the treatment she and others received by law enforcement, and how she’s used her network of relationships to influence what she can.

Please keep watching. Please keep praying. Please do what you can.

From one of my warrior sisters who is at Standing Rock… “Please pray, gather, light a fire, stop and call forth good intentions for this front line. Tell all of your friends and relatives.  Each day until you hear that the pipeline has been stopped.  Let us all get behind the great Sioux Nation at this time.  Our ancestors are with us. Gracias!”

 

Contribute to Sacred Stone Camp

Contribute to the Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense Fund

Creating Safety for POC in Predominantly White Gatherings

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Living in Asheville and moving in circles with healers and social innovators, I struggle with how both of these groups often avoid addressing and discussing issues of oppression and cultural patterns of superiority, particularly White supremacy. It has been incredibly nourishing to be at the Southeast Wise Women Herbal Conference this weekend, joining a team that is holding space for dialogue around dismantling White Supremacy culture, how it shows up at a conference like this, how it shows up in our lives and communities and how as healers, this is an essential component that we must address to truly be able to do the healing work being called for at this time. This conference has made this conversation a central part of the platform and gives many opportunities for its mostly White attendees to engage in meaningful dialogue, practical learning, and healing. In addition, they have created a SisterLove space that is a sanctuary only for women of color. I return today for day 3 and am deeply inspired and hopeful that I will continue to see more courageous leadership like those of this conference who recognize the central role that this awareness must have in predominantly White gathering spaces that are in service to a greater good. And I bow reverently to the women of color who spoke up and invited action to be taken so that they too could experience this healing women-only conference as a place of refuge, medicine and returning to the ancient roots of healing that course through their cultural lineages.

Journalism is Essential To Democracy

Article: Amy Goodman is Facing Jail Time for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline. That Should Scare Us All.

“Engaging in serious journalism—journalism that captures a society’s forbidden, or simply hidden, stories—is hard and scary, and it requires bravery, conviction, and determination, along with an abiding faith in the protective power of the First Amendment. When that faith is compromised, the possibility of serious journalism collapses—a reason, no doubt, the Committee to Protect Journalists came out forcefully on Goodman’s behalf.

“This arrest warrant is a transparent attempt to intimidate reporters from covering protests of significant public interest,” Carlos Lauría, senior program coordinator for the Americas at CPJ, said in a statement.”

 

Treating ALL with Dignity & Respect

 

An empowering speech about the value of women and girls and what this country has done to raise up their worth. “America’s greatness comes from recognizing the innate dignity in all people.” May we see this come true in America some day… for all people. We are not there yet. No president is going to be the one to get us there. It’s up to us, the people, to demand and design a society that treats everyone with dignity and respect. Who is up for that challenge? (article)

Standing Rock… People Coming Together

I am drawing so much strength and life from those who carry, and are able to speak with smiles and glowing hearts, the hope that they feel these days. If you are one of those people, thank you.

Standing Rock continues to be one of those sources of deep breaths and reverent prayer. My heart expanding as I continue to hear of the many tribes coming together and the fierce wisdom and ways of the protectors of the land and waters. It brings me to tears as my soul feels that this is the birthing of a new world. May it be so.