#anti-racism in the workplace workshops

[beardedmrbean]

Aformer Seattle city employee has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging he was a victim of anti-White discrimination due to a "racially hostile work environment."

Joshua Diemert, who worked as a program intake representative in Seattle’s Department of Human Services from 2013 to 2021, filed suit Nov. 16 against the city and its mayor, Bruce Harrell, claiming he was constantly belittled and harassed at work for being White and that he was denied advancement opportunities and retaliated against due to the color of his skin.

Diemert’s lawsuit blames the alleged anti-White culture he experienced on the city’s Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI), which seeks to "end institutionalized racism and race-based disparities in City government," according to the city government’s website. 

The lawsuit alleges that Diemert's race was an "albatross around his neck" throughout his career, and that the discrimination became "increasingly pervasive and hostile" as his career developed.

SEATTLE OFFICIALS PROPOSE OFFERING GIFT CARDS TO METH ADDICTS TO ENCOURAGE SOBRIETY AS DRUG OVERDOSES SURGE

"The City routinely urged Mr. Diemert to join race-based affinity groups and required him to participate in training sessions that demeaned and degraded him based on his racial and ethnic identity," the lawsuit states. "He was chastised and punished for combating racially discriminatory hiring practices by [Department of Human Services] colleagues."

"His supervisors and other colleagues continually dismissed his concerns over a period of years and claimed he could not be a victim of racism and discrimination because he possessed ‘white privilege,’" it claims. "And he was denied opportunities for advancement by the City based on his racial and ethnic identity."

As part of his RSJI training, the lawsuit alleges, Diemert was required to attend a two-day workshop in 2019 called "Undoing Institutional Racism," during which facilitators declared, "white people are like the devil," "racism is in white people’s DNA," and "white people are cannibals."

"When Mr. Diemert objected, the facilitators used their platform to belittle and attack Mr. Diemert," the lawsuit claims. "Other coworkers that were present continued the mockery in the workplace and made Mr. Diemert the office pariah. Mr. Diemert’s coworkers called him a ‘white supremacist.’"

"Mr. Diemert’s colleagues used their work emails to berate and entertain violence against him, referring to him as ‘some a--hole,’ the ‘reincarnation of the people that shot native Americans from trains, rounded up jews for the camps, hunted down gypsies in Europe and runaway slaves in America,’ noting that it was not worth addressing his concerns because he would ‘just come back with more stupidity,’ and that someone should ‘get a guy to swing by when Josh is in the restroom and beat him bloody,’" the lawsuit alleges.

$15M IN AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN FUNDS WENT TO ‘ANTI-RACISM,' ‘SOCIAL ACTIVISM’ PROGRAMS FOR KIDS

The lawsuit also claims that Diemert was required to attend racially segregated trainings for White people and meetings where supervisors forced employees to "identify their race and to stand and affirm where they ranked themselves on a defined ‘continuum of racism.’"

"In June 2020, the Office of Civil Rights emailed Mr. Diemert stating that it was hosting a training on ‘Internalized Racial Superiority,’ and that this was ‘specifically targeted for White employees,’" the lawsuit claims. "The training focused on examining white employees’ ‘complicity in the system of white

supremacy,’ and how white employees ‘internalize and reinforce’ racism."

"The goal of the training was to turn these employees into white ‘accomplices’ who would interrupt the ‘whiteness’ that they saw in their colleagues," it added.

$825K IN AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN FUNDS WENT TO ‘ORAL HISTORIANS’ RESEARCHING ANTI-RACISM, ‘LATINX’ HISTORIES

"When Mr. Diemert objected, the facilitators used their platform to belittle and attack Mr. Diemert," the lawsuit claims. "Other coworkers that were present continued the mockery in the workplace and made Mr. Diemert the office pariah. Mr. Diemert’s coworkers called him a ‘white supremacist.’"

"Mr. Diemert’s colleagues used their work emails to berate and entertain violence against him, referring to him as ‘some a--hole,’ the ‘reincarnation of the people that shot native Americans from trains, rounded up jews for the camps, hunted down gypsies in Europe and runaway slaves in America,’ noting that it was not worth addressing his concerns because he would ‘just come back with more stupidity,’ and that someone should ‘get a guy to swing by when Josh is in the restroom and beat him bloody,’" the lawsuit alleges.

$15M IN AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN FUNDS WENT TO ‘ANTI-RACISM,' ‘SOCIAL ACTIVISM’ PROGRAMS FOR KIDS

The lawsuit also claims that Diemert was required to attend racially segregated trainings for White people and meetings where supervisors forced employees to "identify their race and to stand and affirm where they ranked themselves on a defined ‘continuum of racism.’"

"In June 2020, the Office of Civil Rights emailed Mr. Diemert stating that it was hosting a training on ‘Internalized Racial Superiority,’ and that this was ‘specifically targeted for White employees,’" the lawsuit claims. "The training focused on examining white employees’ ‘complicity in the system of white

supremacy,’ and how white employees ‘internalize and reinforce’ racism."

"The goal of the training was to turn these employees into white ‘accomplices’ who would interrupt the ‘whiteness’ that they saw in their colleagues," it added.

$825K IN AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN FUNDS WENT TO ‘ORAL HISTORIANS’ RESEARCHING ANTI-RACISM, ‘LATINX’ HISTORIES

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Zack K. De Piero

Published: Dec 23, 2023

Looking for a job in today’s politicized job market?

Prepare to submit a résumé, cover letter, references — and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement: A page-long explanation of how you intend to bring those three seemingly benign principles into the workplace.

DEI statements have become standard practice in academia, but a tide might be turning: UNC and UMass Boston recently un-required mandatory DEI statements for student admission, employee recruitment and faculty promotion. 

Here’s hoping this sets an industry precedent — a step towards reining in DEI in every sector. 

When I taught at Penn State Abington from 2018-2022 as an English professor, their obsession with DEI created a hostile work environment teeming with discrimination.

Case in point: writing faculty were subjected to a video called “White Teachers are a Problem.”

After making my opposition known, I was retaliated against.

My perceived insubordination was branded on Affirmative Action Office notices, and I was sanctioned by HR as well as on my annual performance review. 

Penn State’s stance was clear: Blind loyalty is required by the DEI machine. 

The premier job board across academia, HigherEdJobs, shows how deeply entrenched compulsory left-think has become.

Whether you want to teach French at SUNY Oswego, Dance at Chapman, Soil Science and Nutrient Management at Colorado State, or Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse, your prospective employer will expect a DEI statement, so prepare to bend the knee. 

Even if you aspire to become the Beef Center Assistant Manager at Washington State University: Yep: DEI statement.

And these are just a few random examples posted since Thanksgiving.

It’s an epidemic. 

Make no mistake, the DEI machine has always been about toeing an ideological line — never any meaningful change.

Consider the case of Dr. Tabia Lee — a former faculty member of De Anza Community College in California.

While facilitating a “Decentering Whiteness” event featuring a BLM co-founder, Lee (who’s Black) made waves by allowing students to ask unscripted follow-up questions. For doing so, her tenure was sabotaged.

Despite being “diverse,” it turns out that Lee’s actual diversity didn’t gel with De Anza’s agenda.

A commitment to actual diversity requires respecting diverse viewpoints.

But wrong-think isn’t tolerated by the DEI Industrial Complex. 

Fortunately, federal law has something to say about that: neither De Anza nor Penn State has the authority to suppress Dr. Lee or my speech, nor can they discriminate on the basis of race.

That’s why she and I — supported by the nonpartisan group, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism — are bringing lawsuits against our former employers. 

Pull back this sacred academic curtain, and see the emperor’s new clothes for yourself.

In 2021, Pennsylvanian’s taxes and students’ tuition went towards workshops on microaggressions, intersectional feminism, anti-racism, and white privilege led by the Penn State Abington DEI grifters.

Its leader’s Juneteenth email directed white faculty and staff to “stop talking,” “find an accountability partner,” and “stop being afraid of your own internalized white supremacy.” 

Such DEI efforts ooze with divisiveness, so yes, DEI statements are clearly a form of compelled speech, and thus, a violation of First Amendment free speech protections.

[ Dr. Tabia Lee says her tenure-track position at De Anza College in California was derailed after she failed to conform to DEI orthodoxy. ]

What’s worse, though, is the type of educational environment that DEI-ified initiatives create for students — and the culprit is the “E”: Equity. 

Here’s how “equity” played out in the misguided minds of my DEI-obsessed former colleagues. A former supervisor, who endorsed the view that “reverse racism isn’t racism,” also announced that “racist structures” exist “regardless of [anybody’s] good intentions” and that “racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”

The apparent guiding subtext here: students should be graded on the basis of race so all achieve similar outcomes.

Suppose you deflated the grades of Asian-Americans — a group that often disproportionately excels — much like Harvard deflated their acceptance rates until the Supreme Court put a stop to race-based admissions.

That’s somehow acceptable in the name of “equity?” Of course not, but disagree with enforced equity in education and in the eyes of antiracist activists, that makes you – you guessed it — a “racist.” 

Alternatively, performative equity could be achieved by inflating everybody’s grades — straight A’s all around! 

Harvard’s almost there: in 2020-2021, 80% of all grades were A’s, according to an October article in the Harvard Crimson. 

The road to equity is paved by the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And in a world where grit, labor, and integrity win the day, academia’s obsession with “equity” breeds a “survival of the weakest” mindset. 

Nevertheless, the DEI machine continues to reign supreme.

Over a five-year span, Ohio State’s DEI annual budget bloated to $20 million with nearly 200 DEI bureaucrats who cite the leftist scripture of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

But before we can enter their church, us natural-born sinners must repent by issuing performative DEI statements?

Yeah. No thanks.

Paradoxically, the more elite institutions obnoxiously virtue-signal their allegiance to DEI, the less committed they are to actual diversity and inclusion — and the more they obscure actual equality in the process. 

These institutions aren’t hiding what they’re doing.

Even in the throes of my lawsuit, Penn State Abington has doubled down on DEI: there’s now a sister office — the Office of Inclusive Excellence — complete with its own cabinet-level director. 

Folks: this isn’t going away unless you take action.

Here’s a start: if you’re ever asked to submit a DEI statement, don’t bend the knee to their “E” — Equity.

Reframe their game, and tell them how and why you stand up for the honorable “E”: Equality. 

Zack K. DePiero (Ph.D, M.Ed) teaches writing at Northampton Community College. 

[communistkenobi]

I think a major flaw in anti-discrimination programs now, at least as I have experienced them, is that they’re usually administered to individual people as an online checklist to complete. If unions were serious about fostering an anti-discriminatory culture in the workplace, administering these programs in live group settings would be much more effective. Each person would see their peers participating in these workshops and be forced to have a conversation about racism and other bigotries in front of other people, where there is the potential for public shaming and exclusion (as well as the inverse - fostering inclusion where minorities can find solidarity in their peers). If you treat anti-discrimination the same way you would homework, no one is going to take that shit seriously

[ausetkmt]

Columbia University Irving Medical Center: A Systemic Response to Systemic Racism

Columbia University Irving Medical Center: A Systemic Response to Systemic Racism.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of police—combined with the disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic—spurred a racial awakening across the United States in 2020. The flurry of activity that started then at VP&S has not abated. VP&S students, faculty, and staff have initiated more than a dozen efforts to chip away at the massive undertaking of dismantling the effects of systemic racism in medical education.

Maya Jalbout Hastie, MD, associate professor of anesthesiology, and her fellow faculty in anesthesiology developed virtual improvisation sessions—inspired by true events—to help department members handle racist microaggressions in the workplace. Devon Rupley, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics & gynecology, along with two medical students, Stephanie Granada'21 and Cibel Quinteros-Baumgart'22, conducted one of the first studies to understand the birthing experiences of Spanish speakers during the early days of the pandemic in New York City. And medical student Jeremiah Douchee joined the Columbia chapter of White Coats for Black Lives, an organization run by medical trainees that aims to end racism and systems of oppression in health care.

Despite these efforts by members of the VP&S community, racism remains a systemic problem and demands a systemic solution. So in October 2021—as VP&S welcomed its most diverse medical student class in history—Hastie, Rupley, Douchee, and a dozen other stakeholders joined forces to form the executive coalition of the school's Anti-Racist Transformation (ART) in Medical Education project, perhaps the most comprehensive effort yet to undo systems of racism and bias in education at VP&S.

"Gathering a group of individuals across the workplace spectrum has been instructive on what it means to be inclusive," says Monica L. Lypson, MD, vice dean for education. "Having students, staff, and faculty working in collaborative fashion to create an anti-racist educational environment is key to future success."

Creating an anti-racist strategy

ART in Medical Education is a framework developed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai that brings a three-year, systemic approach to the effort, charging medical schools with creating a transformative, ongoing anti-racist strategy. (As opposed to being passively "not racist," the term "anti-racist" refers to taking an active approach in countering systems of racial prejudice.) By participating in the project's inaugural cohort of 11 schools in the United States and Canada, VP&S is building on the efforts of its anti-racism task force, which called for advances in curriculum, admissions, student support, and the learning environment.

The ART in Medical Education executive coalition at VP&S is led by Jean-Marie Alves-Bradford, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and inaugural director of the Department of Psychiatry's Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Hetty Cunningham, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and director of equity and justice in curricular affairs at VP&S. The ART project continues the work they did together to develop workshops for medical students processing racial trauma.

"It does really help to be a part of this team effort," says Alves-Bradford. "We're all coming from different disciplines, but with some similar experiences in those disciplines. Working together toward change, regardless of our area of expertise or particular focus, is not just bonding, it's motivating and strengthening and reinforcing that commitment."

When the project officially launched in October 2021, Cunningham says, the VP&S executive coalition began mapping out the disparate anti-racism efforts already taking place at Columbia to build a roadmap for organizational change. "What are the priorities of the institution that are documented, that have been expressed, that have been accepted? How can we work with those? Who are the main allies in this work? Who needs to be included? The idea is to come together and create a cohesive movement."

Guided by those findings, the coalition narrowed its focus to three core areas: curriculum, faculty retention, and integrated care.

Addressing the learning environment

To address curriculum, the executive coalition developed anti-racist learning objectives using a framework drafted by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The objectives aim to help students and faculty understand the term "anti-racist," says Alves-Bradford, and to define and operationalize what it means to create an anti-racist learning environment and health care system. Some of the objectives focus broadly on systems and practices, she says, while others drill down into specifics, such as how the medical school approaches basic sciences.

"We think about how the objectives would evolve over time throughout the curriculum," says Alves-Bradford, "to get deeper and more complex as students go from preclinical to clinical."

The learning objectives include understanding how a physician's personal biases and lived experience can influence clinical decision-making—and their interactions with patients, patients' families, and other members of the care team—and learning how to mitigate the effects of those biases. Another key element involves studying how societal structures might have played a role in a patient's health care experience. For instance, a person might have an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease if they live in a neighborhood that lacks access to affordable, healthy food. "Bias can creep in in lots of different ways," Alves-Bradford says, "even when we think it's far removed from the actual individual patient."

It's important to include anti-racist learning objectives as part of the curriculum, Cunningham says, because it means those skills will be formally assessed. "If something isn't assessed, then it's not taken seriously," Cunningham says. "We want our students to be able to be active in the space of anti-racism. Not only will they have the knowledge, but they'll know how to advocate for changes in medicine. The faculty are in agreement that that's something we want our students to be able to do, so we have to shift the curriculum."

Work toward an anti-racist medical education system also has implications for recruitment and retention, Alves-Bradford says. As workers nationwide reconsider their professional aspirations and work-life balance in wake of the pandemic, she notes, now is the time to consider systemwide structures that would help VP&S recruit and promote the best faculty, staff, and students.

Segregated care

Finally, while the idea of segregated health care might seem like a relic of the past, Alves-Bradford says a patient's health insurance coverage often dictates whether that person is treated at a faculty practice or a public clinic. Different providers work in these separate settings, and the differences don't end there. Faculty practices and public clinics have disparate resources, she notes, from technology to staffing ratios and even the ambiance of the setting in which patients receive care.

The Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at VP&S hosted a symposium in May on segregated health care. The center's director, Lydia S. Dugdale, MD, the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Associate Professor of Medicine at VP&S, gave the opening remarks. After public health experts outlined the history and policy that shapes how people receive care, a panel of physicians discussed ongoing efforts to desegregate care. Panelists included Julia E. Iyasere, MD, assistant professor of medicine and executive director of the Dalio Center for Health Justice at NewYork-Presbyterian. Kamini Doobay, MD, assistant professor of emergency medicine, closed the event by providing the attendees with ways to advocate for individual patients and for systemic changes.

The ART in Medical Education coalition at VP&S plans to use its platform to publicize the issue and educate the Columbia community about segregated care. "What are some of the pitfalls when things are structured in that way?" Alves-Bradford asks. "What is the context? How did those systems evolve to be that way? There were regulations that led it to be one way or another: How does that happen?"

The coalition has joined ongoing efforts, including White Coats for Black Lives and the NYC Coalition to Dismantle Racism in the Health System, to push for an end to this divided system. "We're advocating for not having those systems segregated," says Alves-Bradford, "to integrate and have people seen in similar settings, regardless of their insurance or payment."

Beyond their work on curriculum, faculty retention, and integrated care, the VP&S coalition is considering ways to support and recognize students involved in anti-racism work. Also on the horizon: involving more participants from the greater VP&S community and the city at large.

As the ART in Medical Education project enters its second year, the VP&S coalition and the rest of the inaugural cohort of schools are moving into the next phase of the project: implementing and sustaining change at their various institutions. While each of the 11 medical schools aims to embed change, learn from feedback, and course correct to develop transformative, ongoing anti-racism strategy, the cohort also plans to come together to learn from each other.

"The cohort allows us to partner with institutions around the country that are doing very exciting things," Cunningham says, "We're sharing our challenges and solutions. That allows us all to move forward more quickly and adopt best practices."

[autisticadvocacy]

ASAN is pleased to commemorate the 10th annual Autism Acceptance Month this year. Over the past ten years, autistic advocates have transformed our society’s conversation around autism — but much remains to be done before we can truly fulfill the promise of autism acceptance.

Autism Acceptance Month was created by and for the autistic community to change the conversation around autism, shifting it away from stigmatizing “autism awareness” language that presents autism as a threat to be countered with vigilance. Ten years ago, when Autism Acceptance Month started, advocacy organizations run by non-autistic people spoke openly about working towards a future in which “autism is a word for the history books.” In contrast, autism acceptance emphasizes that autistic people belong — that we deserve welcoming communities, inclusive schools and workplaces, and equal opportunities. In the last ten years, we have seen real progress. Many autism organizations run by non-autistic people initially resisted “acceptance” language; over time, some of them have come to adopt it. We welcome this change.

However, acceptance is an action, and it goes beyond changing the language we use. In order to truly practice autism acceptance, autism organizations must also change how they think about autism, and how they work to represent autistic people. Working toward acceptance means recognizing autistic people ourselves, not just our family members, as a core constituency. It means including autistic people in meaningful leadership positions throughout an organization — on staff, in senior leadership, and on the board. It means aligning advocacy  and research priorities with the priorities of the autistic community. Advocating for things that autistic people routinely describe as harmful, such as Applied Behavioral Analysis, institutionalization, or research on “curing” or preventing autism, is not autism acceptance. Autism acceptance means standing up against those who promote debunked anti-vaccine rhetoric, attack self-advocates, or work to expand segregated settings like sheltered workshops and institutions. 

Autism acceptance means respecting the rights and humanity of all autistic people. It means centering the perspectives and needs of autistic people with intellectual disabilities, nonspeaking autistic people, and autistic people with the highest support needs — not by speaking over them, but by listening and looking to them as leaders. It means fighting to ensure that the universal human rights of all autistic people are respected, including and especially the rights of those autistic people with the most significant disabilities. And autism acceptance means recognizing the ways ableism and racism interact in our society, following the leadership of autistic people of color, and making anti-racism a core part of our work. In particular, while police violence continues to threaten the lives of Black autistic people, some autism organizations focus on police training as a solution; this is ineffective and ignores the role racism plays in police violence, rather than reducing the power of police to do harm.

We welcome the necessary and long-overdue language changes increasingly being made by other autism organizations. But without understanding acceptance as an action, autism organizations led by non-autistic people will continue to lag behind the rest of the developmental disability community when it comes to reaching the goals of community living and inclusion. It is past time for parent- and provider-led autism organizations to make real, structural changes, and join self-advocate-led organizations in working to make acceptance more than just a buzzword.

It isn’t just autism organizations that need to put acceptance into practice. ASAN was glad to see recent improvements to the Autism CARES Act, including increasing the number of self-advocates who are members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). However, we need true parity on the IACC, and a rebalancing of research funding to align with the needs of autistic people ourselves.  We applaud the White House urging the public to “learn more about the experiences of autistic people from autistic people,” in this year’s proclamation for Autism Acceptance Day. Still, there is much more to be done. We will continue to work to ensure that autistic people have equal rights, opportunities, and access — in health care, education, housing, employment, and throughout our communities. 

We have made real progress over the past ten years of recognizing Autism Acceptance Month. The conversation about autism has changed, thanks to the hard work of the autistic community. But there is more to be done, and words must translate into action. As autistic self-advocates have said from the beginning, we must move beyond acceptance — to representation, celebration, and liberation. Acceptance is not the end goal. It is the baseline, a call to do better, the starting line of the marathon. We can and must go beyond that starting point and run the race, even if we cannot even imagine the finish line. Only by continuing to move forward can we create the world our community deserves. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network seeks to advance the principles of the disability rights movement with regard to autism. ASAN believes that the goal of autism advocacy should be a world in which autistic people enjoy equal access, rights, and opportunities. We work to empower autistic people across the world to take control of our own lives and the future of our common community, and seek to organize the autistic community to ensure our voices are heard in the national conversation about us. Nothing About Us, Without Us!

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

If you look at American workplaces at the moment I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that antiracism was quite easy. The speed at which diversity training programs mushroomed in the aftermath of the anti-police uprisings of the past summer, along with specialist gurus leading them, could easily lead you to think that antiracism was a set of politics best practiced in the bowels of HR departments. No Black bodies left dying on streets, no police stations to burn, just a stack of Robin D’Angelo books and late afternoon management-led sensitivity training sessions.

US companies currently spend $8 billion annually on diversity training. This is despite multiple studies demonstrating that such training neither increases diversity nor stamps out racism. And yet they continue. They continue precisely because these HR exercises are not about dismantling white supremacy; they are about inoculating companies and universities against lawsuits from people who encounter racism and sexism at work.

[kuramirocket]

FOX VALLEY (NBC 26) — As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month on NBC 26, we are highlighting Kathy Flores (She/Her).

Flores works at Diverse & Resilient in Appleton as the anti-violence program director.

It's a job she actually created.

“About three years ago I wrote a grant to the Department of Justice to open an ant-violence office in Appleton and that’s how we’re here today,” Flores said.

Flores considers herself a grassroots organizer and has spent years learning from activists in movements to end racism and LGBTQ bias in communities throughout the country.

Her identity and personal experiences have played a big role to the work she does today.

As a queer Latinx survivor with a disability, Flores says she understands the intersections of privilege and oppression not just from her experience in social justice movement building, but from her own complicated identity and experiences in both her personal and professional life.

“I’m Latinx of Mexican heritage, my mother is Mexican and I have a disability. I have multiple sclerosis, I have an aneurysm, I’m a cancer survivor. I have a number of things that have tried to push me down. I'm hard to push down. I continue to do what I can,” Flores said.

Through the years she’s worked with Kimberly Clark and was also the diversity and inclusion coordinator for the City of Appleton.

And while Flores has been thrown many curve balls, she says she keeps going even when its hard to get up.

“I think part of my resiliency is my ancestors and I connect very deeply to my Mexican ancestors. And my grandmother was a woman who was a single mom with three children in the depression in the 1930’s. They wanted a better life for their children and their children. So sometimes I feel driven by that,” Flores said.

A mission driven more by her day to day interactions.

Flores says she often passes as white and the reality is that matters.

She hopes some day it won't.

"Because I'm white passing, because my skin is light skin I have so much privilege that other people who are Mexicans don't have.I have so much pride in my heritage, I have so much pride in who I am as a Latina and I also recognize that I have a lot of doors to open and help others that are coming in too who may not have had those doors open," Flores said.

Today Flores provides numerous training workshops and educational presentations on LGBTQ issues, workplace discrimination, violence in communities, racism, developing resiliency, LGBTQ aging, and various other presentations about working with marginalized communities.

“It’s amazing when your passion and your purpose kind of come together and create your vocation or life’s work,” Flores said.

[rivkahstudies]

hey Rivkah! I've seen you post about having career goals related to linguistic anthropology and you've also posted that discrimination, especially linguistic discrimination, is one of the worst things about society your opinion. I was wondering if you had any ideas about how one could counter linguistic discrimination, either as part of a career or on the side. I'm especially interested in hearing your thoughts on how one might be able to do this outside of doing ling anth in academia.

Hi honey! I’m really honored to receive this question because it’s so insightful and dedicated to something I’m incredibly passionate about. It overlaps with sociology, law, and politics. So, first I’ll talk about what I’m personally planning to do outside of/past academia, and then I’ll talk about other avenues one can take, both on a large and small scale.

Right now, my goals are to be either a medical or legal interpreter, and I’m leaning toward the latter. What that means, for those that don’t know, is that I want to go through a graduate degree or certificate program in order to be certified to translate specific languages orally in a highly specialized workplace, namely a hospital or a courtroom.

The reason why I’m so passionate about this job is because, while we have laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (which prohibits discrimination based on “national origin,” which is closely tied to the native language you speak) we still see a lot of prejudice and violence against people who choose to speak their native/a different language on their own terms in public. 

More specifically, what I aim to do is make it easier for non-native English speakers (especially, but not limited to, immigrants) receive the same services all people have a right to but they may have difficulty getting, such as medical attention or accurate legal representation. Interpretation is incredibly high stakes in my eyes because you have to translate automatically, in person, with a lot of pressure on you to do it quickly and accurately. And that’s really scary, but to me, what’s scarier is that someone might not be getting the care they need or be understood in a courtroom, and that could impact their health, their safety, their freedom, or their ability to get justice.

While someone might not necessarily be actively sabotaged in a courtroom or a hospital, those are high profile environments with a lot of pressure, and not a lot of time for patience and forgiveness if you’re trying to get through a case or to the next patient. The odds are stacked against someone who doesn’t have the specific vocabulary needed to accurately describe their symptoms or deliver their testimony. 

And that’s not even counting the ingrained and/or active biases that are found on a serious level in the United States healthcare and justice systems. One of the reasons I’m leaning toward legal interpretation is because I would love to be employed by an organization that protects immigrants from being exploited or abused by our current administration. And that’s so much easier to do when you have bilingual representation to fight with you for your rights.

So, that’s a little background on what I’m specifically studying and fighting for. Here are just a few quick bullets that I always tell people when talking about linguistic discrimination and our role in it.

On a large scale, you can:

Go into a career like mine (law, interpretation, translation, etc) that focuses on combating it.

Support political campaigns and anti-discrimination bill campaigns by volunteering your time to organizations like the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and RAICES (Refugee And Immigrant Center for Education and legal Services)

SPEAKING OF WHICH, if you’re like me and you use Lyft, you can donate to RAICES with each Lyft Ride. They’ll round up to the nearest dollar on your fee and donate that extra. All you have to do is go to the app and opt in under “Donate.”

Attend conferences, meetings, workshops, and rallies that center around this topic and intersecting ones that you may be interested in.

Volunteer your time to places like housing projects. This is something that I’m on an email/calling list to do. Specifically for me, it’s the Boston Housing Authority, and their volunteers send in a resume, state which languages they have high proficiency in (mine is currently only Spanish) and then attend a training to understand how to do it accurately and with cultural sensitivity. It’s great practice if you need to polish your language skills, are planning to go into a career like mine, or want to use highly-specialized vocabulary. I’ve had to pick up a lot of words that have to do with landlords, rent, housing laws, etc. A lot of the people serviced by the BHA are immigrants or non-native speakers and struggle with things such as reading official letters or making appointments with native English speakers. When they struggle to do this, they’re more likely to get taken advantage of by landlords, evicted unfairly, or mistreated.

Support (through volunteering, donating, etc) indigenous or indigenous-helping groups that combat issues ranging from seizure of land in the Amazon to indigenous groups working on their terms to preserve/revitalize their language(s). It’s really easy for indigenous voices to  

On a small (but equally important) scale, you can:

Call out linguistic discrimination that you see, such as people denying individuals service based on hearing them speak in another language, or unnecessarily bothering them in public. Whenever possible, take video of the incident.

Have polite and informed discussions with people who want to know more about it or might not understand why it’s a problem. This is particularly important to have with kids, and while I was volunteering/teaching Hebrew I made sure that it was integrated into the lessons.

Remain informed on cases involving linguistic discrimination.

Call your representatives when cases come up concerning linguistic discrimination or immigration policy.

Vote for representatives who believe in acceptance and equality for people who come from different backgrounds/languages. 

Boycott/denounce companies and organizations that improperly handle workplace/customer discrimination or instigate it themselves.

Follow native speakers, particularly indigenous individuals and/or minority language speakers, as well as linguistic/social activists and journalists/academics, on your social media feeds (my preferred one to check is Twitter) for updates and opinions on issues that may help you get more informed outside of a classroom/professorial setting.

Be aware of the kinds of resources you should reach out to (administration, superiors, HR, etc) should you find yourself experiencing or watching someone experience linguistic discrimination.

Disclaimer: before stepping into any confrontations, make sure you assess the danger of the situation (this where it’s really good to go to trainings to learn how to handle these kinds of situations). Your goal is to always de-escalate and make the person being discriminated against safer, as well as of course keeping yourself safe too. If there’s violence or anyone is in immediate danger, call the authorities and document whatever you can safely. I’ve only ever seen people being verbally abused for their use of their language(s), but it’s a scary world out there right now.

Overall, it’s really important to remember that this kind of discrimination does not exist in a vacuum and almost always has ties/roots in other forms of discrimination and racism. While it may seem like you’re only doing something small by stepping into and diffusing confrontation/condemning discrimination, you’re having a ripple effect that lets people who linguistically discriminate know that they should be ashamed of their words/actions. 

ALSO, friendly reminder that people who discriminate/harass someone for speaking in another language, having an accent, etc, are not entitled to be put up with due to free speech. That isn’t what it means.

A couple more resources on language discrimination in the workplace:

Language Discrimination & Workplace Fairness

Legal Aid at Work

World Language Education: Preventing Linguistic Discrimination

THIS IS BY NO MEANS ALL-ENCOMPASSING! It is also fed by the researched but incomplete knowledge I have on the subject as a non-expert and a student who is aspiring to meet these kinds of goals. Because I’m a student, I’m always learning, and that means growth must sometimes take the place of changing things I thought I knew and admitting mistakes. 

If you have anything else you want to add to this, please feel free to message me or reply/reblog. 

If you see any inaccuracies, incomplete information, or other concerns/issues with what I’ve written here, please take the time to contact me and educate me! 

I hope this is a good answer and satisfactorily answered your question, @stressfulsemantics ? Please feel free to ask any follow-up or message me for anything you may need!

[parkitherefornow]

Throughout his time as mayor and now on the campaign trail, Pete Buttigieg has stressed the importance of reversing systemic racial inequality— built over centuries through intentional racist policies—with intentional and targeted anti-racist policies. Asked following the recent South Bend town hall whether he’s done enough, or anything at all, to put this into practice as mayor, he stated: “I don’t want to seem defensive, but we have taken a lot of steps. They clearly haven’t been enough. But I can’t accept the suggestion that we haven’t done anything.”

To fact-check this statement, I decided to pull together a comprehensive (but not necessarily complete) list of Buttigieg’s work to promote racial justice and equity as the mayor of South Bend. Please note that many of these items were achieved by or in conjunction with the team members, community leaders and residents he has empowered to help build a more equitable society.

Government and Community

Appointed South Bend’s first Diversity & Inclusion Officer. This position was established to oversee the administration’s goal of advancing diversity and equal opportunity in the city’s work force and contracts. [1]

Passed an Executive Order calling on leaders to evaluate the city’s current policies and develop a plan to promote more diversity and inclusion within city government. It also codified the role of the Diversity & Inclusion Officer to oversee these city-wide diversity and inclusion initiatives. [2]

When local leaders asked for $3.5 million to renovate the Charles Black Community Center, which serves the historically black LaSalle Park neighborhood, Buttigieg managed to push through $4.5 million. [3] [4]Buttigieg was praised in a statement by the center’s director, Cynthia Taylor: “You’re gonna have to invite him in, you’re gonna have to sit him down, you’re gonna have to show him the issue,” she says. “Because he definitely will listen.” [4]

As part of the Center’s expansion, its computer lab will host the new Center for Learning, Information, Connectivity, and Knowledge (CLICK). This CLICK Center is part of an effort by the City of South Bend aimed at growing digital inclusion and helping community members gain the technology and digital literacy skills necessary to thrive in 2018 and beyond. [5]

Started South Bend Youth Task Force to foster youth involvement in government and community, help start conversations about racial divides, school biases, and other issues affecting the youth of south bend. [6]

South Bend was named one of seven High-Performing “Race-Informed” Cities in the 2018 Equipt to Innovate national survey of American cities. The designation covers cities that foster supportive environments for collective community-wide racial healing and systemic structural equity. [7]

The survey, a joint initiative by Living Cities and Governing magazine, offered high praise of South Bend’s efforts to target structural racism: “Rooted in an understanding that government at all levels has played a role in creating and maintaining racial inequity, resulting in a lack of access and opportunity for people of color in everything from education and employment to housing and healthcare, these cities seek to redress structural racism through an analysis of their own operations and make necessary changes in policy and practice.” [7]

Brought Obama’s 2016 My Brother’s Keeper alliance to South Bend, bridging city and local organizations to address opportunity gaps for boys and young men of color. [8]

Renamed one of the most prominent streets in downtown South Bend after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, overcoming 40 years of resistance by white business owners and death threats to minority members of the naming committee. [9]

Worked with La Casa de Amistad, South Bend’s main Latino outreach center, to create an innovative, first-of-its-kind governmentally endorsed/privately run municipal identification card, in order to ensure the small city’s approximately 4,500 undocumented immigrants had access to services. With a private organization managing the card rather than the government, the city avoided a major deterrent stopping immigrants from signing up for similar municipal ID programs. [10]

Buttigieg signed an executive order requiring local services and institutions — like law enforcement, schools, the water utility and libraries — to accept the card as a valid form of identification. The city also enlisted local businesses, such as financial institutions and drugstores, so cardholders could open bank accounts and pick up prescriptions. [11]

Of the 16 city employees reporting to the mayor, all six of the staff of color and women were his appointments within his tenure as mayor. Together they comprise 37.5 percent of the mayor’s direct report staff. While this number is in line with the Equal Employment Opportunity Tabulation (a national data set used by all federal contractors to measure staff diversity) national benchmark of 36.7, and higher than the Indiana regional benchmark of 22.1 percent, the administration has stated that increasing government-wide representation of underrepresented populations continues to be an ongoing goal. [1]

During his 2015 election, he instructed his campaign team to use his re-election TV spots to help local Black leader Kareemah Fowler win her bid for City Clerk and become the first minority in St. Joseph County to seat a full-time executive office. [12] [13]

Participates in and allocates resources for events that matter to minority communities in South Bend, both fun celebrations year-round and important protests like those for Eric Logan, the hoodie march for Trayvon Martin [14], and the 2017 Women’s March [15].

Public Safety and Policing

Empowered the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to shape a comprehensive slate of officer self-awareness and training programs:

Offered or administered the Diversity Awareness Profile and the Harvard Implicit Bias Test to officers. [16]

Instituted Implicit Bias Training for South Bend’s police force. [17]

Instituted Civil Rights Training for South Bend’s police force. [18]

Instituted workshops on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. [16]

Instituted workshops on Understanding the Human Brain and Implicit Bias. [16]

Instituted workshops on Micro-aggression and Micro-affirmation. [16]

Tied the principals of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into the Workplace Handbook. [16]

His administration worked with Police Department to ensure extensive focus on community policing, including through various measures overseen by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion:

Created “Cultural Competency” calendars. [16]

Hosted monthly “Diversity Dialogue Lunches”. [16]

Held Law Enforcement and Local Men of Color small group summits. [16]

Held neighborhood Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion workshops. [16]

Hosted Unity Summits focused on “sharing your stories”. [16]

Implemented a Job Shadowing rotation program. [16]

Noted in his 2018 state of the city address that officers conducted “7,000 foot patrols, attended 168 neighborhood meetings, and conducted ‘Coffee with a Cop’ outreach opportunities around our community.” As a result of this and other initiatives, he said, “the number of incidents leading to a use of force has gone down by a third in the last four years, and the number of investigations and complaints against police officers has fallen dramatically.” [19]

Oversaw a slate of changes to ensure accountability for officers:

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion helped design, customize, and successfully implement a new Staff Performance Evaluation system, and instituted annual departmental diversity and inclusion goals. [16]

Invested $1.5 million to equip South Bend police officers with body cameras and upgrade vehicle dash cameras, in order to ensure safety and accountability for both residents and officers. [20]

Pushed for total transparency on officer use of force, allowing residents to see what was happening and hold the department accountable. Instituted South Bend Police’s “Open Data Hub”, an online transparency database, so any resident can easily get data on crime statistics, case reports (including the number of times police had to use force when answering a call), and shows both officer complaints and compliments. The transparency hub was noted for being very advanced for a city of South Bend’s size. [21]

While all police firings and disciplinary action must be made by the civilian Board of Public Safety under Indiana law [22], Buttigieg has appointed an African-American majority (3 out of 4 positions; 1 currently vacant) in order to ensure public trust and accountability. [17]

Placed an emphasis on diversity recruitment initiatives in the police force:

Designed, customized, and successfully implemented a new Career Path Development system. [16]

Launched the “Home Grown Project”, a nomination process for local residents and particularly students of color (Phase 1 is currently underway). [16]

Made applications available online, to ease the process of applying. [23]

Publicly released all data on their diversity recruiting efforts on the front page of the SBPD website. [23] When the data suggested that minority applicants often dropped out before the physical test, the SBPD began to offer a practice physical test prior to the official test. [24]

Devoted resources and implemented programs to prevent crime from happening in the first place:

Launched the South Bend Group Violence Intervention (SBGVI) which “unites community leaders around a common goal: to stop gun violence and keep South Bend’s highest risk citizens alive and out of prison.” [25]The program aims to reduce violence by providing member of street groups avenues to succeed. Buttigieg fought to ensure continued funding and expansion of the program in the city’s 2019 budget. [26]

Adopted and implemented the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI), a pilot program which works to improve lock-up conditions while vetting the types of kids needing to be detained. The model is now operating in nearly 300 counties nationwide, often dramatically reducing detention facility populations. [27]

Instituted ShotSpotter technology, a series of acoustic sensors throughout the city that allows police to pinpoint and react to gunshots almost immediately. [28]

South Bend Common Council unanimously passed the Gun Violence Prevention Resolution, which calls on federal and state lawmakers to require background checks for all gun sales and close loopholes that give certain domestic abusers easy access to guns. The vote was praised by Moms Demand Action and Everytown Survivor Network. [29]

Housing

Instituted the ‘1,000 Houses in 1,000 Days’ program to repair or demolish vacant and abandoned houses, after residents in low-income communities routinely identified vacant and abandoned houses (caused by South Bend’s population decline from 130k to 100k) as a leading health, safety, and economic problem in their neighborhoods. [30]

The program recently entered a new phase in which the city is providing free legal and financial assistance to the low-income community members who live next to the torn down homes so that they can purchase the lots and build up their own communities. [31]

Statistics have shown that criminal activity has decreased within a half mile of vacant and abandoned homes addressed by the city. [32]

It was sometimes hard to discern owners of the abandoned houses, and early on some well-meaning residents found vacant houses they were hoping to renovate slated for demolition. However, Buttigieg was praised for quickly addressing the issue. When property owned by local resident and activist Stacey Odom ended up on the demolition list, she confronted the mayor during a chance encounter on the street. He later held a series of meetings with her and others to talk about the plan, and she credits the mayor with getting her home — and 40% of other residents’ homes — removed from the list. [33]

Funded a Home Repair Pilot Program, a grant program to help low-income residents repair & keep homes. [34] Activist Stacey Odom originally asked the mayor for $300,000 for the grant program, and he countered, she said, with $650,000. Odom later said: “that’s the kind of person you want in office, someone who is looking at your best interests. And if they’re not, if you go to them and tell them what your interests are, then they will take your concerns and make them their concerns.” [35]

Empowered and funded National Service programs, including the South Bend Green Corps (an AmeriCorps program) which works with lower-income families to increase their homes’ energy efficiency, safety and comfort, and Love Your Block (a municipal partnership with Cities of Service), which provides small grants and resources to community organizations that help families with small home repairs. These programs, together with the Home Repair Pilot Program, make up a $1+ million South Bend Home Repair initiative to improve quality of life for residents with a strong emphasis on working with neighborhoods. [36]

Economic Prosperity

Started Office of Engagement & Economic Empowerment to help address South Bend’s wealth gap [37]

Commissioned the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative, a comprehensive report on South Bend’s wealth inequality, through national advocacy group Prosperity NOW. [38] [39] Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, the researcher who compiled the Prosperity Now report, praised Buttigieg’s efforts and said he was the first mayor of any city to ask him to do this. “He didn’t solve racial economic inequality,” said Asante-Muhammad, “but what city has?” [4]

Based on the results of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative, held seminars across the community that gave neighborhood leaders the tools to identify the existing talents and skills of residents and connect them into business opportunities. [40]

Funded the West Side Small Business Resource Center, the first in a series of community centers aimed at lifting minority entrepreneurs and generating new wealth in underserved areas. [41] According to James Summers, chairman of the project: “This initiative is a truly grassroots and community-focused approach to generating new wealth through small business. The center provides unprecedented access to resources and networking, and as local businesses grow and employ neighbors, the entire community is strengthened.”

Available services at the Small Business Resource Centers will include mentoring, access to Small Business Development Center services, Small Business Administration, Small Business Innovation Research, and Small Business Technology Transfer program training and support. In addition, the center will provide professional services and encourage local business networking to identify opportunities to connect, collaborate, and create exponential growth. The center will also offer functional space for business meetings and workshops. [42]

Empowered Office of Diversity and Inclusion to ensure government contracts and purchasing targets minority- and women-owned businesses vendors within the city’s marketplace, and commissioned a study of current practices to ensure progress and accountability. [43]

Awarded a $50k CommunityWINS grant in 2018 (one of six cities) based on the partnership between Near Northwest Neighborhood and the City of South Bend to fund a minority and women contractor training program. The grant funds were used to create and operate a year-long program of training and certification for minority and women contractors in areas including business planning, contract law, insurance and bonding, lead certification, project cash flow, and other topics designed to equip small business contractors. [44]

Awarded a $50k Inclusive Procurement Grant in 2019 (one of ten cities) based on South Bend’s pursuit of innovative, effective, locally-tailored strategies to leverage public purchasing power in order to develop firms owned by people of color. Local initiatives range from implementing aggressive outreach strategies, developing procurement portals and creating an ecosystem of support services for firms owned by people of color to increase their opportunities to gain city contracts. [45]

Enlisted local financial institutions to accept the privately run municipal identification card so that cardholders could open bank accounts, removing a major barrier to financial independence faced by the city’s undocumented population. [11]

In concert with efforts to increase minority representation in city government [2], he fought to raise the minimum wage for city employees. His plan called for a raise from $7.25 to $10.10 by 2018, but he was able to accelerate the schedule to accomplish it by 2016. [46]

While these efforts have been extensive, they aim to tackle complex problems and often require efforts far beyond the reach of city government. South Bend has made some huge strides, yet, like every city, it clearly still has a long way to go. But the main thing I would argue this list shows is how deeply its Mayor, government, and community care about finding solutions.

1) Viewpoint: City taking steps to build diversity

2) Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s executive order on diversity and inclusion in South Bend city gov’t

3) Charles Black Community Center unveiled Thursday, community reflects on legacy and future

4) Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Unlikely, Untested, Unprecedented Presidential Campaign

5) Charles Black Recreation Center Re-opens After $4.4 Million Renovation

6) South Bend mayor starts Youth Task Force

7) South Bend named high-performing “race-informed” city

8) South Bend sees success in young boys, men of color through ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ alliance

9) What Would Black America Be Like Under President Pete? Ask South Bend

10) South Bend ID cards aim to ease life for undocumented immigrants

11) Buttigieg’s big accomplishment that he never mentions on the campaign trail

12) Tweet from Kareemah Fowler

13) City Clerk: Spread the message of diversity during Black History Month

14) Pete Buttigieg speaks at the March 2012 Million Hoodie March in honor of Trayvon Martin

15) Photo of Pete Buttigieg at the National Women’s March in 2017

16) Christina Brooks, director of Diversity and Inclusion, shares a list of active initiatives and programs her department is overseeing at the police department

17) What Mayor Pete Couldn’t Fix About the South Bend Cops

18) Q&A with Mayor Pete Buttigieg about his plans for communities of color

19) Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s 2018 State of the City address

20) Officers in South Bend are getting new body cameras and car cameras

21) South Bend launches new data hub with crime stats

22) Indiana Code 36–8–3–4. Police officers and firefighters; discipline, demotion, and dismissal; hearings; appeals; administrative leave

23) City leaders: Lack of diversity plaguing South Bend Police Department

24) Our Opinion: Recruiting minority police officers must remain a priority for South Bend

25) South Bend Group Violence Intervention

26) Proposed city budget leaving room from group violence intervention

27) St. Joseph County youth detention alternative gets grant

28) ShotSpotter: South Bend Police say technology helping ‘solve crime’

29) Gun Violence Survivor, Indiana Moms Demand Action Applaud South Bend Common Council for Unanimously Passing Gun Violence Prevention Resolution

30) South Bend’s Vacant and Abandoned Housing Challenge: 1,000 Houses in 1,000 Days

31) Vacant Property Initiative Resident Legal Assistance Program

32) Crime decreases with 1,000 homes in 1,000 days project

33) Pete Buttigieg pushed an aggressive plan to revitalize South Bend. Not everyone felt its benefits.

34) Home Repair Pilot Program to fund about 65 home improvements

35) Pete Buttigieg says he’s mayor of a turnaround city. Here’s how that claim stands up.

36) South Bend officials highlight home repair programs

37) South Bend to keep fighting for the best future for the next generation

38) South Bend community group to host meeting about racial wealth divide

39) ProsperityNOW Report: Racial Wealth Divide in South Bend

40) South Bend project hopes to grow small businesses and target racial wealth divide

41) New business center in South Bend aims to lift minority entrepreneurs

42) City of South Bend opens West Side Small Business Resource Center

43) Breaking down South Bend’s Diversity Purchasing Report

44) Buttigieg, Near Northwest Neighborhood, Inc. to celebrate CommunityWINS Grant

45) South Bend Receives $50k Inclusive Procurement Grant

46) Buttigieg proposes accelerated minimum wage increase for city employees

Note: Inspiration and a starting point for this research came from this twitter thread from Nicole Lockney and this twitter thread from RomancePete.

“That’s the kind of person you want in office, someone who is looking at your best interests. And if they’re not, if you go to them and tell them what your interests are, then they will take your concerns and make them their concerns.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“One of the [emails] that was so frightening was one of my coworkers sent an email affirming the first email, and then it said ‘and I look forward to the responses from everybody else who has not yet responded.’

And that really sent a chill down my spine. Cause I went ‘oh, we’re being watched.’

And the threat is always that you’re going to be accused of being a racist if you don’t agree with what’s being said.

There’s a play by Arthur Miller called ‘The Crucible.’

In ‘The Crucible,’ Arthur Miller dramatizes the Salem Witch Trials as a metaphor for what happened during the McCarthy era.

And one of the things that’s happening during the Salem Witch Trials is people are falsely accusing other people of being a witch. And then saying ‘I’m not a witch’ actually makes it worse.

This thing with accusing people of racism in the theater is the same thing that happens in ‘The Crucible.’ And it was shocking to me to see people acting out ‘The Crucible’ in real life, who know better than to behave that way.”

--

https://www.fairforall.org/ray-v-new-42/

Kevin Ray works as a teaching artist for New 42, a publicly-funded performing arts organization in New York City, where he delivers art workshops to students across the city.

Beginning in 2019, the work environment at New 42 became permeated with insults, stereotypes, and discrimination based on skin color, all under the guise of “anti-racism.” The discrimination was pervasive and aggressive, consisting of over seventy emails, countless workplace training sessions, and other incidents. The following are just a few examples:

Segregating employees by skin color for workplace meetings and diversity training sessions.

Claiming “placing White folx in interracial dialogue is like placing pre-algebra students in a calculus class” and “White people need something akin to a remedial course.”

Distributing materials filled with demeaning stereotypes, including that “white” behavior is characterized by “not listening,” “denial,” “defensiveness,” “lack of inquiry,” “either/or binary thinking,” and “not owning one’s white group identity.”

Accusing the “white group” of “replicat[ing] the worst facets of dominant culture.”

Claiming that “whiteness…divides each and all of us from the earth, the sun, the wind, the water, the stars, [and] the animals that roam the earth.”

Berating “white” people for “demanding to be seen as an individual and not as a part of the white group.”

Beginning meetings with the ritual of having employees state their home address and apologize for living on land stolen from Native Americans.

Circulating an email demanding that “white” employees pay reparations to a “black” colleague.

On numerous occasions, Mr. Ray asked New 42 to stop these discriminatory acts. Instead of doing so, New 42 refused to give him any further work assignments.

Mr. Ray has now filed suit against New 42 in federal court, alleging violations of his civil rights under federal and New York law.

--

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17250.The_Crucible

"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminates the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, "Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence."

==

Wokeness is a universal solvent.

[naruhearts]

FCS Article of the Day || Jan 16 2019 || -Mod @naruhearts

- - - -

Antiracism and America

White people assume niceness is the answer to racial inequality. It's not.

by Robin DiAngelo

- - - -

I am white. As an academic, consultant and writer on white racial identity and race relations, I speak daily with other white people about the meaning of race in our lives. These conversations are critical because, by virtually every measure, racial inequality persists, and institutions continue to be overwhelmingly controlled by white people.

While most of us see ourselves as “not racist”, we continue to reproduce racist outcomes and live segregated lives.

In the racial equity workshops I lead for American companies, I give participants one minute, uninterrupted, to answer the question: “How has your life been shaped by your race?” This is rarely a difficult question for people of color, but most white participants are unable to answer. I watch as they flail, some giving up altogether and waiting out the time, unable to sustain 60 seconds of this kind of reflection. This inability is not benign, and it certainly is not innocent. Suggesting that whiteness has no meaning creates an alienating – even hostile – climate for people of color working and living in predominantly white environments, and it does so in several ways.

If I cannot tell you what it means to be white, I cannot understand what it means not to be white. I will be unable to bear witness to, much less affirm, an alternate racial experience. I will lack the critical thinking and skills to navigate racial tensions in constructive ways. This creates a culture in which white people assume that niceness is the answer to racial inequality and people of color are required to maintain white comfort in order to survive.

An inability to grapple with racial dynamics with any nuance or complexity is ubiquitous in younger white people who have been raised according to an ideology of colorblindness. I have been working with large tech companies whose average employees are under 30 years old. White employees are typically dumbfounded when their colleagues of color testify powerfully in these sessions to the daily slights and indignities they endure and the isolation they feel in overwhelmingly white workplaces. This pain is especially acute for African Americans, who tend to be the least represented.

“How often will a white person accused of racism gather as evidence to the contrary friends and colleagues to testify to their niceness?”

While the thin veneer of a post-racial society that descended during the Obama years has been ripped away by our current political reality, most white people continue to conceptualize racism as isolated and individual acts of intentional meanness. This definition is convenient and comforting, in that it exempts so many white people from the system of white supremacy we live in and are shaped by. It is at the root of the most common kind of white defensiveness. If racists are intentionally and openly mean, then it follows that nice people cannot be racist. How often will a white person accused of racism gather as evidence to the contrary friends and colleagues to testify to their niceness; the charge cannot be true, the friend cannot be racist, because “he’s a really nice guy” or “she volunteers on the board of a non-profit serving under-privileged youth”. Not meaning to be racist also allows for absolution. If they didn’t mean it, it cannot and should not count.

Thus, it becomes essential for white people to quickly and eagerly telegraph their niceness to people of color. Niceness in these instances is conveyed through tone of voice (light), eye contact accompanied by smiling and the conjuring of affinities (shared enjoyment of a music genre, compliments on hair or style, statements about having traveled to the country the “other” is perceived to have come from or knowing people from the other’s community). Kindness is compassionate and often implicates actions to support or intervene. For example, I am having car trouble and you stop and see if you can help. I appear upset after a work meeting and you check in and listen with the intent of supporting me. Niceness, by contrast, is fleeting, hollow and performative.

In addition to niceness, proximity is seen as evidence of a lack of racism. Consider the claims many white people give to establish that they aren’t racist: “I work in a diverse environment.” “I know and/or love people of color.” “I was in the Peace Corps.” “I live in a large urban city.” These are significant because they reveal what we think it means to be racist. If I can tolerate (and especially if I enjoy and value) proximity, claims of proximity maintain, I must not be racist; a “real” racist cannot stand to be near people of color, let alone smile or otherwise convey friendliness.

In a 1986 article about black students and school success, Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu describe a “fictive kinship” between African Americans, a kinship that is not consanguineal (by blood) or affinal but derived from the assumption of shared experience. The racial kinship white people attempt to draw from niceness might be seen as a false or fabricated affinity. Most white people live segregated lives and in fact have no lasting cross-racial relationships. We are in the position to choose segregation and often do. The claims of non-racism that we make are therefore based on the most superficial of shared experiences: passing people of color on the street of large cities and going to lunch on occasion with a co-worker.

Note that our cursory friendliness does not come without strings. Consider the case of a white California woman who called the police this past May when a group of black Airbnb guests did not return her smile. The expectation is that the “nod of approval”, the white smile, will be reciprocated. This woman, like all the other white people who have called the police on people of color for non-existent offenses, vigorously denied she was racist. After all, she did smile and wave before reporting them.

I have heard many black Americans talk about the awkwardness of white people “over-smiling”. The act is meant to convey acceptance and approval while maintaining moral integrity, but actually conveys white racial anxiety. Over-smiling allows us to mask an anti-blackness that is foundational to our very existence as white. A fleeting benevolence, of course, has no relation to how black people are actually undermined in white spaces. Black friends have often told me that they prefer open hostility to niceness. They understand open hostility and can protect themselves as needed. But the deception of niceness adds a confusing layer that makes it difficult for people of color to decipher trustworthy allyship from disingenuous white liberalism. Gaslighting ensues.

The default of the current system is the reproduction of racial inequality. To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility.

We can begin by acknowledging ourselves as racial beings with a particular and limited perspective on race. We can attempt to understand the racial realities of people of color through authentic interaction rather than through the media or through unequal relationships. We can insist that racism be discussed in our workplaces and a professed commitment to racial equity be demonstrated by actual outcomes. We can get involved in organizations working for racial justice. These efforts require that we continually challenge our own socialization and investments in racism and put what we profess to value into the actual practice of our lives. This takes courage, and niceness without strategic and intentional anti-racist action is not courageous.

[stuart-theo]

What Has America Really Learned A Decade After Trayvon Martin’s Killing?

The 10-year anniversary of the death of Trayvon Martin on Saturday (Feb. 26), is a sobering reminder that little has changed. The brutal overpolicing of Black people continues, with the recent murder of Amir Locke via a botched no-knock raid, a racist policy also weaponized to kill Breonna Taylor.

Kaia Rolle, a Black child who was arrested and handcuffed in her Florida school at the age of six, continues to suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. But, this is nothing new. American policing has been a major source of anti-Black racial violence since its inception with historical roots in slave patrols.

There is no question that Black people have been psychologically impacted by the unrelenting racial trauma of widely televised police brutality over the past 10 years and long before that. The question is: What has the impact been on white people, specifically white people in positions of power? And what are they doing to create true change?

It is documented that Black individuals are more likely than their white counterparts to experience adverse mental health effects from highly publicized police killings of Black people. White America has a long history of being desensitized to the plight of Black people. It was not so long ago when white crowds held festive gatherings to celebrate the public torture and lynching of Black Americans, and made Black lynchings into souvenir postcards.

For the white Americans not directly involved or witnessing racial violence, one has to wonder: how many of them turned a blind eye to white supremacy or simply felt that racism against Black Americans was not real? How many still do?`

SPECIAL: ‘CBS Reports – Trayvon Martin: 10 Years Later’ To Revisit Killing of Black Teen That Changed History

PHOTOS: Trayvon Martin 10 Years Later: How Artworks Keep His Memory Alive

Recent polls revealed that nearly half of white Americans believe that Black and white people are treated equally by the police and that police shootings of Black people are receiving too much attention. The police and vigilante killings of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black Americans led to a ripple effect of institutional apologies and promises.

Pledges to combat racism led to organizational task forces of questionable output, often with the same people in charge who had previously promoted the racist status quo. Anti-racism workshops were held, conversations about race were mediated. Many rushed to pay lip service to fighting racism, but I am still waiting for the action to accompany it.

“No-knock” raids remain unbanned in the majority of states. Kaia Rolle’s family fought to raise the minimum age of arrest in Florida, but children as young as 8 years old can still be lawfully arrested by police, and many states still have no minimum age for arrest.

White people continue to hold the majority of positions of power in workplaces and academic institutions, with major barriers existing for Black people seeking promotion and leadership. Black people are more likely to prefer remote work as a reprieve from everyday workplace racism. Despite more than 50 years passing since the Civil Rights Act, Black people are still paid less than their white counterparts with the same qualifications.

True progress is not made in implicit bias workshops or lectures about racism in police shootings. True progress is made when racist laws and policies are eradicated and power is redistributed equitably and justly. True progress against racism is not made in abstract conversations about race. It is made when a white colleague is held accountable for racist behavior at work.

True progress does not come in self-proclamations of allyship, it comes when white people in power ensure that all of their colleagues receive equal wages, and better yet, ensure that the salaries of Black versus white employees are transparent and trackable to ensure that the racial wealth gap is not perpetuated.

While I am glad that conversations are being held about racism in professional and academic spaces, it is time to move towards real action. Words are powerful, but they should be accompanied by accountability and action. Otherwise, Trayvon’s murder has taught America nothing.

If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.

[96thdayofrage]

Nice Racism by Robin DiAngelo review – a deeply revealing lesson on white supremacism

A powerful new book from the author of White Fragility reveals why profound racism is often found in supposedly liberal spaces

In 1952, the anti-racist activist and librarian Juliette Hampton Morgan famously observed in a letter to a friend that polite white people were “our biggest problem” in combating American white supremacy. The outspoken southern white writer and teacher had been pulling emergency brakes on buses in Montgomery, Alabama when black patrons were intentionally left on the sidewalk, and wrote letters to local newspapers critiquing segregation. What horrified her just as much as the normalised treatment of black Americans was the way white decency obstructed social change. Seventy years later, Robin DiAngelo explores some of the enduring facets of this practice.

Citing deeply revealing and recurring anecdotes from her career as an anti-racist educator, DiAngelo analyses how white Americans who deem themselves inoculated against racism uniquely embody racist practices, including herself. (She characterises racism as “a collective racial bias backed by legal authority and institutional control”, in which individuals and communities participate.) DiAngelo pertinently distinguishes anti-racist strategies from the valued currency of white friendliness, writing: “Niceness does not indicate a lack of racism and is not the solution to racism. Nor does a culture of niceness indicate that racism is not present in the environment.” As evidence for this assessment, she describes straight-up racial illiteracy (such as the perennially irksome “people should just see each other as humans”) from proud liberal attendees who insinuate that they are beyond a workshop on race, demonstrating how a gradation in white supremacy is nevertheless white supremacy.

Highly instructional, with pertinent questions for white readers who consider themselves sufficiently “woke” or have felt “attacked” in discussions around race, Nice Racism interrogates the machinery of white progressiveness and how these gears actually work; many of these liberal-sanctioned tactics still prioritise the insecurities, performance, pride and superiority of whiteness over the literal needs of racially marginalised communities. And yet, across the political landscape, these are the very “so-called open-minded white people” that Bipoc (black, indigenous, and people of colour) are encouraged to find legislative or civil alliances with when combatting racism. DiAngelo’s book brings scrutiny, racial theory and first-hand experience to what many people of colour already know: it’s places like the Democratic National Convention, the “feminist” book club, the liberal-identified workplace where you will encounter some of the most profound racism you’ve ever experienced.

Tedious, defensive tropes that are commonly used against critiques of racial illiteracy – such as adopting black children, having a partner of colour or a “diverse” group of friends – are dissected and refuted almost mathematically. DiAngelo explores the ideology of white feminism as a product of nice racism, in which many of these dynamics are employed by white women to the denigration, silencing and decentralising of women of colour in “feminist” spaces. It’s here that DiAngelo underscores that nice racism, as a concept, doesn’t just impede racial consciousness but can also foster hostility towards those prompting it. Nice racism is not so nice when you push back on it.

DiAngelo recounts a number of workshops and discussions led specifically for white women. In one for white self-identified feminists, she asks the participants to compile a list of advantages of being white, for discussion. According to DiAngelo, one group rattles off the pedestrian – not being followed in stores and ample representation in media – before caveating these personal observations with the claim that motherhood is “universal to all women, regardless of race”. DiAngelo responded: “Motherhood is perhaps one of the starkest examples of the differences between white women and black women,” referencing racism in healthcare, education, infant and maternal mortality rates, among many other issues. The progressive white feminists were so offended by this correction, at an equity conference no less, that they left during the break and sent a message to DiAngelo to say that they weren’t coming back. White feminism often writes itself.

Most potent though is DiAngelo’s urgency to get the reader to consider whiteness: its illusions, promises, assumptions and casual narratives of self-importance. It’s in these spaces that we see white supremacy at its most unadorned: the inflation of self based on the mythology that racism has afforded. DiAngelo’s participants mirror back this wholesale belief, so much so that when she asks them to scrutinise the racial superiority they have inherited, they can’t. They see being white as “neutral” in an otherwise racialised world that they often don’t feel equipped to speak in.

I think of this lens when she pointedly prompts white readers: “We might ask ourselves why we think the best response to racial inequality is niceness.”

It’s a question only they can answer.

[justsomeantifas]

Leftist Zines: The PDF Masterlist

Here’s a list of all the leftist zines I could find online that have free PDFs available. With these you can read them for yourself or you can print and share as many as you want. Hand them out at your school or put them in your local coffee shops. You can even host a table at zine events and give them out (maybe ask for donations for your printing and binding efforts). Maybe these will even give you some ideas on how to start your own political zine. 

As far as the PDFs, there’s going to be a few options for some of them but they’re mostly just different layouts options or one’s in black and white and the other is full color. We also have this listed on our blog. Alright here we go:

To Change Everything: An Anarchist Appeal is one of the most popular free zines that introduces people to anarchism. It's available in dozens of languages and you can get this particular zine in bulk (under 300 copies is free) or print it yourself from a PDF. Click here if you’d like to see the language options available and click here for your PDF/bulk buying options. 

“And What About Tomorrow?” Anarchist Resistance and the “Blockbusterization” of Reality—A Response to the “Battle in Seattle” Movie Adaptation of the 1999 WTO Protests (PDF)

“The Struggle Is Not for Martyrdom, but for Life.”A Critical Discussion about Armed Struggle with Anarchist Guerrillas in Rojava (PDF)

(A)BC’s Mini Guide to Protesting (PDF)

10 Steps for Setting Up A Blockade (PDF1) (PDF2)

12 Things to do Instead of Calling the Cops (PDF1) (PDF2)

20 Theses on the Subversion of the Metropolis (PDF)

3 Positions Against Prison (PDF)

9 Theses on Insurgency (PDF)

A Civilian’s Guide to Direct Action: What It Is, What It’s Good For, How It Works (PDF1) (PDF2) (bulk buying)

A Compilation of Anti-Oppression Resources (PDF1) (PDF2)

A Critique of Ally Politics: Excerpt from: Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism  (PDF1) (PDF2)

A Critique of State Socialism: Why Authoritarian Communism Leaves Us Cold (PDF1) (PDF2)

A Practical Guide to Prisoner Support (PDF)

A World Without Police (PDF1) (PDF2)

Accomplices Not Allies Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex: An Indigenous Perspective & Provocation (PDF)

Accounting For Ourselves: Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes (PDF1) (PDF2)

After the Crest (PDF), After the Crest II (PDF), After the Crest III (PDF), After the Crest IV (PDF)

After We Have Burnt Everything: Correspondences About Revolutionary Strategy and Emotions (PDF1) (PDF2)

Against ‘Social Networks’ & the False Communities of Capital (PDF)

Against Assemblies: Organisation, Democracy & the Left (PDF)

Against the Romance of Community Policing (PDF)

ALF Prisoner Support: The Basics (PDF)

An Activist’s Guide to Basic First Aid (PDF1) (PDF2)

An Activist’s Guide to Information Security (PDF1) (PDF2)

An Herbal Medicine-Making Primer (PDF1) (PDF2)

Anarchism and the English Language//English and the Anarchists’ Language (PDF)

Anarchism: What It Is, What It Ain’t (PDF1) (PDF2)

Anarchists in the Bosnian Uprising (PDF)

Anarchists in the Turkish Uprising: An Interview with Participants in the Gezi Resistance of 2013 (PDF)

Anarchy & Alcohol: Wasted Indeed, How the Fiends Came to be Civilized, et al (PDF1) (PDF2)

Anonymity/Security (PDF1) (PDF2)

Anti-Mass: Methods of Organization for Collectives (PDF)

Art & Science of Billboard Improvement: A Comprehensive Guide to the Alteration of Outdoor Advertising (PDF1) (PDF2)

Ask First!: Resource for Supporters, Survivors, and Perpetrators of Sexual Assault (PDF)

Betrayal: A Critical Analysis of Rape Culture in Anarchist Subcultures (PDF1) (PDF2)

Between Rape and Racism: Deconstructing Rhetoric about the “Migrant Crisis” in Europe (PDF)

Blockade, Occupy, Strike Back (PDF)

Bodyhammer: Tactics and Self-Defense for the Modern Protestor (PDF1) (PDF2)

Bounty Hunters & Child Predators: Inside the FBI Entrapment Strategy (PDF1) (PDF2)

Breaking with Convention: Remembering where our Power Lies (PDF1) (PDF2)

Build those Collectives: A Workshop Pamphlet on How to Build A Collective, and What To Do With It When It’s Built (PDF)

Build Your Own Solidarity Network (PDF)

Building a Revolutionary Movement: Why Anarchist-Communist Organization? (PDF) 

Building: A DIY Guide to Creating Spaces, Hosting Events and Fostering Radical Communities (PD1F) (PDF2)

But What About Beer?: A FAQ on drug consumption at common activist spaces – camps, events, social centers, etc” (PDF1) (PDF2)

Can’t Stop Kaos: A Brief History of the Black Bloc (PDF)

Colonization and Decolonization: A Manual for Indigenous Liberation in the 21st Century (PDF1) (PDF2)

Copwatch 101 (PDF1) (PDF2)

Defend the Territory: Tactics and Techniques for Countering Police Assaults on Indigenous Communities (PDF1) (PDF2)

Deserting the Digital Utopia: Computers against Computing (PDF)

Direct Action Tactics (PDF)

DIY Guide #1 (PDF) DIY Guide #2 (PDF)

Don’t Back Down! (PDF)

Don’t Try to Break Us–We’ll Explode: The 2017 G20 and the Battle of Hamburg: A Full Account and Analysis (PDF1) (PDF2)

Dropping Out: For Students (PDF)

Electoral Politics are not a “Gateway Drug” (PDF1) (PDF2)

Elements of A Barricade (PDF1) (PDF2)

Emmanuel Barthélemy: Proletarian Fighter, Blanquist Conspirator, Survivor of the Galleys, Veteran of the Uprisings of 1848, Fugitive, Duelist, Ruffian, &—Very Nearly—Assassin of Karl Marx (PDF1) (PDF2)

Excited Delirium: A Protestor’s Guide to ‘Less-Lethal’ Police Weaponry (PDF1) (PDF2)

False Hope vs. Real Change: An Anti-Partisan (beyond) Voting Guide to the 2008 Election (PDF)

Fighting For Our Lives: An Anarchist Primer (PDF1) (PDF2)

Fighting in Brazil: Three Years of Revolt, Repression, and Reaction (PDF)

Forget Terrorism : The Hijacking of Reality After the Fall: Analysis of the Events of 9/11 (PDF)

From Democracy to Freedom: The Difference between Government and Self-Determination (PDF)

Grand Juries: Tools of Political Repression (PDF)

HEIST! Journal of Workplace Reappropriation (PDF)

Hidden Histories of Resistance: The Diverse Heritage of Squatting in England (PDF)

How To Form an Affinity Group: Essential Building Blocks of Anarchist Organization (PDF)

How To Put Together Your Own Consent Workshop (PDF)

How to Start a Prison Books Collective (PDF)

Hunter and Gatherer (PDF)

If a Man Commits Rape in Newtown and No One Knows How to Deal with it.. Then Did it Ever Really Happen? (PDF)

In Our Hands: Using a Community Accountability Approach to Address Sexual Violence, Abuse, & Oppression (PDF1) (PDF2)

Know Your Rights! What You Need To Know (PDF)

Land & Liberty: Against The New City (PDF1) (PDF2)

Learning Good Consent (PDF)

Let’s Talk (PDF)

Not Your Grandfather’s Antifascism: Anti-Fascism Has Arrived. Here’s Where It Needs to Go. (PDF)

Prologue: A Brief History of Capitalism (PDF)

Revolutionary Solidarity (PDF)

Revolutionary Solidarity: A Critical Reader for Accomplices (PDF1) (PDF2)

Security Culture: A Handbook for Activists (PDF)

Self as Other: Reflections on Self-Care (PDF1) (PDF2)

Short Circuit (PDF1) (PDF2)

Slave Patrols and Civil Servants: A History of Policing in Two Modes (PDF)

Small Town Organizing for Anarchists (PDF1) (PDF2)

Social Detox (PDF)

Supporting A Survivor Of Sexual Assault (PDF)

Syrian Underground Railroad: Open Border Activism in the Modern Landscape (PDF)

Taking the First Step: Suggestions to People Called Out for Abusive Behavior (PDF)

Tech Tools for Activism (PDF1) (PDF2)

Terror Incognita: Reflections on Consent & Consensus, Queer Sexuality & Subversion, and Breaking Entirely with the Known World (PDF1) (PDF2)

The Art of Politics: A Primer for Community Self-Defense

The Climate is Changing: False Solutions to the Climate Crisis (PDF1) (PDF2)

The Economy is Suffering, Let it Die! (PDF1) (PDF2)

The Illegitimacy of Violence, the Violence of Legitimacy (PDF)

The Illegitimacy of Violence, the Violence of Legitimacy: A Text for Occupiers, Freedom Fighters, and the Discontent (PDF)

The Mythology of Work: Eight Myths that Keep Your Eyes on the Clock and Your Nose to the Grindstone (PDF1) (PDF2)

The Party’s Over: Beyond Politics, Beyond Democracy (PDF1) (PDF2)

The Really, Really Free Market: Instituting the Gift Economy (PDF)

The Secret World of Terijian: A Children’s Story about the Magical World in Your Own Backyard (PDF)

The Storming of the City: June 18, 1999—A Comic History (PDF)

The Walls are Alive: A How-To Graffiti Guide For Those Who Scheme and Those Who Dream (PDF) (bulk buying)

This is Not a Dialogue: Notes on Anti-Fascism and Free Speech (PDF)

Towards A Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle (PDF1) (PDF2)

Ukraine and the Future of Social Movements: Reflections on the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 (PDF)

Understanding the Kurdish Resistance: Historical Overview & Eyewitness Report (PDF)

Vortext: An Experimental Journal of Subversion, Witchcraft, Philosophy, and Literature (PDF1) (PDF2)

Voting VS. Direct Action (PDF1) (PDF2)

We Are All Very Anxious: Six Theses on Anxiety and Why It is Effectively Preventing Militancy, and One Possible Strategy for Overcoming It (PDF)

What Anarchists Have been Saying for Years, and What Liberals Need to Start Hearing (PDF)

What Is Prisoner Support? (PDF)

What is Security Culture? A Guide to Staying Safe (PDF1) (PDF2)

What They Mean When They Say Peace & The Making of “Outside Agitators”: Two Essays on the Rebellion in Ferguson (PDF)

Who Is Oakland?: Anti-Oppression Activism, the Politics of Safety, and State Co-optation (PDF)

Whoever They Vote For, We Are Ungovernable: A History of Anarchist Counter-Inaugural Protest (PDF)

Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements (PDF)

Women, Witchunts, and the Reproduction of the Capitalist World (PDF1) (PDF2)

Writing to Prisoners: Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)

[winterbornebikes]

Mechanic - Hamilton Bike Share - Hamilton

Company/Shop: Hamilton Bike Share

Position: Bike Mechanic

Job Description: Bike Mechanic

Full-time; 40 hours per week

Salary: $40,000/yr ($20/hr); 3 weeks paid vacation time

Free unlimited access to bike share

Location: Hamilton, Ontario

Start Date: ASAP - mid August

Who We Are:

Hamilton Bike Share Inc. is the not-for-profit organization that operates the year-round 825 bike public bike sharing system and hosts the Everyone Rides Initiative, an equity program that is designed to remove barriers to accessing bikes through subsidized membership options, programming and community engagement. Our mission is “to enhance the quality of urban life by improving equitable access to bicycles in Hamilton.” The organization is powered by a hard working, passionate, and resilient team of people who care about our city and the benefits of bike share.

Who You Are

You’re a skilled bike mechanic who is excited to help keep Hamilton Bike Share’s fleet in tip top shape. You bring previous bike mechanic experience to the role, are meticulous, have an eye for detail, and can work quickly and efficiently. You’re able to work independently to complete tasks, and are self-motivated to ensure your tasks are completed to a high standard. You are skilled in working with tools, and know your way around a bike.

The Opportunity:

The Bike Mechanic’s primary responsibility is to maintain bikes to keep the system running efficiently and safely. This involves inspecting bikes, making daily repairs, and troubleshooting issues with technology related to the bikes. The position is based out of a workshop, with some tasks to be completed in the field by bike or a vehicle.

Responsibilities:

Complete work orders for bikes properly and in a timely manner

Conduct daily bike maintenance, repair and safety testing

Ensure processes are properly and accurately documented

Perform data entry as required

Ride bicycles to perform maintenance tasks throughout the service area as needed

Ride bikes outside to test performance of bike and technology (i.e. GPS testing)

Assist with installing, moving and removing hubs and bikes as necessary

Requirements:

2+ years of experience with bike maintenance and repair

Confident riding a bike in an urban setting;

Ability to move and lift 50 lbs;

Experience using a computer and general office software to document processes

Assets:

Valid “G” or “G2” Driver’s License

Physical demands:

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to stand, walk, sit, use hands, climb stairs, balance, stoop, kneel, talk or hear.

The employee must frequently lift and/or move bikes weighing up to 50 pounds

Our organization is committed to equity and anti-racism, and we seek to cultivate an inclusive team and welcoming workplace. We encourage candidates from diverse identities to apply, including people who identify as BIPOC and/or racialized, people with disabilities, and people from the LGBTQ2S+ community.

How To Apply:

Please submit a cover letter and resume in one PDF addressed to Megan Anevich: jointheteam@hamiltonbikeshare.ca by 11:59pm on August 8th. Interviews will be held on a rolling basis.

The cover letter must include the following in order to be considered:

Why we should choose you for this particular role

Your direct experience with bike maintenance

Your earliest start date

Wage/Salary: $20

Contact Name: Megan Anevich

Contact Email Address: jointheteam@hamiltonbikeshare.ca

Phone Number: (416) 509-4305

Website: https://hamilton.socialbicycles.com/

Submit Résumé By: 8/8/2021