Category Archives: Undoing Racism

Sep 02 2012
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Labor and Worker Justice, Law, legal, Undoing Racism

Boston IWW Commerates Sacco and Vanzetti

On Saturday, August 29th at Boston Common members of the Boston Industrial Workers of the World gathered to remember the tragedy of justice carried out by the State of Massachusetts against two men wrongly accused of committing of robbing a payroll clerk at gunpoint.

Marred by ethnic prejudice, perjured testimony, suspected collusion of the defense counsel with the prosecution, admittance of irrelevant testimony concerning the political activities of both men, conflicts of interest with the judge and other judicial errors, Nicola Sacco and Bartemelo Vanzetti were sentenced to death electrocuted at the Charleston State Prison on August 23, 1927 as innocent men.

The case garnered international attention as the public worldwide noted that the prosecution, for lack of real evidence, made use of the prejudice, racism and red-baiting in American society at the time to convict the two men.  To this day the case still conjures up study and debate.  No one who studies history can deny that the events leading up to the deaths of these two men, had more to do with their anti-war, anti-capitalist and pro-worker activities than with the crime they were accused of committing.

Most importantly, the case draws a hard lesson about the extreme tension between workers and the unfettered growth of industrial capitalism in America and Europe.  Activists who fought for worker justice, who spoke out against World War 1 were actively pursued as what we’d today call “terrorists”, rounded up, beaten, abused and oppressed in an effort to stem the tide of resistance to the newly developing and growing capitalist state.

One would do well to recall that the abuse and corruption of the American judicial system continues to disempower, abuse and control those entities of society that serve the capitalist interest best when exploited.

Click here for further details on the case.

Nicola Sacco’s statement to court after being sentenced to death (9th April, 1927)

I am no orator. It is not very familiar with me the English language, and as I know, as my friend has told me, my comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought to give him the chance. I never knew, never heard, even read in history anything so cruel as this Court. After seven years prosecuting they still consider us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed with us in this court today.

I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich class, and there will be always collision between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books, with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize them and kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for having been of the oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor.

You know it, Judge Thayer – you know all my life, you know why I have been here, and after seven years that you have been persecuting me and my poor wife, and you still today sentence us to death. I would like to tell all my life, but what is the use? You know all about what I say before, that is, my comrade, will be talking, because he is more familiar with the language, and I will give him a chance.

You forget all this population that has been with us for seven years, to sympathize and give us all their energy and all their kindness. You do not care for them. Among that peoples and the comrades and the working class there is a big legion of intellectual people which have been with us for seven years, to not commit the iniquitous sentence, but still the Court goes ahead. And I want to thank you all, you peoples, my comrades who have been with me for seven years, with the Sacco Vanzetti case, and I will give my friend a chance.

Statement of Bartolomeo Vanzetti after sentencing:

“If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, justice, for man’s understanding of man, as now we do by accident. Our words – our lives – our pains – nothing! The taking of our lives – lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler – all! That last moment belong to us – that agony is our triumph.”

Below, 2007 documentary, lots of original film footage, detailed.

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Aug 28 2012
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Opinion, Undoing Racism

So Tell Me Again Racism Doesn’t Exist

So I was at the Valley Street Stop and Shop in Manchester; the one that in the phone book is on Lincoln Street. Anyway, I’m there shopping with my little carpenter friend and suddenly, as I hunted around I heard African voices speaking, not uncommon in Manchester. Always curious about new sounds and languages I look up and see a mom and her two kids shopping.  Nothing new, so I return my gaze and concentration to answer the burning question, steel cut oats or organic? quick cooking or old fashioned? I make my selection and move down the aisle.

Then suddenly I hear some talking from a loud man, as I move closer to the end of the aisle, I saw a plump white man moving along with a carriage and his mouth moving along with him.  Then I hear quite clearly, “You like America uh?” My mind had to register for a minute if that this was not a friendly exchange. Bellowed at the top of the man’s voice, everyone in that part of the store had to have heard it.  Other people I noticed moved along quietly and said nothing. I turned the corner of the aisle and passed the mom and her children to whom I was certain the shouting was directed.

You know communication is universal and one of the most fascinating elements of communication is how, without words we humans often can pick up the subtle nuances of emotion and state of mind.  I passed the mom and noticed her son, probably a pre-teen talking quickly in his native tongue and his mother scolding him back.  The exchange continued with mom interrupting son.  I imagined the conversation as something the boy spouting off in frustration, answering the rude man’s racist jest and mother telling him to be quiet and move on.

The man’s voice echoed in my mind, the tone of mom and son’s speech and I had a hunch, I turned from my carriage and faced the mother and asked out loud, “Did that man just say what I thought he said?”  The mother answered, “Yes!” with a look of disbelief and frustration.  I told her I wish I had been there and spouted off about what a horrible thing and what an ass, she said he just started talking to her and yelling at her.  We vented together, me allowing her, I hope, the permission to be angry; to know that not all ‘white’ people agree with the ignorance of that man.

But whatever I could do as a ‘white’ person far outnumbers the violence and offensiveness of the racists.  Often I feel as if I am fighting a losing battle and I never have the opportunity enough times, nor enough support from my white peers to fight this problem.

More than likely I can’t find enough ‘white’ to stand up to this, because there are too many telling each other that racism doesn’t exist anymore.  They say that conversations and verbal assaults like what I witnessed today are rare, if happening ever at all and certainly not in our community!

Well there it is, in your community and this isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed this or had to sit and listen to an endlessly ignorant and arrogant white person tell me how they know all about people of color.  Come again?

I know it exists, I know it happens. I don’t have to be the witness every minute to verify the experiences of people of color when they tell me stories they tell me in confidence. I don’t want to walk away and pretend I don’t notice when incidents like the above happen, in fact I wish I had caught on sooner and had been in closer proximity to what was going on today; I would have been happy to provide an example of a white person standing up to a racist.

I don’t have to have dark skin to know that racism is wrong. I don’t have to count on my fingers the number of dark skinned friends I have to figure out whether I’m qualified to speak out against racism.  I don’t need someone to tell me that as a white person I have privilege when nearly once a week, maybe everyday depending on where I am, I hear a white person justify to me, why they think their white skin makes them better than and different than someone without white skin.  I hear it, I hear their ignorant words and their ignorant ideas. I hear white people say to me about “that part of town”.  I hear white people say to me, “Well he’s black.” I hear white people say to me, “I don’t rent to Mexicans.” I hear white people say to me, “Black people are lazy, spanish people are noisy.” Should I go on white folks or do you know what I am saying?

So don’t tell me there’s no racism.  See: 10 Conversations I’m sick of Having with White People

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Aug 24 2012
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Undoing Racism

In Our Pupils – Poem by Antonia Lassar about Africa

Told about this poem by Matthew Richards,  a local poet who saw her perform it in person.

Antonia Lassar

In Our Pupils

My heart has started to stamp like the herds.
I breathe this air,
But my eyes open like passports.
The cover says America,
but has Africa stamped on every page.
My mother escaped South African Apartheid
before I was even an idea,
so in elementary school when pictures of Africa didn’t look like me,
I couldn’t understand
why African American and black had to mean the same thing.
So last year I moved back to my mother’s continent
and now my DNA is woven
in strings of African beads.
But I can’t escape the first-look-only comparisons
from kids and the adults who act like them
that I don’t look African.
And I have to ask what they mean by African.
If they mean my skin won’t burn,
then I’m wearing sunscreen, not African.
If they want to see a Masai warrior,
a child soldier,
an elephant
then I expect all Americans
should look like Rosie O’Donnell.
But if they mean black, they’re right.
Africa isn’t a skin color—it’s black.
Africa is our pupils,
the way they will always open to the world,
no matter how much dust the wind blows at them.
Being African is like sweat on a glass of water;
it doesn’t depend on the color of the cup
but on the temperature of what’s inside.
Too often newspapers spell the word Africa
and assume one culture, one language, one problem.
The biggest problem facing Africa
is people thinking it really is like our pupils,
just empty space.
I am Africa. You can see me.
And sometimes I will sound like drums,
and sometimes like Sebeqabele gpi thapha nguqo ngqothwane
but sometimes you can barely hear me over the rain,
and we both fear that I may be washed away.
I mold my hands
into the shape of my continent
not to keep you from my borders,
but to show you how much like clay we all are.
Don’t worry about the Africans,
love the humans.
When the first human was born,
it didn’t know enough to call itself African,
but it hasn’t stopped crying ever since.
And you can blame it on famine, or war, or the fallout of capitalism
but Africa isn’t suffering,
it’s reminding you what your birth sounded like.

– Antonia Lassar

Antonia Lassar hails from Boston, MA and South Africa, and has toured both the US and South Africa with her poetry. She is proud to be a recent graduate of the Boston University School of Theatre. This summer, Antonia traveled to North Carolina as a first time member of the Cantab Lounge National Poetry Slam Team. She is currently touring her one-woman show The God Box around the Northeast.

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Aug 23 2012
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Undoing Racism

Dear White People – The Movie

Just stumbled on this excellent blog, Home of the Urban Chameleon wherein exists not only a very good questioning of the connection of young popular black artists with their past communities, but also a shout-out about the now being produced film, Dear White People.

Check out the blog and follow the link to the production team of Dear White People and show them some love — with your donation!

Head on over to the site and enjoy!

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Aug 17 2012
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Undoing Racism

Neo-Nazi Skin-Head Group Gets Benefit Concert at Atlantic City Casino

An excellent article detailing the recent announcement that a New Jersey based Neo-Nazi skinhead group has booked a benefit event at the Golden Nugget casino.   Read on:

Bryan Bradley

It’s one thing if everyone in South Jersey wants to pretend that Bryan Bradley, the founder of the Atlantic City “Skinheads”, was not a sick neo-Nazi scumbag who’s crew was responsible for a lot of violence and murder over the past twenty years. It’s another if people within his inner circles attempt to make money from his memory and taking advantage of those who are keeping their heads in the sand about him. Don’t be one of them. Call the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City at (609) 441-2000 and tell them what is up with this show on Sept. 16. You can right-click to enlarge picture.

One People’s Project

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ—Ever since the neo-Nazi founder and leader of New Jersey’s largest and most violent neo-Nazi street gang was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning last year while working as a construction worker on the new Revel Casino,  his old gang has been attempting to benefit from the lack of attention to his history by the local media, politicians and even some of the leaders of the union he was a member of.  Now his widow, herself a longtime association of the crew he led, and his brother are planning an event next month at one of the city’s casinos purporting to benefit a foundation in his name.

More of the story can be gleaned here

Update: Apparently the ‘event’ was called off in September.  In this update is a video of the IBEW paying their respects to their fallen comrade, one can’t help but wonder how many of the white male workers there were sympathetic to the racist cause and how many of the non-white folks are gritting their teeth during all that bru-haha.

h/t Wobbly Paul

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Jul 08 2012
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Labor and Worker Justice, Law, Occupy, Opinion, Protecting our Environment, Undoing Racism, War on Women

Yes, Direct Action Works

Detailed here, and all over Facebook, on some local radio shows and throughout the country, a student of Texas A & M learned that the lunatic group Westboro Baptist Church planned to heckle a funeral of a fallen soldier nearby.

As the story on Huffington Post details, the student decided to take action and using Facebook and Twitter, managed to coral as many as 600 students and alumni of the university to form a human wall against the Westboro harassers.

Apparently feeling outgunned by the opposition, the Westboro loons never showed up.

The power of the show of solidarity underscores the power of the American people to come together for a cause they feel passionate about.  With all that’s happening around the country, the calls for actions, the hopeful flurry of protests and events, many nod their heads in hopeless despair, feeling that the people will never have the ability to arise against their oppressor.

But as evidenced by this display of force, the people can indeed come together and when they do, people take notice, most especially the opposition.  This underscores also the fact that lies, propaganda and misinformation by the corporate machinery of this country persist only because we allow it to.  Like the Westboro fringe group, once people come together in a silent, strong show of force, the propagandists wither away like the wicked witch, crushed by the power of truth.

The capacity of people in this country to act against wrong can and should never be underestimated.  Direct action, whether banging a drum and chanting or just standing in silent solidarity does work; it does send a message and it can make change.

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Jun 23 2012
3 Comments
Undoing Racism

Undoing Racism Workshop to Happen in July!

You’ve seen it, you know it and maybe you’ve felt it; that ugly stain on our culture; racism.  No matter what our ethnic background or skin color, no one that lives in the United States can escape the insidious evil of racism.  Used as a tool of economic oppression for nearly 300 years in this country, the pain and the social structure of racism run deep within our culture, affecting everyone.

What do we do when either we ourselves or our neighbors and loved ones suffer under the yoke of racism?  How do we work to unravel ourselves from its grasp and not enable, but challenge this oppressive cultural practice?  How can we understand the subtle (and not so subtle) messaging in our culture that aids and abets racism and simultaneously, other forms of oppression and most importantly do something about it?

Get yourself to a training, that’s your first step! 2012 Undoing Racism Workshop flyer

The renown People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond has accepted an invitation to do a training in New Hampshire!  One of the premiere training organizations on identifying and understanding racism in our culture, the People’s Institute, hosted by the New Hampshire Black Women’s Health Project and Rivier College, will be holding a workshop from July 11- 13, at the Rivier campus in Nashua, NH.

Immerse yourself in conversations and illustrates of just how racism effects you and your brothers and sisters in humanity, from your neighborhood to the world.  Learn how to identify our cultural signifiers to racism, learn how to challenge suppositions and institutions that support oppression through racism.

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Many people have found these trainings a transformative experience.  Are you ready?

The People’s Institute is a well known and professional organization that trains people from all walks of life and within all types of organizations and institutions, from work-site employee trainings, to trainings for non-profit groups interested in social change.

Sign up Early!

Please see the links below for a the registration sheet, follow the instructions on the sheet.  The number of seats available is limited to facilitate a dynamic and interactive experience by all participants, please register early!

2012 Workshop Registration 2

For Your Information:

The New Hampshire Black Women’s Health Project has also been generous enough to find the funds for some limited scholarship and discount opportunities.  Please be mindful that putting events like this together cost a great deal, money and scholarships will be screened to ensure that the limited funds go to those most in need and most interested in directly putting their training to work in their communities.

Undoing Racism Scholarship Application

Group discounts may be available as well, please inquire on the form.

Make change by nurturing mind, body and soul.

Progressive Action NH also requests that if you can support the event with a donation, please consider doing so! Your help will offset the costs of this event, enable present and future activists to attend and also encourage more work like this in the future!  Please contact the New Hampshire Black Women’s Health Project for more information about how you can help support this important work to Undo Racism!

New Hampshire Black Women’s Health Project:  603-264-2874

email: nhbwhp at gmail dot com

We at Progressive Action NH extend our gratitude and thanks to the tireless and dedicated (and mostly unpaid) work of the women of the NH Black Women’s Health Project in making this workshop possible!

“Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.” – Kofi Annan

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