jhameia:

Loretta Ross on the origin of the term “Woman of Color”

Loretta Ross: Y’all know where the term “women of color” came from?  Who can say that?  See, we’re bad at transmitting history.

In 1977, a group of Black women from Washington, DC, went to the National Women’s Conference, that [former President] Jimmy Carter gave $5million to have as part of the World Decade for Women.  There was a conference in Houston, TX.

This group of Black women carried into that conference something called “The Black Women’s Agenda” because the organizers of the conference—Bella Abzug, Ellie Smeal, and what have you—had put together a three-page “Minority Women’s Plank” in a 200-page document that these Black women thought was somewhat inadequate.

So they actually formed a group called Black Women’s Agenda to come [sic] to Houston with a Black women’s plan of action that they wanted the delegates to vote to substitute for the “Minority Women’s Plank that was in the proposed plan of action.

Well, a funny thing happened in Houston: when they took the Black Women’s Agenda to Houston, then all the rest of the “minority” women of color wanted to be included in the “Black Women’s Agenda.” Okay?

Well, [the Black women] agreed…but you could no longer call it the “Black Women’s Agenda.”  And it was in those negotiations in Houston [that] the term “women of color” was created.  Okay?

And they didn’t see it as a biological designation—you’re born Asian, you’re born Black, you’re born African American, whatever—but it is a solidarity definition, a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color who have been “minoritized.”

Now, what’s happened in the 30 years since then is that people see it as biology now.

You know? Like, “Okay…” And peopleare saying they  don’t want to be defined as a woman of color: “I am Black, “I am Asian American”…and that’s fine. But why are you reducing a political designation to a biological destiny?

That’s what white supremacy wants you to do. And I think it’s a setback when we disintegrate as people of color around primitive ethnic claiming. Yes, we are Asian American, Native American, whatever, but the point is, when you choose to work with other people who are minoritized by oppression, you’ve lifted yourself out of that basic identity into another political being and another political space. And, unfortunately, so many times, people of color hear the term “people of color” from other white people that [PoCs} think white people created it instead of understanding that we self-named ourselves.  This is term that has a lot of power for us.

But we’ve done a poor-ass job of communicating that history so that people understand that power.

Transcript filched from Racialicious.

(via theuntitledmag)

sinidentidades:

thepeoplesrecord:

MUST WATCH: Video shows NYPD officer assault during Stop & Frisk
July 27, 2012

The video shows a police officer striding toward a young man standing on a platform at the 45th Street subway station in Brooklyn. A few seconds later, the officer pats him down. Shortly afterward, the young man appears to fidget against a wall and the officer slams him to the ground, ripping a subway ad from the wall in the process. The officer does it again, then puts the young man in a headlock and handcuffs him.

That scene was captured by David Galarza, a local activist, who said he recorded it last Thursday night. At a news conference on Thursday in Brooklyn, Mr. Galarza and other local activists said the officer’s confrontation with the young man, Sean Pagan, 19, was another example of the police’s mistreatment of the predominantly Hispanic and Asian residents of Sunset Park.

This time, however, they say they have a video to support their contention.

“These are young people of color who are victimized many times, and this kind of excessive force, sometimes it’s captured, sometimes not,” Mr. Galarza said before screening the video for reporters at a Latino community center in Sunset Park. “There was an arrest of a young man, but not of the officer who did the groping, and who did the choking.”

Source

What a shocking video that shows the horror people of color in NYC endure if they are stopped & frisked. 

According to NYCLU, in 2011 New Yorkers were stopped by police 685,724 times.  

- 605,328 were totally innocent (88 percent).
- 350,743 were black (53 percent).
- 223,740 were Latino (34 percent).
- 61,805 were white (9 percent).
- 341,581 were aged 14-24 (51 percent).

Spread this around, and if you have the software, create mirrors and distribute download links. I’m sure this video won’t be up for long. 

(via queergiftedblack)

police open fire on families, children.

Do we need to start a riot? Ordinarily we focus on the police after they kill someone, but I’m not going to do that. Fuck them. The central figures in this story are the friends, neighbors, and community members that came together and stood up against the latest act of murderous police aggression. This story is about community, specifically a neighborhood filled with people of color (Shout out to the Latino homies). They watched the police kill a man, a member of the community, and their anger swelled as he lay motionless in a grass-covered yard.

Crystal Ventura, a 17-year-old who lives in the neighborhood, said she saw the shooting from about 20 feet away.  She said the man had his back to the officer.  She said the man was shot in the buttocks area.  The man then went down on his knees, and she said he was struck by another bullet in the head.  Another officer handcuffed the man who by then was on the ground and not moving, Ventura added.  ”They searched his pockets, and there was a hole in his head, and I saw blood on his face,” she said.

Soon anger turned to action. EVERYONE came outside, disturbing the illusion of peace for a little afternoon insurrection.

Everyone in the community lived that day, if only for a few moments, as if they themselves had the power to stop the police from terrorizing their neighborhood. The key for liberation isn’t protest, but it’s acting as if we already live in the world we want to see. Kids were with their parents, neighbors joined neighbors, and the whole community found themselves in the street together. “If you want real insight into love, participate in a riot”, and love took the streets Saturday afternoon in Anaheim. Love pushed a dumpster and trash can into the street and set them on fire. Love threw rocks and bottles at the police to force them from the neighborhood they had just recklessly shot up. Love is a riot.

For those who believe this moment wasn’t for kids, the children were there when the police burst into the neighborhood while firing the shots that killed a man.  I applaud their parents for bringing them out so that their voices could join their community in the struggle to stop the reckless and needless police violence. Children know pain, they know anger, and they know injustice; the insurrection is theirs as well.

Daisy Gonzalez, 16, identified her uncle as the man shot by police .She and others said his name was Manuel Diaz. She said he likely ran away from officers when they approached him because of his past experience with law enforcement. “He (doesn’t) like cops. He never liked them because all they do is harass and arrest anyone,” Gonzalez said after lighting a candle for her uncle. She cursed at the police who were nearby and a police helicopter that hovered above, flashing a spotlight on the neighborhood.

I began with an homage to the community instead of explaining the police misconduct that followed the uprising because the police don’t deserve to be the central figures in this story. This is a love story, and love stories are often tragedies. Upon taking the streets, the police would respond with attack dogs and “less than lethal” bullets. They maimed and wounded anyone in the vicinity, including using an attack dog against a mother holding her baby while standing next to her stroller.

Though their stand lasted less than an afternoon, and it ended with the sting of bites and bullets, their insurrection is not the end of the resistance. It is just the latest moment in a tidal wave of consciousness that threatens to expose the fraudulent underpinnings of this nation’s legal system. The police killing a person of color almost everyday while waging an expensive and pointless “War on Drugs” didn’t save those people in that Colorado theater. Yet, they spend much of their time enforcing arcane, ineffective and racially biased drug laws.  It should be abundantly clear that these reckless cowboys don’t keep us safe. In fact, it turns out that not all police departments in the world “protect” citizens by filling them with bullets. Police in Germany, as in the nation with over 81 million people, only fired 85 bullets directed at people in all of 2011.

According to Germany’s Der Spiegel , German police shot only 85 bullets in all of 2011, a stark reminder that not every country is as gun-crazy as the U.S. of A. As Boing Boing translates , most of those shots weren’t even aimed anyone: “49 warning shots, 36 shots on suspects. 15 persons were injured, 6 were killed.” 

However, this insurrection was not without warning; there have been weekly demonstrations at the police-station in honor of those killed by Anaheim police.

 Theresa Smith has organized weekly protests outside the police department on Harbor Boulevard with friends and family members, all of whom are demanding answers about what really happened that day. She has encouraged other families affected by officer-involved shootings in Anaheim to join her protest, but, she says, they’ve mostly refused because they fear police retaliation. But after the brutal July 5, 2011, beating death of Kelly Thomas at the hands of Fullerton police officers gave energy to critics of police brutality in Orange County, word has spread about Smith’s crusade.

For the past several weeks, from a dozen to 20 people can be found every Monday evening on the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Broadway Avenue, waving signs and chanting, “Shame on APD!” Corie Cline has been going to the protests for about three months; her brother Joe Whitehouse was killed by Anaheim police in 2007. She brings along her 5-year-old son, who cheerfully joins in the chants, shouting, “Shame on the Anaheim police!” and, echoing the popular Occupy chant, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

The Anaheim police are responsible for six shootings already this year. Justin Hertl, killed by Anaheim police in 2003, is one of the many deaths to catalyze the burgeoning anti-police violence movement.

Justin Hertl was walking his grandmother Barbara Kordiak to her car when he was shot by undercover Anaheim detectives on Nov. 14, 2003, after the police received information about a stolen car, possibly from Hertl’s girlfriend, with whom he had just been fighting. Kordiak alleges that police came up behind her and that one of them yelled, “Gun!” The next thing she knew, three shots had rung out and her grandson was lying on the ground bleeding. A fourth shot, she claims, killed him.

Justin Hertl’s mother and many other community members spoke out at a recent City Council meeting.

Jaclyn Conroy, aunt of Justin Hertl shot by Anaheim Police in 2003, listed off over a half dozen individuals shot by Anaheim Police, including the recent fatal shootings of Marcel Cejas, Roscoe Cambridge, David Rayas and Martin Hernandez. There have been six officer-involved shootings by Anaheim Police this year so far.  “I have come to you people before begging you, please look into the corruption of the Anaheim Police Department and nothing was done,” she said. “How many bodies have to pile up before someone speaks up? If it were your child, I guarantee you’d be looking into this.” 

So, the neighborhood at the corner of East La Palma Avenue and Anna Drive did not spontaneously erupt into violence. The people were living on top of a police-fueled powder keg. They had been demonstrating, they went to council meetings, and yet the killing continued. This wanton murder is not necessary and it’s not protecting us.  So, they rose up in the name of not just the man shot on Saturday, but the numerous other victims of police brutality as well. When the young girl cursed at the police as she was retelling the story of her Uncle’s murder, it was love and not hate that fueled her indignation.  Love is a force.  Last week, Jasiri X released a song called “Do We Need to Start A Riot”, and the answer for this Anaheim community was yes. 

thegang:

Yosimar Reyes “For Colored Boys that Speak Softly”

*two snaps and a silent praise dance*

(via @violetamichel)