(no subject)
Does online derailing make you nuts? Do you seethe with rage when people pull the Same Old Shit in online discussions of racism, privilege and hierarchy?
What about when it happens in real life?
As those who saw my alternate timeline of RF09 may be aware, students at the University of Minnesota's dance program have been, since early February, engaged in an anonymous visual protest of institutional racism within their program. The protest, entitled THIS by Us, consisted of words and photographs posted to the walls and classrooms of the Barbara Barker Center for Dance. You can view the photos at THIS' photo gallery, or take a look at their blog to get an idea of how the protest grew from one stairwell on into various public spaces in the dance center, as well as to view open letters, responses, etcetera in order.
sparkymonster's post in support contains a very abbreviated timeline of the issues, and I encourage you to read it before delving into the stuff I'm reproducing below.
***
THIS has been somewhat hampered in their recent call for support because the nature of their protest and the events since it began are complicated. Take a look at the timeline of the protest, which should provide more clarity for those hearing about this for the first time.
How has THIS been derailed? Well, the timeline will give you some ideas, as will taking a look at comments posted to various entries on the blog and to the official comments post. One of the responses posted publicly was the old "well if you're protesting privilege what are you doing at university? isn't that privileged?" chestnut. This protest action has been described as a "temper tantrum", speculations have been made about student motivation and even about student identification as people of color, the students have been roundly chastised for being insufficiently grateful...but the issues have not been addressed.
One student started a Facebook group and then took the fact that no students of color chose to outline specific incidents of institutional racism with him in that space as proof that none existed. (Not to make it all about me, but that same dude? Sent me a grotesquely condescending e-mail in which he explained to me what he thinks "safe space" & "silencing" mean, among other things.)
A review of the comments people have posted throughout the project is particularly useful to illustrate precisely the kind of opposition the protest received.
***
On or about April 5, white students in the department, both employees and officers of student organizations, took it upon themselves to destroy the THIS protest. They took responsibility for this action in the comments thread linked above. Take a look at what they had to say about their actions:
I must inform you of what happened tonight at the Barker Center. Brent Radeke, Lauren Baker, and Myself decided enough was enough. We want real conversations to happen about the very real issues that is around the "this" protest/exhibit. We all feel very strongly about what the issues mean as a daily practice and education and also believe that our actions tonight were not a personal attack nor was it an act of silencing. We want real conversations to happen and we hope they do.
Tonight we were let into the Barker from some students who were rehearsing in the space after hours. We than proceeded to take down ALL of the writings and images on the walls, windows, and pictures. We were in the process of recycling them when i was confronted by someone who was concerned about our intentions. They then called some people and left the building to return with a group of individuals who made there involvement obvious. There intentions were to retrieve all we had recycled. They than took our pictures and video taped us "in action". A few non confrontational words were exchanged but for the most part we did not speak to one another, simple non emotional requests were made. One person asked that if when we could get into 300 and 301 (studio/classroom spaces that were locked) in the morning to not throw anything away. I promised them that we would not...and we would place them on a table in the lobby for them to pick up.
We did our very best not to deface any of the barker walls, though it was very difficult because of the tape they used. We take full responsibility for any damage that may come forth and are prepared to help clean, paint, or put money towards any damage found. We hope that this moves us toward real conversations, and we hope our peers are willing to express the very real issue at hand. We are willing to help with furthering conversations and action, and we hope you are as well. We understand that personal feelings have been hurt....on both sides, but that is the risk we have taken among many others. We hope these personal feelings can be set aside as we try to bring both sides to one and do real allie work.
We are sorry if this puts any of you in a compromising position because of varying degrees of relations with the three of us. We care so much about happened to cause "this" and we hope our actions can move us forward.
Jessica Briggs
I would like to second this. I am deeply sorry if this puts any of you in a compromising position. We knew what we were getting ourselves into as far as liability, and our main goal was to cause action. The issue can no longer be covered up by words, and we all felt it was time to talk and take action. This was our version of activism towards change, towards conversation, towards daily practice. We fully support the ideas of the original protest, of fighting racism, sexism, heterosexism, sizism, homophobia, classism, ageism, and many other isms. Let our actions propel the discourse for change.
Brent Radeke
(emphases added by me. Please review the annotated timeline for the protester's version of events.)
***
The department referred to this wholesale destruction as "the changes made by another group of individuals." They have removed or permitted to be removed, every open letter and public posting since the protest was ripped down.
***
The department has responded to THIS with dismissal, shock, claims of personal attacks, mischaracterization of their motives and of their communications, co-optation of the protester's demands (which were only issued after multiple requests from that same administration)...everything but action.
The university's Office of Equity & Diversity and Ombudsman are doing good work in attempting to get the faculty to see the damage they have done by their reaction, but it is not enough, and the THIS protesters, after taking every avenue available to them to handle this in-house, have now asked for external support from anti-racist allies, to let their department know that what has gone on is unacceptable and ask them to consider taking certain actions, including, but not limited to desist from the practice of removing open letters to and from the protesters. All of these actions are outlined in the annotated timeline.
***
This is real-life derailing. What can you do about it?
1.) Read the important links at top left of the THIS protest blog. These include the annotated timeline and the open letters.
2.) Review the Open Petition.
3.) Leave a comment in support of THIS on their blog.
4.) Send an e-mail to Carl Flink, Department Chair (flink003 at umn.edu) and/or Ananya Chatterjea, Program Director (ananya at umn.edu) citing your support of the protest and requesting that they take the actions outlined by the protesters in their Petition. Please cc email responses to the THIS protesters at thisbyus at gmail dot com if you would like them to see your words, and cc all responses to Josh Casperson, Ombudsman with the office of student conflict resolution (caspe052 at umn.edu) as well, to make sure that parties not hostile to the protest have a record of your e-mail being sent.
5.) Join the Support THIS by US facebook group, and promote it in your status updates and profile.
6.) Tell your f-list, your Facebook friends, your teachers and administrators, and your friends, and encourage them to support THIS.
***
The events surrounding THIS are confusing. I admit this. For those who have not been following the protest, this is a lot of information and it may seem impenetrable. (As I recall, people said the same thing about RF09.) If you have questions or still don't "get it" after reviewing the blog, the links, etcetera, please feel free to ask them in comments.
THIS is important. An institution of learning which slings the lingo of anti-racism should not treat those engaging in a protest of institutional racism with dismissal, derailing and further racism. Students seeking to unmask and deal with institutional racism should not be crushed by it along the way.
I have a personal stake in this...because my own words, used with permission by the protesters, were among those destroyed and discarded on April 5. I've never been to Minnesota, never set foot in the Barker, but the cavalier destruction of someone else's art, art created from the words of many bloggers, activists, poets and artists as a protest action, should never be acceptable, and should never be treated as a prerequisite for "real conversations" to begin, whatever Ms. Briggs might believe.
Please, support THIS. Tell others you know to do the same. Let's lend a hand where it's needed.
(cross-posted from fight_derailing)
What about when it happens in real life?
As those who saw my alternate timeline of RF09 may be aware, students at the University of Minnesota's dance program have been, since early February, engaged in an anonymous visual protest of institutional racism within their program. The protest, entitled THIS by Us, consisted of words and photographs posted to the walls and classrooms of the Barbara Barker Center for Dance. You can view the photos at THIS' photo gallery, or take a look at their blog to get an idea of how the protest grew from one stairwell on into various public spaces in the dance center, as well as to view open letters, responses, etcetera in order.
sparkymonster's post in support contains a very abbreviated timeline of the issues, and I encourage you to read it before delving into the stuff I'm reproducing below.
***
THIS has been somewhat hampered in their recent call for support because the nature of their protest and the events since it began are complicated. Take a look at the timeline of the protest, which should provide more clarity for those hearing about this for the first time.
How has THIS been derailed? Well, the timeline will give you some ideas, as will taking a look at comments posted to various entries on the blog and to the official comments post. One of the responses posted publicly was the old "well if you're protesting privilege what are you doing at university? isn't that privileged?" chestnut. This protest action has been described as a "temper tantrum", speculations have been made about student motivation and even about student identification as people of color, the students have been roundly chastised for being insufficiently grateful...but the issues have not been addressed.
One student started a Facebook group and then took the fact that no students of color chose to outline specific incidents of institutional racism with him in that space as proof that none existed. (Not to make it all about me, but that same dude? Sent me a grotesquely condescending e-mail in which he explained to me what he thinks "safe space" & "silencing" mean, among other things.)
A review of the comments people have posted throughout the project is particularly useful to illustrate precisely the kind of opposition the protest received.
***
On or about April 5, white students in the department, both employees and officers of student organizations, took it upon themselves to destroy the THIS protest. They took responsibility for this action in the comments thread linked above. Take a look at what they had to say about their actions:
I must inform you of what happened tonight at the Barker Center. Brent Radeke, Lauren Baker, and Myself decided enough was enough. We want real conversations to happen about the very real issues that is around the "this" protest/exhibit. We all feel very strongly about what the issues mean as a daily practice and education and also believe that our actions tonight were not a personal attack nor was it an act of silencing. We want real conversations to happen and we hope they do.
Tonight we were let into the Barker from some students who were rehearsing in the space after hours. We than proceeded to take down ALL of the writings and images on the walls, windows, and pictures. We were in the process of recycling them when i was confronted by someone who was concerned about our intentions. They then called some people and left the building to return with a group of individuals who made there involvement obvious. There intentions were to retrieve all we had recycled. They than took our pictures and video taped us "in action". A few non confrontational words were exchanged but for the most part we did not speak to one another, simple non emotional requests were made. One person asked that if when we could get into 300 and 301 (studio/classroom spaces that were locked) in the morning to not throw anything away. I promised them that we would not...and we would place them on a table in the lobby for them to pick up.
We did our very best not to deface any of the barker walls, though it was very difficult because of the tape they used. We take full responsibility for any damage that may come forth and are prepared to help clean, paint, or put money towards any damage found. We hope that this moves us toward real conversations, and we hope our peers are willing to express the very real issue at hand. We are willing to help with furthering conversations and action, and we hope you are as well. We understand that personal feelings have been hurt....on both sides, but that is the risk we have taken among many others. We hope these personal feelings can be set aside as we try to bring both sides to one and do real allie work.
We are sorry if this puts any of you in a compromising position because of varying degrees of relations with the three of us. We care so much about happened to cause "this" and we hope our actions can move us forward.
Jessica Briggs
I would like to second this. I am deeply sorry if this puts any of you in a compromising position. We knew what we were getting ourselves into as far as liability, and our main goal was to cause action. The issue can no longer be covered up by words, and we all felt it was time to talk and take action. This was our version of activism towards change, towards conversation, towards daily practice. We fully support the ideas of the original protest, of fighting racism, sexism, heterosexism, sizism, homophobia, classism, ageism, and many other isms. Let our actions propel the discourse for change.
Brent Radeke
(emphases added by me. Please review the annotated timeline for the protester's version of events.)
***
The department referred to this wholesale destruction as "the changes made by another group of individuals." They have removed or permitted to be removed, every open letter and public posting since the protest was ripped down.
***
The department has responded to THIS with dismissal, shock, claims of personal attacks, mischaracterization of their motives and of their communications, co-optation of the protester's demands (which were only issued after multiple requests from that same administration)...everything but action.
The university's Office of Equity & Diversity and Ombudsman are doing good work in attempting to get the faculty to see the damage they have done by their reaction, but it is not enough, and the THIS protesters, after taking every avenue available to them to handle this in-house, have now asked for external support from anti-racist allies, to let their department know that what has gone on is unacceptable and ask them to consider taking certain actions, including, but not limited to desist from the practice of removing open letters to and from the protesters. All of these actions are outlined in the annotated timeline.
***
This is real-life derailing. What can you do about it?
1.) Read the important links at top left of the THIS protest blog. These include the annotated timeline and the open letters.
2.) Review the Open Petition.
3.) Leave a comment in support of THIS on their blog.
4.) Send an e-mail to Carl Flink, Department Chair (flink003 at umn.edu) and/or Ananya Chatterjea, Program Director (ananya at umn.edu) citing your support of the protest and requesting that they take the actions outlined by the protesters in their Petition. Please cc email responses to the THIS protesters at thisbyus at gmail dot com if you would like them to see your words, and cc all responses to Josh Casperson, Ombudsman with the office of student conflict resolution (caspe052 at umn.edu) as well, to make sure that parties not hostile to the protest have a record of your e-mail being sent.
5.) Join the Support THIS by US facebook group, and promote it in your status updates and profile.
6.) Tell your f-list, your Facebook friends, your teachers and administrators, and your friends, and encourage them to support THIS.
***
The events surrounding THIS are confusing. I admit this. For those who have not been following the protest, this is a lot of information and it may seem impenetrable. (As I recall, people said the same thing about RF09.) If you have questions or still don't "get it" after reviewing the blog, the links, etcetera, please feel free to ask them in comments.
THIS is important. An institution of learning which slings the lingo of anti-racism should not treat those engaging in a protest of institutional racism with dismissal, derailing and further racism. Students seeking to unmask and deal with institutional racism should not be crushed by it along the way.
I have a personal stake in this...because my own words, used with permission by the protesters, were among those destroyed and discarded on April 5. I've never been to Minnesota, never set foot in the Barker, but the cavalier destruction of someone else's art, art created from the words of many bloggers, activists, poets and artists as a protest action, should never be acceptable, and should never be treated as a prerequisite for "real conversations" to begin, whatever Ms. Briggs might believe.
Please, support THIS. Tell others you know to do the same. Let's lend a hand where it's needed.
(cross-posted from fight_derailing)