Links from E.O.'s presentation on George Jackson

Here are the great links E.O. shared with us in her presentation last week!

I hope you all take the time to check them out.
Websites:
George Jackson Brigade Information Project
All of Us or None
Books Not Bars

Video/Audio clips:
CYA violence
Attica Rebellion
Freedom Archives: Jackson

Thanks, E.O.!!

Event tomorrow night!!

Click on the image above to view a larger version of the poster and please share this information widely and quickly.

At the very beginning of the semester, we discussed the incident last Halloween when white UI students went to an Iowa City bar (Brothers) in black face. Photos of the students in black face were even posted on the bar's website. In response to this and other instances of white racism in Iowa City, the Black Student Union is sponsoring a very important event tomorrow night, and I hope many of you will go.

If you do go, I will award extra credit if you write a short (1-page) response paper. Please don't summarize the event. Write about your thoughts and reactions.

The keynote speaker is Vershawn Young of Rhetoric and African American Studies, and the program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Indiana Room of the IMU, tomorrow!

Eli Painted Crow

Check out Turtle Women Rising!

Eli Painted Crow is a 22 yr. U.S. Army Veteran from the Tucson, Arizona Yaqui Nation who served in Iraq and is now making clear that her "biggest enemy" was her own company. I think you'll want to watch the following video too.

lyrics

In response to some questions some of you have expressed in messages to me, I thought it would be a good idea to post some of the lyrics to the two videos R.T. showed in class.

To access the lyrics to "Animal in Man" by dead prez, click here.

Here are excerpted lyrics from "Hell Yeah (Pimp the System)" by dead prez:

Sittin' in the living room on the floor
Hunger pains got me on some migraine, shit
But I'm gonna maintain
Nigga, got two or three dollars to my name
And my homies in the same boat goin' through the same thing
Ready for a caper, steady plottin' for the paper
We been livin' in the dark since April
On the candle, gotta get a handle
My homie got a 25 automatic added to the gamble
Nigga, get the phone book look up in the yellow page
Lemme tell you how we gonna get paid
We gonna order take out, when we see the driver
We gon' stick the 25 up in his face, let's ride
Steppin' outside like warriors into the notorious southside
One weapon to the four of us, hidin' in the corridor
Til' we see the dominoes car headlights
White boy in the wrong place at the right time
Soon as the car door open up he mine
We roll up quick and put the pistol to his nose
By the look on his face he probly shitted in his clothes
You know what this is a stick up
Gimme the dough, from the pick up
You ran into the wrong niggas
We runnin down the block hot with these stack of boxes
So we split up and met back at the apartment

Hell Yeah
Yo ain't you hungry, my nigga?
Hell yeah
You wanna get paid my nigga?
Hell yeah
Ain't you tired of starvin' my nigga?

...

I know a caper
We can get some government paper
Ya' know food stamps, can we really do that
Hell yeah right there for the takin'
Fuck welfare we say reparations
Ya' know the grind
Get up early get on the line and just wait
Everybody on break
That's part of the game and when they call your name
Miss Caseworker, lemme state my claim
I'm homeless, jobless, time is hard
I'm hopeless, but I gotta eat regardless
No family to run to; I'm 22
Now tell me what the fuck am I supposed to do
My sad story made her feel close to me
I made her feel like it was in emergency
And when I came to the crib niggas couldn't believe
I came back with a big bag of groceries

...

We ain't gettin paid commission, minimum wage
Modern day slave conditions
Got me flippin' burgers with no power
Can't even buy one off what I make in an hour
I'm not one to kiss ass for the top position
I take mine off the top like a politician
Where I'm from doin' dirt is a part of livin'
I got mouths to feed dog I gotsa' get it

...

Mad Maps

Because of the strong response so many of us had to what M.F. said about trust in class last time, I've asked her to give a different kind of presentation, one that will take a little time each week and will involve everyone's participation.

M.F. told me about an approach to mutual aid and support called "Mad Maps" last year, and I thought it sounded really neat. I've asked her to teach us how to make and use them together. (I've never worked with "Mad Maps" before, so it will be the first time for me too.)

My understanding is that folks develop "maps" to their feeling states. For example, you'd write down your various emotional triggers and what others might be able to identify as warning signs that you are freaking out, upset, agitated, etc. And, best of all, you provide folks with concrete ideas of "de-escalators."

For example, you might indicate that you get upset when you feel shut down in or left out of a conversation. A "warning sign" others might notice could be your sudden withdrawal from a conversation. Then, you would identify what others could do to help you in that moment. For example, you might indicate that it helps when someone makes an effort to listen to you.

I think there is a beautiful simplicity and directness to this approach. Because the material we are engaging is difficult, I think it would be wonderful to have what M.F. is suggesting -- some warning signs and de-escalators for the whole class. I think this will also be very helpful in making sure we think about communicating in ways everyone can understand and engage when we make presentations or share ideas.

M.F. is asking that we bring any drawing utensils we might like to class next time. She'll bring some stuff as well, but let's help her out by bringing our own papers, markers, etc., etc.

Finally, when something comes up that is hard or maybe even impossible to understand, please say so. It will help you get the chance to understand something that is unclear, and it will also help others better understand the value of explanation when engaging folks whose backgrounds might be pretty different.

Other stuff to think about ... or not

My guess is that we will have a lot to discuss today. I know some of you want to talk about P.F.'s ideas from last week, and A.S. wants us to talk more about what it can mean or feel like to "speak for" a community on a panel. In the interest of creating as much space as possible for your questions, I'm posting my own here, and you all can pick and choose which (if any) we address in class together.

Let me start with a couple of quotes for you to think about:

We seldom think of conversation as commitment, but it is. I find that expressing what I feel and telling another person what is actually important to me at the moment is difficult. It requires a commitment on my part to do so, and I sense that this is true for most of us. It is equally difficult to listen. [...] Life is a struggle. Coping with a lifetime of change is a struggle, but through a lifetime of change we will experience ourselves as full persons only to the degree that we allow ourselves that commitment to others which keeps us in creative dialogue.
--Mwalimu Imara

In the United States, racism’s “traveling eye” has created and cordoned off race-based communities, affixing meaning to them according to the degree of threat they are thought to pose to the dominant culture at particular points in time. [...] Asian American identities are fluid and migratory: the Minnesota social worker who clings to the idea of Hmongs as limited-English speaking refugees from a pre-literate society may be surprised to encounter a Hmong teenager who composes rap music, plays hockey, and dates Chicano boys or girls. Cultures, whether Asian origin cultures or the “majority culture,” which is no more monolithic and unitary than “Asian” or “Asian American culture,” have never been fixed, continuous, or discrete. The notion of an absolute American past, a single source for American people, a founding identity or wholeness in America, is rooted in a racist fiction of primordial white American universality[...].
--Elaine Kim

In Ceremony, the narrator tells us that “old Grandma and Robert stayed away" from Tayo because “the sickness and the crying overwhelmed them.”

1) Why are so many people afraid of Tayo’s suffering?
2) How does their fear affect Tayo?

And some more questions:

1) How would you characterize the reservation schools in Ceremony? What kind of impact did this education system have on Rocky or Tayo?

2) Who is Ts’eh? Is she real?

3) Why does Tayo begin to doubt the ceremony and Betonie’s vision (of stars, cattle, a woman, and a mountain) after his truck ride with Harley and Leroy?

4) What does it mean that Tayo’s mom’s purse was empty?

5) What does Auntie do with the photo of Tayo’s mom? When? Why doesn’t he ask for it back?

The following passages are taken from Judith Herman (M.D.)'s book Trauma and Recovery: the aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror (1997).

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to be rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner which undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom.

[...]
Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they rarely occur, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life.

[...]
Traumatic events produce profound and lasting changes in physiological arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory. Moreover, traumatic events may sever these normally integrated functions from one another. The traumatized person may experience intense emotion but without clear memory of the event, or may remember everything in detail but without emotion.

[...]
Trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately.

[...]
The most powerful determinant of psychological harm is the character of the traumatic event itself.

[...] There is a simple, direct relationship between the severity of the trauma and its psychological impact, whether that impact is measured in terms of the number of people affected or the intensity and duration of harm.


1) How does Tayo communicate his story?

2) How does Silko's narrative mimic the struggle survivors encounter in trying to communicate their experiences?

3) How does Tayo experience the following:

a. Dissociation: "a complicated, sometimes uncanny alteration of consciousness" that we often describe as "checking out."

b. Sleep disturbances: taking longer to fall asleep, being unable to sleep, sleeping much more or as much as possible, etc.

c. Hyperarousal/hypervigilance: a sense of "permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment."

d. Intrusion: traumatic memories seem unchanging, like you are reliving the trauma in the present or like the past breaks through in the present. (You can think of this as a "new old" feeling.)

There are lots of other feelings (self-blame, guilt, etc.) we can consider as well.

4. After reading Ceremony, a former student of mine (Futoshi N.) described the process of truth-telling after extreme trauma as akin to swallowing a "horse pill." The process is difficult, uncomfortable, and you may want to gag. It may hurt. When you've swallowed the "horse pill" (maybe even in pieces), you ultimately feel better than if you'd kept living with what had been ailing you. His idea generated a lot of class discussion at the time. What do you think?

5. Stories versus stories. [In class I will tell you about "Orphic" processes and storytelling. This will be an issue we study in much greater depth when we get to sexual abuse and rape, but it relates very much to Tayo's story too.] How can storytelling be a source of pain, further stress, and also strength and healing? 6. 6. Is Ts'eh real? Does it matter?

Finally, and this one will take a bit to explain, I think the concept of "Orpha" is helpful when thinking about this novel.

In some ways, this is a novel about the power of stories to transform reality. We see the transformative power of story-telling in the story of how white people were made up and when Josiah’s story about what he could do with the cattle starts to come true. The notion of Orpha offers one way to think about this sort of storytelling.

Elizabeth Severn (a patient of Sándor Ferenczi) came up with the word “Orpha” to describe the organizing life instincts that can propel the victim of trauma toward self-preservation. She had been sexually abused as a child. Severn saw her literal survival prior to analysis with Ferenczi as rooted in a fragmented self she called Orpha. This fragment was the part of her she saw as resisting, rising up against what she'd experienced. You can think of it like a fragment of someone's personality to which they might cling in a traumatized state and which somehow survives the traumatic violation (and/or makes survival possible). Let's say someone draws pictures and the drawing serves as a way of holding onto the possibility of feeling better. For Tayo, this fragment or “instinct” that propels him to survive, comes, perhaps, from the land and from stories -- from stories about land and people -- about community and intersubjective connection. J.B. can talk about this idea for us.

When Orphic skills can be drawn upon to reflect back and communicate their origin, the internal barriers to “telling” traumatic histories can serve as aids. A creative instinct can give someone the means to access that which may be too difficult to express in conventional conversation. This is, perhaps, what Ceremony is about -- finding stories to make sense of the atomic bomb, American Indians fighting for the U.S. govt. in the Philippines, racism after war, the falsehoods, deletions of history, and whatnot -- putting Tayo into a story that makes sense, one that is not imposed, but one that takes into account who he is and where he comes from, and also what he sees and how he feels.

I think we all probably see the narrative changing as Tayo changes. He is very disrupted at the beginning. Time, place, etc. can all seem jumbled up and disjointed. How, then, do you understand the meaning of the/a "ceremony"?

But Orpha is not all fabulous or wonderful. The reliance on the “Orphic process” might be proportional to the onset and severity of the trauma, and those who once desperately held onto a “fragmented portion” of their personality in order to survive might continue to do so even when it doesn't serve them well in the present. When this Orphic fragment is a person’s sole means of survival, other opportunities for growth, reflection, or experience may be precluded. If all you have is Orpha, you can't really make sense of much. It is only by moving away from a reliance on Orpha for survival and toward “intersubjective connection” that the once traumatized person can slowly begin to speak about that which Orpha sought to overcome. That's not to say we have to give it up. It's just acknowledging that sometimes, what enables us to survive horrific events isn't so helpful later on.

We all know that trauma affects memory (fraught with gaps, seemingly disconnected episodes, etc.) Silko’s use of a poetic memory, memory expressed through “poetic” means instead of a play-by-play "this happened and then that happened"-type narrative, is better suited to the way memory functions for traumatized people who recall piecemeal and by association -- bits and pieces here and there in relation to whatever activates those memories in the present. Essentially, memory functions like this for many of us to a certain extent, but for someone like Tayo, the “lack” of a chronologically coherent “story” is pronounced. Silko uses stories that make that so-called “lack” less important.

Link from J.B. (or Galacticus)

J.B. sent this link for us to check out and discuss.

Links and References from A.J.

A.J. sent the following links from her presentation:

•Bharadwaj, Ajay. "Punjab Youths Hoodwinked to Serve US Army in Iraq," DNA India, January 07, 2006.

•Branigin, William. "Foreign Workers Abused at Embassy, Panel Told," Washington Post, July 27, 2007.

•Brodsky, Robert. "House panel probes charges of human trafficking in Iraq embassy project," July 26, 2007.

•Cha, Ariana Eunjung. "Underclass of Workers Created in Iraq," Washington Post, July 01, 2004.

•Phinney, David. "Sweat & Tears: Asia's Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq," CorpWatch, October 03, 2005.

•Phinney, David. "A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad: Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World's Largest Embassy," CorpWatch, October 17, 2005.

•Phinney, David. "'They Forcibly Brought Me to Iraq,'" CorpWatch, October 17, 2006.

•Phinney, David. "Caught in Trafficking," IPS News, June 15, 2007.

•Phinney, David. "A Dramatic Nighttime Escape," IPS News, June 15, 2007.

•Rodhe, David. "Indian Contract Workers In Iraq Complain of Exploitation," New York Times, May 07, 2004.

•Simpson, Cam. "Iraq: Rescue Spares Some Workers," Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2005, archived at CorpWatch.org.

•Simpson, Cam and Aamer Madhani. "Iraq: War Fuels Human Labor Trade," Chicago Tribune, October 13, 2005, archived at CorpWatch.org.

•Simpson, Cam. "US: Pentagon Stalls on Banning Contractors from using Forced Labor," Chicago Tribune, December 25, 2005, archived at CorpWatch.org.

•Simpson, Cam. "Iraq: Commander Says Contractors Violating U.S. Labor Trafficking Laws" Chicago Tribune, April 23, 2006, archived at CorpWatch.org.

The clip she showed in class is here.

So much to say and never enough time

Well, my beloved class, I wasn't kidding when I said I wished our time together never had to end. You all were raising so many incredibly important ideas at the end of class, and, again, I feel like we just started to scratch the surface of more topics. After class, I got an email from one of you about some of what we discussed and thought, "Wow, we should be talking about this with everyone." I remain hopeful that we can cover a lot more ground together. This is a rare, special, and, to me, precious opportunity. I cherish our time together so much.

I also want to thank A.J. and A.S. for their very germane and informative presentations! A.S. used clips from the program Democracy Now. You can access the particular shows she used here and also here. I think the presentations today were very timely and also helpful in making visible for us some realities that are far too easy not to see.

Thanks to S.H. for the handout! We can start doing some activities with things like that together too. Those of you who've done the "step forward/step back" oppression activity, let me know if you think it would be good for our class. Making oppression and suffering visible, concrete, and understandable is going to have to be a critical part of our process. (I'm thinking of what V.J. said about when the guns are pointed at our own faces.)

I find myself thinking back over so many things you all said tonight. Doing so makes me wish we were still talking tonight. We could have used more time, for example, to think about panels where people "speak for" an entire community or group or what on earth we are to do when we realize it's not okay for the burden to communicate to be on the person who encounters the most obstacles when it comes to communicating. K.W.'s comment was really on point and was begging for further exploration. On the bus ride home, I thought of a poem by Kil Ja Kim (Tamara Nopper). You can see it here. The rage in this poem is worth some thought, I think.

And we could have spent a whole three hours on the poem about stories S.V. liked so much. I like it too.

Please come to class ready with your questions next week. If we covered ground you want explicated or explored more next week, we can do it. If there are parts of the novel you want us to engage, we can. I have my favorite parts. In fact, each time I read the novel, I touch or notice something I didn't "get" before. It's very much like getting to know a person in the sense that the layers are all there, right in front of you, but it takes some effort, some empathy, some work, and some time to begin to imagine what they might mean or feel like -- even for a fictional person like Tayo.

Finally, as a kind of sneak preview for what's to come with next week's presentations by E.O. and R.T., here are two video clips.

Here's the clip from the new movie about George Jackson that I can't wait to see!!!


Here's an interview with stic.man of dead prez. R.T. may show one of my favorite videos in class, so I'm posting this interview instead. You can find a lot of their stuff online.

Presentation Schedule

Here's what I have so far. (I'm using initials for your privacy.)

We still need to schedule M.F. and P.F. if he wants to do one too.

Instead of a presentation, J.B. is writing a blog-friendly short version of Pacifism as Pathology. Go, J.B.!! A lot of people are going to thank you for this, I'm sure.

February 14th
A.J.: Something Corporate
A.S.: Something on Assata and/or Valentine's Day

February 21st
E.O.: Something on George Jackson
R.T.: Something on dead prez

Feb. 28th
S.H.: Something on Okinawa and rape
S.Y.: Something G8

March 6th
N.G.: Something Palestinian
P.L.: Leila Khaled

March 13th
C: Sylvia Rivera Law Project
V.J.: Black Public Schools

March 27th
M.H.: Something Evil
I.M.: TBA
F.Q.: Audre Lorde

April 10th
D.S.: Something Brando
S.V.: Something Hmong

April 17th
S.C.: Something Punk
R.E.: Something Historical
J.M.: Something Gay (Probably Stonewall)

May 1st
E.W.: TBA
K.W.: TBA
M.F.: TBA

Ceremony

I really loved your ideas for the BSU! And even though we just started to scratch the surface, I was very, very happy, yet again, with our class. (Hi, Bill! We hope you are checking in now and then.)

Remember that even though we'll still be discussing Ward Churchill's book, you also need to start reading Ceremony. Read about half of it for next week.

Here are some links to check out if you like:

An essay by Silko from the Tucson Weekly.

Part I of an interview with Silko.

Part II of the interview.



The first two photos you see here were taken at the Laguna Pueblo and the Jemez Pueblo, both of which are featured in the novel.

Since I'm guessing many of you might not be familiar with the Southwest and New Mexico in particular, I thought some visual references might be useful. Here are some pictures taken between Cubero and Laguna:







The summers can be pretty green. The most beautiful places I've ever seen are in the upper reaches of New Mexico and lower part of Colorado in the summer. But that's just me.

Don't be afraid to "talk back"

If they are willing, I'd like the pacifists in the class to have both the first and last word this week. On the first day of class, Ian identified himself as a pacificist, and here we are reading a book with a title (and content) that is a slam against that position in a course about insurgencies taught by an anarchist. It's not hard to imagine that a pacifist might feel left out or even attacked by the very structure of this situation. I want to start off by noting that I don't think Ian or anyone else in our class is "sick" and that I think we all can engage Churchill's argument in complicated ways. In fact, the basic questions here matter to all of us.

Here's why:

Regardless of whether or not one considers herself a pacifist, violent responses to violence happen and are happening. One might disavow or object to such responses, but we still need to think about how and why they happen (even if only for purposes of sheer self-interest in the event that you fear something will happen to you). At the same time, that doesn't mean Ian or anyone else has to surrender or submerge strong feelings or "ride out" this week in silence. All of us bring personal experiences and values to this conversation that will make our conversation richer. And by looking closely at the differential power relationships that structure violent acts, we can open up room for theorizing creative responses and remedies.

If I could do everything I wanted to do with our class,

I would take you all to LA for a field trip this month so we could see this exhibition of the revolutionary art of Emory Douglas, whose illustrations appeared in the Black Panther Party newspaper and on posters in Cuba. Douglas was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. Since it doesn't look like I'll be able to do that, I hope you'll take the time to look at the pieces the Museum of Contemporary Art has made available online.

Announcement

Every now and then, the Japanese language program at the UI hosts "Culture Workshops" and other events for the campus community. I'll always tell you about them in class and on the blog. And if you or your group have events you'd like me to share on the blog, just let me know. You can click on the image above to view a larger version of the poster.

Tomorrow is Angela's birthday!

And I don't mean Angela Davis, I mean our very own Angela!!

Happy Birthday!!!