Tucson school district bans books by Chicano and Native authors

On Doctor King Day, how about another edition of "shit that makes whatsername's blood boil," care of the narcosphere:

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to succumb to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state decision.

Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.

[...]

"the last time a book of mine was outlawed was during the state of emergency in apartheid South Africa in 1986, when the regime there banned the curriculum I’d written, Strangers in Their Own Country, likely because it included excerpts from a speech by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Confronting massive opposition at home and abroad, the white minority government feared for its life in 1986. It’s worth asking what the school authorities in Arizona fear today."

Indeed [emphasis mine].

Banned books include:
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years
The Tempest (yes, the Shakespeare play)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos
The House on Mango Street
Black Mesa Poems

Ceremony
The Devil’s Highway
Like Water for Chocolate
Ten Little Indians
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven
Ocean Power, Poems from the Desert
...And many more, apparently.

Instructors from the former Mexican American studies courses have also been told "to stay away from any class units where "race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.""

Yeah.

Can't have the youth thinking about oppression, gods forbid, they might decide to work against it!

Despite knowing that book banning is NOT new to America, it still makes my blood boil (or at least it feels like it's boiling...).

I mean, really, when has banning books EVER led to or been a part of anything good? Isn't "our freedom" why we've been told "the terrorists hate us"? How can the same people who spout that line not see how fucking un-free actions like this are?

Oh, that's right, because they are hypocritical "Libertarian" assholes who think everything is ok as long as it's the US doing it... We're special fucking snow flakes that way.

Help Raise Funds for "Ajijaak" Ojibwe Storybook!

I got word about this project from the lovely Cecelia!  Check out her blog if you haven't already:  Anishinaabekwe.  From the project's Kickstarter page:

The making of the Storybook "Ajijaak!"
FOUR Colours Productions is an aboriginal and non aboriginal collaboration of artists, language teachers, designers, elders, storytellers and more who come together to create Ojibwe Language storybooks and Cd's for sale in the community. The thing we have in common is an inherent interest in preserving creativity, culture and the arts in community- especially for the little ones!

Our Goal!
The intent is to assist populating the libraries, book shops, children's homes and schools with more Ojibwe language materials- the more the merrier. We reach a diverse audience from families on the rez to urban kids with awesome parents who want their kids to learn about all kinds of cultures. There can never be enough books, Cd's, videos, immersion classes and more. We feel we are a very small part of a large community trying to help save the language.The main thing we like about our process is that it allows us to do that- ''DO'' being the key word.

Please help if you can!

A Must Read: The US schools with their own police

File under "things that piss whatsername off"
From The Guardian

A few highlights:

The charge on the police docket was "disrupting class". But that's not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of "you smell".

"I'm weird. Other kids don't like me," said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. "They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: 'Put that away, that's the most terrible smell I've ever smelled.' Then the teacher called the police."

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

"Zero tolerance started out as a term that was used in combating drug trafficking and it became a term that is now used widely when you're referring to some very punitive school discipline measures. Those two policy worlds became conflated with each other," said Fowler.

Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of police in schools. Simpkins describes the case of a boy with attention deficit disorder who as a 12-year-old tipped a desk over in class in a rage. He was charged with threatening behaviour and sent to a juvenile prison where he was required to earn his release by meeting certain educational and behavioural standards.

"But he can't," she said. "Because of that he is turning 18 within the juvenile justice system for something that happened when he was 12. It's a real trap. A lot of these kids do have disabilities and that's how they end up there and can't get out. Instead of dealing with it within school system like we used to, we have these school police, they come in and it escalates from there."

According to the department's records, officers used force in schools more than 400 times in the five years to 2008, including incidents in which pepper spray was fired to break up a food fight in a canteen and guns were drawn on lippy students.

Chief Brian Allen, head of the school police department for the Aldine district and president of the Texas school police chiefs' association, is having none of it.

"There's quite a substantial number of students that break the law. In Texas and in the US, if you're issued a ticket, it's not automatically that you're found guilty. You have an opportunity to go before the judge and plead your case. If you're a teacher and a kid that's twice as big as you comes up and hits you right in the face, what are you going to do? Are you going to use your skills that they taught you or are you going to call a police officer?"

Read it all, there were too many priceless quotes to pull them all out.

Why can't we see that we're slowly but surely destroying ourselves with this ever-growing prison industrial complex??? Let's observe that these programs are particularly common in communities with high numbers of people of color, immigrants and poor working classes. In other words, groups of people who are already criminalized in mainstream USian discourse. Coincidence? I doubt it. Is it going to take this coming to white middle class suburbs before we take seriously how increased policing exacerbates and spreads the violence these police are supposed to be curtailing?? And if it does... by then will it be too late?

Action in Solidarity with Egyptian Women on Friday in Oakland!

Bay Area women action in solidarity with the struggle of Egyptian women

Event Description:

Hello everyone. As most of you might know I'm Shimaa, an Egyptian activist currently visiting the Bay area to learn about occupy, speak about the revolution and the situation in Egypt and to connect occupy and Egyptian activists together.
The revolutionary women and girls struggling with the revolution and the systemic assaulting by the military in Egypt need the support and solidarity of their fellow Americans.
I'm no longer in Tahrir so feel obligated to do something here ASAP.
I would like us to have a solidarity rally and march that I'm pretty sure will be so much significant and will send a powerful message to our sisters back in Egypt.

3 pm come join us Dec the 30th at Occupy Oakland, bring signs and print pictures!
"Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and Broadway"

If you have the time I hope to see you there! Click the link at the top of this post for more information and to RSVP on the Facebook event page.

Edit: You can also go to this site for more information on upcoming Occupy/Decolonize actions for the month of January in the Bay area.

On This Day in 1890: Learn What Happened at Wounded Knee

The Massacre at Wounded Knee 1890 - YouTube:

Mattilda's Call For Submissions For Anthology on Queering #OWS

From Nobody Passes

Please forward far and wide…

WE ARE NOT JUST THE 99%:
Queering the Occupy Movement, Reimagining Resistance
Edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

*CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

Ignited by the Arab Spring, uprisings in Greece and Spain, and protests in Wisconsin, Occupy Wall Street has brought corporate greed and structural inequality into the spotlight while claiming public space and refusing hierarchical models of resistance. "We are the 99%," the central slogan of the Occupy movement, has been crucial in rallying mass support. And yet, this slogan invokes a vision of sameness that stands in stark contrast to a queer analysis that foregrounds, cultivates, and nurtures difference. From Mortville, the queer camp at Occupy Baltimore, to the Feminists and Queers Against Capitalism bloc at the Oakland general strike, queers are playing central roles in Occupy spaces. But, what would it mean to bring a queer analysis to the forefront, going beyond the politics of inclusion to question the very terms of the debate?

For the first time in decades, perhaps there's a possibility for a mass movement demanding radical social change in the US. Still, most Occupy spaces remain straight, white, and male-dominated: how do we prevent the power imbalances intrinsic to previous movements? What about accountability within the 99%? How have Occupy spaces addressed (and failed to address) homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, ableism, imperialism/patriotism, police brutality, anti-homeless territorialism, sexual assault, and other issues of structural, personal, and intimate violence? As struggles emerge to confront the colonial rhetoric of “occupying” indigenous land (and to address this history), what can a queer analysis bring to this challenge? What do queer struggles have to learn from Occupy/Decolonize movements, and what can Occupy/Decolonize movements learn from queer struggles?

I'm interested in missives from queers involved in Occupy/Decolonize movements, as well as from those veering between skeptical and inspired. I would love to hear about queer challenges within Occupy encampments large and small, across the country and around the world. Bring me your explosive analysis, your rants, your manifestoes, your journal entries, your rage and rigor and hope and heartbreak. In addition to written nonfiction work, I'm also interested in art, photography, posters, flyers, and other forms of visual documentation queering the Occupy movement – its goals and aspirations, its impact, its perils and possibilities.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor of five nonfiction anthologies, most recently Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (AK Press 2012), and the author of two novels, most recently So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights 2008). More info on Mattilda at mattildabernsteinsycamore.com.

Please send essays or written materials of up to 5000 words, as Word or text file attachments only, to nobodypasses@gmail.com. Include a brief bio. Please send a query before submitting visual work. The deadline is March 20, 2012, although the earlier the better. Any questions, send them my way!

Sounds like a book I will be very interested to read!

Happy Solstice!

For my area of the world the winter solstice is tonight, according to my Google-fu at 9:30 pm PST.  The candles are lit and the house is about to be swept.  So Happy Yule, everyone!  If the light returns after tonight then it will do so earlier and earlier from now on.  Stand watch, and welcome the Sun!!

V For Vendetta: Why I Liked the Movie Better Than the Book

Over the last week I read the graphic novel V For Vendetta. And as I finished it today I could not help thinking that it was not what I expected. In fact, although I know this to be highly blasphemous, on first read: I liked the movie better. I don't know that I have ever liked a movie version better than the book, so I found this revelation rather disturbing. It probably didn't help that I have seen so many fans of the book trash the movie adaptation either.

But, as I did what I usually do when something particularly troubling is bothering me (take a shower and think about it) I realized what bothered me about the book. It wasn't the violence or the more morally convoluted energy of the story or even the blunt anarchist propaganda of some passages (nothing wrong with propaganda in theory, but there was something jarring to me about it's application here), it was the individualism.

What the movie did really well was to express how V served as a catalyst, but for the overall vision to succeed it took the mobilization of people. A large mass of people. It took the community working together. It took an uprising. Surely that vision should look familiar these days, right? From Egypt to Oakland large amounts of people streaming out into the streets to oppose the powerful?

Anyway. In contrast, the book really relied on V as a spokesperson, as a LEADER, to mobilize the people. And so for all of his preaching of anarchism, V looked much more conventional to my First World eyes: the charismatic leader rallying his troops to revolution rooted in chaos and violence. I don't want to downplay the fact that he certainly was individually heroic in the movie too (maybe even "super-heroic," managing to take all those bullets and remain standing...)....but in the end the "victory" didn't rely on that, whereas in the book, it did.

Fundamentally I just don't believe that is how anarchism can succeed. This is why I am a SOCIALIST libertarian/anarchist, because I believe it takes us working together to protect each other, because I believe it takes community accountability, because I believe it takes self-awareness and openness to the needs of other people that are different from our own, to make a vision like anarchism realistic, because I believe it takes solidarity, real solidarity. (Look to the EZLN for a model that seems to be working as far as I can tell.)

In addition, the book's V required a replacement. Evey had to take up the costume to continue the work. While I get there is a sort of poetry to that (we can be/are all V!) I think it is less effective than the movie's version of this, wherein everyone in the crowd took up the mask TOGETHER, and less effective than the movie's version of Evey: who rejects V even as she loves him. She does not take up the mask, she fulfills V's last wish and then goes to build the better world. Book-Evey's taking up of the mask means she steps into his legacy and is symbolically walking in his footsteps. The people on the ground don't know this person is different from the one who started it all, and, again, maybe there is a kind of poetry in that, the duality of humanity encapsulated in one person...but it didn't work as effectively for me, that's all I know.

Because as V says in both versions: this new world has no place for him, the Destroyer. Movie-Evey's turning away from him (and what he did to her, even as she moved forward changed because of that experience and seems comfortable in her new skin) is precisely what is necessary for the new world he envisions, because there is no place for that kind of destruction in the building of a new world from the ashes of the old.  In fact I found book-Evey's willingness to continue to live with and trust V after he tortured her to border on misogynistic writing.

I will say this though, I did like the book's villains better than the movie's. In the book the villains seem so average and regular, as leaders are at the end of the day: they are just people. In the movie the villains are larger than life and VERY evil. In the case of the Leader, "larger than life" is meant quite literally. Of course this is compromised by the end when he is killed, and we see that he is just human after all - so I get what the Wachowskis were doing here - but this humanity is clear all the time in the book, and that was more effective for me in showing how those in power can be worked against and overthrown. In the end, even evil people are just people, we have to come to terms with that both in the sense of realizing they are mortal, and in the fact that we are both human and that their evil might reside within us as well.

So yeah. I do know that it usually takes more than one read to absorb everything a book is doing, but this was my discomfort as I read through this first time, and I don't know that I will read it again anytime soon, but I think this was worth writing out.

Review: Shadoweyes, Volume One

Shadoweyes, Volume One by Ross Campbell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this graphic novel, the content was interesting, the story was intriguing and the characters were amazing. Not to do any spoilers but this text deals with several social issues and oppressed identities in ways I rarely see and I was impressed. Yes, the story was quick, but it seemed kinda par for the course with comics to me, and totally met my expectations. Can't wait to read Vol. 2!

View all my reviews

A Meditation on The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight, and the Decolonize/Occupy Movement

Link

It might be just me (and I realize this was released months ago but I saw it for the first time today), but this song seems like it should be the anthem of the Occupy/Decolonize movement.

While I was watching the video it just hit me really hard like, isn't the story being told (through the visuals, through the music) so much a story of the underclass choosing to stand up and just refuse to take the shit those in charge are dealing?  To refuse to continue to be controlled by fear and manipulation and coercion and force and false privilege any longer?

And particularly, that those who used to be aligned with/protected by those in charge need to abandon that and stand with the oppressed?

Even so far as that it took one of "their own" being thrown out of the protective circle of the powerful group to galvanize those who revolted to their realization?

It's so bittersweet and inspiring at the same time... Just like I feel about this movement...