Just move on up!: Some ideas ahead of an SDS People of Color Caucus

For members of Students for a Democratic Society, this is that strange time of year when classes are finished but we start to hit the books with some renewed fervor. Yep, we’re in the lead-up to the National Convention once again! This go around with the SDS National Convention, there’s been some back and forth on caucuses and how they will work, attempting to sum up some lessons learned on what to do and what not to do.

With that in the back of my mind, I felt like writing at length about my experience with the SDS People of Color Caucus, from the period of SDS’s founding National Convention to the current day.

Gyanendra is (formally) finished

United We Blog reports that the formalities are through: Gyanendra is a king no more. By a vote of 560 to 4, the CA stripped Gyanendra of royal title and privilege. And there shall be no more kings of Nepal; the same vote established Nepal as a federal republic.

SDS News Bulletin #4

For print and distribution to your Chapter, Campus and Community: the SDS News Bulletin working group is proud to bring you our fourth issue, the best yet. From front cover to articles to action reports to poetry to art, we loaded this issue up for maximum Dangerousness, and once again you made it all possible by sending in your work, thoughts, ideas and love.

Now here’s the result:

Print Version
Online Reading Version

Enjoy! and Distribute widely!

SDS’ers: send your stuff to be published in Issue 5: sds.bulletin@gmail.com

Want to join the bulletin working group? Get involved by signing up for our email listserv: http://groups.google.com/group/sds-news-bulletin

- SDS News Bulletin Working Group

Return to Hegemonik! Plus, around the blogosphere

Issue #4 of the SDS News Bulletin is in the pipeline. I am back on Hegemonik as my number-one media project, if for the moment. It should soon be available for download on the SDS website as a PDF. Peep this blog for a mirror-link to it.

I’ve got a few ideas for posts stewing, but in the meantime enjoy some articles culled from my newsreader after the jump.

Observing a pair of birthdays

May 19 brings two major birthdays of importance in the fight against white supremacy and imperialism.

Say goodbye, Gyanendra

The Western media reports that tyrant/god-King Gyanendra of Nepal will be sacked and the feudal institution of the divine monarchy shall be abolished, effective May 28, 2008.

All I’ve got to say is good riddance to both Gyanendra and the royal line in Nepal – the fewer people running around claiming divine right to rule by bloodline the better.

Meta Monday: thinking over SDS related projects

These next two weeks I’m not going to have the time for some of the essay writing I’ve been doing of late. I’ll be working on laying out the print version of the SDS News Bulletin , which will eat up the bulk of my spare time.

In the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking a project for SDS in advance of the next National Convention. What form it’ll take, I’m unsure — it depends on what I hear from folks, what needs we really have, and how much work needs to be done by the Convention and what can be done by the Convention.

First on my list, I want to work on some materials for large-scale political education for SDS. The default model for carrying out any education in SDS are workshops used by non-governmental organizations and community based organizations to train their professional organizers — usually in some small, intimate setting, usually in a setting of 1-trainer to about 10-participants.

In itself, that is not a problem. The problem arises out of the small scale and high intensity which these trainings need, which has denied most of the organization the political education it needs in order to make informed decisions.

Police brutality on live television

[UPDATE: YouTube took down the video from WTXF. Please use link below. Thanks to Freddy for alerting me to YouTube's spinelessness.]
What is most disturbing about the above? this footage?

• That such beatings happen and are casually excused as “the cops were on edge?”
• That such events as the Sean Bell verdict have made it clear that “the cops were on edge”
  is viewed as a justification for not just assault but outright murder?
• That such events are broadcast live as a form of perverse entertainment?

I am unsure.

[My thanks to Faye Bibeau at groundswell for calling attention to this. Groundswell has been added to the links section]

Waking up to a ghost

Looking at VillageVoice.com this morning, I stumbled upon this and felt an old hurt come back.

NYPD Inaction Over a Missing Black Woman Found Dead Sparks a Historic Racial-Bias Lawsuit

“My daughter is dead. I know she endured physical torture,” says Carmichael. “But the police—the police put us through mental torture. Dealing with the police was more of a nightmare than finding Romona’s body.” By then, she says, she had resigned herself to the fact that Romona was dead. But the police? “They were just nasty,” she says.

Romona Moore. It’s a name that you’ve probably never heard, or only heard in passing. Speaking for myself, I’m not sure whether I so much recognize the name so much from the memory as from a learned anger.

White supremacy treehouse: who’s in and who’s out?

Demonstrations this past May Day had thinner crowds than in years past. Not surprising: the immigrant-worker upsurge was largely instigated by the actions of the enemies of immigration, or at least moreso than the “benevolence” of so-called friends of immigrants who would bring back second class bracero-labor

Recent unnoticed news proves instructive on how the mainstream immigration debate carries several white supremacist assumptions. Moreover, it demonstrates the role of white privilege in maintaining white supremacy, as a corrosive force that rusts the bonds of solidarity across lines of race and nationality.

Meta Monday: You have our gratitude!

Readers:

There’s been a lot of traffic at Hegemonik in its first month of existence. I’m trying to keep content fresh while unplugging to enjoy the good weather out in the meatspace.

I’d like to thank those bloggers who’ve been swapping links and helping promote Hegemonik of late, in no particular order:

Greetings on May Day