Antiracist Social Movements -Lecture 2

 Antiracist Social Movements -Lecture 2

Have defied multiple forms of racial oppression globally

Strategies, tactics, and ideologies have varied

Common is their challenge to economic domination

Antiracism challenges genocide, seizure and/or control of land and other resources, slavery, and exploitation of human labor.

Antiracist social movements =target cultural degradation, political exclusion, and patterns of racial prejudice and discrimination

 

Racism intertwined with colonialism of European conquest of Africa, The Americas, Asia, Australia, and Oceania.

Subjugated people have forged collective struggles against European imperialism.

Anticolonial movements were explicitly framed in terms of not race but of resisting colonial powers.

But with time, they have become increasingly racialized, reflecting the racism embodied in global capitalism.

Racist European powers have aligned with others, such as the United States, to subjugate people of color for the past 2 centuries.

 

I)                    Forms of Antiracism

a.      Antiracist resistance shaped by manifestations of race and racism in systems of racial oppression

b.      The forms it takes are not linear and sometimes occur simultaneously or spontaneously

c.      No one example reflects all antiracist social movements

                         i.      They are unique to the specific form of racism, racial period, and racial systems that they are attempting to counteract

                        ii.      But we can identify central, overlapping dynamics of antiracist activism in different historical periods and countries

                             iii.      Movements have been local, national, and transnational in character.

d.      Survival of racially oppressed groups birthed cultures of resistance and antiracist collective consciousnesses

       i.      These Two intertwined phenomena typically emerge simultaneously and forge the foundation of formal political movements.

e.      Traditions, language, and religion have helped sustain racially oppressed groups and defied racism

                      i.      Cultures of resistance are dynamic not mere duplication of preconquest cultural forms

                  ii.      Often unite previously diverse groups, producing a synthesis of more than one culture

1.      E.g. Garifuna culture arose from the intermarriage of shipwrecked Africans (en route as slaves) with Arawak Indians on the Caribbean island of San Vicente

a. The group resisted military conquest by English, French, and Spanish for centuries before being forced to relocate to coastal areas of Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize, where they continued to fight against racial discrimination.

2.      Throughout America, rich cultures of resistance developed

3.      Fought both individually and collectively

4.      Engaged in work slowdowns, played dumb, stole property, escaped, passed from generation to generation survival strategies in the form of music, art, dance, religion/spirituality.

a.      Escaped slaves formed the quilombo of Palmares in the 1600s

                  i.      A self-sustaining agricultural kingdom that withstood Dutch and Portuguese military attacks for nearly 100 years

             ii.      In the U.S., runaway slaves formed Maroon communities and sometimes joined Indigenous communities/nations such as the Seminoles in Florida

                      iii.      The Underground Railroad was a network that helped thousands of slaves gain freedom

           iv. Threatened the very institution of slavery and, to this day, is a powerful symbol of resistance.

II)                  Strategies

a.      Antiracist collective consciousness -a shared identity of belonging to a group that faces and defines systemic racial oppression

                    i.      Often developed within cultures of resistance

                         ii.      See the history of Indigenous, slave (and former slave), and immigrant populations

                      iii. Early 21st-century Middle Eastern immigrants overcome their own national, religious, and ethnic divisions to create collective identities that foster resistance to xenophobic, racist practices and policies in France and other industrialized nations.

              iv.      Antiracist activist help raise awareness among members to the degree an extent of racial oppression as evidenced by poverty, low wages, inadequate housing, etc..

1.      Demonstrate that these are not a result of individual failures or success but stem from initialized racism that benefits white ELITES and marginalizes people of color

2. The Alianza de Mercedes Federales -the Land Grant Movement -led by Reies Lopez Tijerina -documented the roots of Chicano/poverty in the illegal seizure of family and community-held land grants by Anglo settlers in the southwestern United States during 2nd half of the 19th century.

a.      Galvanizing collective consciousness is not static but a constantly evolving strategy in antiracist activism

b.       Built coalitions among intersecting communities of color

                                                                                                                   i.      Indigenous, slave/former slave, immigrant

                                                                                                                 ii. Consider the indigenous people of African descent in countries such as Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru, who have worked together to challenge governments to recognize political autonomy, land ownership, and human rights.

                                                                                                                iii.      Antiracist consciousness -often intertwined with anticolonialist consciousness

1.      Articulated in cogent political analysis by antiracist scholars globally.

3.      Another strategy of antiracist activists is raising awareness about racial injustices

a.      Not only among themselves but also external groups

                                           i. Such as domestic whites, other communities of color, and those living in different communities.

                                                                                                                 ii.      Consider Ida B. Wells, whose books and articles drew an international and domestic audience, informing them of the horrors of lynching

1.      As a key role in maintaining white supremacy in the U.S.

                                          iii.      Quiche-Maya advocate Rigoberta Menchu (1984) detailed the ruthless torture and violence used by the Guatemalan government to enforce inhuman work conditions for Indigenous people

b. In the early years of the 21st century, Sweatshop workers in countries such as Indonesia and El Salvador risked death to educate others about the inhumane employment practices of multinational corporations operating within the web of global racist capitalism.

                          v.      Antiracists rely upon mass media to educate and mobilize people to take action

1.      Writing novels such as One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta -1983

2.      The Abolitionist Newspaper -North Star

3.      Magazines -the NAACP-Crisis

4.      Films and videos -Rabbit-proof fence (2002) -aboriginal defiance in Australia. Bob Marley -in music -antiracist reggae lyrics,

5. Sapistata Army of National Liberation -garnered national and international support for the rights of indigenous peoples in Chiapas, Mexico -by using the Internet to disseminate their messages.

                          6.  Each of these produces higher levels of antiracist solidarity, which adds to the pressure on elites to concede to antiracist demands.

III)    Activists apply pressure on different social institutions to bring about change

a.      Inuit leaders negotiated with the Canadian government to pass the Land Claims Agreement Act in 1993 and create the newest Canadian province of Nunavut in 1999.

                      i.      Also illustrates the sovereignty movement in which Indigenous groups successfully regained many land and natural resources

IV)                They use letters and petitions to government officials’ companies, and mass media to push for change

a.    consider the push for the elimination of Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow Laws in U.S., apartheid in South Africa

b.      Antilynching legislation in the U.S. and immigrant rights legislation in Britain.

c.      NAACP pushing for pivotal Brown V. Board of Education outlawing racial segregation in public schools in 1954.

d.       Direct appeals to international organizations –

                            i.      In Japan, in 1919, a proposal for racial equality was submitted to the League of Nations

1.      Faced opposition from delegates from Britain, Australia, and the United States

a.      Overturned by the chairperson, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.

b. 1950 Du Bois pushed the United Nations to recognize the denial of civil and other rights of black Americans as a violation of basic human rights outlined in the Geneva Convention.

V)       Strategies of protests to expose racial injustice and pressure racist governments and others to change

a.      Abolitionist organized boycotts of goods produced by slave labor

b.      Civil rights activists bus boycotts to highlight their issues of racially segregated public transformation

c. King’s -boycott of stores that refused to hire blacks, sit-ins at lunch counters, marches throughout the south culminating in the I Have a Dream speech.

d. rent strikes are another form of protest used by Adam Clayton Powel in Harlem..

VI)           Key strategies such as civil disobedience by Indians in innovative and disruptive acts of nonviolent to force British colonizers out of India

VII)              Mahatma Gandhi‘s philosophical and strategic model of nonviolent civil disobedience impacted many

a. Such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -sit-in tactics in white-only public accommodations in the U.S. South during the 1960s.

b. Sit-ins have also been used by students of color, AIDS activists, and prison-rights activists.

IX)                Labor unions have used strikes to challenge racism and take collective action to increase wages

. a.      Black miners’ strike for higher wages in 1946 in South Africa

b.      The Justice for Janitors strike in the 1990s in the U.S.

X)    Occupy land seized by white settlers and white-dominated governments and corporations

a.      1970s and 1980s the Māori land-rights movement in New Zealand

b.      The American Indian Movement occupied Alcatraz Island in 1970 to dramatize the plight of Native Americans.

c.      Antiracist Protests have also used graffiti, guerrilla theater, student walkouts, and disruptions of government and corporate meetings

XI)                Often, social protests are technically legal, but challenge the implementation of laws prohibiting segregation on interstate busses, mounted massive voter registration drives for lacks, established Freedom Schools to educate both children and adults

XII)              The Black Panther Party -creating breakfast and after-school programs, adult literacy and political education classes, free health clinics, busing family members to visit loved ones in prison, etc.

a.      Black Panthers, citing the 2^nd amendment, openly displayed and carried guns, thus really getting attention,

XIII) The American Indian Movement also defended themselves by challenging racist law enforcement officers who routinely brutalized antiracist activists and assassinated movement participants in the 1960s and 1970s.

XIV)    Armed struggle has also been used in such places as slave rebellions in the Caribbean and South America

a.      In the U.S., Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831 and many of the 1960 Race riots within the U.S.,

b.      The African National Congress engaged in nonviolent political organizing for a half-century before they decided to use armed struggle

                        i.      The bombings of military buildings and the assignation of apartheid leaders

                     ii.      After the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, in which South African police murdered protesters

                     iii.      In the 1970s and 1980s, the Southwest Africa People’s Organization used armed self-defense against the South African military after decades of apartheid rule in what is now Namibia.

XV) The range of strategies used varies across time, depending upon the level of popular support, resources, elite responses, and other factors.

XVI) They have historically faced elite cooptation -where the government gives token positions to people of color or provides funding for individualist educational and social service programs and repression (intimidation, surveillance, misinformation campaigns, infiltration, prosecution, imprisonment, destruction of property, physical assaults and assignation).

XVII)          Cooptation and repression contributed to divisions within social movements.

XVIII)        Social movement organizations sometimes experience conflict over strategies

a.      Violence or nonviolence, separation or integration

b.      Sometimes, they have segmented differences

                         i.      Poor v. working class

                        ii.      Female LGBTQ2+

c.      These tensions sometimes catalyze the development of a new movement

                          i.      Like the women’s suffrage movement in the mid-1900s, it emerged within the context of sexism in the abolitionist movement

1. Sexism within both the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement led to the growth of second-wave feminism.

XIX)            Antiracist social movements

a.      Abolished slavery

b.      Ended de jure racism

c.      Civil rights movement in the U.S. and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa have provided ideological and strategic models for other movements such as

                i.      Women’s movement, the antiwar movement, LGBTQ@+ movement, disability rights movement, and AIDS

XX)              While living conditions, educational and job opportunities, and political power have improved for people of color =racism still exists

a. Newer and more complicated forms

b.      21century Antiracist targets plethora of crisscrossing issues such as war, environmental justice, farmworker rights, immigrant rights, violence against women and LGBTQ2+, HIV/AIDS, health care, homophobia, and the list goes on..

XXI) They are looking at multinational corporations, international institutions (like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank), and the foreign policies of the most powerful industrialized nations.

XXII) We are seeing increasing involvement and development of coalitions and alliances between different organizations, communities of color, and antiracist whites =often at the transnational level.

 

XIII)            But racism continues to transform, and we see new manifestations.

                      i.      Genocide in Darfur, mass incarceration of African Americans in the U.S., anti-immigrant violence in Europe

All require new strategies