http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/06/what-is-privilege_n_7737466.html

I remember doing this exercise with Keisha Scott from Grinnell at a UO workshop for administrators and some professors. We, of course, were not admitted but went anyway. Keisha was there. In the final thoughts section there is an Asian brother who felt awkward of not fitting in the front or the back. I hope that helps him understand his role in society. I was lucky -- if one is to look at it from the point of view of "Clueless at the Top," meaning the higher you are in status the less clearly you see what is happening, what is the societal problems, and I would say, "which side are you on." The view is very clear at the bottom. So in that way I was lucky, stepping back step after step with questions regarding my parents, my grandparents plight as immigrants, their sacrifices making me the lucky one to become certified by higher education, "one step forward" but discriminated by my administrator, "one step back"; punished for speaking another language "one step back"; grandparents and parents labored for less than minimum wage "one step backward"; teased for being who you are "one step back." In real life, with that step forward which opened some opportunities to connect with college students with like background to me, it put us in the position of "change agents" which is a clear cut, powerful position for a youth to be in. We built a safer world for our children and grandchildren but be sure to pass on the legacy so they have clarity. Don't hide it. Don't "protect" them from the struggle. Stay in it. You owe it to your ancestors. And if you are lucky you may gain in tools, but stay put with the clued. No one wants to be clueless at the top. If you are a person who had a life of privilege, no guilt necessary. Just make those connections so your vision is clear. On my Facebook friend list is a generation of young white clear seeing people who are change agents, happy and courageous as well as a generation with such wisdom early because of the struggles of generations, and love which nourished them, a teacher, a parent a grandparent, a community who are also magnificent change agents. With the Winnemem tribe, my last and greatest teachers, it is by being true to self, ancestors and spiritual responsibilities where I have experienced the most clarity. I have great hope that together we will see the last of white supremacy with the double shame of racism and colonialism, stamp out useless guilt, and move beyond it. White Supremacy of the Earth and all its inhabitants must be left in the past for us to survive.

Everyday Racism is a Business

https://www.facebook.com/theguardian/videos/vb.10513336322/10153168903021323/?type=2&theater

Make a Village around you wherever you are

If you haven't seen this video yet it's a must
Posted by Viral Thread on Tuesday, January 6, 2015

I am Cuba!

Being Nikkei in Cuba, WW2

 I would like to go to Isla de la Juventud, where the largest community of Nikkei Cubans are (Japanese immigrants and their descendants). It is an 1.5 hour ferry crossing to a beautiful place! Here is a story dear to my Nikkei heart. During the war, Batista was pressured as other Caribbean and Latin American leaders by the US government to do a parallel effort of imprisoning their Japanese citizens. The US plan, especially in Peru, was to use those kidnapped Latin American citizens as prisoner exchange. They succeeded in doing one boat load, but when Japan realized they were not getting Japanese but immigrants to another land they refused to do further negotiation and these kidnapped Japanese Latin Americans were put into Crystal City (TX) prison camp and became people without a country, separated from their families. That is not the heartwarming story, though. Batista imprisoned men 15 years old and older at Presidio Modelo on the island. They were crammed in, and their families also suffered because women and children were left to take care of subsistence farming. The difference between the Cuban Nikkei experience and the experience of US Nikkei in WW2 concentration camps was that when the Cuban neighbors finished plowing their fields, they came over and plowed the fields of these families, for the most part mono-lingual Japanese. They remained Neighbors rather than become part of a national environment of hatred. When Cuban Nikkei are asked if they felt more Cuban or Japanese, they are puzzled at that question. "We're Cuban!" they say. When they are asked if there is a baseball game between Cuba and Ja- before the words came out they shouted "Japonaise!" They are proud of their roots but they experience more inclusion in Cuba than many other places. My main reason that I personally wish the end of the blockade is because my country, the US, does not allow our cultural exchange and oral history exchange with Japanese in Cuba. They allow art exchanges, Christian exchanges, but not us. That is discriminatory! The blockade discriminates against Nikkei!

Chinosole

Sharon Elise posted this. Chinosole lived here in the 80's - 90's. And the time she spent in Eugene she spent passionately. A friend of Audre Lourde, she continued the hard conversation which had opened up with the great author's visit between women of the LGBTQ community and women of color. It was painful but necessary. She and Professor  David Henry Anthony also started the Free Africa Movement here. When the Bijou brought the South African imported film, "The Gods Must be Crazy" breaking an international boycott against South Africa, Chinosole was leading the protest line outside the Bijou and as the theater continued to show the film to crowds for weeks, moviegoers, many of them our friends, crossed the line. It was disheartening. Chinosole moved to CA, during that all too long run, but before she went she was on the line and encouraged us not to give up no matter what. I bring this up because that line served as the place where lifelong respect and friendships were made between the Anglo women of the LGBTQ community and women of color because on that line, as temperatures dropped and the rain poured down on us, people began to leave the line except us women, every show night. That commitment served as the foundation for a long friendship between the women in this community. That's just two of the many things she did for Eugene. But just for me, Chinosole and a group of us were having lunch. I had been pink-slipped and not called back to teaching. Chinosole asked some questions and learned that my principal had said several racist things to me, and then had also called me in for answering my students' questions about how I voted on Prop 13 which prohibited Gay and Lesbian people from rights, basically criminalizing homosexuality, honestly. He thought that it was wrong for me to take a teachable moment as my students hatefully said all Gay people should be put inconcentration camps to talk about witch hunts and the bill of rights, and my own family's experience during WW2. She got very angry and told me I needed to fight for that job. I was pretty naive about my rights. Frankly the anxiety blocking me from facing the School District Personnel Clique shrank before the thought of making Chinosole any madder! It was not difficult for me to stick up for my students, or take a stand for what I believed in but it was hard for me to stick up for myself and Chinosole held that mirror up to me and gave me the directional push and kick in the butt I needed. After 30 plus years of teaching I could not imagine giving up on something that gave me so much and I owe her so much for that. I also echo what Sharon said, "Chinosole, you left without saying goodbye." Rest in Peace and Power, Sister.  

Sharon Elise

Chinosole. You left without saying good bye. Rest in peace. La lucha continúa

War Zone

Here is more powerful writing from Lyla. The first lines really resonated with me. I've always felt I was born in a war zone. As a 5 year old just starting school, first time among others than my grandparents, mother and uncles, the only brown spot in a classroom of 12 children in Marsing, Idaho, speaking another language, looking like the enemy back then in 1950, I remember the clues which made me realize it. As Sharon Anderson, my playground friend said, explaining why I was the only one not invited to her birthday party, "my mom said you can't come because you killed my brothers." How does a 5 year old digest that one?

Lyla June Johnston

Shi Hane'

In 1937 my indigenous grandmother attended Rehoboth, 
a Dutch Reformed Church school near Gallup, New Mexico.
She tells me stories of children writing one
hundred times on a piece of paper:

I will only speak English.
I will only speak English.
I will only speak English.
...

To be born into this body--this beautiful brown body--is to be born into a warzone.
The world will never stop telling you that you are inferior.

I know who I am.
I am equal to the sun, to the grass.

Beautiful children like my grandmother
with smiles so pure and hearts so loving
were told they were a broken form of human
with every word and action.

Beautiful people, who held the cure for cancer in their songs,
and lived in harmony with one desert for so much longer than
any archaeologist or anthropologist could ever detect,
were called uncivilized.