Patriarchy

Flood The System Organizing Booklet – Movement Momentum

August 18, 2015 Flood The System, www.floodthesystem.net Organize! Capitalism, Collective Liberation, Education, Patriarchy, Racial Justice, Resistance

By Flood The System - We envision Flood the System as a step towards building the DNA of a robust movement that has the collective power to challenge global capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and oppression. This booklet is designed to give you a sense of why we need to escalate, what Flood the System might look like, and what structures we will all use to organize. The authors drew inspiration for this booklet from the 1986 Pledge of Resistance Handbook, the 1999 WTO Direct Action Packet and the 2014 Ferguson Action Council Booklet. This booklet was edited by Arielle Klagsbrun and Nick Stocks.

Democracy Only For Rich White Guys: Explaining America’s Inequalities

July 14, 2015 Sean McElwee, www.salon.com Educate! Capitalism, Democracy, Patriarchy, White Supremacy

By Sean McElwee in Salon - More than a century ago, German scholar Werner Sombart published a book entitled ”Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus?” or, “Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?” Today, many scholars and political thinkers ask the same question, and the answers vary broadly. While many of the answers – racism, the malapportionment of the Senate, federalism, a pro-business Supreme Court, low levels of civic participation – all have some truth and explanatory power, it remains difficult nonetheless to square democracy and inequality. Democracy was supposed to be “the road to socialism,” after all. Now a new study by Nicholas Stephanopoulos sheds light on why “democracy” hasn’t reduced inequality: Because it doesn’t exist.

National Plutocrat Radio: Corporate 1%’s Dominate NPR’s Boards

July 3, 2015 Aldo Guerrero, www.fair.org Educate! Classism, Corporatism, Elitism, Patriarchy, Public, Radio

For a public radio service, NPR is notoriously known for its lack of diversity within its staff, audience and guests invited onto their shows—problems that NPR has itself acknowledged (6/30/14). A new FAIR study finds thatNPR’s diversity problem also extends into the board of trustees of its most popular member stations: Two out of three board members are male, and nearly three out of four are non-Latino whites. Fully three out of every four trustees of the top NPR affiliates belong to the corporate elite. While a majority of the board is populated by NPR station managers with backgrounds in public media, the rest of the board members have strong ties to the corporate sector. This includes NPR CEO Jarl Mohn, who has an extensive background in commercial media, having held executive positions within E! Entertainment, MTV and VH1.

LGBT Immigrant Rights Protesters Arrested Near White House

July 2, 2015 Dhyana Taylor and Jacob Kerr, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Immigrant Rights, LGBTQ, Mass Incarceration, Patriarchy, Torture

By Dhyana Taylor and Jacob Kerr In Huffington Post - Six LGBT immigrant rights activists were arrested Tuesday after blocking a street near the White House to protest the Obama administration's treatment of LGBT immigrants in detention. Protesters, organized by advocacy group United We Dream, took turns criticizing Obama administration detention policies as some participants linked themselves with chains or lay in the street and blocked traffic. “We are asking President Obama to free all LGBT people from detention because detention is not protecting them. Detention is brutalizing them,” said Brooke Cerda-Guzmán, an undocumented transgender woman who was arrested. The protest came a week after an undocumented transgender woman was kicked outof the White House for heckling President Barack Obama about immigrant detention.

Why I Let My Son Wear A Dress

June 29, 2015 Frida Berrigan, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Feminism, LGBTQ, Patriarchy

Research shows that a strict gender education for girls and boys starts at birth. Terrence Real, a family therapist and author of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression,” cites a study in which 204 parents watch a video of an infant crying and are asked to react. When told the baby is a girl, mothers and fathers both say that the child is frightened. When told they are watching a boy infant cry, they label the emotion as anger. The researchers, John and Sandra Cundry, concluded by writing, “It would seem reasonable to assume that a child who is thought to be afraid is held and cuddled more than a child who is thought to be angry.” Little boys who cry are told to “man up.” Aggressive and even violent little boy behavior is not corrected or redirected.

Former B’more Police Officer Comes Clean About Brutality

June 25, 2015 Michael McLaughlin, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Baltimore, Corruption, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Michael McLaughlin in Huffington Post - A former Baltimore police sergeant took to Twitter Wednesday to air a stunning list of acts he said he participated in and witnessed during his 11 years on the city's force. Michael Wood gave a no-holds barred look at his career in a previous radio interview, but his tweets gained traction for their brazen admissions that officers lied to get overtime, illegally searched "thousands of people" and committed gross acts during raids, like urinating and defecating on suspects' beds. A spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department confirmed that Wood left the force in 2014. In subsequent tweets, Wood promised to reveal more and expressed surprise at the attention paid to his commentary.

Police Criminals & The Brutalization Of Black Girls

June 16, 2015 Sikivu Hutchinson, www.thefeministwire.com Educate! Black Women, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice, Texas

By Sikivu Hutchinson in The Feminist Wire - The videotaped assault and sexual harassment of 14 year-old Dajerria Becton by a rampaging white police officer after a pool party in McKinney, Texas makes it clear that it continues to be open season on black women and girls. In the video officer Eric Casebolt grabs, straddles and violently restrains Becton while she is lying face down on the ground in a bikini. Ignoring her cries of pain and anxiety, he sadistically sits on her back while handcuffing her. Casebolt then pulls a gun on a few young people who attempt to intervene. Some of the good white citizens of McKinney have reportedly praised Casebolt’s thuggery. The assault of Becton is an enraging reminder of the particular brand of sexual terrorism black women routinely experienced in the Jim Crow South at the hands of white law enforcement and ordinary white citizens.

Flipping The Script: Rethinking Working-Class Resistance

June 9, 2015 Henry A. Giroux, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Capitalism, Patriarchy, Racism, Sexism

By Henry A. Giroux in Truthout - I then realized that I had to flip the script to survive and became acutely aware that the alleged strengths of ruling-class types, such as their, cold, hypermasculine modes of embodiment, along with their ruthless sense of competitiveness, their suffocating narcissism, their view of unbridled self-interest as the highest virtue, their ponderous and empty elaborated code, and their often savage and insensitive modes of interaction, were actually poisonous deficits. That was a turning point in my being able to narrate and free myself from one of the most sinister forms of ideological domination, "those unexamined prejudices that keep us from thinking." For me, this involved a slow process of unlearning the poisonous, sedimented histories working-class youth often have to internalize and embody in order to survive.

A Review Of Hilary Klein’s Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories

May 30, 2015 Charlotte Maria Sáenz, www.otherworldsarepossible.org Create! Chiapas, Feminism, Patriarchy, Zapatistas

Volumes have been written about the Mayan indigenous Zapatista social movement of Chiapas, Mexico since they made their first public appearance on January 1, 1994. There have been detailed histories, political analysis, academic theorization, movement studies, activist ethnographies, non-fiction novels, attempts at cultural and symbolic translation, etc. The movement’s primary spokesman, the prolific Subcomandante Marcos, has also contributed numerous communiqués, satires, children’s stories, erotica, pop culture commentary, political and philosophical ruminations. However, until now, we were missing the direct voices of women from the communities themselves. Hilary Klein’s Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories(Seven Stories Press) reveals their perspectives as contemporary indigenous women who are active subjects together with men in shared processes of change and liberation.

Arizona Protesters Organize Against Border Patrol Checkpoints

May 30, 2015 Ashoko Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Arizona, Immigration, Patriarchy, Racial Justice, Wars and Militarism

Protesters from a small Arizona town staged a demonstration at a nearby border checkpoint early on May 27 to express their opposition to its presence as well as the discriminatory and racist practices of Border Patrol. “If I was with a ‘brown’ person, I’m stopped. If I’m by myself, I’m a honkey, and I go right through,” protester Susan Thorpe told News 4 Tucson. “That makes me very sad to see what’s happened to my country.” About 100 people from the town of Arivaca, Arizona made their way to the temporary Border Patrol checkpoint on Arivaca Road, about 50 miles southwest of Tucson, at around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

#SayHerName Project Explained

May 29, 2015 Jenée Desmond-Harris, www.vox.com Resist! Black Women, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice

On May 20, the African American Policy Forum released a report titled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women," to draw attention to the victimization of African-American women — in particular, by law enforcement officers. The release was accompanied by nationwide demonstrations — notably in New York and San Francisco — designed to draw attention to black women who have been killed, beaten, or sexually assaulted, but whose cases haven't elicited national attention matching that of high-profile cases of unarmed black men killed by police in recent years. The organizations behind the report, which was co-authored by UCLA professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, and supporters of its message have used the hashtag #SayHerName to draw attention to its mission.

Ugandan Peasant Grandmother Terrifies Her President

May 22, 2015 Phil Wilmot, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Dictatorship, Feminism, Patriarchy, Solidarity, Uganda

Keromela Anek tossed her naked body back and forth in the roadway, blocking a government convoy in the remote village of Apaa, Uganda. Lands Minister Daudi Migereko and Minister of Internal Affairs General Nyakairima Aronda had just traveled to the village that day, April 16, with the plan of redistricting it. That would place Apaa in a new region and help facilitate the sale of the peoples’ land to South African investor Bruce Martin, who hoped to use the heavily forested, currently-populated area for sports game hunting. Upon reaching a roadblock and witnessing Anek and some other women naked and in tears, chanting insults toward the ministerial delegation, Migereko began crying, while Aronda tried his best to avoid looking at the women. Local witnesses claim that Aronda then called Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni — a dictator who has been in power for three decades — and received instructions to have his security personnel open fire on the women.

The Women’s Court: A Feminist Approach To Justice

May 22, 2015 Peace Is Loud, www.peaceisloud.org Create! Bosnia, Feminism, Justice, Law, Patriarchy

Karima Bennoune: What is critical about the Women’s Court in Sarajevo was the way it was constructed for and with the full participation of women victims themselves. Women designed the court. Women testified. Women were the experts and judges. The process employed feminist pedagogy, with the organizers consulting extensively on the ground over a period of years, and providing support to victims before, during and after the court met. The Women’s Court was the first of its kind in the Europe region. This symbolic tribunal was jointly organized by women’s groups from every part of the Former Yugoslavia. As the Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie-Lucas, Founder of Secularism Is a Women’s Issue (SIAWI), who attended the hearings wrote, “This, in and by itself, is a huge achievement, at a time when Europe is plagued with the rise of nationalisms, of extreme right forces that divide peoples along ethnic and religious lines…”

‘Black Women & Girls Matter’ Wave Of Protests To Sweep Country

May 21, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Feminism, Liberation, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice, Reparations

Mya Hall. Aiyana Jones. Rekia Boyd. These are a few of the names that will be held up in Thursday's national day of action, slated to sweep at least 17 cities across the United States, demanding an end to "state violence against All Black Women and Girls," including those who are transgender. Organized by Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), Black Lives Matter, Ferguson Action, and numerous community organizations, the wave of protests come amid a growing nation-wide movement for racial justice that many are calling Black Spring. Organizers say now is a critical time to highlight the black women who are heavily impacted by police and vigilante violence—and who are at the forefront of organized resistance.

A Winning Strategy For The Left

May 20, 2015 Michael Schwartz & Kevin Young, www.jacobinmag.com Strategize! Imperialism, Left, Patriarchy, Racial Justice, Revolution, Social Change, Worker Rights and Jobs

Finally, this movement strategy may be more conducive to the long-term goal of promoting systemic change, since it focuses our anger and analysis on the institutions at the heart of capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and war. Winning policy reforms, after all, is not enough: reforms are by definition tenuous since they leave intact the basic institutions and systems of society. As recent history makes painfully clear, labor protections and civil rights for black people have been subject to intense counter-attack by entrenched interests. Military withdrawals have not ended imperial violence. Ultimately, only by destroying the old institutions and building more civilized ones in their place can we hope to safeguard the reform victories we win. And directly confronting the oppressive institutions that shape policy seems to advance this goal better than focusing on politicians.

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