Panel Discussion: How Do You Keep Things Going At Work?

Notes on what was said.  This was delayed until I got the names right (I hope.)

l-r  Nicholas, Neisha, Evon, Liz, George, Daxkilatch

Daxkilatch James - 5th or 6th generation to hold my name - thank 1491s for raising that issue about walking in two worlds - hard to turn my Native off.  How we bring this into work we do.

Work for University of Alaska, one of the coordinators for Native and Rural students center.  UAS - Juneau, Kethikan campus.  Part of orientation, assume safely that most people coming to campus are somehow related to me.  Our aunties and uncles do the teaching, so that's how I see myself.  But not everyone comes from Tlingit culture, and I have to work with them too.

Neisha Jones -  I bring my authentic self to work.  I feel like you have to do that without concessions, unapologetically.  High racial tensions these days.  Being a black women, in service, and a business owner.  I feel it's important to bring access to younger women.  How beautiful their skin and hair are. We don't get that enough.  We filter out who we are often because we don't want to be offensive.

George Martinez - lots of opportunity to travel, originally out of the melting pot, from the second most diverse community - Queens.  Seen diversity real time and how institutions didn't reflect that.  I group up speaking multiple languages living myself by default.  Recognize our selves, as a work in process, gives me a sense of my value.  When use language of equity, could me fair and impartial, but most people here use it in other ways - you're homeowners, or corporate shareholders.  Think of US as a business and we all have shares.  Who determines those shares?  If we don't have our own . . . people ready to make claims, challenge existing institutions to respond.  Original claim - give us something and get out of the way - but now thinking about collaborative systems.  My total self - I grew up up speaking English and Eubonics.  I never saw two worlds, I saw multiple worlds.  Everyone here has a different view of what the world is and should be.

Nicholas Gatinin - Sitka - I've always. . . coopting our knowledge and things that shape our identities as artists, community members.  Irony of needing access to success through institutions, then having to hang up your culture to do well.  These are what our artists, poets, musicians, activists, scholars working at creating space for our voices and for our youth.  Historically, the same institutions that created forced assimilation.  We need to focus on those spaces.

Daxkilatch James -   Thanks for inviting me to be part of this conversation.  Shout out to 1491s . . .  Indian country is so small.  ???'s father is national leader talking for mother Earth, and he was one of my mentors, so I saw these young men before.  Understanding why they are doing this, is so powerful.  Purpose in how we presented ourselves and how we showed up.  Had privilege of growing up with Gwitchin single mother, had facial tattoos, as part of her healing process.  A decolonization process.  Thank her for teaching me.
Grew up in Mt. View for a little while - saw urban impoverishment and also in Fairbanks.  And sent away to live with grandfather in village.  Got to see a real different way of living and being.  When I became conscious of the inequity in the world around me and why Alaska Natives were facing so many challenges, but those from other cultural backgrounds had so much more wealth - at that time I was a high school drop out with a mohawk.  Reembrace of our identity.  Analysis of western institutions and systems - social, education, economic - are unsustainable.  Need to indigenize the world so we can be happy and whole as people.

Liz Medicine Crow:  Hit on a couple of themes.  Being able to bring your whole self into work.  Through our work, we're trying to build relationships and then create a pathway to bring others in.  Find ways for more people to be at those tables.  Becomes really hard sometimes. There's a lot of consequences when you put yourself out there all the time, if you are always the one bringing up 'those' issues.  How do not be always the angry brown/black person, the need to educate everyone else.  How do you focus on the job?

George:  I became a mechanic long ago.  I'm in a mechanic uniform now.  My sphere is public service.  In my personal walk, the power to go in and challenge the institution comes from the power to not do that.  I know the value of myself as a whole person and my relationship to the planet.  Whether folks knew that or it's new and they're learning.  I refuse to make the false choice and let institutions shape the process of what I'm doing.  If you are working for a paycheck, you have a restraint.  From a hip hop perspective, a cardboard box on the sidewalk, changes everything into a music studio and we can remix things.  I can either go into your institution and just do your work, or we can go in and be entrepreneurial and make things actually work.  I'll take the tools and build the alternative.  If you build it, they will come.  When we did hip hop, it wasn't to change the world, but we did it for ourselves.  I take that into institutions.  I didn't expect them to see me as normal.  Structures are changing enough to ask the questions to invite us to bring what we have into the existing institutions.  I'm not here for the 20 years.  I'm here for the generations.  Not here to see fruits of our labor, but to do the work.

Daxkilatch -  I appreciated Gyasi reminding us that we come from 10,000 years of survivors.  It's not a mistake that we're here today.  Important to know who you are and where you are from is important.  My auntie who was a weaver, berry picker . . . .  if I don't see eye to eye with someone at work, I remember the ladies before me had these conversations.  If you know who you are you start to heal.  Where we are today, people sharing their stories, thank all our ancestors and elder for sharing their dark stories.  I know now when I'm going for change, I remember my grandparents experiences, advocating for them as well as the future.  Tlingit word ??? you are in three places at once - your past, present, and future.


Even Peter - We are challenging injustice and inequity - an everyday thing for Alaska Native people.  Also working to build foundations - curriculum, ways of decision making - represents where we are heading.  When I got to that point, clarified, keep old from getting worse, and build the future.  It's hard work.  Difficult.  Times I'm shaking before talking older white male officials and have to challenge their world system.  There's a way to do it gracefully, honorably, without compromising what you're doing.  When I was young, I was angry all the time.  That has transformed and is more powerful in getting to where we are going.  No matter what you do, most important is that you never give up.

Nicholas - Lots of the conversations and challenges, coming from community where our voices have been removed like our language, you are empowered by your ?? heritage - Important outlet for our artist and musicians.

George:  Add one more thing.  Making ourselves available to help allies.  How can white folks confront this themselves.  We have to make tools available for them.  Our city is really prime.  we have the demographics, head of our city, the Mayor, is open to challenging us to be more than just the language of diversity.  Challenging us to take advantage.  We shouldn't lose ground and keep building.

Liz:  Last question to give people time to ponder.  Can you share what you do to rejuvenate, regenerate, recommit.  Legit role for righteous anger, but have to find way to rejuvenate.

Nicholas - yes it is work to constantly engage, my work as an artist, no contract that says I have to teach people.  Traveling is big part of my work.  Going home helps rejuvenate.  Getting out on the water is where I get my breath back.

Neisha - yes, tiresome work.  Most times thankless  A lot of the work we do will come to fruition after we're gone.  You give a voice to people who don't have a voice, under represented.  Give them an outlet.  That is a tangible reward.  Seeing I have support of people who believe in what I'm doing.  Need to form partnerships with people in the community.

Daxkilatch - I married a hot man.  He's sitting back there.  To rejuvenate I turn to my family and friends.  I have phenomenal students at UAS.  Wonderful energy from the students.  Be ok with receiving, we aren't good at that.

George:  Speaking as a man with a hot wife . . .  How do I get burned out and how recharge.  I'm pretty good at finding ways to do collaborative things where we add value to each other so it's mutual benefit and struggle.  Try to find system.s  Aware of my bandwidth.  Know how to say no, to delegate.  I have two ways to generate.  I make music.  Got to do some organizing on east side and they sent me a beat Thursday night.  I still record.  My wife and I rap together.  My son - totally connected to him.  The abuse video from 1491s  I see my son and that rejuvenates me.  I cheat.  Doing stuff, being with people, the new opportunities validates the long hours.

Gwitchin:  Reality we have a spiritual experience - we go out and live off the land for a week or two - hunt, fish - that's when I'm at the peak of my spiritual connection to the cosmos.  When I got here last night and into the energy of the people around me was powerful.  Sweat ceremony is a way of connecting and purifying.  Billiards too.  I'm a pool player.  I love it.  Takes my mind away completely.  I'll be playing, most likely, in national championship in July.  We need to find those things that provide that break.  This work we do is not just for people of color, it's for everybody in this world.

Liz:  Thank you all for being part of this conversation today.  Metaphor for our work - like water - as strong, as flexible, as fluid, as refreshing.

Tim Wise - US is Snapchat Nation

[OK, this is rough, but if I wait to clean it up, it won't get up.  Gotta run to lunch and workshop.  Also there's video to be put up eventually.  Snapchat nation is explained near the bottom.  Typos will be corrected later, or not.]


Glad to be back in Alaska.  Anti-racism educator and writer from Nashville originally.  Working at schools, teachers, occasionally corporations, but I piss them off and they don't ask me back.  Seven books.

Today I want to do something a little different,  Books are fact and data driven which is useful in documenting.  But I know that for the most part, to create anti-racist movement it's not data, we didn't get into because we saw a position paper, but usually a personal story that was shared, that touched us not in the abstract way, but in the real way.  As a white guy, really good at abstracting this issue, even the people who want to make change.

I want to talk about the way the stories we white folks tell contribute to the problem.

Whites are people of the lie.  We've told ourselves so many lies that we no longer recognize truth from fiction.  James Baldwin said this long ago.  Speaking about black and white conflict.

People who imagine that history flatters them, and it does because they wrote it, are impaled like a butterfly.  They suffer from the being so embedded in a lie and suffer enormously from the incoherence this makes us.

I want to tell you three stories from my own life.

1.  My grandmother - incredible person and force in my life.  Come from messed up life.  Dad alcoholic.  Grandmother was my refuge from verbal violence.  She was also committed to equal rights.  Raised her kids right and had a big impact on me.  She had been raised in a very racist home - her dad was KKK in Michigan, Detroit.  GG father.  At 16 fell in love with my grandfather who was Jewish who lived in the black community.  She went to her dad one evening - either he was going to burn his robes and never go back to Klan, or she would burn them.  1936.  Back then girls didn't stand up to daddy.  GG Father took the challenge and accepted my grandfather.  That's the good part.

Toward the end of her life she began to develop alzheimer.  Both fascinating and terrifying process.  Stages of fear and anger and anxiety - you don't recognize people think they're trying to hurt you.  Saw her deteriorate.  Was tended by African American nurses.  In anger periods, would last hour at grandkids and nurses, this woman who made a stand against racism as a kid, as she deteriorated, she called those nurses - I won't repeat it, because you know.  When I asked doctors about the process we forget.  Dr:  Last thing you remember is the thing you knew best.  My grandmother knew racism best.

2.  My kid - now, about us.  We still have that virus.  Unless we are nurturing anti-racism.  Doesn't take us a  disease to make us angry and racist.  OK Tim, obviously your grandmother got taught that by her dad, but that doesn't apply to you.  My kids 14 and 12 now.  When 7 and 5, we watched a movie.  Heaven Almighty.  Morgan freeman plays God and he tells people to build an arc.  Kids had already seen it.  Rachel sees Morgan Freeman - is that really God?  5 years old, doesn't know better.  No, that's just an actor.  She says, Oh OK great.  Older daughter laughs at sister.  Rachel, that can't be God  - I knew I'd have to ask her why not and I knew what the answer would be.  I had a fantasy the answer would be great, like God is a woman.  But she was only 7.  She said, because God isn't black, God is white.  We don't have any pictures of God in our house.  But we can't protect our kids from all the images all over our culture.  Not only internalizing those white images of God, you internalize your superiority.  Blacks have opposite internalization.  If you have family who can overcome that, it doesn't make the internalized superiority go away.  None of us can be smug about who we think

3.  Me - this is mostly on video that will have to wait till I get it up.

The school got rid of his racist teacher, but my mom and I didn't see how the system itself, in its structure of different levels of courses that discriminated against blacks and favored the white kids.  We need to challenge our own narrative.

One more final story that speaks to the gaps in our knowledge.  Both daughters dancers.  Have to drive through public housing development, by definition is all poor and this one was predominantly white.  10 year old daughter asks, Why everyone in this neighborhood is black?   Good questions.  Most 5th grade classes don't teach this.  Older sister says, "Redlining."  How banks redlined neighborhoods to refuse loans to blacks.  Sister is right, but doesn't know why and talk about how history gets us to places.  It's not random.  These are outcomes of results of history.  Didn't lecture.  Just a two and a half honest explanation.  I don't think it was the first time she noticed it was a black neighborhood.  When you are the target oppressed community, you take the red pill (Matrix) and you're seeing the patterns.  But whites have the luxury of being on the blue pill.  Don't you see all this racism?  No, I don't see it man.    Kids don't have to be sociologists with PhDs, but they see these things.  Our kid had luxury of asking, because of what I do.  I asked parents about a week later.  There is only one honest answer about privileging and history.  Parents hemmed and hawed.  Or I don't want to burst the bubble of my child's innocence.  It's being burst every day.  Better we do it.  People say I shouldn't tell them about sexism because it will make it self fulfilling.  Hey, wouldn't send them down a dark alley with electronic fence at the end so they won't get neurotic.  No, they need to know for their own protection.

We've got to own the tuff that hurts.  Stop being snapchat nation, ok, but sending disappearing videos.  If Snapchat were a country, it would be the US.  What happened in the past is now gone and has nothing to do with today.

We're all privileged in some situations, if not white, then male, or straight,  or college educated, or able bodied.

1491s Get Serious With Humor

The 1491s  started off joking back and forth - see the first video - then moved into more serious talk.



They showed their video Smiling Indians and talked about how it got tons of racist comments on YouTube and even on their NPR interview.  They said that NPR took down the comments and they thought they should be kept up.  The movie was dedicated to Curtis, the photographer who took pictures of non-smiling Indians in the 1800s.  This movie was to show smiling Indians.








Their Facebook page.



They showed a film about domestic violence they made (which i can't find on Youtube.) They tried to make one that focused on the man and the impact on the child. Very powerful.

Then they talked about how they questioned the idea that 'we live in two worlds' and argued that we needn't keep the worlds separate and made some videos on that theme called Represent.


A truly incredible part of this workshop is the many different media that are being used in the conversation here about racial equality. The artwork on the stage behind all the speakers powerfully sends a message as well. There is other artwork in the room including an artist who is actively painting during the workshop. We've got humor here tinged with serious stories. The music wasn't simply entertainment, rather it was part of the conversation. Well, things aren't over yet. It's only 10am and we've got the rest of the day to go.

 You can watch this stuff live online.

Gyasi Ross Video - Who Sets Your Expectations?

The second day of the racial equity workshop is just beginning.  I'm posting Gyasi Ross' intro to the talk I posted yesterday.  I missed the first 30 seconds or so, but you'll get the gist.  He did NOT keep up this rhythm for the whole talk, but he did keep it at high energy.

Gyasi Ross - Powerful Talk

Spent the workshop time with Gyasi Ross and story telling.  And now he's the keynote speaker.  Let's see what he adds.

See Native student in class filling out Harvard application. . .  well, I'll let him finish the story.


Story, talking about his dukene.  Empirical fact:  respectable white folks have studied this and come back and said it was true.  We humanized this information, this is a beautiful father/son moment.  I'm teaching my son something that could have serious health consequences if I didn't have this conversation.

Sometimes if we talk about race, we get squeamish.  Well, if we don't have this conversation, it's ok.  But there are serious consequences if we don't have this conversation about race.  If we don't have these conversations with our kids and nephews and nieces.  If I don't tell him that native kids get arrested more than others, or that native kids drop out of high school more than others, then he's at great risk.  If I don't tell my nieces that 1 of 3 native women are likely to be raped, it has consequences.

White fragility is a real thing.  We're going to have an honest conversation, but these issues have consequences.  We have to be able to say 'penis' and not giggle, say 'racism' and not giggle, say one in three women are sexually abused and not giggle.

When we talk about racial equity, we need to separate it from racial equality.  We conflate terms, their catchphrase for 2016.  No.  There's a meaningful difference.

Game of monopoly, but there's special rules.  Start of with Treaty of Cession - everyone in the state of Alaska except Natives.  So, you can't own land.  And slavery for black folks - you can't own land, can't vote.  This game of Monopoly started in 1776.  John Marshall, Doctrine of Discovery, whoever finds this land, it's their land.  You folks didn't own it anyway, it's communally owned, so you didn't actually lose it.  Then there was a land grab.  White males taking land.  And the accumulated so much land that native people were pushed to the corners and assumed dead.  That's why treaties were made because dead men tell no tales.  By 1900 less than 250,000 left.  From maybe 90 million.  White people had been buying land from 1776 to maybe 1885, and going around that Monopoly board and getting all the good property.  Then 1887, 1886, said, OK blacks and Indians, you can buy stuff now.  But, there isn't much land left.  White private ownership 856 million acres.  Black private ownership is 70 million acres.  Native ownership is 3 million acres.  That's current day.  That's the difference between quality and equity.  Equality is having the same opportunity, rights, possessions.  That ship's sailed.  That's gone.  So we move into the reality of Equity.  What can we put into place to make it seem that we started at the Monopoly board at the same time.

Well, now that we have this many acres of land, now we can be equal.  Case in Texas this year - Fisher v U of Texas, Austin.  We have to be equal.  No, you've been around the board a few times, and we need some compensatory action to be sure that people of color have equal opportunity.  Leads to displacement.  And this is where whites get uncomfortable.  At some point, opportunity, college education or jobs needs to be equal.  It's a zero sum game.

I'm Gyasi Ross, I'm a lawyer.  I went to Columbia.  I need to nickel and dime this.  $2500 for law school exam.  Data behind it.  Took first practice exam.  Mediocre.  Found the money for this class, washed dishes.  Six week class.  During those six weeks, my test score went up 30 points, to the degree I could get into whatever school I wanted.  I felt like a rich white person for one second.  It's about institutional benefits.  It's not about white guilt for an individual.  University of Missouri, this school was built with slave labor.  No black person should ever pay for tuition at U of Missouri.  We have to work this equation right.

Stories.  Partners for the next ten thousand years.  Great theme.  Irrespective of history, we're stuck together, so it behooves us all to work on mutually beneficial solutions.  So there has to be some displacement of people who've gone around the monopoly board much longer.

Abraham Maslow.  After hierarch of needs, he studied with my people, the Blackfeet.  At the top of the hierarchy is self-actualization.  These Blackfeet have it different and right.  They actually start with self-actualization at the bottom.  Ten year old's playing with the babies.  They start of knowing why they're here.  Advanced economics - is as opposed to the white world where we hoard wealth, we get five portions and five houses, the way the Blackfeet accumulate wealth - and then they give it away.  Potlatch, powwows, where they give it away.  Opposed to white folks  . . .  tragedy of the commons - the prototypical capitalistic story.  The grazing area, the common area, where they bring a cow or sheep.  And the place so ample they could feed everybody in town.  So great, that people said it could feed a little more.  Capitalism happened.  Everyone wanted to be the person who brought the extra sheep, soon it's over grazed.  No good to anyone anymore.  That's why we have global warming today.

We have solutions.  Uncle Billie Frank Jr. - he identified a problem.  He said, "I'm a fisherman.  I fish salmon.  this is how my family fed itself for 20 million years."  Remember those treaties that we don't have to honor because they are all dead.  He looked at the treaty that says we can fish in perpetuity.  He got arrested 52 times over the course of 29 years, with the intent of redeeming his treaty rights.  Up here in Alaska - I got such an education here Vicky thanks - because I didn't know about Etok Edwardian, Elizabeth Peratravitch, Katie John.  These stories of equity, of justice of liberation, are right in front of us.  Answers not coming from DC.  No saviors.  These answers come from us.  People willing to get arrested to pursue equal rights and equity.

Strategy.  First, give up belief in immediate gains.  At breakout session we talked about power, heartbreaking story.  We talked about McKensie Howard from Kake.  This is equity in a nutshell.  Understanding about Native people, unapologetically, that we are in a unique kind of jeopardy that we didn't create.  We are required to find those gatekeepers who get us to that equity.  Those folks who fought didn't know there would be an end to it.  Billie Frank went on for 29 years.  I think about slavery.  Those folks didn't know - book Martin Delaney, first black science fiction writer in 1850s, about freedom for blacks.  I'm going to try to create this reality.  I'm sure Billy Frank had the same thought when arrested the 26th or 27th time, must have seemed like science fiction.  Same when Etok talked about Native claims.  In the heat of the moment easy to get caught up in short vision of time.  Understand that Uncle Billie got arrest 59 times over 29 years.  That's a short time in terms of the ten thousand years.  We have to be in this for the long haul.

Point #1 about Equity - we have to be in it for the long haul.

Point #2 - We have to have those authentic conversations.  We have to be loud, not hide.  There was an event with Bernie Sanders.  Two black sisters took the microphone.  Next thing I'm on the stage.  Afterward.  I was conflicted.  I'm an ally of black lives matter but also of Bernie Sanders.  I heard white allies.  It was a worker movement.  Mostly white people.  Heard these voices.  They had our support until they pulled this.  If you're going to conflate the action of two people with a nationwide movement, then you were never with us to begin with.  We have to identify the people who are really an ally.  You don't speak for me.  You can't turn and run when a native or black person does something that offends your sensibility.

We have to identify strong allies.  Going back to the example in Kake.  Find those allies, whether they are in the media.  We talked about it, about reliving the trauma.  To have to wait two days for any kind of services from the state of Alaska, and as a lawyer, it's unconstitutional.  Need allies at BIA.  You have a trust responsibility to our community.  You need to treat us as if this was your own child - that's your trust duty.  Then, we need to push them.  Can't be afraid to offend their white sensibility.  Like I had to say penis to my son.  I had to say it.  It's hard conversation, but we have to do it.  We have to hold them to the standard of being an ally.

Finally, when I look at equity, I realize that people spend money on what they value.  Capitalist culture.  Want to know what people value, look at where they spend their money.  We hear the stories of diversity, of equal rights, even equity.  But we don't necessarily see the money.  To remedy that. . . mike goes out . . .ok,  Similar to these allies, we have to be willing to use, see, white allies, now us taking a little ass whuppin.  Our values aren't screamers, well, sometimes we have to scream.  She was bad (Petravich).

At times we mistake our learned behaviors with our ancestral behavior.  Where I'm from on Blackfeet reservation.  We like to play that shy thing too.  But history says we're fairly aggressive and demonstrative.  County Coup (?).  I like Sam  - if we were at war with him, I'd sneak him into his camp and slap him on the back of the head.  I could have killed him, but didn't.  I humiliated him.  When I go back to my camp I get my face painted and I'm celebrated.  Nothing shy about that.

Chicken dance you have your chest out, show off, like a prairie chicken.  Courting dance.  Nothing shy or modest about that.  That shyness and quietness, I think comes from boarding school, from a beatdown spirit, often from end of a gun.  See their parents helpless to do anything about it.  First time they hear English and white people - what my grandpa told me - taken away to boring school,  they poor kerosene on me - all natives have lice - and chop off my hair but don't tell me why, if they do, I don't understand anyway.  If I speak I get punished because I only know one language - get my knuckles wrapped and my mouth washed out with soap.  That's where this shyness and weakness come from.  When I see Katie John, I don't see a shy person.  I see power, command.  I think we need to tap into that DNA, not that learned history, really apart of our past, it's just a drop in the bucket of our existence.  That small period of time when we were vulnerable, that's nothing at all.

Again, these are rough notes, lots of missing bits and pieces.  I'll add some video later - it takes a while to upload.  But this was an important call to Native peoples to look at the long haul in demanding equity.  And to keep white allies on their toes too.  And I'll go through this later and edit it more too.  j;k

We have to reclaim, say things loudly, publicly, unapologetically.  These are important conversations, no matter how awkward it is.  This conference is beautiful.  It's a start.  But understand, the way I read things, we are at the infantile stage of achieving equity in this state.  Because learned behaviors hard to get away from - those were survival behaviors.  We can't judge them.  But we can see, we're not going to do that any more.  Going to get rid of a general white supremacy.

Thank you very much.

They say 70% of statistics are made up on the spot.  So question me.  How do we change laws and policies?  We have about ten minutes

Q:  Fairbanks 4 case, blanket immunity police and courts have.  How do we take away the blanket immunity, how do we get the accountability.

A:  First, can we have round of applause for George Frese.  Plea agreement is unconscionable.  We have to be the keepers of the story.  We can't let those stories die.  We need to record them, get them into the school curriculum.  No quick solution, has to be in the long run.  Until it's an accepted part of the conversation.

Q:  How do we deal with blood quantum issue - like dogs.
A:  Tribes have 100% autonomy to define tribal membership.  Some base it on descendency.  Other places it's different.  We adapt.  We've adapted a million times.  We've adapted quicker than anyone else in the world, except in Papua New Guinea.  I think we have to do it in a way that's meaningful and relevant to who we are.  In my tribe they wanted to get rid of it, but I think we have to replace it with something.  Move from ethnicity to nationality and citizenship - residence and language.

Local Experiences, Some Music And Dance

It's hard to keep up here on the blog. We've done a lot of group work, we've had lunch, and now we have two Yup'ik women - Panigkaq Agatha John Shields and Piiyuuk Olivia Shields talking about their experiences being married to black man and being half Yupik and half black. Stories about maintaining Yu'pik language and culture as well as black culture.



And some musical and dance expression.

Jay Smooth: How do you keep showing up in the face of an unjust system that has no fear or accountability?

[Again, these are rough notes.  My apologies to Jay Smooth if I made errors or left too much out.]

Jay Smooth -  Keep my hip hop name, keeps me from being too serious.  Hip Hop was a way of carving out space to express ourselves.  And this can become rebellious act, a space for invisible
people to see and be seen.  Whole world was watching, but that world has coopted and used. it.  That's the role it played for me from an early age.  I was a pretty isolated kid, as someone of mixed descent - dad black, mom white - often had the "What are you?" conversation with people.  Now appreciate that conversation about in-groups and out-groups.  When people don't know where you fit, it allows the conversation.  But as a teenager still trying to figure my identity, it was much harder, but then that hip hop world gave me a place to find myself.

That work is what I try to replicate when I speak on other social issues.  To maintain that sort of community, need to learn to speak across differences in that community.  Any adult from the hip hop community has to find ways in your community to call people out when they use that internalized racism.

Showing his video How to tell someone their racist.





Missed a bit here.  Now talking about studies that show racism still happens.  Study of people helping accident victims - black/white victims and helpers.  Show racism is internalized.  What connects us all as humans is our human imperfection.  Hard to do when any mention of racism brings out defensiveness about one's racism.  Oscar events over white nominees - no they weren't consciously excluding blacks, but they just didn't see it.  I had the same problem with hip hop and seeing that mostly we only had dudes and had to consciously get women.

If have some sort of ritual to remind you, it helps overcome that implicit bias.  Just like having a checklist so I don't forget my phone, key, and wallet when I leave the house, to make sure.  Has some effect on implicit bias, but doesn't end it.

I can't be narcissistic in the conversation - am I good?  George Frese yesterday asked important question.  My partner June passed away a few months ago.  It's been very difficult getting back to work, but seeing him yesterday has been inspiration.  Question:  How do you keep showing up in the face of an unjust system that has no fear or accountability?  

Flattening out MLK - making him into a Hallmark card, sanitizing him so he is less threatening.  People today dismiss Black Lives Matter are the same kinds of things they said about MLK at the end of his career  - not organized, lots of energy.  His work defined by tireless work, trying to find the next steps, the last years of his life when he talked about the post civil-rights era - next era of revolution until economic equality, no justice until structure is changed.  No grand victories in the last years of his life.  Book on equality was a flop.  Civil rights for workers didn't work.  People in his own circle told him he shouldn't be talking about economic justice.  He was racked by doubt.  Considered therapy but couldn't because FBI following him meant it would be used against him.  Not that his last years were a failure, but that tireless work with not grand victories, that is the work.  You need to show up every day.  That's the way we take those small steps toward justice and equality.  And he did find inspiration with organizing the poor and the sanitation workers.  Lesson he reaffirmed, even when no moments of glory, to do the work and be with the community is the glory.

This is a 10,000 year* effort without a doubt.  Need to struggle every day and do the work.
*theme of the workshop is "The next 10,000 years."

EJ David: "We don't want people to not see our color, but to value our color as equal to theirs."

EJ David is speaking.  [This talk was outstanding and is well worth reading this whole post.]

Thanking, all the folks who made this possible.  The folks at First Alaskans.  The room at Egan Center is full.  

My culture - core value is Kapwa -  "a shared inner self"  we are all connected, who one exists in another.  You are all my kappa.

[Warning:  This is a rough transcript of DJ's talk]

I was born in the Philippines.  A place colonized by Spain, then by the US.  Grew up in context of Western ideas.  Common for light skin Filipinos to see dark skin as ugly, unacceptable.  Regard English fluency as intelligence.  Everything made in USA regarded as good quality and Filipino items lower quality.  And I bought into it.  No choice but to absorb it, like air.  It was my world.  I  hated my brown skin.  I stayed away from the sun.  Thought I had to learn perfect English.  I lost my sense of kapwa with darker Filipinos.  I internalized the oppression of my culture.  I wanted to separate myself from the Philippines, to be in Disneyland, New York City.  My dream came true as teenager when I moved to Barrow, Alaska.  

Not exactly Disneyland or NYC.  Lessons I learned in Barrow.  I love Barrow because it's where I began to wake up.  I saw how the Inupiaq people value their culture and world view and began to ask why I didn't have that.  Filipino is born wanting to be white.  I also saw the struggles of our Inupiaq brothers and sisters.  Became conscious of discrimination I faced because I saw Inupiaq people faced.  I realized we aren't born hating ourselves.  Racial oppression was the teacher.  How does it affect all of us.  

Developed a lot of relationships.  Five main thoughts to share with everybody:

1.  Racism still exists, even in Alaska

National conversation on racism now.  It didn't go away and suddenly came back.  Racism just went underground, became more subtle and hidden.  Still very real.  Just not on the national consciousness.  Took recent tragedies to bring it back to national consciousness.  

But not here in Alaska.  Most common reason  - "Who cares what's happening in Lower 48 cause there is no racism here in Alaska."   On FB page someone wrote, we should not make a problem where there isn't one.  Anchorage has the most diverse neighborhoods.  Alive and well here, more subtle, but here.

Comes out in Social Media.  After Mike Brown tragedy, many Alaskans commented - they should be disappointed their son was a thug.  And more.  Lots of nasty comments.  Refugee brothers threatened last year, messages painted on their cars.  Messages to immigrants, like me, that we aren't wanted.  

Justice - Fairbanks 4 in prison for murder they didn't commit.  But 4 men who were caught on camera killing an immigrant.  White man texting who hit native man, got 18 months.  Supreme Court justices who question native links to their villages.  

Racism alive and well in Alaska.  Racism not dead, it's deadly.  Communities already suffering, maybe even dying, of it and we don't even know.

2.  We need to become aware and address modern forms of racism - these more subtle, invisible forms of racism.  Can't just focus on the outrageous.  We notice them.  I'm not surprised, because in touch with reality, we know it exists.  What is threatening to me is the seemingly large number of people who are emboldened by those outrageously bigoted statements and actions.  We are bound to have outlyers, but what scares me is the seemingly large numbers of people who agree with the hate.  I feel surrounded by hate and bigotry. We have to address the invisible, subtle racism.  That's the part that lets racism hide and even come off as acceptable.  It leads us to question our reality, our experience.  "Did I just experience racism or am I being overly sensitive?"  We blame ourselves for being offended by it.  Instead of changing system of racism, we change ourselves, internalizing our oppression.  These racist conditions do not allow us to reach our full potential.

3.  A colorblind melting pot ideology is problematic.  Easy solution is to not see race.  Like seeing race and color is racism.  On the surface looks attractive.  Catchy buzzwords.  Seeing race is not the problem.  Racism is.  Seeing color isn't why racism exists.  Pretending to not see color doesn't solve racism.  It doesn't bring people of color up to be equal.  Color blindness denies our existence, our experiences.  Our racial identities are part of who we are and our connections to others.  We don't want people to be blind to them.  Don't want people to ignore these parts of us.  We are proud of who we are, so we want people to see and respect the entirety of who we are, including our color.  We don't want people to not see our color, but to value our color as equal to theirs.  Colorblindness makes race a topic we shouldn't talk about, which means we can never address and solve racism.  Says we should all be the same, all blend together, ignores what makes us unique.  The melting pot concept tries to erase us, erase our culture, our race.  MLK's dream to be judged not by the color of our skin, but the quality of our hearts.  Not because he didn't value the colors, but because he wanted them all to become equal.  Rather than become color blind, we should be come race conscious.  Research seems to support that.  Being colorblind can lead us to thinking, feeling, and behaving in very biased was.  Research suggests we need to become more racially aware to become aware of our biases and privileges.  We need to become color conscious, not color blind.  We are able to hold multiple world views, we don't have to just hold one.  We don't need to become just one.  We can learn to respect multiple world views.  

4.  Seeing and celebrating diversity is not enough.  In Anchorage we talk about how diverse we are and how awesome we are.  But we also need to ask, who are the people in power?  They do not reflect the diversity we are talking about.  We have never had a non-white governor or mayor.  Assembly members don't even come close to the diversity we are so proud about.  This tells us that racial equality is a problem.  A part of racism is power, so this power imbalance shows that racism is alive.  Look at all the stats - education, health, justice system, socio-economic status, types of jobs.  All these disparities are here.  Further, racism is very common here and affects all these health concerns - nationally and locally.  Research shows all this.  Negative health impacts of racism is intergenerational.  How do we move our communities forward?  How do we make our leadership reflective of our community?  How do we go beyond galas and celebrations?  How do all of us get opportunities to reach our full potential.  

Over the years I've had friends tell me, "Hey EJ, why are you still talking about racism?"  Hate the game, not just the players.  Yeah, I hate the game too.  Let's change it and make it better.  Let's make it fair, equal and just for all groups.  

5.  Acknowledge, see how we are all connected, all kapwa.  Let's remember our shared inner selves, our shared humanity.  Remember and acknowledge all the social identities we have.  Not just racial oppression, also sexism, homophobia.  Not unique to people of color.  Not related to racial and ethnic groups.  Also experienced by many groups in US.  Women.  LBGTQ community.  Need to make connections between our experiences to the experiences of other groups.  See all oppression and see the enormity of it.  And develop desire to overcome it.  

Smooth And Wise - Some of US's Most Astute Observers Of Racism In Anchorage Monday And Tuesday

First Alaskans are having a blockbusting conference on racial equality Monday and Tuesday with outstanding national and local experts here.

Here's the whole program.  Things start at 8am Monday, but you could probably drop in whenever you have time.

Also, you can watch the keynote speakers live online.


Here's one of J. Smooth's recent videos.




And Tim Wise's.  Tim's been here before with Healing Racism In Anchorage and I got to meet him then.  He was fantastic.  He knows his stuff!




Here's more on some of the speakers from First Alaskans' website:

Panigkaq Agatha John-Shields & Piiyuuk Olivia Shields (Yup’ik) – powerful mother/daughter educators for indigenous knowledge systems and advocates for racial equity.

Tim Wise – among the nation’s most prominent antiracist essayists and educators. He has spent the past 20 years speaking on methods for dismantling institutional racism.

Maori Whanau – featuring Kate Cherrington and invited guests – the indigenous peoples of New Zealand have a unique voice and experience that can inform and inspire us to look beyond the status quo at what is possible when respect for indigenous peoples is the foundation upon which the wider racial equity movement is built upon.

Jay Smooth – a New York-based hip-hop scholar and cultural commentator, best known for his award-winning Ill Doctrine web video series, shares messages that both call out what is happening while giving solid instruction and ideas on how to transform our society.

Gyasi Ross – an attorney, author, and spoken word artist from the Blackfeet and Suquamish Reservations. Ross uses storytelling to deepen the understanding of Native American and social justice topics, giving us the opportunity to better understand, from a creative, cultural, and political context how history, oppression, and laws work.

E.J.R. David – a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, from Barrow, known for his advocacy and commitment to his Filipino heritage, and his research and publications on micro-aggressions, internalized oppression, and post-colonial psychology, to name a few. He is also a founding member of We Are Anchorage and is a member of the FAI ANDORE Visionary Council.

The 1491s – a sketch comedy group based in the wooded ghettos of Minnesota and buffalo grass of Oklahoma using humor to bring light to issues that indigenous communities face in America today.

There will also be an array of other Alaskans dedicated to racial equity, with powerful stories and expertise to share. The speakers will also have an opportunity to host interactive workshops and dialogues for deeper connection to their work, methods, and knowledge.

The theme is built upon respect and inclusion, and the summit is open to those interested in advancing racial equity as a shared value of all Alaskans. This is a working summit, so participants should be prepared to be part of making it a great experience. It will be an intergenerational, multicultural gathering, and youth under 18 are welcome with a chaperone. Our goal is that participants will leave the summit inspired and prepared to act and engage in exponential change at all levels – systemic, institutional, interpersonal, and personal.

Media credentials are available upon request. The registration fee will be waived for students and Elders.

Updates On Old Posts - Porno Condom Use in LA, Paxson's Poster And Creole Cowboy

Life moves along and things I've blogged about evolve.

An LA Times story the other day says a settlement looks close in the lawsuit against an LA vote to require porn actors to wear condoms.  The original post was in 2012  when voters approved the measure, and there was a follow up in 2013 when the first court decision came out. Apparently the condoms will stay, but the enforcement will be weaker.





And this year's Anchorage Folk Festival poster was done by Paxson Woelber, who I interviewed in 2009 when two of his short animations were in the Anchorage International Film Festival.




And don't miss the last night of the festival - Sunday, starting at 7pm at Wendy Williamson auditorium at UAA.  Jeffrey Broussard & the Creole Cowboys will play again.  The festival is free and it's one of the events that makes Anchorage a great place to live.

Is this part an update?  Well, the poster leads to the festival and I've got posts from previous folk festivals.
2015.  
2014.
2011.
2011.  This one has Kabala Shish Kebab.
2008.  Cajun and Creole is pretty popular up here.


There's a bit of video from Friday night to give you a sense of what they're like.  And only a sense, since I recorded this with my tiny Canon Powershot.  If you go to the festival, you'll get to hear their sound for real.  They'll be a number of other acts before them, you can come when you want.  Friday the auditorium was packed.