<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">AWARE has traditionally operated by consensus.<div class=""> <div class=""><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On May 11, 2017, at 12:23 PM, Harry Mickalide <<a href="mailto:mickalideh@gmail.com" class="">mickalideh@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">So that's Harry Mickalide, David Johnson, Karen Aram, Stuart Levy, and Karen Medina all for having AWARE sign on as officially supporting the demands. What is AWARE's policy on organization-wide decisions? Do we need consensus or a majority vote?</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 11:32 AM, Carl G. Estabrook <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu" target="_blank" class="">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word" class="">Harry—<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I and I’m sure other members and friends of AWARE support those three points (and perhaps stronger versions, including free tuition and a universal basic income.)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">But the bulk of the 13 demands - containing some legitimate complaints - constitute identity politics as Reed describes them. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That’s separate from and at worst a distraction from the politics that have animated the "Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort” of C-U. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">AWARE members may support the demands, but I think it’s outside the purpose of AWARE as an organization to do so.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I hope members of both groups will cooperate in combatting war and racism.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Regards, Carl </div><div class=""><div class="h5"><div class=""> </div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On May 11, 2017, at 10:13 AM, Harry Mickalide <<a href="mailto:mickalideh@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">mickalideh@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="m_1422978149823832164Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Carl, here is my frustration. You continue to assert that BSFR (Black Students for Revolution) is engaging in identity politics at the expense of being anti-capitalist and anti-war when multiple people have told you that BSFR is very much anti-capitalist and anti-war.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here are some quotes from their list of demands to prove it.</div><div class=""><a href="https://www.bsfruiuc.com/our-demands" target="_blank" class="">https://www.bsfruiuc.com/our-<wbr class="">demands</a><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">From demand 1</div><div class=""><span style="font-family:din-next-w01-light,din-next-w02-light,din-next-w10-light,sans-serif;font-size:17px;text-align:center" class="">"While students are being handcuffed with loans, private lenders are making a profit and the federal government is spending public funds on wars, drones, wall street bailouts, and corporate subsidies. Situated at the intersection of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy, today’s education model marginalizes and excludes both the working class and students of color. As a first step towards a tuition-free and debt-free reality within higher education, we demand that tuition hikes come to an immediate and permanent end, and that MAP Grants, regardless of state funding, should continue to be issued to recipients."</span><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:din-next-w01-light,din-next-w02-light,din-next-w10-light,sans-serif;font-size:17px;text-align:center" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class="">From demand 8<span style="font-family:din-next-w01-light,din-next-w02-light,din-next-w10-light,sans-serif;font-size:17px;text-align:center" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class="">"<span style="font-family:din-next-w01-light,din-next-w02-light,din-next-w10-light,sans-serif;font-size:17px;text-align:center" class="">We believe adequate shelter, food, water, and health care are human rights owed to all workers, and that a living wage is a first step in ensuring that for all people."</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:din-next-w01-light,din-next-w02-light,din-next-w10-light,sans-serif;font-size:17px;text-align:center" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class="">From demand 13<br class=""></div><div class="">They call for divestment from "<span style="font-family:din-next-w01-light,din-next-w02-light,din-next-w10-light,sans-serif;font-size:17px;text-align:center" class="">corporations which actively support or enable states currently carrying out human right’s abuses (e.g., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar), all private prison corporations, and all private military contractors and weapons manufacturers."</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Despite this clear overlap between the goals of AWARE and BSFR, you refuse to support them because they are also choosing to rally around their shared blackness? That seems hella racist to me.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 9:20 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" class="">peace@lists.chambana.net</a>></span> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word" class=""><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT" class="">More useful than Google (not, perhaps, the most revolutionary organization...) is the ‘Search’ function on the Peace-discuss archives, Karen.</span><div style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT" class="">This is from six months ago, re <<a href="https://www.bsfruiuc.com/our-demands" target="_blank" class="">https://www.bsfruiuc.com/our-<wbr class="">demands</a>>:</div><div style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">...The list certainly raises (once again) questions of the nature and provenance of identity politics (the mainstay of the Clinton campaign).<br class="">See Adolph Reed's mordant description … :<br class=""><br class=""><span class="m_1422978149823832164m_855079275444735667Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>"[Identity] politics is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism. It is the expression and active agency of a political order and moral economy in which capitalist market forces are treated as unassailable nature.<br class=""><span class="m_1422978149823832164m_855079275444735667Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>"An integral element of that moral economy is displacement of the critique of the invidious outcomes produced by capitalist class power onto equally naturalized categories of ascriptive identity that sort us into groups supposedly defined by what we essentially are rather than what we do. As I have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people.<br class=""><span class="m_1422978149823832164m_855079275444735667Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>"It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that expresses more unambiguously the social position of people who consider themselves candidates for inclusion in, or at least significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class” <<a href="http://bennorton.com/adolph-reed-identity-politics-is-neoliberalism/" target="_blank" class="">http://bennorton.com/adolph-r<wbr class="">eed-identity-politics-is-neoli<wbr class="">beralism/</a>>.<br class=""><br class="">It’s difficult to see how a serious critique of US war-making can arise from identity politics. (Not enough blacks and women among Special Forces killers?)<br class="">It would seem that US war-making arises from domestic and foreign class conflicts; given that we’ve killed more than 20 million in 37 nations since WWII, we should be clear about causes.<br class=""><<a href="https://www.popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii/" target="_blank" class="">https://www.popularresistance<wbr class="">.org/us-has-killed-more-than-<wbr class="">20-million-in-37-nations-<wbr class="">since-wwii/</a>>.<br class=""><br class="">AWARE has seen as its task for 15 years to encourage awareness of how and why the US government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.<br class="">And to do that we must tell the truth and shame the devil, as Hotspur says. <br class=""><br class="">I’m not convinced that endorsing these demands contributes to that effort. —CGE<br class=""></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Six months on, and as worthwhile as some of the goals of the demands seem, that still seems right to me. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Regards, Carl</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="m_1422978149823832164h5"><div class="">On May 11, 2017, at 9:06 AM, kmedina67 via Peace <<a href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" class="">peace@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="m_1422978149823832164m_855079275444735667Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class="m_1422978149823832164h5">
<div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Carl, Google it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div id="m_1422978149823832164m_855079275444735667composer_signature" class=""><div style="font-size:85%;color:#575757" dir="auto" class="">Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size:100%" class=""><div class="">-------- Original message --------</div><div class="">From: "Carl G. Estabrook" </div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div>Send me their list of demands (and read Reed…)<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">> wrote:</div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Point to items on their list that are identity politics</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size:100%" class=""><div class="">-------- Original message --------</div><div class=""><span style="font-size:100%" class=""> e.g. Adolph Reed’s critique:</span></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><<a href="http://bennorton.com/adolph-reed-identity-politics-is-neoliberalism/" target="_blank" class="">http://bennorton.com/adolph-r<wbr class="">eed-identity-politics-is-neoli<wbr class="">beralism/</a>>.<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">AWARE was founded to foster local opposition to US war-making and racism - and, by implication, capitalism, the source of both.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We should be willing to cooperate with others who have effective ways to do that as well.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">But as Reed explains, identity politics is a defense of capitalism - and therefore at best only accidentally useful in an anti-war anti-racism effort. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">—CGE<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class="m_1422978149823832164m_855079275444735667Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<div class=""><div class="">Carl, </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It is online. I can't copy and paste the url from my cell phone. But you can Google their demands.</div><div class="">-karen medina</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div><span class="">______________________________<wbr class="">_________________<br class="">Peace mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" class="">Peace@lists.chambana.net</a><br class=""><a href="https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace" target="_blank" class="">https://lists.chambana.net/mai<wbr class="">lman/listinfo/peace</a><br class=""></span></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div><br class="">______________________________<wbr class="">_________________<br class="">
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