[Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE has been asked to consider supporting the 13 demands of the BSFR at UIUC

Sun Sep 18 20:34:33 UTC 2016

A "demand" requires an "or else."  What's the "or else?" 

 On Saturday, September 17, 2016 11:47 PM, Harry Mickalide via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

 Allow me to address two of Carl's concerns.
1) The demands are not just being pursued by a loud minority, but are supported by an extensive list of campus organizations which are listed in Karen's original email. The student activist community as a whole has rallied around the list of demands.
2) We do not have to speculate if these demands critique US war-making because the full text of demand 13, the divestment demand, explicitly calls on the university to divest from  "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."
-Harry
On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 10:35 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

I think we should try to have a serious discussion of this proposal, online and perhaps in several meetings.

The central question would seem to be, How does it comport with AWARE's antiwar remit?

But there are obviously other important questions, e.g., What do we know of ‘Black Students for Revolution’?
A severe critic might suggest that a similar list could be circulated by ‘Some Students for Self-Promotion.’
I’m old enough to remember where the loudest voices for ‘militant action’ came from during the Vietnam war: they were provocateurs.

The list certainly raises (once again) questions of the nature and provenance of identity politics (the mainstay of the Clinton campaign).
See Adolph Reed's mordant description (expressed I admit in somewhat clotted prose):

        "[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.
        "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.
        "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” <http://bennorton.com/adolph- reed-identity-politics-is- neoliberalism/>.

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?)
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.
<https://www. popularresistance.org/us-has- killed-more-than-20-million- in-37-nations-since-wwii/>.

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.
And to do that we must tell the truth and shame the devil, as Hotspur says.

I’m not convinced that endorsing these demands contributes to that effort. —CGE

>> On Sep 15, 2016, at 9:53 PM, Karen Medina via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Peace-Discuss,
>>
>> At the next AWARE meeting*, I will present the 13 demands of the "Black Students for Revolution" at UIUC for consideration. BSFRUIUC has asked if AWARE will sign on to be a community supporter/endorser of the demands.
>> http://www.bsfruiuc.com/our- demands
>> *(I might miss this upcoming meeting, but the next week's meeting then)
>> -- karen medina
>> ------------------------------ -
>> 1. WE DEMAND that UIUC immediately and permanently halt tuition hikes.
>> 2.
>> WE DEMAND that the racial and economic demographics of UIUC students, faculty and staff reflect the racial and economic demographics of Illinois by 2032.
>> 3.
>> WE DEMAND that all on-campus sexual predators, especially those affiliated with the Greek Life system, face severe penalties for all forms of sexual violence.
>> 4. WE DEMAND that UIUC makes a permanent commitment not to consolidate or combine the LGBT Resource Center and Women’s Resource Center in addition to the continued autonomy of all cultural centers and ethnic studies programs.
>> 5. WE DEMAND that UIUC collect and track gender and sexuality based demographics as an official population.
>> 6. WE DEMAND that queer and trans students be given priority for all university sponsored all-gendered housing options and that genderqueer and trans students be offered these spaces at a discounted rate corresponding with the less expensive standard housing option.
>> 7. WE DEMAND that UIUC hire a truly independent consultant to review the salaries of all University employees in order to detect and correct gender and race-based pay inequality
>> 8. WE DEMAND a living wage for all University employees and subcontracted workers and that this rate be indexed for inflation.
>> 9. WE DEMAND all employees of UIUC have access to at least six months of paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child.
>> 10. WE DEMAND that UIUC cease and desist job outsourcing and hire directly from underrepresented populations in Urbana-Champaign and the surrounding communities.
>> 11. WE DEMAND that UIUC work towards bridging the gap between this campus and the surrounding Black community of Urbana-Champaign.
>> 12. WE DEMAND that UIUC implement fair-chance admissions and employment policies for those with past conviction records (Ban the Box).
>> 13. WE DEMAND that UIUC release an annual, easily-accessible, and comprehensive report of all its investments and move to divest from socially and politically negligent corporations.
>>
>> List of Endorsing Local Organizations
>> 
>>      • Black Students for Revolution
>>
>>      • SJP - Students for Justice in Palestine
>>
>>      • Planner’s Network
>>
>>      • MEChA - Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan
>>
>>      • AASSCC - African American Studies Scholars Cultural Committee
>>
>>      • CUTES - Campus Union for Trans Equality and Support
>>
>>      • UMMA - United Muslim & Minority Advocates
>>
>>      • GEO - Graduate Employees Organization
>>
>>      • MSU - Mixed Student Union
>>
>>      • Women of Pride
>>
>>      • BLM-CU (community) - Black Lives Matter - Champaign Urbana
>>
>>      • SACC - Students for an Arab Cultural Center at Illinois
>>
>>      • The Gharbzadegi Art Collective
>>
>>      • Allies and Accomplices for Racial Justice
>>
>>      • Men of Impact*
>>
>>      • Students Against Sexual Assault
>>
>>      • My Sister’s Keeper*
>>
>>      • STEM Boycotts the War Machine
>>
>>      • NAISO - Native American and Indigenous Student Organization
>>
>>      • SECS - Students for Environmental ConcernS
>>
>>      • WORD - Writers Organizing Realistic Dialect
>>
>>      • ASA - Arab Student Association
>>
>>      • UIUC Beyond Coal
>>
>>      • Black Rose/Rosa Negra Central Illinois Chapter
>>
>>
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