Surviving Race

NOTES FROM THE

NATIONAL PUBLIC FORUMS:

CALLING OUT RACISM, MISOGYNY, AND OTHER FORMS OF VIOLENCE

IN THE MOVEMENTS

 

Please click on the links below to navigate this page. 

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Please feel free to add to these notes and alert us of any required corrections.

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In light of a recent event exhibiting hateful, racist, misogynist violence that sparked discussion and emotion about structural racism in our movements, a call for a public national dialogue was made for White people to take responsibility for the racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression in our movements. 

We responded to this call for a public national dialogue and arranged a forum for this even though individuals who have been caught on video have not taken responsibility for outrageous acts of violence, which we disavow.

 

It cannot be understated. Within an instant of watching the video, for many people, any bridges that had been built to try to overcome the racial divide were destroyed.    

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September 18, 2016

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Surviving Race is here as a support.  http://survivingrace2014.wixsite.com/platformdevelopment

AGENDA ITEMS                                                                                                                                                                          

Additions:                                                                                                                                                                                    

OVERVIEW                                                                                                                                                                                       

RACISM IN OUR OWN PROCESSES                                                                                                                            

Macro and Micro Perspectives in Our Actions                                                                                                        

RACISM IN THE INDUSTRY AND MOVEMENTS                                                                                                

What can we do to address the disconnect?                                                                                                               

WHERE IS THE WHITE PRIVILEGE AT THE LOCAL, STATE, AND NATIONAL LEVELS?  

To Know There Is Support from Surviving Race If You Are Calling Out Racism                    

Stop Silencing People Who Are Calling Out Racism                                                                                          

Censorship of the ‘Alternatives Conference’. . . Again                                                                              

Boycott Alternatives/Organize at Alternatives                                                                                                

During the Feedback Session to SAMHSA At Alternatives                                                                       

Working List of Demands of Alternatives and SAMHSA ‘Peer’ Initiatives                                 

Another Alternative to Alternatives 2017                                                                                                          

Join the movement to boycott Alternatives—the movement to begin walking away.         

Possibility of Getting Support from or Uniting with Other Advocacy Groups                                   

POLICE BRUTALITY AND PSYCHIATRIZING SOCIETY                                                                               

Platform Development                                                                                                                                                             

POTENTIAL ACTION STEPS FOR HEALING STRATEGEIS AT THE MACRO LEVEL             

Press Release/Media Advisory to Highlight Our Work and Invite Others to Get Involved.                 

What everyday advocacy efforts and struggles of People of Color can we start celebrating and spotlighting in our movements?  

Begin Letter Writing Campaigns                                                                                                                                

Increase Social Media Presence                                                                                                                                    

Hold Face-to-Face Meetings, Workshops, Conferences, and Online Events                                

Increase Support and Supporting Grassroots when People are Traumatized                                 

Maybe it’s time we take—not an asking stance—but a demand stance.                                                

 

AGENDA ITEMS

Continued Discussion on Police Brutality

Psychiatrizing Society

Institutional Structural Racism and Classism

Joining with Other Movements

Additions:

Where do we see the end result of this dialogue? What’s the actual purpose?

Policy recommendations to legislature?

Better understanding of other movements?

Better understanding of impacts of racism and classism.

Move beyond asking people to abolish racist practices to demanding people abolish racist practices.

 

OVERVIEW

What power do we have? How can we compel the power brokers to do anything different? It is one thing to be heard and another thing to say if you do not make these changes there will be these consequences. 

 

This work is to shed light on and address the racism that has long existed within the movements. It is up to us to figure out what we need to do to have racism acknowledged and abolished within the various movements.

 

One recent incident forced us to look at ourselves and to be honest about how we have been complicit over the years, how we have let racist behavior and racism go unchecked.  Looking at our own organizations that we are involved with on a daily basis—when we are being honest—reveal structural attitudes and systems of racism.  People have to have the courage to point it out. We have to talk about these issues and how they impact the industry and the movements. 

 

The industry and the movements do not represent people who are most subjected to psychiatry. .

 

We point out that segregation is still happening in a different time and year.

 

We are still marginalized, oppressed, and killed—and within our own movements, not represented. 

 

At the end of this document there are potential action steps we can take. 

 

We want to note that these potential action steps are not the larger focus of our call, which is to call out and eliminate racism in the movements. 

 

Every time we move our focus from challenging the dominant structure of racism, even if other issues are important and in line with our work, we are truly diverting from the purpose of this particular work effort, which is to create and grow anti-racist movements. 

 

If you have a problem with this as a work goal, maybe you ought to consider what that means yourself.

 

We will leave this overview off by saying, if you experienced racism on a daily basis, it would be clear to you why racism being eliminated is the priority issue over all other things.

RACISM IN OUR OWN PROCESSES

We want to address that instead of confronting racism on the teleconference of the first National Public Forum: Calling Out Racism, Misogyny, and Other Forms of Violence there were people on the call, even if unintentionally, perpetuating racism. 

 

Our efforts were a failure in that respect.  Our decision was to divide the calls. You can read about this in earlier notes from these meetings here: http://survivingrace2014.wixsite.com/platformdevelopment/national-public-forums.

 

On our call on September 18, 2016, it was again suggested that there might be something valuable in continuing to create calls and spaces for people experiencing racism to talk about the ways in which they experience racism, oppression, and discrimination and calls and spaces for people who are consciously or unconsciously perpetrating racism to take responsibility and address their privilege.

 

On the call, it was consistently agreed to that for decades, People of Color have been asking White Leadership of the industries and movements to make room for People of Color to be in leadership positions.

 

White people need to be:

• Listening to People of Color;

• Supporting an agenda for louder inclusion of People of Color;

• Following the leadership of People of Color in our movements; and

• Acting in ways that support leadership roles for People of Color.

 

Covert racism is a pervasive problem in the movements. However, to see someone who has been in a leadership role in the psychiatric survivor movement, displaying overt racism, misogyny and violence—in the video that had gone viral—it was the catalyst to say no more. 

 

The incident brought the issue of racism in the movements to light. The video brought the racism forward in such a clear way, that it had to be addressed.  The incident focused much needed attention to what’s gone on for a very long time in the industry and the movements.  His association with the movement was enough to get people to pay attention and bring the racism to light.
 

Therefore, the purpose of this work is for us to address the issue of racism in the industry and the movements. 

 

We agree that if we pause this work, to try to find a way to correct this or that, even if the ‘this or that’ is other human rights violations perpetuated by psychiatry, if we pause this work, which repeatedly happens, it muddles the purpose and the point, to address racism in the industry and the movements. 

 

We have to hit this head on.

 

But if racism in the industry and the movements is not going to get addressed—then there’s no purpose in this work.

 

Racism in the industry and the movements has been going on for decades and it needs to be abolished. 

 

Macro and Micro Perspectives in Our Actions

We need both a Macro and Micro perspective in our actions of addressing racism.  At the macro level, socially, within society and at the micro level within our own movements.  Yes we must have a national presence.

 

We must have a national impact.

 

But we also have to start where we are. If we don’t do it locally first, it will be much more difficult to do it nationally.

 

In order to correct injustice it requires someone makes a sacrifice. A sacrifice of power or, a sacrifice of position and authority, a sacrifice in order to make room for those who need to be at the table who are not there. 

 

For example: If a board is comprised of 12 individuals and they are all white then somebody needs to leave if they are not willing to increase the board members

 

And yet, whether there is an increase in available membership to a board, or someone leaves, those actions are only going to happen if people are at a point at being able to understand the level of racism they are operating under. 

 

It takes courage to point racism out.

 

It takes a certain level of willingness to be vulnerable to be able to confront racism.

 

Here is a glimmer of hope and understanding that we can begin to do something different so that People of Color who are overwhelming represented in psychiatry, and institutionalized (and particularly court-ordered psychiatry), can also be represented in leadership positions in the ‘peer’ industry or organizations set up as alternatives to psychiatry and advocacy and activism in the various movements.

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RACISM IN THE INDUSTRY AND MOVEMENTS

People within the industry are ignoring the realities of racism.

 

This is unacceptable.

 

It is our belief that structural racism within our own industry, that’s something that we can definitely impact.  

 

It is our assessment that people who are represented in organizations—at the levels of membership, leadership, or who are accessing ‘peer’ services—are not People of Color, that the bulk of the ‘peer’ industry and movements are comprised overwhelmingly, near fully, of White people. 

 

The ‘peer’ industry leadership does not even always represent the area they are supposed to represent.

 

In terms of training, cultural competency training—when people are asked to facilitate cultural competency trainings—the basic level of training required is disturbing and traumatizing in itself.  In other words, sometimes people need to be told things, at the most basic level, that you cannot even believe you would have to tell these things to people, such as, “If we’re all the same, there’s something wrong with the picture”.

 

People of Color are affected by psychiatry, often court-ordered or coerced psychiatry, but People of Color are not represented in the ‘peer’ industry or movements to any degree that would be correspondent to our presence in the system itself.

 

Further, when People of Color are involved in the industry or movements, they very often are not in leadership roles. This is a huge issue. Why is there such a disconnect?

 

What can we do to address the disconnect?

Racism is a fairly obvious injustice. We need to speak to it as an injustice. 

 

It is our belief that people need a safe environment to talk about structural racism in the movements. We need people talking about and confronting racism. 

 

Frustration comes when getting together and informing people about needing to address racism, and then it switches to something other than racism as the focus of the conversation. So the initial purpose of the original attempt at anti-racist work becomes lost, or sidestepped to focus on some other issue.  

 

When room is made for People of Color at the table, it ought not just be to participate in whatever was happening at the table prior to them getting there, but instead, to fundamentally alter the work of the table, based on the ideas that any individual brings. 

 

It is important for the psychiatric survivor movement specifically to understand that even though many people feel silenced in their attempts to speak out against psychiatry, basically, the survivor movement is all about ending forced treatment, and antipsychiatry.  If we don’t address racism first, those concerns of forced psychiatry do not matter to people who experience racism every day, even though they are often being subjected to forced treatment.  Abolishing racism is the priority issue.

 

These are the concerns of people from our movements and it is our position that it is racist to not address racism, or argue that racism is not the issue of our movements.

 

WHERE IS THE WHITE PRIVILEGE AT THE LOCAL, STATE, AND NATIONAL LEVELS?

It is our conclusion that we have to challenge the existing leadership of any and all of our organizations.

 

We have to shine light on the inequity of the current leadership, boards, and staff positions at local, state, and national levels and put organizations/groups/etc. who are doing great work in the spotlight as potential ways people can locally replicate efforts or join in national work.

 

We do not feel that people understand that the leadership often does not even represent—nor is it representative of—the area or people they are supposed to represent.  California was offered as an example.

To Know There Is Support from Surviving Race If You Are Calling Out Racism

We should think about, as a coalition of people, creating a safe environment for those who want to address racism and are afraid to call racism out.

 

Surviving Race can be a place where people can come to talk, and feel comfortable in saying, this is what I am experiencing; this is what I see. How can I do call out racism? Do I have support?

 

We want people to remember that people, by nature, can be easily shut down or intimidated; threatened, blacklisted, or whatever the case may be.

 

People need to know they have our support to address it--that’s how it starts on the local level.

 

It was shared that people have done work all over the US and people have been told—not just by People of Color—by White people also–of experiences of witnessing institutional racism in the system. These experiences always reflect people who do not feel safe—or know how—to say anything about it.

 

It requires a certain amount of vulnerability to confront racism.  

It requires that a White person who witnesses an injustice due to racism interrupt the racism, even if it means they too suffer the injustice. 

 

That’s the vulnerability and the risk we are asking.  Is that realistic?  

 

To those who want to experience change happen

We believe awareness comes from talking with people about the struggle that we are part of. 

 

We expect that people pay attention to people who are experiencing racial oppressions and intervene. Make room for People of Color to be in leadership positions, including presenting at conferences, and leading our movements. In order to do this, the White people in leadership roles have to get out of the way, or make more room.

 

Stop Silencing People Who Are Calling Out Racism

It is the experiences of people on the call that the more we speak up, the more we get silenced. 

 

One strategy is that those in power try to discredit you unless you are doing something that benefits the State or their organization.

 

Censorship of the ‘Alternatives Conference’. . . Again

Analyzing the Alternatives conference through the framework of ending racism in the movements, it fails. 

 

It’s the same workshops from the same people—seclusion, restraint, and forced treatment—you are not addressing the issues we are having, even though forced treatment is something we experience.

 

Our first issue is ending racism, which at Alternatives, we are not even allowed to put in print!

 

It’s our concern that at Alternatives, it’s the same old, same old. Nothing new—nothing that addresses People of Color—it is the same people, same topics, same everything—and nothing is good!

 

Now do something new! Address intergenerational trauma, language barriers, and spirituality.  Promote healing in the Black community, address the trauma, then you might have something for us.

 

We have to ask: Is this our place?  And if it is our place, then we need to stand up against racism here. 

 

If we are not at the table, if we are not part of the decision making, if there is no place for us then we should start our own.

 

The Black Community has to be talking about it: The Industry and the Movements need to diversify and address racism in the rank and file.

There was conversation about how the State (federal government in the case of Alternatives, specifically SAMHSA) holds us at bay. They are controlling everything.  Some feel they are putting us in a position where we feel we have to control what we are doing and how we’re doing it.

 

Racism is going to continue until someone stands up against someone else.

 

They will try to shut us down. 

We just have to be persistent. 

Boycott Alternatives/Organize at Alternatives

There is racism going on here and SAMHSA and the ‘peer’ industries have to address it because this is not inclusive.  SAMHSA, and the ‘peer’ industry: you’re saying you want ‘health’ and wellness for everybody’—WE are part of that everybody. 

Either you are inclusive or you are not inclusive. 

People don’t stay where they’re not wanted, nor appreciated, nor validated, nor responded to, nor in leadership positions.

 

If there is no movement on making these movements inclusive then we will have to go off and find a way to create something else. Human Rights.

During the Feedback Session to SAMHSA At Alternatives

For those at 2016 Alternatives who want to make these demands, Surviving Race wants to support you, though many of us are not there and have been boycotting Alternatives for years, if not decades. 

 

We also need to learn more about the committee that organized Alternatives and how to better support some type of protest and voicing on a large scale for censorship that is occurring. Also, proactively, we ought to be planning something to respond to next year’s conference.

 

People at the Alternatives Conference, speaking out to SAMHSA and other ‘peers’ running workshops would be supported by Surviving Race if they wanted to indicate:

 

No. We are dissatisfied with the Alternatives Conference.

 

No. We are not going to change the names of the workshops or be censored in their descriptions

 

No. We want to fight racism and SAMHSA ought to want to fight racism. 

 

For people who are this year’s conference, we can suggest people could ask questions about racism in the industry and movements in workshops, and other venues. 

 

We need to make it known that we are not going to accept this.

 eWorking List of Demands of Alternatives and SAMHSA 'Peer' Initiatives

• Half of the leadership steps down. 

• Half of the workshops are workshops addressing racial issues, and other issues of interest to Communities of Color, presented by People of Color. 

• No censorship of materials we choose to publish.

 

Tell SAMHSA – we are doing this and you have a choice.  Either you meet demands that are being made, to do the right thing and what you already ought to have been doing since the establishment of the conference in 1985 or—show even more how Alternatives is not meant to be an inclusive effort.  We need to create the venue for education and put it out there.

Another Alternative to Alternatives 2017

One suggestion is organizing to this on a large scale at the next Alternatives will give us enough time to get everything together and show up at the next alternatives with a platform, but that as soon as we have the platform developed, we ought to start using it (see potential action steps in this document).

 

We can look at the movement support Black-owned banks, where people are being encouraged to withdraw their money from the banks they use and instead choose to use Black-owned banks.  This is where we may want to argue creating our own. 

 

That said, people support those who are at Alternatives who want to speak out – and so we do want people to know that at Alternatives SAMHSA is censoring the message.    

Join the movement to boycott Alternatives—the movement to begin walking away. 

It was discussed on the call that it is important to remember that size does not matter as much as symbolism matters. So small acts along the way are powerful.

 

A larger collective goal could be that next year, we have a conference that occurs at the same time as Alternatives and our conference is run by People of Color.

 

We can create a campaign to tell all people and organizations that now send groups to Alternatives to take your money out of Alternatives and put it toward a conference that is aimed at giving People of Color the kinds of workshops, such as workshops on intergenerational trauma, ending racism, spirituality—and other information, as well as social, and cultural experiences that we are wanting, with People of Color leading us into the future.

 

We could make the admission fee be that you pay for yourself and for someone who could not afford to come. 

 

We should not be looking to SAMHSA to pay for those who cannot come, but to look to ourselves.  Ask organizations when filling conference seats: Are you going to put money toward Alternatives or somewhere that matters?

 

Our message to potential conference attendees is: ‘pay your own way and someone else’s way’. Step up and participate in a conference that’s led by an organization that has Black Leadership and People of Color leading the way. 

Possibility of Getting Support from or Uniting with Other Advocacy Groups

We encourage everyone to continue individually reaching out to Black Lives Matter and other groups.

 

It was again suggested that before we approach any group as Surviving Race that we have a concrete mission to present and that our Platform ought to be developed. 

As we develop our platform we have to remember the difference between addressing psychiatry vs. addressing well-being in Communities of Color.  We aim to create materials people will want and use.

 

Right now, we can start compiling contact information of groups and organizations of people we may want to approach once we have a platform.

 

We can reach out to religious communities and academics and attempt to educate the moral agenda, and others in other networks, on our issues.

 

We can work with LGBTQI2SA Communities.

 

We can look specifically at reaching out to Trans and Queer Communities, addressing how racism is experienced, and how transphobia is increasing the suicide rate among young people, particularly young People of Color. 

 

We can continue local grassroots organizing, having local conferences, and working on further developing the platform through Surviving Race workgroup.

 

For people feeling they are alone in their fight(s) against racism and other forms of hatred—we have to get the word out that Surviving Race represents a coalition of people that will support people standing up to end racism—that will be helpful and empowering.

 

We can increase the frequency of conference calls and meetings.

 

We can create calendars of who would like to hold conferences, and meet with people on our website.  

http://survivingrace2014.wixsite.com/platformdevelopment

 

We can start looking at statistics that make our argument, but we ought to always be cautious of making number arguments as they can be re-organized to make any point someone wants.  It is true though that some statistics will be important, because they underscore at what rate we are killed by police.  We ought to include some statistics on the front page of the Surviving Race website.

 

Note: TAC (2015) is not a source we would ordinarily use as the focus of TAC is in direct conflict with a human rights agenda, as TAC is among the strongest proponents of forced psychiatry. However, it serves as a good example as to why and how statistics can be a dangerous game. TAC (2015) did put out a document stating one of four people killed by police has a psychiatric history (p. 12) and where it becomes a complicated problem is they suggest there is a 16 times greater chance that someone is likely to be killed by police if they have an “untreated mental illness” as if psychiatric “treatment” somehow would resolve police killings and this sentiment we also rail against (TAC, 2015. Overlooked in undercounted: The role of mental illness in fatal law enforcement encounters. Treatment Advocacy Center, Office of Research and Public Affairs. http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/storage/documents/overlooked-in-the-undercounted.pdf).

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We really want to underscore here that the State, nor police/law enforcement, nor other organizations ought to be able to argue that police killings would be limited by increasing psychiatric involvement or incarceration. 

 

A discussion about the problem with 13th amendment in that it holds the loophole for slavery to exist has begun. It is specifically the phrase, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” (https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiii) that is at issue.  We need to continue working in conjunction with other movements, the prisoner resistance movement as example, to further our attempts at abolition. We need these other movements to recognize us and support our fight. 

 

We need to support work that decriminalizes nonviolent offenses but we need to be aware that The State has to recapture all of that revenue, all of those human beings, psychiatric prisons, ankle bracelets, it’s all the same. 

 

We need to more often connect with the abolitionist movement of today – the New Jim Crow; the imprisonment of African Americans and other People of Color. It’s the same imprisonment – and we need to put a spotlight on that.   

 

We do need to start working more with Local and National Black Lives Matter Movement to address issues we are concerned about in the mental health system and the call to divert money away from police to mental health.   

 

We need the platform. to join platform development work send an email to: SurvivingRace2014@gmail.com.

 

We can do all this, and each one of them, while having merit, takes us away from the issue of racism in the industry and the movements.  What are we going to do about that?

POLICE BRUTALITY AND PSYCHIATRIZING SOCIETY

We discussed gun violence, police killings, and the importance of not allowing the police and State to scapegoat psychiatrized people—or to argue the justification of psychiatric incarceration or other forced psychiatry as a deterrent to police killings.  This is difficult political organizing.

 

Concerning police brutality specifically, at this point, today, we don’t know what we are going to be able to do in this venue to address such a huge social issue like that. The workgroups remain open to join by sending an email to SurvivingRace2014@gmail.com.

 

Limited discussion on this call about police brutality.  But below is the link to our notes that focused more deeply on the issues of police brutality and police killings during our call on Healing Strategies. It is interesting to note that the three most frequently used words in the notes from that call on Healing Strategies were 1) Police; 2) People; and 3) Racism.  

 

Something needs to be done.  

 

Access to a more full discussion on the issues we have discussed concerning police brutality here: http://survivingrace2014.wixsite.com/platformdevelopment/eliminating-police-brutality. 

 

This is what we already know to be true: the consequences of forced psychiatry—directed toward People of Color and Black people especially are pervasive and intergenerational.  The trauma that people experience must be acknowledged and ended. 

 

We want people to understand that there are legal codes for court ordered psychiatry, for police detaining and kidnapping people who have psychiatric histories, locking us up, and killing us at excessively high rates, and that these codes, in New York for example, now extend into a pipeline to psychiatry for people in jail and prison. 

 

People with psychiatric histories are a group of people that spans all other groups and people.  The brutalization we face is institutional and structural and for People of Color racism intensifies the brutalization.  This must be abolished. 

 

There are multiple levels of oppression People of Color experience and these are not limited to social, cultural, legal, political, economic, spiritual, educational, sexual, historical, and media-transmitted discriminations.  A Person of Color who gets psychiatrized adds to the general oppression of psychiatry with State power, and puts someone at greater risk of court ordered psychiatry, institutionalization, and involuntary “outpatient” commitment. 

 

For the purposes of this work, please remember these issues become secondary to—and a distraction from—ending racism in the industry and movements, even for people who have been forced to comply with psychiatry. 

 

It is important for White people to understand that the white privilege experienced prevents the full focus on elimination of racism, because it is not your life to live. 

Platform Development

Our foremost goal is the Platform Development and that work is ongoing.

 

If you would like to join this effort, please send an email to SurvivingRace2014@gmail.com.

 

Since 2014 when Surviving Race was established, there’s been some noise made and some activity of those involved. There have been some things happening. But, none of it has made much of a difference.  

 

We have to start working with, finding, and reaching out to organizations that attempt to be grassroots, have a membership, have people who have experienced psychiatry, trauma, and want to talk about how racism is effecting their lives and work to end racism.

 

Concrete thought and strategy.  An example was offered of a mental health conference that met for 3 days in Alabama.  All of us involved in this have to also be going local.  We should be looking in our local communities and see what organizations are out there either to address ‘mental health’ issues—or maybe even more importantly, organizations or business that are addressing ‘mental health’ because of corporate sponsorships (like museums).  Approach these groups and seek collaboration for conferences, or meetings.

POTENTIAL ACTION STEPS FOR HEALING STRATEGIES AT THE MACRO LEVEL

Some believe that it can be “Both/And” and that while the priority must be on ending racism without the ‘peer’ industry and our movements, there are these other ways that racism occurs in the larger society and world we are in, and we want to, as we move forward and accomplish our goals of calling out racism in our movements and ending it, continue having some of our work, in the macro environment, moving our work and efforts to the larger environments we experience.

Press Release/Media Advisory to Highlight Our Work and Invite Others to Get Involved.

Share our notes with people, and show our efforts and invite people to become more involved. 

 

Perhaps a press release to gain input on our platform development and for people to become part of the joint writing experience through the Google doc. 

 

It is important to acknowledge that people can wind up feeling frustrated about what to do and how to move forward.  We all agree that there is strong racism and that this plays out even in how stories are told and legends are created. 

Suggested text:

PRESS RELEASE or MEDIA ADVISORY

Headline

Tag Line

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (DRAFT!!)

 

Date, City, State

Who

What

When

Where

 

List Priority Demands

List Who and What target is. (Having a specific target will help even if it is uncomfortable for people).

 

Announce:

This is to announce, Surviving Race: The Intersection of Injustice, Disability, and Human Rights is developing a platform.

 

Here are some of our demands: (fill this in)

 

We are looking for People of Color and others who have psychiatric histories who will support our efforts and get involved with our work.

 

Who to contact to get involved:

 

This is the website: http://survivingrace2014.wixsite.com/platformdevelopment.

 

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This can also be created into a Media Advisory with contact people if they are ever looking for someone to comment on a story, breaking news, as an expert, etc.

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What everyday advocacy efforts and struggles of People of Color can we start celebrating and spotlighting in our movements?

For example: Lois Curtis, an African American woman who won as was one of the plaintiffs in the our landmark  major de-segregation case – is named after the man who kept her and everyone in institutions.  Why is is that? Racism and discrimination based on cognitive issues is why Olmstead is named after the perpetrator and not the victim.   People ought to know who Lois Curtis is, this is an example of things we do not think about that are racist. 

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Begin Letter Writing Campaigns

Create letters to public forums.  Use strategies similar to the letter writing campaign being coordinated by the Harriet Tubman Collective (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/disability-solidarity-completing-the-vision-for-black_us_57d024f7e4b0eb9a57b6dc1f).

 

Get our platform out to A Vision for Black Lives https://policy.m4bl.org

 

Create and respond to Main Stream and Alternative Media Responses to Coverage of Us that is Disparaging.

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Encourage Campaign Development to Media Outlets.

Increase Social Media Presence

We can all work to increase discussions on the Surviving Race Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/groups/364074427086419.

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Hold Face-to-Face Meetings, Workshops, Conferences, and Online Events

Organizing Goal for over the next year is to have a separate conference led by People of Color.

Increase availability of meetings (in person and virtual).

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Increase Support and Supporting Grassroots when People are Traumatized

• Increase awareness of Surviving Race as a place of support for people speaking out about racism. 

• Increase campaigns for organizations to becoming anti-racist organizations.

• Creating supports for people who are traumatized.

 

• Make a fund or raise money for a fund

 

It’s worth considering even though controversial: There’s a lot of evidence that racism and other forms of discrimination and oppression, create, when someone’s subjected to them, physical health problems.

 

The mental health system should be addressing iatrogenic effects of racism and intergenerational trauma caused by structural racism.

 

Those who wish to call the mental health system to do its job effectively and/or we can do it our selves. 

 

Continue to promote work that treats racism as an epidemic that is causing health and other problems for people who are experiencing racism. 

Maybe it’s time we take—not an asking stance—but a demand stance. 

For those who feel comfortable, some may want to explore a series of direct actions to call attention to the urgency of what we are trying to get accomplished. 

 

We can articulate goals clearly and come up with a series of steps that raise in intensity from lower level in your face actions like speaking out at meetings, that hopefully get responses, and if not, escalate from there.

 

It does not need to be ‘big’ actions. Start thinking, ‘where can People of Color organize actions to really get their message heard by the leadership of the movements and industries?’ and then start acting. 

 

Surviving Race is here as a support.  http://survivingrace2014.wixsite.com/platformdevelopment

 

Please stay in touch for information to join our next call.

 

NOTES FROM AUGUST 1, 2016

On August 1, 2016, we set up a call with the intention of creating a space for non-People of Color to take accountability for racism in the movements and receive questions from People of Color who were harmed by the actions captured in the video, and who have been subjected to racism and other acts of violence as someone involved in the movements or ‘peer’ industry. There were approximately 38 people on the call.  

 

Not long into the call, it became painfully evident that our goals to have a space of where non-People of Color would acknowledge and be accountable for our roles in overt or covert racism specifically, and institutional, structural racism and white privilege in the movements broadly, was ashamedly, particularly for a human rights movement, too advanced a step for us to take.

 

To be clear, there were statements made on the August 1, 2016 that shined light on how rampant racism is in the movements. Our attempts of healing the divide through that call, in some ways, just further ripped it open.  The unintended consequence is that re-traumatization of People of Color occurred on that call. 

 

It must be understood how much damage these acts of violence caused, and how it exposed the racism that has been festering, without attention, or with attention with no solutions, for decades.

 

It is not the responsibility of People of Color to explain to non-People of Color racism, or to teach them how to undo it.

 

On the August 1, 2016 call, it was suggested that we hold separate calls, one call for non-People of Color to transparently and publicly be accountable for their roles in racism in the movements, and one call for People of Color to have a space to discuss ways in which they have experienced racism, and ways they want to see it resolved and determine how they wanted non-People of Color to take responsibility for racism in the movements.

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NOTES FROM AUGUST 16, 2016

On August 16, 2016, a second call of the National Public Forum on Calling It Racism, Misogyny, and Other Forms of Violence in the Movements took place from 9-11PM Eastern.  61 people called in to the Forum. 

 

The purpose of the call was to report back on individual work that had occurred on the separate calls between August 2 and 15.  Both People of Color and non-People of Color calls met twice each, in this time.

 

It is important for people to understand that the catalyst for these calls, the video that went viral, was a tipping point for many of the people on the call, to say ‘enough’ and ‘no more’ tolerating intolerance, bigotry, and racism in its daily forms. 

 

It is important for people to understand that these calls are not just about the video. One of the things that we want to spotlight is that people from many regions of the country are present on the calls.  Racism is an industry issue, and people are experiencing racism in the ‘peer’ industry in every part of the country. 

 

There is a racial divide within the movements that has existed as long as the movements have existed.  It is time to confront it and re-create movements that do not marginalize people.

 

People of color are under-represented both in using and working in ‘peer-run’ organizations and the movements. People of Color are under-represented in leadership roles, within the ‘peer’ industry and within the movements.  At the same time, People of Color are over-represented in public psychiatric services, particularly court-ordered psychiatry.

 

The ‘peer’ industry does not reflect people who are in the psychiatric systems.  If people of color were more central to the make up of the ‘peer’ industry and the movements, more People of Color might feel more welcomed, part of, and involved in peer-run alternatives and the movements as opposed to marginalized and further discriminated against.   

 

It is very important to acknowledge that while there is not a dispute as to whether human rights work is important and necessary, it is urgent that focusing on racism must take precedence if we are going to effectively combat the establishment. 

 

It is incredibly important that we focus on out-rooting racism, and that it doesn’t get ‘lost in the fold’ when people from multiple oppressed groups compete for change.  It is the position of the group that there are other forms of oppression that also need to be addressed, and time and space will be created to do that. 

However, attempting to address other forms of oppression in the midst of discussions about the experiences of racism is not going to be acceptable. We must have these conversations. 

 

This effort is the early formulation phase in creating action steps for combatting racism in the movements.  There is a desire to make sure that there is a solid foundation that this work is being built on.  An immediate goal is to figure out ways to prevent racist actions such as those caught on the video.  There is a shared concern that these actions on top of the harm they caused for the woman in the video who was attacked, and those in the movement who were harmed by viewing this from someone who claimed to be an ally, but that these actions also taint our movements. 

 

We have to figure out ways to come together in genuine, respectful, and meaningful ways. We have to ensure that obvious and blatant, as well as subtle and covert forms of discrimination are eliminated.  A question that was posed is for each of us to remember, what can we do, on the spot, to nip racism and other forms of hate speech in the bud, if we are present or are told about it? 

 

We agreed it must be made clear that racism, discrimination, and other forms of violence are not going to be accepted from anyone in these movements. 

 

People of Color want to be heard by the industry and the movements and do not feel like they are being heard, or if they are heard, are not being respected, or if they are feeling respected, are not feeling like what they are saying is getting acted upon.  As much as there is a desire to come together and make larger differences, until People of Color feel heard, respected, and valued by the industry and the movements, all efforts will be diminished by the fact that the basic core issue is not rectified. 

 

It is important for People of Color to be able to comfortably and rightly say that People of Color do not have to explain anything, justify anything, or answer any questions about what they are doing. 

 

It is not the responsibility of people who are oppressed to educate/fix their oppressors. 

 

Tokenism remains a problem in the movements and in the industry.  It was discussed that people are put in a bind if they refuse participation because they feel as if they are being used [as a token] that either they are cut out of the loop, or they are cut out of the loop and their work/ideas/efforts are used without them, often without them even getting credit for those ideas (let alone compensation). 

 

There was discussion on the call that it is important for our movements to be, in word and action, pro-Black. Our movements and the ‘peer’ industry ought to encourage the creation of and support Black-Run initiatives.

 

There was some confusion by people who called in concerning what we were doing and why we took the steps that we have. There was concern about the us/them divide.  There was some discussion reviewing the events that led us to this moment in time.

 

There were suggestions that mission statements, and more clear goals, etc. should be created.

 

There were some suggestions about potential funding sources for support for these efforts.

 

As a short summary of the calls that non-People of Color had, it can be gleaned that there is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done, within the industry and the movements in first acknowledging overt and covert racism, second, to be accountable for it, third, to transparently take responsibility for it, and then fourth, working toward solutions. 

 

Many people generally agreed, on the calls, that what we needed to do was actively listen to what People of Color had to say and take guidance from People of Color on how we ought to proceed.

 

Throughout the August 16, 2016 call, there were important questions posed, such as, how do we end tokenism, and what are ways racism is experienced by people, and how do we move forward when there are still people denying that racism is an issue in these movements? 

 

It is important that we create spaces where people feel that they can talk and it is clear that we need to keep working on this.

 

People on the call urged us all to remember how painful this consciousness raising process can be but that something needs to be done to end racism in the movements. The following are some early foundational ideas from the formulation phase, in how to combat anti-black racism and other forms of violence, misogyny, and discrimination.

 

ACTION STEPS

• Create a campaign to combat daily racisms and discrimination – that if people witness racism or discrimination, to speak up about it. Each person in the peer industry/movements takes responsibility for this, to encourage people to speak out on the spot and to disconnect from those who enact these forms of violence.  To make it clear in the industry/movements that racism is violence and will not be accepted.  

 

• Hold Community Forums/Dialogues.  We need consciousness raising experiences in communities.  These forums can be both to create dialogues and hold trainings such as “Undoing Racism”, or bringing in thought leaders to discuss their work.

 

 

• There are two up-coming community forums that are scheduled through the Western MA Recovery Learning Center https://www.facebook.com/Western.Mass.RLC 

 

• Community Dialogue: Creating Space, Tuesday, September 6th, 5pm to 7pm RLC's Holyoke Center, 187 High Street, Suite 302 “specifically for People of Color”.

 

• COMMUNITY DIALOGUE: HEALING RACISM:  Tuesday, September 13, 6pm to 8pm @ the Holyoke Library, 250 Chestnut Street. “Although open to anyone, this dialogue will particularly be geared toward white individuals, as it is those of us who benefit most from whiteness that bear the greatest responsibility for undoing its power”.

 

• Build on work previously done, such as connecting the People of Color Network, and other efforts people have been involved with over the decades, create a website/resource page linking all of these groups and Black-Run Conferences and organizations together.

 

• People of Color can be encouraged to say “No” to participation on projects unless they are comfortable that they are not being brought in as a token, and that their voices will not be marginalized.

 

• People of Color can be encouraged to say “No” to participation on projects unless they are compensated in a way that makes them feel that those asking for their input value them.  People of Color ought to be getting paid for their time and reimbursed for expenses including food, accommodations, and travel. If others that are involved in the project are receiving compensation, People of Color ought to be receiving equitable compensation, or compensation based on the requirements of the people who are participating, not by those requesting their participation.   

 

• Organizations must have resources to support meaningful participation of People of Color in all of the organizations’ activities.

 

• Non-People of Color are encouraged to say “No” to participation on projects unless they are satisfied that People of Color are well represented in leadership roles and involved in the project in a meaningful, non-tokenized manner.

 

• If any person refuses participation in an activity because they feel they are being used as a token, or because they believe that people are not genuinely and meaningfully involved in the process, they ought to tell the people they refused why they refused, challenge them to change their ways, and make public these actions.

 

 

• Boycotts of National and Local Conferences (Alternatives as an example) that are not inclusive, accessible (financially, geographically, etc.)

 

• When on calls or in meetings it is suggested that the order of participation, in general, to ensure People of Color are heard, ought to be, first the floor is open to any Person of Color who wants to speak, then, any person from an oppressed group who wants to speak, and then, anyone else who wants to speak.  When an issue is specific to a Person of Color or a person from an oppressed group, non-People of Color ought not be responding until everyone else has had an opportunity to speak.

 

• Non-People of Color can act as administrative support to People of Color who are organizing conferences/teleconferences/meetings, etc., taking care of details such as note-keeping, mailings, logistics, etc., so People of Color can focus on content, values, mission of events created.

 

• Non-People of Color who have access to resources/space ought to make it known to People of Color that those resources are available to them, for them to take lead on creating new projects/venues.

 

• Individuals and organizations support/endorse Black Lives Matter platform https://policy.m4bl.org/platform/ and Connecting with and becoming members of other organizations such NAACP.

 

• Continue work on ending Police Brutality and Police Killings

 

 

NEXT STEPS:

We will be sending out information for a follow up call for the National Public Forum (estimated beginning of September).

 

Please join the NEW Event Page for FORUM 3 (date to be determined): https://www.facebook.com/events/1076542689050305/

 

Event Page from August 1 and August 16 (FORUMS 1 and 2) calls: https://www.facebook.com/events/965985956832889/

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The next conference call for Strategies for Ending Police Brutality and Police Killings, as part of the efforts of Surviving Race: The Intersection of Injustice, Disability, and Human Rights https://www.facebook.com/groups/364074427086419 is September 8, 2016 @ 6PM Eastern to discuss a Draft Platform that is in the process of getting written. . . (The notes from the August 21, 2016 teleconference will be posted soon).  

 

The next conference call for Strategies for Ending Police Brutality and Police Killings September 8, 2016 @6PM Eastern

Call-In Number: (218) 339-7800

PIN # 510 4044

 

 

Please feel free to add to these notes and alert us of any required corrections.