Black Radical Congress
   
WESTCOAST FIGHTBACK
  Summary of the First Regional Fightback Meeting
Oakland, CA 3 March 2002 / Sunday 12:30-3:30pm

The agenda:

  1. Welcome: Phil Gardener, Bay Area BRC
  2. Purpose & Origins of Fightback Summit: Assata Zerai, BRC/BFC
  3. War, Racism and Repression: Ashaki Binta, BWFJ/BRC
  4. Respondent: Steve Williams. POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights)
  5. Respondent: Malkia Cyril, United Communities Against War & Racism
  6. Summary by facilitator
  7. Discussion
  8. Black America in War Times: Fran Beal, BRC/BFC
  9. Discussion
  10. What can be done? (Possibilities for collective action, future collaboration, educational work)

The political breadth of Black participants was very impressive. These included:

  1. Christina Wilson: Coalition vs. War & Racism
  2. Walter Turner, Bd. Chair, Global Exchange, KPFA Africa World Host
  3. Willie Ratcliff, Publisher, SF Bayview newspaper
  4. Leilani Donaldson, N'COBRA
  5. Tim Thomas, East Bay Emergency Services Network
  6. Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai, Doctors for Social Responsibility, Environmental
        Racism activist
  7. Gerald Lenoir, Wartimes & Blacks & AIDS activist
  8. Phil Hutchings, California Tomorrow
  9. Wilson Riles, Jr., mayoral candidate, AFSC Western Region
10. Steven Pitts, UC Berkeley Labor Studies/Research Institute
11. Ula Taylor – UC Black Studies Dept.
12. Linda Burnham, Women of Color Resource Center
13. Cassie Lopez, Oakland teacher
14. Malkia Cyril, United Communities vs. War & Racism, We Interrupt This Message
15. Vikki Alexander, Center for Constitutional Rts
16. Steve Williams, People Organized for Employment Rights
17. Nunu Kidane, Idex, Advocacy Network for Africa
18. James Garrett, Vista College
19. Edget Betru, Just Act (anti-globalization youth group)
20. Craig Carter, SEIU 790 Black Caucus
21. Damon Azali, Center for Community & Labor Organizing (Los Angeles)
22. Art McGee, BRC Internet Coordinator
23. Marvin X, Recovery Theatre
24. Don Foster, Global Exchange
25. Edget Betru, Just Act
26. Donna Murch, UC Berkeley
27. Mei-Ying Ho, Books Not Bars
28. Emily Whitehurst, Storm
29. Larry Lattimore, POWER
30. Ashaki Binta, Black Workers for Justice, Atlanta
31. Assata Zerai, BRC Black Feminist Caucus, Syracuse, NY
32. Kwezi Nkrumah, BRC Los Angeles
33. Phil Gardiner, Bay Area BRC
34. Karega Hart, SEIU 790, Co-Chair, BRC Bay Area
35. Frances M. Beal, BRC National Secretary
36. Jamala Rogers BRC St. Louis
37. Leslie Ann, NY United
38. Jarvis Tyner, CP-USA, NY BRC NY United
39. Gary Hicks, BRC Boston
40. Esteban Nembhard, BRC Youth Caucus, NY
41. Tina, BRC Youth Caucus, Baltimore
42. 5 members of Timers, former Panther group
43. 3 members of The Students, hip hop group
44. Bob Wing, Wartimes, former editor, Colorlines magazine
45. Betita Martinez + 1, Latinos Contra La Guerra
46. Kali Acuna, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
47. Jamil Posey, YAKIN Youth Group
48. Michael Zinzum, Coalition vs Police Abuse (Los Angeles)
49. Ewuare Osayande, BRC Philadelphia
50. Rick Collins, Black Sociologists Assoc.
51. Jean Damu, N'COBRA, San Francisco
52. Mariam Kamara, Women of Africa
53. Marc Charlton Davis, writer, poet, Santa Rosa
54. William Jones, Black Gay Poet's Group
55. Eseibio Halliday, community activist
56. Kwame Nkrumah, education activist, Richmond

The energy in the room was electric. We had to move to another room in the building. The multiethnic/multiracial group overwhelmed the capacity of our original location as we swelled beyond the 40 confirmed invitees. There were about 75 people who eventually turned up, of these 65 were African or African American.

Most attendees had read in advance the BRC New Year's Statement and F. Beal’s "Blacks & the Struggle for Peace."

Assata discussed how the fightback effort came about and presented the fightback committee’s objectives, including:

  1. Focus on Military Spending.
  2. Oppose the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
  3. Demand due process for everyone persecuted including those who are immigrants.
  4. Build on the strengths of the Black Liberation Movement to build a new movement to chart a new course for social change.

Assata also presented suggestions from the BRC National Council for fightback work:

  1. We should function at three levels:
    a. Research out to mainstream Black Americans who are confused about the war.
    b. Overcome the friction between Black Americans and immigrant groups that has been exacerbated by the war. 
        (We need to promote immigrants’ rights.)
    c. Make sure we are strongly represented in the anti-war movement.
  2. We should encourage local creativity to address a variety of efforts.

Ashaki presented the BRC call for a fightback against war, racism and repression.

There were discussants that presented excellent points about the necessity of reaching out to the black community in our fightback efforts.

The discussion following the various presentations focused on the various ways organizers attending the fightback meeting were mobilizing in their communities. For example, the United Communities Against war and Racism is directing a survey in order to get alternative perspectives on anti-war sentiment in the black community. There were two publications presented at the meeting, the Ahora Now Working Paper Series ( www.ahoranow.org) that attempts to mobilize current anti-war sentiment and the War Times newspaper that works to convince those that are unsure about the unjust nature of the war.

Another theme in the discussion was contention over the ways a black progressive united front would interact and coordinate efforts with white left peace and antiwar groups. Attendees clearly articulated their issues with tokenism in the white peace movement. There was not a clear sentiment on the level of integration with this movement.

Another important political point made is that the struggle against war, racism and repression is an integrated one and we cannot take up one without the other.

There was so much input on what people were already doing that we did not have much time to discuss the possibilities for regional and national mobilizations. But we did get a list of about 15 persons that are interested in participating on a continuations committee to fightback against war, racism and repression. We need to decide how we will facilitate the work of a continuations committee as well as to determine the role we want to take in such efforts.

Some of the suggestions for mobilizations, events, etc included:

  • Provide informational literature/propaganda directed to the black community to educate about the war.
  • It was suggested that we collaborate on generating educational materials so every group doesn’t have to do this on their own.
  • We could convene speak-outs against the way in our communities and disseminate the educational materials at these events.
  • Someone also proposed national days of propaganda to ‘pull out the lies from the truth’ and increase dialogue within black communities. It was suggested that this might also help us to identify areas of movement building.
  • Linking global and local struggles was also important to people.
  • Linda Burnham mentioned the importance of the role of gender in the struggle. She said that gender gets mobilized to create a ‘coherent consensus’ for the war. To fight this, the intersections of race, class and gender need to be up-front in our analyses.
  • She further suggested that we organize a broad group of people, all grounded in the community, including representatives from all regions and integrate with the on-going antiwar/peace struggle.

Finally, Malkia posed four excellent questions about strategy to the fightback committee:

  1. What are the evaluative questions about how to move forward—which types of action make sense?
  2. How will we take regional difference into account in the fightback effort?
  3. What is our goal in this next period and how long is each interval (e.g. the next 3 months, the next 6 months, 9 months, etc)
  4. Who is our audience for the effort? This will speak to the specific tactics we use.
 

 

 

Black Radical Congress
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