From: David D (simplydavid@gofairtrade.net)
Date: Wed Oct 02 2002 - 02:14:57 EDT
RACIAL IDENTITY DISCUSSION
This was an intense and awesome discussion. As a predominately white student organization, it is very important for us to name our whiteness and examine the systems that actively promote and privilege white folks into positions of power. Here a dilemma became very apparent: naming our whiteness while wanting to build a multiracial, anti-oppressive youth and student movement.
As a student organization with an anti-racist/anti-oppressive analysis, it is very important for STARC to value the current people of color within the organization and actively promote, encourage, and be open to their ideas and leadership. STARC should also seek input from organizations/organizers of color and hold itself accountable to these, and other, traditionally marginalized groups that we are developing a political affinity with.
Some questions that we examined within the context of racial identity and with an anti-racist analysis were:
Who does STARC organize?
Where are they?
What is the role of STARCies?
A second set of questions which we answered in small groups:
Who is STARC best equipped to Organize?
What is STARC’s unique contribution to the social justice movement?
What are its limitations?
What are its goals?
When examining these questions it is important to note that all organizations have limits and we are all oppressed (just as we are all oppressors).
Other important questions:
In building a multiracial student and youth movement, does STARC have to be a multiracial organization?
- an important thing to remember here is that STARC is not claiming to BE the movement.
What does it mean to be a mostly white, strait, mid-class, student organization?
- supporting leadership from those historically marginalized within STARC
- being white does not mean being a bad person:
*own your privilege
*teach other whites
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Advisory Board - see attached
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Membership - see attached
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