Month: September 2019

Third World Women’s Alliance Security Committee. Third World Women’s Alliance Security Protocol.

The Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) Security Protocol outlines the actions that members of the TWWA must take not only for the organization’s safety and success but also for their own individual safety. The piece is undated but its content aligns with the concerns of radical political organizing in the 1960s and 1970s. Essentially, it calls for members of the TWWA to avoid “petty bourgeois traits” to prevent the sharing of dangerous information in settings where members are possibly under surveillance and to prevent members from being manipulated into disclosing confidential information to government agents.

To better understand this piece, it is necessary to understand who the TWWA were. Founded in 1971, the TWWA originated as the Women’s Liberation Committee under the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a major Civil Rights organization founded in the 1960s. This New York-based group later broke away from SNCC. Despite its goal of international solidarity and liberation, the TWWA focused on women of color in the United States. The TWWA sought to liberate all marginalized communities by demonstrating the connections between “racism, economic exploitation, and sexual oppression,” aiming to create a socialist society where these issues would be addressed and overcome (Aguiar 2192).

The Security Protocol expresses that the TWAA’s work is inherently radical and oppositional to the U.S. government, and that by being a member of the TWWA, one is at risk of being surveilled by the government and losing their rights due to their participation in radical organizing. To keep both members and the organization safe, the Security Committee of the TWWA lists four “petty bourgeois traits” that members should try to “cleanse” themselves of: egotism, subjectivity, individualism, and liberalism.

Egotism in this context refers to bragging about one’s position or even membership in the TWWA. While the Security Committee does not want people to disclose information about who leaders are, how many people are in the group, how the group is structured, etc., they also do not want the TWWA to be totally clandestine to the point where their work is invisible and they cannot recruit new members. Rather than bragging about the organization, the TWWA asks members to talk about the organization’s newspaper, their meetings, and their position on workers.

Subjectivity refers to reacting emotionally when provoked. The Security Committee urges members to respond to situations in a measured way that does not give away too much information about the TWWA and does not affect the TWWA’s public image. This section suggests that members may be provoked by government agents to inadvertently and rashly provide confidential or dangerous information.

The Security Committee urges TWWA members to dismiss individualism, which they use to refer to sharing information with family and friends who are not a part of TWWA. Just because members may trust loved ones does not mean that loved ones will not make mistakes and share information, or these trusted loved ones may themselves be government agents. The Security Committee believes that for everyone’s safety, it is most prudent to not share information with non-TWWA members.

Liberalism refers to being lenient when encountering behavior that is potentially dangerous to the TWWA. For example, the Security Committee asks that TWWA members report other members who express counter-revolutionary sentiments and suggests that by not filing a report, one is just as guilty as the person who expressed the counter-revolutionary sentiments. Dissension among the ranks is dangerous to the cause.

This piece is interesting because it reflects that the TWWA was highly organized and had radical goals. It may seem like a stretch to say that members could be in danger of losing their personal rights if caught by the government, but in that time period, government surveillance and reprimand were strong because powerful movements such as the Civil Rights Movement were threatening the status quo via revolutionary change. Despite the power of the TWWA suggested by this Security Protocol for members, it is interesting that the TWWA and its achievements are not more well known today. This piece also calls into question the efficacy of the TWWA’s international organizing efforts given that members were advised not to communicate via telephone due to wiretapping, but all methods of communication except secure in-person conversations were subject to surveillance. How did the TWWA organize internationally if their communications were likely to be surveilled? Thus, despite striving for international liberation, this Security Protocol implies that the most immediate focus of the TWWA was on liberation and empowerment of women of color within the United States, which perhaps in turn would set the stage for the liberation and empowerment of women of color internationally.

Additional work cited:

Aguiar, Marian. “Third World Women’s Alliance.” Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, edited by Colin A. Palmer, 2nd ed., vol. 5, Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, pp. 2191-2192. Gale eBooks, https://link-gale-com.proxy.library.cornell.edu/apps/doc/CX3444701222/GVRL?u=cornell&sid=GVRL&xid=07a168f1. Accessed 29 Sept. 2019.

In the two readings from the Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA), and particularly their Security Protocol, the author(s) describe the reality that they live in, which is one in which they are constantly surveilled. This kind of radical political work is threatening to nations such as the U.S., and I don’t believe that the author(s) were exaggerating the danger of their protest / desired revolution. This song by A Tribe Called Red is about Native resistance in spite of a settler-colonial government designed to oppress us because our very existence is a threat to the settler-state’s legitimacy. John Trudell is featured on the track. Trudell was one of the leaders of the American Indian Movement, but he transitioned out of his activism following the death of his family in a house fire while he was away from home leading a protest in D.C. I’m personally not a huge follower of or believer in conspiracy theories, but Trudell himself, along with many others, believes that the FBI was behind this arson, which the Bureau of Indian Affairs said was an accident upon investigation. Trudell’s story, whether the death of his family was a federal government-backed act of murderous arson or not, illustrates the very real danger that activists during the second half of the 20th century found themselves in. Of course, even today, revolutionary activism is dangerous.

This song also connects to this week because part of how I envision future music to sound like is like A Tribe Called Red: electronic music fused with traditional sounds.

I chose this song for the guest speaker’s lecture because of her zine on Asian American feminist movement. “Girl Gang” is one of my favorite female empowerment songs because of its beat and its lyrics. It’s a song about pride and camaraderie amongst women. The zine talks about needing to revive feminism for people of color (including not only women, but nonbinary people and others as well) and avoiding constant fetishization. The zine is about the intersectionality of feminism and I really love how it uses visuals to get across its bold statements. “Girl Gang” is very much the same to me as it has a really bold message combined with powerful words and rhythm. I also like how the art style on the cover of Leikeli47’s single and the zine are very similar.

I had some difficulty thinking of a song right away for our “And China has Hands” reading–I thought a lot about themes of loneliness and love and identity. I searched up “songs about Chinatown”, as I associate Wong Wan-Lee’s life with this New York City neighborhood and this was one of the first song that shows up. It’s a happy and soothing song that I found myself really enjoying.

The Mills Brothers were an African American band, which is why it was interesting to hear them singing about Chinatown in light of our class being one on Afro-Asian intimacies. The song itself is dreamy and light. To me, the tune could reflect how Wong feels when he meets/thinks about Pearl Chang, the woman who defends him from white boys.

In this article, Rachel Kuo shows the importance and the power of the use of Hashtags in contemporary social justice struggles.
Focusing on Asian-Feminist movements practices, the article proves at the same time the intersectionality and solidarity allowed by these tools. It also underlines the trap of the « Model Minority » shaped by White Supremacism to create and maintain intra and inter-racial fractures, calling for a « #ModelMinorityMutiny » : « An article published in Ms. Gazette quoted Tin Myaing Thein in discussing how the myth created tensions between “Asians” and “Pacific islanders”:“Asians are thought of as the goody-good, exotic, sexy, real smart, never rock-the-boat types, while textbooks portray Pacific islanders as the good-natured but not very smart people”.”
Furthermore, « it creates juxtapositions and racial binaries; as Stacey Lee (2005) states, “the achievements of Asian Americans are used to discipline African Americans … the success of Asian Americans proves that the United States is free of racial bias and inequality”. »

Kuo reminds us that if the use Hashtags is very recent, their content is not : this is a way for her to advocate the specificity of Hashtags, while inscribing them into a historical dynamic : « Rather than looking at hashtags and digital media activism as a brand new moment, I situate this work within a historical and ongoing narrative arc, wherein the politics of solidarity, community, and identity are constantly being navigated and negotiated »
It also goes with the Hashtag spreading itself, which allows anyone to express their singularity, and at the same time gathering all these specific voices under the same umbrella. Hashtags also allow vast accessibility, both to others’ discourse, and to self-expression. In this way, it can be seen as an important emancipation and empowerment tool, joining Catherine Squire and Nancy Fraser ideas of « subaltern counter-publics » : « Hashtags can also serve to disrupt dominant ideologies. Mainstream media cultures have repetitively constructed people of color into racial stereotypes. Hashtags can be used by racial justice movements as media counterpoints, offering different representations and perspectives that disrupt harmful racial logics. »
If I agree with that, I think it’s also essential to keep in mind that the Internet is a massive space of surveillance, and a « privileged » space for harassment, especially for social justice activists. I can’t help thinking of the TWWA Security Protocol, and thereby the necessity to apply it in a way to Cyber-Activism.
Besides visibility and empowerment, Hashtags allow a kind of intersectional gatherings between several groups facing the same kind of oppressions and discriminations, without erasing their own particularities. As bell hooks defined it, “Solidarity is not the same as support.To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite”. I see here a parallel with the difference between the notion of « ally » and the one of « accomplice » I encountered once in a zine written by First Nation feminists struggling against extractivism on their lands : for them, it’s too easy and not enough to proclaim yourself as « ally » or « pro-something » : you have to get involved.
So, concretely, what means that Solidarity ? That means making loud the voices previously muffled ; don’t let yourself be fooled anymore by dominants illusions ; and as oppressed people, refusing the crumbs offered by these oppressors, but gathering as minorities, creating and producing new recipes, as showed the #BlackLivesMatter or the #ModelMinorityMutiny.

“Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. it centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.”

To conclude, even if Hashtags seem genuinely effective, a long-term struggle still needs other forms of commitment : « While hashtags function as gestures of solidarity between both individuals and communities, they are also just a small piece of a movement. As such, they must be used alongside a variety of tools as well as on-the-ground action. »

“Welcome the spring
The summer rain
Softly turned to sing again
Welcome the bud
The summer blooming flower

Welcome the child whose hand I hold
Welcome to you both young and old

We are ever new
We are ever new”

Week late on this one!

Thus far into the semester, I’ve been constantly listening to Beverly Glenn-Copeland – I figured in relation to various overarching themes, feelings, of Dark Princess’ Part IV, and with all the other readings of this semester (especially Lorde’s), it might be worth throwing his discography out there!

Copeland is an American-Canadian Black trans musician, among many other things, and from everything I’ve read, a really spectacular human being.

Making music for over four decades, Copeland’s work sounds somewhere between the labels of ambient, folk, jazz, classical, electronica, and even early Detroit techno, tying in influences from African, East and South Asian traditions. Copeland’s musical output – often created in isolation, with technological and sonic fusions beyond their time – went virtually unnoticed when released.

In the years before and between his sporadic and largely forgotten releases, Copeland became a classically trained singer and pianist at McGill University (being nearly expelled for having a relationship with woman), became a Buddhist, wrote for Sesame Street, composed and acted on Mr. Dressup, and worked as a psychotherapy co-counselor. His music has only recently found wider recognition and critical acclaim. As Copeland says, “I was making music for a generation that had yet to be born.”; he is now 74 years old.

Thinking in and around Dark Princess – through questions of intergenerational and cross-cultural/racial exchange, imaginaries and futurities, dreams, spirituality, the slippages of genre, technology, and so, so much more – Copeland’s philosophical approach and visionary music – rooted in love and hope – has felt like an appropriate soundtrack for reading this novel.

(No lie, I’m very serious about Copeland’s music sounding like what I’ve written above)

On an interesting but generally unrelated tangent of Afro-Asia encounters, Copeland’s recent resurgence was kickstarted by a Japanese record collector, who discovered and helped disseminate Copeland’s music to an entirely new generation.

https://beverlyglenncopeland.com/music