When people organize to challenge the oppressive (and often racialized) dynamics in their community, they frequently neglect to consider how those dynamics find their ways into the organizing itself. We do not come together in a vacuum. What happens “out there” also happens, albeit in different and perhaps more subtle …
Confused? Curious? Want to Help? Racial Justice Allies Monday Dialog February 3 at 6:30 pm Unitarian Universalist Hall, 547 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa As the murder of Andy Lopez galvanizes the community into action, differing ideas about what happened and what should be done are circulating. Many believe this is …
The East Bay Solidarity Network has released Evict This! a handbook on the history of housing in West Oakland and tools to resist displacement. The burst of the “housing bubble” in 2008 began a process of siphoning the hard earned wealth of families of color into the hands of the …
Many of us know that the U.S. has over 2.5 million people in prison, more than any other country (with 5% of the world population, the U.S. has 25% of the prisoners). We are aware of social justice campaigns working to change laws such as three-strikes laws or mandatory sentencing …
In the “Good Little White Girl” blog Janet Carter investigates the ways she learned to be white, growing up in a white liberal family in the Vermont of the 1950s and 1960s. She invites us to examine and reflect on how we all, as children, have been conditioned around race, …
by Christopher Bowers The mission of Racial Justice Allies of Sonoma County has been to create a space in which white people can explore their social position, work to be better allies to people of color and develop a sense of responsibility for the manifestations of racism. Responsibility. Response-ability. It …
by Judy Helfand I went to the Black Panther Party 47th Reunion on Saturday to hear the women’s panel at noon and ended up staying the whole day. When the Panthers formed in 1967 I was graduating from UC Berkeley and connected up through my partner and close friends with …
by Carol Kraemer The 47th reunion of the Black Panther Party in Santa Rosa, CA, was a three day event that was largely organized by Elbert “Big Man” Howard, and his many friends who were present testified to how he was ALWAYS an organizer. I was only able to attend …
At a recent Racial Justice Allies meeting we were talking about how to be an effective ally and a member mentioned her friend who had allied herself with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, “an organization of Afrikans in America/New Afrikans whose mission is to defend the human rights of our …
by Matthew Simmermon-Gomes This morning, I woke up to this. Like many, many people within and without the black community, I followed this case intently and had (continue to have) definite opinions on them (the justice of those opinions is another matter) and, like many, I received the news not …