BERNIE aadvocate $ANDERS: Capitalist Pig Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 in Socialist Drag Page 24

ALSO INSIDE: Reforms to Sexual Harassment Policies on Campus: Cases Still Underreported 17 “Democracy Rising” : Fighting Austerity in Greece 29 (Mis)Understanding Gang Violence in El Salvador 32 “Digital India” and a Defense of Dissidence 9 Page 2 —Volume 27Fall no.1, 2015 We payforallcontributions. be subjectedtoeditorial revision. Articles selected for publication will for submissionguidelines. tothe editor. See thewebsite letters of articles, illustrations, photos and The Council. toral Students’ student activity and theDoc- fees year. Publication is subsidized by CUNY. It is published six times a lication of theGraduate Center, The advocate Opencuny.org/gcadvocate Managing Volume 27Fallno.1,2015 [email protected] Advocate accepts contributions Advocate Publication Information a Editor in Layout Editor Editor Chief Submissions isthestudentpub-

Hebert Paul L. Rani Bhargav Maye Dadland advocate

THEATRE REVIEW: TheLegendof Those Fools You CallIntellectuals: (Mis)Understanding Gang Violence (Mis)Understanding Open LettertothePresidentand Bernie Sanders:Bernie CapitalistPigin Responsible LiteracyinaDigital Policies onCampus: CasesStill Reforms toSexualHarassment Reforms “Digital India” andaDefenseof Speak-Out! StopRacist Terror! CONTENTSFILM REVIEW: BlackPanthers: BOOKREVIEW: Betweenthe “Democracy Rising”: Fighting THE CUNYEXPERIENCE Vanguard oftheRevolution Philosophical Introduction Portable India:of Portable AVision Nonviolent Resistance: a CONVERSATIONS Austerity inGreece Georgia McBride BOOK REVIEW: Underreported CUNY NEWS World andMe Socialist Drag in ElSalvador FEATURES Democracy REVIEWS Dissidence DEBATE Provost

43 40 38 35 32 29 24 22 20 17 14 9 7 EDITOR’S NOTE

Dadland Maye

I have long been concerned about I must scream enough so I can ter. As I read Gordon’s contribution, the vulnerability of the Graduate hear myself and remember who I wonder—is there any usefulness Center as an ethical place of knowl- I am—that I can think—that I can in borrowing from BLM’s activist edge acquisition and production. speak what I can think—that I can strategy that disrupted the town- For how can there be ethically pro- practice how to be silent and listen hall meeting with Martin O’Malley ductive exchanges among the in- to others who embody freethinking. and Sanders months ago? Is it time habitants of this place if our opera- I must amplify my names so that you to disable politeness when speaking tional structures solely allot agency feel the fire and a consequent temp- to those who claim to stand as allies and visibility to certain bodies and tation to scream your own names with people of color? How should I, voices? As the new Editor-in-Chief, as part of a long process of destroy- for instance, get the attention of the I occupy this position with an old ing the Graduate Center’s garments English department in which I am sickening burden: Me tired ah being that comfortably cloak voices and doing research on Caribbean and lonely. All around me are wonder- bodies like mine. Outside the doors African LGBT persons who obtain ful smiling people, yet the elevators of the Graduate Center, on its very US political asylum? feel lonely, the lounges stink with steps, my body automatically posi- As a queer political asylee, I just strangeness, di Dinning Commons tions me as a shooting target for cannot cuddle conventions of po- is the big haunted room! Me tired the police. And within its doors, in liteness comfortably. Back in Port- ah me head hurting with questions every elevator ride to another floor, more-Jamaica, fifteen years ago, I about how and when will this mad- on most admissions committees, in woke from a dream and discovered ness end. And it doesn’t get easier, every incoming cohort, names like my apartment on fire. Fleeing the knowing that I must learn and de- mine that carry certain baggage and blaze, I rushed outside to find ho- ploy the conventions of the domi- bounty of histories are shot down mophobes firing bullets at me. This nant culture in ways that perpetu- and shut out of opportunities. So in is one of many episodes that raised ate its entitlement syndrome. There what way must this Afro-Jamaican me into a tradition in which I had to is an expectation that I must skill- speak his name into visibility while fight with my voice, hands, and feet, fully utilize the existing strategies to rebuking traditions of black testi- from elementary school yards to disguise and erase the characteris- monial erasures? adulthood streets. And nights saw tics that denote the validity of Dia- The article of former Editor-in- me masturbate to ejaculate away sporas of color. Today, therefore, I Chief, Gordon Barnes, addresses the pain of histories in order to fall will use this space and scream re- an event with Bernie Sanders and asleep with some amount of joy and bellion. Me will scream me names. the protestors of Black Lives Mat- peaceful heartbeats. But the follow-

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 3 ing days, I often rushed to mirrors ally cloaked and punctuated the re- only to discern whether wrinkles ality of my identities with sanitized had appeared in my face too soon. scholarships and conference talks. Thank goodness, though, I still be- Here, as victim of institutional prac- lieve I’m handsome. For look at my tices that erase identities, I am rein- hair, I say to myself, these locks— scribing those problematic conven- the queer, tangled growth like my tions by cleansing the orthography personality—wild and eccentric. of a word—its authentic character, And don’t I have this graceful scar passion, pride, rebelliousness, and in my face, given to me in my teens resilience—only so I can glorify po- because homophobes thought my lite readership tastes. I want to tell hips had swayed like a woman’s? my department and all the other And what about the slashes along departments in this building—Stop my back? These latter body mark- trafficking in blackness! Black lives ings—once upon a time prints of matter! Yes, black lives really mat- shame—have now become the ter. And don’t tell me that All Lives symbols of my affirmed identities, Matter. If that were the case, it my names, because I confronted would have reflected in our yearly the strangers and family whom I incoming admissions population loved, and I forced them to hear the and faculty hiring trends. screams of my many names. Yes, I support the view that, in Therefore, I must turn to a fact order to eradicate marginalizing that it has been at least three years practices, it’s fundamental to ex- now that our English Department— pose persons who establish careers which I love—has been hosting by purporting to be laborers for yearly pre-admissions events. The the most vulnerable populations. flyers for the events claim to have a For that reason, in the spring se- special desire for African-American mester, I attended a DSC meeting applicants. Yet year after year, I ob- to ask President Chase Robison a serve the department’s enrollment question. Whether we like his man- ratios barely change. African-Ameri- agement style or not, let us give can students remain disproportion- credit where it is due. As provost ately represented when considering for five years, Robinson positioned New York City’s racial composition. our college as one of the leaders of How do I say to my beloved depart- the digital humanities—an area on ment where most of the faculty which Bhargav Rani’s article sheds have been welcoming to me and light from an Indian geographic to black discourse in their research perspective. Robinson also initiated and conference talks—I am sick and programs such as the Advanced tired of your f**king bullshit! Research Collaborative and the Ini- Oh yes, it unnerves me that I have tiative for the Theoretical Sciences. to cloak the identity of the word that Yet, since it has become overwhelm- precedes bullshit in the same way ing to hear everybody with the word that institutionalism has tradition- Diversity at the tip of their tongues,

Page 4 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 EDITOR’S NOTE

I asked the president, what were his But I would hope that you will not gest that Donald Trump may have anticipated next steps towards eq- place me into an ideological bucket a point addressing the country’s uitable racial representation in the because I will disappoint you. My broken borders. Such an acknowl- Graduate Center’s enrollment and politics navigate in no specific direc- edgement can result in a person hiring practices—and what spe- tion. My views—not my integrity— being labeled an Uncle Tom if s/he cifically could he accomplish now changes as the days and seasons is a person of color, or racist if s/he which was impossible while serving go by. In fact, I enjoy this privilege is white. A second scenario may in- as provost? because, as a doctoral student, I am volve critics arguing that some fem- Fluently, the president explained constantly exposed to new ideas inist scholars fail to acknowledge that he appointed a committee to that nurture my ever-evolving un- that many of their articulations rein- address the issue. I observed the derstanding of our world. I con- sert the very gender inequities their calmness on his face as he spoke. I sider it dangerous that our culture work seeks to dismantle. Such crit- took keen note of his temperament demonizes persons who consis- ics may face accusations that they in handling the question. Obviously, tently reevaluate their ideological are sexist if they are male, or still the question was an easy abc for positions. This remains prominent living in the intellectual dark ages him. Things are easy when we are in electoral campaigns where lines if they are female. Evidence of the overexposed to them; aren’t they? from twenty years ago haunt presi- plantation mentality occurs even Quietly, I listened as he performed dential contenders. I want to assure close to us. There have been cases his answer. President Robinson’s you that this paper will serve as a of students engaging some mem- response embodied the skillfulness space for contending and evolv- bers of the DSC, arguing that their of a corporatized, institutionalized, ing ideas. Here, there is no ideo- activism fails to understand that the rhetorical design. Softly I smiled logical agenda to take to Walmart’s college will sometimes have to pay and shook my head. For what else shelves, and no ideological planta- big bucks to attract academic stars could I have done in response to tion to fertilize. and high-profile administrators a performance than allow my own Plantation mentalities unsettle who will raise the college’s prestige. smile to perform peacefulness? me. Such ways of thinking and Such students have being accused Indeed, I must scream my names speaking are produced in ideologi- of being in the pockets of power- here to let you know what I bring cal fields managed by Massa-style ful administration members. The to this paper and where I hope to liberals, conservatives, radicals, civil plantation mentalities use a body take us. It is already clear that is- rights activists, queer scholars, fem- of rhetorical platitudes harvested sues of race, sexuality, and high inists, environmentalists, and oth- from the farms of identity politics. education bureaucracy concern me. ers. Say, for instance, one may sug- And rather than interrogate and refashion the platitudes, members of ideological plantations unleash their verbal violence to cripple op- ponents. While one of my major goals is to accommodate a plurality of views, I must mention that if sufficient articles are not submitted, there will be only few good options from which to choose. Certainly, it is the job of the editorial staff to solicit good articles, but I would encour-

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 5 EDITOR’S NOTE

age participation rather than sup- Kyla Bender-Baird, Charlotte Thur- in closed offices and committees, port judgmental and non-proactive ston, Theodor Maghrak, and Carlos we aggressively project and pro- practices. Patterns of only criticizing Camacho? tect our visibility of bodies, talks, rather than also seeing ourselves as Naming and screaming our names and thoughts. Everyone must be a community is pointless. I have and those of others are important. seen and recognized to ensure that heard numerous persons criticize It creates a culture of awareness, the Graduate Center is not a lonely the paper for not providing enough affirmation, celebration, and con- place for people who look like me views and not having great arti- fidence. It destabilizes tendencies while being a nurturing home for cles—and their complaints piled up that favor subject invisibility and people who look like President into the heavens—but what have erasures. By sharing pieces of my Chase and the majority of the Eng- they done to remedy the process? names today, some might argue, lish Department. How can the con- Why didn’t they submit an article I have circumvented the genre of sciences of our scholars, educators, for consideration? popular editorial writing. And the administrators, and students be at In response to these questions, question of genre circumvention is peace knowing that the necessities they remind you that they were one with which I wrestled as I wrote of screams aren’t remedied in the busy doing research. But as mas- this piece. But do you know what same manner as certain whispers? ter’s and doctoral students, aren’t kept me going? It was the recur- we all busy with our academic ca- ring thought that nobody owns my reers? That’s the problem—there thoughts. I am a free thinker. One are too many of us who benefit of the most fundamental concepts from the student activist tradition, I hope to channel within every issue but have no idea who labored be- of this paper is the need to break hind the scenes. Consider the arti- outside the borderlines that have cle by Liza Shapiro and Cecilia María traditionally delimited freethink- Salvi, whose University Student Sen- ing. By screaming our names to this ate work addresses the problem of paper in the form of submissions, university-wide sexual harassment and screaming our multiple names patterns. Aren’t these writers doing to colleagues in bars, and to fac- valuable work that safeguards the ulty members, including advisors, basic rights we enjoy from being a part of the Graduate Center com- munity? What about the names of “There are too the men and women who, year af- ter year, battle and negotiate with many of us who the administration and faculty lead- benefit from the ership in order to foster programs and policies that fund students and student activist give them more voting access on transformative committees? How tradition, but about the names of our DSC lead- ership that we sent into office for have no idea who 2015-16—Amy Martin, Jennifer Prince, Hamad Sindhi, Liza Shap- labored behind iro, Saiful Saleem, Jeremy Randall, the scenes.”

Page 6 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 CUNY NEWS Performance of Iddo Netanyahu’s play at CCNY sparks protests

The City College Center of a well-to-do Jewish cou- This perverse irony was in a joint statement on for the Arts in partner- ple, grappling with wheth- of course not lost on the the protest, “It has always ship with the Division of er to flee Germany and students gathered outside been clear that CUNY Humanities and Arts pre- leave behind their home the venue to speak out Public Safety is not here sented a play, A Happy and friends, or to stay put against CUNY’s complic- to protect the interests of End, by Iddo Netanyahu, in the increasingly peril- ity in the dissemination the students, the staff or brother to Israeli Prime ous political climate of of reactionary ideologies. the community. They are Minister Benjamin Netan- Hitler’s rise to power. Apart from the hostil- the repressive apparatus yahu, earlier this month. While the theme in it- ity they faced from some that reinforces the ruling On 10 September, the self holds a promise of spectators, there was also class agenda which is car- Revolutionary Student empathetic association the constant presence and ried out by the Board of Coordinating Committee, with the protagonists by threat of the CUNY Public Trustees and Administra- Students Without Borders, invoking a dark history of Safety officers. The orga- tion.” It must also be not- and NYC Students for Jus- immense cruelty and ter- nizers had also scheduled ed that the coercive ap- tice in Palestine came to- ror, the political context an open public forum at paratus of the university gether at the performance of its current production the end of the play. How- is not limited to the threat venue, Aaron Davis Hall, render the play, to put it ever, when the protesting of violence and repres- to protest against CUNY’s mildly, grossly misplaced students tried to enter the sion that the CUNY Public active endorsement of the and inappropriate. Even Hall to participate in the Safety officers represent Zionist ideology. as the actors strive to “open” forum, they were to students who choose A radiologist, novelist, make the audience feel barred from entering by to speak out, but is seam- and playwright, Iddo Ne- for the plight of the Jew- the security officers on lessly interpolated into its tanyahu served in Sayaret ish couple in Hitler’s Ger- ridiculous grounds. One academic structures as Matkal, the Special Forces many, the inherent con- of the students who con- well. Students of the The- unit of the Israel Defense tradiction surfaces when fronted the Dean of Hu- atre department at CCNY Forces. And he has been one considers the exactly manities for the right of were required to attend a vocal advocate of his same predicament of the all students to participate the play as part of their brother’s genocidal expe- millions of Palestinian ci- in the forum was arrested credit, which in itself is ditions into Palestine. His vilians under perennial and issued a summons. coercive and all the more play, set in 1930s Berlin, threat of bombing by the As pointed out by the insidious in its banality. dramatizes the dilemma Israeli state. RSCC, SWB, and NYC SJP

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 7 A Wake-up Call for Chancellor Milliken

A year since Chancel- use not for new lor James B. Milliken as- programs or sumed office there is little progressive edu- change in the status of the cational reforms long-pending contract for but, as the DSC CUNY faculty and staff. remarked in the With this start of a new last Advocate academic year, employ- issue, for liter- ees of the university have ally “keeping the gone without a contract lights on.” for five years and without The PSC has a raise for six. Moreover, called for an in- the Professional Staff Con- tensification of gress, the union of CUNY its resistance 30 October, leading up to across the country. How- faculty and staff, now re- and arranged an “esca- a “Disruptive Mass Action” ever, CUNY employees’ mains the only union of lated series of actions” to on 4 November. decision to abstain from public employees in New demand for a swift ap- Although Barbara a mass walkout is rooted York State without a con- proval of a contract with Bowen, the President of in the New York State’s tract or a raise since 2009. fair terms of employment the PSC, writes that the Taylor Law of 1967, which Chancellor Milliken has for the faculty and staff. union’s resistance will prohibits public employ- also failed to effectively Throughout September, be “escalating further if ees from going on strikes, counter the austerity it organized union meet- needed,” it might do well penalizing those who do measures that are partic- ings at various campuses to remember the legal with fines of two days’ ularly detrimental to a across CUNY. It called limits of “escalation” that wages for every day of public university system for a demonstration out- the PSC was forced to work missed. Faced with like CUNY. More than half side Chancellor Milliken’s confront earlier this year. an administration that the CUNY undergraduates expensive Manhattan The PSC organized a se- has consistently failed to have family incomes of apartment paid for by the ries of town hall meetings stand up for its employ- less than $30,000 a year, university on 1 October, and teach-ins in Febru- ees and a state that out- and three-quarters are the morning of the first ary, much like its present laws civil disobedience, it Black, Latino, or Asian, CUNY board meeting of proposed plans, as part is imperative that we re- and what is at stake is the the year, and we urge our of the National Adjunct flect imaginatively on the very quality of education readers to participate in Awareness Week, which methods of “escalation” offered in the university. solidarity. In addition, the was an offshoot of a na- to be employed and con- Due to the consistent bud- PSC planned two weeks tion-wide movement, the ceive of ways to aggres- get cuts, the 31 percent of local actions and orga- National Adjunct Walkout sively push for a fair set- increase in tuition fees nized teach-ins at the vari- Day, observed on 25 Feb- tlement of a contract that since 2011 is being put to ous campuses, from 19- ruary in many universities has been long overdue.

Page 8 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 DEBATE those

youFOOLS call Intellectuals

Bhargav Rani

In the political climate of our meaning “understanding,” or intel- times, “intellectual” is a dirty word. legere, “to understand.” However, It is more often than not invoked in the disparaging application of the a tone of disparagement, in a man- label in contemporary political ner of cursory disdain, to dismiss practice is a complete reversal of an unsavory political discourse by its original signification, for it is em- bringing the very credibility of the ployed to convey precisely a lack of agent of discourse into question. understanding of the political situa- The word “intellectual,” in its literal tion by the “intellectual.” Moreover, sense, signifies a “person possess- the target of disdain is the very ing a highly developed intellect,” characteristic that defines an “intel- deriving from the Latin intellectus lectual” - the reliance on intellect. That is, the credibility of “intellec- tuals” is brought into question pri- “Digital India” and a marily because their knowledge is perceived to be rooted in thought as opposed to being derived from Defense of Dissidence political practice or experience. It

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 9 is this age old dialectical drama of Pollock, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, disregard for human rights and civil theory and practice that all too fre- Partha Chatterjee, and CUNY pro- liberties, as well as the autonomy quently finds a stage in the arena of fessors Meena Alexander and Manu of educational and cultural institu- contemporary politics. Bhagavan of Hunter College. That tions.” A particular disambiguation of is, it was a statement by a group The rebuttal was swift and vehe- this drama came to the fore again of intellectuals by vocation, in the ment. Days after the statement was recently when the Indian Prime primary sense of the word. These published on a blog, its signatories Minister Narendra Modi announced scholars advocated for an exercise came under strong attack in a num- his plans to visit Silicon Valley in Cal- of caution in subscribing to the ber of right-wing news outlets in ifornia on 27 September. This visit propositions of “Digital India,” call- India, with their call for prudence is, in part, geared towards promot- ing for a more critical evaluation of touted as a demand for boycott and ing the government’s new program, “its lack of safeguards about privacy painted variously as either “comic” “Digital India,” an ambitious project of information, and thus its poten- and “arrogant” or as “malicious” that aims to develop digital infra- tial for abuse.” and “slander.” An opposing group structure in rural India to provide As the statement notes, “Digital of scholars, many of them known widespread connectivity and cul- India” seems to ignore key ques- advocates of “Shri” Narendra Modi’s tivate digital literacy. Some of the tions raised in India by critics con- regime, soon published a counter- program’s initiatives include provid- cerned about the collection of per- statement staunchly endorsing the ing mobile Internet connectivity to sonal information and the near government’s proposed schemes to rural populations, increasing trans- certainty that such digital systems “urge some academics to lift their parency in bureaucracy and digi- will be used to enhance surveil- veil of ignorance that wages eco- tizing the workflow through such lance and repress the constitution- nomic war against India.” methods as biometric attendance, ally protected rights of citizens.” The most vocal among them was, and the concomitant creation of Moreover, the collective of schol- not surprisingly, Madhu Kishwar, jobs. In addition, Modi is scheduled ars, with “particular attention to a Professor at the Centre for the to meet with a number of Indian history,” that being their job, drew Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, diasporic entrepreneurs in an effort attention to the manifold acts of re- and an active propagandist for the to foster Indo-US business linkages pression by the Modi government right-wing regime (and so, although and facilitate a cross-flow of invest- over the past year, including vari- an intellectual by vocation, not an ments. ous episodes of censorship, impo- “intellectual”), who supplemented Soon after the announcement of sitions on academic freedom, and the counter-statement with another Modi’s intended visit to Silicon Val- the violations of religious freedom lengthy rebuttal of her own in the ley, a collective of scholars and aca- in the country. The tenor of this un- right-wing newspaper, First Post. demicians engaged in research in a folding history, the scholars argued, To quote just one from the many range of interdisciplinary concerns demands that we assume a skepti- gems of logical vacuity that are pro- constituting the broad field of South cal, critical position with respect to fuse in the article, Kishwar, while Asian studies in various universities the government’s proposals, and accusing the dissident scholars of across the United States published they urged those who lead the Sili- conspiring to “keep India mired in a statement expressing their reser- con Valley technology enterprises poverty, promote strife among its vations. The signatories of the state- to be “mindful of not violating their people, and keep it vulnerable to ment, about 135 of them, include own codes of corporate responsibil- terror attacks,” goes so far as to some of the most distinguished ity when conducting business with characterize their criticism of the professors studying and writing on a government which has, on several Modi government as “a McCarthy India like Arjun Appadurai, Sheldon occasions already, demonstrated its type witch-hunt against a popularly

Page 10 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 DEBATE

elected chief minister.” the agents of the dissident dis- are self-evident, and I don’t mean While it is not in the scope of this course is that they are all scholars that as a compliment. The argument article to appraise the truth-value working in universities in the United goes that these dissident scholars of the statements of the dissident States, that is, the “intellectuals” are have renounced their rights to com- scholars, let it suffice to say that the all “Americans.” At the outset, the ment on the political state of affairs claims to verity that each faction of diasporic identity of these scholars, in India when they migrated from the debate asserts are founded on which forms the focus of criticism, their homeland. “Forsaking” here two mutually exclusive domains of hardly seems at odds with the case unequivocally implies betrayal. It discourses. While the advocates of in question, for, one would assume, not only posits the “forsaking” indi- the political Right draw from the Indian scholars working in universi- vidual as the Other but also absolves “official” history composed of dis- ties in the United States would logi- the self of complicity in the process courses “legitimized” by the state, cally be at an advantageous posi- of Othering, for it locates the logic like the judicial documents that tion to comment on policy matters and praxis of “forsaking” within the acquit Modi of wrongdoing in the pertaining to the relations between body of the “forsaking” individual. 2002 Gujarat riots and much of the the two nations. However, that That is, “forsaking” is self-imposed, corporate, national media that cel- was obviously not how it was per- an act of agency, in which volition ebrates him daily, its critics, with a ceived. The rhetorical manipulation is implicit. due sense of the politics of histo- underlying the invocation of the Thus, the power relation between riography, question such uncritical “American”-ness of these scholars is the “forsaking” individual and the faith in the incorruptibility of the two-pronged: the first relates to the “loyal” citizens of the homeland state apparatus that produces these idea of “forsaking” the homeland, is distinct from other modalities discourses. However, my interest in and the second to their “alienation” of migration like exile. This pas- this article is not in the quagmire from the realities of the homeland. sivity of the self in the Othering of that is the debate on the truth-val- The nationalist undertones to the the “forsaking” individual is what ue of either discourse, but rather logic of “forsaking” the homeland constitutes the basis for the moral in the question of who constitutes high ground that the advocates a “truth-teller.” What is most strik- of the political Right assume. This ing about the general tenor of most “The argument “forsaking” is, in essence, a “forsak- discourses that emerged from the ing” of the nation, and the rhetori- political Right in defense of the rul- goes that these cal manipulation underlying such ing regime is that they consistently, a characterization of the dissident often through the means of the dissident “intellectuals” is in the service of same set of rhetorical maneuvers, scholars have invalidating their status as possible questioned the credibility of the “truth-tellers.” dissenting scholars – those fools renounced But the hollowness of this argu- you call “intellectuals.” ment evinces when we recognize The most recurrent motif in the their rights to that the diasporic condition of the rhetoric informing the pejorative dissident scholar is, in fact, no dif- application of the word “intellectu- comment...when ferent from that of the successful al” in this specific case relates to the Indian entrepreneur and techno- subject position of these dissident they migrated crat in Silicon Valley. The conditions scholars. That is, the principle argu- from their of migration in either case can be ment propounded by the political appraised within the larger context Right in their effort to delegitimize homeland.” of the neoliberal turn in the Indian

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 11 economy from the 1990s and the migration stands as an act of em- the relation of one’s discourse to globalization of human capital. That powerment, not just of the migrat- their field of study is now pretty is, both cases of migration stem ing individual but also of the nation? much a necessary condition of from a philosophy that has enjoyed This selective persecution only goes academic rigor. That is to say, the wide currency in India, particularly to show that this characterization construction of the much maligned after the IT industry boom of the as the “forsaking” individual is a po- figure of the senile scholar locked 1990s, which is that of the diaspor- litically charged rhetorical construc- in the “ivory tower” of academia ic condition constituting itself as a tion that implicitly strives to strip demands an ambiguation of what a utopia, a transcendent realm with the dissident scholar of the right to scholar really does and a revitaliza- the promise of emancipation from dissent. tion of the mythology of the colonial the drudgeries of the everyday in The second rhetorical maneuver historian or anthropologist on the the homeland. at play is the argument that the dis- stage of contemporary politics. Notwithstanding the critiques of sident scholar, lodged in the “ivory At the most basic level, the use of this philosophy of diaspora as uto- tower” of academia, is hopelessly “intellectual” in a disparaging sense pia that functions in the service of removed from the socio-political re- to discredit a dissident scholar un- capitalism, the question that arises alities, again a recurrent motif in In- ambiguously implies, or often ex- is this: what warrants the qualifi- dian politics. The invalidation of the plicitly mentions, that the scholar cation of the migration of the dis- credibility of the dissident scholar in question is “leftist” or “Marxist.” sident scholar as a “forsaking” of through this argument involves In the Indian political parlance, the the homeland when Modi’s visit the perpetuation of an essentialist pejorative connotation of “intellec- to Silicon Valley itself stands as an reading of the theory-practice dia- tual” is almost exclusively reserved affirmation, even a celebration, lectic. It categorically culls the “en- for “Marxists,” which includes, apart of the diasporic condition? What counter with truth” from the realm from the Marxists of course, any makes the scholar’s migration an of intellectual activity and defini- individual who questions the ac- act of betrayal when the engineer’s tively locates it within the realm of tions of the state. Another closely phenomenology. However, at the related us-and-them term of dis- very outset, it must be noted that dain is “anti-national.” At one level, “this conflation this rhetorical manipulation can be one can’t help but smile at the fact accomplished only when the many that this conflation of “intellectual” of ‘intellectual’ years of practical, phenomenologi- with “Marxist,” albeit pejorative, cal engagement of the scholars with is an implicit acknowledgement, with ‘Marxist... their fields of research, that is, the a silent nod, to the immense con- is an implicit practice of research that preempts tribution of Marxist scholarship to theory and that which constitutes critical thought for over a century. acknowledge- a significant part of every scholar’s At another level, the “intellectual” life, is erased from the public con- as “Marxist” is in itself a very con- ment... [of] sciousness. venient rhetorical maneuver to es- In addition, such a rhetoric must tablish the dissident scholar as de- the immense also turn a blind-eye to the abun- finitively dubious, simply because dance of discourse that emerged “Marxist” is an even dirtier word in contribution from the mid-twentieth century on Indian politics, especially so in the of Marxist the relation of theory to practice, current political climate. It is aimed the “logic of practice,” and ignore at establishing the scholar as the ir- scholarship...” the fact that self-reflexivity about reconcilable Other, and hence ineli-

Page 12 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 DEBATE

gible to make any claims to “truth.” Chauhan, at the helm of the pre- If I may be so bold as to return a mier film institute of the country. metaphor to its appropriate con- In the way of a conclusion, I might text, this is what would qualify as a as well touch upon my own subject “McCarthy type witch-hunt.” position, if that hasn’t been glaringly I wouldn’t want to completely obvious. As an Indian doctoral stu- dismiss the fact that all the sig- dent being trained in the practices natories of the statement were of intellectual production in a uni- academics from universities in the versity in the US, not only am I the United States. It is not clear if the subject of my own discourse, how- statement is meant to reflect the ever tangentially, but the very credi- position of Indian diasporic schol- bility of this discourse hinges on my ars on an issue that concerns the own credibility as a scholar. Here diaspora or that of scholars critical we come to the relation of “truth” of the right-wing regime. If it is the to the “truth-teller.” It is not merely latter case, the inclusion of schol- that the truth-value of this article is ars only from the United States is, incumbent on the validation of my I believe, simply bad rhetoric. But credentials, but the estimation of what I find most troubling about the “truth” of this discourse itself this US-centric collective has little determines my credibility. Filtered to do with the right-wing rhetoric of through the rhetorical prisms of “Marxism” or “anti-nationalism.” It “Marxism” and “anti-nationalism” rather has to do with the fact that by the political Right, the truth- this list of signatories is reflective of value of my discourse is always al- the general centralization of knowl- ready judged and condemned by edge production in mostly US and the extent of its deviation from the European universities. sanctified discourse of the state, My advocacy for a decentraliza- and it is this dissidence that calls tion of knowledge production is not my credibility into question, not rooted in an ideology of national- the other way around. It is then ism but rather in the resistance that the whole range of rhetorical to capitalistic monopolization of maneuvers is put to work. That is knowledge in the context of the to say, the academic credentials of increasing neoliberalization of the the dissident scholars are brought university. This nuance is, however, into question not in the service of lost on the political Right, for if the estimating the truth-value of their quality of research produced in the statement but rather the conviction country is a priority for the state, of their argument as fraudulent and we wouldn’t be having Y. Sudarshan malicious, by virtue of its dissidence Rao, a historian of questionable against the state, is what leads to methods who endorses the caste their disqualification as scholars of system, spearheading the direction no merit. Dissidence is what turns of historical research, and an indu- them into those fools you call “intel- bitably second-rate actor, Gajendra lectuals.”

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 13 Portable INDIA A Vision of Responsible Literacy in Digital Democracy

Rahul K. Gairola and Arnab Datta

On 21 August, 2015, Director Pra- that of digital literacy among rural able. Despite booming knowledge dipta Banerji of the Indian Institute populations. By “digital literacy,” we archives like Wikipedia, learning re- of Technology, Roorkee (IITR) and mean the hypertexts, databases, positories like Google Scholar, and Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla of the and resources that comprise the a 100% increase in the use of social University of California, San Diego, soft materials for education and re- media, namely Facebook, Twitter, hosted a roundtable discussion for search along with the hardware and and LinkedIn, in rural India access junior faculty that explored strate- infrastructure needed to support still remains a pressing issue. gies for improving technological them. Nearly a billion users will be sub- innovation in India. Although India One consequence of the poor in- scribing to mobile phones in the is the world’s third largest Internet frastructure is the lack of electronic coming decade according to a sur- user, after the United States and access to literary/ pedagogical tools vey in telecommunication regula- China respectively, only twenty per- in rural India. In the context of our tory reports provided by the Gov- cent of all Indians have Internet ac- definition, the absence of required ernment of India. In contrast, the cess. Of the 4.4 billion people in the software and hardware renders growth rate of Internet subscrip- world who are still offline, twenty- any knowledge of how to use digital tions in India is projected to be five percent reside in the world’s platforms inconsequential. nearly half the growth of mobile largest democracy. Interdisciplin- These have been realized through phone subscribers. Despite the ary research which combines Mi- the implementation of Internet difficulty in access to computers croelectronics and Communication based hypertexts, thereby making and preference for content in local along with Comparative Literature it accessible to scholars for a seam- languages as opposed to English, and Critical Theory can address less exchange of knowledge. In the mobile phone usage is rising and these statistics. This interdisciplin- Indian context, the internet has not becoming the primary platform ary alliance empowers us to tackle yet penetrated all rural areas, and through which rural India accesses one of South Asia’s most pressing hypertext-based implementation the Internet (in the case of smart issues in the twenty-first century, of digital archives is thus not vi- phones). Apart from enabling voice

Page 14 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 communication, fourth generation climate resistant. Such alterna- this research, made possible by mobile phones have multiple func- tives to digital archives that employ the transdisciplinary collaboration tionalities, specifically data storage both flash and allied memory chips, between STEM and HSS fields at in portable flash memory chips. In which users can easily access exclu- the Indian Institute of Technology, this context, one solution to the lack sively through their mobile phones, can enable digital literacy in the of Internet access can be provided eliminate dependence on Internet remotest parts of India and even- through portable data transfer. connection. State of the art mem- tually other poor and marginalized Flash memory chips readily, avail- ory technologies support novel regions around the globe. Until the able in mobile phones, enable con- technological trends in the Digital proper infrastructure is in place to venient access despite the impracti- Humanities, not only in terms of achieve digital democracy in In- cality of hypertext-based learning in the resources but also for efficient dia, we should support the spread rural India’s archives. archival of them. This will make of other pedagogical technologies While many digital archives use digital literacy in rural India feasible that could easily then be adapted DVDs and CD-ROMs for data stor- in the immediate future rather than to Internet platforms when the in- age, no research to date engages relying on bandwidth sensitive in- frastructure permits. In our vision, with alternative data storage and ternet connection. learning can and should occur with- retrieval in rural India archives. For We recognize that a move away out excessive dependence on the example, portable mediums that from pervasive internet usage Internet. are light weight, reliable, and which seems counterintuitive, but so For example, Avinanda Nath, provide high density data storage is the combination of our dispa- a junior research collaborator, is can be realized in extremely small rate fields that can improve digital studying digital transfer of popu- chips, and can be designed to be literacy in rural India. We believe lar animated films like the Disney

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 15 version of Rudyard Kipling’s “The around the globe, including the dia- Jungle Book” to flash drives. In her sporic communities living in New account, this animated film acts as York and served by The City Univer- a pedagogical tool on a number of sity of New York. levels: 1) it engages a classic work of literature in a filmic medium that would appeal to children; 2) it embodies the ethics and morals of which Kipling’s work is famous for and which society attempts to in- still in children at an early age; 3) advanced readings of this film for adolescents (versus children) inter- rogates the cartoonic representa- tions and supports advanced stud- ies of representation, stereotypes, and portrayal of rural India; and 4) the screening of the film against, for example, a white wall on any build- ing makes possible a wide and var- ied audience, as well as a portable, transferable, and thus accessible medium of instruction. Other such Internet-less media that can be stored on mobiles and flash drives include Power Point presentations, downloaded lectures, and les- sons available on the Internet, like MOOCS, and user-friendly transla- tion software. Without dependence on the In- ternet, such “innovative” technol- ogy can be swiftly implemented in, for example, the five rural villages recently designated to IITR under the Government of India’s Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (Uplift Rural India) program. This grassroots effort pro- vides technological resources to ru- ral, impoverished communities. While the current Digital India drive paves the long-term path for- ward, we offer these suggestions as immediate solutions that will continue to uphold India’s global reputation in ideas, innovation, and education. Our hope is that fur- ther research that brings together our disparate fields in the service of digital democracy will improve the lives of disenfranchised Indians

Page 16 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 Reforms to Sexual Harassment Policies on Campus Cases Still Underreported

Cecilia María Salvi and Liza Shapiro

Governor Cuomo signed the versity Student Senate (USS) passed prevalence, and characteristics of “Enough is Enough” bill into law a resolution in support of the uni- incidents of sexual assault and mis- on 7 July, 2015. It strengthens cur- versity’s efforts to protect students conduct.” Its findings revealed that rent college sexual harassment from discrimination in higher edu- on average, twenty percent of un- and violence policies by requiring cation. This was the first time the dergraduate female students and campuses to adopt a uniform defi- organization took a stand on this five percent of undergraduate male nition of affirmative consent and issue. The resolution called for USS students experienced sexual ha- establish an amnesty policy for stu- members and the School of Public rassment or assault. dents under the influence of drugs Health to conduct participatory re- Note that only nineteen percent or alcohol who report instances of search on the nature and extent of of eligible students responded sexual or gender harassment or as- on-campus harassment, impelled to the survey. This low rate of re- sault. It also increases training for by the desire to “foster a safe learn- sponse casts the survey’s findings in law enforcement officers. Both the ing environment for students, fac- an even more significant light when bill and the mandated proposed ulty, administrators, and staff and compared to the estimated rate of amendments to the CUNY Board of promote transparency in disciplin- those who experience sexual mis- Trustees’ bylaws (article XV), which ary processes.” conduct or assault. The most com- are set to go before the Board on We applaud these initiatives, par- mon reason for not reporting inci- 1 October, resulted from increased ticularly in light of the sobering sur- dents of sexual assault and sexual attention from the federal govern- vey, “AAU Campus Survey On Sexual misconduct is that it is not consid- ment and campus groups fighting Assault and Sexual Misconduct,” re- ered serious enough. Other reasons against the “rape culture” prevalent leased by the Association of Ameri- allude to shame and concern that on campuses across the nation. can Universities on 21 September. the reporting process is emotion- Last year, the Board revised and Administered across twenty-seven ally strenuous. Neither should it updated its Policy on Sexual Mis- universities nationwide, the survey be ignored that many victims “did conduct. And this past May, the Uni- attempted to “assess the incidence, not think anything would be done

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 17 about it.” These varied reasons also conduct based on gender identity, explain, in part, why overall rates of gender expression, and nonconfor- ^^ Both the complainant and re- reporting to campus officials and mity with gender stereotypes that spondent can request an advisor law enforcement or others were is sufficiently serious to adversely to accompany them throughout low—ranging from five percent to affect an individual’s participation the proceedings. twenty-eight percent, depending on in employment, education or other the specific type of behavior. CUNY activities. ^^ If the respondent withdraws The following quotes represent Sexual violence is an umbrella from the university before the the definitions the Board expects to term that includes: (1) sexual activi- hearing concludes, their tran- adopt into its Policy on Sexual Mis- ty without affirmative consent, such script will read “withdrew with conduct: as sexual assault, rape/attempted conduct charges pending.” If the “Sexual harassment includes un- rape, and forcible touching/fon- respondent does not appear, no- welcome conduct of a sexual na- dling; (2) dating, domestic and inti- tification of the findings will be ture, such as unwelcome sexual mate partner violence; (3) stalking/ placed in their records if the pro- advances, requests for sexual fa- cyberstalking (“stalking”) as defined ceedings continue in absentia. vors, and other verbal, nonverbal, in this policy.” ^^ The respondent can admit to graphic and electronic communica- Some of the proposed changes charges and accept the penalty. tions or physical conduct that is suf- to the Board’s bylaws that generally The complainant must be noti- ficiently serious to adversely affect aim to provide complainants with fied and may appeal. (This sec- an individual’s participation in em- the same opportunities as respon- tion is completely new). ployment, education or other CUNY dents in cases involving the CUNY activities. Policy on Sexual Misconduct are as ^^ No open hearings will be held Gender-based harassment is un- follows (the authors have replaced in cases involving “allegations of welcome conduct of a nonsexual the gendered pronouns he and sexual assault, stalking, or other nature based on an individual’s she found in the proposed chang- forms of sexual violence.” actual or perceived sex, including es with the gender neutral their): ^^ The prior mental or sexual his- tory of both the complainant and respondent is not admissible (ex- cept between the parties). Prior findings of violence or sexual as- sault are admissible during the penalty stage of the hearing, and either party can make an impact statement. (This section is com- pletely new).

^^ In general, it becomes more dif- ficult for a respondent to remove notations of code of conduct violations from their transcripts. Acts which are deemed report- able by the Clery Act will remain on transcripts.

While this bill and the proposed Board changes are an improvement in helping survivors, they still do not go far enough in changing the climate that make gender-based harassment, stalking, sexual harass-

Photo courtesy of the New York Post

Page 18 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 and sexual violence are rooted in For more information: “harassment patriarchy, misogyny, and homo The on campus Title IX coordina- and transphobia. You cannot sim- and sexual tor at the Graduate Center is Edith ply legislate that away. It is only due Rivera, who can be reached at eri- to the tireless efforts of on-campus violence are [email protected] or 212-817-7410. activists and organizations to draw attention to the pervasive nature of rooted in And from the NYC government the problem, of the survivors who website: “To report a sexual assault patriarchy, testify despite repercussions, and on a New York college campus to of the researchers who repeatedly the State Police, call the dedicated misogyny, demonstrate that on-campus vio- 24-hour hotline at 1-844-845-7269. lence is real that rape culture and and homo and In an emergency, call 911. gender-based harassment are be- ing recognized. And these efforts transphobia. For confidential resources, call must continue. the New York State Domestic and We know how easily sexual as- You cannot Sexual Violence Hotline at 1-800- sault, rape, and gender-based ha- 942-6906. In New York City, call simply legislate rassment go underreported and 1-800-621-HOPE (4673) or dial 311.” thus disregarded—or, like the re- that away.” cent case of the Owen Labrie rape trial, how easily perpetrators can twist the story to create “reason- ment, assault, and rape possible able” doubt. As officers of the Doc- in the first place. Additionally, the toral Student Council (DSC), we aim study found that students identify- to raise awareness of these pro- ing as transgender, genderqueer, or posed bylaw changes for the Gradu- non-conforming reported the high- ate Center community as both stu- est rates of sexual assault and mis- dents and faculty within the CUNY conduct. This raises awareness that system. We hope to make this infor- while the proposed changes and mation as accessible as possible so new focus on legislation are certain- that it can be shared in our class- ly positive, more can be done to ad- rooms to publicize the available dress and acknowledge the violence resources, and also to open up a that transgender and non-gender discussion about how to make cam- conforming people face on campus. puses free of sexual and gender- The governor and Board of Trust- based harassment a real possibility. ees might think a legal response is adequate. But gender harassment

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 19 Speak-Out! Stop Racist Terror!

CUNY Internationalist Marxist Club

“A year since Ferguson, racist Bland’s recent excitement in get- can-American and Latina, who have terror continues,” declared the ting a new job at her alma mater been murdered this year. They in- call for a Speak-Out Against Racist as well as her well-known activism cluded London Chanel, Taja Gabri- Repression. CUNY International- against police brutality. Given this elle DeJesus, and Ashton O’Hara. ists organized the protest outside background, the Speak-Out Against Placards declared solidarity with Hunter College on 2 September. Ap- Racist Repression had to consider the abducted teachers and college proximately 80 students and work- that a year since Ferguson, racist students of Ayotzinapa, Mexico; ers participated in the resistance terror continues. Having stopped supported the defense of immi- against the ongoing repression that and jailed Sandra Bland for “driving grant rights in the face of Donald led to Sandra Bland’s death in po- while black,” lynch-law terror cut Trump’s hate campaign and Barack lice custody. Pulled over by a police short her life on 13 July, 2015. Obama’s record-level deportations; officer in Prairie View, Texas, the Participants in the Hunter Speak- and voiced opposition to Demo- African American education worker Out held placards and joined in crats, Republicans and all capitalist and activist refused to bend to in- chants like “From Ferguson to New politicians. Internationalist speak- timidation. Video footage showed York, Stop Racist Terror” and “San- ers called for building a revolu- the fate Bland suffered from being dra Bland, Michael Brown – Shut tionary workers party, linking this violently arrested by police. And the Whole System Down.” Signs fea- to appeals to “uproot racism” and what happened during her confine- tured names and faces of Bland and achieve women’s liberation through ment and three days later opened others targeted by racist repression socialist revolution. the national conversation about and police violence. Among them Students, immigrant workers, and whether Bland actually hung her- stood Eric Garner, Mike Brown, adjunct professors spoke with fer- self in the holding cell. Authorities Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Samuel Du- vor. One new Club member said: attempted to pass it off as suicide. Bose, and Amadou Diallo. Other “The thing that scares me the But Bland’s family denounced the posters showed faces and names most is that it’s coming from the attempted cover-up by considering of transgender women, mainly Afri- NYPD, from people we’re told are

Page 20 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 there to protect us. But they’re not, is the only way to eradicate racism they’re against us, and they kill us and all forms of oppression, he said. “[Capitalism’s] every single day. And we have to Workers from the taxi and food in- watch them kill us on YouTube and dustries (including the Hunter cafe- legacy in the on Facebook every single day, and teria) participated in the Speak-Out, there’s no justice! Hearing [Eric together with low-paid adjuncts and United States Garner] say ‘I can’t breathe’ elev- others who spoke about the need of America: en times, and still nothing. You all to link labor struggles to the fight watch them die. No justice.” against racism. Several speakers de- human lives in When she ended her speech with marcated the contrast between rev- “Only Revolution Can Bring Justice!” olutionary class politics and liberal exchange for – a chant the Internationalist Club “identity politics.” They emphasized brought to recent protests – the the importance of mobilizing the profit.” crowd took up the call. An electric enormous potential power of the feeling filled the air. working class in the fight against Parents of the forty-three ab- oppression. As an example, they re- to indulge in illusions of pressuring ducted Ayotzinapa students sent a ferred to this year’s May Day when capitalist politicians to the left”; any special statement to the rally. Police the dock workers union (ILWU Local real fight against poverty, war and and army troops “disappeared” their 10) shut down the port of Oakland, racism means breaking from “sub- sons in the state of Guerrero on the California, and marched on City Hall jugation to the Democratic Party,” night of 26 September 2014. The to protest police terror, and union whether its candidate be Hillary parents, who had just addressed a activists marched in Portland, Or- Clinton or Bernie Sanders. “We mass meeting on their struggle or- egon, in the “Labor Against Racist need a revolution. That’s the only ganized by the Grupo Internacio- Police Murder” contingent. way we’re going to end this racist nalista at the National Autonomous Many speakers at the Hunter violence.” University of Mexico, sent “greet- protest addressed the inseparable ings to the struggle of the teachers, connection between capitalism and students and workers of CUNY…in racism in the United States. A rally their fight against the privatization organizer emphasized that racial of education and against the racist oppression is “fundamental to the murders orchestrated by the same nature of this capitalist state, born bourgeoisie that, at the internation- in the blood of black slaves and the al level, carried out [these] attacks. genocide of native peoples.” From Ferguson to Ayotzinapa, it’s “That is its legacy in the United the same struggle!” States of America: human lives in At the Speak-Out, an immigrant exchange for profit. The police were worker from Mexico connected the not created to protect human lives, message of internationalism to the but to enforce this ruthless equa- recent seventy-fifth anniversary tion, to act as the armed fist of of Leon Trotsky’s assassination in the capitalist state. The origins of Mexico City: “Trotsky told us that modern-day police forces lie in the the revolution must be internation- slave patrols of the South. The first al, because the capitalist system uniformed police force was estab- extends its claws internationally. lished in 1783 in Charleston, South In the country I come from, the op- Carolina to control the local slave pressed people are living on the bor- population.” der with that monster. They have a In his classic State and Revolu- wall against us, but we must build a tion, she noted, Lenin defines the bridge uniting the working class of state as an organ of class rule that all countries to defeat imperialism “legalizes and perpetuates oppres- and the ‘national’ bourgeoisie.” That sion.” She stressed: “We can’t afford

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 21 Dear President From Naomi Podber

I briefly met Robinson with & President Robinson dur - Provost ing his open office hours this past fall, and he sug - Lennihan, gested that I write to both of you with my con- Center community last ever funding the pro- scramble and apply for cerns about the sudden week. Again, I do not fessors of the program money that they had change in disbursement want to be disrespectful have been able to cobble already factored into of the Dean K. Harrison and am incredibly grate- together for them. I be- their finances for the Awards that students ful for the support I have lieve that when many coming school year, es- were surprised with received at the Graduate incoming students of pecially after many had last spring. As a white Center, but I believe that color were let into the already declined other student who has been this particular change program, the program jobs and scholarships in lucky enough to find a sent a problematic mes- faculty assumed they expectation of getting a yearly funding pack- sage to students that could rely on these stu- Harrison Award. Many age for each year that I needs to be brought to dents being able to ac- students in my cohort have been a student at the attention of the ad- cess yearly Harrison and adjacent cohorts the Graduate Center, I ministration. Awards, and since fac- proceeded to halt their have no personal stake Though student fund- ulty assumed this would important end-of-semes- in the disbursement of ing at the Graduate Cen- be a consistent fund- ter research and course- this particular award. ter is becoming stron- ing source, it gave them work to take the time to I simply observed the ger every year, as the the latitude to disburse apply for the Harrison hardships being faced administration works other funding opportu- Award, only to be told by many colleagues who on giving incoming nities to other incoming after they were rejected were affected by the students stronger and students. that the award had been changes and wanted to longer-term funding When the funding given to only Level III speak up, because I be- plans, professors on the structure was changed students and that they lieve that the changes admissions committees with very little advance were never really in the made were in direct here have always had warning, students who running for it in the first conflict with the Grad- the difficult job of re- had come to rely on this place. Level I students uate Center’s goal of cruiting strong students substantial sum each were not even able to re- “retain[ing] the best and into their programs with semester as their main apply for the award and most diverse students,” very limited funding. source of Graduate Cen- were also completely as stated in Section As a result, students in ter funding (often the cut off from a source of 4.2.A of the draft of the earlier cohorts generally only source of funding funding that they had Periodic Review Report have very differential they got from the Gradu- been relying on. for MSCHE, which was funding, based on what- ate Center) were left to I believe that this sent out to the Graduate

Page 22 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 last-second move (at declined other jobs and not help but remind a a colleague who was af- least, the students that scholarships by this time member of our current fected by this change, it affected were in- of year, specifically be- popular culture of the followed by a follow-up formed at the last sec- cause they had expected theme of the Hunger email sent last week in ond) was highly proble- to receive the Harrison Games. which the student ex- matic. One, it pulled the Award, and the situa- I would like the ad- plains that the fact that Graduate Center’s main tion has had long-term ministration to think no information about stream of support for effects on students who carefully about the mes- Harrison has yet been minority students out were already struggling sage that this change sent out this year may from under them, thus to find consistent sourc- sent to the many Level well mean that the stu- abandoning, causing se- es of income and fund- I, II, and possibly III stu- dent must take a leave of vere stress to, and jeop- ing. In addition (I am dents who found out in absence next semester. ardizing the academic embarrassed to mention an email that they were I can personally attest trajectories of the very it but the analogy is glar- no longer going to be that this is only one of students who the Grad- ing), the idea of sudden- able to rely on Harrison many, many similar sto- uate Center should be ly pulling the resources money for the coming ries from Graduate Cen- supporting (and claims specifically from minor- school year. As a sup- ter students. to be supporting) in its ity students and making plement, I am including efforts to become more them compete for an anonymized testimony I Sincerely, diverse. Again, many inadequate number of received months ago in students had already funding packages can- an informal email from Naomi Podber

Anonymized email: I don’t even know where to start... always work at side jobs to support myself (as opposed to working side jobs to support myself and also pay The first thing was how last minute everything was. $3000 in tuition, which is just not possible). We were told about the change when the deadline was From the email we got from the administration, it less than two weeks away. Then the deadline was ex- seems like they decided to give more money to fewer tended but this wasn’t communicated until there were students to avoid the bottleneck that happens when less than two weeks left AGAIN. So, I had to scramble students are ABD. The thing is, I’m not close to being to get my application materials together. Then, I made ABD yet, because I’ve gotten little to no funding over myself crazy getting the application in, only to be told the years, and it has slowed my progress. It’s an end- that we didn’t qualify anyway. Basically, it felt as if less hustle. we were being told, “your time doesn’t matter to us, Another thing is that I had received an email from kid.” I’m not sure I’m conveying how stressful that was. [the head of my department] letting me know about the When you’re working multiple jobs, time is tight. upcoming deadline. So, people like [the head of the Getting the Harrison fellowship in the past meant department] may have assumed that I had possibilities that I had tuition covered. I haven’t had a Grad any- for funding coming my way (meaning that I would not thing or a teaching fellowship to depend on. I had to need departmental funding) when in fact that was not find my own teaching jobs (and still do) to cover tuition. going to happen. If, for some reason, the available courses don’t fit with my schedule, then I can’t teach. So, having the Harri- son money at least let me have the peace of mind that my tuition would be covered, and then I knew I could See the follow-up email online

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 23 Bernie Sanders: Gordon Barnes Some months ago, I was at a bar in New York with an acquaintance of mine. While smoking with him outside, he gestured to one of his friends (a man I had never met be- fore) and said something to the ef- fect of, “Hey, Norman, you should chat with Gordon, he is a commu- nist too!” In that brief moment be- fore Norman and I began talking, I was imbued with this sense of giddy anticipation that I imagine most leftists feel when meeting some- one cut from a similar cloth. What would Norman be? I wondered. Did Marxism-Lenisism, Maoism, Stal- insm, Trotskyism, or any variety of hard-left politics influence him? As Norman approached, he said— “So Bernie Sanders, right?!” He stated it with such exuberance, and with the implicit assumption that I, as a “communist,” would of course sup- port Sanders. Almost instinctively, I blurted out, “Fuck that imperialist pig, he is a Democrat and a capi- talist, ain’t no way I am supporting him,” or a phrase which at least en- capsulated that sentiment. Over the course of the evening Norman, who identified politically as an anarchist, despite then working for a Demo- cratic Party operation in Connecti- cut, explained the supports Sanders for being the lesser of two evils. Capitalist pig

Page 24 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 Sander’s Record caucuses with the Democrats and is to the American-Israeli Public Af- a part of their committees in con- fairs Committee and the right-wing Now that the race for the US pres- gress. His primary campaign advi- Likud government of Israel, offering idency heats up and the Republi- sor, Ted Devine, served Democratic staunch support to Israel’s murder- can Party is in the full throes of its presidential nominees Al Gore and ous assault on the Palestinian pop- rather magnificent political theater, John Kerry. Rest assured, Sanders is ulation. He mobilizes the specter of demagoguery, and its otherwise ri- a Democrat through and through. “Islamic terrorism,” whilst simulta- diculously backwards politics, it is He is in no shape or form a socialist, neously supporting and encourag- quite clear that Sanders is the lesser at least not one that categorically ing Saudi Arabia (simply a different of two evils. He is also preferable to disavows capitalism. He is what Karl rendition of Islamic terrorism if we Hillary Clinton and any of the main- Marx and Friedrich Engels termed a consider Alain Badiou) to become stream bourgeoisie candidates. But “bourgeoisie socialist.” Simply put, more active alongside the US war being the lesser of two evils does on the domestic front, he wants to efforts in the Middle East. He sup- not make one “progressive,” “radi- attack the so-called “one percent” in ported the PATRIOT Act extension cal,” or “socialist,” the last label is, an effort to raise the most people in 2006 and voted for legislation of course, a favorite of Sanders and into the level of the bourgeoisie, or making fourteen provisions of the his supporters (democratic-socialist at least into a class position which act permanent, and sponsored so- more specifically). Sanders remains, easily maintains petty-bourgeoisie called “roving wiretaps” conducted as I said to Norman, an imperialist consciousness. This is, of course, by the FBI. The list goes on and on. and a capitalist. It is disheartening untenable and impossible under Sanders’ voting record really is a to see how many leftists – in orga- capitalism. litany of grotesque positions and nized groups and parties as well as Furthermore, Sanders is as bel- measures of suppression and co- individually – fawn over this man, licose an imperialist as they come. ercion, both “at home” and abroad. gushing now that a self-avowed so- Aside from abstaining in the 1991 And his politics are reflective of this, cialist has a somewhat realistic shot Gulf War vote, Sanders has voted in to the point that him being the sort at the US presidency. It is a sign of the affirmative for nearly every mili- of messianic figure certain groups “progress” that a “socialist” can fea- tary action overseas during his ten- and individuals have made him out sibly win the presidency of the Unit- ure as a senator. Highlights include to be is nothing short of myopic. ed States in this day and age, just his endorsing the US-led interven- as it was “socially progressive” that tion in Somalia in 1991 and the a black man was elected president NATO bombing campaign in the for- in 2008. But like Barack Obama, The US Left and Sanders mer Yugoslavia in 1999, voting for Bernie Sanders’ identity is not what When Sanders officially an- open-ended Authorization for the is going to disrupt or change the nounced his bid for the Demo- Use of Military Force, various votes status quo. If we recall, many on cratic presidential nomination in for military appropriations in Iraq the Left had similar notions about May 2015, he stated, “We need a and Afghanistan, and his unwaver- Obama’s election being some sort of political revolution in this country ing support of Obama’s drone war- panacea for American societal ills. involving millions of people who fare in Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya. Obviously it wasn’t the case then, are prepared to stand up and say, Granted, he doesn’t want “boots on and it isn’t the case now, even if ‘enough is enough,’ and I want to the ground,” but rest assured that if Sanders is more “progressive” than help lead that effort.” Sure, this Sanders becomes Commander-in- Obama is. country needs a political revolution. Chief, the belligerent international For all intents and pur- But a political revolution is not suf- policies of the United States would poses, Sanders is a Democrat. He ficient to supplant dominant social merely continue unabated. endorsed both of Barack Obama’s relations endemic to the capital- Sanders is also quite amenable campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and he ist economy. This country, as most Capitalist pi in socialist drag.

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 25 others do, needs a social revolution, an editorial in the Jacobin, a well- fantasy. If Sanders loses, he will de- which would also necessitate the regarded socialist journal went so liver his voters to Clinton, or who- former. Sanders has no intention of far as to critically support Sanders, ever the Democratic nominee will altering social reality beyond some while “being aware of [the cam- be. The lack of critical insight into trite “tax the rich” schemes. If we paigns] limits.” And other articles in who and what Sanders represents recall, Donald Trump recently advo- the same publication are along sim- (liberal elites and liberal “amelio- cated a similar sort of “progressive” ilar lines, the most radical of which rated” forms of capitalist enterprise taxation. Bernie Sanders’ sole claim lament that Sanders is running as a to be clear), and what he politically to any sort of radical or “socialist” Democrat, which is very lukewarm stands for is detrimental to the Left politics is nothing of the sort. He is criticism indeed. The Communist in this country. It is precisely these simply a Left-liberal, a social-dem- Party USA, long time supporters of sorts of opportunistic politics that ocrat, one who wants to remedy a Left Democrats, claimed that Sand- lead to resounding political defeats, socio-economic system but has no ers gave socialist politics “respect- massacres, and at times, even the viable solution to end oppression ability” and legitimacy. As if the wholesale liquidation of revolution- and social marginalization. precepts of revolutionary social ary minded folks across the globe. With some tapping into the ob- change rest on the respectable and I am specifically referencing Chi- fuscating rhetoric of Occupy Wall legitimate nature of the politics in na in 1927, Spain in 1936, Germa- Street, Sanders has been billed question. ny in 1939, Indonesia in 1965, and as the champion of middle-class Socialist Alternative and the In- Chile in 1973. Now, let it be clear, America, and even at times as an ternational Socialist Organization, at this current historical juncture, advocate of the working-class. the two largest left-wing parties in the Left’s support of Sanders won’t These are spurious claims; yes he is the United States, opted to endorse lead to the murder of communists opposed to the superordinate elite, Sanders. The former is the same by the government or reactionary but these people are simply the top party of Seattle City Council Mem- militias, nor will it lead to fascism. of the pyramid. They are a symp- ber Kshama Sawant who capitulated These politics, however, are of the tom, not the disease. The disease to the Democratic Party in no short same genealogy, and are so devoid is capitalism; indeed, the disease time, and openly endorsed Sanders of any strategic and tactical acumen is the pyramid. Sanders is not able, as a candidate for president, even that if the social balances were any nor is he willing, to topple the pyra- prior to his official announcement. mid. He just wants to make sure Lamenting that he was running as a those in the upper echelons pay Democrat once the formal bid was their rightful share. This, of course, made clear, SA posited that Sand- “Occupy Wall will not happen. For one, the US ers should run as an independent if President’s primary responsibility he loses to Hillary Clinton. The ISO Street was one of is that of Commander-in-Chief, or took a slightly different line, argu- the first ‘radical’ in other words, leading US military ing that Sanders should have re- operations across the globe. The turned to Vermont to challenge the organizations to president’s power is attenuated do- incumbent Democrat (with Sanders mestically, with power being held in operating as an independent) in endorse Sanders’ Congresses (both federal and at the order to build a broad-based third state level). So for all that the presi- party option to the Republicans and campaign, dent actually is and actually does, Democrats. the US Left unfortunately has taken That the two largest “socialist” which... called up his domestic challenge to corpo- organizations in the country capitu- for political rate dynamism cause célèbre. lated on the basic Marxian principle Occupy Wall Street was one of (they do claim to be Marxists after subordination to the first “radical” organizations to all) of abjuring class collaboration endorse Sanders’ campaign, which and tailed after Sanders is nauseat- his ‘progressive along with other organizations ing and uncontainable. Their pro- called for a political subordination posed measures of “just having him campaign.” to his “progressive” campaign. Even run as an independent” are pure

Page 26 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 different in this country, such could very well be the reality. The fulsome praise of Sanders by certain sectors of the Left impedes any real chance for substantive social reorganiza- tion. And while not necessarily dan- gerous at this point in time, such politics will invariably prove detri- mental to radical social gains in the future. There are left-wing organizations that have rightfully attempted to demonstrate the fallacious argu- ments and deceptive politics of Sanders, the Internationalist Group portrayal of Seattle as a bastion of they too (or at least sections of the for one, as well as a few other progressive forces, citing the geno- movement) have openly capitulated Trotskyist organizations and anar- cide of indigenous peoples and the to more “civil” engagement with the chist groups. The most visible criti- recent construction of a new prison. powers that be, namely the Demo- cal engagement with Sanders’ cam- She also went on to discuss the (not cratic Party, the aforementioned paign, however, has come from the so unsurprising) instances of police engagements bring to the fore yet Black Lives Matter Movement. abuses, lack of social parity in the another problem with Sanders. He educational sphere, and the on- does not see an inherent problem going processes of gentrification. with the racialized structure of BLM and Sanders Johnson went on further to note capitalism. Really, the only conces- that since Sanders was claiming to sion given to BLM in the aftermath On 8 August, three activists from be a “grassroots” candidate (an apt of these heroic interventions was the Seattle branch of Black Lives description of his self-styled social- that Sanders hired a Black woman Matter made a heroic intervention democratic politics), he should be as part of his “outreach” team. Sim- at a Bernie Sanders event celebrat- in tune with the largest grassroots ply put, it is an attempted method ing the fiftieth anniversary of Social movement in the United States to- to stymie any dissent on the race Security and Medicare. Incidentally, day, Black Lives Matter. During this question, and get Black folks, par- the SA propagandized the event as portion of her speech, jeering and ticularly young Blacks, in lockstep a great meeting amongst socialists. booing from the crowd intensified, with his campaign. Sawant was present as well and particularly when she called for a Johnson and Willaford’s inter- she spoke before Sanders. Two of moment of silence in remembrance vention, as well as others, were the activists, Marissa Johnson and of Brown. The event ended soon good in the sense that they publicly Mara Jacqueline Willaford, took to thereafter. demonstrated the open hostility the stage just as Sanders declared Sanders released a statement cit- towards BLM by liberals and pur- Seattle “the most progressive city in ing himself as the only candidate ported leftists and socialists. The America.” After a brief scuffle, some willing to “fight hard” against rac- intervention(s), however, are prob- yelling, and Sanders informing John- ism and for criminal justice reform. lematic in another light. While the son that he would not engage with No statement could really be more activists chastised Sanders, as they her “if that [was her] attitude,” the nebulous. BLM activists also inter- rightfully should have, there re- BLM activists were allotted four and rupted Sanders earlier in July at mained the inkling that he should, a half minutes to speak, a gesture in the Netroots Nation conference in if he wants to be truly progressive, remembrance of the four and a half Phoenix, Arizona. These political engage with BLM. This is a danger- hours Michael Brown’s corpse was engagements by BLM activists are ous tactic, and while not necessar- left in the street after Darren Wil- the only direct criticism that Sand- ily in the vein of class collaboration son murdered him (Brown died on ers has received from the broad US (BLM isn’t a class-based organiza- 9 August). Johnson began her brief Left. While the politics of BLM have tion, though it is increasingly petty- speech by contradicting Sanders’ many internal issues and flaws, as bourgeoisie), it is one that could

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 27 potentially lead to the subservience ally, the only sound answer is to ists. It must be led by the rank and of BLM to elements within, or asso- mobilize the oppressed to directly file. Its leadership must be its cad- ciated with, the Democratic Party. confront the extant power struc- re. Moreover, the challenge to the Really, the only viable option for tures in this country. There needs two party monopoly in this country dealing with the phenomenon of to be more Baltimores, more port isn’t sufficiently waged at the ballot Bernie Sanders as a socialist can- shutdowns, and teacher and transit box. This is something ephemeral, didate is complete divestment and worker strikes. The working class, and really not all that important unrelenting criticism. He offers no in conjunction with sympathetic to the material reality of the world hope to BLM to end the spate of po- sectors of the middle-class as well we inhabit. What is germane is the lice killings, as this is a social issue as lumpenized people, are the only amount of social power we (I use and will not be resolved with some group(s) that can bring about any “we” as a broad based grouping of tepid “political revolution.” The modicum of socialism. Through oppressed peoples and those ele- precarious existence for large por- these class struggles, the attendant ments of more privileged layers tions of Afro-Americans and other and interwoven struggles around that support them) have at our dis- marginalized groups for that matter race, gender, sexual orientation, posal to force the hands of those will not be ameliorated by ticking a immigration status, and etcetera in power. Only when the collective box for Sanders come 8 November, will be waged. It is capitalism that power of the working poor and op- 2016. allows the division of labor to exist pressed of this country is wielded in on such arbitrary terms, and offers such a way as to be precise, uncom- no solution to the problems of mar- promising, unequivocal, and direct, Against Sanders, for What? ginalization, cultural ostracization, will there be chances of compre- and social segmentation except for hensive social and economic trans- Eugene V. Debs, he is not. Though some piecemeal reforms pushed by formation, and the inherent cultural I have seen some compare Sand- people like Bernie Sanders. transmutation which would likely ers to Debs, what an assault on the Much of the US Left is correct in follow. Sanders cannot lead any- character and legacy of the latter. calling for an alternative mass party thing transformative beyond higher Sanders wants to moonlight as a to challenge the Republican and taxes on the super-elite. This is not socialist, and that is fine so long as Democratic stranglehold on politics a social change, this is a placating organizations on the Left pay him in the country. That confrontation, tool implemented to prevent what no mind and offer him no support however, cannot be led by social- is necessary – expropriation, redis- (critical support is an inordinate democrats and bourgeoisie social- tribution, and a wholesale reorga- amount of political backing for a nization of our collective produc- capitalist war hawk). Much of the tive capacities for need rather than incipient desire to support Sanders profit. It is not enough to attack amongst elements on the Left in this “Much of the neoliberal forms of socio-economic country is that the notional value of or political organization as Sand- liberal democracy still holds sway. incipient desire ers alludes “we” must do in order This needs to be shed immediately. to have a better country or world. Republican democracy is simply the to support Neoliberalism is the symptom, capi- dictatorship of capital, and being Sanders... is that talism is the disease, and we need so consumed and subsumed into it to excise the disease from our col- makes it exceedingly difficult to dis- the notional lective body and mind without the mantle it. help of those that parasitically ben- How then are we to bring about a value of liberal efit from its very existence. more egalitarian, just, and less op- pressive world then, if not through democracy still voting for the lesser evils such as Sanders and whatever dregs come holds sway. This to the fore in his wake? If bour- needs to be shed geoisie democracy is a dead end (and it is), what way forward? Re- immediately. ”

Page 28 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 “Democracy Rising”Fighting Austerity in Greece

Chloe Wyma Oxi—the Greek word for no—still parties to pass another round of encing the future of radical politics covered Athens in the form of graf- bailout reforms in the parliament and the renewed impetus on the fiti as hundreds of intellectuals and and blocked a bid from dissenters left to seek political alignments, activists convened on 16 July for the to end bailout negotiations and re- Democracy Rising understandably Democracy Rising world conference. turn to a national currency. attracted tremendous attention. The defiant slogan urged Greek vot- Given these circumstances, the Organized in partnership with the ers to reject another round of aus- conference’s optimistic title took on University of Athens by the Global terity measures Europe’s financial a grimly ironic character. The mem- Center of Advanced Studies, a new establishment demanded. On 5 July, orandum imposes an economic graduate school under the presi- Greek voters—in step with their left- dictatorship on a popularly elected dency of noted scholar, Alain Ba- wing coalition government Syriza— government. It demonstrates that diou, the conference reflected its overwhelmingly voted against the the European project—currently host institution’s aspirations to rec- program in a referendum. A week determined by zombie obedience oncile activism and intellectual pro- later, Europe’s financial technoc- to neoliberal market logic and vin- duction. Against the backdrop of a racy strangled Prime Minister Alexis dictive austerity policies—is incom- thoroughly postmodern political Tsipras into accepting a €86 billion patible not only with the social jus- situation where no means yes, De- bailout in exchange for an immiser- tice policy of a left government but mocracy Rising forced an encounter ating program of spending cuts, tax with democracy itself. That is the between the theory-oriented meta- hikes, union crackdowns, pension conclusion, if there is one at all, to politics of leftist academics and the cuts, legislation repeals, and fire- be drawn from Democracy Rising, debates from Syriza insiders negoti- sale privatization of national assets. which took place over four days at ating a labyrinth of urgent and com- The night before the conference, the University of Athens’ School of plex questions. Did the capitulators protests erupted when the Greek Economics and Policy, the same avert an economic emergency with Parliament passed the first set of building students occupied on 21 dire humanitarian consequences? bailout measures with twenty-one February, 1973, kicking off the Poly- Or did they betray popular mandate percent of Syriza MPs voting against technic uprising that brought down by acquiescing to the same policies it. Tsipras purged his cabinet of Greece’s military junta months lat- Greek voters—with Syriza’s cheer- rebels the day after. Since then, he er. leading—rejected just days before? relied on support from opposition Considering Greece’s role in influ- How badly does Syriza’s genuflec-

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 29 tion dampen hopes for a greater still help working people by assist- like Juncker, who runs a Ruritanian European Left? Would exiting the ing the country’s growing grass- duchy called Luxemburg which is Eurozone free Greece from debt roots organizations, social move- the biggest tax evasion center in vassalage or plunge the country ments, and solidarity networks. In Europe.” deeper into bankruptcy? response, Costas Douzinas, profes- The battle over Syriza escalated Democracy Rising didn’t produce sor of law at the University of Lon- on the second day of the confer- definitive answers but a collective don, urged his comrades to “critical- ence when economist Costas sense of battered hope and delicate ly support” the Syriza government. Lapavistas, a Member of Parlia- solidarity. This reflects the confu- On the other hand, British-Paki- ment and delegate of Syriza’s sion of a divided Greek left as it tries stani activist and intellectual Tariq Left Platform, delivered a combu- to regroup. The historical exigencies Ali called Tspiras’ capitulation a tive speech calling the bailout “a of the Eurozone crisis transformed betrayal of the Greek people, un- disastrous capitulation” to the a forum for theory and philosophy derwritten by a fetishization of the Eurozone’s “neocolonial” and into a contentious and occasionally Euro currency and a “fatal trust” in “recessionary” program. Syriza, explosive site of realpolitik, level- the EU, which he likened to a dys- he argued, had made a strategic ing the ground between the ivory functional family headed by a Ger- error in betting on the seductive tower and the sausage factory of man patriarch “schooled in the old but ungovernable platform to pave parliamentary democracy. After a disciplinary ways of Prussia.” He the way for socialism in Greece long day at work, a weary but deter- further stated that he didn’t think while remaining within a monetary mined speaker of the Hellenic Par- the Syrzia government could sur- union “that crystalizes and encap- liament addressed the conference vive longer after that. But he re- sulates class relations.” He empha- on its first day. Zoi Konstantopoulou versed his sharpest knives to ad- sized that Greece cannot undergo says, “These are very difficult times dress the hypocrisy of Europe’s change while benefitting from the for those of us who believed there financial elites: “these jokers who bailout. He proposed that Greece was a limit to this anti-democratic, teach lessons to the Greek people should withdraw its “consent to this anti-European, anti-human policy.” Konstantopoulou is one of Tsip- ras’s most vocal opponents within Syriza’s Left Platform, the muscle behind the Greek Debt Truth Com- mission—which, with the help of political scientist Eric Touissant, published a report in June declar- ing Greece’s debt “illegal, odious and unsustainable.” It should be noted too that Konstantopoulou has a rather unlikely ally in the IMF, which, after breaking its own rules to back Greece’s first two untenable bailouts, now refuses to finance another deal unless Greece’s credi- tors offer significant debt relief. In his welcoming address, Greek Min- ister of Education Aristides Baltas defended Tspiras’ surrender. If he hadn’t compromised, he said, bank closures would have prevented ships from delivering drinking water to the Greek islands. He argued that even with Schäuble & Co. gripping Greece’s purse strings, Syriza could

Page 30 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 agreement and redesign a radical staying in the Eurozone and govern- café in the leftist neighborhood of program that is consistent with our ing within its iron cage. “We failed Exarcheia, journalists and activists values, our aims, and what we told to have a deeper understanding of dissected Syriza’s recent failures to the Greek people.” the will of the people,” he stated, and weighed the pros and cons of Lapavistas laid out an exit strat- “The leading group in the Syriza a post-Euro Greece. “We mourn egy that includes defaulting on the government was surprised and, I together. We don’t sleep at night,” national debt, nationalization of should say, scared by the result.” said Mihalis Panayiotakis, a jour- the banks, and the conversion of all This post-Oxi moment is a time of nalist and member of Syriza’s digi- prices and obligations to the new introspection and self-criticism, but tal policy committee. He maintains currency at a rate of 1:1 He expects also one of solidarity, a notion that hope that exiting the Euro may devaluation to settle at fifteen to will become increasingly significant offer a way out of peonage and twenty percent. He explained that whether Greece exits or continues austerity. “People ‘want’ to stay in the plan would create a difficult to struggle under the dead hand the Eurozone for the same reasons recession initially, but he expects of Eurozone policy. Leo Panitch, a shopkeepers ‘want’ to remain under positive rates of growth to appear professor of political economy at some mobsters’ protection racket,” after twelve to eighteen months as York University, criticized armchair he said, “It’s not because of hope, the dormant Greek productive sec- quarterbacking from those outside it’s because of fear.” “This is the first tor regains control of the domestic Greece and urged Syriza to expand time someone tried to articulate an market. Pandemonium erupted in international solidarity networks. alternative to global capitalism,” the lecture hall in response to his Catarina Principe, a Portuguese said journalist Matthaios Tsimita- speech—so too did applauses and activist and member of Portugal’s kis. “We failed. So what? There’s a obscenities in almost equal mea- Bloco de Esquerda, and Eoin O clear class root to the referendum. sure. Broin from Sinn Fein maintained The rich voted for ‘yes.’ The poor Lapavistas’s plan, countered Euroskepticism while also criticizing voted for ‘no.’ Maybe people have Douzinas, “could be the longest sui- inflammatory and divisive rhetoric changed. Maybe it’s not the end.” cide note in the history of the left”. against Syriza’s leadership. Lapavistas’s projections are con- “The EU is testable, but his plan was the most showing the concrete alternative to the austerity cracks in the doctrine that emerged in the con- European proj- ference. On 31 July, Tspiras admit- ect,” Principe ted he charged former finance min- said, “They can ister Yanis Varoufakis with drafting only accept so much a contingency plan to exit the Euro, democracy, so much but claimed it was only an emer- equality.” Activists As- gency measure. While the prospect tra Taylor and Laura of leaving the Euro seems increas- Hanna drew global con- ingly distant, a revolt within Syriza nections between the Greek is likely to lead to new elections in situation and the student debt September or October and, with and mortgage crises in the U.S, them, a renewed possibility of a so- urging the indebted to challenge called “Grexit.” creditor morality with economic On Sunday, Stelios Elliniadis of disobedience. Several panelists reit- Syriza’s Central Committee spoke erated the importance of solidarity candidly to organizers from other tourism, encouraging sympathetic European left parties including travelers to spend their vacation in Germany’s Die Linke, Ireland’s Sinn Greece. Fein, and Spain’s Podemos. He im- In a highly politicized Greek plored them to learn from Syriza’s society, these conversa- mistakes. He said the party lacked a tions spilled beyond the serious exit strategy and a plan for university. At a sidewalk

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 31 (Mis)Understanding GANG VIOLENCE in El Salvador

Denise Rivera

Fear remains one of the most Salvador had officially been ranked ers, and implement more beneficial powerful forces to influence hu- as having the highest murder rate in social programs, it failed to resolve mans to flee or endure hostility. the world without being involved in the socio-economic inequality that The influence of fear can be seen in a war. remained prevalent among the ma- any terrible act of violence, or even Historically, El Salvador has not jority of Salvadorians. in the mere utterance of such words been a stranger to bloodshed. It During the civil war, many Salva- as “gangster” or “terrorist.” So what was plagued by a civil war from dorians fled and sought asylum in happens when the two words come 1979 to 1992—a fight between the United States, the most popu- together? When thinking about Al the conservative Salvadorian mili- lar destination being Los Angeles, Capone, the word “terrorist” seems tary government forces known as California. Due to existing segrega- to be the last word that comes to La Fuerza Armada (Armed Forces), tion amongst Mexicans and African- mind. Yet, the word “terrorist” too and the leftist guerrilla forces that Americans, and with both creating has evolved into a different mean- would eventually create the Frente their own gangs to establish control ing. On 24 August 2015, the Corte Farabundo Martí para la Liberación over certain neighborhoods, MS-13 Suprema de Justicia (Supreme Nacional (FMLN) political party. was formed to protect Salvadorians Court) of El Salvador formally de- The Chapultepec Peace Accords of from other rival gangs. Eventually, clared both supporters and mem- 1992 officially ended the civil war MS-13 members themselves got bers of the notorious gang, Mara but achieved little in establishing involved in other criminal activities Salvatrucha (MS-13), as terrorists. peace. Despite the terms of this that would lead the United States The verdict was in response to the peace agreement to reduce military to implement tougher deportation high murder rates and social insta- size, demobilize both the Armed policies to deal with the rampant bility that had been terrorizing citi- Forces and the guerrilla army, cre- gang violence on its soil. The unre- zens, many of whom cornered into ate a new police force, permit more solved socio-economic inequality in conceding to MS-13’s extortionist political freedoms, provide more El Salvador, coupled with the huge demands. And this past summer, El land reform policies for rural work- influx of deported MS-13 members,

Page 32 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 A MS-13 leader in El Salvador, Carlos Tiberio Ramirez. Photo courtesy of Reuters paved the way for years of politi- cal instability in El Salvador. More- over, it didn’t help matters that the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party targeted the MS-13 as the root of many social concerns that predated their arrival. MS-13’s criminal activities range from car theft and extortion from business owners and workers to kidnappings and drug traffick- ing. It heavily recruits Salvadorian youth—a strategy that reflects the lack of educational and vocational opportunities for teenagers from low-income families. In October 2012, the United States Department of Treasury officially classified MS- 13 as the first gang to function as a transnational criminal organiza- was reminiscent of the government and Raul Mijango, former FMLN tion. The presence of Mara Salva- operations during the civil war congressman and guerrilla mem- trucha is global, having members when death squads were employed ber, conducted this negotiation. In from the West Coast and the East to kill those who supported the left- return, gang leaders lived in better Coast of the United States, Canada, ist guerrilla forces. What shocked El prison conditions and gained more Guatemala, Honduras, and even Salvador and the rest of the world privileges such as the right to family Spain. Although it does not have as was when MS-13 and the 18th visits. The news sparked controver- strong a global presence as its rival, Street Gang declared a peaceful sy among Salvadorians who were the 18th Street Gang is another or- truce in March 2012. Monsignor Fa- not only suspicious of the clandes- ganization notorious for its violent bio Colindres, head chaplain of the tine nature of the negotiations but acts in El Salvador. In 2003, former Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES) distrustful of the commitment of Salvadorian President Francisco and the National Civil Police (PNC), gang members, known to be un- Flores Perez implemented a mea- sure called Plan Mano Dura (Iron Fist). It gave the police authorities the power to imprison any person suspected of being a gang member without any evidence. While this led to increased incarceration, it was also compounded by a reciprocal increase in gang violence. When Mauricio Funes came into office in 2009, optimism and hope returned to many Salvadorians. Fu- nes was the first FMLN party - can didate to win the presidency. He promised to create better programs to assist in reducing poverty but he also authorized the army to collabo- rate with the police to find an effec- tive solution to gang violence. This concerned many Salvadorians, as it Preside Maurico Funes. Photo courtesy of El Financiero

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 33 predictable and hostile towards active gang members. This has af- cide rate in the nation. What is not innocent civilians. Nevertheless, fected the availability of sufficient sufficiently addressed is that the when the truce was announced, rehabilitation and support pro- prevalence of MS-13 reveals the the murder rate did start to decline grams needed to rehabilitate gang failures of the 1992 peace accords gradually. Yet, by the end of 2013, members and introduce them to to effectively implement social re- the FMLN government withdrew its alternative means of livelihood. The forms and policies that would en- support due to public pressure and lack of sufficient working relation- able Salvadorians to successfully media reports of gang members ships between gang members and transition from a war-torn country being transferred to low security rehabilitative professionals wid- into a peaceful society. Today, the prisons, along with accusations of ens the misunderstanding about social and political climate in El Sal- increased extortion and drug trade gang members’ intentions. This has vador mirrors the civil war days of activity. The current Salvadorian perpetuated the stigma that gang twenty-three years ago. In fact, on President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, members face from the media, 22 June 2015, the United States De- when inaugurated into office in Jan- political parties, and citizens. One partment of State urged traveling uary 2014, he formally declared the of the their demands, for instance, U.S. citizens to remain alert of their end of the truce, thus endorsing the is that the government invest in surroundings while bearing in mind refusal of the governing party to ne- poor neighborhoods, repair roads, that El Salvador lacks the resources gotiate with gang members. Cerén provide health clinics, schools and necessary to investigate and further further announced an initiative loans to start businesses, and re- prosecute criminal cases. called El Salvador Seguro (Safe El form the police force. Salvadorian gang members have Salvador), a $2 billion USD plan in- Reports of murdered police of- been portrayed as both perpetra- tended to incite institutional reform ficials and bus drivers targeted for tors and victims of this current through violence prevention pro- extortion and assassination, and conflict. The public showed them grams, provide education and train- the government’s desperate at- no empathy after their classifica- ing opportunities, build parks and tempts to keep the peace through tion as terrorists. Yet the label itself sports facilities, etcetera. Although harsher law enforcement measures seems to be evolving with time. this initiative sounds promising, it make the Safe El Salvador plan a What seems to be forgotten is that does not significantly alleviate the distant illusion. Bus drivers have during the civil war, the leftist guer- many problems Salvadorians face. gone on strike, demanding better rillas were considered terrorists, The United States Agency for In- security measures even as many although they sought governmental ternational Development (USAID) individuals continue to use private reform and voiced opinions against provides significant financial aid to trucks and military vehicles in order a socio-economic system that sim- Central American countries with the to get to their destinations safely. ply failed to address the urgent objective of preventing violence. The National Forensics Institute needs of the people. Salvadorians Yet this aid cannot supplement reported that El Salvador has seen became gang members to survive programs that assist or work with 4,246 murders since the beginning in a world that showed little op- of this year, an average of nearly portunity and care for them. While twenty murders per day. To rem- it is imperative to recognize the im- edy the predicament El Salvador- mense hardship and cruelty that “What seems ians face, the government gave the constitutes their everyday, it can- forgotten is police force unrestrained power to not condone the various counts of use fatal tactics against gang mem- violence that these gang members that during the bers without facing legal repercus- stand guilty of. To label MS-13 gang sions. members as terrorists will no doubt civil war, the El Salvador’s Supreme Court de- incite a new conversation and in- fined terrorism as organized and ternational response regarding leftist guerrillas systematic exercise of violence. The how the other neighboring coun- classification of MS-13 gang mem- tries may contain this transnational were considered bers as terrorists was designed to criminal organization and break the terrorists...” issue harsher prison sentences cycle of violence. while decreasing the high homi-

Page 34 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 FILM REVIEW An Archive of a Revolution Review of Stanley Nelson, Jr.’s Black Panthers: Van- guard of the Revolution

Gordon Barnes The images in Stanley Nelson Jr.’s is particularly compelling given police in the course of their duties, recent documentary, Black Pan- the current state of affairs in this all whilst possessing loaded fire- thers: Vanguard of the Revolution, country. Through series of inter- arms. We see moving images of the are vatic scenes that immediately views with former Black Panthers, early Panthers confronting police bring to mind the recent uprisings people who were on the fringes of abuses and debating state officials in Ferguson and Baltimore. The sole the organization, police officers, FBI in courthouses, all the while, with exception is that the people fighting agents, as well as noted historians arms – with the tacit threat of self- against the police were armed, not and cultural critics, Black Panthers defense. with improvised incendiary devices demonstrates the power of ideas The film’s narrative shifts when or stones, but rather with firearms. in politics. Furthermore, it offers a the Panthers were demonstrating We see repurposed US Army APC’s cautionary tale regarding a method against the 1967 passage of the from the war in Indo-China and po- of struggle for social transformation Mulford Act. Signed by then Cali- lice units armed with assault rifles, – the method of armed self-defense fornia governor Ronald Reagan, chemical weapons, and flak jackets. – and the internal chaos which con- the Act prohibited the individuals Not so different is our current his- tributed to the eventual demise of from carrying loaded firearms in torical moment when the military the Black Panthers. public. The legislation was of course hardware used against working and The film’s narrative begins in the cooked up specifically as a way to oppressed people in Afghanistan early 1960s, when Bobby Seale and nip the embryonic political forma- and Iraq (amongst other locations Huey Newton, along with some tion of the Panthers in the bud. The in the Middle East and Horn of Af- other men, began to notice and documentary then depicts a scene rica) are brought to bear on those subsequently protest the ill treat- where Ronald Reagan was enter- same groups “at home.” ment of Afro-American communi- taining some children while the While Nelson’s film is by no means ties in the Bay Area, California. The Panthers held a demonstration in a clarion call directly referencing object of their protests, no doubt, a park across the street. Once the the ongoing tensions between the was the police. Armed with the news media noticed the presence state (embodied by the police) and rights guaranteed under the Second of the Black Panthers, they rushed the exploited, oppressed layers Amendment to the United States past Reagan and his event to speak of this society (personified, more Constitution, these men initiated a with the Panthers. According to Nel- often than not, by Black folks), it campaign of sorts, to monitor the son, it was from this point on that

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 35 the Panthers began to gain recogni- Cleaver (after they fled to Algeria tion for their political program be- in the aftermath of an abortive at- yond the confines of California. tempt at armed engagement with Nelson takes us on a journey, the police, which left a young Black showed through archival footage Panther, Bobby Hutton, shot dead (from both “official” sources and in the street – at the time unarmed from the Panthers themselves), and with his hands raised above demonstrating the rapid growth his head) was presented as a major and influence of the Black Panther facet of the Black Panthers’ politi- Party between the late 1960s and cal development. Similarly featured 1970s. With such a meteoric rise in was the growth of the Chicago chap- cultural and political capital, Black ter of the Black Panthers, led by the Panther chapters began to crop up charismatic Fred Hampton. We see across the United States. And in ad- images of Hampton and members dition to the importance placed on of his Black Panthers chapter meet- wielding firearms, Black Panthers ing with White “rednecks” and work- also interrogates the development ers in an effort to combat police op- of the children’s food programs, and pression and social subjugation. to a lesser extent, their well-known It is from this point in Nelson’s medical clinics, which provided free medical services to members of the communities in which they oper- ated. This emergent political and cul- tural impetus, much of which oc- curred while Huey Newton was incarcerated for allegedly killing a cop, lead to two things, according to Nelson. Firstly, the development of a cult of personality around Huey Newton, and secondly, a large, un- tested, untrained, and inevitably politically diffused cadre. Black Panthers sets these issues as a framework through which one can comprehend the dissolution of the organization due to internal ten- sions. However, prior to delving into the deformation of the Black Panther Party, Nelson’s documen- tary examines the development of various elements of the party. The creation of its international wing, led by Eldridge and Kathleen

Top image: Movie poster courtesy of PBS Bottom : Archive Photo used in promotional materials for “Black Panthers”

Page 36 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 FILM REVIEW

Black Panthers that we begin to Newton’s sexism and abuse of his engagement with the extant juridi- see how the rampant external as- partner, Gwen Fontaine, only ap- cal framework to an extent that di- sault on the organization, in con- pear as an addendum towards the luted the revolutionary message of junction with deep political and end of the film. The internal misogy- the Black Panthers. Both sides, in social frictions internally, consigned nistic and chauvinistic character of their embryonic forms while New- the Panthers to dissolution. The ex- the Panthers is not suitably dealt ton was in prison (1967), and in ternal assault came in the form of with in the film, though we get nug- their calcified forms during the fric- the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, a gets of what it would have been like tions of the 1970s, had good ideas disproportionate amount of which for women in the organization. as well as poor ones, as the docu- was directed at the Black Panthers. On the political front, the film fails mentary makes clear. However, the The most notorious operation was to critically engage the problem of factional issue was not so much to the joint FBI-Chicago PD raid on a Maoism and Fanonian thought as do with the personalities of Cleaver Black Panthers headquarters where some of the ideological founda- and Newton themselves (as the film they summarily executed Fred tions for the organization. The Mao- makes it appear) as it did with the Hampton and others in a predawn ist sentiment is tacitly displayed internal political differences in the raid. In addition to COINTELPRO at throughout the film, seen in the organization embodied by the two. the federal level, the city of Los An- slogans of “people’s war,” “all power Despite some analytic shortcom- geles developed SWAT teams due to the people,” “the revolution has ings and excising some important to the prevalence and increasing come, it’s time to pick up the gun,” information, Nelson’s Black Pan- social-political power wielded by and “off the pigs.” The Fanonian thers: Vanguard of the Revolution the Panthers. These developments aspect of the party’s recruiting is is a beautiful film, and worth see- along with internal frictions lead to seen in the emphasis on engaging ing for anyone interested in the the ultimate demise of the organi- with lumpenized men as the base of history of Afro-American struggle zation. It is at this point that the film the organization. The social power in the United States. Additionally, obfuscates and elides quite a few wielded by working class people is it is fairly significant for those of issues to help us understand how largely ignored, with some rare ex- us reckoning with the problems of and why the Panthers dissolved in ceptions. Nelson’s Black Panthers race, policing, gender, social power, such spectacular fashion. fails to interrogate these as origins and the utilities of violence in social The sexism in the party is only of the dissolution, and rests the movements. Nelson’s film is man- briefly mentioned explicitly in the blame squarely on the aforemen- datory viewing for those engaged film, even though it was rampant tioned COINTELPRO operations and in struggles against the social rela- within the organization. One of the the specific conflicts between Huey tions wrought by capitalism, and interviewees even went so far as to Newton and Eldridge Cleaver in the very much so in this post-Ferguson say that initially (when the Panthers late 1970s and early 1980s – a fric- moment. Black Panthers, while not first formed) they were watching the tion often stoked by FBI informants a direct call to action, offers enough cops as well as the “neighborhood and plants. insight into the struggle(s) for Black girls.” The problem of gendered di- Granted, the film does show liberation to foment discussion visions of labor was “remedied” by some of the early differences be- about the future of resistance as giving women the gun, and having tween what would become the the contradictions and negative ex- men work in the daycare centers “Cleaver faction,” or the section of ternalities of capitalism (currently and food distribution programs. the organization devoted to revo- of the neo-liberal flavor in the USA) This of course was not a panacea, lutionary struggle and change, and are exacerbated and continue to but a stop-gap in order to maintain the “Newton faction,” or the section adversely affect large swaths of op- portions of the female cadre. Huey committed to quasi-social work and pressed peoples in this county.

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 37 Un-Queering the Drag Queen Review of Mathew Lopez’s The Legend of Georgia Mc- Bride

Sarah Lucie

It’s a post-RuPaul’s Drag Race Casey splurged on nothing more usually gifted at drag performance. world. Never has this been per- than a Papa John’s pizza. The stakes Yet, there’s a troubling undercur- formed in such stark detail than in are raised when Jo announces her rent beneath the play’s glitzy drag Matthew Lopez’s play, The Legend pregnancy and Casey is demoted to exterior. While the play is filled with of Georgia McBride, which opened bartender, losing his performance an amorphous, light-hearted hope, on 20 August at the Lucille Lortel gig to a pair of drag queens brought matters are too simplified and sen- Theatre as the first of MCC Theater’s in to give the bar a new life. Casey’s timentalized to partake in the truly 2015-2016 season. This cotton-can- unlikely break occurs unexpect- utopic, forward-thinking force rum- dy comedy tells the story of a hetero- edly—Rexy is just too drunk to go bling beneath much queer perfor- sexual man finding his “true voice” on for her roller-skating Edith Piaf mance. Indeed, does this produc- in the form of his new drag perso- number, so Tracy, the business- tion reference or respect the history na, the Carrie Underwood-belting, minded diva, convinces Casey to of drag culture that it calls upon? cowboy boot-wearing Georgia Mc- throw on a dress and take the stage. In many ways, the play seems to Bride. While the topic may suggest a The song is in French, so who cares be devoid of any roots in the real discussion of gender and sexuality, if he knows the lyrics? The perfor- drag community, but rather, living the play is ultimately diversionary mance is a disaster, and yet, Casey in an alternate reality. The play is froth that shies away from asking is easily convinced to don a dress set in Florida’s panhandle, and the any of the big questions. again and again, and with the help bar is a stereotypical dive. Lit-up Casey, performed by Dave Thom- of Tracy, develops a sassy drag per- PBR advertisements decorate the as Brown as a charming mix of ea- sona of his own. bar’s drab interior. It seems highly ger optimism and naïveté, works as The main theme of the play is a unrealistic that two drag perform- an Elvis impersonator but is having simple and familiar one: to thine ers would be brought into such a trouble paying the rent. His wife own self be true. In this case, the setting, especially one without an Jo complains that they’ve bounced newly found self is a heterosexual established queer community and the rent check yet again, because White man who turns out to be un- fan base, under the assumption

Page 38 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 THEATRE REVIEW

that they would bring in more rev- that Casey’s gender and sexuality where the White heterosexual male enue. The change of clientele is at do not need to be a topic. But that is the main character and the more least alluded to within the play, as thought is just a generous, hopeful accurate drag performers are sassy the bar runs out of vodka and the musing. It does need to be a topic. sidekicks. bar owner learns how to make a The only reason it is not a topic The Legend of Georgia McBride crass joke. in this play is because he is safely is a fun show and perhaps therein But it’s a false picture of the drag heterosexual. lies the danger. It’s an easy, false, all community if drag performance is A moment of solace arrives in glitter and no gore portrait of drag equated to money. Indeed, money a monologue delivered by Rexy, that ends with a heteronormative is a large draw for Casey as well. Af- played by Keith Nobbs. Rexy gives bow, dodging the more complex ter a night of performances, Casey Casey a personal history lesson, in- stories that linger beneath the sur- returns home to Jo elated, handing sisting that she did not choose drag, face. This trend of whitewashing over enough dollar bills for over- but drag chose her. It is a lifestyle queer culture is all too prevalent due rent, groceries, and future baby that cannot be put on and taken (the upcoming filmStonewall is too onesies all at once. According to the off at will for a paycheck. What’s obvious to not be referenced). No, world of the play, one amateur drag more, it’s an identity that has put “drag is not for sissies.” But this Off- performance leads to immediate Rexy in danger, as she describes Broadway portrayal of drag is. fame and fortune (or at least for- being beaten as a sixteen-year-old tune), bypassing any sense of emo- in the parking lot of a bar. Thanks tional turmoil, practice of the craft, to Rexy, drag performance’s legacy or working from the bottom up. It’s as “a raised fist inside a sequined as if Casey became the winner of a glove” at least has a cameo. If only reality competition overnight. the cameo was given a bit more lip Drag is relatively easy for Casey, service. not just as a genre of performance While The Legend of Georgia but also in the emotional and moral McBride claims “drag is not for sense. Another topic portrayed in sissies,” the play itself is far from stark black and white within the brave, couching glimmers of hope play is Casey’s gender and sexual- or insurgence in a mass of het- ity. He is a heterosexual male, liv- eronormativity. Casey and Jo move ing a normative lifestyle with a wife forward with their relationship, and babies on the way, and the play and moments such as Casey ro- portrays this information as a clear mantically applying lip gloss to Jo’s and undeniable fact. When Jo finally lips suggest a sliding gender scale, comes to learn of Casey’s new ca- but the topic of gender is never reer, what troubles her most are his breached. The audience is encour- consistent lies. aged to whole-heartedly root for a Never does she voice a concern drag queen, but the drag queen is a over Casey’s sexuality, nor does heterosexual male trying his best to Casey feel compelled to defend it. be a father. Off-Broadway audienc- What’s more, Casey is portrayed es are perhaps introduced to the joy as the heroic breadwinner provid- that is drag performance, but this ing for his family. Perhaps there’s drag performance is a cleaned up a utopic gesture in the suggestion version ready for a Disney movie,

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 39 The Dignity of Clarity Review of Todd May’s Nonviolent Resistance: a Philo- sophical Introduction

Tristan Husby

While at a peace conference in crisp prose that, for the most part, These philosophical arguments 2013, I heard an antiwar activist lacks philosophical jargon. are needed because, as May points express dissatisfaction with an eth- Those who are familiar with May’s out, there is currently a dearth of ics course he had once taken at a other work will expect such a style philosophy on nonviolence. This community college. Enrolling in the from him. Although a serious read- lacuna is curious, since in the past class hoping to find some resources er of thinkers often mocked for their forty years there has a been a rise to advance his peace work, he was writing style, (May’s previous books of journals and academic depart- surprised when the professor an- include titles such as Reconsider- ments dedicated to Peace Studies, nounced that the guiding thread of ing Difference: Nancy, Derrida, an interdisciplinary field that makes the class would be the examination Levinas, and Deleuze and Between use of methods from the social sci- of how different thinkers respond- Genealogy and Epistemology: Psy- ences to research such issues as ed to the problem of justifying mur- chology, Politics, and Knowledge nonviolence, social movements and der. The activist left the class cynical in the Thought of Michel Foucault), the establishment of peace. May of the utility of philosophy in under- May himself puts a high value on his frequently references this research, standing nonviolence. Hopefully work’s accessibility to lay-readers. both to establish key definitions, that man will get his hands on Todd As such, it is perhaps not surpris- such as what exactly is violence, as May’s book. Although May does not ing that he currently writes for The well as for case studies of success- present a moral defense of nonvio- Stone, the New York Times’ philos- ful and unsuccessful nonviolent lence, he does undertake the diffi- ophy section. However, May is no campaigns. The emphasis on cam- cult task of explaining philosophi- mere exegete of the poststructual- paigns is purposeful; while May is cally why nonviolence works and ist prophets: his arguments about interested in how nonviolence inter- what kind of moral value nonviolent how nonviolent action articulates sects with the ethics and morality of action has. May also sets himself the values of dignity and equal- relationships between individuals, the additional challenge of present- ity are very much his own work. this book is focused on the philoso- ing all of his arguments in clear and phy of the politics of nonviolence.

Page 40 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 BOOK REVIEW

May signals, but does not state, it is only with a this political orientation in Chap- clear concep- ter One. The book opens with an tion of political overview of the Singing Revolution, violence that we that is, the Estonian resistance to understand what the USSR. He then moves onto the it is that non- Filipino struggle to oust the dicta- violence rejects. tor Marcos, the Egyptian struggle Given May’s to oust the dictator Mubarak, and commitment to concludes with Occupy Wall Street’s clear writing, it struggle against economic inequal- is perhaps not ity in the United States. Unfortu- surprising that nately, narrative history is not May’s Chapter Two is forte. Rather than serving as an ef- the longest in the fective hook to spur me to wonder book: he tackles about the power of nonviolent ac- questions such tion, I was confused as to where all as the intention- the philosophy was that May had ality of violence, promised me in the preface. But property de- what this opening does do is shift to struction, the dif- the beginning of his book case stud- ference between ies which he reuses as evidence in violence and co- his later philosophical arguments ercion, violence Cover art courtesy of Amazon.com on nonviolence. towards animals and the usefulness In Chapter Two, May turns to the of terms such as psychological and self the impressive goal of proving problem of the definition of non- structural violence. He also does the that “Nonviolence is often a better violence. Being a logical person, he reader the service of seeking to use means not only in its moral aspect begins with the question of what historical rather than hypothetical but also in its political consequenc- nonviolence is negating, namely, examples as frequently as possible, es.” Since this position is a combi- violence. Since attempting to define a stylistic choice which helps break nation of philosophy and political violence in a manner that would up the abstract writing about defini- science, May engages with a range satisfy philosophers would require tions. May eschews easy answers to of thinkers and scholars in both of a whole book unto itself, May wisely the examples that he poses, some- those fields. The beginning of the steers a different course. He admits times defending the morality of chapter includes an overview of that the word “violence” performs violence in a number of cases and Gandhi’s thought on nonviolence, so many functions that an inclu- attacking overly broad definitions of which May shows is the result of sive definition reaches beyond the violence by Peace Studies scholars. Gandhi combining his religious book’s scope even as he affirms that In Chapter Three, May sets him- views with his political experience.

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 41 BOOK REVIEW

But while respectful, May points to who takes poststructuralism seri- concluding chapter, he hurriedly examples in the case studies from ously, he refuses to let this division introduces new ideas, specifically Chapter One to show that nonvio- restrain his philosophizing. He har- what he means by neoliberalism lent campaigns can succeed in ways vests from an array of thinkers, not and how it conflicts with the values not predicted by Gandhi’s theories. just philosophers such as Kant and of dignity and equality that he dis- In doing so he leans rather heavily Rancière but also the intellectual cusses in Chapters Four and Five. on the recent comparative work of historian Michael Rosen, in order To be clear, May’s arguments about political scientists Erica Chenoweth to philosophize dignity and equality the immorality of neoliberalism are and Maria J. Stephan. In their 2011 in a way that is, in his words, from compelling, and while he ultimately book, Why Civil Resistance Works, “the bottom-up”. This approach al- stands by the assertion that nonvio- Chenoweth and Stephan compare lows him to reflect on issues such lence offers the most effective tools hundreds of nonviolent and violent as why nonviolent action can be ef- to confront this unjust system, he is campaigns for national liberation, fective when its practitioners only also forthright about how uniting to regime changes and succession, choose nonviolence out of conse- confront an economic system will and conclude that in those particu- quentialist calculations. In doing require innovation rather than ro- lar types of campaigns, nonviolent so, May presents a number of per- mantic imitations of previous strug- movements were more likely to suc- suasive arguments about how the gles. May’s final rallying cry makes ceed than violent ones. While sum- power of nonviolence is connected clear that while the book is framed marizing this literature is impor- to how nonviolent actors start from as introductory, it is nonetheless tant to support his political claims the assumption of their own dig- not for everyone. May writes for about the efficiency of nonviolence, nity rather than having to earn it those who are willing to endure the I found myself wishing that May by pleasing their oppressors. But friction of attempting to make the had taken the time to analyze Che- May’s best writing is reserved for world a more equal and dignified noweth and Stephan’s term ‘civil his arguments about equality and place for all. resistance’. In Chapter Three, May nonviolence, which are so graceful performs a thoughtful and delight- and subtle that I won’t try to sum- ful analysis of the slogan “We are marize them here. Instead, simply the ninety-nine percent” and how know that in Chapter Five, May uses it connects to the tactics of the Oc- Rancière’s thoughts on democracy cupy Wall Street movement. May is to politicize Kant’s categorical im- clearly aware of the power of words perative before finishing by noting and how words can shape and di- that Gandhi was already saying the rect political action. What then are same thing, if you were to just read the consequences of Chenoweth him from the proper angle. and Stephan describing nonvio- In Chapter Six, May concludes his lence as ‘civil resistance’? book by drawing lessons from Oc- Chapters Four and Five are on the cupy Wall Street for future strug- two values that May identifies as gles against neoliberalism. On the nonviolence enacting: dignity and one hand, this framing very much equality. May notes that that these makes nonviolence a question values are frequently discussed about future struggles rather than as belonging to different spheres, past ones. On the other hand, since dignity to ethics and equality to po- May does not engage with the ques- litical philosophy, but as someone tion of neoliberalism earlier, in this

Page 42 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 BOOK REVIEW Embodying Blackness Review of Ta-Neishi’s Between the World And Me

Rhone Fraser

In Between the World And Me, an elaboration of a point made “I came in five minutes after, and Ta-Nehisi Coates writes to his son by James Baldwin in his letter to I didn’t hug you, and I didn’t com- in an attempt to answer the ques- his nephew published in his 1963 fort you, because I thought it would tion of how “one should live within a work, The Fire Next Time, on which be wrong to comfort you. I did not black body…within a country lost in Coates seems to base his prose tell you that it would be okay, be- the Dream.” What Coates describes letter. Baldwin wrote that “the Ne- cause I have never believed it would as “the Dream” is the United States. groes of this country…are very well be okay. What I told you is what White supremacist capitalist vision placed indeed to precipitate chaos your grandparents tried to tell me: of the country and the world. “It is and ring down the curtain on the that this is your country, that this is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is American dream.” But throughout your world, that this is your body, Memorial Day cookouts, block as- his address to his son, Coates has and you must find some way to live sociations, and driveways…smells a slightly different message. Coates within the all of it…the question of like peppermint but tastes like makes remarkably relevant appli- how one should live within a black Strawberry shortcake,” a vision that cations of Baldwin’s 1963 message body…is the question of my life, and appears tranquil and serene yet re- about the Dream to the pressing is- the pursuit of that question, I have quires “looting and violence.” This sues of 2015, specifically the mur- found, ultimately answers itself.” “Dream” is one that Coates himself ders of unarmed Black men. Coates Coates spends the entire book says he “wanted to escape into” but notably heeds Baldwin’s 1963 mes- explaining exactly what “the pursuit couldn’t because “the Dream rests sage to understand the murders of of that question” means. He also on our backs, the bedding made Black men such as Michael Brown comes into his own understanding from our bodies.” He later tells his and Jordan Davis at the hands of about why his parents raised him son, “the Dream is the enemy of all White men. He tells his son that he the way they did. He tells his son art, courageous thinking, and hon- heard him crying in his room after that his father physically disciplined est writing.” learning there was no indictment him harshly. He was beaten, Coates This notion of “the Dream” is for the murder of Michael Brown: writes, “as if someone might steal

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 43 [him] away, because that is exactly vidual study apart from the conven- open the books and read, while what was happening all around tional narratives taught by school filling my composition books with [them] Everyone had lost a child, classroom which was “a jail of other notes on my reading, new vocabu- somehow, to the streets, to jail, to people’s interests.” It entails chal- lary words, and sentences of my drugs, to guns. Later, [he] would lenging the romantic notion that all own invention.” He tells his son hear it in Dad’s voice ‘Either I can famous Black historical figures were about his grandfather Paul Coates, beat him, or the police.’” perfectly moral: “being Black did not a former librarian at the Moorland- He further writes, “[My father] immunize us from history’s logic or Spingarn Research Center of How- beat me for letting another boy steal the lure of the dream.” ard University which is home to rare from me. Two years later, he beat He provides as an example, the book collections by and about peo- me for threatening my ninth-grade case of Queen Nzinga who success- ple of African descent, including the teacher. Not being violent enough fully fended off Portuguese coloniz- Paul & Eslanda Robeson Collection. could cost me my body. Being too ers for centuries, but who, as closer Coates spends the second part of violent could cost me my body.” scrutiny revealed, made human this book describing how his own The “pursuit” includes understand- seats out of her servants, and if he study and exploration helped him ing the rationale behind his father’s was alive in that time, he too would unearth the details of the death of parenting and questioning the logic probably have been turned into a his colleague at Howard University, behind “the Dream.” It involves indi- seat. He tells his son about how his Prince Jones, who was murdered time at Howard aided the one month after Coates’ son, Samo- “pursuit” to be in control ri, was born, and three months after of his body: “the pursuit he was pulled over by cops and let of knowing was freedom go. Not only by reading articles, but to me, the right to declare Coates’ own personal exploration of your own curiosities and the collections at the Moorland and follow them through all his experience of conducting a very manner of books. I was candid interview with the mother made for the library, not of Prince Jones, Dr. Mabel Jones, the classroom…I felt my- in the third part of this book, also self in motion, still direct- advanced his pursuit. He also de- ed toward the total pos- tails what it means for a free think- session of my body, but by ing Black man, who actively rejects some other route which Western patriarchy and homopho- I could not before then bia, to not have control of one’s have imagined.” body. It means contortion. The Ultimately, Coates tells need to “contort his body to address his son, “my reclamation the block, contort again to be taken would be accomplished, seriously by colleagues and contort like Malcolm’s through again so as not to give the police a books, through my own reason.” study and exploration.” Most significant in this book’s sec- This included not only ond part is Coates’ apology for yell- reading but, for Coates, ing at a White woman who pushed taking assiduous notes on his then five-year-old son as he was what one read, “I would leaving a movie theater. As he de-

Cover art courtesy of Spiegel and Grau

Page 44 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 BOOK REVIEW

scribes it, a White man came to her not based on valuing property in with love, shall force our broth- defense, which Coates called “his direct proportion to its distance ers to see themselves as they are, attempt to rescue the damsel from from Black people. “‘Black-on- to cease fleeing from reality and the beast.” The White man said, “I Black crime’ is jargon, violence to begin to change it,” Coates writes, could have you arrested!” Coates language, which vanishes the men “I do not believe that we can stop replied saying he did not care, and who engineered the covenants, them, Samori, because they must came home shaken from the inci- who fixed the loans, who planned ultimately stop themselves. And dent. He, however, interprets this the projects, who built the streets still you must struggle.” A logical exchange with “regret,” saying, and sold red ink by the barrel.” The question Samori could later pose “more than my shame I feel about section ends with Coates introduc- in response to the expectation that my own actual violence, my great- ing his son to the mother of Jordan he should struggle as a Black man est regret was that in seeking to de- Davis who says to him that his life is—how? The answer to that, like fend you I was, in fact, endangering matters, and with his trip to Eu- those that Coates’ parents provid- you.” From this exchange, he tells rope, where he said, “I had never ed, is neither final nor direct. It is his son, Samori, “you are human felt myself so far outside someone related to the answer of how to live and you will make mistakes.” How- else’s dream. Now I felt the deeper within a Black body: pursuit of self- ever, Coates further remarks, “you weight of my generational chains— knowledge. are called to struggle, not because my body confined, by history and However, Baldwin and Coates it assures you victory but because it policy, to certain zones.” He apolo- disagree about the ability of the assures you an honorable and sane gizes for the “generational chains” younger generations in their time life.” he tried to clasp onto his son’s to affect real social change. Bald- He said he named his son Samori wrists, in terms of not displaying af- win wrote that “the Negroes of this after Samori Toure, “who struggled fection to him and not wanting his country may never be able to rise to against French colonizers for the son to make new friends. power, but they are very well placed right to his own black body. He died The third section is most signifi- indeed to precipitate chaos and ring in captivity but the profits of that cant in his underscoring the impor- down the curtain on the American struggle and others like it are ours, tance of his son to struggle, and the dream.” Coates is more skeptical. even when the object of that strug- overall context of this struggle with He wants to be part of the decon- gle, as is so often true, escapes our industrialists like the Rockefellers struction of the American dream, grasp.” That is, even if the object of, and their white supremacist world. most likely because he has a son. say, racially desegregated hospitals This is where his message diverts But as a father, Coates does not escaped the grasp of Howard legend from Baldwin’s 1963 letter to his want to lose his son to this decon- Dr. Charles Drew; or if the object of nephew. Where Baldwin writes “we struction. He tells his son to not give racially integrated public schools cannot be free until they [the rac- his body “to Birmingham sheriffs did not escape the grasp of Howard ist industrialists] are free,” Coates nor to the insidious gravity of the legend Justice Thurgood Marshall, writes, “do not pin your struggle streets,” and seems more skeptical Coates tells his son, “I have always on their conversion. The Dreamers about the ability of Black men to af- wanted you to attack every day of will have to learn to struggle them- fect social change: “you are power- your brief bright life in struggle.” selves, to understand that the field less before the great crime of histo- What Coates means here is clear- for their Dream, the stage where ry that brought the ghettoes to us.” ly a struggle against hegemony: a they have painted themselves Baldwin did not think Negroes counterhegemonic struggle that white, is the deathbed of us all.” powerless at all, and his work es- sees a new world through the lens Where Baldwin writes “you sentially anticipated the later rebel- of Black Struggle that ultimately is must accept them with love…We, lions, like those of Watts, Newark

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 45 BOOK REVIEW

and Detroit in 1965, against White Toussaint L’Ouverture, Coates’ book struggling for a greater object. He supremacist capitalism. Decades should be a supplement to an un- names Kwame Ture without naming later, Coates has the added burden derstanding of history, not a sub- his time in the Student Nonviolent of confronting the potential loss of stitute for it. Pursuit of knowledge Coordinating Committee (SNCC) his own son to the revolution that should also reveal the crucial ingre- nor his All-African Peoples’ Revo- would destroy the Dream. Even as dient to “the struggle” ignored in lutionary Party. Ture, in his autobi- he teaches his son to struggle, he Coates’ piece but assumed in Bald- ography, tells the story of a pair of preaches caution. What conflicts win’s letter, which is the importance malicious boys who threw rocks at will Coates’ work anticipate? of organizational bodies. All the in- passing groups of ducks, cows, and The entire book becomes a sear- fluential people Coates tells his son dogs, but never at a hornets’ nest. ing spiritual, historical, and psycho- about belonged to organizations Why not, he asks. Because they’re logical journey where the reader with counterhegemonic causes or organized. Discussing these organi- feels increasing sympathy for the “objects.” Individual names, like zations would have aided his cause speaker’s attempt to tell his son ex- Malcolm X, were listed, but their of showing what it is like to live actly how a Black man can live in his organizations they belonged to, within a Black body. It means shed- body in the United States. The read- like the Organization of Afro-Amer- ding the identity of the so-called er hopes that the speaker’s son, and ican Unity, were absent in Coates’ “objective” journalist who, whether Black boys like him, will not be the text. Baldwin spent pages talking working for liberal or conservative next randomly selected Black body about the Nation of Islam and why papers, ultimately serves the inter- that the Dream-as-parasite choos- it appealed to Malcolm X and the ests of industrialists. It is not the es to beat, imprison, murder, and masses. pursuit of individual study alone claim in order to remain living. The To his credit, Coates writes that that advances struggle; it is the pur- reader cannot help throughout this “Black people have not—probably suit of struggle itself within an or- journey to root for the father in an no people have ever—liberated ganizational body. Coates’ work is attempt to build a strong path of themselves strictly through their a necessary beginning template for communication despite the random own efforts.” However, he could struggle. violence of the Dream. have given clearer examples of Like a good historical film, in the what an individual struggle means lines of Philippe Niang’s 2012 film, in the context of an organization

Page 46 — Volume 27 Fall no. 1, 2015 Contributors to this issue

Gordon Barnes is a PhD student in Arnab Datta is Assistant Professor Rahul K. Gairola is Assistant Profes- the History Program. He researches of Electronics & Communication sor of Humanities & Social Sciences elite ideology and subaltern violence Engineering at the Indian Institute of at the Indian Institute of Technology as well as the transition from slavery Technology Roorkee (IITR), India. Roorkee (IITR), India, and a for- to freedom in the 19th century British mer Adjunct Assistant Professor at Empire. Queens College and York College.

Sarah Lucie is a PhD student in the Tristan K. Husby is a PhD student Dadland Maye is a political asylee Theatre Program. She has writ- in the Classics Program. He cur- from Jamaica, a queer activist, un- ten for Show Business Magazine, rently lives in New Hampshire and is published novelist, and a PhD student Broadway Today, The Huffington writing a dissertation on Greek and in the English Program focusing on Post and The Hemispheric Institute’s Roman slavery. queer postcolonial movements of the e-misférica Caribbean and African Diaspora.

Naomi Podber is a sixth-year PhD Bhargav Rani is a PhD student in the Denise Rivera is a MA student in the student in the Critical Social/Per- Theatre Program, a teaching fellow Liberal Studies program, Interna- sonality Psychology Program and is at Hunter College, and the Managing tional Studies track. completing a certificate in Women’s Editor of The Advocate. Studies. She recently finished a study on music and social justice.

Cecilia Maria Salvi is a student in Liza Shapiro is a PhD student in the Chloe Wyma is a PhD student the Art the Anthropology Program. She is Comparative Literature Program. History Program, focusing on mod- the DSC’s delegate to the University Liza enjoys minutely chopping ern and contemporary art. She has Student Senate (USS). herbs and garlic, eating cheese, and published in Dissent, The Brooklyn American Horror Story (season 4 Rail, The New Inquiry, and excluded). New York Magazine.

also: Rhone Fraser is a lecturer at Howard University. His 2012 Temple University dissertation was a literary and historical analysis of periodical editors Pauline Hopkins, A. Philip Randolph and Paul Robeson.

www.OpenCUNY.org/gcAdvocate — Page 47 Blood-Thirsty Mosquitoes Join Macaulay College Teaching “American Civilization and the Futures of Blood Harvesting”Macaulay students them- one course per semester. In of know-it-all, liberal elitist selves are divided on the NEW YORK — A swarm a system currently plagued professors.” issue of the swarm’s hire. of blood-thirsty mosquitoes by austerity-induced budget Anticipating the poten- Matt Johnson, a Macaulay has been hired as a 2015- shortfalls, some faculty and tial controversy in hiring Honors freshman, said of 2016 visiting faculty member students have seen this move a swarm of blood-thirsty the swarm, “I will probably with the Macaulay Honors as ideologically motivated - mosquitoes, the statement try to enroll in their class. I College of the City Univer and fiscally irresponsible. preemptively defended the have always been taught that sity of New York. On his website, Corey choice: “Regardless of their college is about a diversity A spokesperson for the Robin, professor of political agenda to liberate humans of perspectives, and how can swarm of blood-thirsty mos- science at Brooklyn College, of inconvenient and poten- you get more diverse than a quitoes told press that the called the decision “more of tially harmful excess blood, class that’s team-taught by a mosquitoes had received sev- the same from the current not a person in the world swarm? If we aren’t willing eral lucrative, blood-rich of- CUNY administration.” He is unaware of the massive to hear them out or take a few fers from high-profile schools continued, “CUNY Central social influence of mosqui- welts, then what’s the point including Yale, Cornell, and has been pursuing a pro- toes. Our students will have of intellectual freedom? We Georgetown. The swarm, swarm, anti-blood agenda a unique opportunity to learn shouldn’t be coddling stu- however, chose CUNY for for years now in an effort to about the impending blood dents.” its historical commitments court publicity. But a move harvest firsthand from a dis- Other Macaulay stu- to diversity and educational like this, with its hefty price- tinguished swarm with ex- dents like sophomore Cora accessibility, as well as its tag, takes precious resourc- traordinary experience and Jímenez, expressed doubts: hospitality toward the blood- es — not least of all blood expertise in international “Mosquitoes always like me sucking insects. — away from students who blood management, sucking in particular. I don’t know In a joint-statement, Ann need it the most.” technology, and lingering why. I am always very pro- Kirschner, Dean of Macaulay Sources close to the swarm - near an ear while making a active with spray. I’ve tried Honors, and CUNY Chancel have claimed that the mos- high-pitched whine.” citronella candles. Nothing lor James B. Milliken called quitoes are prepared to de- Still, not everyone has works. My bites really swell the hiring “a boon” for a cline the $200,000 salary if greeted the mosquitoes with up, too. I don’t want to be CUNY system seeking to enrolled students voluntarily - open veins. coddled, but if I were to take raise its profile in an increas submit one pint of blood Shortly after the initial the class, I would expect at ingly competitive public each to United Mosquitoes press release, J.K. Trotter of least trigger warnings from education environment: “We for Famine Relief, an orga- Gawker reported that CUNY the swarm if we are going to see this as an opportunity for nization committed to ending has offered the swarm of discuss biting.” students to finally engage the ravenous blood-hunger of mosquitoes a $200,000 with real mosquitoes without mosquitoes globally. base salary to teach only the paternalistic intervention