March 29Th Calendar

Monterey Bay Black Folks Event Calendar Mon Mar 29 to Sun Apr 4 2021 Edition March is ... About the Monterey Bay Black Folks Event Calendar The purpose of the Monterey Bay Black Folks Event Calendar is to connect the Black Community of CSU Monterey Bay with the local Black Communities of the Greater Monterey Bay Area. The idea for the calendar came out of the community forums organized as part of CSUMB's annual Super Saturday Black student recruitment events. The Calendar is edited by Steven Goings with new editions being released every Monday. 1) To submit an event to the BFC for possible publication, click on this link: BFC Event Submission Form 2) To submit a "My Take" article, send a word document (NOT pdf!) along with your name and email address to [email protected] 3) To submit a "In the Spotlight" biography and picture of a community leader, send to a word document and digital picture to [email protected] Editor's Note: Throughout this newsletter, Blue Underlined copy (including above!) indicates a searchable link. Steven's Take on: The Importance of Black Intersectionality As some readers will know, I have been active over the years with the Monterey County Branch NAACP, the local LGBTQ+ Community, Communities of Faith and the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI). NCBI's motto (borrowed from the 3 Musketeers!) is All for One and One for All. Of our many NCBI principles, my favorite is Principle One: Everyone, Every Group, and Every Issue Counts. NCBI starts from the premise that every group and every one of our identities matters. We show that we welcome diversity by celebrating the contributions and supporting the struggles of each group. As we develop the capacity to stand with each other, we knit a community of trust that gives us support and hope. Whenever we make the error of not including a group or respecting an aspect of a person’s identity, we do not just marginalize them, but we cut ourselves off from others and weaken the fabric of the entire community. "Intersectionality" was coined by Black female professor Kimberle Crenshaw 30 years ago but has only gained widespread use outside of the law and universities in the last five years. Simply put, it asserts that social identities intersect and modify each other and that therefore efforts to address one type of oppression -- racism for example -- must take into account others (sexism, homophobia and the like). In other words, when you consider racism and sexism -- or women and Black people -- separately and one-at-a-time, you erase the experience of Black women. This is why not only do we need both Black History and Women's History Months, but we need to consciously remember to include women in Black History Month and Blacks in Women's History Month. The human mind has a knack for oversimplification and tends to want to view social identities in the abstract. We also tend to default to the most dominant identity when we think of social groups. The default representatives of ethnic communities are men. Cesar Chavez is thought of before Deloris Huerta, Dr. King before Dorothy Height. This largely accounts for why the murders of Trayvon Martin (2012) and George Floyd (2020) got more coverage than the murders of Reika Boyd (2012) and Breonna Taylor (2020). Indeed in 2015, the #SayHerName campaign was launched as a response to the constant media sidelining of the experiences of Black women in the context of police brutality and anti- Black violence. And in a nation fixated on race, race narratives trump gender/sex narratives. For me, the most glaring example of this was recent media coverage of the Atlanta Spa Shootings. I was thrilled to see the outpouring of support and solidarity for the Asian Community. Yet, I was deeply disappointed -- during Women's History Month no less! -- to see the debate on whether or not the shooting constituted a hate crime against the Asian community (it does!), all the while ignoring the obvious hate crime against women! Indeed, the shooter was specifically targeting women due to his professed sex addiction and its incompatibility with his Christian faith. In his own twisted way, he was attempting to the rid his world of "temptation!" The peculiar way in which Asian women in particular are hypersexualized and their working class often marginalized into sex worker adjacent businesses probably accounts for why in this case the target was specifically Asian women. It takes an intersectional lens to understand this particular hate crime. In the last issue of this newsletter, I included a number of articles related to the Atlanta Shooting and condolences for the Asian community. A part of me worried, will some readers wonder why I would focus so much on anti-Asian violence (no matter how topical) in a Black folks newsletter? Simple. The Black community literally intersects with the Asian Community through mix-race marriages and children. Again, we are far more intersectional in fact than in our imaging. We tend to forget or deliberately overlook Tiger Woods and Kamala Harris are every bit as Asian as they Black. In fact, since I don't believe in the fractioning of identity, I would say Tiger and Kamala are 100% Black and 100% Asian! And so Black Folks Calendar will continue to be a resource for the ENTIRE local Black community including all of the other social identities that compose the Black community at large. LGBTQ+, straight, male, female, religious, atheist, disabled, military, rich, poor, middle class, over and under-educated, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, African, European, young, middle age, old. All these identities and more make up the community of Black Folks and the Black Folks Calendar will continue to strive illuminate those places where our community intersects others because intersectionality matters. -- Steven Goings Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? Delivered 1851 Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say. Black Woman, Living Icon Profile: Stacey Abrams (Biography from 2021 NAACP Image Awards website, https://naacpimageawards.net/2021) Stacey Abrams is a New York Times bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO and political leader. After serving for eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as Minority Leader, in 2018, Abrams became the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia, when she won more votes than any other Democrat in the state’s history. Abrams was the first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States. After witnessing the gross mismanagement of the 2018 election by the Secretary of State’s office, Abrams launched Fair Fight Action to ensure every Georgian has a voice in our election system. Over the course of her career, Abrams has founded multiple organizations devoted to voting rights, training and hiring young people of color, and tackling social issues at both the state and national levels. In 2019, she launched Fair Count to ensure accuracy in the 2020 Census and greater participation in civic engagement, and the Southern Economic Advancement Project, a public policy initiative to broaden economic power and build equity in the South. She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the 2012 recipient of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award, and a current member of the Board of Directors for the Center for American Progress. Abrams has also written eight romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery, in addition to Lead from the Outside, formerly Minority Leader, a guidebook on making real change.

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