VolumeVolume 29 27 Fall Spring no. 1n. 2017 2 2016 www.GCadvocate.comwww.GCadvocate.com [email protected]@cunydsc.org Free the Media! Rehire Marisa Holmes! pg. 20 Dude, Where’s my Cohort? pg. 26

Why de Blasio’s Commission Reviewing NYC’s Monuments Matters pg. 12 editorial

Contents “To Revolution, or not to Revolution” www.GCadvocate.com Bhargav Rani [email protected] EDITORIAL CUNY LIFE “Has not the “world revolution” been reduced to an empty for- mula which can be appropriated pragmatically by the most di- “To Revolution, or not Dude, Where’s my Cohort? verse groups of countries and flogged to death?” to Revolution” Sarah Hildebrand Bhargav Bhargav Rani pg. 26 Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Histori- Rani pg. 3 cal Time (1985) PSC Rank-and-File Take Nandini Independent Action for a Ramachandran FEATURES $7k Adjunct Minimum Wage CUNY Struggle evolution is not an easy idea to gating 13 forms of uprisings, and aims to understand Alessandro Why de Blasio’s pg. 30 profess in our time. Once the the possibilities of collective action and individual Zammataro Commission Reviewing utopian promise of freedom and political engagement in this supposedly post-revolu- NYC’s Monuments Matters Practicing Consent in the a call to arms that animated tionary age we live in. Bernard E. Harcourt and Jesûs Anthony Ramos Classroom the struggles and aspirations of R. Velasco, the organizers of the seminar series and pg. 12 Jenn Polish peoples for over two centuries of both professors at Columbia University, initially pro- modernity, revolution is now the pg. 34 posed “Revolution 13/13,” and planned to revisit the Boycott the NFL! Shame on catchword of capitalism that sells gamut of usual suspects—from the French and Amer- Them! everything from Che Guevara t-shirts to toilet clean- ican Revolutions, to the Bolshevik Revolution on its Jeff Suttles Rers on Kickstarter. Hollowed of its vigor and vital- centennial. As Harcourt notes in his prefatory blog REVIEW pg. 16 ity, it now hangs suspended between possibility and post to the first seminar, Up from Below powerlessness, between hope and despair. But the “We had them all, and yet, we were unable to get Review of China Mieville’s romance of revolution is not completely lost. As the past the very word “revolution.” Why? Because of Free the Media! Campaign October: The Story of the precarity of the present and the overwhelming sense the historians, perhaps. The historians who have to Rehire Marisa Holmes Russian Revolution of political impotence that it reproduces press us for spoiled revolution for us in conceptualizing it, in Conor Tomás Reed Erik Wallenberg a need to rethink the modalities of resistance avail- historicizing it, in somehow raising it above all its il- able to us, the promise of revolution resurfaces as a legitimate children—resistance, revolt, insurgency, pg. 20 pg. 39 comforting and inviting proposition to lead us out of disobedience, hacktivism, standing ground. Those the darkness of our times. But the circumstances of peripheral, those ancillary, those sometimes abort- its resurgence hardly make it auspicious, for revolu- ed struggles for social change.” DSC tion is an immensely fraught concept. And this was Harcourt touches here on the crucial historio- DSC Resolution Against exemplified by the theme chosen for the 2017-2018 graphic problem with the very term “revolution.” Executive Decision seminar series of the Columbia Center of Contempo- That is, what are the parameters that impel the cat- to End DACA rary Critical Thought (CCCCT) at Columbia University egorization of certain events in history as “revolu- pg. 46 – “Uprising 13/13.” tion” as opposed to any of its subsidiary cognates “Uprising.” Not “Revolution.” The seminar series like “uprising,” “insurrection,” “rebellion” etc.? And comprises of 13 seminars held over the year investi- what are the implications of such a categorization

Front Cover: 1931 propaganda poster that was2 — found in the collection — Fall no. of 1 the2017 Russian Fall no. 1 2017 — — 3 State Library in Moscow – Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images v editorial editorial

to both our understanding of past consequences have been mea- sarily doomed to fail? Are revo- events and our visions for the fu- sured, then why even bother with lutions by their very nature so ture? The barrels of ink spilt in the it? And if “revolution,” in the mo- volatile and explosive that they in- historiographic glorification of the ment of its occurrence, phenome- evitably devolve and disintegrate English, French and Russian Revo- nologically feels no different than under the weight of their own con- lutions, by virtue of their classi- an “uprising,” “revolt,” “insurrec- tradictions? Even the ones that fication as “Revolutions” with a tion,” or “rebellion,” is there per- have been privileged in history as capital R, come at the expense of haps some merit in replacing this “successful” revolutions, such as our understanding of various oth- rather overbearing category with the Bolshevik Revolution or the er critical moments in history that any of the latter ones in thinking Chinese Cultural Revolution, to for some reason or the other don’t through our present modes of col- what extent have they been but make the cut. It is for this rea- lective action? divergent paths to the eventual son that the organizers at CCCCT But these problems at the level globalization of capital? Second, chose to turn their heads to these of historiography are only a pro- do revolutions have within them a “bastards” of history, these “il- logue to deep contradictions in structural tendency towards more legitimate children,” in the hope the content of revolution itself. repressive social formations? That that it would throw new light on The first seminar of the series, is, as Forti frames it, does revolu- the modalities of political engage- held on 14 September was de- tion “hosts in its genetic code the ment and action in this age. voted to unpacking these contra- mark of terror and totalitarian- Moreover, what really is the dictions, and featured a panel dis- ism?” Even as a conceptual cate- point of a category like “revolu- cussion between Étienne Balibar, gory, does the radicality of the cri- tion”? “Revolution” signifies an Simona Forti, and Gayatri Spivak. tique that revolution embodies, in epochal, systemic shift in so- While each differed in their artic- its unconditional rejection of the cial and political structures that ulation of the concept and their status quo, produce a discourse bleeds into the fabric of everyday estimation of its potential in our that is so totalizing as to preclude life. While it might be useful in times, what evinced as a common any negotiation or even room for understanding past ruptures in thread in all their theorizations discussion? And third, as Balibar history, the future is always un- was the immense inertia that the argues, do revolutions only serve predictable, and especially so in concept itself had amassed over to establish a more powerful “pre- the liminal and effervescent mo- time. Haunted by the specters of ventive counter-revolution,” one ments of revolutionary time. If we its past iterations in history and that continuously anticipates can’t designate a state of affairs congealed in all the blood and revolution in order to neutralize as revolutionary until the ground wreckage wrought in its name, it, rendering it virtually impos- palpably shifts beneath our feet, revolution does not easily yield sible to manifest? The various di- then what use is the category in itself up to our aspirations for the mensions of revolution are often understanding and informing our present. so fraught that Harcourt wonders present struggles? If “revolution” Harcourt, the moderator of the “whether our engagement with is nothing but a historiographic panel, lays out the central ques- revolution is not an impediment operation that can only be per- tions that underpin their inter- to social action.” formed a posteriori, if it is but a rogations of the modern concept While not all scholars on the term applied to events only in of revolution in his prefatory blog panel shared Harcourt’s utter hindsight once the weight of their post. First, are revolutions neces- disenchantment with revolu- October Revolution, 1917, Soviet-poster – Source: http://gh2u.tumblr.com/post/53438774055/soviet-posters-october-revolution-1917

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tion, these critical contradictions revolutionary process and its ulti- inaugurated the dictatorship of to, in Balibar’s words, make the fective tension to interrogate the ality latent in revolutionary ac- weighed heavy on their appraisal mate goal: from war to summary Louis Bonaparte in 1851. Marx, program more “sexy,” it none- post-revolutionary pretensions of tion, with “The Declaration of the of the modern concept of revolu- executions, from to [sic] guillotine disillusioned with the outcome of theless entered into productive our own age. Rights of Man and of the Citizen” tion. This sense of disillusionment to concentration camps.” this revolution, famously charac- conversations with Koselleck’s Implicit to the problem of during the French Revolution. if not outright disappointment The second text that the pan- terized it as a farcical iteration of essay in the panelists’ reflections revolution is the equally fraught This bourgeois universalism of with revolution was also reflect- elists were responding to was the tragedy that the French Revo- on them. The bitter disappoint- problem of universalism. Steeped the French Revolution was trans- ed in the two texts chosen by the The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis lution was, with Louis Bonaparte ment with revolution that informs in the principles of eighteenth- formed, “revolutionized,” by Marx panel. The first was Reinhart Ko- Bonaparte, Marx’s essay from emerging in history as a carica- Marx’s essay, when taken in con- century bourgeois Enlightenment in the nineteenth century into the selleck’s “Historical Criteria of the 1852, reflecting on what he per- ture of the tragic hero that Napo- junction with the deep cynicism thought, universalism as a politi- universalism that underpins the Modern Concept of Revolution,” ceived as the “grotesque me- leon was. While this text was, in that saturates the subtext of Ko- cal doctrine found a performative universalizing drive of capital and first published in German in 1979. diocrity” of the revolution that small part, apparently included selleck’s essay, provides an ef- articulation in the very potenti- its insatiable exploitation of the Koselleck, a German historian- proletariat. At the same time, the philosopher who until recently model of the bourgeois revolution was little explored in the US, writ- became both the historical pre- ing in the aftermath of the Sec- lude and the point of departure ond World War and the numerous for Marx’s own propositions for a bloody civil wars fought across proletarian revolution, whose uni- the world in the years after, nour- versalist aspirations are exempli- ished a deep cynicism towards fied in the immensely performa- the modern concept of revolution. tive rallying cry derived from The Against its original meaning Communist Manifesto – “Work- of “circulation,” derived from the ers of the world, unite!” For over ancient Greek political doctrine a century, Marxisms around the of anakyklosis which conceived world provided this universalism of history as an indefinite cyclical and the utopia of revolution with repetition of limited constitution- content. al forms (monarchy, aristocracy, The birth of postcolonial theo- oligarchy, democracy, ochlocracy ry in the wake of the decoloniza- or mass rule), Koselleck charts the tion movements of the 1960s and conceptual trajectory of revolu- 1970s shed light on the immanent tion since the French Revolution in dark side of universalism—Euro- order to underline the fundamen- centricism—and revolution too tal semantic ambiguity that offers was caught in the crosshairs of its it up as justification for the most critique. To return to the exam- diverse of political configurations ple of the French Revolution, the and even the bloodiest modes universalism inaugurated by the of action. To quote from Forti’s Declaration of Rights—of liberty, reading of Koselleck, “The revolu- equality, fraternity—sustained it- tion becomes a constant state of self only through its delimitation exception…From Robespierre to to propertied citizens (which ex- Lenin, everything is explained and cluded women) and its refusal to legitimated in the name of the accord legitimacy to the subse- Haitian slaves massacre owners and burn the North Plain plantations, 1804 – Source: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/haiti/revolution-1.gif

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quent Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolution that could still offer hope for radical poli- rebellion in history. Even at the level of historiogra- tics. For Spivak, the central problematic of revolution phy, while the former has been constituted and cel- is whether it can take root in and be impelled by the ebrated as the archetype of revolutions that all other “revolutionary consciousness” of the subaltern sub- revolutions must emulate, the latter was kept willful- ject, particularly the gendered subaltern. ly obscured from public and scholarly memory and Postcolonial theory and post-structural thought, denied consecration as “Revolution” with a capital R which these decolonization movements nourished, for two centuries. This historical amnesia about the have been vital to a critical unpacking of the Eu- Haitian Revolution was only the first of what became rocentric presuppositions that inform theory and a general precept throughout the colonial era, with knowledge. They have, however, made for bad poli- the colonial metropoles constituting themselves tics. Their insistence on difference and their rejection as the only legitimate sites for revolution, while the of the structural discourses of Marxism as totalizing colonies were only capable of “resistances,” “gueril- and Eurocentric have translated in the public sphere las,” “mutinies” and “rebellions.” But, for Balibar, into a politics of identity and ethnicity. Identity poli- the decolonization movements turned this dynamic tics has been crucial for highlighting and addressing over its head by adopting the language of revolution the atrocities suffered by racial and ethnic minorities to define national liberation movements, where the around the world, but its insistence on the singularity colonial powers were cast no longer in the role of sub- of their struggles and their mutual incommunicabil- jects of revolutionary change but rather as objects, as ity fails to implicate the structures of global capitalist the establishment that needs dismantling. Balibar relations of production that reproduce these struc- understands this inversion in the semantics of revo- tural inequalities in the relations of life in the first lution as, paradoxically, “a full “Europeanization” of place. Such a definition of politics saps revolution of the world” and “a complete universalization of its po- its potency, reducing political action to a mostly re- litical categories.” formist pursuit of justice for the benefit of one’s own While Balibar strives to incorporate the dynamics identity group. Postcolonial theory and identity poli- for the future? ble and unconnected. To heed Spivak’s proposition, of the national liberation movements of the twenti- tics were gravely mistaken in their assumption that Standing in the debris of social movements that the universal “we” that can form the agents of this eth century into his conceptualization of revolution, the universalizing and “homogenizing” drive of capi- identity politics produced, as we find ourselves im- revolution must be posited by “claiming the subject Spivak on the other hand is emphatic in her refusal to talism could be resisted through a galvanization of pelled to radically rethink the modes of revolt and of Marxism through the affirmative sabotage of ‘uni- characterize national liberations as revolutions. In- the local and an insistence on difference, as the innu- resistance available to us, revolution yet again resur- versalism,’” but at the same time, they cannot simply sofar as revolutions signify systemic change, for her, merable failures of movements against globalization faces on the horizon of our collective desire. Faced be “fantasmatic counter-universals with the global national liberations are not revolutions because they over the last thirty years testify. Neoliberal capital is with the behemoth of globalized capital—the long- South as center.” The idea of revolution must aspire are generally brought about by the progressive bour- not only unperturbed by cultural and ethnic differ- prophesized universalization of capitalism realized— for a universality if it is to stand any chance against geoisie based on an “orientalist model of the nation ences as long as it can establish market dependence, and the unprecedented scale of social, economic the universality of capital, and the content of this being liberated” and do not reflect the interests and but it in fact thrives on a manipulation and exploita- and ecological disaster that it marches towards, the universality must be forged anew from the dialectical aspirations of the national populations. This is im- tion of these differences among the working classes. profound totality of change implicit in the universal- relation between the utopian force of Marxism’s uni- portant. While Balibar’s definition of the concept of Perhaps, in this context, it behooves us to think why ism of revolution seems like the only way out. But versalism and its dynamic deconstruction by postco- revolution leads him to the bleak conclusion that the the Black Lives Matter movement, despite its strong this idea of revolution can no longer be fueled by the lonial theory. preventive counter-revolutionary forces constantly grassroots activism, has not only failed to assume a kind of Eurocentric universalism that had animated Situated in the Graduate Center, even as we strive anticipate and prevent the possibility of revolution, revolutionary character but has further emboldened the struggles of modernity. Nor can the idea be re- to build a movement that can galvanize its most Spivak’s insistence on the difference between revolu- and empowered the racist and white supremacists in duced to a multiplicity of localized struggles across marginalized and exploited, it becomes imperative tion and national liberation leaves room for an idea of this country. Must we concede Balibar’s bleak vision the world that remain fundamentally incommunica- to attend to these debates and reflect on what value A protest on Saturday by the students of Banaras Hindu University against the molestation of a student inside the campus, in Varanasi. (PTI) – Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mr-vice-chancellor-mind-your-language-it-was-molestation-at-bhu-not-eve- teasing/story-XETe4qCGDQnHiURoRfvJFM.html

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the idea of revolution can hold for us in a neoliberal the hard-won victories of decades of feminist orga- university. As Balibar notes, identifying revolution- nizing in the country, in Delhi, the Jawaharlal Nehru ary situations is not the difficult part, insofar as these University administration has, in a patriarchal regres- situations are often moments of acute crisis. Rather, sion, dissolved its democratically elected gender sen- NEVER SUBMIT, CONTRIBUTE! what is difficult is “identifyingin the present collec- sitization committee. In Banaras Hindu University in tive agents who can become active in such situations Varanasi, students protesting the victim-shaming of This fall, the Advocate would like to invite everyone to think about a history of the past and “resolve” the contradiction.” The crises of the a woman who was sexually harassed on campus and century that is bracketed by the Russian Revolution and Standing Rock. Our attempt isn’t neoliberal university are most acutely felt in a pub- decrying the general lack of women’s safety were bru- merely to destabilize historical periodization; it is a call to revisit the related questions of lic university like CUNY, where contractual, adjunct tally beaten and teargassed by the police. For these revolution and sovereignty. labor shoulders most of the teaching load at a third struggles and resistances to achieve a revolutionary It is time we accept that we live in radical times, and to ask what sorts of revolutions we can of the pay that full-time faculty receives and with lit- character, they must learn to communicate beyond not only imagine but also plan. CUNY occupies a unique position in New York City’s cultural tle job security, where tuition fees for students have the immediacy of their own contexts. This is not to and academic landscape, and we believe we can provide a platform that can harness that been steadily rising over the past four decades, and say that the material realities in the diverse contexts potential and build a real conversation about sustainable and radical change. It is far too where an expanding class of bureaucratic managers or the struggles of these peoples are the same. What and administrators continually siphon off funds that easy to lead with despair these days, and our only effective option is to work together, it means is that insofar as the patriarchal relations of and think together, as we never have before. We request that you write for us and talk to could benefit the students and faculty—the main life in these various contexts are systemically repro- the vast political community this university can cultivate, and that you encourage your stakeholders of the university—to pay for their six-fig- duced by capitalist relations of production that have ure salaries. Yet, the very real, material conditions of now reached a global magnitude, these struggles, undergraduates to do so as well. scholarship and pedagogy under neoliberalism and even if different and enacted locally, must be bound We’re interested in essays that historicize and criticize our understanding of revolutionary the immense labor of everyday life that it demands, by a revolutionary consciousness that is universal, a transfor-mations of all kinds, whether by that you mean revolutionary polities or when conjoined with its ideologies that spell out in consciousness that nurtures a devastating critique of revolutionary bodies. How do they shape the ways in which we map and organize the world bold letters that “There is No Alternative,” work to not just one’s own exploitation in the here and now we inhabit? Talk to us about hurri-canes, about civil rights, about quantum physics, about prevent the “becoming subject of groups or “forces” but of the entire system of relations that enslaves the that are virtually revolutionary” (Balibar). Audre Lorde and Agha Shahid Ali— about what it means for revolution to simultaneously be a majority of people in the world today. Without this Perhaps the greatest virtue still of the idea of rev- temporal ritual, an aesthetic epiphany, a shift in scientific paradigms, and a political desire olution in thinking about our present struggles and consciousness, revolution, in any affirmative sense baked deep into our collective psyche. modes of collective action is precisely its most dif- of the term, will remain a far cry. This is a conversation we would like to sustain across all three issues this term. We have open This editorial is not meant to be a theory of revolu- ficult endeavor – the becoming subject of virtually and rolling submissions, and our deadlines for the remaining two issues are October 25 and revolutionary groups. This is not so much a question tion. It is meant as a broad preface to a conversation that the Advocate hopes to sustain in its pages over November 25. of who will lead the revolution as it is a question of Please do send your impressions, your thoughts, and your ideas to our Editor-in-Chief, who will be the revolution. While the neoliberal uni- this semester. The current issue offers articles on the Bhargav Ra-ni, at [email protected] Also ‘cc’ to [email protected] versity continually produces legions of disgruntled, October Revolution on its centennial and on the idea ​ overworked, underpaid graduate workers and stu- of revolution in relation to indigenous rights, Stand- dents who can comfortably occupy this space of vir- ing Rock and Columbus Day. We invite our readers to tuality, their becoming subject demands the counter- contribute to this conversation in the coming issues, AND YES, WE PAY FOR ARTICLES! production of a “revolutionary consciousness” at the and we welcome articles or art/performance/film re- ​ views from a range of perspectives on revolution. We level of the everyday. We are, unfortunately, still a The Advocate pays $100-$120 for articles that are around 1500-2000 words, and about $150- particularly invite the various activist organizations long way from that. $200 for longer essays that entail more research and labor. Other contributions like reviews Finally, if the idea of revolution is to hold any mean- in the Graduate Center that are fighting for the dem- ing and force, then our struggles in the here and now ocratic rights of its students and workers to write on and photo es-says will also be compensated for at competitive rates. And of course, we must aspire for a universality. Even as the US Educa- the meaning and relevance of the idea of revolution promise enthusiastic edito-rial support and love from our team! tion Secretary Betsy DeVos prepares to rescind Title to our present condition, as a way to reflect on their We look forward to some excellent contributions from you! IX provisions on campus sexual assault, threatening own political visions and practices.

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car. The tragic events in Charlottesville and the stat- ute topplings following them have brought the ques- Why De Blasio’s Commission tion of public monuments and what they signify to the foreground of many people’s consciousness. Reviewing NYC’s Monuments Matters On the Monday after Charlottesville, another trou- bling statue of General Lee, which was welcoming Anthony Ramos visitors to the chapel on Duke University’s campus, was brought down amidst a chorus of chants: “No Trump, no KKK, no Fascist USA.” A week later, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery removed a statue com- memorating the lives of Confederate soldiers, fol- lowed by the city of Los Angeles removing Columbus still remember the first time I walked up the were eventually displaced by English settler colo- Day from its list of recognized holidays and renam- steps from the 59th street subway station nials who ransacked their homes and lands, ex- ing it Indigenous People’s Day. In Baltimore, statues and the uncanny sense of disorientation as tracting profit from their labor, and even death. of General Lee and Stonewall Jackson were removed the glass buildings extended upwards with The statue, at Columbus Circle, may seem de- that week, while in Yonkers a statue of Columbus was every step. Just behind me, a silvery globe void of meaning and value for the multitude who reportedly beheaded. Newspapers have since hast- depicting the world stood in front of the encounter the monument with indifference, passing ily tried to place these events within a larger histori- Trump Tower. Beneath the office buildings it on the way to more important endeavors, but this cal narrative. The New York Times ran a story on the and shopping center is a monumental col- is precisely the pernicious quality of monumental- “visual history” of toppled monuments with pictures umn shooting up from the swirling crowds. Atop this ism in public spaces. This is how monuments work of fallen statues that included Stalin, George III, Sad- Imonument is a sculpture of a Christopher Columbus: ideologically to cement dominant narratives, liter- dam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and Vladimir Lenin. his posture is stern as his eyes gaze keenly into the ally and figuratively, into the unquestioned and nat- They inserted the events of statue toppling within a distance, his mouth twisted in a sort of wry contempt; uralized background of the built environment and sequence of the neoliberal imaginary, from the Decla- it is the look of a resolute man with a ton of unpleas- its symbolic landscape. The reiteration of a (visual) ration of Independence to the Arab Spring. Their sto- ant work before him, though this is difficult to discern narrative draws from a system of representation ry implies a chain of historical sequence that explains from the ground. More easily legible are two scenes that cites genocide as manifest destiny, enslave- the statue removals as another birth pang of moder- carved in oxidized copper at the base of the column, ment as a moral misstep, and the killing of indig- nity, with its old ideologies metaphorically toppled which depict Columbus in almost messianic tones. enous gods in the name of Christian reason, and it with the removal of the Confederacy’s remnants. First sailing on a dinghy, with the three famous ships is nested deeply within a cultural hegemony that What has been glossed over are the histories behind behind him, and then his having made landfall. The wants also to remain unquestioned and naturalistic. the construction of the many Confederate monu- scenes portray his arrival in a revelatory motif made We now find ourselves in a moment when these ments that were built during the era of Jim Crow. clear through the exuberant gestures of each figure monuments now being excavated from what Stu- These are monuments central to the formation towards the heavens. art Hall calls their “naturalistic illusion.” This was and maintenance of white supremacist identity. The These are the events and the man memorial- particularly evident in the series of statue topplings General Lee statue, the focal point of Emancipation ized throughout the Americas—the great “discov- that followed the counter-protests at the “Unite the Park, was built in 1924, almost sixty years after the ery” of the Americas. The stark hypocrisy of what Right” rally in Charlottesville. The violent rally was US civil war but right in the middle of Jim Crow pe- this monumental statue aims to signify is felt by held by white supremacists to “defend” a statue of riod that stretched between Reconstruction and the those familiar with the history of its location. It Robert E. Lee that resides in the town’s Emancipa- Civil Rights movements. The park has been the site sits on Broadway, which was overlaid on the Wick- tion Park, and it ended with a young woman losing of rallies of confederate pride and the KKK. The man quasgeck Trail, initially carved into Manhattan’s her life at the hands of a white supremacist who responsible for the statue also commissioned, as his- wild forest by its indigenous inhabitants. They plowed into a crowd of counter-protestors with his torian Grace Hall notes, a park for Stonewall Jackson, Columbus statue in Columbus Circle, Manhattan. Credit: NYCParks.gov

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also in Charlottesville, that was used to push out its white supremacy and labor alienation cemented its nationalistic rhetoric espousing the small nation- Now!, “Charlottesville is America. The sentiment [of black neighborhood, which once kept black labor in and through these statues and their histories. state as the epitome of neoliberalism gone right. We white supremacy] that was expressed in Charlottes- close to the houses of white elites, but was no longer The novelty of statue toppling further erodes must not forget the “hippopotamus” in the room, ville is part and parcel of what built this country. And considered necessary or favorable to white society. once we place the events in historical narratives which is what the ridiculously large statue of Alex- I know that Charlottesville can erupt anywhere,” we What has been toppled, then, are not vestiges outside the myopia of US popular thought. The ander III that presided in St. Petersburg square was can understand her as outlining the overarching he- of the confederate ideology seemingly defeated #RhodesMustFall social movement, which has called. It stood there unmarred by even the Bol- gemony that has shaped this nation-state’s founda- during the Civil War; what is being unsettled are roared through South Africa and England over the shevik Revolution, except for a poem etched into tion, as well as highlighting the constant struggles the undercurrents of white supremacy, which has past couple of years, has made it a point to remove its base, mocking the statue: “I stand here as the erupting between those who want to maintain the been the foundational logic of settler colonial- statues of Cecil Rhodes from university campuses. cast-iron scarecrow for the country.” It was even- status quo and those who want to rewrite history. ism, and on which subsequent slavocracies were Rhodes was the British businessman who founded tually moved, in 1937, to the interior courtyard We must ask then, will DeBlasio’s statue commission built. A logic pointing back to the arrival of—you the De Beers diamond firm and was largely respon- of a Russian museum, where it has stayed. What reflect the sentiments, orientation, and aim of the guessed it—Columbus. What Du Bois called the sible for establishing the economic imperialism that these events show is the manner in which (visual) anti-racist movement that inspired its formation? “psychological wages” that Whites accept in com- plagues South African society to this day. They also narratives have been pulled apart by social move- However, I also want to offer a critique, a loving pensation for their labor alienation or what Ce- have a larger goal: to rewrite South African history ments, because of the depth (or height) at which critique, of the statue topplings which have erupted dric Robinson suggests is the racial form capital after apartheid. A quite different story has unfolded certain monuments stand-in as metaphors for the this past month. They are, in some ways, missing the took because of its roots in the internal rational- in Estonia, between 2004 and 2007, in which the nation-state and shape our historical memory. mark. When a statue is removed, certainly a strong izations of domination, in Europe, as it shifted right-wing government commissioned the removal These are the stakes of Mayor de Blasio’s statues statement is made, and one that speaks directly to from feudal to capitalist society. These black radi- of several statues commemorating the Red Army’s commission, also known as the Mayoral Advisory power. Still, what it leaves is a void of signification liberating of Estonia from Nazi occupation. The Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers. cal scholars highlight what has been lost in media and, in many ways, what has occurred was not a narratives: the intimate interrelationship between presence of Soviet-era statues stands in the way of Their report is expected by the end of this year and rewriting of history but a silencing of the past. Let’s the Columbus Circle statue will most certainly be a say, for instance, the Columbus Circle statue is re- focal point. Recently, a protest was held in defense moved, what will be the rationale for doing so? And of the Columbus statue by Italian-American identity to what consequence? Will it be removed so that lo- groups closely associated with the Columbus Day Parade. They would rather the statue recede, again, cal developers—Donald Trump included—can out- to the backdrop in the name of identity politics. The bid each for the opportunity to put their stamp on city will always be a contested space, where its deni- the city or will the park itself be removed to make zens must struggle, as Harvey explains, “to accumu- way for a more convenient intersection to expedi- late marks of distinction and collective symbolic ently transport labor and capital around the city? capital in a highly competitive world. But this brings What protestors may want to consider is what in its wake all of the localized questions about whose will replace these statues. In Paraguay, people collective memory, whose aesthetics, and whose were similarly faced with what to do with the ves- benefits are to be prioritized.” If we have learned tiges of the troubling past: a statue of the dicta- anything from the past few weeks, it is that contest- tor Alfredo Stroessner, who provided a haven to ing the presence of statues means backstreaming: Nazis, committed numerous human rights viola- to swim against the currents of history in which tions, and intimidated political rivals. His statue white supremacy has been naturalized, in an effort could not be allowed to stand following his ouster “to reinvigorate and conserve culture and identities in 1989. Their solution was to give the statue to deemed necessary in the political present,” as Au- artist Carlos Colombino who had long resisted the dra Simpson argues. These social movements are dictator’s cultural wars with irony and corrosive counter-hegemonic struggles assailing the material humor. He took the general’s statue, smashed it effects of capitalism and its symbolic landscape. down, put it between to two cement blocks, and When Takiyah Thompson stated, on Democracy placed it back on its foundation. Just a thought. Workers prepare for the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee at a public park in Dallas, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017 – Credit: Nathan Hunsinger/ The Dallas Morning News via AP

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the future. The NFL continues to with a $20,500,000 signing bonus Studies indicate that sports benefit from the blood, sweat, at the age of 23 to play sports, I have a positive effect on our Boycott the NFL! Shame on them! and tears of many young athletes would probably say, “Where do I economy, increase employment from urban communities. The sign?” But when we take a look rates, promote community pride, Jeff Suttles time has come for them to take at the career of, let’s say Colin and enhance overall health. As of responsibility for the role that Kaepernick, who signed a deal 2012, 177,559 scholarships were they play in our communities. worth $5,124,296 as a rookie in distributed in the United States Until we begin to hold them ac- 2011, it’s clear that some of what to youth who showed the ability countable, ethically and socially, the league is selling is an illusion. to perform at a collegiate level. n a capitalist society, we are all work- we run the risk of positioning Kaepernick decided to take In 2015, college athletics gener- ing to create living conditions that these young people for failure, a knee during the national an- ated $9.15 billion in revenue. support positive socio-economic not just in sports, but also in life. them because he was fed up With that being said, it looks growth. Issues such as police brutal- Growing up as a Dallas Cow- with injustice in our communi- like it will take a lot more than ity, equal opportunity employment, boys fan, I could never have imag- ties. This 29-year-old quarter- a protest to stop what many of and sustainable living conditions ined that one day I would disas- back opted out of his contract our young athletes consider their continue to challenge what many sociate myself from a league that with the San Francisco 49ers in ticket to a better way of life. Play- of us consider important elements once represented hard work, March. He threw for 2,241 yards ing sports as a young person in achieving the “American Dream.” For many diligence, and excellence. With and 16 touchdowns in 12 games helped me to make friends, took Iof us in the academic world, sports amount last year’s Super Bowl demand- last season, which places him in me away from the television, and to entertainment or a simple break from our ing $5.5 million for a thirty sec- good standing among NFL start- inspired me to reach beyond the daily grind. To many others, however, sports ond ad, we know that this sport ing quarterbacks. That being status quo to achieve success. represent an escape from the ups and downs is generating serious currency. In said, he is still a reliable asset to As an adult, I still have a posi- that life continues to present. The spirit dis- the mist of all this revenue gen- many teams in the NFL. It seems tive bond with many of the guys played in social settings when the Yankees eration, minorities still lack head that as he took a stand for equali- that I played with and against in hit a home run, or the Knicks complete a fast coach representation. The poli- ty and justice, he lost marketabil- middle school and high school. break, can be contagious and irresistible. cies, although necessary, have ity in the NFL. What does that say It would be preposterous to say Unfortunately, some of our favorite teams become inconsistent, sending about this league? Is fame and that I didn’t learn the power continue to exploit the athletes that work mixed messages to fans and or- glory contingent on turning your of teamwork as I participated for them. The recent issues that the National ganizations. Not to mention the back on the issues in our urban with my teammates. But after Football League (NFL) seems to be encounter- lack of support many of these communities? Will Colin’s deci- high school, my sports career ing is a wake-up call for many of us who are athletes experience once they re- sion to raise his voice leave him was over, and it’s safe to say committed to raising our voices for justice. tire and suffer from serious health ostracized? I’m challenging our that many of the guys I played Whether you’re a sports fan or not, it’s no afflictions such as dementia. community to address this sce- with experienced the same re- longer acceptable to support lack luster at- These issues weigh heavy as nario with urgency. Urban com- ality. Kaepernick was one of tempts to achieve equality in professional you take a look at the future of this munities provide this league with the few who found a way to es- sports. It’s certainly true that the world I come sport. Especially when we put the athletes who have become icons tablish a career in professional from would benefit greatly from kids striving spotlight on young athletes from in urban culture. If we continue sports. He should never have to excel in pedagogy — rather than striving to urban communities, striving to to allow this nonsense to persist, been denied his opportunity to be the next hero to catch a touchdown pass in become one of the 32 individuals we lend our support to a deterio- play when all he did was take a Super Bowl LI — but if the kids in my neighbor- drafted in the first round of the rating system that is detrimental stand for justice and equality. hood naturally gravitate to sports, it remains NFL draft. Don’t get me wrong, if to the growth of our communi- Colin Kaepernick embodies our obligation create a level playing field for someone offered me $30,400,000 ties and indirectly destroy lives. a great example of how athletes Kaepernick playing with the kids at Camp Taylor – Source: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e1/f5/ab/e1f5abcac4bb45a4d04cfb1c78215fde. jpg

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should embrace their commu- lead, as we initiate constructive month, the frustration of the How do we explain this situ- lieve that our first step should be to avoid another situation of this nities. Kaepernick hosts Camp ways to educate young athletes community became apparent. ation to aspiring professional to boycott the NFL. That means magnitude. Taylor, a community based or- about the importance of justice Community leaders, organizers, athletes? What role do we play not watching the games, not This situation comes down to ganization that focuses on help- and equality. We have to reiter- and clergy spoke to the hundreds as activists and supporters of wearing or buying their apparel, an individual’s right to express ing children suffering from heart ate the fact that running and that gathered in protest of the equality? Is this a sign that we and most importantly, continuing how he/she feels about life as a disease. He has donated over a passing the ball well is only half NFL’s treatment of Kapernick, should be preparing for more dis- to rally and express our concerns minority in America. Police killed million dollars to various chari- the battle. The truth lies in what and it was evident that many fans crimination as we build for the about the treatment of athletes over a thousand black people in table organizations. Earlier this 2016; Kaepernick has every right year, this NFL quarterback deliv- ered several boxes of outfits to to express his displeasure with New York parole through the “100 what is going on in our country. Suits for 100 Men” campaign, an To end his career over this would organization that focuses on as- be insane. This should be a sign sisting men and women who to our urban communities and are on parole looking for em- its gatekeepers. It seems that no ployment. Recently, Kaepernick matter how much our athletes pledged $25,000 in aid to De- generate for organizations, when ferred Action for Childhood Ar- they become socially invested rivals program (DACA). It’s safe to in issues that relate to our com- say that this athlete is using his munities, they run the risk of voice and finances to address the being barred from the team. I issues that continue to plague urge you all to care and to take our urban communities. Instead of questioning his motives for a stand. Do what is right in your taking a knee during the national heart. Let the NFL know that it’s anthem, the NFL should be cel- unethical to treat players in this ebrating his work off the field. manner. We are all invested in I believe that our urban com- our communities; the fact that munities should, with the right athletes have become a big part pedagogical tools, take the lead of American culture is real. We to share this information with must educate and embrace them our young athletes. Let’s encour- by letting them know that we age our young people to reach got their back. Not because they for the sky through work in the are great at sports, but because community as well as work on they are a part of our communi- the field. Colin Kaepernick is one ties. Ultimately, if we stand for of the many athletes who has community you coexist in, this shared my anger. Tameka Mallory future? These questions must from urban communities. The fallen out of grace with the NFL, is where you harvest your soul, of The Justice League proclaimed be answered immediately; these voice that we have as one-time equality in the NFL, we take a and he deserves to express his and what gives you the potential to the crowd, “This is bigger than answers will provide direction supporters of the league should stand for the systemic issues that frustration with a system that to shine with or without the NFL. one individual!” I agree with Ms. for the future of college athletes be very important to the league. continue to infect our communi- continues to reward silence. It’s As hundreds of people gath- Mallory, we have to begin to think from urban communities. As the They will have to reexamine what ties. The time is now, let’s work essential that urban commu- ered in front of the NFL head- about the long-term implications speakers addressed the crowd, it just happened to Kaepernick, together; let’s create the solution. nities and pedagogy take the quarters on Park Avenue last this will have on our culture. became obvious that many be- and how they should be working Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/49erspanthersfootball-4.jpg

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Conor Tomás Reed

A crisis is brewing at the CUNY Television headquarters at the Graduate Center. After a series of scandals were uncovered by its workers over the last few years — improper paychecks for hours worked, racist and sexist discrimination in hiring and promotions, and the creeping privatization of the 32- year old educational access station — a sudden blowback was the illegal firing this summer of the long-time CUNY and NYC organizer Marisa Holmes from her CUNY TV job. As a result, the new city-wide campaign Resist CUNY TV, an ad-hoc group of District Council (DC) 37 and Professional Staff Congress (PSC) members, community organizers, and independent media advocates, has been launched to reclaim not only Holmes’ job, but the soul of independent media at CUNY TV and beyond. 20 — — Fall no. 1 2017 Fall no. 1 2017 — — 21 Source: https://www.glassdoor.com/Photos/CUNY-TV-Office-Photos-IMG1207504.htm features features

Resistance and Retaliation PSC lines, which negatively af- fected 57 people (about half the Holmes began working at CUNY TV staff), resulting in a 30- CUNY TV in Fall 2013 as a Broad- 40% pay reduction for some. This cast Associate with a regular prompted union members to look 32 hours/week shift. Holmes into how they were getting paid. co-produced Canapé, a French- Holmes explains, “we discovered speaking cultural show with an that most people had been get- anti-colonial lens. The Emmy- ting paid on separate lines for nominated show featured wide- the same work. This effectively ranging short documentaries, meant that people on part-time from Tunisian rappers standing lines were doing full-time work, up to dictatorship, and refugees but not being compensated searching for better lives in Eu- properly or having the full ben- rope, to a segment on J’Ouvert, efits accorded to a full-time em- the Brooklyn street carnival cel- ployee, while those on full-time ebrating anti-slavery and anti- lines were being paid extra for ex- colonial uprisings. Holmes pro- tra hours worked, but at regular duced, shot, and edited video hourly rates instead of overtime. content for the show’s television Basically, CUNY TV was getting and web distribution. around paying out benefits and While working on Canapé, overtime, by offering some staff Holmes was faced with the re- additional PSC lines.” alities of her own labor situa- CUNY TV workers urgently held tion at CUNY TV. In summer 2015, meetings to restore these hours, then-CUNY TV Director Bob Isaa- sending petitions and letters to cson informed the station that Human Resources and CUNY TV sweeping budget cuts and lay- management. DC 37 filed an im- offs were forthcoming, in viola- proper practice suit, and in sum- tion of the workers’ union col- mer 2016, they won. Holmes lective bargaining rights. Holmes recalls, “we stopped the layoffs and co-workers agreed that they and cuts to hours by building a couldn’t create political content cross-union strategy between DC and not address the structure 37 and the PSC that exposed the of CUNY TV, so they began to mismanagement and bad labor speak out and organize. A rapid practices at the station.” Through rank-and-file pressure campaign these organizing efforts, dozens urged DC 37 to file a cease-and- of CUNY TV workers received in- desist letter within 24 hours, thus creases to their base pay, chang- halting the layoffs. es of title, expansion of benefits, In response to the cease-and- and support for pay equity. DC 37 desist, Isaacson cut all of the was so impressed by these efforts Photo by Erik McGregor

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that they featured Holmes on the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Opera- this campaign at CUNY TV is being ● She was doing protect- 12, despite the reluctance of the York City. We have a choice be- cover of their newspaper, the Pub- tions, Burton Sacks, took over Her- fought in a broader context that ed union activity on the CUNY administration. Reflected in tween the path toward privatiza- lic Employee Press. shenson’s old position and over- exceeds her specific situation, job, such as organizing the claim are Holmes’ demands: tion and a media for the people.” The CUNY TV settlement vic- saw the transition at CUNY TV. Gail however precarious it is. Across discussions and meetings This battle is being fought in the tory was short-lived. Holmes was Yancosek, a former DC 37 union NYC, several incidents have re- between unions, signing 1) Bring the show Canapé courtroom, in our campus build- suddenly informed that Canapé, member and beneficiary of the cently emerged where indepen- people up to be members, back on the air ing, and in the streets. CUNY is a was to be canceled, and she was workers’ settlement who also runs dent media women workers at going to union actions, 2) Reinstate Marisa Holmes place for radical discourse, but it initiating claims, going effectively demoted from senior a consulting firm, was appointed Paper Tiger, the A.J. Muste Insti- 3) Cover retroactive pay for must also be a place for action. by Sacks to be the new CUNY TV tute, and StoryCorps are being to delegate meetings etc. producer/editor to associate pro- Holmes’ time away from To challenge the nepotistic politi- ducer. Meanwhile, as DC 37 and Interim Director. Holmes explains, harassed and fired for labor orga- which she would always the job cal structure of CUNY (and its me- the PSC simultaneously negoti- “they have made sweeping chang- nizing. With the Village Voice and do in her capacity as a DC dia apparatus) entails building a ated contract demands with a es in the transition, which include Daily News also shutting down 37 member (while wearing Here at the Graduate Center, CUNY administration that insisted appointing all the people from print editions and being sold to the union’s green hat, no students, faculty, and staff regu- militant rank-and-file movement there was no money for adjunct Gail’s consulting company to man- a conglomerate (respectively), less). larly voice the need for cross- across and beyond our unions as faculty pay equity (while raising agement positions.” Yancosek was we’re seeing that media workers union solidarity with workplace we confront management’s at- tuition fees and their own sala- accompanied by a new team of and platforms are generally being ● Management was aware concerns, and for single grievanc- tacks upon them. We need to car- ries), City College of New York was Human Resources and financial targeted right now. Together with she was organizing on es to connect to larger struggles. ry onward the work that Marisa rocked with a financial corruption officers who, under the guise of the situation at CUNY TV, these the job: The current di- The fight to re-hire Holmes could Holmes has always been doing, as scandal and federal investigation cleaning up financial corruption, attacks on public broadcasting rector Yancosek was on have wider repercussions for we support her in this critical mo- involving a $600,000 City College targeted Holmes and co-workers are “canaries in the coal mine” all the email threads, and DC37 and PSC members (whose ment. Foundation fund that had been who had drawn attention to it. In of public sector attacks that may was a beneficiary of the contracts expire this November) settlement the union won. diverted to the college president’s this new management position, only worsen in a wider assault on against a Graduate Center and *What you can do to help* HR also received petitions personal expenses. CUNY’s former with full knowledge of Holmes’ unions by government and busi- CUNY administration whose re- and letters from Holmes Vice President and behind-the- union activity, Yancosek worked ness interests. cord on labor relations is already and co-workers, so CUNY 1. Contact these adminis- scenes chief operator, Jay Hersh- with Sacks and CUNY Central’s To support Holmes over the objectionable. If this move is tol- TV and CUNY Central Of- trators to demand that enson, and CUNY TV’s former Di- Human Resources Director Sonia summer, the Resist CUNY TV cam- erated, it sets a precedent for fices knew of her union- Marisa Holmes be re-hired rector, Isaacson (who Hershenson Pearson to abruptly fire Holmes in paign held three solidarity rallies how CUNY can threaten and fire protected efforts. at CUNY TV: had appointed to run CUNY TV), June 2017 without notice or cause (one in which we marched from those who speak out. On a per- ● Burton Sacks, Deputy were suddenly implicated. The the Graduate Center to CUNY’s sonal note, I’m saddened that for termination. Since then, Yan- ● There was nexus between Vice Chancellor for Op- CUNY TV Foundation, which they cosek has overseen the station’s headquarters), and we launched the consistent radical presence the organizing and the erations: 646-664-2853 treated as a slush fund for pet further privatization and crack- a petition and phone/email blast of my friend and comrade in the retaliatory action: i.e. the ● Sonia Pearson, Execu- projects and personal favors, also down on workplace dissent, in part actions to Burton Sacks and Sonia same summer that they building could so easily be disap- came under scrutiny. By the end of by closely surveilling workers, seiz- Pearson. CUNY management has peared. tive Director and Labor won the hours settlement Designee of Human Re- 2016, Hershenson quietly stepped ing their laptops to inspect data, repeatedly ignored DC 37 and PSC dispute and got a new DC With Resist CUNY TV, I urge sources: 646-664-3264 down as CUNY VP and was relo- and threatening the TV shows of leaders’ requests to meet with 37 contract, Canapé was readers to join the campaign to 2. Sign the petition: cated to the Queens College ad- those who had spoken out. them about Holmes’ situation. canceled and Holmes was re-hire Marisa Holmes, as we Change.org/p/burton-sacks- ministration. Shortly thereafter, Holmes has now filed a retaliation demoted, and then, a year strive to reclaim the station for Isaacson announced his retire- CUNY TV: claim with the NY State Public Em- later, fired. critical independent voices. In her re-hire-marisa-holmes-at-cuny-tv ment and his close CUNY TV affili- Canaries in the Coal Mine ployment Relations Board (PERB) words, “CUNY TV has the capacity 3. Follow updates at: ates also relocated elsewhere. to argue the following: The first of several PERB hear- to be a critical and engaged plat- Facebook.com/ResistCUNYTV From this moment, CUNY’s As Holmes is the first to admit, ings happened on September form for communities across New and @ReHire_Marisa on Twitter.

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for both intellectual and personal curiosity is more selfishly rooted, In graduate school, students growth. And I believe that having stemming from reflections on tend to go from being part of a the right social support system is my own life as a doctoral candi- “class” to part of a “cohort.” A Dude, Where’s my Cohort? actually an essential part of mak- date and the difficulty that often shift in terminology occurs even ing the most of even an academic comes with attempting to strike though the word represents the experience. School can be stress- a work-life balance. As an under- same idea: a group of individuals Sarah Hildebrand ful. Sometimes we need people graduate, I had found it difficult who will, theoretically, enter and to motivate us. And when course not to be surrounded by other complete the program together. material becomes difficult, it’s people. Conversely, as I now en- But the term cohort is loaded often way easier to work through ter my fourth year at the Graduate with a bit more symbolic mean- with a friend. Center, I wonder where all those ing. Its earliest usage dates back And then again, perhaps my people have gone. to the Roman Empire when it was s an undergraduate, I attended When I ask my students how they make friends in a small public liberal arts col- college, many of them say they don’t. They say every- lege where most students lived one is so busy after class that most people disappear on campus. When your entire quickly, often to work the jobs they need to pay tu- life takes place within the same ition. They say they are mostly just friends with the 150-acre radius as 5,000 oth- people they knew from high school, or spend most of ers, it is easy to meet people. their time with their families. Even if you don’t make friends In order to reverse this trend, I try to foster a class- in class, you at least have a roommate or three, and room environment where students are able to get to yourA social circle slowly expands as eager freshmen know each other. I make sure to go over names multi- are lured by the siren calls of upperclassmen parties. ple times at the start of the semester (and sometimes After my first few months teaching at Lehman College in the middle of it). I force them to do group activi- in the Bronx, I began to grow curious about the “col- ties in class so that they have to interact, even if they lege experience” of my students. Most days, I would might spend the majority of that time complaining walk into a silent classroom, my students glued to about how horrible I am for making them do group their cellphones. I began to poke fun at them, asking: work rather than doing the work itself. In some ways, “Can’t you at least pretend to like each other?” And I find this an equitably productive use of class-time then, more seriously, “How do you all make friends because as my students become more comfortable here?” with each other, they also become more comfortable Lehman College is almost entirely a commuter expressing their ideas in our large course discussions. school. In terms of student housing, there’s a resi- By the end of the semester, I often walk into class- dence hall that can accommodate up to nineteen rooms filled with both whispered and raucous con- students. With an undergraduate enrollment of over versations. 10,000, this means that the other roughly 9, 981 of I understand that some readers may wonder why them are dispersed throughout the city and up into this matters. If my job is to teach students a particular Westchester, many living with parents or families of set of skills, why should I bother caring about their their own. Even though Lehman has a rather large social lives? and scenic campus, especially compared to other But when people talk about the “college experi- schools within the CUNY system, it still doesn’t ap- ence,” they’re rarely just talking about coursework. pear to serve as a popular meeting ground. It’s generally acknowledged that college is a space Lehman College Music Hall, Bronx, New York City. The tudor-gothic graystone building was completed in 1931 by the New York State WPA – Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/3154184698/

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used to describe divisions of infantry, and it held on of the entirely unfunded students in my former MA/ And after coursework ends, it’s hard to keep track in the years ahead of me who have been amazingly to this militaristic connotation for quite some time. PhD program, I was never quite able to overcome my of where everyone has landed. Some cohorts work supportive both personally and professionally, help- Given this etymology, it would appear that its usage sense of insecurity and inferiority enough to enter harder than others to maintain their sense of unity ing to both keep me sane and to guide me through in defining incoming groups of graduate students is social spaces within the institution. While some of and support each other through the program, while the bureaucratic hoops. I’ve then tried to pay-it-for- meant to somehow bind them together and promote this social hierarchy may have been imagined, I can others are quickly split apart by the countless other ward to those in the cohorts after me, remembering a sense of camaraderie, playing off on stereotypes of assure you that some of it was most definitely real, distractions and obligations of living life as a gradu- in tortured detail my first year as a Graduate Teaching soldiers as a “band of brothers” (or sisters). There’s materializing both with and without intention. Some ate student. Fellow when it took months to acquire even the most an emphasis on togetherness that is less present in funded students really did seem to think that being Generally speaking, I believe graduate schools basic of resources. the signification of the word “class” and which sug- unfunded was a contagious condition that should be don’t do nearly enough to foster a sense of communi- I’ve also found it helpful to create networks out- gests these people will remain together in the years carefully avoided, while in other ways it was only nat- ty on their campuses, especially given the increasing side the university. While unfunded, I took up an off- ahead despite the obstacles. ural that those with funding (such as teaching fellow- amount of research being produced around issues of campus job through which I gained an entirely differ- In some ways, the Graduate Center is ahead of ships) would forge stronger bonds with each other student suicides and mental health, along with the ent community from that encapsulated by graduate other institutions when it comes to forging this initial through that shared experience. well-known fact that doctoral study is often an in- school. In some ways, this served as a relief. It offered bond. Efforts have been made, at least in some de- While the Graduate Center has taken steps, at least creasingly isolating pursuit. And I think this problem me that greater sense of balance as I was able (albeit partments, to limit the size of cohorts and to provide within the English department, to eliminate this ini- is especially exacerbated by the geography of New forced) to escape and detach from academia. It also incoming students with equal funding. This helps de- tial hurdle, the sense of community promised at ori- York City and the dispersed nature of CUNY’s many helped diversify my friend group. Working positions crease at least some of the competition for resources entation rarely seems to last. People who enter with campuses. As many of us begin teaching placements, in the field of manual labor, or even more traditional and encourages a more collaborative and friendly Master’s degrees often speed through coursework, we end up scattered across CUNY’s undergraduate on-campus jobs like tutoring within other depart- institutions, often sharing an office with numerous ments, I was able to meet people from outside my environment. At the start, we appear to have equal while others may move more slowly in the gather- other Graduate Teaching Fellows or adjuncts, but field of study. Our varying interests and backgrounds footing. This isn’t the case at many other universities ing of credits. Sometimes, life happens. People go on rarely seeing them. forced us to find a common language that would where funding is competitive and uneven, creating leave, get married, get jobs, move. Time-to-degree Once coursework ends, there’s no longer a cen- eventually evolve into one of friendship and intimacy. rifts within a cohort before it can even form. As one varies widely—anywhere from five to ten-plus years. tralized meeting place for graduate cohorts. Many In New York, I’ve worked to develop connections students will rarely visit the Graduate Center for within my local community. While a lot of my hobbies more than the occasional committee meeting. The could certainly also take place in isolation, I’ve forced boroughs are so spread out that fostering friend- myself to reinvest in more “social” activities. To me, ship takes a concerted effort and allocation of time— there’s nothing quite like the instant camaraderie enough so that many students feel too guilty to set it formed by joining a team and, as a soccer player, hav- aside, or genuinely cannot due to financial or other ing a literally common goal. circumstances. There are certainly people from my Higher education does not have to be an isolat- initial cohort who I care for and miss dearly, but send- ing pursuit. Certainly, there are ways that the insti- ing a series of extemporaneous and inconsistent text tutions themselves could better facilitate a sense of messages feels like an empty form of communica- community amongst their student populations by tion. Our lives are too full to be boiled down to 140 providing physical spaces where students can social- characters. ize or by fostering more collaborative and amicable The only solution I’ve found to help alleviate this atmospheres. But there are also steps that we our- loneliness is to make a cohort of my own. As it turns selves can take to subvert a system that often leaves out, your entry point into the program, or pacing us sequestered. We can prioritize our friendships by within it, need not have bearing on who you should viewing them not as guilty pleasures, but as healthy or shouldn’t associate with. While our original co- and productive relationships that might ultimately horts might appear like ready-made social circles, provide exactly the support we need to see the light I’ve found it incredibly valuable to befriend people at the end of the academic tunnel. Source: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1377546/images/o-GRADUATION-COLLEGE-facebook.jpg

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CUNY Struggle

n 26 September, one hundred CUNY faculty, students, and com- rades from all across the city picketed out- side Governor Cuo- mo’s Manhattan office, and marched to CUNY Central, the headquarters of CUNY manage- Oment. We wanted to send a clear message to Cuomo and CUNY management that there will be no excuses this time: we demand a $7k- per-course minimum wage and meaningful job security for adjuncts in the next PSC- CUNY contract! The entire demonstration was organized by an independent coalition of PSC rank-and-filers and was co-sponsored by CUNY Struggle. Despite having done absolutely zero work to mobilize membership for the coming contract fight, PSC leadership refused to endorse this rally, attend, or even give us access to their communication apparatus to spread the word that it was go- ing on. But apparently we still managed to get the word out! And whether Cuomo, the CUNY management, or PSC leadership likes it, we’re just getting started. All images are courtesy of Anh Tran

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the vast majority of raises to the professors who already earn the most money, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the CUNY system. It’s time for CUNY to give its adjunct faculty a $7k-per-course mini- mum wage and real job security!

CUNY can afford $7k for adjuncts in the next PSC- CUNY contract

CUNY currently spends only 5% of its $5,000,000,000 annual revenue on adjuncts’ wages – the workers who comprise over half the faculty and teach over half the classes. CUNY has the money. Raising the minimum wage for adjuncts to $7k would take only another 5% of CUNY’s revenue. Time to cough it up!

Adjuncts deserve $7k and job security, both long overdue

Adjuncts are college professors and at CUNY teach col- lege classes for sub-minimum wage. Across the country, adjuncts are rising and demanding the wages that they deserve. The contingent faculty unions at Tufts University and Barnard College both won minimum per-course rates of at least $7,000 for the coming academic year. CUNY sets the low watermark for adjunct pay in the entire City of New York. It’s time to reverse this trend.

$7k and job security for adjuncts is amoral and practi- cal issue for everyone

Across the country, universities are increasingly rely- ing on adjuncts to lower the wages and job security of ev- We refuse to let this contract be the latest chapter in eryone, including tenured faculty. Only by taking a stand ‘A Tale of Two CUNYs’! for the bottom tier of CUNY’s workforce can we begin to buck this trend and turn the tide toward a living wage for The contract for PSC-CUNY, the union for CUNY profes- all in the university, as well as optimal learning conditions sors and many higher education staff, is set to expire in for students. November. A majority of professors in the CUNY system are adjuncts, working for a mere $3,200 per course with Join our growing grassroots movement for $7k and no job security. CUNY contracts consistently distribute job security… and accept no substitute!

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nundrum every term before class- jors—perhaps especially the the- dents at various points in each es begin, and I think about it con- atre majors, as theatre nerds often class. stantly throughout every course I cope with our anxiety by diving so Of course, consent — and Practicing Consent teach. But at the start of this term, deeply into performances that we thereby consent-based pedagogi- I thought about it extra hard, be- can, for a few shining hours, inter- cal practices — is muddied by dif- in the Classroom cause right before that, I got of- act with human beings without ferentials in power. As a white fered the opportunity to teach my being riddled with the weight of U.S.-born instructor teaching at first theatre class. our own minds—have social anxi- a predominantly immigrant, POC Jenn Polish It’s a 101 at LaGuardia Commu- ety, are on the autism spectrum, institution, I can never get truly nity College; it’s “Art of Theatre”, have depression. free consent for anything I do in and yes, theatre majors have to So what is a student-centered the classroom. My body is inher- take it, but it’s also a course that pedagogue teaching theatre to ently violent in that space. I know fulfills general humanities curric- do? For me, I didn’t want it to be this. My students and I discuss love participating in brim with an odd combination of their voices heard. Such activi- ular requirements. Not everyone a matter of limiting the range of this. I write to my students about workshops that are ac- adrenaline and serenity during ties can feel absolutely terrible for coming into the course aspires to activities in the classroom; but I it on my syllabus. When I say tually workshops. Par- think-pair-share activities; some those of us with anxiety, with de- be an actress, nor necessarily do did want it to be, fundamentally, consent-based pedagogy, I say it ticularly when we’re days, I am immensely grateful for pression, with an off-day, with any they aspire to be familiar with act- about consent. I try to foster as with a grain of salt, with a heaping supposed to be teaching the opportunity to write through diagnosis, with none of them, and ing, with improvisation, with col- much consent as I can in my sys- helping of, ‘it is always an attempt, about teaching. It always my thoughts in a room full of peo- anything but “centered” around laborative writing of the intense tem of assessment through con- and the power dynamics involved strikes me as ironic when ple who are, also, writing through me (when I’m in the position of a intimacy that theatre courses can tract grading practices and doing must constantly be explicitly ac- we do that by lecturing, their thoughts. student). foster. Besides, even theatre ma- temperature checks with my stu- knowledged and openly negoti- by talking at instead of talking But many days? Many days, What, then, is a student-cen- Iwith, by reading endless, jargon- many moments, I can barely stand tered pedagogue to do? Do we filled texts aloud instead of en- the thoughts that bang around in never give activities, surrender to gaging in workshop methods that my own head, let alone write any lectures or traditional class dis- we can employ in our undergrad of them down just because some- cussions? Do we forsake freewrit- classrooms. one told me to. But I feel like I have ing, do we cancel the activities I love participating in work- to, because if I don’t, someone we’ve come to call “low-stakes” shops that are actually work- might ask me why not. Someone even though, for many of us, they shops, not just lectures by a differ- might ask me what I wrote, and I’ll feel incredibly high-stakes? ent name. have to explain that my mind was Of course not. I believe that we I love it. But sometimes I don’t. full of ideas before we were asked need student-centered classroom Sometimes I hate it. Actually, I to write them down; I’ll have to structures like we need oxygen, hate it fairly often, and fairly pas- explain that I left my anti-anxiety especially when we’re teaching sionately. This is because there medication at home today, and within white supremacist systems are moments in which I am happy anyway, it doesn’t always help that already work so hard to de- to participate in random class- So there are times when I hate centralize, marginalize, silence, room activities drawn from stu- “student-centered” pedagogy in erase our students of color, our dent-centered pedagogy. Some action. All too often, the activities students with dis/abilities, our days, I am thrilled to write on that we create to make our les- students who are just learning post-its and post them on my own son plans conducive for students [academic] English for the first body; some days I am full to the to shape the classroom, to have time. I think a lot about this co- Source: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/3136392/images/o-QUIET-REVOLUTION-6-facebook.jpg

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ated.’ Trying to think through how ity to opt-out and back in at any actions you’re available for, and Each class, you will be expect- the rest of the class—or, just when class activities—please make the an attempt at consent-based ped- time without stigma or judgment, what kinds of social interactions ed to bring with you the cards I you’re feeling ready to participate yellow Personal Traffic Light vis- agogy might operate in my day- even the most “low-stakes” of ac- you’d like to avoid at any given give you in the beginning of term: generally and speak out in class— ible to myself and to your class- to-day theatre classroom really tivities can become high-stakes in moment. This wearable tech these cards will be our Personal please make the green Personal mates. had me re-evaluating the casual a hammering heart trying to beat (wearable consent, one might Traffic Lights, colored green, yel- Traffic Light visible to myself and way we often deem certain tasks itself out of a quaking chest. say) communicates without mak- low, and red. Though we will dis- to your classmates. Red: When you are feeling un- or assignments (like freewriting This term, then, I’m experi- ing the individual wearing it com- cuss these extensively in class, I able to participate in a traditional or informal group work) as “low- menting with a system that schol- municate directly and since every- want to explain our Personal Traf- Yellow: When you are feeling way—when you’re having a bad stakes.” It’s all well and good to fill ars and activists on the autism one wears them, it helps diminish fic Lights here as well: cautiously ready to participate— day, when it’s enough of a chal- our classrooms with “low-stakes” spectrum have developed for con- stigma around less social feelings. perhaps you’re nervous (a little or lenge and risk to be present in activities meant to centralize stu- ferences: a system of wearable The way I’ve adopted this sys- Green: When you are feeling up a lot), or having an off-day/you’re class so you would rather learn by dent experience and foster active colors/symbols that broadcasts to tem to my theatre class this term for anything, ready to take intel- tired, but you’re ready to take observing, listening, and taking engagement, but without the abil- people what kinds of social inter- is as follows: lectual and emotional risks with some risks and dive into theatre notes instead of directly engaging

Colleges from Ohio State to Central Florida devise more programs to triage students – Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/students-flood-college-mental-health-centers-1476120902

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in the day’s activities—please make the red Personal But there is also a very practical, grounded re- Traffic Light visible to myself and to your classmates. sponse that I’ve developed to this question. As with You can always change your Light in the middle of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned, my stu- Up from Below the class, because of course, our feelings fluctuate all dents showed it to me. Yesterday, two of my students the time. You will never be penalized for how you’re were displaying their red cards. Their nope absolutely Review of China Mieville’s feeling, of course, but you might find that I’ll check in not, not today Satan cards. But they still volunteered with you privately if I’m noticing a lot of reds and yel- to give performances, in front of the entire class, that October: The Story of the Russian Revolution lows from you; this is to see if there’s anything I can moved many of us to tears because their interpreta- do to make the class a safer and more comfortable tions of the text they were working with (a spoken and accessible space for you to learn. word piece by Jonathan Mendoza called “Brown Boy, When we start doing projects and activities to- White Boy”, if you’re interested) were so damn pow- Erik Wallenberg gether, we will make sure we have roles for when erful. you’re feeling yellow and red. We will work as a team One of the other students in the class (once we to find various ways for everyone to contribute to the slowly emerged from their silent, tear-filled “wow” class experience; perhaps the greatest thing about from one of the performances) ventured to commend theatre is that there is always a role for everyone, the performer not only on his performance itself; he from the most outgoing spotlight-seeker to the most pointed out that the performer was wearing his red introverted behind-the-scenes writer. card, and he thought it was especially brave to give a The biggest critique I’ve encountered—always stunning performance like that while he was feeling from professors, never from students (at least, not red. He thanked him for his performance, for his ex- that they’ve told me)—to this consent-based peda- ample, his bravery. The performing student respond- ne can stand in the stairway gogical practice is, “won’t students just use this to at the Museum of the City ed that, in our class—as we had all discussed during work their way out of working?” I am of the firm belief of New York surrounded by our collaborative creation of our grading contract— that this question itself has tints of racialized able- quotes stenciled on the walls ism, digging at our most cherished beliefs that stu- he was making an effort to become comfortable with which pay homage to the dents, as a whole, aren’t to be trusted. That when a being uncomfortable. metropolis. One quote that student doesn’t show up to class, it’s because they’re This, I should add, was the same student who, on dominates the wall reads, just “not trying hard enough” or they’re “lazy.” De- the first day of class, nearly cried when I introduced “New York, city of prose and pression, lack of MetroCard money, anxiety, different the Personal Traffic Light system to them, bursting fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a tri- ways of learning: these things don’t exist in this ques- forth with a, “why has no one ever had this for us be- Oumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the tion, and if they do, they exist only on certain terms. fore?” dollar.” Leon Trotsky wrote these words remember- And when students are in fact checked out and This did not happen because my pedagogy is ing his time in New York in the early days of 1917. He don’t want to do the work? Why not? Are we not mak- great, or even good. It is because autistic self-advo- “only managed to catch the general life-rhythm of ing it seem relevant to their lives? Are we not letting cates created an excellent system, and I was lucky the monster known as New York” because he had to our students recognize themselves in our course enough to learn of it and try to integrate it into my hurry back to Russia. work? Has K-12 education depleted their faith that own course. And it is because my students are brave, The events that unfolded in Russia over the course they can ever recognize themselves in our course and powerful, and because we’re all learning the of the year 1917 had been anticipated and dismissed work? Those things are our responsibilities to ad- strength of vulnerability in the classroom together. in equal measure over the previous decades. The dress, to change. To be transparent with students, to Consensually. feudal monarchy of the Romanovs was long past its work with them, to meet them halfway. prime while the socialist movement innovated new

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forms of democracy as late as the war, as they are to all wars, and socialist cake.” Miéville shows the crushed rebellion of 1905. The fall accordingly, China Miéville keeps problems faced by those wanting of the centuries-old tsarist regime them at the foreground of his his- to make a revolution in a coun- in February as well as the socialist tory of the two revolutions in Rus- try with a peasant majority and a revolution that came in late Oc- sia that year. bourgeoisie with little will to over- tober were followed around the The hated war and the soldiers throw the monarchy. The best world by supporters and detrac- fighting on the front, along with they can manage is, in Miéville’s tors alike. their families bearing the burden formulation, “Political activism New York was home to a vibrant of scarcity, uncertainty, and fear at through passive-aggressive din- socialist and radical Left that wel- home, was the cauldron in which ner parties.” comed the news of the October this revolution was forged. Octo- The revolutions don’t, howev- Revolution with open arms and ber is mostly the history of “the er, materialize from these corners big expectations. In January 1918, crucible of the revolutions,” the of Petrograd. It all begins with the the socialist newspaper the New city of Petrograd. It was a cosmo- women who walked off their jobs York Evening Call sent “hearti- politan city, one where a variety of on International Women’s Day, est greeting” to the new socialist languages, European and Asian, demanding bread and peace, on a government in Russia “who so were heard in the streets. “Around cold February morning. The wom- valiantly uphold the principles its wealthy heart” Miéville writes, en agitated for the men to come of international Socialism.” Con- “it was a city of workers, swollen out too. Fraternizing with soldiers cern over ending the slaughter by the war to around 400,000, an on duty, they attacked police who of the World War while protect- unusual proportion of them rela- they referred to as ‘Pharoah,’ an ing weaker nations was foremost tively educated. And it was a city identification that would stick. on the agenda. The Evening Call of soldiers, of whom 160,000 were The revolutionaries struggled to proclaimed to its readers, “We are stationed there in reserve, their catch up with this growing rebel- highly gratified over the fact that morale poor and getting worse.” lion that quickly began to chal- the first Socialist government ever As a primer, Miéville takes us lenge the centuries’ old system established has brought about the through a masterful sweep of 400 of rule. The women “stormed beginning of peace negotiations years of Russian history to get us prisons and tore open doors and and was instrumental in forc- to the Marxists who are “a gaggle freed the bewildered inmates.” ing the imperialistic world pow- of emigres, reprobates, scholars Meanwhile the tsar and his minis- ers and their capitalistic govern- and workers, in a close weave of ters remained unconvinced of the ments to pay homage, in words if family, friendship and intellectual seriousness of the rebellion. not deeds, to the Socialist peace connections, political endeavor Miéville paints the scene they formula of: No annexations, no and polemic. They tangle in frac- missed: “In the boulevards of punitive indemnities and the self tious snarl. Everyone knows ev- the insurgent city, revolutionary determination of nationalities.” eryone.” Among this group we socialists jostled alongside an- The orgy of death and mutilation learn that belief in the possibility gry liberals and all shades in be- that marked the trench warfare of a socialist revolution is muted, tween, and they were not calm. of World War I is central to under- as one Marxist states, “There is not What they shared was a certainty standing the history of 1917. Ordi- yet enough proletarian yeast in that change, a revolution, was nary soldiers were essential to the Russia’s Peasant dough to make a necessary…Under the darkening Source: ask the author

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sky, accompanied by breaking nizations that comes up time and class. argued the hard line of continual cism,” that is support for the war es,’ ‘lunatic ideas,’ and ‘the ravings glass and in the guttering light of again; some focus on established With the hard right in disarray revolution. Most centrally, Lenin as defense of the new revolution. of a madman.’ At points like this, fires, groups of men and women institutional bourgeoisie sites and the Soviets tepid in their ap- argued for fraternization at the Miéville notes that with this call which slip into the “great-man” drifted aimlessly together and of power to make change, while proach, keeping a “watchfulness” front while everyone else seemed for fraternization at the front Len- view of history, I wonder how apart, workers, freed criminals, others look to those who make and “vigilant control” over the to call for a continuation of the in was dismissed as ‘a has-been’ alone Lenin really was. Why do we radical agitators, soldiers, free- never get voices of the other com- the society function, the working Provisional Government, Lenin war as “revolutionary defen- and his ideas as ‘political excess- lance hooligans, spies and drunk- mittee members who agreed with ards. Armed with what they had him? Or better yet, the Bolsheviks found. Here, a figure in a great- and others in the Soviets or the coat waving an officer’s sabre and soldiers themselves, calling for an an empty revolver. There, a young end to the war. Is there no record teenager with a kitchen knife. A of anyone else? Did he argue all student with machine-gun bullets alone? Miéville mostly steers clear slung around his waist, a rifle in of sanctifying the players in his each hand. A man wielded a pole story, and Lenin does come up for for cleaning tramlines as if it were plenty of criticism. And yet in mo- a pike.” ments like these, Lenin seems to The Councils of Workers and be a singular miracle from above. Soldiers, the Soviets, were thrown Miéville hints at this when he de- up by the revolutionary actors scribes few speakers taking Len- themselves as locations for dem- in’s position in the formal debate, ocratic decision making. An inno- only to win the vote. Miéville says vation of the working class from with a wink: Lenin “must have had the last failed revolution of 1905, a good deal of shy support.” the Soviets became the central The socialists were a motley location and site of power to chal- crew. Those from the various fac- lenge the status quo. The tsar had tions and splits of previous orga- offered a “concession” to the de- nizations, including Bolsheviks, mand for democracy in the form Mensheviks, Socialist Revolution- of a powerless “representative aries, and more still moved be- body,” the Duma. tween groups and spoke for and In the midst of the revolution, voted for each other’s resolutions. Miéville tells us that the Menshe- Miéville follows many of those viks “made straight for the cor- known and familiar figures such ridors of power,” that is, for the as Maxim Gorky, Alexandra Kol- Duma and new Provisional Gov- lontai, Vladimir Lenin, Julius Mar- ernment. The Bolsheviks, on the tov, and Leon Trotsky. other hand, headed to the work- We are treated to a memo- ers’ districts. It’s this crucial dif- rable cast of characters includ- ference in the orientation of the ing “Shlema Asnin, a respected various socialists and their orga- militant with the First Machine The victory of communism is inevitable, says this 1969 propaganda poster by Konuhov – Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images

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held and troop movements be tracked while trans- ture as they saw fit, and decided they would pay “only port workers aided the work of the soviet and re- the prices they reckoned were fair for seed.” Miéville fused to carry those working against the revolution. notes that “sense of ‘fairness’ was crucial” and “there When the head of the Provisional Government tried were moments of crude class rage and cruelty. But to shore up his authority by ordering the Sailors of the actions of village communes against landlords the Baltic Fleet to disband their soviet, the sailor’s were often scrupulously articulated in terms of a response was “simply that his order was ‘considered inoperative.’” moral economy.” Soldiers sent letters to Soviets The book is set up with each chapter as a month pleading for books. A group of peasants wrote, “We of the revolutionary year, and the novelistic features are sick and tired of living in debt and slavery…We of the book are especially strong in the final chapter, want space and light.” ‘October.’ One of Miéville’s stated aims is to tell this At the beginning of his book, Miéville argues that oft-told history as a story, and early chapters have a the revolutions of 1917 “have long been prisms literary quality that draws the reader into the action. through which the politics of freedom are viewed.” In some cases Miéville matches and even exceeds Many socialists certainly had high expectations at this charge. His stories of a big-wigged Lenin buying the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution. Six years after a disguise and his befuddled wigmaker telling tales for a long time after “of the youngish client who had the revolution, with the United States still refusing wanted to look old” are entertaining. And his writing to recognize the socialist government, the American is both rich and at times comic, as in his memorable socialist Eugene Debs explained why in a speech he joke about the hated monarch Nicholas and his “plac- gave in Harlem. “The reason we do not recognize id tsarry eyes.” However, there are times, particularly their Republic is because for the first time in history in the middle months of summer, when Miéville gets they have set up a government of the working class; bogged down moving us from one central commit- and if that experiment succeeds, good-bye to capital- tee meeting to another general membership meet- ism throughout the world!” He continued, “We were ing to another party meeting, with occasional street not too proud to recognize the Tsar…when women demonstrations thrown in. It feels at times like he’s forgotten his compelling characters, the importance were put under the lash…and brutalized and dehu- Gun Regiment, a dark-bearded Bolshevik Party in his book as static upper-class crowd” sends a of capturing the mood of the many, and the physi- manized…and our President could send congratula- former thief who dressed like a well. In the back and forth of the “shower of petals” raining down cal setting. That said, his final chapter reminded me tions on his birthday to the imperial Tsar of Russia.” gothic cowboy, wide-brimmed July days, the Bolsheviks sponsor on the hoped-for dictator’s head. of John Reed’s classic Ten Days That Shook the World, We are in a strangely similar place a hundred hat, guns and all.” Unfortunately, a concert to raise money for anti- Backed by money, Kornilov’s first a book that captures the revolution in rich layers of years later, with successive US governments prais- we don’t follow figures like Asnin, war literature for soldiers to take meeting is with the Society for the complexity while giving it an atmospheric treatment ing monarchies and dictatorships as the working and instead trail a familiar coterie with them to the front. The focus Economic Rehabilitation of Rus- that makes the reader feel like they’re participating class around the world struggles for freedoms gained around Lenin. It can seem at times on turning the tide of the war, and sia, a right-wing business group, in the action. both in February and in October 1917 in Russia. From that all was lost without Lenin. To the confidence with which it was backed by individuals who “went For Russians, the final revolution was a kind of “so- Greece to Libya, from Afghanistan to Venezuela, free- be sure Miéville never says these carried out, were hallmarks of the so far as to offer funds specifically cial carnivalesque.” Soldier’s wives, previously beat- dom has not come from above. With monarchies ripe words, and in fact he notes that he Bolshevik rank-and-file. for an authoritarian regime.” en and broken, began to “flout laws and intimidate doesn’t think that’s the case, but The ruling class meanwhile But power lay with the orga- the authorities wherever they possibly could.” “Rural to tumble and new worlds to be built we’d do well to what he writes at times seems to put its trust in the military gen- nized working class of Petrograd. communes began disputing with landlords over rent remember the crucial lesson from the Russian revo- suggest that still. erals. Miéville sets the scene of A committee of soviets made sure and rights to the commons. Gangs of peasants” took lutions. What ended the hated monarchy, and what Miéville does show a broader General Kornilov’s rise as “an ec- that ‘suspicious telegrams’ be the firewood they wanted from the estates, used pas- showed another way to live, came up from below. Soviet leaders on November 7, 1919, in Red Square, Moscow, USSR, celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution. L.Y. Leonidov – Credit: Wikimedia

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Whereas, over 800,000 young people are currently studying and working in the United States under the De- ferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program , many of them in the CUNY system, who have long been Resolution Against the in a precarious position with regard to their immigration status and who are now at greater risk for sudden Executive Decision deportation; Whereas, DACA has been regarded as a progressive legal action to protect children who immigrate to the U.S.A. with their families, due in part to economic, political, and other factors that are often a consequence of to End DACA global racial-capitalism and uneven power relations between the U.S.A. and other nations; and

Whereas, the decision to rescind DACA will largely affect the legal status of people who identify as Hispanic or Latino, and is therefore motivated by racial animus; and

Whereas, childhood arrivals have come to view this country as their home, and deportation would likely re- sult in the loss of income, property, and other material and immaterial assets, psychological pain, and violent (This resolution was unanimously adopted by the DSC Plenary at its September 15th, 2017 meeting.) upheaval of communities and families; and

Whereas, many other academic bodies around the U.S.A., including the Rutgers AAUP-AFT Executive Coun- cil, The University of Pittsburgh Student Government Board, The Metro Community College board, Peralta Whereas, the Doctoral Students’ Council (DSC) comprises representatives from doctoral and master’s pro- Community College Board of Trustees, University of Michigan Central Student Government, Florida Atlantic grams at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY); and University Faculty Senate, Pennsylvania State University Undergraduate Association , and The University of Kansas Student Senate have passed similar resolutions in support of DACA and against this inhumane deci- Whereas, the DSC advocates for over 3,500 students at the Graduate Center in their roles as students, teach- sion; therefore let it be ers, workers, family members, New Yorkers, activists, and academics; and RESOLVED, that the DSC recognizes that geopolitical borders are often drawn and re-drawn arbitrarily in Whereas, the DSC shares CUNY’s historic mission of providing access to higher education to low-income the effort to maintain political power and rejects any narrative that creates good-immigrant/bad-immigrant communities and communities of color in New York City and across the nation; and binaries and that demonizes the families of DACA recipients; and, be it further

Whereas, the earlier Executive Order 13768, titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United RESOLVED, that the DSC will continue to advocate on behalf of students regardless of immigration status States” and issued on January 25th, 2017, endangers undocumented immigrants by implying they are more through organizing workshops; distributing resources and services directly to students; providing spaces for prone to criminality (via the establishment of VOICE, or Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement, Office), by students to gather and organize; and holding administrators accountable; and, be it still further prioritizing the removal of any undocumented immigrant who has committed any "chargeable offense," and by increasing the number of ICE agents and the use of state and local police in enforcing immigration law; and RESOLVED, that the DSC calls upon members of New York State Senate, other state legislatures, Congress, and other elected officials, to proceed with compassion and moral responsibility by passing meaningful immi- Whereas, the U.S.A has a longstanding history of upholding discrimination through its former and current gration reform in the vein of the Dream Act in light of discriminatory immigration, detention, and deportation immigration laws and policies; and policies, in addition to the decision to rescind DACA; and, be it

Whereas, the recent presidential pardon of Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, whose office violated FINALLY RESOLVED, that the DSC calls upon the Graduate Center and CUNY administration to pledge spe- the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act through racial profiling, is one cific resources and protections to all those in the Graduate Center and CUNY community who are affected by of the many signs of this administration’s commitment to the enforcement of white supremacy; and the most recent executive decision and to strengthen its support of undocumented students.

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Affiliates of the Doctoral Students’ Council

Along with providing services to students, the DSC also charters and funds three affiliates:

Including the one in your very hand...

The Advocate (opencuny.org/gcadvocate) is the newspaper of the Graduate Center, CUNY. Published six times per academic year, it serves CUNY graduate students as a general forum and as a source of news and information pertaining to their rights as well as their educational, cultural, political, and professional in- terests. The Advocate aims to publish thought-provoking articles that are of interest not only to those in the academy, but to the public more generally.

In addition to... The Adjunct Project (cunyadjunctproject.org) seeks to empower Graduate Center student workers by serving as a resource to raise consciousness about academic labor issues inside and outside CUNY, edu- cate Graduate Center adjuncts about ways to address these issues, and activate Graduate Center student workers to improve their collective position as workers at CUNY. The Adjunct Project seeks to organize our resources for graduate students around two areas:

1) labor issues and concerns, and 2) teaching resources and pedagogy. Both of these elements are key di- mensions of empowerment at the workplace for graduate student workers.

While the Adjunct Project seeks to help graduate students address their immediate labor issues, a long- term goal of the project is to create a new culture at the Graduate Center that challenges the individualis- tic, atomized, competitive atmosphere of academia. We are also acutely aware of the ways that workers are exploited based on their race, their gender identity and presentation, their ability, their sexuality, their immigration status and nationality, and the dispossession of their lands and neighborhoods through processes of settler colonialism and gentrification. We work diligently to center these contradictions, work against them, and to expose their invisibility in the larger labor movement in order to transform how our labor power is understood and used.

By working together to improve our collective position as adjuncts at CUNY we can promote a culture that emphasizes a different set of values, replacing the academic culture of competitive individualism with one of support and solidarity. OpenCUNY (opencuny.org), a DSC-affiliate, is a free, open, participatory WordPress-based academic me- dium that offers free web space to students, and advocates for student access to free and open-source digital tools. Since 2008, students have used the platform to create professional portfolios, academic and personal blogs, sites for community organizations, student groups and chartered organizations, research projects and more! Want to learn more? OpenCUNY is showcasing a collection of their sites at our next event on Thursday, October 19th at 7pm (Rm 5414). Snacks, refreshments and good company will be pro- vided. Visit OpenCUNY.org to RSVP!