Waking ourselves for the benefit of all.
Engaging in Solidarity-Based Work
This final portion of your study is something you might look over now, and then return to consider in depth once the course is over. We do suggest you review the personal assessment assignment before attending session six, as we will spend some time with the questions in our break out discussions.
As your facilitators, we strongly advocate for involvement in solidarity-based organizing and activism as a regular part of your personal life. In the context of our work with ancestry, you might consider this as taking on the mantle of resistance we have inherited from those who came before, and carrying it forward such that we are good ancestors to those who come after us.
The resources here begin with assorted articles, videos and/or podcasts designed to highlight various strategies or aspects of social change. Following this are materials we hope will support your work with the personal assessment questions.
Strategies for Building Power
Labor
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Why the Working Class? – Vivek Chibber (10-15 min read)
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Oakland has a school-to-prison pipeline. The teachers’ strike is our best hope to end it. – Shane Ruiz (15 min read). This article highlights the most important lever of change everyday people have within the capitalist system: the withdrawal of our labor.
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Optional Resource by Jane McAlevey: Organizing to Win a Green New Deal (15 min)
Organizing
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Building the Power to Win – Jane McAlevey (5 min watch)
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What the media gets wrong about the Trump supporter caricature – George Goehl (9 min watch). Optional: Read Goel’s Article “If Progressives Don’t Try to Win Over Rural Areas Guess Who Will?” (4 min)
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“No One’s Ever Asked me Before” – Down Home North Carolina Report (10 min read, read executive summary pg 3-5)
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“Learning How to Listen - Michigan” – a podcast by People’s Action (Read episode description and listen from the 8:50 mark until the end, 20 min listen)
Politics
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Rhode Island: The Overlooked Political Revolution – Rising (9 min watch)
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Kshama Sawant on The Fight For $15 Isn’t Over - Bad Faith livestream (20-30 min watch/listen). We encourage you to listen to as much of the early conversation with Kshama Sawant as you have time for (20-35 minutes), beginning from the linked point in the video. This is an immediate, powerful illustration of what an integrated, comprehensive political strategy from the outside could look like as it relates to the current lack of a fight for a $15 minimum wage by the national Democratic Party. Feel free to also check out this interview with Kshama on Bad Faith.
Identity
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The Evolution of Identity Politics: An Interview with Eric Ward (15-20 min read)
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Within the context of this broad-ranging interview, Eric Ward shares words on antisemitism for everyone involved in social justice work.
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Jewish participants may also be interested in looking at a final selection we’ve pulled from the Jews For Racial & Economic Justice resource, Understanding Antisemitism: an Offering to Our Movement: Jewish Traditions of Resistance (5-7 min read)
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Engagement with Left Media: The following shows/publications are not an exhaustive list, but a brief opening into a network of alternative news and analysis that emphasizes the well-being of working people in the US and internationally. Non-corporate media of this kind can support us in keeping our analysis sharp as we take action to respond to current events. We welcome you to engage with media outlets like these as time goes on: The Intercept, Bad Faith (also on YouTube), Rising (from The Hill TV, a populist show with both a left-wing and right-leaning host), In These Times, Jacobin, Democracy Now!, and Left Reckoning.
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Personal Assessment Activity (15-60 minutes)
Supportive resources for your review:
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How to get involved in an activist organization and become a valuable volunteer–starting today – Laura Casado (10-15 min read)
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Political Organizations to Consider Joining – White Awake (15+ min of reading/research)
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Building the Labor Movement Inside & Outside Your Workplace – White Awake (5-7 min read)
Next Steps for Social Action:
As you look over the forms of social action and engagement highlighted in this portion of your study, and consider other forms of engagement, we encourage you to make a personal assessment of externally focused work that you are engaged in (or want to be engaged in). You might do this by writing out each of the following questions on a sheet of paper (or digital document), and then making a list underneath each one of everything that might apply.
Reflection Questions:
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What work are you already involved with? Or what type of work might you want to be involved with?
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What unique interests, passion, skills, or sphere of influence do you bring to this work?
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How much time do you give, or how much time to do you have to give? If you are looking to begin work you aren’t already engaged in, what times are you available for additional activities you aren’t already involved in, or how might you integrate the work of social change into something you are already involved with?
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If you are already active, do your activities feel sustainable, or does anything need to shift?
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What type of interactions or experiences do you need to have in order to be nourished by your work for social change, and in order for you to stay involved?
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How can the work of this class (related specifically to ancestry) feed, deepen, influence, or ground your work for social change?
Continued Cultural Healing and Ancestral Recovery Work:
While choosing to carry forward a legacy of resistance is in itself an act of ancestral recovery, we encourage you to also continue engaging with the themes of cultural healing, genealogy, and earth-based spiritual practice as you feel called. To support this process, we would encourage you to review or go more deeply into some aspect of the coursework from this class that particularly resonated with you.
Our desire has been to provide an abundance of resources, activities and/or reflections and meditations that could serve this purpose over time. Materials will be left as they are on your participant page for about three months, and after this we will send you a digital PDF that includes links to everything on your participant page, minus the live session recordings (and Eleanor’s personal story). You will continue to have access to meditations from the live sessions, the genealogy training recording, and activities and study materials from your homework to work with over time.
For additional support with animistic practices/worldview, feel free to check out the following resources: Nordic Animism (also on YouTube), Braiding Sweetgrass, Sand Talk, Katrina Messenger’s books (which do not include Nude Yoga! ;)