notes from debrief last week.
Vivian
Hi folks,
So we had a debriefing meeting last week and these are somethings that came up.
The 4 main questions were
Internal work – How do you feel GENDER, CLASS, and RACE played out in our intra-group organizing?
How were we successful in reaching out to allies? How are some ways that we failed in working with our allies? (specifically, students of color on campus, LGBTQ students, folks from Harlem, CSER faculty)
How did we internalize opposition to the strike? How did this affect intergroup dytnamics?
How can we work to be more inclusive of supportive people?
We did not get to address all of these questions completely and remember this is an ongoing process so keep this conversation going! if you feel like sending your thoughts/comments, please do.
Vivian
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Introduction – not a strategy meeting.
Ground-rules
check-in – A positive moment or observation in the organizing process !
love love love
questions –
Internal work – How do you feel gender, class and race played out in our intra-group organizing?
Gender – Barnard/Columbia relations, tensions did not play out into support, in terms of a lot of Barnard student support.
Unbalanced Barnard presence! they supporting us…
Diversity of the strikers was important.
Diversity of people supporting – rally, vigils.
Lack of name of the group – a slippery slope.
"Spoiled rich kids" comments.
How were we successful in reaching out to allies? How are some ways that we failed in working with our allies? (specifically, students of color on campus, LGBTQ community, folks from Harlem, CSER faculty)
Some people felt distant at the daily debriefing meeting.
Suggestion of point people
People in charge (unsaid) needed convey information to other student leaders.
Come to "our" meetings, and the same people telling others to go do their own thing.
Structure was not clear – more explicit
Visual map, organization chart – roles you can play.
Things were getting worked out in an organic (haphazard) way, but for the future, moving forward…
Queer studies type issue felt tokenized, just added in without dialogue.
More planning before hand.
Strikers, negotiators were burnt out so organizing was not organized – should've had a tight organizing committee ahead of time.
Strikers, negotiators seemed like leaders but didn't actually do much organizing.
Major contradiction between terms we recognize ourselves by – not defining a "group"
No way of centralizing information, needed communication with negotiators and everyone else.
Hunger strike – can be a few people doing, has a second tier
Fight for a more democratic university, but didn't try to appeal for a majority.
Not clarifying that group was not trying to be representative.
Opposition tendency to be white.
People saw the group as having monopoly on the issues.
Getting people engaged before hand.
How can we work to be more inclusive of supportive people?
How did we internalize opposition to the strike? How did reactions to the strike affect our intra-group dynamics?
Criticism was passive (like my grammar).
Opponents feeling threatened.
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Caucus – strikers, negotiators, organizers
how did our group work within our self? how did we interact with other groups?
Back to big group. Any other questions folks have.
How can we be more inclusive of supportive people?
Organizers
Part of organizing before strike / came in after the strike divide.
People coming into the strike unsure if there was a place to work with the group.
Autonomous actions like emailing professors, friends, flyers. Nice but there was no direction, feeling that it was not necessary.
A lot of frustration.
People trying to figure out where they stood on the issues while also trying to plug in.
Structure
need group bonding!
10pm meetings needed to have criticism/self-analysis also clearer direction.
Constant contradiction between having a group/not having a group.
Emphasis on secrecy, transparency in the beginning, which carried over in the methods of communication afterwards. Emphasis on subversive culture which wasn't necessarily productive/necessary.
Strikers seen as educators, coordinators, decision-makers.
Press went after the strikers.
Need for educating the majority of people.
Strikers felt overwhelmed, used as tools by negotiators, lack of support from professors, questioning motives.
Tokenizing hunger strikers – put spot light on action not demands.
Work/information meetings no clarity.
Structure versus completely ad-hoc.
Decisions made informally between strikers-negotiators, awkward getting information back to the administrators.
Columbia admin expecting action from hierarchy groups, with specific leaders, accountability.
We are put on the defensive, should be proud.
Should not have relied on the "rhizome" model because there was not enough base building around the demands.
We ended up reproducing a lot of structures of power (gender class race) that we sought to deconstruct.
Top-down structure made us work with each other in different ways.
Present to people what the structures of power actually mean, people don't necessarily recognize because they don't know what they look like.
Addressing issues of power – race class gender sexuality before hand.
Connecting with people on a personal level, increasing network.
Why was hunger strike secret before it happened?
In terms of secrecy – even within the planning group things were not clear as things started.
Negotiations team was exclusive in nature, how to be more open? Race gender playing out in negotiations team.
As we planned the strike it was not about the demands from the beginning.
Need more ways to plug in freshmen.
More meetings with faculty, community residents involved.
Rhizomes as being about discussions in everyday…
On 24/11/2007, Jamie Chen <eima...@gmail.com > wrote:rejoice always.---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Emilie Rosenblatt < ecw...@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 24, 2007 7:14 PM
Subject: hey yall
To: top-...@googlegroups.com
(could somebody send this on to solidarity and action? actually,
could i holla at some posting privileges so i don't have to keep doing
this? much luv, emilie)
i hope that everyone's having a beautiful break, maybe getting to
spend some time with fam, having a chance to reflect on everything
we've accomplished so far.
now is the time to really get moving on phase deux, and, on that note,
i have two things:
1) at our reflection / processing meeting tues. nite, most folks said
that sunday nite would work for meeting. we didn't pin down an exact
time or place, but i nominate 10 p.m. in the irc. does that work for
folks? i'm pretty sure we can get the space. are e-board mtgs out by
then? let me know if there are major conflicts, otherwise i'll look
forward to seeing yall tomorrow at 10 sharp in the irc. =)
2) big ups to sam and tina for forwarding that cpc e-mail about the
*other* cpc's stuff on monday... one reminder / addendum: columbia
ppl plan to meet at 10:30 at the broadway gates to go downtown for
that
see you soon?
con amor y cariño,
emilie
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