Yes, my Badger friends, I’m coming back. You better have my cheese curds ready.
This weekend is the 15th anniversary United Students against Sweatshops (USAS) National Conference- a big deal in its own right. This year, though, in honor of the Wisconsin labor uprising that began exactly one year ago this week, USAS is holding their conference at UW-Madison. And they asked me to give me the keynote performance on Saturday night. International student-labor spoken word solidarity in Wisconsin? Oh hell yes.
This is going to be a special event for me, in many ways. When I was a student at UW-Madison, I was a member of our USAS group, the Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC). SLAC was really where I cut my teeth as an organizer, where I learned how to build coalitions between farm boys and sorority girls, develop campaigns that targeted capitalism in bite-size chunks, and realize that yes – if we’re smart, united, and put some flavor in our fight – we can win.
We were SLACkers who were anything but lazy. I can’t even remember all the campaigns: fighting privatization and tuition hikes, demanding better conditions for immigrant workers and campus employees, ensuring university apparel was made in unionized factories instead of sweatshops. And every Thursday night after our meetings, we’d go to Nick’s Cafe on State Street for plenty of beer and blueberry pie. Hey, we were college students — solidarity was a struggle, but it was a damn good party too.
In my book, USAS is the most important, most effective national student organization on the Left. It’s impressive how they’ve changed the game on so many campuses (and helped lay the groundwork for things like the Wisconsin uprising and Occupy Wall Street) over the last 15 years. I can’t wait to join the current crew of 400+ student activists this weekend and see what they’ve got planned for the next wave.
And speaking of waves, there’s no way I’m coming to Madison without seeing my old friends at First Wave. I can’t tell you how proud I am that the little university hip-hop arts program we co-founded in 2006 is now on its 5th class of incoming student artists on a full scholarship, touring new theater works in New York and London, and currently facilitating a lecture course on hip-hop education that was recently featured on CNN.
I’m going to be in town for the Monday night lecture series, which just so happens to be featuring two good friends and Bay Area hip-hop heroes. I’ll be sitting in on the event, possibly for a short performance, possibly just to be part of the discussion. Either way, it’s going to be a good one.
From the picket line to the cipher, just a regular couple days in good old Wisconsin…
Saturday, February 18 USAS National Conference — UW-Madison Keynote performance. 8:00pm. Union South, UW-Madison campus.
For conference participants only.
Monday, February 20 Hip Hop Pedagogy and Politics — UW-Madison
Hosted by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and OMAI / First Wave.
Alongside Dawn-Elissa Fisher & Davey D.
7:00pm. Grainger Hall, UW-Madison Campus
Free and open to the public.
Well, this should create a different kind of buzz.
I’ve been writing so much about Occupy, political analysis, strategic actions, and all that good lefty biz, I haven’t done an artistic update in a while. Where’s the comedy at, Healey? Have no fear, dear friends, I’ve been hard at work in the lab and on the mic creating some new pieces for your cultural consumption. And now, I have a brand new piece to share, one that you can tell from the title was definitely a good time.
This performance was filmed last week at the Mill Valley Public Library, as part of their Naked Truth storytelling series. I hope you enjoy it…and share its inspiring wisdom with your own grandmas. Remember the Youtube rotation: watch, watch, pass.
In that spirit of loving family, I present to you: “Rolling a Joint for Grandma.”
Over the last few months, I have been an active, critical, yet ultimately proud member of Occupy Oakland. Despite the sometimes-questionable tactics and lack of much diversity in this working-class, multi-racial city, I believed that Occupy Oakland was still a young movement and would mature into a more solid political force. Sadly, it seems, we still have a long way to go.
On January 28, Occupy Oakland’s attempt to take over an unused public building turned into yet another painful, predictable street battle with the Oakland Police Department (OPD), with over 400 people arrested by night’s end. The police’s actions were more brutal than ever, from the tear gas and sound grenades to the unlawful mass arrest that has left many of my comrades still in jail as I write this. I stand unequivocally against the severe repression and the increasing police state that we find ourselves in. To my fellow Occupiers, though, it is time that we critically examine our own tactics. If we don’t, Occupy Oakland is going to fizzle out quicker than Rick Perry’s presidential campaign.
The events in Oakland on January 28 indeed occupied national headlines and local jail cells, but they almost certainly lost more supporters to the movement than they gained. Needlessly picking fights with the cops, vandalizing City Hall, and putting our own people in harm’s way is not the path to social and economic justice. It is a losing, incoherent strategy, one that will continue to damage the public’s support for Occupy until our claim that “We are the 99%” becomes a bad joke. Forget whether folks can survive endless police confrontations and court dates. The question now is: Can Occupy Oakland survive itself?
Sal Alper sat casually in front of the Wells Fargo headquarters in downtown San Francisco, as if chaining herself to the banking giant’s front doors was a normal thing to do on a Friday morning. As one of the many Occupy San Francisco protests on January 20, Sal had joined dozens of people in blockading since 6:00 a.m., so by the time I arrived on the scene at mid-morning, she was smiling and relaxed. When I asked her why she was protesting the banks, however, her smile quickly faded.
“My parents lost their home to a bank foreclosure two years ago,” Sal said. “They moved in with my uncle, but then he lost his home too. So they all moved over to my grandma’s — and now she is being threatened too! And it’s all because of these banks right here.”
Such stories of anger and resistance were everywhere in San Francisco, as thousands of protesters took over the streets of the city’s financial district in their ambitious attempt to “Occupy Wall Street West.” In a daylong series of building occupations, marches, and civil disobedience, Occupy San Francisco organizers mobilized the biggest direct action in the city since the start of the Iraq War in 2003. While unable to fully shut down the business district, activists mounted the largest Occupy action in the country of 2012 so far, as they begin the next phase of the rising movement for social and economic justice.
As a member of the self-identified “slash profession” – writer/organizer/educator/whatever pays the rent that month – I have learned how to wear multiple hats. How to move between different worlds and code-switch my headgear to meet a particular place and community. Alright, I got this big event coming up tonight…should I wear the Kangol, the fitted, or the yarmulke? (Correct answer: all three.) Sometimes, though, it’s a struggle figuring out which slash to bring out in which situation. Take Occupy.
I got back in Oakland full-time last month, and immediately jumped into the beautiful chaos that is Occupy Oakland. I joined the big West Coast port shutdown on December 12, started attending the alternatively powerful and painful General Assemblies, and connected with the two committees I’ve begun organizing with, Occupy the Hood and Labor Solidarity. It’s been great, and I’ve gotten to stretch some of activist muscles that I hadn’t used in years. (Sometimes literally – holding one side of a 30″ banner with that wind whipping off the bay is harder than it looks.) But while I’ve been bringing my organizing and education experience to the table, sometimes I leave behind the thing I do that I’m doing right now on this laptop. Writing. Telling stories. Creating culture.
Last night, however, some of my cultural comrades and heroes reminded me what it means to be artist in the movement. Artists of the 99% organized a panel/workshop (oh artists, how we even have “slash events”) that dealt with strategies for artists participating in social justice movements. It was a power-packed room: Jeff Chang (Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop), Favianna Rodriguez (printmaker activist powerhouse), David Solnit (street theater artist/organizer), and ZephFishlyn (Beehive Design Collective). Plus 100 or so radical artists who love talking about radical art on a Saturday night. My kind of folks.
Jeff set it off with his thesis that “cultural change precedes political change.” Meaning, we need Jackie Robinson before we get Brown v. Board of Education, Ellen Degeneres before we get gay marriage (at least in seven states). I don’t fully agree with Jeff – I think culture and politics very much go both ways – but overall, yes: people connect deeper on a daily basis with beautiful flash mobs and Youtube videos than with congressional committees and talking points. The question is, how do we get that flash mob’s message to those congressional committees and make the changes we need? (And yes, I know the obvious answer is to do the flash mob IN the committee itself…but I just don’t think Bernie Sanders has the dance moves to pull it off.)
Or maybe the point of cultural organizing is direct our energies more towards the 99% itself, rather than our so-called representatives. That seemed to be Favianna‘s argument, as she explained her work with CultureStrike, a pro-migrant project in Arizona started last year in the racist aftermath of SB1070. CultureStrike organized a pop music boycott of Arizona that was inspired by similar actions targeting apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. At the same time, they actually brought grassroots writers and artists to Arizona — but rather than perform, their job was to see the border walls and mass deportations for themselves and then create and promote artistic work to challenge the anti-immigrant climate of fear spreading across the country.
Regarding the Occupy movement, Favianna asked, “What are the strategic stories that we need to tell? Whose stories in the 99% are we lifting up?” The corporate media likes to focus on college students and angry anarchists for a reason. We need to highlight the stories of urban youth activists, immigrant day laborers, Black and brown homeowners — AND the college students, the (former) white-collar workers, and even the occasional anarchist. This is what artists do: shift the conversation, broaden the debate, literally paint the pictures that show both our unity and our diversity.
In that spirit, I was thinking about ways that “slash artists” can do more than just participate but take a real lead in progressive movements, from Occupy to environmental justice to international solidarity. I seem to be into lists these days, so I’m going to focus in on three concrete roles I see for me and my fellow artists:
1. Artists as Questioners
All great art, like all great political movements, starts with a question. I don’t mean marching around in a circle chanting, “What do we want? When do we want it?,” especially when we all know that the answers are deeper than “Justice” and “Now.” Artists have the power to question and critique the many injustices that often go unnoticed or unmentioned in present-day America. Just check the massive reaction, both positive and negative, to the recent “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls” videos. Culture, and especially humor, opens people up to ask the tough questions they would otherwise avoid.
Movement artists have a double role to play when it comes to asking questions, though — turning the lens not just on wider society, but on our own personal actions and organizations. When it comes to spoken word, I know the best political poem is when the poet isn’t preaching at me but struggling within themself. If only we saw more humility and self-reflection at Occupy Oakland.
On an organizing level, elements like street theater or marching bands do more than just liven up the crowd — they question the division of protesters and folks just passing by, of message and medium, of serious politics and God forbid, having a good time. To paraphrase Emma Goldman: if I can’t dance to some remixed, radicalized pop songs with you, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.
2. Artists as Promoters
This is a practical one. If there’s one thing that all artists have in common, it’s the hustle. We’re constantly on the move, passing out flyers, sending out Facebook blasts, talking to people wherever and however we can to pack the next show. Outreach is always my number one focus for any event, because if you don’t have the folks ready to rock with you, what’s the point?
Too many political organizers, though, have an “If you build it, they will come” mentality when it comes to publicity. That might get you enough people to fill up a baseball park in Iowa, but if you want the tens of thousands of people needed to say, shut down the San Francisco district on January 20, the outreach motto needs to be more like, “If you build it, make it look and sound hella fly, build real community partners, and do a combined month-long social media/street team promo campaign…then they will come.” Assuming you don’t plan it the same day as the 49ers game, of course, which luckily is the next day.
Musicians, poets, and visual artists can bring this all-out outreach mentality to the movement, not to mention our mailing lists. Some of us are even moderately famous. Boots Riley has been at the forefront of Occupy Oakland not just because he’s on point in what he says, but because every hip-hop head in the Bay and around the country already loves dude’s albums with The Coup. This is the true artist as promoter role. Don’t just shout out Mumia in your one “conscious rap” song. Shout out the movement that’s trying to free him and invite people to join in. People listen to what you say. That’s why they call it Call and Response. Give your fans a call to liberation and just see how they respond.
3. Artists as Strategic Organizers
Now this is the most interesting, the most challenging, and ultimately the most important role. Not just for artists, but for anyone in a grassroots movement. Strategic organizing involves thinking about what it would actually take to win our demands, and how the hell to go from here to there. Putting on a poetry slam against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is organizing. Putting on a poetry slam of LGBT former soldiers and staging it outside an army base as part of a multi-tiered, national campaign…that’s strategic organizing.
To make any real change these days, we need to change the culture. Occupy Wall Street is never going to be able to physically occupy the stock market on Wall Street — the NYPD has too many guns, too many helicopters, and too many undercover infiltrators. What we do have, or could have, is the will of the people. We need the 99% to become a massive wave of real democracy, rather than the isolated ripples of confusion and consumerism that we are now. Artists, especially the artists/teachers/biracial-bakers who have their finger on the pulse of so many different worlds, as much as anyone can help change the tide.
In the end, our job is to contribute our creativity to the greatest art project ever: saving humanity from ourselves. For me, that means getting down and dirty in the nitty-gritty work of planning, building, and executing specific campaigns for justice. But at its most basic level, it means just doing what a good artist does: responding to the reality of our times and imagining the possibilities that could be.
Part of being a political artist also means fighting the competitive, individualistic nature of American art. If we want to build a collective future, we’ve got start with a collective now. More and more folks are stepping up to the plate, from the local Occupy SF Arts & Culture committee to the national, newly launched Art is My Occupation project, which is offering mini-grants to artists on Occupy-related efforts. Resources for the creative revolution? Love that!
I don’t know if a full-on Occupy arts movement is going to emerge like the labor-left Cultural Front of the 1930s or the Black Arts movement of the 1960s, but there’s only one way to find out. See you on the streets, my friends…and don’t forget your dancing shoes.
In the meantime, here’s my vote for #AnthemForTheMovement…So Far.
