It is not enough for me to tell you how brokenhearted I am

It is not enough for me to know that your liberation is also my liberation

To move to abundance, I will hold at the forefront of my heart the wisdom of our ancient cultures and will conjure the place where our ancestors meet and bring forward loving memory

It is not enough for me to tell you that I see and honor your full humanity and that I can not imagine the anger and pain you feel right now

It is not enough for you to know that I will challenge anti blackness in every space and with all people – especially with my own

To move to abundance, when we meet I will remember In Lak’ech/ Ubuntu … you are the other me

It is not enough for you to know that I will always see, listen and believe you, especially in moments when the world scapegoats you

It is not enough to reassure you that your passion in uplifting the injustice on black people does not make my people’s struggle invisible

To move to abundance, I commit to fight for your children as fiercely as I fight for my own, because indeed our children’s innocence is worth fighting for

It is not enough for me to lift up and make visible the African legacy present in Latin America and push for black Latin Americans to be included

It is not enough for you to know that as I fight for reparations for indigenous communities in the Americas, I will also fight for reparations for all formerly enslaved Africans

To move to abundance, I will stand and walk with you through the fire, knowing when to follow and when to lead

It has been 524 years since this land, my land, began to be colonized, and 324 years since the first African was brought to this land enslaved

And this country is an infant at 238 years old, when we hold thousands and thousands of years of our people’s collective knowledge

We have enough time to turn this around but only if we turn from the US to a We

Am I relieved that the cop was fired?

Yes.

Am I happy the cop was fired?

No.

Do I worry that people think this was an isolated incident, rather than a widespread, daily reality for students of color?

Yes.

Do I worry that people think firing individual cops (or teachers or whatever) will solve what are larger policies and practices of criminalization that all of us have allowed to happen?

Yes.

Do I worry that people are more interested in firing cops than in taking responsibility for their own (subtle but damaging) racism and misogyny?

Yes.

Do I participate, passively or actively, in maintaining an education system grounded in competition and fear?

Yes (working on it but yes).

Do I participate, passively or actively, in maintaining a culture of racism, misogyny, and violence?

Yes (working on it but yes).

Am I thinking right now that we should close every single school and start all over with love, healing, and restorative justice at the center?

Yes.

Last year, as the uprising in Ferguson and the movement for Black lives sparked direct action all across the country, many of us turned out on the streets – and actively spread the word to others via the Internet.

On our organization’s Facebook page we planned to broadcast information about actions as far and wide as we could, using “boosts”, a click that allows you to pay a few dollars for Facebook to proactively place content into the feeds of your followers and their followers, boosting visibility for important things.

But, when I went to boost these calls to action I found that for the first time in my short Internet career, my boosts were denied. Thinking it was a glitch I tried again and again, until it was clear that boosting any #BlackLivesMatter action would be denied – an experience I confirmed with other people trying to do the same.

Of course a denied Facebook boost is minuscule and embarrassingly unsurprising, especially compared to really dangerous things like government surveillance and white supremacists breeding violence online.

And of course #BlackLivesMatter has always (in the words of co-founder Alicia Garza) used “social media and online platforms to expand people’s consciousness about the lives of Black people” and “create a space for Black people to organize.” With great care #BlackLivesMatter has built real relationships online and off, so the trust and momentum and communication was deep and ready for action when the moment demanded it.

The movement for Black lives was powerful enough. But my moment of Internet struggle was real and maybe a little too familiar for a lot of us, reminding me how limited and vulnerable our ride on the Internet is, and underscoring the findings of a report released today:

Unlike mainstream media, which is moderated by external gatekeepers, [social justice] groups see the Internet as a platform they control – the effect of the corporate ownership of the Internet is less visible to them.

The report, The Digital CultureSHIFT: From Scale to Power – How the Internet Shapes Social Justice Movements and Social Justice Movements Are Shaping the Internet was put out by Center for Media Justice in partnership with ColorOfChange.org and Data & Society and analyzes results from interviews with 22 progressive social change leaders (folks from places like from Presente.org, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, Jobs with Justice, #BlackLivesMatter, and CREDO Action). DigitalCultureSHIFT found that:

• 100% of those interviewed said that digital strategies and platforms provide a voice when mainstream media ignores issues.

• The vast majority widely uses digital platforms to catalyze action, but say over-reliance on these tools can limit relationship building.

• The Internet is changing the meaning of membership and forcing social change leaders to re-think the forms of organization. More than 80% of respondents indicated that Internet was helping to shift national organizations from centralized to de-centralized, from geographically specific to geographically diverse, and from hierarchical leadership to multi-level leadership.

• Targeted surveillance is a top concern, particularly for organizations working with communities of color, migrants, or poor communities—but the vast majority of leaders interviewed felt that the movement for digital privacy did not include their voices or their visions for change. Still, digital rights groups are finding common cause with legacy and emerging civil rights groups to counter the discriminatory collection and application of data.

These findings make it clear: there’s a lot at stake.

Nonetheless, says DigitalCultureSHIFT,

The use of the Internet to drive strategies for racial and economic justice remains disconnected from fights to promote and preserve digital rights and access. This separation reduces the effectiveness of each, and weakens overall movement strategies for change.

DigitalCultureSHIFT asks an important question:

As activism for police accountability, fair wages, just immigration, and more takes center stage– social justice movements of the 21^st century are using technology to achieve greater scale and reach wider audiences. But, are these digital strategies building power for long-term social change? Or helping maintain the status quo?

How can we, as movements, shift so that our digital strategies build power?

Recommendations put forward by DigitalCultureSHIFT include things like:

• New approaches in both the field and philanthropic organizations, in which digital strategies are driven by values, focused on equity, rooted in a long-term social change vision, supported by universal digital access and rights.

• Changing the platform to change the issue. The more open and democratic our systems of communication are, the more those platforms will drive a healthy and participatory public debate on social issues.

• Scaling up successful projects like Van Jones’ Yes We Code, or the Open Web Fellows program to inject digital experts with best-in-class algorithm skills into social movements.

• Changing the way we “do change”: those in social justice fields and in the philanthropic organizations that fund this work must develop new approaches that trust and support organizers, fund at intersections, and invest in shared infrastructure, multi-level stakeholder collaboration, and digital leadership development.

The moment is urgently now, writes Color of Change’s James Rucker in the introduction to DigitalCultureSHIFT, for our movements to engage with the Internet as both a tool and as arena for change:

As the nation emerges from a decade-long fight to keep the Internet open into a period of extraordinary contest for the role digital technologies will play in the lives of Black Americans and others, missing this opportunity would empower the forces that benefit from a corporate-controlled media: large, incumbent corporations and those who currently enjoy disproportionate power.

“After years of progress bridging the gap between technology, Black representation, and social justice, writers Rucker, “this is a cost Black communities – and all those pushed to the margins of both democracy and debate – just can’t afford.”

I am an ally in the movement for Black lives, so social and alternative media are my required reading. It’s there – not in the shamefully racist and sensationalistic corporate media – where I find reporting from the streets and movement perspectives from progressive Black leaders. Even if I’m far away from a particular struggle, social and alternative media help me connect the dots to wherever I am. Whether I’m in the grocery store or at a family barbeque, I need to be  grounded and hopeful as I engage people around me to support this powerfully important movement.

I’m always glad when I get asked, “Is there anything that could really make a difference?” because there is so much coming from the movement for Black lives.

Looking at the published principles, platforms, and demands of groups leading the movement for Black lives helps me to keep track of the solutions emerging. I can see that, like any movement, different communities and organizations offer slightly different solutions that reflect different situations and perspectives. While each statement has its own emphasis and nuance, there is an organic similarity among solutions rising across this movement moment, an opportunity for deep and lasting systemic and cultural change, with words and ideas echoing among people who may have never even met each other.

Reading through eleven different statements I found common themes, as well as distinct perspectives and exciting differences. The statements I looked at were put out by Ferguson Action, the delegation of young people called to meet with the White House, Color of Change, Center for Social Inclusion, African American Policy Forum, Hands Up United, Safety Beyond Policing, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Organization for Black Struggle, Freedom, Inc., and the Boggs Center. I’m sure there are more statements I haven’t seen yet, so if you know of other published principles, platforms, demands, or proposed solutions from Black-led organizing for Black lives, please share them in the comments. [Note: This blog post was updated on May 21 to include information from the newly-released report SayHerName: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women.]

In these written statements, I found immediate and practical solutions for ending police violence and demilitarizing the police – all presented as part of a much larger vision. For example Ferguson Action’s “Our Vision for a New America” puts forth police-focused solutions as part of a broader call to end all forms of discrimination and fully recognize human rights, for an immediate end to police brutality, for full employment and decent housing, to replace the school-to-prison pipeline with quality education, and to end mass incarceration.

Within the different statements I found a range of police-focused solutions including:

• Document and collect data on ongoing and widespread policing patterns and practices.
• Condition federal funds to police departments on their ending discriminatory policing and adoption of Department of Justice best practices.
• Establish Community Control Over Police (not review boards or community policing) with the power to set priorities, policies and enforce the proper practice of those mandates.
• Provide reparations for victims of police violence (which just became reality in Chicago)
• Release people in pre-trial detention whose bail is below $1,000.
• Release/don’t prosecute individuals who have exercised their rights to assemble and protest.
• Stop the use of policing to fund local governments.
• Cease the power of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to collaborate with local law enforcement agencies.
• Pass the End Racial Profiling Act of 2015, which for the first time, includes a ban on racial profiling based on gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and urging local police departments to adopt and enforce a gender and sexuality inclusive racial profiling ban.
• Enact and enforce a “zero tolerance” policy toward sexual harassment and assault of members of the public by police officers.

The solutions articulated in these statements often challenge the systems and institutions of policing by calling for public budgets that transition resources away from policing and toward community needs. Specific proposals I read include:

• Repurpose law enforcement funds to support restorative justice programs and community based alternatives to incarceration, youth jobs programs, public housing resident associations, and other key investments.
• Create Peace Departments.
• Make public transit free (which we should just do anyway but also so people aren’t criminalized for unpaid transit fees).

Voices in the movement for Black lives also include economic and ecological sustainability in their vision. The Boggs Center statement includes solutions such as training local residents to use technology to create sustainable, self-determined communities, creating place-based schools, and investing in fresh food co-ops and community gardens in Black communities. As Movement Generation wrote in 2014, “The current rebellion in the streets of Ferguson begs the question: will we continue to uphold, participate in and suffer the consequences of this violent extractive economy? Or will we completely dismantle the extractive economy while re-building local, living economies that restore & repair our relationship to earth & each other?”

Solutions emerging reflect the new organizing strength of queer and trans Black communities, Black immigrant communities, and of young Black women and girls, all of whom are playing a leadership role in the movement for Black lives. The African American Policy Forum’s report, Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected, particularly looks at the role of schools in criminalizing Black girls and points toward school-based changes, while the AAPF’s most recent report, SayHerName: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,”sheds light on Black women’s experiences of police violence in an effort to support a gender inclusive approach to racial justice that centers all Black lives equally.”

The statement of the Black Alliance for Immigration Justice calls for action such as the reunification of Black immigrant families “separated by deportation, unjust profiling in law enforcement practices and also by discriminatory immigration practices.”  Freedom Inc. works “in ways that are language-gender-generation and culture-specific to wimmin, gender non-conforming, and youth, in African American and Southeast Asian families– that bring about deep social, political, cultural, and economic change.”

I know that the solutions emerging today reflect the experience, wisdom, and action of those who have collectively sought change for decades even when the national spotlight was not on them. In direct response to the outrage in Ferguson, for example, the St. Louis city council passed a law last month creating a civilian oversight board with the power to review claims of police misconduct, a change St. Louis activists have called for since the 1940s.

I know that specific calls for change in Ferguson have resulted in victories beyond Ferguson, even before the Department of Justice released its horrific report. For example, in the last months of 2014, arrest warrants for minor traffic violations were lifted for 220,000 people in St. Louis. Following suit,  the Missouri Legislature just approved a statewide bill removing any municipality’s ability to jail someone for a minor traffic infraction. The collective outrage from Ferguson has led directly to action, to public outcry against using “justice” systems to make money, and to growing demand for solutions that abolish the patterns and practices of structural racism.

I know that the solutions emerging from the movement for Black lives are stepping stones toward a world where Black lives matter.

When I am asked, “Is there anything that could really make a difference?” I tell the white woman in the check out line, or my Ecuadorian-American cousins, that the movement for Black lives is sparking new visions for the future and a bold path to get there.

I tell them that Black communities are coming together to demand local and national changes that end the state violence, criminalization, and disinvestment that destroy Black lives and families.

I quote Alicia Garza of #Black Lives Matter who wrote, “When Black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide reaching and transformative for society as a whole.” And, “When we are able to end hyper-criminalization and sexualization of Black people and end the poverty, control, and surveillance of Black people, every single person in this world has a better shot at getting and staying free.”

When I am asked, “Is there anything that could really make a difference?” I know the movement for Black lives is generating powerful answers.

November 20 marks Trans Day of Remembrance, a day to honor the many who have been killed by violence aimed at transgender people. Let’s Talk commemorates this day with art created by Micah Bazant for Trans Day of Remembrance 2014, as well as an interview with the artist.

Let’s Talk: How did you decide to do this poster?

Micah Bazant: There’s a political group run by and for trans people of color called TransJustice, that’s part of the Audre Lorde Project in NYC. We had talked about collaborating and they contacted me looking for art for their Trans Day of Remembrance event. We agreed to sell the posters as a benefit for Audre Lorde Project (you can buy them online here!) and to share the art with other organizations. Strong Families – a national network of reproductive justice groups – has been growing their trans justice work, and doing a lot of work with trans and queer youth of color. They were incredibly supportive, and shared the art with all their partners and supporters.

Trans women and trans feminine people of color were the mothers of the LGBTQ liberation movement. As a trans person, I owe my life to people like Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and so many other elders and ancestors who took so much shit and were on the frontlines of the struggle for decades. But even though trans women of color helped win so many victories for other LGBTQ folks, today they are still facing an epidemic of violence, and their leadership usually goes unrecognized.

It’s important to me to create art through relationships, to try and make sure I represent people in ways they feel awesome about, and then to offer and leverage the art to support organizing, and to materially contribute by donating from sales of the work.

LT: You also released a Trans Day of Remembrance poster last year. Can you tell us about that?

Free CeCe by Micah Bazant

MB: Last year I did a portrait of Cece McDonald, a young Black trans woman in Minneapolis who fought off a racist, transphobic attack – she stabbed her attacker and he died. Although it was a clear case of self-defense, CeCe was sentenced to 41 months in a men’s prison. Throughout her ordeal, she was very clear that prisons and police do not serve or protect trans people, and will never create more safety for us.

The poster showed CeCe in prison, with her hand on the visiting room window glass. I feel especially emotional about the image right now because the art was based on an actual photo of CeCe and Leslie Feinberg – another trans revolutionary – touching hands and supporting each other. We actually just lost Leslie this week – hir early death was at least partly due to anti-trans bigotry and inaccessible health care.

CeCe and Leslie

It’s interesting to reflect on how much has changed since last year and how much hasn’t. CeCe is out of prison now and is a movement leader and a public speaker. But, like a lot of our leaders, she is still struggling to cover her basic needs. And other trans people, like Eisha Love in Chicago, are serving prison time for self-defense, but their cases haven’t received any attention.

At the same time, celebrities like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock are changing the media landscape. And I see more movements and cultural work actively including trans people of color, like #BlackLivesMatter and CultureStrike. There is so much organizing led by trans people of color that is doing incredible work with practically no resources – groups like the Trans Women of Color Collective, El/La Para Translatinas, Casa Ruby, Black Trans Media, Breakout, and so many more. But the average life expectancy for trans women of color is still 23 years and criminalization and discrimination are still daily events.

LT: How do you describe your gender?

MB: I identify as trans and also as timtum, which is one of six traditional Jewish gender categories. It’s a non-binary, fluid category that refers to someone whose gender is not a man or a woman and is not immediately identifiable.

About 15 years ago, when I came out as trans, there was radically less trans awareness in general and also very few models of non-binary trans existence. I was cut off from my family of origin and really having a spiritual crisis, so I began reconnecting with my Jewish culture and learning Yiddish, which was my mom’s first language. I came across the word timtum in a Yiddish dictionary one day and it was defined as an insult. I became obsessed with learning about this and found that like most traditional cultures, ancient Judaism had more than two genders.

I think a big part of trans liberation is decolonizing ourselves from the enforced gender binary, which I see as a fundamental tool of colonialism and white supremacy. Part of my work is reclaiming and reimagining my own culture as anti-racist, anti-zionist, and trans-fabulous.

I’m excited that gender non-conforming people are creating more space and language to describe ourselves, especially in culturally specific ways. The U.S.-dominated narrative of “trans” as a “new” phenomenon can also become a vehicle for cultural imperialism. Just like we are facing a global crisis of extinction around different languages, seeds and species, and we need that biodiversity to survive, I believe we need a cosmos of different understandings and stories about gender.

LT: What are you hoping to communicate in this poster?

MB: TransJustice and I decided we wanted to create an image that centered trans feminine people of color and that showed trans people loving each other across differences in age and gender expressions. We also wanted to keep shifting the narrative around Trans Day of Remembrance, since so many observances of the event had become really problematic. Often you’d have a bunch of mostly white trans masculine people or white cisgender people reading off the names of trans people who’d been murdered. The list of people murdered would be all Black and Latina trans women of color. It was like the one time of year that trans women of color were acknowledged and then only as victims. We do need to honor the dead, but we also need to fight side-by-side with the living.

Janet Mock wrote a great piece on this:

We can’t only celebrate trans women of color in memoriam. We must begin uplifting trans women of color, speaking their names and praises, in their lives. We do this by making their work more visible, by investing resources into their daily organizing, by hiring them in organizations that fight for gender justice, by ensuring that we not only speak the names of the fallen, but of the active.

We want to remember trans power and push people to take action for trans lives all year round.

LT: How do you think about the role of art in social change?

MB: I think artists have always played a crucial role in social justice movements, and I see many artists and organizers trying to figure out more powerful ways to work together. I love that movement artists are building our own networks and ways of sharing our work, that don’t rely on elite art world institutions, and can have a much broader reach than those institutions.

At the same time, a lot of organizers are unsure about how to work with artists or about the impact that art can have on their work. As an artist I used to feel like it wasn’t my place to suggest that. But after seeing how some of my art was shared by thousands of people and had a big impact on grassroots campaigns, I’ve started being more pro-active, with really great results.

If you are an artist and want to contribute to any social justice struggle, I really encourage you to reach out to people working on that issue and suggest your ideas. As artists we want our work to have a life in the world, to have passionate relationships with people beyond our sketchbooks. Organizations can help make that happen, and our work as artists can help make social change look irresistible.

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Feature photo: Remember Trans Power by Micah Bazant