Schedule for the Anarchist People of Color Conference

Friday, April 16th

7pm – 10pm
Potluck dinner at the Long Haul Infoshop
3124 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
(2 blocks from Ashby BART, Across from La Peña Cultural Center)
Phone (510) 540-0751
A place to register, check-in for the conference and just hang out and meet folks.

Saturday , April 17th

UC BERKELEY, BARROWS HALL

9:30am – 10:00 Breakfast

10:00 – 11:30am Opening Panel

Panel "What is Anarchism to us?" Barrows Room 122
A chance to hear the varying opinions on what anarchism means to different folks, and how they came to anarchism.
Speakers
ß Ali is a student organizer for Student for Justice. He has done work around issues regarding student equity, student empowerment, the state budget cuts, and supporting workers/classified staff on campus. He is also a member and supporter of the IWW, has worked to start an IWW chapter in San Jose, and is part of the Furious Five anarchist collective in the South bay.
ß Lani Riccobuono is a prison abolition organizer, independent media activist and member of the AK Press collective in Oakland. She was born and raised in the bay area, and feels like anarchism has made her a much saner human being.
ß Kapila - Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, got in contact with anarchism through fanzines. While in Brazil he was involved in a study group called CELIP, and with a organization called Popular Resistance. Here in the United States he is a member of the Furious Five collective (an Anarchist-communist/especifista collective out of San Jose,CA), Students for Justice (a grassroots students organization out of the South Bay) and the IWW.
ß Raw Knowledge is a bay area working class poet, 20 time poet laureate winner of the down trodden, unseen, and unspoken; an annoyance to the rich and middle class, an overall big mouth with an axe to grind; using the pen to do it! Do you feel it? Who says the pen ain’t mightier than the sword? Can you dig it? If you can’t then by all means – just sit there then, the fire will consume you as it will us all eventually…

11:45am – 1:15pm
Workshop Session 1

Food Not Bombs Barrows Room 136
This workshop will discuss the history of Food not Bombs as well as the potential for revolution that exists in its structure. As an autonomous, grassroots alternative, FNB has become a direct challenge to the conventional corporate system of food production and distribution which fosters poverty and hunger.
Speakers
ß Omar Malik and Mitzila Valdes have worked with various FNBs at different mobilizations as well as with the collective of Sonoma County FNBs.


Autonomous Movements in Mexico Barrows Room 151
We are going to discuss Zapatismo and autonomy, which will encompass a brieft history of indigenous repression, what are Zapatista demands, why autonomy is so important, what autonomy means and what it looks like when put into practice, we will discuss several autonomous projects, some of which we have been involved in supporting and we are going to show a video about autonomous education.
Facilitator
ß Cassandra Lopez is from the bay area and part of the Chiapas Support Committee Cassandra Lopez
ß Oscar Gonzalez Huerta is from Mexico D.F.

Organizing: Intro, Tactics and Strategies Barrows Room 155
Workshop with popular education games where we learn how the capitalists operate and how we can fight back.
Facilitator –
ß Sonya Mehta has been an organizer on campus, in the streets and now at the workplace. She is an organizer with Young Workers United, an independent labor union for young people in the service sector.

LGBTIQueerAPOC Barrows 122
LGBTIQueerAPOC- creating a movement with room for all of our love A space created for and by self-identified queer/sexually deviant folk.
With the aim of engaging in dialogue on how to approach queer people of color issues within anarchist, queer, people of color communities and the world at large.
The goal of this workshop is for facilitation of a self-created space for Queer folks. With focus on Queer-APOC issues in anarchist, queer, people of color and other communities in our lives. Some discussion might include but is not restricted to-the following topics:
1. What does it mean to us to be a queer anarchist of color?
2. Queer issues in anarchist communities
3. Queer issues in people of color communities
4. Queer and of color in our inter-personal relationships
5. In correspondence with question 4: How do we build evolving environments for each other and ourselves at the same time? What makes us safe (emotionally and physically)?
Facilitator - Camille

1:15pm - 2:30pm
Lunch

2:45pm - 4:15pm
Workshop Session 2


The struggle for Anarchism cannot begin until the Indigenous struggle is won Barrows Room 151
In this workshop we will develop ideas that approach questions of nationalism from a more positive direction than anarchists usually do. Why is nationalism inspiring to people? Furthermore we will identify what an indigenous perspective could look like and express why it should be the foundation to an anarchist perspective and not just a sidebar that is only discussed when native issues arise.
Facilitator
ß Aragorn! is an active member of the Bay Area anarchist community. He is a stumbling writer and participant in a number of collectives with concerns that range from vegan baked goods, serving web pages, to what the composition of an anti-authoritarian politic for people of color would look like. He is an Odawa (Ottawa) Indian on his mother’s side.

Self Defense Barrows Room 122
An Interactive presentation of basic techniques, concepts and applications related to unarmed self-protection against both armed and unarmed assailants.
Notes: Participants will be asked about any health conditions that may affect their ability to participate. Participants are invited to videotape the seminar so they have a reference tool to take home with them (this is optional and based upon group consensus).
Facilitator
ß Greg Lewis is a long-time organizer: (Black Autonomy International, IWW, numerous coalitions against prisons, war, police brutality and poverty in the Seattle area). He is a certified personal trainer: (ACE certified), karate instructor: Certified black belt; Kenzen Karate-Seattle, WA. He has over 20 years in the martial arts experience (Western boxing, muay Thai, taekwondo, karate, Brazilian jiujitsu).

Drug War Barrows Room 136
This participatory panel will talk about how the drug war targets women and communities of color and has been used to justify the largest prison build up in U.S. history. We will also talk about why harm reduction solutions to addiction make more sense than incarceration and state repression.
Facilitators –
ß Micha Frazier is an Oakland resident and harm reduction activist.
ß Christina Wilson lives in Oakland and is a long time Bay Area anti- prison organizer
ß Roger White is a criminal justice researcher and writer living in Oakland

Sexual assault and response in communities of color Barrows Room 155
We will present myths and facts about rape and sexual assault in communities of color and discuss the approaches that groups have been using to deal with perpetrators and survivors in their communities.
Facilitator
ß Nisha is the Director of Development for San Francisco Women Against Rape, the oldest women of color led rape crisis center in the country. Before SFWAR, Nisha was the Director of Development for The Ruckus Society, a national direct action training organization. Before Ruckus, she worked as the National Field Organizer for the War Resisters League, organizing demonstrations and providing assistance and training to local chapters around the country. Nisha continues leading workshops on Anti-Racist Organizing, Nonviolence, Direct Action Preparation, and other action tactics and issues. She also is currently on the Advisory Board of the Anti-Racism for Global Justice project of the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop.

4:30pm – 6pm
Workshop Session 3

Copwatch Barrows Room 151
Facilitator - Mickey

Direct Action Barrows Room 122
Learn some quick background of direct action and some important skill and tactics to use when bringing a group to the streets!
Facilitator
ß Mojgone is an Iranian-born activist and organizer most recently linked to the Ruckus Society, a national direct action training organization. While on staff at Ruckus, Moj was responsible for the coordination and development of the150-person Ruckus network of trainers. She was also instrumental in founding the People of color Direct Actions Trainer’s Network. Prior to joining the Ruckus, she served as the Campaigns Coordinator for the International Campaign for Tibet in Washington, DC and as a long-time Board member for Students for a Free Tibet in New York City. Mojgone has traveled extensively in the United States leading trainings and educating the public on a variety of human rights and environmental issues. She has also studied, lived, and worked in Nepal, China, and Tibet.

Globalization & Global War A Bottom-up View Of Empire & Resistance Barrows Room 136
This workshop looks at globalization through the eyes of the peoples it attacks, especially indigenous peoples whose cultures are under siege and urban radicals in the global South. Under seige by global capitalism, they have entered the fray, usually not with the force of arms but with massive human creativity which is reshaping our world from the bottom up. We can learn from the strengths of these resistances: the ability to forge identities and weave histories of resistance, and to paralyze governments and economies while building new forms of living, the concept of counterpower, and the practices of revolutionary autonomy.

This workshop invites participants to join in asking what if . . . What if we are not the spectators of, or exceptions to, revolutionary change, but participants alongside the rest of humanity? How would we resist and what would we create?
Facilitator
ß Carwil James, an Oakland-based activist and researcher, is an organizer within Direct Action to Stop the War, a directly democratic resistance effort committed to uprooting the system behind war and empire. He was the Oil Campaign Coordinator at Project Underground, a human rights group supporting indigenous resistance to oil and mining corporations.

Personal and Mutual Respect: Responses to Racism in the Anarchist Community Barrows Room 155
In this workshop, we will talk about our experiences in the anarchist "scene" and develop individual and collective strategies and tactics to respond to racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny. Come prepared to share, learn, struggle and come up with some concrete responses.
Facilitator
ß Spoken word artist/performer/MC/author Solidad Decosta is a mixed race herm/queer woman of black latina maternal ancestry. Equal parts street journalist, storyteller and 40 something crone to be with leo moon credentials, her work encompasses the why and where of life outside the boxes in a label obsessed world, and the what, when, who and how of everything else.

Sunday, April 18th

UC BERKELEY, BARROWS HALL

10:00am – 10:30
Breakfast

10:30am – Noon
Workshop Session 4

Free Palestine! Barrows 155
This workshop will take a look at the history of struggle for Palestinian people. It includes a film and discussion. In addition to the Palestinian resistance movement, we will discuss solidarity efforts here in the Bay.
Facilitators –
ß Meera Vaidyanathan is a long time activist for the liberation of Palestine. She was a founding member of Students for Justice in Palestine, and now works with SUSTAIN (Stop US Aid to Israel Now). She currently works with the University Students Cooperative Association, towards cooperative and affordable housing.
ß Sara Nafici is a founding member of Students for Justice in Palestine and now works with SUSTAIN. She has championed environmental justice causes, and is currently working at the Garden for the Environment, a SF learning/teaching garden.

Panel on different anarchist theories (anarcho-syndicalism, post-left, eco-anarchism, etc.) Barrrows Room 122

Education and Anarchism Barrows Room 151
This workshop will address the role of anarchism in the classroom and other learning environments. We will discuss popular education techniques, discipline and authority and cultural forms of learning and teaching. True to our word, this workshop will focus on participatory learning.
Facilitator –
ß Julia Sen is an educator in a bilingual class at a South Bay elementary school. She has been an activist and organizer with Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas, anti-war efforts, and many other movement for justice. She graduates this year from the Education for Social Justice masters program at USF.

Self Defense Barrows Room 166
Facilitator - Greg Lewis
(For workshop description and facilitator bio, see this workshop under Session 1)

Environmental Racism Another Manifestation of Genocide Barrows Room 174
This workshop will focus on environmental justice and will include activities and discussion on this topic. We will address issues of environmental racism and learn about how grassroots community power can shut down local corporate polluters that profit from our health and environment.
Facilitator –
ß Jessica Tovar’s experience with environmental justice started with growing up in East LA, next to one of the most toxic cities in Southern California. She began her organizing career as an active member and chair of MEChA. She currently works for Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice.

Noon – 1:00pm
Work caucuses (Please see the Conference overview for information on how to organize a session)

1:00pm – 1:30pm
Lunch

1:30pm – 3pm
Discussion/Report Backs