CAUCUS PACKETBlack Student UnionTHE

September 2013 Vol. II, Issue I

Black Power

is the politics

of liberation.

ABC

SEPTEMBER

2013

Table of Contents:EXECUTIVE BOARD UPDATES

1BSU Outreach Team

2Afro House

Black Student Leadership ProgramMulticultural Student Development Campaign

3ONYX Express

Campus Climate Committee4

Black Womyxn’s CaucusBlack Faculty, Staff, Administrators, + Alumni

CSULB Africana Studies Update5

Black Power ApparelBlack Senate Office

African Black CoalitionUSCA and Anti-Napolitano Campaign

CAMPUS UPDATES

6CalSERVE

Meeting with the ChancellorPolitical Education Day: The Prison System

AFSCME

COMMUNITY UPDATES

7Black Worker Center

Walmart Strikers

BSU Summer8

Community Survey UpdateJustice for Trayvon

Generation Progress ConferenceAfro House Working Group

Content by :BSU Board

Layout design by:Onyx Express/Rajan Hoyle

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BSU

Outreach TeamThis year the BSU Executive Board decided to create an Outreach team to do work in organizing the Black community on and off campus. Below is a message from the team led by Mylo Santifer.

The BSU Outreach Team realizes that we are not outnumbered but we are simply out organized. In recognizing this issue the Outreach team for the 2013-2014 BSU Executive Board seeks to provide innovative and creative ways of organizing our community. Since the peak of the Summer of 2013 the BSU executive board along with the Outreach Team has been working and crafting new ways of developing connections within the Black community.

We, as the Outreach team recognize that we are organizers 24/7. That all moves that we make must be in alignment with the betterment and upliftment of the black condition on and off campus. In our day to day lives we make sure we approach, get familiar and greet Black people. Since every black student who acknowledges the necessity of unification is a part of the BLACK STUDENT UNION the Outreach team has also been focusing on seeing what part every student has in the Black Agenda. Through our informational meetings and personal interactions we have been hav-ing one-on-ones with various people who want to get involved and just need to know where to go to use their passion in the movement.

GOALS AND PROJECTSBelow are a list of goals that the Outreach Team has set:Recruiting 6 more members to join the Outreach Team: As a team we understand that we must constantly be growing and empowering community members to become community organizers.Bay Area BSU Council: Cal BSU understands that in order for us to be effective in combatting issues within Bay Area Black communities we must work collectively with other Bay Area Black students. Once active the Council will lead community based organizing with the intent of hav-ing our efforts be relevant to Black people who do not have the privilege to be at institutions like Berkeley.Black Student Athlete Coalition: Black student athletes must face the reality of being Black at Cal along with being exploited by the University for capital accumulation. In the past, BSU set up a Black Student Athlete Coalition to determine ways that Black athletes can engage with other Black students on campus and to find out how BSU can advocate for their needs. Moving forward the Outreach Team would like to find ways that initiatives similar to the Black Student Athlete Coali-tion can be replicated.Bay Area Black Owned Businesses: Following the lineage of Black leaders and organizations that understood that Black people must develop a strong economic base, the Outreach Team is con-tinuing to reach out to Black Owned Business along with other spaces to determine the best way to revive the local Black economy.Black Social Justice and Community based organizations: While thinking critically of what role black students can play in connection with other spaces that traditionally have played a role in black liberation and new spaces that can provide a nuanced understanding of the black condition, the Outreach Team has been in conversation with several local Black and people of color organi-zations.Outreaching within Black at Cal: The Outreach Team works to connect Black undergraduate stu-dents, graduate students, staff, faculty, administrators, and alumni in a way that translates to a multifaceted Black movement on campus.

To learn more about past, current, and future developments made by the Outreach Team please contact Mylo Santifer at outreach.calbsu@gmail.com.

BSLP

AFRO HOUSE In BSU’s April Caucus Packet, a member of the BSU Exec. Board wrote on recent shifts within the Afro House, a Black cooperative off campus. Referring to combatting “heavy colonization, occupation, and

gentrification,” the article outlined how the Afro 6 (the six Black residents of Afro) was waging a campaign to reclaim the space for the Black community. With Afro’s 19 out of 21 residents being Black this year, Afro 6 and the rest of the Black community can confidently say that the House has been finally reclaimed. With this reclamation part one of BSU’s Afro House campaign comes to a close, however the residents of Afro and the Black community find themselves in another phase of the Afro Development. The Afro campaign has moved from ‘reclaiming’ and ‘realigning’ to ‘redeveloping’ and ‘sustaining.’ A decade of heavy colonization in a space as malleable as a cooperative inevitably will lead to a myriad of challenges that persist beyond the occupation. These challenges include having to recreate a house culture separate of the legacy of gentrification to simply improving the physical space after years of neglect. Despite the continual struggle, the Black community is prepared to shape Afro into the inclusive Black cooperative that it must be. The list of initiatives that the house is undertaking is extensive, however accomplishments have been made; Afro continues to screen Afro-centric movies every Thursday at 8 at our Soul Cinemas, a program created by former Afro resident Reginald James and the $15,000 backyard redevelopment project including a community garden space and deck area is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 20th. These great strides are not enough and one must not become complacent. The ultimate well-being of the house depends not just on house residents, but on the Black community as a whole. To learn more about the house or get involved contact the House President Marcel Jones at athhp@bsc.coop.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Traditionally BSU Executive Board has hosted the an-

nual Black Student Leadership Training, a two day training for black students focused on leadership de-velopment. This year, the BSU Executive Board de-cided to expand the two day training into a 10 week program (1.5hr/week). Focusing on putting provid-ing historical context to black activism, the program will be hosting discussions, teach-ins, and trainings. The goal of BSLP is to give BSU members the historical knowledge along with the tangible skills to be an effec-tive change maker. One must learn from the past to in-form the present. To register for the program or to learn more contact Sabrina Robleh at pa.calbsu@gmail.com.

Last year BSU and other allied spaces banned together to lead a campaign against the disrespectful treatment of the Multicultural Student Development Offices, which in-cludes the African American Student Development Office led by Nzingha Dugas. In struggle, multicultural students were able to get Chancellor Birgeneau to form a taskforce to review the MSD offices. From this taskforce a list of recommendations were approved by both the Chancel-lor and the Vice-Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion, Gi-bor Basri. These recommendations included tripling the MSD’s programmatic funds, increasing funds for hiring more office interns, increasing space, hiring program as-sistance for each office, and changing the administrative structure forced upon the offices due to the 2011 initia-tive Operational Excellence. Currently community lead-ers are continuing the campaign to ensure that all recom-mendations are implemented in a timely and fair fashion.

BSLP MSD

Campaign

Campus Climate

Committee

Given the campus administrations inability to effectively improve the condition of Black students in a way that re-verses large trends like poor academic retention and wide-spread feelings of disrespect, the BSU Executive Board de-cided to form the Campus Climate Committee. Below is a small introduction to the committee written by the BSU Exec. Board:

Since their entry into the university, Black students have had to fight for their place. It is from this struggle of Black students, along with other marginalized communities, that different spaces and programs dedicated to the ad-vancement of Black people exist on this campus. Currently, it has been demonstrated that Black students make up one of the most, if not the most marginalized

community, yet little effort by the campus as a whole has been exerted in addressing this issue. Therefore, Black stu-dents must again advocate for their own well-being. As a community we must come up with innovative solutions to complicated problems, in a way that does not reinvent the wheel. There are several decentralized reports and efforts at Cal and throughout the UC systems, and different structures at UC Berkeley that purport to support Black students. During this project we must be aware of all of these factors along with being aware that our community is not homogenous and that we face a diverse range of issues.Our goal concretely is to document and record our stories and to analyze Cal’s given structure to find tangible ways it can be changed to improve the condition of Black students.

We find this report to be timely. This year Berkeley just welcomed a new Chancellor, there is expected to be a new Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion, and the current Dean of Student Affairs has recently resigned. With all of these changes it is crucial that Black student voices are heard.To learn more about the Campus Climate Committee contact Gabrielle Shuman at ca.calbsu@gmail.com.

ONYX Express

In October, BSU in collaboration with Onyx Express is scheduled to publish its first of many monthly newslet-ters throughout the academic year. The idea of a news-letter extends from the collaborative efforts by BSU and Onyx Express as a way to keep the community actively engaged with political issues relating to the black com-munity, the Bay Area, and key topics worldwide. In de-veloping the newsletter, BSU and Onyx hope to connect black students with larger black media publications, pro-vide a platform to black students to voice their political concerns, and place black media representation into the hands of black college students. In addition to the news-letter, BSU and the lead organizers of Onyx are working to develop a team/committee that will work together on other media publications including social media, blog/website development, and other forms of publicity out-lets. Until the publicity team is established, Onyx Express will continue to publish BSU’s Caucus Packets, as well as remain autonomous in publishing content on their Face-book page as well their magazine editorial that is pub-lished each semester. For more information about getting involved with BSU’s publicity team or ONYX Express, contact Rakiah Anderson at publicity.calbsu@gmail.com

BLACKWOMXN’SCAUCUS

Black Womxn’s Caucus was developed over the summer of 2013 by a group of black womxn* who noticed trends within the black community that included the silencing of black womxn’s multitude of voices, the undermining of black womxn’s leadership, and the neglect on the part of black student leadership as a whole in addressing these issues that directly affected black womxn. In response, the womxn of BSU’s executive board sought out other womxn in the black community including organizers of CalSERVE, NCNW, Zawadi, BRRC, AASD, and other communities essential to strengthening and providing re-sources to womxn in the black community. The womxn’s caucus is projected to serve as the primary political voice for black womxn at Cal, while also providing tools that helps to empower black womxn, address concerns of lead-

ership in spaces often dominated by men, and create a space for black womxn to connect, heal, and share. Some initia-tives the womxn’s caucus have taken include connecting with CalSERVE for the “Know Your IX” campaign, coordinat-ing the Black Womxn’s Luncheon each Friday of the week, developing a facebook group for black womxn on campus, and facilitating standing meetings every other week. To get more information about Black Womxn’s Caucus please contact Rakiah Anderson at publicity.calbsu@gmail.com.

*Womxn is spelled without an ‘e’ or ‘y’ as one form of resistance to our male-dominated (patriarchal) society. The “x” is meant to be an inclusive and progressive term that stands for the many different identities, struggles, intersectionali-ties, and movements womxn have participated in--but are too often left out of in hxstory.

BLACKFACULTY, STAFF,

ADMINISTRATORS, + ALUMNI

A collective of Black staff, faculty, and alumni have been meeting to discuss ways in which they can adequately sup-port the Black community at Cal. They have identified a few issues around which they can concentrate their efforts. These issues include the lack of alumni participation, lack of funding, disunity amongst different Black populations at Cal, and oversaturation of the community with events. Proposed solutions that the collective is working towards include having up to four major annual community events where Black staff, faculty, alumni, and students will attend (these events would have a fundraising component), setting up a Black community endowment fund, and funding Black Caucus to promote community investment and collaboration. On August 27th, Ceddy Jones, Destiny Iwuoma and Marcel Jones attended one of the collective’s meetings over dinner to voice a student perspective on the issues and partially mold the course of the collective. Some action items from the meeting were to have a representative from the collective attend October’s Black Caucus. To learn more contact Marcel Jones at chair.calbsu@gmail.com.

In BSU’s April Caucus Packet the BSU Exec. Board reported that Long Beach State’s Africana Studies department was under attack. Fortunately this oppressive onslaught has been momentarily halted due to the push back from Black students, staff, and faculty.

CSULB

Afrikan Black CoalitionAfrikan/Black Coalition (ABC) is a coalition of Black students throughout the UC system. Traditionally ABC has just held an annual ABC conference. This year ABC is changing in a way that allows Black students state-wide to create and critically engage with power structures for the advancement of the Black condition on and off of our campuses. Recent developments in this effort include restructuring and renorming the coalition. The new structure governing ABC will consist of a central committee with offices for an Executive Director, an alumni branch, an elders council, and a board of directors consisting of chairs of each B/ASU throughout the UC system. The renorming process includes changing the way Black students conceive ABC and altering the practices of ABC. The latest events in this process were the UC roadtrip made by Salih Muhammad and Marcel Jones Aug. 27th-31st and the first annual Black Student Leadership Training hosted on Berkeley’s campus Sept. 13th-15th. Future plans include monthly chair’s forums, an ABC campus retreat, and more campus visits by central committee members. To learn more about ABC contact interim Executive Director Salih Muhammad at chair.abc@gmail.com.

Black Power ApparelEvery great organizing group has had an equally great image. For the Black Panthers, it was sleek black leather and impeccable Afros; for the Brown Berets, a Chicano Rights group, it was the titular brown berets. As we too aspire for greatness, the BSU board has decided to introduce this semester official Black Student Union “Black at Cal” stu-dent gear. Stylized with phrases “Black Power” and “CalBSU” in bold letters, the black crewnecks and shirts serve not only to unify the Black community on campus, but to announce to the greater campus that we are beautiful and proud. The collection of funds and distribution of gear will be headed by (but not limited to) the BSU’s Outreach Team, whose members’ catalog the information and subsequently make the purchases. Cur-rently, the BSU Board is working to get the first wave of gear to the community out towards the middle of Fall Semester and is actively collecting and cataloging funds daily.

Black Senate OfficeThe office of the Black endorsed Senator, Destiny Iwuoma will be releasing written updates and presenting an oral update at Black Caucus. To learn more about Iwuoma’s office contact him at diwuoma@gmail.com

USCA and Anti-Napolitano CampaignCal BSU has taken a stance in support of a collective of undocumented students and al-lies who seek to fight against the appointment of former Secretary of Homeland Securi-ty, Janet Napolitano, as President of the UC system. Napolitano serves a threat not only to undocumented students due to her record setting deportations, but to the greater progressive community within the UCs who will have to face an expert military strate-gist. Several actions have been taken to voice the dissatisfaction of students. Action were held at the UC Regents meeting where Napolitano was confirmed and at this year’s UC Student Association (UCSA) Congress. After the UCSA Congress residents of Afro House reached out to the collective of students who organized these actions to provide shelter and refuge for the September UCSA board meeting that was held on Berkeley’s Campus Sept. 7th-8th. Most recently the ASUC (Cal’s student government) passed a senate bill requiring Napolitano satisfy a list of demands or face a vote of no confi-dence. To learn more about this issue contact Marcel Jones at chair.calbsu@gmail.com.

CalSERVEBelow is a CalSERVE update from Campus Mobilizer, Spencer Pritchard:

CalSERVE is currently recruiting students and developing their campaigns for the year. CalSERVE is running three campaigns - IGNITE (Investing in Graduation, Not In-carceration, Transform Education), Labor Solidarity, and Know Your IX. These campaigns address the Prison Industrial Complex and the School to Prison Pipeline, Campus Work-ers contract fights, and education about our legal rights under federal law. CalSERVE is also working to partner with local non profits on other issues, such as Prop 13 reform. Legislatively, CalSERVE Senators have passed a bill demanding Napolitano addresses the needs of the undocumented student community or else the ASUC will issue a vote of no confidence. Lastly, CalSERVE is working to provide an issues summit for the community to engage with us in our campaigns, provide feedback, and propose campaigns of your own that you would like to see CalSERVE work on. That time and date is TBA.To learn more about CalSERVE contact Spencer Pritchard at spencerjpritchard@gmail.com.

Meeting with the ChancellorOn Thursday, September 5th, Marcel Jones representing BSU along with allies from the Multicultural Community Council (a council of students representing the MSD offices) met with Chancellor Dirks to briefly provide context to recent organizing efforts and drop knowledge on the hxstory of the multicultural/ third world struggle on campus. Jones and others were glad to find that Chancellor Dirks had some willingness to commit criti-cal thought and potentially resources to Black and allied communities.

Political Education Day: The Prison SystemOn Thursday, September 26th, from 11am to 6pm, el Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@/Xican@ de Aztlán (M.E.Ch/X.A.), in collaboration with the Black Student Union and CalSERVE, will be putting on a day of education around the prison industrial complex. The collective will be hosting several workshops, focused on womyn in prisons, queer and trans struggles in the prison system, and restorative justice, as well as presentations from community organizations working for justice for the incarcerated, as well as a night of poetry and art focused on prison issues. Please come share knowledge and experiences on a system that is traumatizing communities of color across the United States, so that together solutions can be imagined. For more information contact Sabrina Robleh at pa.calbsu@gmail.com.

AFSCMEAFSCME 3299 has over 22,000 members at the University of California. The union represents workers from every UC facility in the state, including the ten campuses, five medical centers, agricultural and marine research stations, and all other facilities that employ UC workers. For the past year, AFSCME 3299 has been negotiating contracts for campus and medical center workers, which expired in January of 2013. However, despite good faith bargaining practices on the part of our union, the administration has made clear their blatant disregard of current contraction negotiations by implementing their last offer--a package of devastating cuts to workers’ pay, pensions, and medical benefits--on patient care workers. And the UC has given every indication that campus service

CAMPUS UPDATES

Black Worker CenterThe Bay Area Black Worker Center is a collection of Black workers that serves to advocate for economic justice and stability in the Black community. Saturday, Aug. 24th, the BWC held a 50th anniversary commensurate on the March on Washington, the march where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of a promissory note owed to Black America and where John Lewis proclaimed that Blacks must determine their own des-tiny by taking to the streets and pushing forth the revolution. At the event unionists, community leaders, and activists spoke on the importance of organizing for power. Having organized with the BWC, BSU Exec. Board member Marcel Jones had the privilege of being the closing speaker. With his time Jones spoke on the importance of Black Power and self-determination. The BSU Exec. Board looks forward to build-ing with the BWC to find ways that Black unionists and students can work together again. To learn more about the BWC contact Marcel Jones at chair.calbsu@gmail.com

Walmart StrikersJammin’ to Bob Marley’s Get up Stand up, unionists, students, workers, and the un-employed chanted “stand up, live better” outside of a Four Seasons hotel blocks away from Powell Bart station. This group led by the organization Our Walmart, an orga-nization united for respect at Walmart, met up in San Francisco Thursday, Sept. 5th to protest the exploitive treatment of Walmart workers by top CEOs. Member of the Walmart board of directors, Marissa Mayer, was staying high above nested within the hotel. The protest was led by a Black student from Laney College and former Walmart worker, Dominic Ware, who demonstrated how student organizing overlaps with other movements in the Bay. Also present at the protect BSU Exec. Board members Marcel Jones and Sabrina Robleh who look forward to connecting with Ware in the near future. The three had met at the BWC event (See ‘Black Worker Center’). To learn more about Our Walmart visit their website at forrespect.org.

workers are next. This is a direct attack not only on workers’ rights to unionize, but also on patients and students whom the University is meant to serve. BSU supports the work of AFSCME 3299 because of their continued struggle to improve the conditions of work-ers across the U.S. A recent UC Labor center report shows that black workers are actually more likely than other groups to be in Unions, with slightly more than 13% of all black workers in the United States in unions. [1] Black workers’ and their colleagues on the U.C. Campus deserve to have their voices heard and have the support of their community. To get involved and learn more about upcoming actions, please email srobleh@afsc-me3299.org[1]: http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/blackworkers/blacks_in_unions12.pdf

COMMUNITY

UPDATES

Generation Progress ConferenceMid July community organizers Marcel Jones, Devonté Jackson, and Darrin Wallace attended the 2013 Generation Progress Conference in Washington DC. Generation Progress is a nationwide organization that works with young people who advocate for “progressive” change. The conference was only three days after the Zimmerman verdict was delivered. The trip demonstrated BSU’s ability to organize on multiple fronts at once. Jones, Jackson, and Wallace left for DC to organize nationwide only two days after BSU organized locally, bringing Black students to downtown Oakland to protest the injustice for Trayvon Martin and hosting a healing community dinner. While the three were gone the Executive Board was able to organize within the Afrikan/Black Coalition across the state to release an official statement in response to the Zimmerman trial that Jones worked on with UCLA Afrikan Student Union chairperson Kamilah Moore who was in DC for the summer.

Justice for TrayvonOn July 13, 2013, there was no justice for Trayvon Martin. His murderer, George Zim-merman, was acquitted through a jury verdict of ‘not guilty.’ That night, black stu-dents at UCB gathered to plan the BSU contingent for the next day’s rally at Oscar Grant Plaza. After spending many hours mobilizing the black student community here, there was a successful party of Black students and allies who bussed from Up-per Sproul to Oscar Grant Plaza. At the rally in Oakland, BSU members Marcel Jones, Sabrina Robleh, and Jenelle Green spoke. That night, Afro House and BSU hosted a community dinner that allowed for a healing space--one that emphasized reflec-tion and community building. BSU Berkeley also created a statement as a result of the verdict, and it later grew to be edited and become the larger Afrikan-Black Co-alition statement. The statement can be viewed at http://afrikan-black-coalition.wee-bly.com/index.html. To learn more contact Sabrina Robleh at pa.calbsu@gmail.com.

Afro House Working GroupLate June BSU Executive Board decided to create an Afro House Working Group charged with “overseeing the physical and cultural development of Afro House” for the summer. Starting with approximately fourteen members, goals of the working group included: (1) outreach to Black and people of color cooperatives, (2) establish an Afro house library including textbooks and readers, (3) solicit donations from nonprofit or-ganizations, Black staff and faculty, Black alumni, etc., (4) research the hxstory of Afro, (5) establish an alumni association, and (6) coordinate house improvement projects. Some strides were made in each area, however due to BSU’s limited summer organiz-ing capacity not all of the group’s ambitious goals were met.

Community Survey UpdateOver the summer the BSU Exec. Board released a survey for community mem-bers to provide feedback on how our BSU democratizes information, and to help guide the board in serving community needs. The survey also provided op-portunities for Black students to get involved with BSU in a multitude of ways. To get access to the survey link, contact Gabrielle Shuman at ca.calBSU@gmail.com

BSU SUMMER

Why Black Power?Given that Black Power, a term crafted by Baba Mukassa (Willie Rick) and popularized by Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), informs the organizing work of Cal-BSU, the Executive Board thought it crucial that Black students had a collective consciousness of its meaning and function:

The first necessity of a free people is the ability to define oneself. With that said, we must conceptualize Black Power outside of the framework of White Power, which is a white supremacist ideology and apparatus of control intended for the accumulation of white capital and the maintenance of white society. Black Power is the politics of liberation, the means in which Black people will ensure self-determination. Black Power can be found in all organizations and movements of our hxstory that originated from and advocated for Black people.Black Power commences with a sense of community and the realization of a collective culture, hxstory, and struggle. Black people must understand that our individual struggles stem from a common oppressor, rather it be people, systems, or structures. If we have a common oppressor rooted in centuries of white supremacy that weaves throughout all of our social fabric and affects us on all levels then we must have a common means of liberation.

Black Power means we must have a viable power structure that directly challenges oppressive forces within Amerikkka. It must challenge white supremacy, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, abelism, classism, and any other system of oppression, while providing people of the Afrikan diaspora the means of self-determination.Once we have a viable power structure, once we establish Black Power, we can start to make choices for our-selves, define ourselves, heal ourselves. With Black Power we can challenge misconceptions and appropriations of Blackness in the media, we can provide means of economics stability in our communities, and we can have real unwavering representation within electoral politics.This is not a baseless theory deriving from the mental ejaculation of armchair revolutionaries. Black Power is the theoretical and the tangible. We have seen it and do see it on UC Berkeley’s campus today. Black Power is having the Black endorsed senator be the number one vote getter. It is Afro House, a house of 21 that shelters, feeds, heals, and entertains the Black community. It is IMPACT, a space and a collective of bright, innovative leaders of the Black community.

Lastly it must be said that Black Power does not mean Black Supremacy or Black Isolationism. In fact, it is only with Black Power that as a people we can function within a multicultural society as equals. Without it we will continue to face subconscious and conscious feelings of inferiority, hating our skin, our hair, and our people. And without having a sense of self-love we will not be able to truly appreciate the culture and experiences of others.Black Power has a rich hxstory starting with Baba Mukassa and Quame Ture of SNCC and its hxstory moves forward with Black students today. Black Power must be the rallying cry of Black students and Black people, because it is ultimately the only possible means of liberation.