Activists From California

"What is the Anglo women's movement? First, you have to understand that it is not a unified movement. There are at least three positions. There are the liberal feminists, who say, "I want access to power. I want access to whatever men have access to. I want women's oppression to end insofar as they do not have these things." Then there are radical feminists, who say that men have the power, and that men are responsible for the oppression of women. A third position is that of women's liberationists, which says that women's oppression is one of the many oppressions in the economic system of this country, that we must understand and support that system as well as correct it and unify people to end all oppressions."

"Today, Chicana feminism is trying to rally enough women and get them to come out from behind the doors so that everybody can hear us say, "We're a legitimate body. No one can deny that any more. Ask us about our political stance, not our validity, as women fighting for women's rights within the Chicano community." Right now, we're in the process of making the Chicano movement responsible to Chicana issues, making it support issues that involve race, welfare rights, forced sterilization-making the Chicano movement address itself to the double standard about male and female workers, and making it live up to its cry of Carnalismo and community responsibility. We're saying, "Prove it! Let's carry it out! Let's support child care. Children are not our individual responsibility but the responsibility of our community." We are working to get women together to build up a base, and working to get the Chicano movement to support and advocate our issues as women."

"One of the most renowned feminist of the past is well known throughout the world, though she is not well known by Chicanas. Her name is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and she has been called one of the first feminists of the Americas (which is incorrect, because there were many pre-Columbian feminists). Several of the North American Indian societies were matriarchal and advocated the non-oppression of women-the non-oppression of anybody. Sor Juana was a seventeenth century genius. She was a genius who happened to be a woman and who therefore had only two alternatives: to marry, or to join the convent and marry God. She chose the latter because she felt it would offer her more flexibility and more opportunity to study. And she did study-she studied very hard. She was enthusiastic, to say the least, about learning. She spoke about women's hair-how the hair was a symbol of women's beauty, but if it covered an empty mind, it was nothing but a mask. She said that not until a woman's mind was equal in beauty to her long hair should she have her long hair, so in three months she would plan to read a certain amount, and if she hadn't she would cut off her hair. In three more months, if she hadn't achieved her goal of, say, three volumes, the hair was to go right back until the goal was reached. Sor Juana is famous for Respuesta, a letter to the bishop addressing itself to a letter he sent her praising Sor Juana for her brilliance but telling her that her duty was not to be brilliant but to serve God. The role of women was to be silent, not heard. Sor Juana very politely wrote back, "Surely you must know more than I; however, as I recall, Jesus did not say that women should be silent and not heard. You forget that the temple was a place of learning and discussion, and that women were preaching and talking to their people there, not just bowing their heads in silent prayer or absent-mindedly planning their week's activities. Jesus came into the temple and addressed himself to the people there, those who were speaking there, and those people were the women. Yes, it's my duty to be a servant of God, but how can I understand theology"-theology was a high point of learning in Mexico and in fact it still is-"how can I understand that, if I can't understand biology, geology, psychology? If the world's supposed to be a manifestation of God's great goodness, how can I understand that if I don't know anything about it? These are the prerequisites for my understanding of His great and beautiful powers." So she advocated that women have the right to education But women did not have this right until after the Revolution. During the eighteenth century they did open some convents where women could go and get educated, but the education was primarily in religious studies."

"I resent the usual remark that if you're a feminist you have somehow become an Anglo or been influenced by Anglos."

"Child care-it's not a female duty, it is a community responsibility."

"In order to truly understand the needs and problems of La Raza, we must include the Chicana in our study."

"As minority women, the Chicanas have had to fight racism, sexism, and sexual racism. Racism oppresses the Chicana as a member of a Spanish speaking, culturally different, non-Anglo group in a society that values only one culture, and only one race as superior over all, the Anglo-Saxon race. The Chicana encounters sexism in a society that associates social and economic power, authority and superiority with male dominance and male control."

"The Chicana feminist has had to struggle to develop and maintain her identity in spite of the paternal and material tendencies of two social movements to absorb her into their general movements as their own rank and file."

"the Chicana feminist has been cautioned to wait and fight her cause at a later time for fear of dividing the Chicano movement. Also it has been recommended that she melt into the melting pot of femaleness rather than divide the women's movement."

"In order to establish themselves as a legitimate interest group or groups, the Chicana femenista has continually had to justify, clarify, and educate people in the political and philosophical issues of the Chicana woman. This has not been easy. They have acted at the cost of being called "vendidas" (sell-outs) among their own group, the Chicanos. At the same time the femenistas have had to pressure the women's movement with little or no solid backing from the Chicano movement. From 1968-1971 feminism was rejected by the Chicano movement as irrelevant and Anglo-inspired."

"Harassment of femenistas forced many Chicanas to suppress their convictions. The term "women's libber," a stigmatizing label, was used as a social label assigned to those who spoke out for women's rights in the Chicano movement."

"It is therefore the philosophy of the Femenistas that in order for a movement to truly fight for justice for all its people (both men and women) must it also, from the beginning, identify and fight the economic oppression delivered through sexism as well as through racism. It is the double responsibility for both Chicanas and Chicanos to become politicized to the economic implications of sexism-sexist racism; otherwise, the issues of employment, welfare, and education as they pertain to the Chicana are not known and therefore ignored and not resolved."

"Differences between the philosophies of the "loyalists" and the "femenistas" have indeed been controversial ones. The loyalists do not recognize sexism as a legitimate issue in the Chicano movement. Femenistas see sexism as an integrated part of the Chicana's struggle in conjunction with her fight against racism."

"There is still a continuous effort on the part of Chicanas to maintain their identity and have people recognize how feminine issues have different and important facets to them when dealt with within the context of minority women, especially minority women who are Spanish-speaking and considered foreigners in their own land."

"Historical differences determine the relationship between the Anglo woman and the Chicana woman. The Anglo woman is a product of Protestant and imperialistic Anglo-European capitalism. The Chicana is a product of Catholic societies which still bear the marks of Counter-reformation feudalism and colonialism. Her Moorish, Spanish, Mexican Indian-Mestizo, Southwest heritage contribute to her cultural world view. Southwest heritage contribute to her cultural world view. But it also outlines her colonized situation in an imperialistic racist country."

"Chicana feminism shares with all women the issues that affect them as women, such as welfare, birth control, abortion, and employment. But it is in the context of the needs of the Chicano people who suffer from racism that sexual issues have a new dimension."

"In providing adequate health programs, Anglo women contend with the cruel prejudice doctors have towards women patients. Chicanas must also contend with doctor's racism, insensitivity to the Chicano culture and the lack of bilingual medical staff."

"I am a Chicana feminist. I make that statement very proudly, although there is a lot of intimidation in our community and in the society in general, against people who define themselves as Chicana feminists."

"a feminist can be a man as well as a woman-it is a group of people that advocates the end of women's oppression."

"We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us."

"We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division."

"When day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry. A sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what "just is" isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished."

"To be American is to be a kin To a courageous hope: The trust that even if just for a moment We can, we must, close rank as people, One heart, one voice, one mind, created equal."

"In 1863, deep in the Civil War's magnitude, Abraham Lincoln declared a day of gratitude Shared by one heart and one voice of America. A proclamation for a nation in a nightmare, This Thanksgiving dared Americans To chime their thanks at a time when many believed They had no thanks to give."

"Among the firsts in Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” is the concept of democracy that it assumed. Democracy, according to the twenty-two-year-old poet, is an aspiration—a thing of the future... Both times the poem raises “democracy,” Gorman pairs the word with “delay,” which tells us that democracy is a thing expected, anticipated—not a thing that we have built, or possessed, but a dream. This is not the way that politicians or even political theorists usually use the word “democracy,” but it is one way that philosophers have used it. Jacques Derrida, the French deconstructionist, used the term “democracy to come.” Democracy, he wrote, was always forged and threatened by contradictory forces and thus is always “deferred,” always out of reach even in societies that adopt democracy as their governing principle. Gorman’s poem is, explicitly, a text about the future. She exhorts Americans to look not at “what stands between us / But what stands before us.” She says, at the beginning, that “we know, to put our future first,” and she ends with a verse of promises and challenges as rousing as any ever written."

"Amanda Gorman made history Wednesday as the youngest known inaugural poet. The 22-year-old Los Angeles resident delivered her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President Joe Biden's inauguration in Washington, D.C. "I wanted it to be a message of hope and unity. And I think that Wednesday for me really just underscored how much that was needed," she said. "But to not turn a blind eye to the cracks that really need to be filled." In 2017, Gorman became the first National Youth Poet Laureate. The Harvard graduate plans to release a children's book of poems later this year. Like Mr. Biden, Gorman has struggled with a speech impediment throughout her life, making poetry a "lifeline" for her. Also like Mr. Biden, she has a long-term goal of running for president."

"Amanda Gorman...is the author of the poetry book The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough (2015). She attended New Roads in Santa Monica and Harvard University, where she graduated cum laude with a degree in sociology. Her art and activism focus on issues of oppression, feminism, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. In 2014 Gorman was named the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, and in 2017 was named the first US National Youth Poet Laureate. She has performed at...the Obama White House, the Library of Congress, Lincoln Center, and on CBS This Morning. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She has written for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and penned the manifesto for Nike's 2020 Black History Month campaign."

"We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it."

"We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright."

"This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, "How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? " Now we assert, "How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?""

"Who owns America? How much did it cost? Was the transaction cash, check or credit card? Was it a donation to my son who’s running for president? Or a consulting contract to my wife’s former law partner to comfort him on his way to the federal penitentiary? And what do you give a billionaire who has everything? Immunity from prosecution? Then there’s the practical difficulty of gift wrapping the U.S. Congress. George W. Bush may have lost at the ballot box but he won where it counts, at the piggy bank. The Fortunate Son rode right into the White House on a snorting porker stuffed with nearly half a billion dollars: My calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from Corporate America (“hard” money, “soft” money, “parallel” spending and other forms of easy squeezy) that smothered Al Gore runs to $447 million. They called it an election but it looked more like an auction."

"In the days following the presidential election (of 2000), there were so many stories of African Americans erased from voter rolls you might think they were targeted by some kind of racial computer program. They were. I have a copy of it: two silvery CD-ROM disks right out of the office computers of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Once decoded and flowed into a database, they make for interesting, if chilling, reading. They tell us how our president (George W. Bush) was elected – and it wasn’t by the voters."

"It isn't done by some guy pressing a lever and changing the vote from blue to red. Rigging an election is usually done by blocking people from casting ballots or not counting the ballots they cast."

"The nasty secret of American democracy is that we don't count all the votes and we do not let all people vote. In the past two years, according to the federal government, 17 million Americans have been stripped of their right to vote. Some of it is quite legitimate... But about half of that number, 9 million or so people, were removed from the voter rolls on a false premise. These potential voters are overwhelmingly young people and voters of color. Young people are the new target. There is a massive purge of voters in America and few people are talking about it."

"On 28 January China said it would welcome international help as it struggled to contain coronavirus. No substantial help has come. Instead of solidarity and defying WHO, the US, Australia, Britain seek to isolate China, returning it to a state of siege and the dangers of the past. (Twitter post 5 Feb 2020)"

"That was May 2001, days before President Bush issued his proposals to end the energy crisis in California. The Golden State was suffering rolling blackouts. The state’s monthly electricity bill shot up by 1,000 percent. But as soon as I got a whiff of the president’s proposals, I knew his plan had nothing to do with helping out the Gore-voting surfers on the Left Coast. Bush put Vice President Dick Cheney in charge of the committee to save California consumers. Recommendation number one: Build some nuclear plants. Not much of an offer to earthquake-prone California, but a darn good deal for the biggest builder of nuclear plants based in Texas, the Brown and Root subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation. Recent CEO of Halliburton: Dick the Veep."

"Palast, an American who writes for The Guardian and The Observer of London, has the uncanny knack of turning up at the wrong place at the right time. His showcase essay has to do with the 2000 US presidential election in Florida, and how Governor Jeb Bush and his team shamelessly contrived the removal of thousands of voters’ names from the election rolls; voters who were in large measure black (read Democratic voters). The result was nothing less than the placing in the White House of Jeb’s brother George. This is by now a well-known story, thanks to Palast, who adds a lot of details to it in the book."

"It’s enough to make one cynical. American elections are manipulated, British parliamentarians are bribed, scientific research is financed by companies who are interested parties, energy crises are rigged, and a score of other varieties of modern-day sleaze... The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, (2002) is composed of dozens of essays – many of which are actually summaries of Palast’s investigative journalism escapades – on the myriad ways those of power and wealth have stolen and/or perverted cherished ideas and institutions of the United States and the United Kingdom."

"Secretary of State Harris declared George W. Bush winner of Florida, and thereby president, by a plurality of 537 votes over Al Gore... Over 50,000 voters wrongly targeted by the purge, mostly Blacks. My BBC researchers reported that Gore lost at least 22,000 votes as a result of this smart little black-box operation. The first reports of this extraordinary discovery ran, as you’d expect, on page one of the country’s leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the USA, it ran on page zero – the story was simply not covered in American newspapers. The theft of the presidential race in Florida also grabbed big television coverage. But again, it was the wrong continent: on BBC Television, broadcasting from London worldwide – everywhere, that is, but the USA. Was this some off-the-wall story that the British press misreported? Hardly. The chief lawyer for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called it the first hard evidence of a systematic attempt to disenfranchise Florida’s Black voters. So why was this story investigated, reported and broadcast only in Europe, for God’s sake?"

"I went vegetarian at about 5 years old when I visited a Dude Ranch with my family and saw a rodeo. It was traumatizing and I made a conscious decision at that age to never eat animals again. When I started middle school, I read a book that exposed a lot of the truth about the food industry and encouraged a healthful lifestyle through a guide to living vegan. It was a mostly simple transition that made me feel so much better about myself, inside and out. … For as long I can remember, acting and animal activism have made me feel alive and purposeful … I would love to see more organizations coming together. Sometimes it’s tricky to understand everyone’s opinions. We all have so many of the same intentions, it’d be awesome to see more support for one another amongst the community."

"How boring would it be if we were all exactly the same? We talked the same, looked the same, had the same taste in everything. Clothing stores would have all the same clothes. Radio stations would play all the same music. I don't know about you, but that is so boring. I think it's great that we're all different. It's the differences that make us interesting. So whether you're gay, straight, or in between, that's cool. Just be you, cuz that's good enough for me."

"It wasn’t just that Biden voted for the Iraq war on the Senate floor five months before it began. During the lead-up to that vote, in August 2002, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he presided over sham hearings—refusing to allow experts who opposed an invasion to get any words in edgewise—while a cavalcade of war hawks testified in the national spotlight..."

"We really have to fault the mass media of the United States, not just for the last few days, but the last decades, pretending that somehow, by implication, almost that John McCain was doing the people of North Vietnam a favor as he flew over them and dropped bombs. You would think, in the hagiography that we’ve been getting about his role in a squadron flying over North Vietnam, that he was dropping, you know, flowers or marshmallows or something. He was shot down during his 23rd mission dropping bombs on massive numbers of human beings, in a totally illegal and immoral war."

"Orwell [in]"1984" explained that "the special function of certain Newspeak words … was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them." When terrorists attack, they’re terrorizing. When we attack, we’re retaliating. When they respond to our retaliation with further attacks, they’re terrorizing again... At all times, Americans must be kept fully informed about who to hate and fear..."

"During the week after U.S. missiles hit sites in Sudan and Afghanistan, some Americans seemed uncomfortable. A vocal minority even voiced opposition. But approval was routine among those who had learned a few easy Orwellian lessons. No matter how many times they’ve lied in the past, U.S. officials are credible in the present. When they... [say the] bombed pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum was making ingredients for nerve gas, that should be good enough for us... Might doesn’t make right — except in the real world, when it’s American might. Only someone of dubious political orientation would split hairs about international law."

"It’s mid-October, and the Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop... Senate passage came on Thursday, Oct. 2...President Bush signed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law... Despite all the media hype about how the bailout measure would quickly steady the stock market, it fell and kept falling... the Dow made history as stocks plunged by 18 percent in five trading days. And what about the ostensible main reason for the humongous bailout... unfreezing the credit markets? Well, in spite of the enormous media outcry..., it didn’t. And the key economic factor in the recession — housing — remained just as stuck as before. As the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out on Oct. 1, “A real ‘bailout’ would target the troubled households of working American families. A $200 billion ‘Main Street Stimulus Package’ could bolster the real economy and those left vulnerable by the subprime mortgage meltdown.” Components of such a stimulus package could include “a $130 billion annual investment in renewable energy to stimulate good jobs anchored in local economies and reduce our dependency on oil” — and “a $50 billion outlay to help keep people in foreclosed homes through refinancing...” — and “a $20 billion aid package to states to address the squeeze on state and local government services that declining tax revenues are now forcing.” But that kind of discourse for grassroots economic stimulus hasn’t gotten into the media storyline..."

"Surveys show that voters are hungry for genuinely progressive policies that have drawn little interest from mainstream media outlets. For instance, polling of the US public shows: 76 percent support higher taxes on the wealthy. 70 percent support Medicare for All. 59 percent support a $15 minimum wage. 60 percent support expanded tuition-free college. 69 percent oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. 65 percent support progressive criminal justice reform. 59 percent support stricter environmental regulation. Yet such popular positions are routinely ignored or denigrated by elite political pros who warn that such programs are too far left for electoral success. The same kind of claims assumed that Bernie Sanders would never get beyond single digits in his 2016 presidential campaign.... pandering to the military-industrial complex — enabling and reinforcing endless US warfare now in its 18th year — may well be touted as a sign of “moderate” leadership. But it is far more popular inside the Beltway than it is among working-class voters."

"In the last few days, both Politico and the New York Times have reported that freshman Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has ruffled the feathers of fellow congressional Democrats. Chief among the reasons for the tension? Ocasio-Cortez’s apparent support for progressive primary challenges against centrist Democrats. It’s one of the most significant ideas the young New York congresswoman has brought with her to Washington."

"That’s because turning the Democratic Party into a truly progressive force will require turning “primary” into a verb. The corporate Democrats who dominate the party’s power structure in Congress should fear losing their seats because they’re out of step with constituents. And Democratic voters should understand that if they want to change the party, the only path to do so is to change the people who represent them. Otherwise, the leverage of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex will continue to hold sway."

"Well-informed public discussion is a major hazard for Democratic Party elites now eager to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the 2020 presidential nomination. A clear focus on key issues can bring to light the big political differences between Sanders and the party’s corporate-friendly candidates. One way to muddy the waters is to condemn people for pointing out facts that make those candidates look bad..."