Women From The United States

"Profiteers will never change through persuasion. Only by all of us stepping up to build a broad mass movement, with workers in the lead, can we become strong enough to challenge, defeat and overthrow the class currently in power."

"The development from uprising to revolution is never linear or smooth. Ebb must follow surge, yielding ground temporarily in order to consolidate power for the next wave."

"Most of us in the US don't understand populism or many other concepts relevant to political struggle. Even those of us who are active lag far behind much of the world in our grasp of theory-we don't recognize views as coherent lines, and therefore we're incapable of calling them by name, much less foreseeing their far-ranging implications. But we can't keep blithely disdaining the use of "jargon." These words may feel cumbersome and persnickety in our casual, 140-characters-or-less, news-o-tainment culture, but their precision allows us to conceptualize, identify, and decide to accept or reject ideological and political phenomena that could make all the difference to our eventual success or failure."

"Because a capitalist economy compels perpetual growth, no reforms or adjustments can make it sustainable."

"Exposing capitalism's effects, such as global warming and pollution, is one crucial part of building a movement to transform society. That was my goal with these cartoons when I drew them during the years 2009-2012."

"what is certain is that the structural crises and inequalities that gave rise to the global uprisings in the first place will only intensify."

"Life runs much faster than our ability to record and interpret it."

"STUDY HISTORY AND POLITICAL THEORY RELENTLESSLY. We do ourselves no favors by being ignorant of the past experiences and summations of those who came before us."

"Oppression will always breed different forms of mobilization and organizing, protest and resistance. Building a historical memory of Puerto Rican struggles against different forms of subjugation is an indispensable component of envisioning those new paths and moving forward."

"After all, la lucha continúa (the struggle continues). It is hard to ignore the fact that the civil rights struggles that we were part of during our younger years to eradicate all kinds of inequalities, are being eroded in the present by unleashed backlashes in a US society still afflicted by a widening gap between the poor and the wealthy, and between the white population and rapidly growing populations of color. A swarm of right wing politicians and the corporate capital that controls their political campaigns want to turn back the clock on the most significant changes and accomplishments that came out of the US civil rights movement-whether by enacting legislation to limit or suppress the electoral power of Latinos/as and African Americans, gerrymandering districts to favor white voters, demonizing immigrants and fostering xenophobic, racist, and undemocratic discourses, infringing upon the reproductive rights of women, weakening unions, opposing increases in the minimum wage, curtailing all the government programs that benefit the most needy sectors of US society, diminishing opportunities to climb the socioeconomic ladder and thus shrinking the middle class, refusing to accept the catastrophic effects of climate change, and favoring laws that facilitate and perpetuate an insatiable accumulation of wealth by the white privileged elites and the corporate sector. A complicitous right-wing media only adds fuel to these ideological crusades by propagandizing similar positions, and fostering demagoguery and fearmongering against culturally and racially diverse populations and immigrants."

"Predictably, the pattern of relegating women's issues to a secondary position or viewing them as "detracting" or "divisive" to a "greater" cause is by now a deeply rooted cliché. Just as achieving some degree of class and race consciousness is a prerequisite to understanding class and racial oppressions, developing a feminist consciousness is also a precondition for both progressive women and men to comprehend women's sources of oppression, unequal treatment, and diminished presence in historical narratives."

"Morales unveils what was until now, an unaccounted counter- narrative of the Young Lords. Painstakingly, what is historically a common pattern within these movements reveals itself: there is a tendency for women members to be pressured into acquiescing to a male leadership that claims that discussion of any issues related to women's subordination must always be subsumed to the ostensibly "wider" or "more important" class-based liberation struggles of "oppressed peoples.""

"When referring to the masses, must men always be reminded that women represent slightly more than half of the world's population?"

"it was important to revisit and decolonize the dominant historical record, and envision new emancipating knowledge and decolonial imaginaries."

"It was from these friendships and the multiple fronts of activism of what we now call the Puerto Rican Movement that I was able to solidify my own emerging research and teaching interests in the process of unveiling new decolonial knowledge about women and the Puerto Rican diaspora. The social and political movements that bourgeoned within the stateside Puerto Rican communities in the late 1960s and 1970s allowed many island Puerto Ricans who migrated to New York during those years to reach a better understanding of the conditions, hardships, and survival and liberation struggles afflicting the hundreds of thousands migrants who had settled in the city during the previous decades. In the frontlines of these struggles were the Young Lords Organization (later transformed into the Young Lords Party and the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization), the Puerto Rican Student Union (PRSU), El Comité, and Resistencia Puertorriqueña, to name a few. Although their primary sphere of action was New York City, their fighting spirit and claims for social justice rapidly spread to other US cities with large concentrations of Puerto Ricans. These groups carried the banners of struggle and resistance on behalf of impoverished and disenfranchised stateside communities where Puerto Rican migrants had settled and for the liberation of Puerto Rico."

"How the past is unveiled and represented by an oppressed group or community is an essential component of constructing a collective historical memory that inspires their present and future spheres of activism and resistance. Building a historical memory, however, is always a rugged and convoluted terrain of contesting claims, but moreso for those populations that have endured the coloniality of being silenced and are seeking to voice their untold stories and, in this way, contribute to the production of new decolonial knowledge."

"The nationalistic sentiments underlying the messages displayed in the Puerto Rican flag, the pinned buttons, T-shirts, and berets of Puerto Rican youth validated the roots and identities of those who had left the island but carried the island in their hearts. The slogans "Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazón, "I'm Proud to be Puerto Rican," "Puerto Rican Power," "Qué Viva Puerto Rico Libre," "Free Puerto Rico Now," "Despierta Boricua, Defiende lo Tuyo" (Wake up, Boricua, and defend what is yours) and "¡Jíbaros Sí, Yanquis, No!" were proudly and defiantly flaunted throughout the Puerto Rican barrios of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities where the Young Lords were making their presence felt."

"In southern Africa, there is widespread reliance on ubulawu as psychoactive spiritual medicine used by Indigenous people groups, such as the Xhosa and Zulu, to communicate with their ancestors and treat mental disturbances. Ubulawu, an ancient African plant medicine, is composed of the roots of several potent plants that are ground and made into a cold water infusion, churned to produce a healing foam."

"There is such a rich tradition of plant medicines in Africa that it is clear Black people have benefited from psychedelic plant medicines for a very long time."

"The word palante (a colloquial abbreviated version of the Spanish phrase para adelante, meaning moving forward) was a call to revolutionary action and the battle cry of the Young Lords. The rallying term was also adopted as the title of their bimonthly newspaper, which rapidly made its way to the streets of our communities, the offices of many agencies and organizations, and the halls of our schools and universities."

"It is true that it has not always been safe for us, but I hope we can come together as a people, create our own safe spaces, and become empowered to reclaim psychedelic healing for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities."

"Many have heard of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis, but few know about the facility dubbed the "Narco Farm.""

"There were over 500 published studies that came out of ARC from 1935-1975, testing the limits of human tolerance for psychedelics, opiates, and amphetamines on prisoners.' Dr. Isbell's studies included dangerously high and prolonged doses of LSD on his subjects."

"As an African American clinical psychologist and researcher, it has become evident that we have not been meaningfully included as research participants or researchers in scientific studies, and our voices have not been part of the conversation as these medicines move into mainstream mental health care."

"I hope that somewhere in the recesses of our cultural consciousness, there still exists some memory of the valuable psychedelic traditions cultivated by our African ancestors and nature's many gifts that have been lost somewhere between North America and the Middle Passage."

"There has been much written about the Indigenous use of plant medicines from Mexico and South America, but psychedelics have been used across cultures and eras. Psychedelics were used in Biblical times to anoint priests and kings, and they have also been used for thousands of years in African cultures. During slavery, Yoruba women from West Africa performed healing roles using their knowledge of plant medicines derived from Africa. During current times in Ethiopia, all plants are believed to possess some degree of medicinal usefulness, and medicinal plants occupy a central place in their traditional healthcare system. Many plants are bred and conserved in sacred community gardens, and families also keep small home gardens. This includes an array of flora for medicinal purposes and important psychoactive plant medicines for psychological and even spiritual problems."

"The Palante documentary is now regarded as a classic source for learning about the sparsely recognized participation of Puerto Ricans in the US civil rights movement, and a staple of many classrooms in secondary schools and colleges (including my own). In sum, ¡Palante, Siempre Palante! opened the door to understanding the linkages between Puerto Rican migration and the dynamics of a long-standing US colonial domination over Puerto Rico, its control of the island's economy, and the oppressive nature of the internal colonialism Puerto Ricans face in US society. Developing consciousness about pervading class, racial, and gender inequalities inevitably leads to envisioning ways in which effective grassroots collective organizing and political engagement can bring about significant social transformations at the local and national levels, and also reaffirm the histories of oppression and resistance of marginalized peoples."

"Cristina Beltrán's powerful book The Trouble with Unity is timely for our age of Obama in which an ugly anti-immigrant spirit looms large."

"During the late 1960s and 1970s, Mexican American and Puerto Rican activists put forward a politically charged critique of American politics. Bringing together a paradoxical mix of cultural nationalism, liberal reformism, radical critique, andromantic idealism, the Chicano and Puerto Rican movements created a new political vocabulary, one emphasizing resistance, recognition, cultural pride, authenticity, and fraternity (hermanidad). The movements-organizations, issues, and events left a profound legacy."

"Unlike the civil rights struggles of African Americans or the protest politics surrounding the Vietnam War, the Chicano and Puerto Rican movements represent a decidedly underexplored aspect of 1960s New Left radicalism. Outside of the communities themselves, the names, places, and events of these two movements are virtually unknown."

"The movement's institutional legacy can also be seen in the realm of higher education: Chicano and Puerto Rican studies programs are the product of these movements and continue to play a key role in providing Latinos with a "civic education" that both politicizes and produces particular conceptions ofLatino identity and subjectivity."

"In challenging traditional gender relations, many Chicana activists were accused of being lesbians, 'white identified,' narcissistic, and antifamily."

"Both Chicano and Puerto Rican activists continually stressed the importance of community control of local institutions, arguing that oppression and inequality would never end until Chicanos and Puerto Ricans controlled the institutions that directly affected community life."

"Poetry such as "Puerto Rican Obituary" highlights another significant aspect of movement thought: the shift from cultural shame to ethnic pride. Unlike earlier critiques of prejudice and discrimination, movement rhetoric and writings often focused on the emotional and psychic damage of racism, exploring the need toovercome internalized shame and self-hate."

"1980s feminism focused on questions of difference and making the category of women more inclusive"

"The Puerto Rican movement of the 1960s and 1970s can be defined by its consistent calls for a radical transformation of U.S. society while simultaneously promoting the independence of Puerto Rico. Known as El Nuevo Despertar, this "New Awakening" of Puerto Rican radicalism was inspired and shaped by the growing militancy abroad and at home. Black Power, youth unrest (particularly against the Vietnam War), the War on Poverty, national liberation struggles in the Third World, Chicano and Native American militancy, gay and lesbian rights, and second-wave feminism are all part of the context that shaped the movement."

"Emphasizing standing and status rather than political participation and collective action, white citizenship continually constrains the meaning of both democracy and political freedom. (p 118)"

"Rather than envisioning and enacting a better and more beautiful world, white democracy's vision is defined by scarcity. In the logic of racial replacement, nativists imagine social goods within an economy of exclusion and democratic forms of denial; there is no sharing of power; there is only one majority "taking control" from the other. (p 119)"

"Limited by a scarcity logic in which migrant flourishing means citizen hardship, nativists in the thrall of whiteness presume that migrant movement will invert the practices of white democracy, causing whites to "lose their country." Trapped in their own fears and fantasies of domination and racial terror, nativists can't help but conjure Latinx migrants as subjects planning to inflict a vengeful politics of invasion, replacement, and reconquista. (p 114)"

"when it comes to finding joy, who you're with matters more than where you are. (Acknowledgements)"

"Today, the variability of white identity is visible in the growing rupture between white citizens who support the politics of white democracy and those increasingly appalled by racist and xenophobic appeals to whiteness. (p 21)"

""Hispanic" and "Latino" are terms whose descriptive legitimacy is premised on a startling lack of specificity. The categories encompass any and all individuals living in the United States who trace their ancestry to the Spanish-speaking regions of Latin America and the Caribbean; Latinos hail from Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, and beyond-more than twenty countries in all. Such inclusivity is part of the problem: "Hispanic" and "Latino" tell us nothing about country of origin, gender, citizenship status, economic class, or length of residence in the United States. An undocumented immigrant from Guatemala is Hispanic; so is a third-generation Mexican American lawyer. Moreover, both categories are racially indeterminate: Latinos can be white, black, indigenous, and every combination thereof. In other words, characterizing a subject as either "Hispanic" or "Latino" is an exercise in opacity-the terms are so comprehensive that their explanatory power is limited. When referring to "Latinos in the United States," it is far from immediately clear whether the subjects under discussion are farmworkers living below the poverty line or middle-class homeowners, urban hipsters or rural evangelicals, white or black, gay or straight, Catholic or Jewish, undocumented Spanish monolinguals or fourth-generation speakers of English-only."

"It is my contention the category ‘Latino,’ like the category ‘women,’ should be reconceived as a site of permanent political contestation"

"Majority-white schools, neighborhoods, and community institutions were made white through violence; racialized exclusions; and the denial of equality, opportunity, and legal protection for nonwhite populations. (p 18)"

"Multiracial whiteness reflects an understanding of whiteness as a political color and not simply a racial identity — a discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanization of others."

"whiteness is not the same thing as white people and that whiteness is actually better understood as a political project that has emerged historically, and that is dynamic and that is always changing. And so whiteness as an ideology is rooted in America's history of white supremacy-which has to do with the legacy of slavery or Indigenous dispossession or Jim Crow. And I think it's important to realize just how long in this country legal discrimination was not simply culturally acceptable but legally authorized. And so we've only been practicing a more consistent form of legal equality for a relatively short time since the 1960s. So Americans have often learned how to create their own sense of belonging through violence and through the exclusion of certain groups and populations."

"Before Trump, conservatives seeking to appeal to Latinos typically embraced the politics of conservative multiculturalism. Politicians such as George W. Bush reached out to Latino voters by showing a familiarity with their language and history, emphasizing the values of diversity and inclusion. Depicting Latinos as a distinct and valuable part of America’s democratic mosaic, conservative multiculturalism connected Latino culture to Republican values, emphasizing conservative approaches to faith, patriotism and the traditional family. Trump, by contrast, knows nothing of the history of Latinos in the United States and rarely even pretends to find value in Latinos’ distinct identities. Rather than offering his non-White voters recognition, Trump has offered them multiracial whiteness."

"I think that one of the things that's interesting about the politics of multicultural conservatism, for example, is that multicultural conservatism - which is the kind of conservative politics of reaching out to other racial minorities practiced by folks like Jack Kemp or George W. Bush - was an effort to recognize the specific histories and backgrounds of particular racial populations and to say that they could be part of the GOP. And I think that one of the things that's interesting is that there's a segment of people of color who don't necessarily want to be recognized at all. They don't want to be recognized for their racial distinctiveness-that for them, the very act of sort of identifying them as Latino, as African American - that they themselves have a certain discomfort with that very logic. They want to be understood as simply Americans outside of those kinds of identity categories."

"As someone who studies race and the right, I have found that Democrats and progressives, expecting demographic change and rising diversity to tilt the country leftward, have failed to take seriously how that change is not at all a given...Communities of color are simultaneously victims of, participants in and practitioners of the violence practiced within and beyond our nation’s borders...Communities of color have an intimate history with violence, from massacres of Native Americans and chattel slavery to anti-Asian violence, police killings and the deaths of migrants on the border. But communities of color are not monolithic, and their responses and relationships to that violence mirror that very diversity."

"I think that one of the big political divides we face right now is people who find the very act of talking about those histories of racial exclusion as divisive because the act of talking about it and acknowledging it produces a kind of defensiveness or anger - and even discussing it, the idea that unity should be practiced from sort of not engaging with our history, not - sort of celebrating the best stuff and not really acknowledging that we have a complicated, beautiful, tragic, inspiring inheritance that we have to understand to go forward."