[sudo-discuss] Pinnacle of cultural diversity

[Anthony Di Franco]

These are very interesting points, amber, and like Max I learned a lot from
that video for reasons like his, and the emphasis it put on working
together in collaboration is something I appreciate very much and it
informed me in reading the rest. Thanks for sharing!

I also look forward to more about your idea of using the timebank in sudo
room.

I noticed in a point in your notes, the passage, "it is definitely the most
effective tool, because it turns our attention inward," which reminded me
in a concerning way of two things that I would like to share in the
discussion.

The first is an account I was recently reading and discussing in another
context about the experiences of the Northeast Student Action Network, a
large, ambitious, and promising attempt at radical organizing that
collapsed quickly, according to the author due to issues with excessive and
unnecessarily confrontational inward focus:
http://www.openmediaboston.org/node/2182

For the second, first some background. I lived briefly in Washington DC
during the time when the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were new and
vigorous debate was still happening around all aspects of them. A friend of
mine worked at a liberal think tank advocating military reform and scaling
back of imperial ambitions, and we both opposed the invasions and often
discussed much deeper aspects of the invasions and the context around them
than are often found in the media in hopes of finding viable political
approaches to opposing them. I learned a lot from him in these discussions
about many things but the one relevant here is the military's doctrines of
counterinsurgency.

Counterinsurgency is military jargon for techniques useful for undermining
effective opposition in invaded areas and keeping subject populations in
check. Recent, especially post-cold-war military doctrine focuses heavily
on this question because it is the bulk of what the military does without
any other superpowers around to oppose. A theorist by the name of John Boyd
is very influential in a major school of thought on counterinsurgency and
in modern military theory in general. Boyd did his major work during the
post-Vietnam-war and post-civil-rights era when major political and
military concerns were avoiding the same kind of defeat experienced in
Vietnam and the same kind of widespread, effectively organized civil
disobedience as in the civil rights movement. His ideas have also become
prominent in business and other areas where adversarial and/or adaptive
behavior are involved.

One of Boyd's key ideas is that of tempo, according to which the main goal
is to disorient and confuse the enemy so that their focus will "collapse
inward" and they will be incapable of effectively engaging with their
environment. Once the enemy is focusing inward, according to the theory,
they are incapable of resisting and easily dealt with however the aggressor
chooses.

Another of Boyd's key ideas is that of moral warfare, summarized in
wikipedia as "the destruction of the enemy's will to win, disruption of
alliances (or potential allies) and induction of internal fragmentation.
Ideally resulting in the "dissolution of the moral bonds that permit an
organic whole [organization] to exist." (i.e., breaking down the mutual
trust and common outlook mentioned in the paragraph above.)" It is a
development of the idea of divide-and-rule that has been a very effective,
documented tool of empire and oppression since ancient times and on into
the present.

All these suggest to me that a careful balance must be maintained between
inward focus and outward focus on mutual collaboration towards the goals
that brought the people in the organization together. A group with
revolutionary aspirations that allows an excessive or divisive inward focus
to undermine pursuit of the group's goals inflicts on itself a condition
that militaries and empires past and present have used as a main tool of
oppression and subjugation and to prevent effective resistance from
forming. The main strength of the oppressed may be the strength in numbers
and cooperation is the means of nurturing this strength and using it to
effect meaningful change for good.


On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 9:20 AM, amber yada <amberyadaanimation at gmail.com>wrote:

> wow, i love this list...
>
> thank you sooooo much for speaking up, patrick and marina; it isn't
> negative to be honest. yes, we want to celebrate that the foundations of
> sudo room resist sexism and value "diversity" (no small thing!)... but yes
> we have to do more, we always have to do more.
>
> as white individuals we need to take responsibility to educate ourselves
> and listen to people's experiences without defense. as organizations...
> well, it's very slippery because groups of white people are actually the
> foundation of racial oppression. people are killed, neighborhoods
> destroyed, land + animals + environment ruined so that white people can be
> together. how does a group of mostly white people challenge their own
> entitlement to exist --- especially when dealing with their own legal,
> economic, and group oppression (heterosexism, ableism, transphobia, ageism)
> issues?
>
> not trying to paint a bleak picture. absolutely there are things we can
> and must do. but along the way we need to be doing the difficult work of
> changing our own minds, and seeing that even the mechanisms we use for
> anti-oppression work can be riddled with the language and thought process
> and values of the oppressor. example: the term "women of color" (which
> along w/ "people of color" i probly use too much) was originally a
> political designation (see video <http://youtu.be/82vl34mi4Iw> and
> learn!) and is now being used far too often as a racial descriptor.
>
> okay i think about this stuff all day every day. many more thoughts on
> this. so happy to see the discussion here.
>
> as far as ideas on what to do, here is a list i worked on for BACE (bay
> area community exchange). i feel hypocritical in sharing this because we
> haven't been doing any of these things as an organization. i do still feel
> very strongly that this is the direction we need to go.
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/15nxepE-LC_UUfoa-hViPTO7sxBBVsOHYxvVp29NuA1k/edit?usp=sharing
>
>
> -amber
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Patrick Schmidt <
> psbschmidt at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> the person that I talked about reached out to me and I am now
>> convinced he does not have negative intentions. It was a
>> misunderstanding and maybe I was too sensitive or primed.
>>
>> The incident back then was a comment made over the list which
>> triggered the girl,
>> it was a statement in which the person identified with the suppressive
>> culture.
>>
>> When I was young I also made many sarcastic comments to point out the
>> crazy mind beliefs and social norms we have in our strange societies.
>>
>> But we do not have to identify with this strange culture, which is
>> unsustainable and cuts down the rainforest, the lungs of our planet
>> (we vote with our dollar and even if we do not have rainforest here in
>> the US, the brazilians are cutting down the forest to plant GMO
>> monoculture soy to feed the cows for the cattle for american and
>> european markets)
>>
>> Just last week I had the epiphany that it maybe more useful that
>> instead of identifying with the sick society, the male energies
>> cutting down the forest, we should identify and focus on the female
>> energies regrowing.
>>
>> Second epiphany I had that instead of complaining and trying to raise
>> awareness about the toxic foods that are so popular in this society
>> and even conscious and smart people eat,
>> it is much better to focus on providing non toxic mother earth foods
>> from the countryside hackers, the organic farmers, who love what they
>> do and treat mother earth well.
>> I am sure that we could make connections with farmers from the farmers
>> market who donate food to us on a regular basis and we help them with
>> homepages/media.
>>
>> We are givig birth to a new society all together,
>> for the first time we can make it right, a society where the female
>> spirit are not suppressed,
>> a society celebrating diversity, peace and abundance, access of
>> knowledge and ressources and empowerment for all.
>> After all mother earth provides enough food and shelter for all,
>> scarcity is man made and artificial.
>>
>> I will reach out to the girl, even if I think I never talked to her in
>> person,
>> and maybe we can make her come back.
>>
>> p.s. sudo room feels like family to me, last friday late at night we
>> had a cuddle puddle, we formed an amoeba organism together and evolved
>> to a mushroom, we sang together and beat boxed, and we are part of the
>> peace and love movement.
>> I see a positive future for Sudoroom and opening up and diversifying
>> more will bring many new perspectives which will enrich the whole
>> community, looking forward :)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2013/9/13, Marina Kukso <marina.kukso at gmail.com>:
>> > thank you patrick for bringing up the current status of our efforts at
>> > creating an inclusive space. i basically ask myself these kinds of
>> > questions constantly (performing constant temperature check of things
>> like
>> > "how boys-clubbish does sudo feel right now?" and "if i were a person of
>> > color, would i feel alienated if i walked in right now having never been
>> > here before?" "is this a place where a non-gender-normative person would
>> > feel comfortable being themselves without having to answer for who they
>> > are?", etc.).
>> >
>> > so, i agree with you that we are not living up to the standards that
>> we've
>> > set for inclusivity. while we are doing a better job than many other
>> > hackerspaces, in my mind, if we do not reflect the community of Oakland
>> in
>> > our diversity, then we have room for improvement.
>> >
>> > *so everyone, what are the conditions that contribute to us currently
>> not
>> > meeting our inclusivity goals and what can we do to start meeting them?*
>> > *what
>> > can we all be doing to make the space more inclusive and welcoming?*
>> >
>> > - marina
>> >
>> > ps - i wanted to share with everyone some inspiration for the kind of
>> sudo
>> > room that i'd like to see. it's a creative/hackspace in chattanooga
>> that's
>> > run by a library that was basically given over to innovation-oriented
>> folks
>> > to run carte blanche. i think that it is a space with more or less
>> complete
>> > community ownership (meaning that it's not seen as fringe or
>> niche...it's
>> > seen like the library.."a place where everyone just goes")..that would
>> be
>> > pretty cool @_@
>> >
>> > about the space: http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/
>> > really interesting news piece about how it happened:
>> >
>> http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/aug/11/rock-star-librarians/?entertainment
>> >
>> > pps - i agree with patrick that we have a lot of positive feminist
>> energy.
>> > we work very hard at this and although there are still times when things
>> > are boys-clubbish and there are barely any women in the space, i feel
>> that
>> > our community overall is invested in ensuring that we have a space where
>> > women have an expectation that they will be treated as humans (an
>> > expectation that many women don't have in many places in the world!). my
>> > perspective is that this commitment from the community is what it really
>> > takes to solve problems of inclusion because it means that we have a
>> number
>> > of people who are invested in coming up with solutions when things are
>> > exclusive. now how to maintain this and make it better and expand it for
>> > everyone :)
>> >
>> >
>> > On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 8:02 AM, Patrick Schmidt
>> > <psbschmidt at googlemail.com>wrote:
>> >
>> >> Sorry for being negative but I am not sure that it is all so positive.
>> >> There is one person who has a very negative aura, always talks about
>> >> negative things,
>> >> at least one coder girl of colour stopped coming because of him. ( I
>> >> should have spoken up much earlier).
>> >> I feel very unsafe around that person. Nevertheless on Art Murmur's
>> >> friday I wanted
>> >> to overcome my fear and went and tried to talk to him, he was playing
>> >> with a knife
>> >> (made me unconfortable and I had the vision that he would stab me, so
>> >> i mentioned that to ridiculize my own fear), but then he started to
>> >> talk about very negative things again,
>> >> I do not even remember what it was, I just left that conversation.
>> >>
>> >> I have seen people of colour who randomly walked in at art murmurs
>> >> where we had the doors open to the street, walk out again as soon as
>> >> they saw that we are mostly white folks up there.
>> >>
>> >> Yes, Sudoroom is amazing, lots of feminin energy and mostly I feel
>> safe,
>> >> Sudokids did rock a lot and one time we had black kids, white
>> >> kids,southamerican kids, arabic kids and asian kids all together and
>> >> it is wonderful,
>> >> but still I think we have a lot of work to do to open up more,
>> diversify,
>> >> and make sure the hacker movement and empowerment is not only for the
>> >> traditionally privilleged.
>> >>
>> >> I am not looking to have a confrontation with that person, i already
>> >> forgave and released,
>> >> I will just try to shine my light and if it comes to that try to help
>> >> that person overcome his negativity and fear.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> 2013/9/12, Romy Snowyla <romy at snowyla.com>:
>> >> > It is so awesome to see Sudoroom as a pinnacle of cultural diversity.
>> >> There
>> >> > is no tokenism here or random Asian women shoved into showcase roles.
>> >> > It
>> >> is
>> >> > truly a place where open minded people mix freely showing their
>> >> > diversity
>> >> > and superiority to any capital it's systems and stick it to the man
>> >> >
>> >> > Rock on!!!
>> >> >
>> >> > Sent from my iPhone
>> >> > _______________________________________________
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>> >> > sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> >> > http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>> >> >
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>> >
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>
>
>
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