A "social justice movement" is a movement of people whose consensual need is to counteract existing injustice. Racial discrimination, economic exploitation, cultural exclusion or oppression are general categories of injustice; movements form against them in terms of opposition to segregated housing, a racist prison industry, police brutality and profiling, the death penalty, misogynistic violence against women and women's bodies, corporate despoliation of the environment, US economic and military intervention in post-colonial nations around the world, and war. Labor unions, despite their absorption into the establishment, come out of social justice movements that fought for humane working conditions and the right to organize. The many movements of our recent past in the US emerged from the direst struggles against white supremacy and racial discrimination, and spread to include women's movements, student movements, campaigns to free political prisoners, and opposition to corporate globalization. Each movement contained panoply of organizational forms, communities, and ideological groupings; the spectrum ran from traditional communities to issue oriented affinity groups and populist gatherings. What they all have in common is their existence and their call for justice.
If the avenues of participation existed, people would not have to organize special avenues of expression to get the ear of the government, and have some influence. If society were democratic, the organization of massive demonstrations, the invention of special tactics or strategies, would not be necessary. The fact that people have to organize movements in order to express themselves on such central concerns as justice means that those avenues and channels of expression, debate, influence, and participation are not open or extant, and that they are needed. As a force for expression and participation, a movement is in its existence a pro-democratic force confronting an absence or withholding of the means expression and participation. And thus, insofar as it must exert this pro-democratic force against closed channels (of expression and participation), it is structurally outside the institution. Indeed, It is the very closing of democratic means, and the exclusion of people from participation, that brings movements into existence in the first place.
Music
Heroes
Jeanne Gauna Presente! - from our friends at SWU...
Comandante Ramona RIP
Dr.Martin Luther King JR
Medgar Evers
Fannie Lou Hamer
Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez
Angela Davis
Huey P. Newton
Rigoberta Menchu
Fred Hampton
George Jackson
Rosa Parks
Malcolm X
Nita Gonzalez
Gloria Anzaldua
Leonard Peltier
The Founding Fathers
About me: Founded in 1980 with a mission to empower the disenfranchised of the southwest to realize racial and gender equality and social and economic justice, SWOP is the oldest, largest and most successful social justice grassroots organization in the region. As a community based statewide membership organization that does direct community organizing, we work to build leadership in communities of color by organizing low-income families to impact the decisions that affect their lives and futures both on the local and statewide level.
We organize people, not problems or issues. We use the issues and problems facing low income families as a vehicle to do political education and leadership development. As part of the process, family members who work to transform their community also undergo a level of transformation that leaves them ready and willing to advocate for social change. We organize on the local neighborhood level in order to strengthen our advocacy work on the statewide level. We place particular emphasis on providing resources to youth and children as part of our long term strategic plan and our intergenerational model. This emphasis is evident in our organization: our past and current Executive Director as well as three former and one current staff members began their involvement in SWOP as youth interns.
SWOP works for environmental health and justice, economic justice and corporate accountability, and youth rights throughout New Mexico. We recognize that low income families need resources, training and experience to organize around their concerns and to make systemic changes. This includes organizing to change policies, encouraging full participation in the decision making process and developing accountable leadership.
Our recent successful efforts include: raising the state minimum wage to $7.50; enacting a system of public financing of elections in the City of Albuquerque; expanding access to health care for uninsured families; reinvesting millions of taxpayer dollars into social services that would have gone toward corporate subsidies; enacted stricter environmental regulations aimed at protecting low income and families of color and made schools safer by limiting the presence of firearms carried by law enforcement officers. SWOP has also been a leader locally, regionally and nationally in building a movement of low income and people of color at the forefront of creating social change in this country. In addition to helping start many local organizations in New Mexico, SWOP was instrumental in the founding of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, Grassroots Global Justice and the Pushback Network. Additionally, SWOP has played a critical role in national movement building efforts including the First People of Color Summit on the Environment held in Washington D.C. in 1991 as well as the first U.S. Social Forum held in Atlanta in 2007. SWOP has been recognized as a national leader in the areas of environmental justice, corporate accountability, civic participation, youth organizing and generational change.
Who I'd like to meet:
We want to meet people who aren't afraid to stand up against injustice, those who are not scared to question authority, people who care about their communities, Young People who want to be the leaders of Today and the Future, Anyone and everyone who refuses to conform to what "THE POWERS THAT BE" tell you.
We want to meet you and learn your opinions on the world, we want to learn just as much from you as you can from us!!!
I
would like to invite you to an event being held for the fourth year at
the Santuario de Chimayo on May 22nd – 23rd, 2009. We recognize that
this area has been a sacred indigenous site long before a church was
placed here, and we honor this fact with a small offering of song/dance.
This will involve a Mexica tribal ceremony held on the night of the
22nd starting from 9:00 – sunrise, an all night velación where we sing
alabados using traditional musical instruments as we honor Señor
Esquipulas, the patron saint
of El Santuario, while the same ceremony is being held in
Morelos, Mexico, in honor of El Señor de Chalma. Both of these Christ
figures are referred to as El Cristo Negro, bearing resemblance in that
way to Tezkatlipoka, “the Smoking Mirror,” the Mexica teotl/energy
representing one’s consciousness – an
important aspect of the holistic view of a person’s reality.
There will be a short rest period in the early morning hours and we are given permission to camp on the grounds at
The Potrero (El Santuario Church), on the banks of the Santa Cruz
River. After a small breakfast, we will begin the danza portion of the
ceremonies, from 10:00 am, until 1:00 pm.
We will then walk to the John Hyson Community Center, a
0.8 mile walk north of the church, where we will serve lunch.
Come and join us in prayer, if you can attend. Perhaps one of the
greatest prayers is that of appreciation - the prayers answered for our
community come from when we truly pray from
our hearts, and not our heads. To center ourselves through our heart is
a powerful act that helps to shift our focus from stressful problems to
our drum, our beating heart, with our
body and spirit, all as one.
Tlazokamati huel miac, thank you, gracias, y con todo respeto
VIVA LA RAZA DEL NORTE: LAND, STRUGGLE, IDENTITY, CULTURE SAT. FEB 28, 2009 12 PM - 5 PM YMCA TEEN TECHNOLOGY CENTER ESPANOLA, NM, OCCUPIED AZTLAN
PRESENTATIONS ABOUT OUR HISTORY AND HERITAGE FEATURING ORIGINAL ALIANZA MEMBERS (FROM THE DAYS OF THE COURT HOUSE RAID), LA RAZA UNIDA, TEWA WOMEN UNITED'S GRANDMOTHER'S CIRCLE. PLUS PRESENTATIONS ABOUT NORTHERN NEW MEXICO IDENTITY, NORTHERN PUEBLO ISSUES, ACEQUIA, LAND AND WATER ISSUES.
PLUS FIRME CHINGON ARTE AND POETRY FROM TALENTED RAZA ARTISTS AND PERFORMERS. AND THAT'S NOT ALL: WITNESS A LIVE MURAL PAINTING THAT WILL BE DEDICATED TO THE YMCA YOUTH CENTER.
FREE! FREE! FREE!
FROM THE DAYS OF THE PUEBLO REVOLT IN 1680, TO KILLING OF GOVERNOR ALBINO PEREZ IN 1835, TO THE RESISTANCE TO THE DEATH AGAINST THE AMERICAN ARMY IN 1846, TO LAND GRANT STRUGGLE IN THE 1960'S AND THE COURT HOUSE RAID IN 1967, ALL THE WAY UP TO EVERY FIRME LOWRIDER REPRESENTING ESPANOLA TO THE KIDS WHO STILL CARRY THE NORTHERN NEW MEXICO CHIP ON THEIR SHOULDER AND THE WORLD ON THEIR BACK, TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF SAN JUAN WHO RE-CLAIMED THEIR ORIGINAL NAME OHKAY OWINGEH TO OUR MEXICANO BROTHERS AND SISTERS BRINGING OUR LANGUAGE BACK: WE ARE LA RAZA del NORTE RISING FROM THE ASHES OF YOUR PATRIARCHAL NIGHTMARE DISSOLVING YOUR INDIFFERENCE...
This country is a whore I'm middle class but still poor everyday my taxes are torn from my hands to make Iraq safe while most of my people can't get medicine for the common cold so it grows and infests and manifest with more punch than chemical warfare because without health care we're all doomed -adan
hey everybody guess what, theWUN is up and running at our homepage and waiting for you to join us there, i intend for these forums to remain open and active as long as myspace doesn't bother them, but we've finally got a center of operations which isn't on Myspace, and i say thank God for that. Please tell your friends, as Myspace might just delete us before i get to even tell all of ours, you never know and that's the problem with Myspace WorldUnificationNetwork. ning. com WorldUnificationNetwork. com and WorldUnificationNetwork. org (all go to the same place!)- Join Us!
Yours Truly, dcb (wun creator and webmaster) myspace. com/oscarakachris P.S. Its going to take me almost 2 months (!) to invite all of our friends from myspace to this new place, so i would very much appreciate you taking time to sign up @ WorldUnificationNetwork. org just so its easier to contact you, we're not very much of a network without you! P.S.S. That also means that once i've invited everyone i'm going to assume that if you want to keep updated about what we're doing then you'll join us because it litterally takes forever (well it feels like it) to contact you all the "old fashioned" aka myspace way... P.S. AGAIN this was supposed to be a message and not a comment, but myspace maxed me for the day! (400 is my "quota")
The Bush Admisttration's "License to Kill" plan will allow Wyoming and Idaho to gun down nearly 600 wolves WHILE THEY ARE STILL ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST!
