NOT MY NORMAL: RESISTING SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION  

TEACH IN            Monday Apr 24 to Friday Apr 28

Offering information and analysis to understand the rise of White supremacy and other systemic oppressions in the current time and climate. And offering strategies, skills, and models of advocacy to resist oppression and its normalization.

 

 

Monday, April 24  

Noon to 8pm

CC2545 (unless otherwise indicated)

 

12-1 Student Feminist Activism  (W-2-158)                              Students from Chris Bobel’s WGS 392 Feminist Activism

12-12:30 Menstrual Health for Middle School Students: This project’s focus is the creation of an inclusive resource guide [both readings and videos] aimed at normalizing menstruation and promoting menstrual health among Boston middle school students. Maddy LaCure, Sara Alvarez, Samantha Beaton, and Kyle Hayes-Lauzon

12:30-1 Don't Wrong Our Reproductive Rights!:  This project’s focus is supporting the passage of Massachusetts Bill (S.499): An Act Advancing Contraceptive Coverage and Economic Security in Massachusetts. Through lobbying and tabling on campus, we strive to generate awareness of the importance of affordable and accessible contraceptive health care. Rebecca Whittaker, Destina Agar, Mabel Urvaez, and Jocelyn Figlock

 

1-2 Know Your Rights Workshop: Immigrant Right and Legal Preparation                                         Andrew Leong

This session is meant to help immigrants (and those who care about immigrant communities) to understand their rights when encountering law enforcement, what to do to prepare yourself and how to create contingency plans in face of an emergency, as well as to provide information about potential legal options. The session will also engage us to challenge law enforcement when their actions erode our basic constitutional rights.

 

Mon 2-4pm: FEATURED SESSION **Special rough cut sneak preview screening**of Dawnland

Inside a historic truth and reconciliation commission on the taking of Native American children.

Plus discussion with filmmaker Adam Mazo and Upstander Project learning director Mishy Lesser.

When most people hear about children ripped from their families, they think of faraway places or centuries past. The reality is it's been happening in the U.S. for centuries-and is happening today. Native American children are more than twice as likely as non-Native children to be taken from their families and put into foster care. In Maine, a group of Native and non-Native leaders came together to acknowledge and address the abuses suffered by Native children in the hands of the child welfare system. This is their story. Sponsored by Institute for New England Native American Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Transnational Cultural and Community Studies

 

4-5 It’s Not Complicated:  BDS + Palestinian Liberation

Andrés Henao-Castro & Heike Schotten of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP)

This teach-in will introduce and explain the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement in Palestine and connect it to other liberatory movements and struggles, both in the US and around the world. Plus info will be provided about how to get involved.

 

5-6 Sustaining the Marathon: Balancing Activism and Self Care              

Tahirah Abdullah, Shannon Hughley, Keira O'Donovan, Noor Tahirkheli, Diversity Committee, Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

A workshop to explore creative ways to establish a balance between engaging in sustained activism and self-care. How can we contribute our own skills and resources for change, given one's position and role?  We will explore advocacy and ally roles and highlight how to make intentional, informed decisions about contributing in a way that is not damaging to oneself.

 

4-6:45 Screening of 13th (W-1-004).

Followed by discussion with Sarah Mayorga-Gallo and Sociology 200: Race and Ethnic Relations class.

A documentary by Ava DuVernay (director of Selma), which provides an in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

 

4-5:30 Social Dominance and the Theory of Gendered Prejudice (Y-2-2120).

Jim Sidanius, Professor in Psychology and African and African American Studies at Harvard University

Jim Sidanius presents his new model, the Theory of Gendered Prejudice (TGP), which demonstrates that men and women exhibit distinctly different patterns of discriminatory behavior: 1) the tendency for males to display higher levels of xenophobia, discrimination, social predation, and dominance than females, 2) the tendency for discrimination to be directed more toward outgroup males than outgroup females, and 3) the differing motives for discrimination of each gender.         Sponsored by Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance

 

6-8 Coping with Racism Related Stress Workshop (W-01-0010) A 2 part workshop (both Monday & Wednesday)

Jennifer Martinez & Alissa Hochman, Clinical Psychology               Sponsored by UMB-UR Best, Clinical Psychology, TCCS

For students of color who are feeling stressed, anxious, or fearful in the current social/political climate. Workshops focus on learning strategies to cope during these difficult times, including understanding racism and its impacts, the role of awareness and self-compassion in fostering well-being, and strategies for choosing meaningful actions that are nourishing, empowering, and resist oppression.

 

 

PLUS: Monday 11am-6pm Take Back the Night Events and Activities (Ryan Lounge)

 

 

Tuesday, April 25 

9am to 8pm

CC 2540 (unless otherwise indicated)

 

9-11 Coping with Racism Related Stress Workshop. A 2 part workshop (both Tuesday and Thursday)

Chuck Liu & LG Rollins, Clinical Psychology                            Sponsored by UMB-UR Best, Clinical Psychology, TCCS

For students of color who are feeling stressed, anxious, or fearful in the current social/political climate. Workshops focus on learning strategies to cope during these difficult times, including understanding racism and its impacts, the role of awareness and self-compassion in fostering well-being, and strategies for choosing meaningful actions that are nourishing, empowering, and resist oppression.

 

11-12:15 Mobilize, Defend, Organize: What does a Trump Presidency Mean for Working People? (Healey-04-31)

Steve Striffler, Director of Labor Studies.    With Labor Studies 210: Labor and Working-Class History students

This session will explore how a Trump presidency impacts the lives of working people, the ability of labor groups to organize, and the prospects for building a more equitable world.

 

12-1 From Ferguson to Palestine: Building Solidarity Across Local and Global Social Movements

Rakhshanda Saleem, Justin Karter and Zenobia Morrill, Counseling Psychology

This teach-in session will focus on the implications and necessity of transnational activism against systemic and structural violence through an anti-colonial framework. In line with a participatory, critical pedagogical approach, participants and presenters will co-engage in thinking about strategies for decolonizing education and engaging with anti-oppression struggles.

 

1-2: What Is Normal?: Queer Resistance in the United States          Aaron Lecklider, Department of American Studies

This session will think broadly about how LGBT activists have used cultural tools to resist both oppression and efforts at "normalizing" (or assimilating) queer communities. We will think carefully about how lessons from the past might be invoked—and are being used—to build a movement for the present.

 

2-4: Student Activism: The Color of Mental Health: Wellness as Resistance for People of Color

Students from Karen Suyemoto’s Transnational Cultural and Community Studies/Intr-D Empowerment and Advocacy:

Hieu Le, Jennifer Martinez, Nicholas McCaskill, Jeannette Meija, Tri Quach

Institutional racism bars people of color from receiving appropriate care, having knowledge around health, and accessing the resources needed while also creating a stigma in communities of color that adds to the general stigma around mental health. This event aims to provide people of color with the knowledge and tools to create and/or shift their ability to access services for better health outcomes. Sponsored by TCCS and Asian American Student Success Program.

 

4-5 Names of Women: Abortion Stories  

Shoshanna Ehrlich, Women’s and Gender Studies Department. Co-Sponsor: Strong Women/Strong Girls

This session focuses on using personal stories as a way to advance reproductive justice and rights. Following the showing of the short documentary “Names of Women,” the audience will have the chance to interact with the filmmaker who will join us via Skype and to engage in an open conversation about abortion stigma facilitated by Shoshanna Ehrlich.

 

Tues 5-7 pm FEATURED SESSION: Suitcase Stories: Immigrant and Refugee Experiences (Ryan Lounge). Featuring stories from UMass Boston students/alum and acclaimed storyteller

Ari Belathar, the 2016-2017 Poetry Fellow at the Writers’ Room of Boston.

An empowerment-focused storytelling event focused on immigrant and refugee experiences. Presented by Massmouth in collaboration with the International Institute of New England. Sponsored by: Transnational Cultural and Community Studies, UMB-UR-BEST.

 

7-8 Student Activism: Using Research to Fight Workplace Discrimination (W-04-022) 

Students from Sofya Aptekar’s Methods of Sociological Research class in dialogue with Susan Moir, director of Labor Resource Center. A discussion of an ongoing applied research project on discrimination against women and minorities in the construction industry in Springfield, MA

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, April 26   

Noon to 8pm

CC 2545 (unless otherwise indicated)

 

12-1 Student Feminist Activism                                               Students from Chris Bobel’s WGS 392 Feminist Activism

12-12:30 Bringing It To You: Women's Health Care: Focus on spreading awareness of local women-centered health care resources, especially clinics and other services that serve low-income communities and people of color.   Sheri Moccia, Zannie Duffy, Emily Soto, and Veronice Lopes

12:30-1 Inclusive Sexual Education in Boston Public Schools:  Our focus is the improvement of inclusive Sexuality Education in schools. Through meetings with teachers and administrators, we are promoting the adoption of queer positive and sex positive sexuality and reproductive health education at Boston Latin School.               Kaitlyn Solares, ShulpaThirukkovalur, Megan Alves, and Sav Sadowski

 

1-2 Trump Administration Policies: Brown Bag Discussion McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies

Join faculty, students, and staff for an informal discussion about current policy issues, including immigration enforcement, health care, climate change, and public education.

 

Wednesday, April 26 (cont.)

Noon to 8pm

CC 2545 (unless otherwise indicated)

 

2-3 Know Your Lens: Positioning Yourself Within the Resistance 

Danielle Godon-Decoteau, Alissa Hochman, Chuck Liu, Clinical Psychology and AART

How are people impacted by today's tumultuous political and social climate? How can we take action for resistance without contributing to oppression? One answer begins with an exploration of one's own social location. This workshop uses a discussion activity to explore personal understandings of how our various personal identities and experiences of privilege and oppression shape our work as activists and consider how to increase effective action and coalition building.

 

3-4 The Rise of “Pro-Life” Feminism and Other Threats to Abortion Rights in the Trump Era

Shoshanna Ehrlich, Women’s and Gender Studies Department.

From the resurgence of campus “pro-life” feminist groups to threatened cuts to Planned Parenthood, the Global Gag rule, and Trump’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the right to safe and legal abortion is under attack. This session will provide an overview of these and other current attacks on the constitutional right to abortion that so many take for granted.

 

3-5 Women of Color at UMB: Refusing Racialization and Developing Coalitional Consciousness and Social Justice Organizing” (M-2-205)

Students from Latino Leadership Opportunity Program and Ester Shapiro’s Psychology research team: Diana Lamothe, Grace Furtado, Ashley Torres and Mirlande Thermido

A workshop that explores intersectional approaches towards developing coalitional consciousness and solidarity. Through group dialogue, participants will nurture a sense of empowerment and solidarity by discussing challenges  they have faced, how those obstacles have made them feel and how identifying similar experiences among the group can create a sense of unity. 

 

4-5 Science as Resistance: Inclusive Teaching and Training

Tiffany Donaldson (Psychology and Honors College), Patrick Clarkin (Anthropology), and Patricia Krueger-Henney (Leadership in Education) 

Science as Resistance is a conversation about how to empower women and students of color as researchers and how to present science and biology in ways that resist essentializing, acknowledge nature-nurture interactions, and contribute to justice. Sponsored by CIT

 

5-6 Constructing the Enemy: Can We Unlearn Fear and Hate?             Rajini Srikanth, Honors College and English

What happens when particular categories of people are identified as the enemy and the threat? How does such labeling affect a society’s structures and people’s realities? What is the legacy of fear and hate?  Can the United States ever stop constructing enemies?

 

6-8 Coping with Racism Related Stress (W-01-0010). A 2 part workshop (both Monday and Wed). Continued from Monday.

 

 

 

 

Thursday, April 27

9am to 6pm

CC 2540 (unless otherwise indicated)

 

9-11 Coping with Racism Related Stress.  A 2 part workshop (both Tuesday and Thursday). Continued from Tuesday.

 

12-1  America Is Not the First: Lessons From the Failed Democracies of Eastern Europe

Jozsef Kaldy and Zsuzsa Kaldy        Department of Psychology

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, for twenty years, Hungary was led by alternating left- and right-wing governments. In 2010, a moderate right-wing party, with a charismatic leader delivering a populist message, obtained a supermajority in congress. Within a few years, they rewrote the constitution, changed the election system, silenced the opposition and most critical media outlets, and incited xenophobia against refugees, most of whom are travelling through Hungary to reach other countries in Western Europe. We will discuss the broader lessons that can and should be drawn from the examples of Eastern Europe, with particular focus on Hungary.

 

1-2:30  Difficult Dialogues in the Classroom                  Rosalyn Negron, Anthropology

At a time of increased vulnerability for immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, women, and others and unprecedented degrees of polarization, how do we sensitively address the fears and vulnerabilities of our students while creating a classroom environment that encourages the expression of diverse views and civil discourse? We will share effective practices for leading or moderating challenging classroom discussions about systemic oppression, while expressing a sense of solidarity with students from targeted groups. Sponsored by CIT

 

1-5pm Not Our Wall: Deconstructing the Things that Divide Us. Interactive resistance art. (CC 1st floor)

Organized by Tri Quach, Ping Ann Addo, Chris Fung.  Sponsored by TCCS, Asian American Student Success Program

 

 

Thursday 2:30-4p: FEATURED SESSION

Taking Action: Strategies for Successful Grassroots Organizing

Ashley J. Bohrer (Hamilton College). Drawing on over a decade of activist organizing, Ashley J. Bohrer addresses organization building, skills development, media for activists, coalition building, and much more. An interactive, participatory workshop for anyone interested in taking their knowledge of social justice and putting it into radical practice. Sponsored by Transnational Cultural and Community Studies.

Thursday 4-6p FEATURED Session (W-4-151):

 Immigrant Rights, Worker Rights, and the Fight for Social Justice 

Aviva Chomsky (Salem State University), Adrian Ventura (Centro Comunitario de

Trabajadores), Gladys Vega (Chelsea Collaborative), and Heloisa Galvao/ Lidia Ferreira (Brazilian Womens’ Group). This session explores the struggles by Boston-area immigrant workers’ centers in the aftermath of the Trump election. Workers’ centers continue to organize for better wages and working conditions, but they have also been forced to respond to an intensified assault on immigrant rights since the election of Trump. Sponsored by UMass Boston Labor Center

 

 

 

 

Friday, April 28

Noon to 7+

CC 2545 (unless otherwise indicated)

 

12-1 Student Feminist Activism                   Students from Chris Bobel’s WGS 392 Feminist Activism

12-12:30 Talking about sex and gender: Resources for Parents: Our focus is cultivating gender, sex and sexuality awareness among parents. We are compiling a list of relevant and easy-to-understand resources to share with parents to facilitate productive and supportive conversations with their children.  Allie Clough, Jennifer Rass, Becca Coppola, and Kayla Scibilo

12:30-1 Sexual Assault Risk Reduction for Residents of UMB Housing. Through collaboration with the UMB Department of Student Housing, we aim to guide the formation and implementation of student-centered sexual assault policies and procedures as well as support student education on this issue. Kiara Hernandez, Ellie Avery, Jennifer Cardoso, and Seleah Sterling

 

1-2 Environmental Justice in East Boston

Maxwell Martin, School for the Environment, Environmental Innovations Clinic

East Boston is an Environmental Justice community due to the multiple and disproportionate environmental burdens faced by its residents (EPA 2016).  Presenting ongoing research on environmental justice in East Boston, followed by a discussion of environmental justice issues in the current era and brainstorming of strategies.

 

2-4 Allies and Activism

Alissa Hochman & Lizabeth Roemer, Clinical Psychology, Advocating Against Racism Research Team

Wondering how to get started? Confused by things like critiques of the Women's March as not inclusive? This workshop will address personal understandings that support effective activism. We will discuss strategies to increase the impact of your activism, to ensure you are taking actions that truly support equity and justice, and to work with the understandable emotions that come up as you increase your awareness and make inevitable mistakes along the way. Sponsored by UMB-UR-BEST, Clinical Psychology Program

 

Friday 4-5:30p in (CC2540):          FEATURED SESSION

Screening of Spirit of Standing Rock Plus discussion with Director Paulette Moore.

An inside view of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s stand against the powerful oil industry and its enablers in North Dakota government and law enforcement. The NoDAPL resistance movement has inspired environmentalists and social justice advocates, including trade unions, veterans organizations, churches and over 300 indigenous groups from across the nation and beyond. Sponsored by Institute for New England Native American Studies, Native American Indigenous Studies Minor, Student Alliance for Indigenous Peoples in the Americas.

 

4-5 Resisting Systemic Oppression in Higher Education: Part One, Accessibility and Affordability

Karyn Aiello, UMass Boston PHENOM & Zac Bears, Executive Director of PHENOM (Public Higher Education Network of Mass.)

Join us as we reflect together on the barriers first-generation, minority, lower-income, working class, and immigrant/immigrant-background populations face in pursuing higher education and how these barriers relate to systemic oppression. We will discuss current movements, organizations and efforts to decrease barriers to higher education and participants will be provided the opportunity to join these actions.

 

5-6 Resisting Systemic Oppression in Public Higher Education: Part Two: Building Sanctuary and Solidarity

Joseph Ramsey, Juan Pablo Blanco, BATA, (Boston Against the Trump Agenda).

Hear from Boston Against the Trump Agenda (BATA) and the push for a sanctuary campus; Coalition to Save UMB and the fight against budget cuts, tuition hikes and layoffs; and the Coalition to Organize and Mobilize Boston Against Trump and planned immigrant solidarity actions on May Day. We will discuss linking up campus campaigns and off campus efforts.

 

6-9 If A Tree Falls film screening (Y-02-2120)   Plus discussion with filmmaker Daniel McGowan

If A Tree Falls chronicles the Earth Liberation Front, former member Daniel McGowan's capture and trial, and his experiences in the judicial and prison system. http://www.ifatreefallsfilm.com/   Sponsored by Political Science, Women's and Gender Studies, and the Human Rights Minor

 

7pm Freedom is Coming Concert (Recital Hall, 1st floor of University Hall ) University Chorus and Chamber Singers.

Songs of Oppression and Hope from around the world. The program will include African-American Spirituals and Gospel Music, a South African Freedom Song, a Prayer of the Children (from war-torn Yugoslavia, American Civil Rights anthems, and others.

 

Sponsors: Transnational Cultural and Community Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Center for Innovative Teaching, Sociology, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Labor Resource Center, Psychology, Human Rights Minor, Asian American Student Success Program, Honors College. With thanks to planning committee: Karen Suyemoto, Sofya Aptekar, Ping Ann Addo, Elora Chowdhury, Patricia Krueger-Henney, Steve Striffler, Chris Fung.