In memoriam: John Hope Franklin (1915-2009)

John Hope Franklin accomplished a lot in his 94 years, and watched the US change in tremendous ways. His accomplishments are far too many to list in a simple paragraph (although they include serving as the first African American chair of an all white department, the history department of Brooklyn College).

Therefore, I've included a link to his obituary from the Duke University site. Duke is home of the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies.

In his tribute to John Hope Franklin, Peter Applebome comments that Dr. Franklin accomplished much "not through advocacy but rather through the traditional means of scholarly inquiry". One of my professors used this quote to remind us that traditional scholarship can be transformative, if not revolutionary.

I disagree. Traditional scholarship only gets us to places we have gone in the past. John Hope Franklin pursued research while libraries were still segregated. He was a black man writing, as he put it "a new kind of Southern history". His position as chairman of the Brooklyn College history department was so non-traditional that he made the front of the New York Times. He was a scholar of the highest intellect. He was anything but traditional.

Traditional scholarship will only get us to places we have already gone. For many communities, that means histories unwritten and scientific experiments that disproved our very humanity. Remember, a southern physician named S. A. Cartwright thought he discovered drapetomania, a disease that caused slaves to feel an insane desire to run away. What we need is new, revolutionary scholarship that connects to activism (because activism needs scholarship, too).

What does it take?

In an age when everyone seems to be fighting for a cause, what does it take to be noticed? And what does it take to get what you want?

Consider with me Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). As a group in campus, they advocate for Palestinian students on campus, as well as for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, as the name implies.

Over the past two semesters, tensions have run high between SJP members and members of some of the Zionist student groups on campus. Let me make very clear where I stand. I am not conflating all Jewish students with Zionism. And I do not believe that the creation of Israel was a "land without people for people without a land".

On September 22, the Dean of students sent an email to the student body "regarding recent acts of Anti-Semitism" that "create a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and community members". The next day, in response student protest, he sent out another emailing, clarfying that it was not Anti-Semitic hate crimes, but hate speech "specifically targeting community members of Students for Justice in Palestine". While hate speech in any form in unacceptable, so is covering up the victimization of one group to support another. Why would the university ignore hate crimes carried out against its Palestinian students, while reminding the student body to make the campus safe for Jewish students?

A month later, in October, students of the Zionist student group Tikvah disrupted an anti-Zionist lecture with bullhorns. One student, John Moghtader shouted "Fuck you, you're a disgrace to our people." No action was taken.

A month later, three Zionist supporters, identified as student senator John Moghtader, alumni Gabe Weiner, and Yehuda de Sa attacked three Arab students, two female and one male, after the Arab students hung a Palestinian flag. Senator Moghtader was recalled in a election, but remains in office at this point.

My point is this: even after these incidents, no one on campus seems to care. Or rather, very few people even seem to know about them. A group of students is currently pushing for the University to divest from Israel, much like it divested from South Africa to protest apartheid. They are also pushing for the recognition of a sister university in Palestine.

Which brings me back to the original question: what does it take to make people care?

In memoriam: Richard Aoki, 1938-2009

Richard Aoki, in my high school mind, was the epitome of badass.

Back then, I only cared that he wore a leather jacket and ran with the Black Panthers. That alone made him a verifiable Asian American badass. He broke every uncool stereotype there was of Asian Americans.

He was a militant radical.

Richard Aoki wasn't just a Black Panther. He was one of the originals, their first gun runner, and eventually became a Field Marshall. He also helped found the Asian American Political Alliance and lead the Third World Liberation Front at UC Berkeley. And after that student strike successfully won Ethnic Studies for the campus, he coordinated the Asian American Studies Program. He later served as an advisor for Asians for Employment Opportunities, and as an instructor and administrator at Merritt and Alameda Colleges.

He remained active in his community through out his life, organizing and educating across racial lines for the common struggle towards justice. Who again could ever be Richard Aoki?

Aoki passed away this Sunday, due to complications from long standing medical problems.

**Bonus**

These events will be *awesome*. Here's another flyer for the entire week of events.

More on the 40th

The 40th anniversary celebration of Ethnic Studies at Berkeley begins tomorrow with the Pilipino American Alliance dinner. Although the week of events celebrates the past 40 years of Ethnic Studies and the third world Liberation Front, there's a good deal of focus on three points in time: the original student strike of 1968, the subsequent strike of 1999, and the current campus climate.

It seems natural, doesn't it? To focus on epic moments in history and the present, since we are within it. But is the present an epic moment in history? I think a detour to the 1980's will help us find an answer

This is also the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the American Cultures requirement. The AC requirement began as an effort to expose every UC Berkeley undergraduate student to the Ethnic Studies philosophy-- a campus wide effort to escape Eurocentrism. But this accomplishment isn't the focus of the week's events. Why?

Is it because the AC requirement no longer seems revolutionary? Not all AC courses are taught from a decolonial perspective. The requirement for AC standing is to include three different American cultures, not to ask how and why they developed as they have, or try to create positive change.

Or is it because the methods of the movement seem less radical than the student strikes. In activism, must we hold public protests to be epic? It seems that the campus sees a different public protest on campus every week, carefully controlled between the hours of 12.00 and 1.00, when the campus allows amplified sound on the main plaza. These strikes rarely draw more than 50 people. Still, students and community members packed Sproul plaza to watch the innauguration of President Obama.

Is this a symptom of the movement or a symptom of the method? Should we activists be searching for a new method of raising awareness? Is the era of mass public protests gone? Or is this generation of college students less epic than those that have come before us? Are we waiting for a different cause? A bigger catalyst to spur more of us to action and cause seperate groups to join together?

Maybe I will find some of the answer this week.