Commodification Processes and Alternatives

Originally from Sarah, copied and pasted for formatting.

1. That all the demands of the Black and Trans communities be addressed and met.

. . .

14. That the Evergreen State College fully fund a separate Native American graduation for all Native students attending the college.
15. That Native American students, staff, and faculty be exempted from the catering and cooking prohibitions of the Aramark food contract so, within the Longhouse, they can cook, cater, and eat in freedom, regardless of an event qualifying as a potluck or not.

a) That the College pursue legislative amendment to RCW governing the state agency contract acquisition and management.

b) That the College adopt a resolution committing to Ethical and Sustainable business practices (similar to the recent policies adopted by the City of Seattle).

16. That Native American students, staff, and faculty can sustainably collect, gather, and harvest the natural resources from any of The Evergreen State College’s lands for ceremonial purposes with From “Native Student Demands“

17. That The Evergreen State College acknowledge formally the Centennial Accord and Millennium Agreement and the school’s responsibility to tribal nations to engage in a government-to-government relationships.

Latinx Student Demands

Copy/pasted

As Latinx students of The Evergreen State College, MEXA & Familia demands that:

• All the demands of the black, Native, Pacific Islander, and Trans community be met
• There will be a hiring increase of Latinx faculty and staff in all fields of study
• There will be a hiring increase of people of Color primarily in the Math and Sciences
• There will be a hiring of an admissions position in which they are:
o culturally competent in Latinx issues
o competent in Trans identity and gender and sexual identity in the context of Latinx communities
o monolingual or bilingual in Spanish
o competent in admissions and financial aid process for undocumented students
• There will be a commitment of funding for the Retention Program
• Latinx students will have the options of taking Spanish classes for free to provide reparation for forced assimilation and erasure of our language.
• There will be more courses that are centered around Latinx studies and history, including media created by Latinx artists
• Patrol cars will be removed from the library to health services walkway
• There will be a removal of American flag
• That the campus establishes a zero-tolerance policy regarding racism and hate crimes amongst students, staff, and faculty.
• There will be more institutional support for Latinx students in undergraduate studies
• The college will reach out to local and state-wide Latinx organizations to create opportunities for our community.
• The college will pay for more Latinx artists, presenters, speakers, and musicians for events and programs.
• MEXA and other racial & ethnic identity groups get funding through S&A without the institutional oversight of the S&A Board
• Free, secure and discrete housing and free parking for undocumented students to prevent racial profiling from state, federal and local police during commuting.
• Divestment from all Israeli products and corporations
• Divestment from corporations that support private prisons including Aramark, Sabra, Caterpillar and Bank of America
• Creation of a Latinx center including a paid permanent coordinator position and work-study positions to run that center.
• Creation of a Multicultural center
• Mandatory staff and faculty trainings on how to support undocumented students
• That The Evergreen State College demilitarize and disarm campus police in favor of a campus security force that is overseen by a student, faculty, and staff review board.
• Provide free sanitary and safe sex supplies in all bathrooms
• Demilitarize police through the removal of all lethal and non-lethal weapons.
• Honesty and transparency with prospective students about the antiblackness, racism, transphobia, homophobia, and ableism on this campus.
• More faculty of color will be hired who are willing to take anti-bias training, specifically in the sciences immediately
• A larger space for the Unity Lounge and the Trans and Queer Center, as well as more funding.
• An establishment of a 24 hour food bank moved away from police services and Wellness services
• There will be reduced parking permits and fines for low-income students
• There will be more support in finding privately-funded scholarships for undocumented students
• The administration will provide financial support in funding our ability to provide EMT and Crisis Management training to a community response team. This team should be paid by the college and chosen by students.
• Removal of disruptions/protests off the student conduct code as a violation. One cannot claim they support protest but are anti- disruption when it comes down to their own interests.
• The creation of “a new ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ graduation requirement” which will primarily focus on “any US-centric structural oppression, such as race, gender, and sexuality.”
• Pre-orientation programs specifically centered on resources for People of Color.
• Transparent discipline processes for faculty and staff.
• After-hours wellness services for students that work.
Assistance in financial aid processes for students who need it.

Latinx: noun. North American. A person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina)

Presentation tomorrow evening, May 24, Lecture Hall 3, 6:30 pm by Evergreen alum Mary K Johnson ’16 (MK), who spent several months last winter at Standing Rock. 

The phrase “I Just Came Here to Help” was uttered so many times I can’t count, I said it from time to time as well. I had no idea this phrase was a trigger until it was pointed out to me in March, a couple of weeks after the camps were evacuated. Every wave of white settler on this continent said it too, white ancestors–military, missionary, some pioneers. What followed was an attempt at cultural annihilation, land appropriation and genocide that has gone on for 500 years. Though the intention to help is good, that phrase and mindset is part of our colonial make up, our genetic history. The system we come from still operates in support of this, and those of us who truly intend to help have little stamina for decolonization. If we stand united, we’ll never be divided, but we need to figure out how to do that.

White privilege is a term often used to describe this, and white fragility is a term that describes the mindset and behaviors that come with it. Most of us who were white exhibited some aspect of white fragility at some point or another, myself included. This presentation is the combination of photos taken by Ryan Vizzions and myself, with contributions from former crew members of the Oceti Sakowin Camp Media Team, as well as a map from Zoltán Grossman, faculty at the Evergreen State College. I will talk about how some of our behaviors hindered the process we all went there to help–most of us not even realizing the phrase “I came here to help” was a trigger, and the beginning of a thought process that led to a sense of entitlement, among other things.

Out there we had a common enemy, it was easy to see, the DAPL lights bordered the Northern side of the camp. Though we had our issues in camp, we could always point to those lights and remember who the enemy was. When we had front line days, and came together in a nonviolent way to stand and sustain injustice together there would be relief in camp for a day or so. I believe this was because some measure of momentary trust was gained. Then time would pass, and things would brew, and old feelings and new feelings of anger and frustration would surface. I will talk about how we processed that, sustained that, had our failures and had some successes. One of my greatest hopes for our time and effort there is that some measure of healing started, but I can’t know for sure.

Please join the discussion, and share what is happening at home, and how it relates to this.  A big part of unity-building is facing white cultural blindspots and addressing them. This part of the frontline is within white-consciousness.

NoSpiritualSurrender.com

Friends,

  As I talked about at the end of class today, Amy helped me with a different solution to the Hours Log.  If you want to see what I’ve done, just look at the Log page on my site.  Yours can be completely different, it just depends on how your spreadsheet is designed.  Below is her e-mail to me which explains pretty well how to put it into WordPress.  If you have any questions I’d be happy to chat.

Doug

Quoted text follows:

Hi Doug,

Thanks for writing this up. I had a chance to explore some recent WordPress plugins that might make the logging process more elegant and have gone ahead and implemented Inline Google Spreadsheet Embed plugin. I’ve activated the plugin on your site and created a test page and test spreadsheet to demo. http://blogs.evergreen.edu/comalt-spring-douglas/?page_id=395&preview=true

To add you own log simply paste on its own line the public URL to your Google Spreadsheet and watch the magic happen. Let me know if you have any questions.

Amy Greene | Academic Technologies

The Evergreen State College

Tasting Lab Lunch: Week 8

Asparagus Stir-Fry

Students: Sean Dwyer, a brown bread made by Meghan, sourcing help from Alana Mousseau

Cut the bottoms of asparagus and trim to size

once bright green, throw in some ginger and chile

then add greens after and serve

I used pepper and salt.

Plain yogurt with vanilla will be served with cinnamon after lunch

accompanied by Ryan Zak’s album – New Life

Our ancestors understood this solemn truth, dug into the dirt, and built autonomous agrarian villages “for the beautiful ones not yet born.” (Davy et al. 2)

What’s a memorable experience of eating vegetables grown by someone you know? How does this change your experience of eating?

“The funny thing was everyone said I had a glow that evening and I kept saying that I didn’t feel good and the glow they saw was fever. They said I had the glow of health.” (Smart-Grosvenor 104)

Do you have a distinct memory of food and music together? Does the music, the food, or the environment stand out more in your memory? Can it?

Informative Articles used for yogurt tasting – 

Week 8 Faculty Consultation Schedule: EMAIL (williasa@evergreen.edu) or COMMENT to sign up

Monday 22 June:

9 Jessica at August Farm

3:15 & 5:30  VP for  Equity Candidate Forums

Tuesday 23 June: in SAL

3:40

4

Wednesday 24 June: in Sem2 D2109

9:20

9:40 Karen

10 Ricky M

10:30 Sean

10:50 Sarah McCord

11:10 Katomi

11:30 Art Lecture Series: Dawn Cerny

Thursday 25 June

10-12  Purce Hall 1:  Guest Lecture, Kat Anderson “Prairies and Wetlands of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington: Their Native American Uses and Stewardship” author of Tending the Wild

1 Sean at Fertile Ground

Friday 26 June

10:30 Sjoukje at GRuB

11 Madi at GRuB

Please plan now to attend this day-long workshop Thursday of week 10.  It’s a great opportunity to engage with leaders forging alternatives to the structural inequities embedded in the commodification of our food system.  These hours can count double for your log and the end of the quarter timing should support everyone logging the necessary hours for full credit (e.g., 16 credits = 400 total spg qtr hours). Please help distribute this flyer for Food System Equity – Pathfinding for Social and Ecological Change!