Resist! Goals and Tactics for Changemakers

By Gayle Kimball

Resist! Goals and Tactics for Changemakers offers an encyclopedic guide for how you can be a changemaker. Critics fault recent democracy uprisings for not having a positive plan for change, so this comprehensive guide includes international models of democratic local and national examples. The extensive book outlines major economic, environmental and political problems with examples of tactics currently used to solve them. It includes theories about power and social movements, communication techniques, and the story of the changemakers. The author traveled around the world to talk with changemakers, as well as doing extensive research, and is a feminist activist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780938795681

Book preview

Books by the Author

50/50 Marriage (Beacon Press)

50/50 Parenting (Lexington Books)

Ed. Women’s Culture (Scarecrow Press)

Ed. Women’s Culture Revisited. (Scarecrow Press)

The Religious Ideas of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Edwin Mellen Press)

Essential Energy Tools book and 3 videos. (Equality Press)

21st Century Families: Blueprints for Family-Friendly Workplaces,

Schools and Governments. (Equality Press)

The Teen Trip: The Complete Resource Guide (Equality Press)

Ed. Everything You Need to Know to Succeed After College (Equality Press)

How to Survive Your Parents’ Divorce (Equality Press)

Ed., Quick Healthy Recipes: Literacy Fundraiser (Equality Press)

Your Questions About Love and Family (Equality Press)

Your Questions About Mental and Physical Health (Equality Press)

Your Mindful Guide to Academic Success: Beat Burnout (Equality Press)

Ageism in Youth Studies: Generation Maligned (Cambridge Scholars)

How Global Youth Values Will Transform Our Future (Cambridge Scholars)

Brave: Young Women’s Global Revolution (Volumes 1 and 2, Equality Press)

In process: Democracy Uprisings Led by Global Youth

© Gayle Kimball 2018

The cover photo is a demonstrator in Chile. The red nose represents clowns, as ridiculous as those in political power. Also, Chileans have an expression, ‘The clowns change, but the circus continues,’ in reference to elections, explained Silvia Gutiérrez González. The photographer is her friend Augusto Gómez Fuentes.

Photos by the author unless noted otherwise.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Kimball, Gayle.

Resist! Goals and Tactics for Changemakers / Gayle Kimball.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-938795-68-1

JA1 .P33

Political science and politics

JZ1308 .T377 JZ1318 .T456

Global activism / global studies

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Issues and Goals

Chapter 1: Globalization Issues

Globalization and Neoliberalism, Hybrid Cultures, Global Media, Global Discrimination, Global Power Shifts, War and Peace, Global Organizing

Chapter 2: Democracy vs. Autocracy

Desire for Real Democracy; Rise of Authoritarianism and Corruption; The Construction of Democracy; National Horizontal Models; Alternatives to Traditional Political Parties; Municipalist City Models—Past, Present and Future; Education Needs Democratic Reform

Chapter 3: Equal Opportunity vs. Poverty

Anti-Neoliberal Capitalism, Protests Against Inequality, Educated Middle-Class Changemakers, Solutions to Poverty and Inequality

Chapter 4: Change Work

Revolutionary Technological Changes, Young Adults Change the Work Culture, Worker Control, Gender Equity in the Workplace, Urban Economy Models, Solving Unemployment Locally, the New Economics

Chapter 5: The Bottom Line: Environmentalism

Climate Change Disasters; Case Study: Environmental Change is Difficult; Environmental Degradation; Powerful Climate Change Deniers; Tactics and Strategies; Replace Capitalism with Socialism; Change Government; Use the Courts; Attack Finance: Divestment and Boycotts; Develop Renewable Energy and Recycle, and Use Organic Agriculture; Lobby UN Climate Conferences; Our Future: Youth

Chapter 6: Who are the Changemakers?

Women Rising; No More Passive Princesses: Why Are Girls so Brave? Activists of Color: Black Activists, Latinx Dreamers, First Nation Youth Protest Pipelines

Part 2: Tactics and Theories

Chapter 7: Activist Tactics

A Case Study: Generation Z Tactics in the Never Again Movement; Individual Tactics; Alternatives to Traditional Political Parties; Movement of Movements to Replace Parties and Silos; New Tactics: Tend to Emotions in Long Occupations; Nonviolent Tactics; The Tyranny of Structurelessness; New Emphasis on the Grassroots; Successful Strategies for Organizing Groups

Chapter 8: How to Make a Revolution

Revolution Defined, What Triggers a Revolution? How to Lead a Revolution, Revolutionary History, Why the Global Uprisings Moved like Dominoes, Why were Tunisians the First Domino in the Revolutionary Wave? Cracks in the Economic System, Stages of Revolution, Did the Recent Uprisings Succeed?

Chapter 9: Theories about Social Movements and Power

Theories about Power; Social Movement Theories; The Legacy of Global Justice Movement Tactics; Marxism, Anarchism, Feminism

Chapter 10: Communication Techniques to Gain Support

Media Power; Branding, Humor, and Theater; Electronic Networking; Debate About Too Much Emphasis on Social Media; Misuse of the Internet; Mobile Phones for All; TV, Radio and Films; Art and Music

Introduction

I’d like to remove apathy, selfish human traits, and all forms of corporate greed (think of sweatshops and stuff like that), to help alleviate global suffering and our planet’s destruction. I feel like us humans are just too tragically flawed to use the power of change responsibly. What do you believe allows, helps, or prevents you from carrying out your intentions and have an effect on the world?

Aaron, 16, m, British Columbia

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.

Author Ursula Le Guin

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

Marina Sitrin believes in the power of the imagination and that most all things are possible. ¹

In order to achieve a goal, a hopeful vision is necessary, along with practical tactics for how to make change—the purpose of Resist! Globally, the overall goal of progressives is for direct democracy where citizens are involved in policy-making, which requires providing an alternative to neoliberal capitalism and the dominance of the wealthy 1%. Existing models of democracies that serve the people are small communities in Rojava in northern Syria and the Zapatistas in southern Mexico, and the Nordic countries. Activists split into anarchists and others who believe national government is hopelessly corrupt versus reformers who try to change the system from within, as with new political parties. Therefore, the only avenue for changemakers is to work in the cracks in the system in local self-help activities. Many young people don’t vote because of this lack of hope. Some view the legacy of the global wave of youth-led uprisings that spread in 2011 as municipalism, with the focus on progressive action in cities like Barcelona and Seattle. Other activists believe that it is possible to change national governments so they join existing political parties, as in Quebec, Chile, and the United Kingdom. With this same hope, new parties were organized in countries like Spain, Greece, and the US. Some predict that the more liberal Generations Y and Z will use their voting power globally to elect politicians responsive to the people.

Perhaps the most widely referenced strategists of political change are Gandhi and Professor Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston. Both taught ways to influence the masses with the same techniques used to sell products, as well as economic pressure with boycotts and strikes, rather than trying to change entrenched governments. Gandhi and indigenous activists also used soul-force and spirituality, repeated in the recent protests against building oil pipelines in North America. Changemakers are likely to be educated, urban and middle-class because they have more resources for mobilization than people living in poverty. Hence, Donald Trump said during his 2016 campaign, I love the poorly educated.²

Most activists and researchers agree that non-violent tactics attract more supporters and are more successful in changing government, but Chairman Mao Tse Tung advised in 1938, Every Communist must grasp the truth; Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Many rocks have been thrown by demonstrators at police who use tear gas, rubber and metal bullets, and chemical-laced water cannons against crowds. People are more likely to support a political movement if they feel aggrieved, have hope that change can occur, know people who are involved, and feel they can make a difference. A villain helps to motivate activism, as police violence brings out new protesters around the world and President Donald Trump motivated women and people of color in what’s referred to as the resistance movement in the US.

Another disagreement among activists is about leadership. Some criticize the recent emphasis on leaderless horizontal organizing--based on consensus decision-making, for preventing the development and implementation of a long-term strategy to replace existing governments. Concepts like hive mind and swarm inhibit acknowledging the need for leaderful organizing. The reaction to alpha male leaders who headed leftist groups in the 1960s and feminist resistance to media stars and patriarchal hierarchies may have gone too far. The main criticism of recent uprisings is that although they were successful in organizing protests that ousted some autocrats and encouraged others to be changemakers, they didn’t create a plan to replace leaders like President Mubarak in Egypt, so established hierarchical groups took over. European activists read Belgian writer Chantal Mouffe’s work where she argues that it’s not either/or political parties or social movements, since both are needed to unite the people harmed by neoliberal capitalism against the ruling financial elite.

I’ve researched global youth activism and values for almost two decades, reported on in a series of books. This quest involved learning about social movements and lifestyle nonmovements and what makes activism successful. The book focuses on models of actual solutions to global problems including growing inequality and climate change. After Donald Trump’s election many people asked me about how to make a difference, how to cope with their despair, and how to calm some of the anger and divisiveness in the US. This book provides the answers I could find about goals and tactics for changemakers, with abundant examples of international democratic and cooperative alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. The main global problem is that Oxfam found that 42 billionaires, mostly men, now own as much wealth as the 3.7 billion bottom half of the world’s population. Inequality is widening, rather than narrowing, as most of the wealth generated in 2017 went to the wealthy 1%.³ This problem is the main target of the current social movements.

Resist! Is a common slogan in the reaction to Trump’s policies, similar to the global slogan Enough! During the first year of his administration Greenpeace activists hung a large Resist banner on a construction crane near the White House, thousands of Californians spelled it out on a San Francisco beach,⁴ rapper Q-Tip yelled Resist from the Grammy’s stage, and women’s marchers like me carried Resist! signs, as seen on the back cover photo. Trump’s policies led to an up-welling of political involvement, especially by women and young people such as the leaders of the Never Again movement for gun control. Academics developed Resistance Studies with resources available to the public at the University of Massachusetts or the Global Nonviolent Action Database at Swarthmore College.⁵

Because young people’s voices are often ignored, as discussed in my Ageism in Youth Studies: Generation Maligned, I include their comments whenever possible. Here’s the thinking of a high school senior Spencer (17, California). This book answers his question.

Political activism, which at this stage of my life is by necessity student activism, is a subject I am deeply passionate about and want to pursue. My motivation to participate in activism comes from an intrinsic desire to correct what is unfair in our society and help those who most need it. I think we all lose on multiple levels when our society, culture, or country seems satisfied to abide an ongoing injustice. From sexism and racism to economic disparities there is a lot that I think is wrong in the world today and would love to play a part in changing. But I have no idea how to get started!! I would love to get your advice and insight into how to go about doing so.

My personal experience with resistance and changemaking is nurtured in feminist activism. The first year I started teaching at California State University Chico, I taught a seminar on women and religion with articulate feminist students. Before they gave me the concepts and vocabulary, I said naïve things like My best friends are men, as if liking men canceled out being a feminist who believes in equal opportunity. I was asked to become Coordinator of Women’s Studies and build the Women’s Studies minor and major. Our introduction class was team-taught so I learned from the various lectures, along with my students. Building the program sometimes involved struggles with the administration as when a provost (the second in command) told me, Your Ph.D. is in Religious Studies. You better start praying. When the college president and provost threatened to walk out of a meeting, I said that we all needed to do what we think is right. They stayed for the meeting and I developed assertiveness. I started a Women’s Faculty Association so women could assist each other in the obstacle course of getting tenure in a male-dominated system.

Several years ago Pakistani students and I created the Open Doors Literacy Program for village children whose families can’t afford government school fees. My most recent activism was being part of the group of women who organized the largest march in our city’s history the day after President Trump’s inauguration.⁶ I look at Trump as exposing the shadow side of US sexism, racism, and nationalism and hope that exposure to the light can lead to healing. Outrage spurs activism, as seen in the new numbers of women running for office. I also helped with the student-led March for Our Lives and helped organize the March for Science in 2018. Videos of activists I interviewed on my monthly radio show are available on the YouTube global youth channel, along with interviews conducted around the world.

Methodology

My interviews with activists are oral, first-person narratives with people who participated in or observed uprisings—history from the bottom, or standpoint theory rather than the history of great men. These approaches take seriously the lives of the undervalued and marginal, such as youth, women, and lower classes and they facilitate working for social transformation. Advocacy research or militant research, the place where academia and activism meet, is a descriptive term first used in Argentina in 2001. Rather than just observe, scholars participate in political movements that create new values and relationships. I started a literacy project in Pakistan and assisted some of the SpeakOut respondents with college application essays and was a sounding board for personal issues. For example, one Asian young man was afraid to tell anyone but me that he’s queer. What motivated me to research for almost two decades was being on a treasure hunt. With such a paucity of research—especially on youth activism--I relished each discovery and each new activist who shared their experiences with me. Video interviews with global activists available on the book YouTube channel are listed at the end of this introduction.

Format

I refer to photographs and videos I’ve taken as well as commercial media. Filmographies are listed on the book website.⁷ Each chapter ends with discussion questions to ponder and films to watch, as well as case studies and activities to discuss with a group of friends. The chapters stand alone and don’t need to be read in sequence. The first section Resist! discusses global issues and solutions, while the second looks at how to achieve progress through social movements.

Student comments are organized by age, younger ones first. Some of the ages for the same person change throughout the book as we’ve corresponded for years. They’re identified by their first name or nickname—whatever name they asked me to use, age and gender as in Chris, 16, f, England. I corrected spelling and punctuation. Respondents are referred to as SpeakOut youth. I try to avoid American to describe people from the US, because as a teacher from El Salvador pointed out he’s a Central American, Canadians are North Americans, and so on.

Media Sites

1.Supplemental information and add your comments http:/​/​globalyouthbook.​wordpress.​com/​

2.Photos of global youth and their homes: http:/​/​www.​facebook.​com/​media/​set/​?​set=​a.​348956001796264.​91437.​16038276 3986923&type=​1

3.Over 100 video interviews with global activists and youth: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​user/​The-Globalyouth

4.Literacy project in Pakistan taught by college students: http:/​/​opendoorsliteracyproject.​weebly.​com.

5.Twitter @gaylehkimball

Abbreviations and Definitions

A Globalization Glossary is available on the Emory University globalization website and other centers for global studies are listed in the endnote.³² Definitions of political terms and social movement theory are on the book webpage.³³

Alterglobalization: also called anti-globalization (but activists say they’re not anti-globalization except for neoliberal capitalism), and global justice movement (GJM). It opposes international neoliberal capitalism.

Arab Spring: refers to the series of revolutions starting with Tunisia in December of 2010. Some Arabs consider this a western or orientalist term and prefer Arab Awakening or Arab Revolutions.

Civil Society: The third sector outside of government and business, including volunteer groups and other NGOs.

DIY: Do It Yourself as in independently producing an album or book.

EU: European Union is composed of 27 nations since the UK left.

Football: Refers to what only the US, Canada and Australia call soccer.

GA: General Assembly used to organize in large demonstrations and in some neighborhoods.

GDP: Gross Domestic Product is the value of a country’s production GMO: Genetically modified food organism

GMO: Genetically modified food organism

Hijab: Muslim women’s hair covering worn in layers of scarves

ICT: Information and communication technology including the Internet IMF: International Monetary Fund

IMF: International Monetary Fund

LGBT: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered

MENA: Countries in the Middle East and North Africa, mostly Muslim

NEETs: Young people not in education, employment or training

NGO: non-profit, non-governmental organization, part of Civil Society

Neoliberalism: The dominant global economic policy associated with privatization of public assets, deregulation, free trade, and reduction in social welfare that increases economic inequality. It’s associated with Professor Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago and international organizations like the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund formed in 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. It’s criticized by the global justice movement as the enemy for the global uprisings.

Niqab: Muslim women’s facecovering except for the eyes NPR: National Public Radio broadcast in the US

NPR: National Public Radio broadcast in the US

PPT: Political Process Theory examines political opportunities and framing, developed in the US in the 1970s and 1980s.

Precariat: Often young adults, they don’t have job security or job benefits. They may be under- or unemployed, in part-time or temporary jobs.

Sharia: Islamic law governing secular and moral matters. For example, criminal and family law in Saudi Arabia and Iran is based on Sharia law.

Social media: Internet applications built on Web 2.0 that allows users to generate content.

Social Movements: Groups of people challenge authority to correct social problems and violations of social values. Power rests in the people’s consent, as Gandhi pointed out. Robin Kelley said in Freedom Dreams, Social movements generate new knowledge, new theories, new questions. The most radical ideas often grow out of concrete intellectual engagement with the problems of aggrieved populations confronting systems of oppression.

Squat: Occupation of an abandoned building used for living and community gatherings

SMT: Social Movement Theory looks at why social uprisings occur.

UK: United Kingdom

UNICEF: The United Nations Children’s’ Fund UNDP: United Nations Development Program

USAID: US Agency for International Development

WHO: World Health Organization

WTO: World Trade Organization

My Video Interviews with Activists

Teenagers’ Viewpoints

The political views of teenage secondary school students in the US, India, Indonesia, China, and Turkey:

1.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​LviemKj1AWE

2.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​GYO1C5lOwbI

3.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​UyZdHiQX3HE

4.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​r0wzWd0W0cc

5.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​qbBzCcI5EOY

6.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​SznisYhNf5U

7.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​DkTz3JFdm0I

8.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​3ykTa_​ub3oI

9.https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​3XzQI2YXl3Y

10. https:/​/​youtu.​be/​mMN2SthWn4w

Global

1.Pakistani feminists: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​RWEOKO-d7xY https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​WLXNdnxsqvk

2.An Indian law student: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​gElZoNG7ph0

3.The Gezi Park Uprising in Istanbul as explained by a Turkish participant: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​We4NXaVlJJ4

4.The Greek Syntagma Square demonstrations in Athens: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​N-3RVA7EkZLg

5.Nosostros social center in Athens: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​pJ7yXZuaSXs

6.Jerome Roos, a Dutch activist and editor of ROAR Magazine discusses how to change the neoliberal system: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​LhsKZrlgc6s

7.French activism: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​emjKw24cciY

8.European social democracy with a Swede, Dane, and Frenchman: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​4YNhnk001s4

9.Impressions of Finland by a Chinese student: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​_​39eeL31uo8

10. A Swedish college student: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​Unzzh4Jh8KM

11. Egyptian activists:

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​VB9FJhSsHYs

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​w3HrqR-i9_​Q

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​uB5BrUnQ6QA

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​w3HrqR-i9_​Q

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​ZYMgh9qh7TI

12. South African teen activist: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​_​6vE9Yr9UtU https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​htkea3XVkfs

13. An Ethiopian medical student: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​BTwT8tgoG38

14. A Chinese student discusses lack of freedom: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​Vh0MN-6fuuRQ

15. South Koreans criticize the education system:

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​0hq5KoEoY-w

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​bXuXYoh-lFA

16. A Mexican teenage feminist: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​qLuXZ4u_​cxM

United States

1.California feminist activist: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​6JFyXFKycjE

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​FcU8iBpXduk

2.Feminist health activists: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​PmpuIc4W6tY

3.LGBT activists: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​7p8lTq1byLU https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​dG1P6pO2R_​8

4.Feminist Visions of the Future: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​5sJszKFyJ08

5.Social justice research by first-year students: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​3oWh0nRgeo8

6.Men’s Changing Roles: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​OdYjjkN11dA

7.Environmental activists in Louisiana and Lanai: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​cB1xolBsT80 https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​c5_​SlssihTg

8.Climate change activists: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​wqgmlRUkPu8

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​ZCf7QoLbQFg

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​6V1WbujHsb0

9.First graders advocate saving the Rain Forests:

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​Fg88Twxi-HA

10. People of color discuss dealing with racism: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​i897g0yaqLw https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​T9j-THL6PTM

11. Native American activist: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​3tSsqer0Oio

12. Asian American activists: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​RBx5wB83AKE

13. An undocumented Dreamer: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​if1C9RUEjC0

14. Counselors and a student explain how to develop resilience in the face of adversity: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​1tsirxrKqCg

https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​EYH1B22tXlc

15. Occupy activist: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​AFNT3fzRXHY

16. How to run a blue campaign in a red district: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​cEEyhdl92yM&t=​8s

17. Progressive women candidates: https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​sBrchs0P0aU https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​ZLfm3MilSTw

Intro Endnotes

¹ https:/​/​www.​marinasitrin.​com/​about-2/​

² https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​Vpdt7omPoa0

³ https:/​/​www.​oxfam.​org/​en/​pressroom/​pressreleases/​2018-01-22/​richest-1-percent-bagged-82-percent-wealth-created-last-year

⁴ http:/​/​www.​sfgate.​com/​bayarea/​article/​Protesters-spell-out-resist-on-Ocean-Beach-10927336.​php

⁵ http:/​/​www.​umass.​edu/​resistancestudies/​related-news. The site recommends other resources for activists: https:/​/​www.​umass.​edu/​resistancestudies/​related-news

⁶ https:/​/​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​RuPy0QcTJWQ

⁷ Films about young people by country: https:/​/​wp.​me/​p47Q76-JP Women’s issues: https:/​/​wp.​me/​p47Q76-Fs

https:/​/​wp.​me/​p47Q76-CR

https:/​/​wp.​me/​p47Q76-BD

https:/​/​wp.​me/​p47Q76-mI

Chapter 1

Globalization Issues

Shanghai poster for a Harry Potter film

We are a part of a new international body politic that is developing, thanks to the Internet.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks

The new politics is not left versus right. It is globalist versus nationalist.

Stephen Bannon, alt-right leader

Activists are not an organization but a world wide web. We are the people on the threshold of changing times.

Reporter Oscar ten Houten, Istanbul

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.

Civil rights activist Angela Davis

I’d like adults to understand that in the 21st Century, young people are thinking big and have a huge amount of knowledge that can be useful, due in a large part to the Internet and the globalization it has brought about. I also would like them to think outside the box a little more, as so many (including my parents) think that school-uni-job is the only way to go.

Will, 18, m, Australia

Contents: Globalization and Neoliberalism, Hybrid Cultures, Global Media, Global Discrimination, Global Power Shifts, Constant War, Global Organizing

Globalization and Neoliberal Economics

Global problems seem overwhelming now that neoliberal capitalism with its unregulated markets rules worldwide, inequality is increasing, the climate warms and the world’s population is so interconnected. Increasing inequality caused by the economic system is the main problem addressed by activists today. In response, some give up on changing corrupt governments and create co-ops and other local utopias. Others form new political parties working in the system, as in Greece, Spain, Mexico, and the US. On the right, resistance to globalization led to Brexit, the rise of elected dictators, and the presidential victory of Donald Trump. Resist! focuses on providing models of direct democracies and solutions to global problems such as climate change, as well as tactics for how to be successful changemakers. Your reports on what works for you are welcomed.

Researchers like Erica Chenoweth report that when only 3.5% of the population is mobilized, change occurs.¹ It’s hopeful that successful social movements since the late 1700s succeeded in moving the bar towards democracy:

•the French Revolution,

•the American colonies uprising against British rule,

•abolition of slavery,

•the suffrage and the women’s rights movements,

•the Populist movement against the power of Wall Street in the late 1800s,

•labor organizing for the New Deal programs to ameliorate the Depression of the 1930s,

•the Civil Rights movement,

•peace activists in the anti-Vietnam war movement,

•the farmworkers’ movement led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta,

•the LGBT movement,

•immigrant Dreamers,

•the latest version of the women’s movement in #MeToo that deposed powerful male abusers

•the student-led Never Again movement for gun control.

This chapter outlines global problems tackled by changemakers around the world. The overwhelming trend shaping today’s world is globalization, according to 17 leaders of the largest student-run international organization, AIESEC:

Globalization is this generation’s hallmark, with free flow of markets, capital and products; easier travel, instant connections, and rapid urbanization as more than half of world population lives in cities and towns [Economist Jeffrey Sachs predicts urbanization will rise to over two-thirds of the world’s population by 2050]. The result is economic and cultural integration on a scale never before seen, with a tremendous impact on every aspect of life.²

The AIESEC students—typical of educated members of their generation—believe a state of paralysis exists in solving global issues because the world’s institutions are ineffective. These young leaders point out that one super-economic power dominated the last two decades. The US influences global politics through international institutions like the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. AIESEC leaders believe these organizations are failing because of control by the US and UK. They advocate democratic regional organizing by youth because, Youth have a role in developing innovative new solutions that will change the global landscape and focus on more globally relevant solutions.

AIESEC advocates that youth must come to the forefront with electronic media because: These future leaders have immense potential to mobilize the masses, and be the major stakeholders and policymakers of the future, and cross generational divides. As an example of this leadership, by tracing the transnational production and selling of t-shirts in a global economy, international finance professor Pietra Rivoli’s Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy (2006) relates how college student activists made changes. They pushed manufacturers to embrace environmental responsibility by making shirts with organic cotton and using wind-powered spinning mills. Thus, globalization and youth activism can join together to be a positive force for change.

In England, Sam Bowman, 24, says his generation is more cosmopolitan because of their Internet use, so a young Londoner is more likely to be concerned about Mumbai than Newcastle.³ They are also less hostile to migrants, and more in favor of gender equality and gay rights than older generations in the UK. Rachel, 16, also British, has a more negative view: Our generation is fairly screwed because it was born at the birth of the Internet. We’re sort of left in its wake and have suffered with all the lost jobs, lost money and negative changes.⁴

The term globalization became widely used in the late 1980s, defined by geographer David Harvey as time-space compression. Information, media, music, technology, goods, people, diseases, pollution, memes, and cultures quickly spread around the world, leading to global interdependence. The pace of change increased with industrialization and belief in liberalism in the 19th century and the global spread of free-market capitalism by the 20th century via US cultural and economic imperialism. Trends like the spread of McDonalds’ fast food restaurants that modify US menus to fit local tastes or hip-hop in various languages are referred to as glocalization.

In one of his 21 books about how to uproot the system and build a better world in an era of global crisis, Subcomandante Marcos summarized the two directions of globalization (he changed his name to Galeano and retired in 2014). This famous spokesperson for the Mexican Zapatista rebels defined the alternatives as, The one from above that globalizes conformity, cynicism, stupidity, war, destruction, death, and amnesia. And the one from below, that globalizes rebellion, hope, creativity, intelligence, imagination, life, memory, building a world where many worlds fit.⁵ Galeano explained, Neoliberalism is the chaotic theory of economic chaos, the stupid exultation of social stupidity, and the catastrophic political management of catastrophe. Mexican Zapatista leader Major Ana Maria said in a speech against neoliberalism and the modern god of conformism, of doing nothing, of cynicism, of selfishness, that people are saying Enough! Thousands of small worlds from all five continents are…beginning the construction of a new and good world, in other words, a world where all worlds fit.⁶

Marcos/Galeano called the struggle against neoliberalism the Fourth World War, following the Cold War. The US has been at war for 222 years out of 239 years of its history and spent $5.6 trillion on the military since 2001 when US troops entered Afghanistan, including the cost of social services for veterans.⁷ The US has around 800 bases in foreign nations, as discussed in Base Nation (2015) by David Vine. This means every US taxpayer has spent almost $24,000 on wars. The emotional cost of the thousands of deaths of soldiers and civilians is not included. US troops are currently involved in anti-terrorist operations in at least 76 nations (but more US high school students are killed in school shootings than soldiers were killed in battles in 2018).

This is in an era of rapid change with global problems including climate change, terrorism, war, pandemics, AIDS, sexism, racism, ageism, human and drug trafficking, refugees, migration, and diasporas. Inequality between poor and rich increases despite the recovery from the recession of 2008 as big economies grow, partly due to rising oil prices. Writer Graham Peebles lists evidence of human suffering: half the world lives on less than $2 a day; 22,000 children die each day from poverty-related illnesses; 900,000 people commit suicide each year and millions suffer from depression and anxiety.⁸ Politics, education, and media are manipulated to enforce conformity, lack of independent thinking and emphasis on consumption of branded items and lifestyle. At the same time, millions are impoverished and many don’t even have clean water to drink and enough food to feed their malnourished children (discussed in Chapter 3). Professor Robert Kuttner asks, Can democracy survive global capitalism? His response is, Today’s capitalism is both undemocratic and antidemocratic. Post-capitalist democracy, with new forms of a social economy, could survive and even thrive. It is admittedly a long shot, but our only shot.⁹

Hybrid Cultures

Globalization leads to blended cultures and new identities. Youth use music and clothing styles to form subcultural identities, sometimes in opposition to the dominant culture, like the hippies, punks and bikers’ counter-culture groups. The global youth culture movement is called liquid modernity by Polish scholar Zygmunt Bauman in his book of that title (2000). The dialogue between global and local traditions is what scholars variously call hybrid, creole, bricolage, transnational, and hyphenated cultural influences on identity.¹⁰ The documentary film Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night (2005) explores call centers where Indian telemarketers attempt to sound American, showing the hybrid effects of globalization, as does Remote Sensing (2001), a video about prostitutes who are trafficked across the globe. Examples of globalization of popular culture include the Chicago Bulls basketball team’s popularity in Brazilian slums and in African villages. Hip-hop music is sung in local languages around the world in opposition to some Muslim clerics who teach that modern music is sinful, while consumption of American fast food is popular with local variations. I’ve seen McDonalds and KFC in most of the countries I’ve visited, except for Tibet.

Some scholars focus on the intersectionality of influences on our identity and culture, drawing from feminist methodology and its recognition that our identities are shaped not only by gender, but also by race, nationality, sexual orientation, age, and religion. Australian scholar Rob White points out that recent sociology of youth recognizes that youth identity is complex, malleable, multiple and hybrid.¹¹ My photograph of a graduate student in Upper Egypt illustrates these hybrid influences: She’s wearing four layers of hijab to cover her hair, along with makeup, and a shirt that reads A Sexy Dress: Spiral Girl Products.¹² A Latin American example of hybrid culture is portrayed in the documentary Favella Rising (2005), about a young Brazilian named Anderson Sá. He evolved from affiliation with drug dealers, who are usually killed in gang wars or by police before they reach age 25, to providing young people with activities and identity based on AfroReggae music and culture. He explained, Through music we changed our reality and With music and culture a new movement exists. The musicians in his video mention global influences including Caribbean reggae, New York hip-hop, and the Hindu concepts of karma and Lord Shiva who brings change through chaos.

While global influences affect lifestyles everywhere via ICT and the expansion of the middle class and its aspirations, local environments color these trends. Regional differences are influential such as the power of clans and militias in Libya, economic power of the military in Egypt, the organizational strength of labor unions in Tunisia, anarchist history in Spain, the Greek debt crisis, and privatization of education in Chile. German professors Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim argue for a cosmopolitan sociology to replace a universalistic general one, to analyze a multiplicity of global generations that appear as a set of intertwined transnational generational constellations.¹³

SpeakOut student Kaoutar (28, f, Morocco) reports on generational differences in response to globalization:

My generation is more open-minded with an international vision based on national thinking. In contrast, my parents’ generation were nationalists limited to their family and to the interests of their native country. Today, we are living in an era of globalization, a world where everything is in a constant changing and everything is possible. Thus, we are in the obligation to adapt our lives, present and future, to interact with the whole world and all generations by respecting them but also by expressing our own ideas without any fears.

We are in a period of time where everything is going fast, our lifestyle, education and also communication. Our generation is powered by new technologies, used to be connected instantly without any barriers. We are enjoying easier and more comfortable lives and appreciating our parents’ moral and financial support. Thus, my parents’ generation had harder lives impacted by wars and crisis.

Migrants and Refugees

The global north must be prepared that the global south is on the move, the entire global south. This is not just a problem for Europe but for the whole world, warned Sonja Licht of the International Center for Democratic Transition.¹⁴ Globalization is made possible by advances in transportation and communications, spread by over one million people who work in foreign countries. About 232 million people were international migrants in 2013, according to the UN’s Envoy on Youth. Globally, 232 million people lived outside the country where they were born in 2013 and over 22 million refugees had to leave their countries by 2018: less than 200,000 were resettled by 2017.¹⁵ Syria is the home of the largest number of refugees, followed by Afghanistan. Migrants usually maintain close ties with their country of origin and send information and money back and forth. The refugees change the countries where they find refuge, including igniting anti-immigrant nationalist parties in Europe and Trump’s attacks on immigrant animals. Migrant squatters in abandoned buildings, like those in many European cities, represent a new kind of cosmopolitan disobedience, as they don’t pay rent or taxes. Some scholars view migration as a kind of social movement that contests nation states, national boundaries, identities, and inherited privileges.¹⁶

Youth are more mobile than older people and more willing to move to labor-shortage areas. About 27 million young people leave their homelands to find jobs abroad each year and these migrants in search of work or safety spread ideas and cultural practices.¹⁷ About 20% of youth aged 15 to 29 were willing to move permanently to another country in 2015, with the highest rates of migration in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.¹⁸ Some young migrants are part of the brain drain from countries with high youth unemployment, such as in southern Europe. In 2013, 28% of international migrants were from ages 15 to 24.¹⁹ Migration can be liberating for girls (46% of the migrants are ages 15 to 24) who are able to escape early marriage and other constraints.²⁰ Many other young people attend schools and universities in other countries; especially numerous are Chinese and Indian students. Youth are around 20% of international tourists who add to the mix of cultures.

Most refugees are women and children: UNICEF estimates that nearly 50 million children are refugees, meaning that one out of every 200 children in the world is a refugee, an amount which doubled from 2005 to 2015.²¹ Half of these refugees are children, including over 100,000 unaccompanied minors who applied for asylum in 78 countries in 2015.²² The refugee children who can’t go to school are called the lost generation who have to work to help their families buy food. A British NGO called Save the Children created a film to show what it would be like if an English girl was a refugee and how much more attention she would get.²³ The UN set up an Internet platform where young migrants can share their experiences and a video shows the problems faced by recent immigrants to Sweden.²⁴ The documentary Dalya’s Other Country (2017) shows what it’s like for a 14-year-old Syrian immigrant and her mother to adjust to living in Los Angeles.

Refugees mainly flee from drought and the seven ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and South Sudan. They also escape from conflicts in southeast Turkey, the Sinai Peninsula, and northeast Nigeria. Some leave war- or gang-ravaged countries in the Middle East, Africa and Central America in what is the largest refugee crisis since World War II. The UN High Commission for Refugees reported in June 2016 that more displaced people and refugees exist now than ever before, with over 65 million people mainly from three countries. Syria (almost five million refugees), Afghanistan, and Somalia account for half of the refugees, as documented in films.²⁵ (Graduate student Michael Boampong wrote reports for the UN about these migrants.²⁶)

Using their cell phones, suffering people see photos that give them hope that Europe will be a better home, leading to culture clashes as millions of refugees enter Europe. More than a million refugees traveled to Europe early in 2016, and 80,000 arrived by boat during the first six weeks of 2016.²⁷ They suffer great hardships, as many drown at sea and some women and girls are raped and trafficked. In 2017, 171,635 migrants and refugees reached Europe by sea while 2,784 were thought to have drowned.²⁸ (Estimates are that 33,761 migrants died or went missing between 2000 and 2017 on the world’s deadliest border, the Mediterranean Sea.²⁹) The numbers diminished in 2018. Experts predict that climate change will send 200 million more refugees to Europe by 2050; the documentary Years of Living Dangerously (2016) explores the impact of climate change on human migration. It explains that boys and men are leaving rural areas because their farms can’t sustain them due to erratic weather patterns.

Refugees don’t just go to Europe. Amnesty International reported that over 65 million people were forcibly displaced by warfare by the fall of 2016 and most are housed in developing countries. About 63,000 minors fled Central America for the US from 2013 to 2015 to escape from gangs and sexual assault, although many were sent back. President Trump based his campaign and presidency on attacking immigrants, especially from Mexico, Central America, Haiti and African countries. He asked why aren’t there more immigrants from Norway, which happens to be a very white country.

Migrant struggles are an equality issue, although Greek activist Hara Kouki pointed out that, similar to race and gender issues, migrants’ rights are viewed as secondary. She created a map of racist attacks in Athens called The City at a Time of Crisis.³⁰ Sociologist Carlos Delclos said at the Global Uprisings conference in Amsterdam in 2013 that, Migrant rights in fortress Europe are the dividing line for all anti-fascist struggles, but social movements haven’t done much to tackle this problem. Love means we’re willing to take risks for other people, he said, as we’re all migrants. Neighborhood assemblies in Barcelona, where Delclos lives, are working with about 3,000 unemployed African workers without official status who squatted in an abandoned factory. They created an informal city with shops, bars, and restaurants but received an eviction notice in 2013. If undocumented, they don’t get health care. A similar story is playing out in Amsterdam in another squat occupied by Africans. In Bologna, Italy, the XM24 squat also supports migrant activism in its On the Move Project developed by a youth community-organizing group called the Migrants Coordination. Squatting International provides a global perspective on squats.³¹

Global Media

The glocal approach looks at how local influences interact with the main message of global culture--be a consumer. Youth spend much of their time with peers in school rather than with family and elders, and ICT also spreads new ideas. Globalism spreads media almost everywhere, enabled by ICT. Almost a third of the youth in 30 countries are digital natives who have been online for at least five years.³² SpeakOut student Anna (18, f, Ukraine) observed, My generation is more technologically addicted and less determined by the future. We live in the world where anything can happen and the opportunities are unlimited; the information is spread in a finger snap. The previous generation takes more time to adjust and make a decision, therefore it makes them less flexible. However, almost 4.4 billion people don’t have access to the Internet, most of those live in developing countries, and at least 1.8 billion Web users live in countries that censor the Internet.³³

Youth are more exposed to global consumer culture than their elders but have the fewest resources to partake in it although they’re constructing a postmodern youth culture. Yuan, a Chinese SpeakOut student, grew up watching US media, and calls himself a Third Culture kid. As a graduate student in Finland, he observed, "Finland is very Americanized. So many TV shows they know like Grey’s Anatomy, America’s Next Top Model, CSI, South Park, and Once Upon a Time." He also watched some of these shows growing up in China. With globalization, narrow categories like class and national developmental stage are modified, as global media creates more fluid and mixed influences on users combined with their local culture. Youth are often innovators, bringing global popular culture to their local networks. They adopt and initiate new global trends in their localities, such as hip-hop music that originated in African American neighborhoods in New York City is now sung in many local languages.

Describing what shapes their identity, the World Youth survey respondents reported that their global humanity (81%) is more influential than their nationality (70%), ethnic group (53%), or their religion (43%). Most of the 25,000 World Youth surveyed in 2010 expressed satisfaction with the age in which I live, especially Indian young people.³⁴ People ages 16 to 29 in 25 countries have a new consciousness that they sometimes refer to as the hive mind, brought about by globalization’s electronic communication that creates a global flow of emotions. Resonance and viral infection describe how culture and the style of uprisings spread around the globe. The editor of the World Youths study predicted that youth’s global consciousness will replace class and national consciousness, perhaps leading to a Western-influenced humanist cosmopolicy. Respondents said their education and profession are the most important influences shaping their personal identity, especially in emerging countries. The survey reported that in most countries a majority of youth believe that what happens in the world has an impact on their lives, with the exception of young people in Finland, Romania, Morocco, Israel, and India.³⁵ Another sign of their international outlook, youth are more likely than their elders to trust the UN and other international organizations.

A proliferation of media sources makes youth aware of the lies and moral failings of political, religious, and business leaders. Accused of being moral relativists and narcissists, Millennials see that opposing claims of moral truths can’t be trusted so they tend to look at values as an individual choice, discussed further in my How Global Youth Values Will Change Our Future (2018). For the same reason, they don’t trust large institutions such as government or religious groups, although they want their governments to take action to improve education and alleviate poverty. Instead, they trust and value individual relationships with family and friends. They can be called the Egalitarian Relationship Generation, as expressed by Sneha (16, f, India): Our generation mostly values friends higher than family, which has both positive and negative sides. We also know how to live and not just merely survive. But in that process we have lost all the worth we had for health and wealth. We also don’t know what real love is.

Global media also enables young people to be inspired by innovators in various countries (more in Chapter 10). Lainey (14, f, Maryland) said, I’m influenced by global media by seeing people supporting things they care about, and that’s what I want to do. I want to stand up for what I believe in. Kamakshi, a young Indian law student (17, f) told me, Global media is the only means to stay aware of what is going on 100 miles from us. It is the lifeline in today’s world. Being an Indian, I’m still excited about the presidential elections in the US. Global media is the best way of staying connected. (Our video interview is on The Global Youth channel.)³⁶

From Pakistan, youth leader Hassan (18, m) observes,

I think the society today is getting vibrant. The media has come in play which is helping a lot in spreading awareness about global issues such as women’s empowerment, less violence, political awareness, etc. People have access to each other due to technology we get to know about the whereabouts of each other. People want to see a change in the country. For that change, the youth is the key. When I meet new young people, I see a hope in them. They’re so thoughtful, full of energy and abilities.

Transnational youth activism is often organized through electronic networks and loose alliances, rather than the older brick and mortar hierarchal and bureaucratic organizations criticized by young activists. Canadian student activist Andrew Gavin Marshall notes youth are using the technology which in one sense had enslaved us to obscurity and apathy…to mobilize and organize more than ever before…against a global Mafiocracy to create democracy.³⁷ He said they realize the global implications of their activism. An important progressive international organization is the World Social Forum, first held in Brazil in 2001 to counter the elite’s World Economic Forum and an offshoot of the alterglobaliztion movement. Its purpose is to bring activists together to discuss and strategize alternatives to capitalism.³⁸ They believe they are the world’s largest gathering of activists and social movements.

The Internet provides a way for grassroots movements like the World Social Forum and Avaaz (with almost 46 million members by 2017) to organize cyberactivism. It enables groups like the Institute for Global Communications and NetAction to support social movements and radical think tanks. Examples of other large international groups connected by the Internet are the Independent Media Center, Food Not Bombs, and People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights--described on their Facebook pages. The new arms race is not military but economic—the race to connect to the most markets and Internet cables, states Parag Khanna in his book Connectography (2016). He believes, Connectivity is the most revolutionary force of the twenty-first century. Mankind is reengineering the planet, investing up to ten trillion dollars per year…linking the world’s burgeoning mega-cities together.

Informed by the news media, national pride gets involved in cross-national comparisons as when Egyptians told me their honor was offended by little Tunisia beginning the Arab Revolutions. Greeks were motivated by a false rumor that Spanish activists had posted a banner, Ssshh, the Greeks are sleeping before the demonstrations started there. A Greek activist named Filippos said a few days before the Syntagma Square occupation, Yes, I got really angry. I said, ‘These stupid Spaniards, who supported Franco for fifty years and were only dancing flamenco and eating tapas, they are mocking us.’ And now they gather in their thousands, and what are we doing? Nothing.³⁹ This illustrates the role of emotional identity and national pride in expanding a social movement through social media.

Global Discrimination

Discrimination on the basis of race, religion, social class, gender and sexual orientation is common around the world. When I taught workshops in Japan over a five-year period, people who had a Korean parent told me they had faced discrimination since childhood, even though they didn’t look different, just had a Korean last name. Gaijin, the word for foreigner, is scornful. The word was used to describe me when I did something unusual, like have my feet stick out from the blanket on the futon where I slept. In Ethiopia, Yoseph (15, m) suggested we could abolish racism by tolerating our differences and working as one. To tolerate our differences we must accept that all humans are created equal. Influenced by the Third Wave feminist emphasis on intersectionality, recent protests adopt that as a theme. For example, leaders in the #NeverAgain movement started in response to a school shooting in Florida in February 2018 also speak out against racism. High school senior David Hogg is careful to use their white privilege to make sure violence against young people of color is discussed nationally (discussed in Chapter 7). In a gesture to intersectional influences, senior Emma Gonzales identified herself in Harper’s Bazar as Cuban and bisexual.⁴⁰

Racism

We stay under the same sky, so we are equal. Stop racism!, advocates Viola (18, f, Italy). A Facebook photo shows a young woman in hijab holding a sign, Hoodie or Hijab; Racism is Racism. I’m Iraqi & I want justice for Trayvon, the black teenager who was shot in Florida by a neighborhood vigilante in 2012. In South Africa, Mabena (18, m) is optimistic about progress, observing, Our parents grew up in an era of racism where they feared one another (blacks and whites), but we live in a united generation. However, all the students in his high school in the rural northeast are black. I asked Jeanette about her observation of racism because she lived in his area for seven years when she (a white American) was married to a black South African.

The issue of racism has improved greatly since apartheid, but the main improvements are in the larger cities, like Johannesburg and Cape Town. There is still racism and tribalism in the rural areas--tribalism is also in the large cities. In many of the big gatherings the ANC [African National Congress] holds in the rural areas, speeches given by some of the blacks include negative comments about whites. White people don’t go. I have felt from some of the black people in the rural area a sense of entitlement, resentment, and anger. I have also felt much love and acceptance from many. The younger generations are more accepting. I felt the racism in many different places I was in during the seven years I lived there. In some ways, it feels like what it might have been in the USA South in the 1950s.

Black students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa began the Rhodes Must Fall Campaign in 2015 to remove the monument to Cecil Rhodes, the white supremacist enforcer of British colonialism in 19th century South Africa and Rhodesia. Students in South Africa and the US pushed for more black theorists in the curriculum and more black professors and staff. Benjamin Woods, a Ph.D. student at Howard University, explained the purpose of the Pan African Black Cultural Revolution is to supplant white imposed definitions of reality with Black definitions of the world, therefore, we assert that Black or Pan African identity is principally a product of the Black Liberation Movement. Our common oppression is not what makes us African; it is our movement for freedom that gives us consciousness of our identity.⁴¹ Woods listed influences on the revolution as the Black Arts Movement in the US, the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

To explore current forms of racism in supposedly post-racial Obama era in the US, the film Dear White People (2014) explores white supremacy in prestigious universities that pride themselves on their diversity. It makes fun of white students at a fictitious Ivy League university who try to act black in their speech and popular culture references. The film features students embracing or rejecting their African American identity. One of the main characters is black and queer, complicating his self-definition. A white student describes the main character, a mixed race girl named Samantha (called Sam) as what would happen if Spike Lee and Oprah had some sort of pissed off baby. Sam expresses her views on racism and identity on her radio show that gives the film its title. The worst campus racism viewers are shown is a fraternity party where guests are asked to dress as African Americans, which actually occurs on some college campuses. Tessa Thompson, the actress who plays Sam, said about the film, It’s really about identity and who you are, who you think you ought to be and who people want to you to be; I think it’s something that we all deal with.⁴² The film illustrates that racism and how we label ourselves is complex. The young writer and director, Justin Simien (born in 1983), discusses his film on video.⁴³ The low budget film was crowd-funded by Indiegogo, typical of young people’s entrepreneurship. Netflix picked up the comedy as a TV series, which evoked charges of reverse racism and other backlash from viewers. Simien pointed out the film Black Panther (2018) also generated racist backlash.

Publicity around a spate of police killings of black men in 2014 and 2015 led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US and many local groups such as The Young Voices and the Millennial Activists United in Missouri. Hip-hop entertainer and activist Tef Poe, co-founder of Hands Up United, reported it’s difficult to organize in a structured way after street protests because for the most part everyone is a rebel amongst rebels.⁴⁴ This flurry of organizing against racism galvanized university students on various campuses. In March 2015, black students at the University of California, Berkeley made 10 demands of the administration including: They should recruit and mentor black students and hire two black psychologists because they feel isolated and sometimes oppressed on campus. Starting in 2017, Black Lives Matter at School aimed to end the school-to-prison problem with a week-long school-to-justice-pipeline program to teach about structural racism, intersectional black identities, black history, and anti-racist movements.⁴⁵ The coalition advocates teaching more ethnic studies, hiring more black teachers in an era when the number of black teachers has decreased, and ending zero tolerance discipline.

Progress is indicated when ABC canceled the reboot of Rosanne Barr’s TV sitcom after she tweeted racist statements in May 2018 and a black woman won the Democratic nomination for Governor of Georgia. But, opposing the trend of denouncing racism, President Trump dwelled on Hispanics as violent gang members and called some black African countries and Haiti shithole countries. He reminded his Millennial advisors Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller how much crowds at his rallies roar when he talks about throwing Hispanic criminals out of the country.⁴⁶ The two men laughed supportively. He suggested that perhaps (mostly black) athletes who kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence should be deported although they’re citizens. He said some white nationalists at a Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstration held in August of 2017 were some very fine people and refused to condemn them for violence or their Nazi insignia.

Sexism

First Wave feminists worked to get the vote. Since the 1960s, Second Wave feminists succeeded in making the personal political, such as raising consciousness about the power dynamics of vaginal orgasms, housework, and childcare; words such as chairman when the leader is a woman; access to credit; sex-segregated job ads; legal rights; media images; access to birth control and abortion; white-male centered curriculum; school sports’ budgets; and getting past the glass ceiling. However, progress is not linear. In 2017, only 7% of all heads of state were female. Any suggestion that the need for feminist action is over is dispelled by the facts that women are more often poor and abused than men. The world’s greatest unused resource isn’t minerals, but uneducated girls and women, according to the authors of Half the Sky (2009). Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn stated that in the 19th century, the moral challenge was slavery, in the 20th it was totalitarianism, and in this century it’s violence against women. (For a more complete discussion of sexism and the feminist response refer to my Brave: Young Women’s Global Revolution, 2017).

In a reminder that sexism is alive and well globally, the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in 2014 that it’s impossible to think of equality between the sexes; that is against creation because of biological differences and God’s design. He said, Our religion gives women a place—motherhood, but feminists do not accept motherhood.⁴⁷ He equated the use of birth control with treason. This in a country that has sought to be part of the European Union since 1987 and where violence against women is increasing. Elected by a landslide to be president of the Philippines in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte stated that as mayor of Davao he should have been the first in line when prisoners gang raped an Australian missionary whom he described as beautiful.⁴⁸ He also bragged about shooting criminals, warning, It’s going to be bloody if he became president and that he would restore the death penalty.

South Carolina State Senator Thomas Corbin told the only female state senator in 2015 that women are a lesser cut of meat because Eve was made from Adam’s rib. She replied on her Facebook page that he was an idiot. When Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife criticized his leadership, he responded, I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.⁴⁹ His comment resulted in the hashtag #TheOther- Room and criticism of older men marrying girls.

Indian ecofeminist Vandana Shiva argues that capitalist patriarchy has constricted women and that we need another worldview that happens to be more alive in the sustaining and caring culture of womankind.⁵⁰ Activist Michael White, co-initiator of Occupy Wall Street in 2011, would like to see a matriarchal global political party, perhaps starting from a women-led backlash against sexist patriarchs including Putin (Russia), Erdoğan (Turkey), Duterte (Philippines), Xi (China), Jongun (North Korea), and Trump (US). He suggests, Women will make the next great social movement, in a global matriarchy.⁵¹ Currently, the most feminist smaller communities are in Kurdish Rojava in northern Syria and the Zapatistas in southern Mexico. Established countries in Scandinavia provide the Nordic Model of how to create social and economic equality and break the power of the patriarchy and the oligarchic 1%, while also encouraging private enterprise in mixed economies. Despite women’s leadership, a study of 843 protest movements from 2006 to 2013 reported that only 50 focused on women’s rights and 23 on LGBT rights.⁵² Leftist groups often say women’s issues and class inequality will be addressed after the revolution. The main protest themes were instead economic inequality and real democracy—which should include women.

Icelandic women told Michael Moore in his documentary Where to Invade Next (2016) that they thought they lived in the best country for women and that when at least three women join a board they change its culture for the better. They think about all the stakeholders rather than just their own personal gain. In Iceland they care about the group, the WE, compared to the ME in the US. They couldn’t live with themselves if their neighbors suffered the way the poor do in the US. During the economic crash of 2008, the only bank that didn’t fail was a woman’s bank. They wondered if Lehman sisters would have avoided the crash. Unlike the US, the guilty male bankers were jailed in