_______________________________________________Laura notices the paucity of classes held over the last year by BAPS in the Omni. But I would ask, why should I organize classes in the Omni when I can’t guarantee to black or brown members of such a class that they will not be profiled, nor treated with disrespect? This became a serious concern after the Jericho group left. I raised it with those I could identify as having been involved in a case of profiling at that time, and never got any response. I have raised it here during the present discussion, and have gotten no response on the issue of racial profiling. Well, I guess Laura’s exclusionist proposal can be seen as the essential response.
I have been trying to get a good clear approach to the racial problem in this establishment (and I use that term advisedly) for a while now, in order to deal with it. For me, that has become a precondition for organizing more classes in it. (I have continued to teach, but not here.) With respect to the Omni elite, I chose to move slowly, so that I would not end up making statements that would effectively turn people against simply looking in the direction of a racial problem, knowing that people already didn’t want to do so. When you suggest to white people that their white racialized identity might be a problem, and that they should perhaps look in the mirror, or that their implicit bias might be a problem, a fairly usual reaction is that they turn around and walk away. The difference between the white left wing response and the right wing response is that the rightwinger will often come at you swinging. That has happened to me. (I won a few, and lost a few.) But essentially, the response is the same, a refusal (aka chickening out) from dialogue on the issue. So I felt I had to be careful.
Well, Laura has called the question on that, so there is no point in going slow any more.
I have taught many classes here in the Omni. They have ranged from race, and the structures of racialization, to the corporate structure, and questions of fascism in the US. No one of the elite of the Omni have seen fit to attend any. They were apparently not interested in that. But after all, why should they be? They had a business to run. I assumed they were simply more interested in the operation of the establishment, with no inkling that perhaps the topics I taught related to any internal problems they may have inherited from the surrounding corporate environment, with its insistence (going back to the Jamestown colony) on racialization (aka white supremacy). But I think they have now shown me that I was wrong. To raise these topics as issues invokes a reaction and response whose essential character is extreme exclusionism. Like any sect, their response is to root out the heresy.
What we face here in the Omni is a structure that has immersed itself in the corporate form, and has become seriously property-oriented. The labels that are used in Omni organization are cute, but the hierarchy, the sense of control, the need for control, the exclusionism, the property ethic, the hiding behind administrative rules, the hiding behind administrative issues, and the refusal to take responsibility for what has become an obvious product of the establishment’s operations, are the same as the corporate.
The corporate structure is necessary for an organization to handle property. That is why city governments and trade unions are organized on the coroporate model. And most people simply ignore the fact that, for cities, the corporate structure prevents them from being democratic; and for unions, it prevents them from being truly fighting organizations. Here at the Omni, we have an establishment that is more interested in money than in the ideals and topics of its humble beginnings – some of which are listed at the beginning of Laura’s desire to fire us – that is to say, her “pink slip.” Well, lets take a look at the first line.
In the first line of her pink slip, it says (quoting from a BAPS mission statement), “enlarge movement and collective understanding of the structures we face.” Precisely what I was teaching in my classes. And it was precisely what I attempted to bring into the Omni by giving space to Oakland Jericho.
But all that is outside and extraneous to the corporate structure, and what it sets at the center for itself. Insofar as that structure has taken over the thinking of the elite in the Omni, it makes it clear why none of the elite were interested in regarding, or critiquing, or rising above the corporate structure they had chosen. Cultural critique would have distracted them from their innermost desire, to become the rulers of a corporate establishment. Which is what has happened.
The corporate structure will make hypocrites of the damnedest people. I remember when the dream of the Omni was to be a center for left wing and popular resistance to the colonialist culture and the corporate state. At that time, the place was always full, and the activities were often earthshaking. Well, money put an end to that, and it did it by making it look as if money was the essential way to accomplish it all -- that is, to shake the world. And there were those who fell for it, and followed the temptation of becoming an elite.
For myself, I have my own ideas about the beauty and virtue of free education, that education for which we, like Mr. Twain, should not let school get in the way. But it became a problem when I could not longer guarantee the safety of the sentiments of any of the students who I might bring to this establishment.
Of course, the above critique only scratches the surface. But it points to a clear axiomatic foundation for Laura’s pink slip.
Actually, when our critique began, more than a year ago, it was simply the question of how to deal with a really low level of political consciousness in the Omni. It emerged when the issue of whether the CCL should or could bring in FBI agents who were working on mushrooms arose. We saw that as representing something missing in political awareness, and started a group to begin to deal with it. That group got sidetracked into the issue of banning, which was then transformed into the issue of policing conduct in the Omni. And that’s when we knew we had a much bigger problem than we thought.
Banning is the essential operation of an exclusionist perspective. And it has gotten to the point where the issue has its own guaranteed place in DA agendas. Well, the corporate structure is nothing if not exclusionist. So lets call the Laura Pink Slip form of that exclusionism what it really is, and go from there. It is repression. And like all repression, it is essentially cowardly.
Steve
On Thu, Mar 21, 2019 at 6:08 PM Laura Turiano <scylla@riseup.net> wrote:_______________________________________________Proposal to Immediately Terminate Bay Area Public School Fiscal Sponsorship Contract and Member Collective Status
Bay Area Public School was fiscally sponsored by OC to:
● enlarge movement and collective understanding of the structures we face;
● place our present activities in their relevant history;
● understand the forces of evolution acting on our actions and organizations;
● study the extant literature addressing political forms and structures, varieties of party and organization forms, the archive of movement politics and principles, and strategies of organizing;
● organize classes, seminars, workshops and educational events on the above topics;
● coordinate space for these activities in the Omni and elsewhere;
● develop syllabi, outlines, focus topics, lists of references, etc.
Since January 2018, BAPS has only held the following 4 classes:
Marx was Right Reading Group - 2-6/2018
Poets’ House - Intermittent events 2-11/2018
The East: Solo Performance Laboratory - 5-10/2018
Writing with World Stuff - 10/2018 to the present.
BAPS has made little to no effort to recruit new classes, research what kind of classes would be of interest and benefit to OC or the neighborhood community, or otherwise use OC fiscal sponsorship to develop the activities for which it was sponsored.
BAPS has made no effort to ask for donations from class participants or do any other fundraising and has made no material contributions to OC in over a year.
BAPS has had only between 1-5 active members for at least 2 years. Only 2 people have consistently attended BAPS meetings. With usually only 2 members from similar backgrounds discussing and deciding upon any proposal or issue, they only hear a very limited range of opinions. Most collectives have to reach some level of agreement between many more people from more diverse perspectives.
Currently, BAPS and its delegate are blocking the proposal to hire Jenny Ryan as bookkeeper on a temporary contract. This proposal is urgent and supported by everyone else in the organization. This block shows that BAPS does not take seriously the main duty of a Delegate to support sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management of Omni Commons as an organization.
Given BAPS minimal activities at OC, it’s lack of any unified organizing effort, its lack of support by participating members, it’s failure to fulfill its responsibility to support the continued healthy functioning of the organization, and its lack of need for fiscal sponsorship (since they collect no donations), BAPS’ fiscal sponsorship agreement should be discontinued. Per the agreement:
8. The board retains the right to terminate collection of funds for the Project at any time upon giving written notice to the Committee.
Taking into account the large workload of the Treasurer, bookkeeper, and Finance Working Group over the next several months, and the length of time the proposal to hire Jenny has been stalled, this decision should be made and enacted immediately.
Since member collectives are required to be either fiscally sponsored projects of OC or tenants of OC, termination of the fiscal sponsorship contract also ends BAPS status as a member collective.
Current or future classes that members of BAPS would like to hold can be scheduled at OC through event contracts via the Commons working group.
Should an actual collective come together to undertake similar activities to BAPS in the future, it is welcome to apply to be a member collective or for fiscal sponsorship.
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