thank you patrick for bringing up the current status of our efforts at creating an inclusive space. i basically ask myself these kinds of questions constantly (performing constant temperature check of things like "how boys-clubbish does sudo feel right now?" and "if i were a person of color, would i feel alienated if i walked in right now having never been here before?" "is this a place where a non-gender-normative person would feel comfortable being themselves without having to answer for who they are?", etc.). so, i agree with you that we are not living up to the standards that we've set for inclusivity. while we are doing a better job than many other hackerspaces, in my mind, if we do not reflect the community of Oakland in our diversity, then we have room for improvement. *so everyone, what are the conditions that contribute to us currently not meeting our inclusivity goals and what can we do to start meeting them?* *what can we all be doing to make the space more inclusive and welcoming?* - marina ps - i wanted to share with everyone some inspiration for the kind of sudo room that i'd like to see. it's a creative/hackspace in chattanooga that's run by a library that was basically given over to innovation-oriented folks to run carte blanche. i think that it is a space with more or less complete community ownership (meaning that it's not seen as fringe or niche...it's seen like the library.."a place where everyone just goes")..that would be pretty cool @_@ about the space: http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/ really interesting news piece about how it happened: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/aug/11/rock-star-librarians/?entert… pps - i agree with patrick that we have a lot of positive feminist energy. we work very hard at this and although there are still times when things are boys-clubbish and there are barely any women in the space, i feel that our community overall is invested in ensuring that we have a space where women have an expectation that they will be treated as humans (an expectation that many women don't have in many places in the world!). my perspective is that this commitment from the community is what it really takes to solve problems of inclusion because it means that we have a number of people who are invested in coming up with solutions when things are exclusive. now how to maintain this and make it better and expand it for everyone :) On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 8:02 AM, Patrick Schmidt <psbschmidt(a)googlemail.com>wrote;wrote:

wow, i love this list... thank you sooooo much for speaking up, patrick and marina; it isn't negative to be honest. yes, we want to celebrate that the foundations of sudo room resist sexism and value "diversity" (no small thing!)... but yes we have to do more, we always have to do more. as white individuals we need to take responsibility to educate ourselves and listen to people's experiences without defense. as organizations... well, it's very slippery because groups of white people are actually the foundation of racial oppression. people are killed, neighborhoods destroyed, land + animals + environment ruined so that white people can be together. how does a group of mostly white people challenge their own entitlement to exist --- especially when dealing with their own legal, economic, and group oppression (heterosexism, ableism, transphobia, ageism) issues? not trying to paint a bleak picture. absolutely there are things we can and must do. but along the way we need to be doing the difficult work of changing our own minds, and seeing that even the mechanisms we use for anti-oppression work can be riddled with the language and thought process and values of the oppressor. example: the term "women of color" (which along w/ "people of color" i probly use too much) was originally a political designation (see video <http://youtu.be/82vl34mi4Iw> and learn!) and is now being used far too often as a racial descriptor. okay i think about this stuff all day every day. many more thoughts on this. so happy to see the discussion here. as far as ideas on what to do, here is a list i worked on for BACE (bay area community exchange). i feel hypocritical in sharing this because we haven't been doing any of these things as an organization. i do still feel very strongly that this is the direction we need to go. https://docs.google.com/document/d/15nxepE-LC_UUfoa-hViPTO7sxBBVsOHYxvVp29N… -amber On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Patrick Schmidt &lt;psbschmidt(a)googlemail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: -- *Animator Mama You-Tube Channel<http://www.youtube.com/user/videocabulary/videos?view=0> * *Animator Mama on Tumblr <http://animatormama.tumblr.com/>*

lots of thoughts on this! i will try to bullet-point. but first, if there's anything of real value to share in this email, it's this link<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ApaGvYT5QFGOIowvGwooCOeTEv8elAy…it>, which outlines some of the less talked-about aspects of white supremacist culture and antidotes to help organizations + individuals become aware of them and work toward alternatives. it's actually a good resource for a groups' daily operational kinds of things, real practical stuff. anthony, in response to your email: 1. i agree with you that balance must be kept. in bay area community exchange, we are usually so busy getting basic shit taken care of (or at least attempted), we ignore engaging in some of these deeper questions *together. *it is actually very powerful work to look internally as a group. but it is also scary. in my experience, the external receives the prime focus *all the time*, which is not a balance. then we are scratching our heads saying, wow why is there such a concentration of white leadership here? and following that, non-white groups and individuals see clearly that it is not their group. to be clear, i'm not advocating collective catharsis on how terrible are those of us who are white and privileged individuals. but people should be engaging in some basic "racism 101" on a regular basis. a la this pdf<http://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/catalyzin… came out of of occupy, or some links listed here <http://organizingforpower.org/anti-oppression-resources-exercises/>.* *special note: white people engaging in racism awareness is like the bare minimum, and it shouldn't be about making white people feel good, a pat on the back, being smug in knowing anti-racist stuff. 2. the first article link you shared... it actually states the opposite of what i have experienced and read and heard and basically how i think. blaming the failure of this group on the "divisiveness" argument is one that oppressed groups face all the time, and it is weak. sometimes things fall apart because a movement is still building a solid center. or because the leadership was too white and/or too male. have to be honest. not honoring and understanding divisions is a mistake. when people are asked to "table" their groups' needs for the greater good, guess who always has to do the sacrificing? this has been documented heavily in feminist histories, for example. it's especially clear when looking at white-led feminist movements, where everything from abolition of slavery to islamophobia to forced sterilization to the racial wage gap is "divisive" and somehow impeding the advancement of the cause (i.e. those who would most benefit, those likeliest not to threaten white patriarchy entirely). *right now*, it seems, is *never* the right time for raising a "back-burner" issue, one that might mean life or death for people in a movement's "subgroup." also when looking from a woman's perspective at many liberation movements that came to be dominated by males, similar stories emerge. women's needs are always sidelined, "single-issue," and of course "divisive." add to this the fact that we are all socialized to act in accordance with our identity locations, so yes people act out their proscribed role in group dynamics very often, even when there is an awareness of what's going on. engaging with this and learning from it regularly is medicinal. 3. the info on boyd was interesting. i don't think that looking at oppression internally as individuals and in groups is divisive from a strategic military standpoint. no. we are already divided. we are divided and don't even know our enemy. without incisive critique of capitalism's personal monster, white heteropatriarchy, how do we really describe our common enemy?---the force that has been dividing us all our lives, dividing us since european contact here, dividing us throughout history and empires, as you point out. but in our current situation, i don't see how working as groups to understand racism connects to this. i see trying to "look past" (i.e. ignore) our differences, be "colorblind," and just try to gain numbers for mass uprising as a strategy that falls more into boyd's vision. because that's a sure way to have our divisions eat us alive, by not addressing them. a larger movement rooted in collective liberation, the self-determination of racial groups and oppressed/marginalized groups, and the people who can really truly fight for it---this vision requires a lot of internal strength, difficult work, consciousness and love. we are not there yet. the things that catalyze us, we cannot usually control. but there are things that keep us from being ready when that time comes, and i know that fear of looking at "the enemy within" is a huge one. so much for bullet-pointing. anyway, yes to get back to the main conversation, talk about inclusion needs to also talk about solidarity. also, *who *is doing the "including" and why? and not falling into a target-marketing mentality around the issue of multiculturalism. multiculturalism isn't enough anyway, *groups of people*, not just individuals of non-white identities, need to feel safe, represented, understood, and with unimpeded access to power and decision-making. definitely more on this later, and i would love to hear more and brainstorm answers to marina's questions (*what are the conditions that contribute to us currently not meeting our inclusivity goals and what can we do to start meeting them?* *what can we all be doing to make the space more inclusive and welcoming?)* * * add'l questions: what are the current goals? and is there a recommended spot for any of the links from this email on the wiki? * * okay, time for dinner! -amber On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 7:48 PM, Anthony Di Franco &lt;di.franco(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: