Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.

As a student and educator enmeshed in the Imperial Academy, I find this story particularly heartbreaking. I’ll be teaching at least one of the banned books this semester. In attacking ethnic studies, Arizona seeks to prevent any possibility of liberation coming from the education system and instead demands that schools fulfill their historical function of conditioning compliance with the establishing capitalist order. Dr. Cintli puts it as follows:

This is not simply a book-banning; according to Tom Horne, the former state scools’ superintendent who designed HB 2281, this is part of a civilizational war. He determined that Mexican American Studies is not based on Greco-Roman knowledge and thus, lies outside of Western Civilization.
In a sense, he is correct. The philosophical foundation for MAS is a maiz-based philosophy that is both, thousands of years old and Indigenous to this continent. What has just happened is akin to an Auto de Fe — akin to the 1562 book-burning of Maya books in 1562 at Mani, Yucatan. At TUSD, the list of banned books will total perhaps 50 books, including artwork and posters.
For us here in Tucson, this is not over. If anything, the banning of books will let the world know precisely what kind of mindset is operating here; in that previous era, this would be referred to as a reduccion (cultural genocide) of all things Indigenous. In this era, it can too also be see as a reduccion.

I hope – and assume – my comrades in Tucson are planning dramatic direct action against the white-supremacist culture warriors in the state government. Love and solidarity to all those in the struggle. I recommend a popular takeover of schools and other government buildings.

‎The fight against white skin privilege also requires the rejection of the vicious identification of North Americans as “white” people, rather than as Welsh, German, Irish, etc. as their national origin. This “white race” designation is a contrived super-nationality designed to inflate the social importance of European ethnics and to enlist them in the Capitalist system of exploitation. In North America, white skin has always implied freedom and privilege: freedom to gain employment, to travel, to obtain social mobility out of one’s born class standing and a whole world of Eurocentric privileges. Therefore, before a social revolution can take place, there must be an abolition of the social category of the “white race.” … These “white” people must engage in class suicide and race treachery before they can truly be accepted as allies of Black and nationally oppressed workers; the whole idea behind the “white race” is conformity and making them accomplices to mass murder and exploitation. If white people do not want to be saddled with the historical legacy of colonialism, slavery and genocide themselves, they must rebel against it. So the “whites” must denounce the white identity and its system of privilege and they must struggle to redefine themselves and their relationship with others.

Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, The Progressive Plantation: Racism Inside White Radical Social Change Movements (2011).

          White-privileged folks within the transhumanist community would do well to take this argument seriously. Our at least nominal interest in making ourselves rather than blindly following established traditions lends itself the rejection of whiteness Ervin, Noel Ignatiev, and other radicals demand. In my experience, too many attempts by white-privileged people to transcend race involve a denial of racism and/or cultural appropriation. The radical position present a more fruitful way forward. Undoing whiteness requires committed political struggle against the existing oppressive order and white supremacy in all its permutations.

The judge, who found grounds to withhold 10 percent of the district’s monthly state aid until it comes into compliance, said the law permits the objective instruction about the oppression of people that may result in racial resentment or ethnic solidarity.

“However, teaching oppression objectively is quite different than actively presenting material in a biased, political and emotionally charged manner, which is what occurred in (Mexican-American Studies) classes,” Kowal wrote.

The judge said such teaching promotes activism against white people, promotes racial resentment and advocates ethnic solidarity.

It looks as if they were doing something right in Tucson schools and white supremacists got scared. This court ruling reflects the growing levels of panic and reactionary ideology amongst white Americans.  Note Kowal’s classic employment of objectivity and rationality as rhetorical bludgeons.

I write this post from the Starbucks at Union Station mere hours after the festivities ended. The experience has left me simultaneously hopeful about the possibilities of the transhumanist movement and overwhelmed by its absurdity. Our dreams of body and society transformed via technology become almost unintelligible when read through the lived realities of the present day – especially for those of us on the margins of capitalist industrial civilization. Torn jeans and toes peeking out of worn-out sneakers defined the bus ride here from the cozy conference hotel in Marina del Rey. Through the lens of inequality and impotence, I perceive a wealth of productive tensions in the ideological foundations and material dynamics in effect at Extreme Futurist Festival 2011.

The event featured an eclectic mixture of themes, aesthetics, and political positions broadly united under the umbrella of culture and technology. Speaker topics ranged from the neuroscience of vision to polyamory. Ian Midgley‘s presentation on Open Source Ecology appealed the most to me. The decentralization and democratization of the means of production would prove a great boon to creating revolutionary autonomous communities. Here we find a point of convergence between the communist anarchism I advocate and the libertarianism that permeates the transhumanist scene. The interest in independence and innovation I encountered from XFF participants resonates with me and stands out as an site for collaboration. We can at least agree on the vast negative utility caused by state coercion and above all corporate-government collusion;  the Occupy Wall Street movement made various appearances and received significant sympathy.

However, the transhumanist emphasis on creating alternative systems rather than engaging in social struggle to dismantle the existing order comes hand in hand with a problematic conception of power.  I suspect Michael Anissimov and company underestimate the importance of established oppressive hierarchies. Access to technology, information, and physical resources remains profoundly limited for almost all of us.  The project of escaping inequality through personal empowerment and open-source entrepreneurship strikes me as primed for failure. I enthusiastically support the spread of knowledge and spirit of creativity but consider these things utterly insufficient to undo the nightmare of heteropatriarchal capitalism I walk through daily. How can we forge a parallel society when the bosses control the bulk of the world’s wealth and jealously defend their dominance with extreme force? In the absence of massive solidarity networks, seasteading seems doomed to either serve the interests of corporate and elite sponsors or succumb to violent repression at the first spark of promise.

The all-to-human details of XFF highlight the chasm between transhumanist visions of post-scarcity playgrounds and the our contemporary powerlessness. Unsurprisingly, in practice transhumanists function rather like anybody else. Michael doesn’t have comic-book superpowers just yet. When I walked to the location of the XFF VIP party on Friday morning, I performed the role of biological alarm clock for the event organizers. We made signs for merchandise that nobody bought with sharpies and sheets of paper ripped from notebooks. The plan to cook a meal for the pool party foundered for lack of funds. Because of student debt and arguably neurosis, I had to get by on the bags of walnuts and pecans I’d brought with me. My mind raced through the fascinating conversations I’d had at the party and my stomach growled as I hoofed it the three miles back to the CouchSurfing host I was staying with.

The fun last night concluded with a drunken romp through the Courtyard Marriott. We hummed in unison, channeled energy through crystals, and sang slurred Christmas songs in Michael’s room. Once an ultimatum came from the hotel security, we scattered to the hot tub area only to be evicted again. Under the influence of alcohol, XFF attendees started to resemble the bro culture they earlier criticized. Despite the notable embrace of queerness and feminism, there’s still plenty of straight white dudeness to work on in the transhumanist scene. Our reliance on the labor of the hotel staff and unseen workers across the globe to make this sort of technological conference possible went completely unacknowledged and unexplored.

Because CS hosts frown on surfers stumbling in at the wee hours of the night, I found myself without a place to sleep when the curtains finally closed. Thanks the generosity of fellow attendees, I ate and socialized at an IHOP until about 4am. Only then did I trudge to a bus stop and take a long trip back to downtown LA with a bunch of homeless folks. Here at Union Station, the driver hustled eir sleepy passengers out of the bus. What does transhumanism mean to people on the street and those toiling to facilitate our speculation? Apart from millionaires like Ray Kurzweil and Peter Thiel, does the movement have even a sliver of the material power required to turn fantasies into reality?

I share this story and raise these questions with twin intentions of entertainment and constructive criticism. I thoroughly enjoyed XFF 2011 and extend my appreciation to the organizers and performers. In an echo of Kim Solez’s aspiration to mass appeal, I encourage the transhumanist movement to engage more substantively with workers, local community, and social justice activism. Let’s continue to expand this compelling conversation.

P.S. I’ve tons to write about but no time to do it. Expect a flurry of posts once I get a breather.

If a household gets a washing machine you never hear the family member who used to do the laundry complain that this “puts them out of work.” But strangely if a similar situation occurs in society, it becomes a problem – unemployment – which can only be solved by inventing more jobs for people to do. While proposals to shorten the work week or for more government and corporate spending, seem at first sight to address the matter rationally. But such proposals only help to reinforce the illusion that most present day work is normal and necessary. The absurdity of 90% of existing job is never mentioned.

In a sane society the elimination of all the absurd jobs that serve no real purpose and the ones that directly and indirectly exist to promote and protect an organization of society that only benefits the top 1% could reduce the necessary task to such a trivial level. If we continue with the current system (with further outsourcing and automation) there will never be enough work for everyone.

We need to create another form of society, one in which people will decide on their own activity and production rather than being slaves to the “needs” of the economy. This is obviously a huge project, and the first steps are overcoming our isolation and submission (the number one weapon of the present system). At our occupation we are encouraging every one to join us and to organize themselves in order to continue and extend the struggle.

This comes from flyer printed by a local comrade who wishes to remain anonymous. This is the sort of economy transhumanists should take as a goal. The majority of toil arises from a production and distribution scheme that is profoundly irrational for the common good.  We can do so much better.

Editor,

The aggression from UNM and state police against Occupy Albuquerque early Monday morning falls into a long tradition of colonial violence that began with Christopher Columbus in 1492. The expelled group included Native people and homeless folks, two populations specifically targeted by the city government here in Albuquerque and across the nation. Police harassment based on racial profiling is a daily reality on the street, as witnessed by the volume of discrimination complaints currently levied at the Albuquerque Police Department. Because of this context, it’s especially offensive that UNM chose to act at the start of Indigenous Day. They must have been celebrating Columbus Day instead.

My heartfelt support goes out to the Occupy Wall Street and Liberate Albuquerque movement. We should take this as an opportunity to recognize that the United States is an occupied territory and has fundamentally illegitimate foundations because of the dispossession of Native communities as well as the use of enslaved African labor. Colonialism isn’t merely history but a dynamic that profoundly shapes the present world. The country remains economically divided by race, with people of color possessing vastly less wealth than those part of that club of privilege known as whiteness. In like fashion, people of color continue to be excluded from other forms of status such as official educational achievement. The global situation of imperialist mass murder and sweatshop production presents even starker contrasts. This white supremacist social order isn’t remotely acceptable and must be abolished immediately if not sooner.

We cannot possibly establish justice and end economic inequality without addressing colonialism head-on. I encourage everyone to resist the horrific system by whatever means they can. Oppose police brutality, racial profiling, and policies that criminalize poverty. Reject U.S. imperialism. Tell UNM to terminate its complicity in the colonial project by stopping the harassment of the homeless, annihilating institutional racism, and withdrawing from all military research contracts.

I write for myself only but seek allies. Together we can make the society we dream of.

Peace, love, and revolution,
Summerspeaker
American Studies PhD Program

We don’t need more occupation – we need decolonization and it’s everyone’s responsibility to participate in that because COLONIALISM AFFECTS EVERYONE. EVERYONE! Colonialism also leads to capitalism, globalization, and industrialization. How can we truly end capitalism without ending colonialism? How does doing things in the name of “America” which was created by the imposition of hierarchies of class, race, ability, gender, and sexuality help that? I can’t get on board with the nationalism of  an “American” (or now “Canadian!”) revolution – I just can’t.  There has been too much genocide and violence for the United States and Canada to be founded and to continue to exist as nation states.

This critical analysis comes courtesy of Jessica Yee. Also check out JohnPaul Montano’s letter to the Occupy Wall Street activists. I’ve been involved in solidarity events here in Albuquerque. Love to everyone into the struggle.

The Pew Research Center found that white families in the United States now have 20 times the median wealth of black households – the greatest disparity since Pew began its surveys of net worth and race more than a quarter-century ago.

Hispanic families don’t fare much better than do blacks. Their median wealth is 1/18th that of whites.

Beware: Cheering the open incorporation of queer bodies into the imperialist project implies support for its horrors.