Uncategorized

2012 Unmasking Whiteness

6 days ago

by AWARE-LA in Uncategorized

Download Flyer | Information Sheet | REGISTRATION | UNIVERSITY CREDIT

AWARE-LA is happy to announce we are offering our 4th annual workshop series on building white anti-racist practice and community in an intensive 4-day institute designed specifically for white people.

The institute will run from Thursday, June 28th through Sunday, July 1st, 2012 and will take place on the downtown Los Angeles, Mount St. Mary’s College, Doheny campus. The cost for attendance is only $200 (before March 31st) for the full 4-day institute. After March 31st. the cost will be $225. Special discounts are available for AWARE-LA members!

This series invites white people to deepen their self-awareness and build community with other white people taking up work for racial justice. Through personal reflection, small and large group dialogue, and experiential activities, this institute invites the exploration of subjects such as:

* The meaning of whiteness
* White privilege and multiple identities
* How to resolve guilt and shame
* Institutional racism
* Development of an anti-racist practice and identity

The registration application is available at: http://www.awarela.org/projects/2012-unmasking-whiteness/

*** University credit is available through UCCS! Read below for details! ***

Shelly Tochluk
Mount St. Mary’s College – Education Department
AWARE-LA
stochluk@msmc.la.edu
213-477-2623

*** If you are interested in receiving university credit at either the graduate or undergraduate level, please see the Projects page on the AWARE-LA website for an information sheet that describes 1) additional readings and assignments due, 3) registration information, and 3) a link to UCCS, our partnering university, (for tuition costs, application procedures, and the related, optional certificate program): http://www.awarela.org/projects/2012-unmasking-whiteness/

Don’t Filter Me!

11 months ago

by Chris Hampton, ACLU in Uncategorized

Few things shock us here at the ACLU national office, but when a student from Virginia emailed us this image a few months ago, more than one of us gasped out loud:

This was what the student saw when he tried to visit the website for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network from a computer at his school. The stop sign was bad enough to begin with, but we could hardly believe the veiled threat implied by the school’s web filtering software’s ominous warning, “Your Internet usage is monitored and logged.”

Some schools have improperly configured their web-filtering software to illegally censor LGBT-related websites such as the GSA Network and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. At the same time that they block access to websites for positive LGBT rights organizations, those schools still allow access to anti-LGBT sites that condemn LGBT people or urge us to try to change our sexual orientation. This is called viewpoint discrimination, and it’s illegal.

Beyond being illegal, when schools block access to positive LGBT information, they block information that could be vital for troubled LGBT youth who either don’t have access to the Internet at home or don’t feel safe accessing such information on their home computers.

In 2009, we took on two school districts in Tennessee over their unconstitutional web filtering policies with Franks v. Metropolitan Board of Public Education, a lawsuit that resulted in increased access to positive LGBT information for students in dozens of school districts around the state. Because we suspect this kind of illegal censorship is being practiced in many schools across the U.S., the ACLU is teaming up with Yale Law School to launch a campaign called “Don’t Filter Me” to assess censorship of web content in public high schools. The campaign asks students to check to see if web content geared toward the LGBT communities is blocked by their schools’ web browsers. Students can report instances of censorship to the ACLU LGBT Project.

If you’re a public high school student and would like to know more about your school’s web filter, check out this video showing how to test whether your school is illegally filtering content and how to report censorship:

Please note that by playing this clip YouTube and Google will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see YouTube’s privacy statement on their website and Google’s privacy statement on theirs to learn more. To view the ACLU’s privacy statement, click here.

Students who want to report unconstitutional web filtering at their schools can fill out a form at http://action.aclu.org/dontfilterme. More information on the ACLU’s work on LGBT school issues can be found here: http://www.aclu.org/safeschools.

3rd Annual AWARE-LA Unmasking Whiteness Institute, June 23-26, 2011

11 months ago

by AWARE-LA in Uncategorized

Click to enlarge

Download Announcement | Download Info Sheet| Download Registration App
Download Info: University Credit Available

AWARE-LA is happy to announce that we are offering our 3rd annual workshop series on building white anti-racist practice and community in an intensive 4-day institute designed specifically for white people.

The institute will run from Thursday, June 23rd through Sunday, June 26th, 2011 and will take place on the downtown Los Angeles, Mount St. Mary’s College, Doheny campus. The cost for attendance is only $200 when you register (before March 31st) in order to ensure that it’s accessible to grass roots organizers, students, and those without institutional funding.

This series invites white people to deepen their self awareness and build community with other white people taking up work for racial justice. Through personal reflection, small and large group dialogue, and experiential activities, this institutes invites the exploration of subjects such as:

* The meaning of whiteness
* White privilege and multiple identities
* How to resolve guilt and shame
* Systemic white supremacy (institutional racism)
* Development of an anti-racist practice and identity

Please pass on this information, our flyer and information sheet, to anyone you feel might be interested in this event. Please contact Shelly Tochluk at stochluk@msmc.la.edu for information regarding registration or if you have any questions.

Ending Double Victimization of Domestic Violence Survivors

11 months ago

by Sandra S. Park, ACLU in Uncategorized

In 2005, Congress declared: “Women and families across the country are being discriminated against, denied access to, and even evicted from public and subsidized housing because of their status as victims of domestic violence.” This was the experience of our clients Tiffani Alvera, Aaronica Warren, Quinn Bouley, “T. J.,” and Tanica Lewis, all of whom faced eviction in private, public, and subsidized housing because they had been subjected to domestic violence. Some were punished by “zero tolerance for crime” policies, even though they were the victims, and not the perpetrators, of violence. Others were blamed for the property damage caused by their abusers. In effect, these women were doubly victimized: first by the violence, then by housing discrimination.

For years, we have argued that discrimination based on domestic violence can be a form of sex discrimination, in violation of civil rights laws. We called on HUD to issue guidance explaining that this kind of discrimination is unlawful. Last Wednesday, HUD issued a memo to its regional offices describing how discrimination against domestic violence survivors can violate the federal Fair Housing Act. It stated that the following conduct can be unlawful:

facially discriminatory policies based on stereotypes about abused women (e.g., a landlord who does not accept women with a history of domestic violence as tenants because he or she believes they always go back to the men who abuse them);
unequal treatment of victims of domestic violence, compared to victims of other crimes; and
policies that disproportionately affect domestic violence survivors, such as zero tolerance for crime policies.

The HUD guidance is another step forward in ending housing discrimination against domestic violence survivors because it enables survivors to vindicate their rights. And while the guidance does not specifically address the fair housing rights of victims of dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault, the same analysis should apply to protect the housing of all survivors of gender-based violence.