And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 23:04:02 +0000
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Andrea Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: conference on violence against women of color
Please forward:
Upcoming Conference
The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color
April 14-15, 2000
University of California, Santa Cruz
The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color will bring together
activists whose work challenges violence against women of color to explore
and strategize around the relationships among racism, colonialism, and
gender violence in the lives and histories of women of color. The purpose
of this conference is to analyze the connections between sexual and
domestic violence in communities of color and the political and economic
structures of violence nationally and globally. This conference will
explore the ways in which colonization is itself an act of sexual violence
directed against colonized communities. This conference will also analyze
the ways in which modern capitalism is constituted through the sexual
exploitation of women in the Third World and women of color in the US, as
evidenced by the global trafficking of women and the super-exploitation of
female labor in multinational industries. The Color of Violence will also
explore the relationship between the prison system and sexual/domestic
violence.
Conference Themes
Women of color live in the dangerous intersections of gender and race.
Within the mainstream anti-violence movement, women of color who survive
sexual or domestic abuse are often told that they must pit themselves
against their (violent) communities to begin the healing process.
Communities of color, meanwhile, often advocate that women keep silent
about the sexual and domestic violence in order to maintain a united front
against racism. Clearly, women of color must find a way to transform these
practices within both anti-racist and feminist movements around issues of
violence. The Color of Violence will provide an opportunity to develop
analyses and strategies toward both goals: first, challenging violence
within communities of color, and second, shifting the focus of the dominant
anti-violence against women movement away from a purely gender-based politic.
This work is timely and important because, increasingly, mainstream
anti-violence advocates are demanding longer prison sentences for batterers
and sex offenders as a front line approach to stopping violence against
women. However, the criminal justice system has always been brutally
oppressive toward communities of color. The Color of Violence will explore
alternatives to relying solely on the criminal justice system for
addressing sexual and domestic violence in order to minimize harm to
communities of color. Furthermore, since most women in prison are women
of color, the conference will also examine the relationship between the
sexual exploitation of women in prison and sexual violence against women
outside of prison.
The relationship between the criminal justice system and the media has
proven particularly deleterious to communities of color. Take, for
example, the narrow but pervasive media messages surrounding the O.J.
Simpson and Mike Tyson cases, both of which portrayed men of color as
categorical perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence. Simpson in
particular became the archetypal black male predator of white women. In
each of these national discussions about sexual and domestic violence, the
criminal justice system was depicted as society's protector from the
violent proclivities of black men; from each of these national discussions,
the perspectives of women of color were noticeably absent. The Color of
Violence will explore the ways in which the media perpetuate the
victimization of women of color both by portraying them as silent and
powerless and by shutting them out of the national discussions that affect
them. This conference will also examine attempts by several artists to
intervene in mainstream media practices by developing
counter-representations of women of color and violence.
The Color of Violence, however, will not only highlight the contemporary
experiences of women of color and their relationships to gender violence,
but also explore topics that histories of US colonialism have typically
neglected: the ways in which gender violence shapes the very processes of
racism and colonialism and assists in oppressing communities of color. We
wish to analyze the relationship between personal and institutional
violence in the lives and histories of women of color. Religion is a
particularly important topic because religious oppression has always
involved a high degree of gender violence, especially in the Americas. On
the other hand, religion and spirituality can also serve as the foundation
for resistance to colonization. Related topics include the ways in which
sexual and domestic violence operate in attacks on immigrants' rights and
Indian treaty rights, the proliferation of prisons, militarism, economic
neo-colonialism, and institutional racism. We will also seek to broaden
understandings of gender violence to include analyses of the ways in which
the very bodies women of color have been and continue to be colonized,
especially through the attacks on the reproductive rights of women of
color, medical experimentation on communities of color, and biocolonial
attacks on indigenous communities through such projects as the Human Genome
Diversity Project.
Keynote Presenters:
Angela Y. Davis. Co-founder of Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison
Industrial Complex
Haunani Kay Trask, Ka Lahui Hawai'i
Speakers confirmed to date:
Anannya Bhattacharjee: Founder of Sakhi - a South Asian battered women's
shelter; Former Director of Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence.
Kum Kum Bhavnani: Co-editor, Women of Color Series, New York: Routledge.
Current work addresses women in prison.
Chrystos. Author of several books of poetry which address sexual violence
in Native communities. Her titles include Not Vanishing, Fugitive Colors,
Dream On, and Fire Power.
Kimberle Crenshaw: Author, Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that
Formed the Movement. Author of several essays that address violence
against women of color.
Ines Hernandez-Avila (Nez Perce) Professor of Native Studies, UC Davis
Isabel Kang: Founder of KAN-WIN, a Korean battered women's hotline.
Mimi Kim: Long-time activist with the Asian Women's Shelter, which
provides shelter Asian American battered women.
Nantawan Lewis: Author of forthcoming book on Thai women and sex tourism.
Beth Ritchie: Domestic violence activist. Author of Compelled to Crime:
The Gender Entrapment of Battered Black Women.
Loretta Rivera (Seneca): Domestic violence activist
Luana Ross (Salish): Author of Inventing the Savage: The Social
Construction of Native Criminality.
Neferti Tadiar: Professor of History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz
Janelle White: San Francisco Against Women
Sherry Wilson (Ho Chunk Nation): Women of All Red Nations
TENTATIVE PROGRAM
Friday
Keynote Speaker: Angela Davis
Respondents: Luana Ross, Neferti Tadiar, Ines Hernandez-Avila, Kimberle
Crenshaw
Saturday
Plenary Session: 9:00 - 10:45
Workshops: 11:00 - 12:45
US Colonialism and Violence Against Women of Color
Law Enforcement & Violence Against Women of Color
Challenging Feminist Theory and Practice on Violence
Media/Cultural Representations of Violence Against Women of Color
Lunch: 12:45 - 1:45
Plenary Session: 1:45 - 3:30
Workshops: 3:45 - 5:30
Breaking the Silence on Violence in Communities of Color
Religion, Spirituality, and Violence Against Women
Violence Against Women of Color and the Global Economy
Colonized Bodies of Women of Color
Dinner Break: 5:30 - 7:30
Cultural Performances and Literary Readings: 7:30 -10:00
Closing Keynote: Haunani Kay Trask
For More Information, contact:
Andrea Smith
123 Felix Street, #4
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
831-460-1856
831-459-3733 (fax)
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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