I Need Activism Suggestions
By • 4/25/08I haven’t gotten any activism suggestions since last month, and this makes my job considerably harder. I’ve acted on two of the suggestions I’ve gotten: the e-mail campaign to defund the National Council of La Raza and the protest of the History Channel’s King documentary. Both of those proved quite popular.
You can always submit ideas for activism through the activism suggestions page. There’s a link to it in the right sidebar of the Inverted World homepage.
One idea for activism would be to protest leukophobic TV shows and commercials. An example is Washington Mutual’s obnoxious ad campaign that contrasted a hip young black man’s “power to the people” banking ideas with the greed of stodgy old white bankers. A man named Christopher Lease, whom I don’t know, wrote a petition protesting these commercials on the grounds that they were “appalling and degrading towards myself and every white man… in the financial industry.” He actually got an apology from Washington Mutual.
Protests like this have a lot of potential. However, I’m not in a good position to gather material for them, because I don’t watch network TV, and I fast-forward through all commercials now that I’ve got a DVR. So I’d need your help with that.
Another good target for protests would be diversity training. I was thrilled to read yesterday about this protest against a “white privilege” workshop at a diversity forum. The protest actually managed to scare off the professor who was supposed to lead it.
Just imagine if every time a corporation tried to force diversity training on its employees, it received a hundred or a thousand e-mails threatening a boycott. We’re a long way from that, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t be done. So if your employer ever forces you to listen to someone’s noxious lies about white privilege or the joys of diversity, you could send us a tip, and we could let him know what the white majority thinks.
I like the way the e-mail campaigns have been going, and apparently, so do race realists in general: the campaigns have resulted in an increase in traffic to this site. According to the polls I’ve conducted, there are about 30 people now acting on Inverted World action alerts. So please help me wage the most effective protests possible by sending me ideas.
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On the University of Miami campus down here in Florida, a project called the Tunnel of Oppression came last week. It is described in the school newspaper as “a dark maze covered in images of violence and suffering deemed a ‘sensory-based experimental learning opportunity,’ through the utilization of multimedia and interactive tours.” Part of our campus was “transformed into a ‘Tunnel of Oppression’ Monday through Wednesday.”
A flyer handed out before the tour through the “Tunnel” reads:
“The program, through interactive tours, is designed to challenge people’s thoughts, perceptions and inner feelings on issues dealing with oppression and hatred. At the conclusion of the tour, students will then enter a room for reflection where they can anonymously sign a wall and visually express their reactions, as well as learn about how they can get involved with alleviating and ending various forms of oppression within their communities and beyond.”
The tour dealt with vague, stereotypical forms of oppression in the forms of “international human rights, religion, racism, classism, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues, sexual assault/body images, and children’s issues.”
While the exhibit tried to incorporate various laughable examples of “oppression” against European-Americans to make it fair, the majority of the exhibit displayed White people in a way reminiscent of the diversity training videos that show the stereotypical boorish, insensitive, guffawing white person “oppressing” the poor minority victim.
A disclaimer warns:
“At times some of the experiences may make participants feel uncomfortable. Participants can choose to ‘step out’ of the experience at any time.”
and:
“The Tunnel is meant to be an educational experience and the views expressed in the Tunnel are not the views of the University of Miami, any Department or the individuals involved.”
Multiple universities across the country have been adopting this exhibit, but it has received no major media coverage. I can find no central group that is responsible for the exhibit’s creation, but I, as a Miami student, am going to leave a comment on the news story on our school paper’s website:
http://www.thehurricaneonline.com/news/2008/04/24/News/Perceptions.Of.Oppression.Challenged.In.Tunnel-3347173.shtml
And also find a relevant person at the University to contact and express my grievances with the exhibit.
By on 4/29/08 at 12:49 pm
It’s a pretty good idea, Alex. But the thing is the exhibit doesn’t portray whites as the sole source of oppression. The “Behead Those Who Insult Islam” person from the Mohammed cartoon demonstrations is in there too, as well as depictions of violence in Africa. So it’s a bit difficult to cast this as a case of anti-white bias. Granted, the exhibit is cliched and pointless, but it may or may not be leukophobic. But I’m sure we’d all be glad to see whatever you write about the exhibit.
By on 4/29/08 at 9:12 pm
What about the Washington Mutual televion advertisements? You know, the one where the cool, suave black Wamu man outsmarts the group of bumbling, out-of-touch old white bankers. The ad campaign has been running for a few years. I’ve wanted to contact Wamu about it.
By on 4/29/08 at 10:11 pm
So that Washington Mutual ad campaign is still running? Have people seen the ads contrasting the hip, smart black banker with the greedy, stupid white ones in the past month or so? If so, we ought to protest them.
It’s these things that bother you that you’ve got to tell me about.
By on 4/29/08 at 10:31 pm
I can google up about a hundred things to protest every week. Here’s a link to the Albany Fire Dept. issue.
http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybsb&story_id=116614096&ID=blackenterprise
Albany, NY does not have enough diversity to suit the chief.
The interesting question is why don’t more whites don’t get fired up about activism? The answer is that blacks face the majority of the pain from our racial quagmire, while whites usually face only the increased costs associated with insulation from inner city problems. If we really are at peak oil this could change soon. Peak oil may bring about the integration that Robert Lindsey recommends and if this occurs whites will face the same crime issues as blacks in greater numbers.
By Quandary on 4/25/08 at 6:49 pm