Announcing the 17th Annual 2011 Anti-Racist Action Network Conference

Date:  Saturday September 17 from 3pm-10pm
Location: U.E. Hall, 37 South Ashland Ave Chicago, IL (wheelchair accessible, children-friendly, near Ashland green/pink line)
$5 suggested donation. After-party after 10pm details TBA.
Conference details at http://southside.antiracistaction.org

Chicago is hosting the 17th annual Anti-Racist Action Network conference on September 17, 2011. This event is open to the public and includes workshops, caucuses and discussions. Come meet other activists and organizations involved in community struggles against racist terror and other forms of oppression.

Featured speakers:

• Mark Clements (Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Jon Burge torture survivor)
• Daniel(Four Star Anarchist Organization) & Lash
• Bernadine Dohrn (former SDS and Weather Underground members, co-author of Race Course Against White Supremacy)
• Michael Novick (LA ARA/People Against Racist Terror)
• Xloi and Becca of Bring The Ruckus (BTR)
• More TBA

Workshop descriptions:

Militant anti-fascism by Daniel and Lash
This workshop will focus on the theory and practice of militant anti fascism. We will attempt to explain what fascism is and how it is similar to/different from other ideologies of the far right, how militant anti-fascism differs from liberal anti-fascism, how this work relates to anti-racist/anti-oppression work and how it relates and impacts other movements. This workshop will also provide some concrete strategies and tactics for combating fascism.

Michael Novick
ARA unites around principles of anti-racism, anti-fascism and anti-oppression as our political approach, non-hierarchical autonomy as our organizational approach, and miltant direct action as our tactical approach. Let's address issues of politics, strategy and tactics not commonly raised, to draw out areas for further study and discussion. Michael Novick will consider settler colonialism and white supremacy in forming class consciousness, the state, society and political groups; and the implications of anti-colonial analysis for building alliances, developing successful anti-fascist strategy, and identifying pro-active priorities in the battles we take on.

Becca Sandor and Xloi of BTR 
Becca Sandor will be presenting on the rise of anti-immigrant environmental groups. She will be speaking about the many forms these groups are taking to link population and immigration specifically and their connection to each other and other white nationalists.

Xloi will be presenting on the resurgent nativism on campuses. She will focus specifically on the campus group, Youth for Western Civilization, their ties to white nationalists and their anti-immigrant and anti-muslim organizing. She will also touch on their ties to the far right and white nationalist groups internationally.

Becca Sandor, is a member of Bring the Ruckus contact info: becca@bringtheruckus.org
Xloi is a member of Bring the ruckus: xloi@bringtheruckus.org

Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine will be speaking and having an open discussion about white supremacy and the contours of anti-racist organizing and activism.

Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic and child advocate, is Clinical Associate Professor of the Northwestern University School Law, and founding director of the Children and Family Justice Center. Dohrn was a national leader of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and the Weather Underground, and was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List for over a decade.

She is co-author, with Bill Ayers, of Race Course: Against White Supremacy, co-editor of Sing A Battle Song: Documents of the Weather Underground, and wrote the introduction to Letters from Young Activists. She is an author and co-editor of two books: “A Century of Juvenile Justice” (2002) and “Resisting Zero Tolerance: A Handbook for Parents, Teachers and Students” (2001). She and Ayers are currently writing, What If?

Mark Clements
Mark Clements, at the age of 16 years old was taken to area three violent crimes unit. Beat and tortured. He served 28 years inside prison for a crime that he did not commit. It was determine in 2009, that a motorcycle gang the "Munsters" committed the crime after a drug deal with one of the building owners went bad. Today, Mark is outreach Administrator with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Wrongful Conviction Director with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and founder of the Campaign to End Torture formers known as the "Jail Jon Burge Coalition". Jon Burge has been found guilty... now Mark fights to free those who were tortured and sent to prison as the result of Burge and his subordinates.

Anyone who wants to host a workshop, table with literature, or participate in the conference in other ways, please contact us at southsidechicago@antiracistaction.org.

For more information please see our website at http://southsideara.antiracistaction.org or email us at southsidechicago@antiracistaction.org

Check out some of the work we have been doing and supporting in the past year in our latest zine: the South Side ARA May Day Edition