Can you make it?
Black History Month presentation/discussion on African Americans in the trade union movement.
When: Monday, February 24 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Where: USW International Headquarters 60 Stanwix St, First-Floor Conference Room
RSVP: To Jamaal Craig at jcraig@usw.org or call 412-613-0909.
After hearing you speak tonight, I talked with Jamaal about the possibility of having you speak – or come to Pittsburgh as a visiting professor/researcher at Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems http://www.crsp.pitt.edu/community-service/speaker-series
I’m an Italian who really “got” what you were saying about the italian-latin-latino merging as an easy access to some votes, and easy inclusion by pick-up truck, beer drinking Bush texans. I’d like to suggest that a key ingredient to the bluing of TX, and one that’s highly creative and unpredictable is the Wendy Davis phenomenon.
I am on-board for a paradigm shift, a re-contexualization that could tack the boat enough degrees off its current course to alter the large scale results. Some wise person once said that doing the same thing again and again – and expecting different results is just one more definition of crazy – and I heard that theme throughout your talk tonight, relative to traditional labor.
When I first went into the Hill District in Pittsburgh offering the partnership of Fight Back Pittsburgh to some integrity-filled grass roots activists, the response was one of distrust – coming from a legacy of black steelworkers given the worst of jobs and few if any, positions of power. At the time I had no knowledge of the National Negro Congress and now I do. A question I was too shy to ask tonight was– in these situations, how can we honor the past-but leave it there, firmly, as we work on creating a new future? If the past of Pittsburgh unions is filled for most with racism– how do we put that conversation to rest, and create one that will empower us all? I get the urgency – I’m living it.
Carolyn
couple of rows from the front, on your right, nodding