Equity Conference Merges Solidarity and Healing Through Connectedness

Following a tumultuous and historic year of strikes across the nation and global unrest with local impact, the speakers at this year’s Equity Conference focused on solidarity and healing through connectedness and collaboration.

The annual Equity Conference – a project of the Council for Racial and Social Justice – is a celebration of CFA’s shift to becoming an anti-racism and social justice (ARSJ) union. Several members presented sessions, including members of our Womxn’s Caucus, Palestine, Arab, and Muslim Caucus, and Librarians Committee.

In his welcome message, CFA President Charles Toombs expressed excitement for what was to come. “The Equity Conference has become a real joyous occasion where we can really center our work around racial equity and social justice issues,” he said.

In recognizing that racism and white supremacy persist within the CSU and beyond, many of the speakers discussed the historical origins of whiteness and white supremacy.

Dr. Jacquline Battalora, a professor at Saint Xavier University and former Chicago police officer, examined racial prejudice and bias in her presentation.

For the past few centuries, the legal system has reflected the interest and perspectives of those who see themselves as white, even though there is no genetic basis for this thing we call “race.” For Battalora, race is ultimately about power, and it’s used as a reason to divide us. “Whiteness,” she says, “has been done to all of us.”

For Colin Woodard, a New York Times bestselling historian, Americans have always had two competing stories of who they are.

One story explains that Americans are committed to the inherent quality of humans, their rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and representative government. Another story argues that only Anglo-Saxons have the liberty to practice democracy, subjugation, and slavery. Woodard asserts that this latter story is ethno-national and an inherently authoritarian vision.

In her investigation into a repressive modern-day caste system in America, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson finds inspiration in the act of migrating. “Migration is about freedom,” she says, “and how far people are willing to go to achieve it.”

For Wilkerson, if we wish to dismantle the racist and damaging caste system, we must find commonalities with each other as we move towards structural challenges. For her, not only is it awe-inspiring to look back at our ancestors who had to migrate and carve out a path for their children and grandchildren, but it’s also an opportunity to seize the commonalities between one another.

For CFA members, resistance is an everyday act that we must perform to address and combat racism, sexism, trans- and homophobia, and white supremacy.

The Womxn’s Caucus welcomed our siblings from the Ya Basta Center to share the incredible resistance efforts. In the Shero Week of Action, over 50 janitors – dressed up as Wonder Woman – marched to the Capitol. Their actions ultimately led to the signing of the Janitor Survivor Empowerment Act that would require janitorial employers to provide in-person training in preventing sexual violence and harassment.

Free people read freely. With the current and historical attempts to censor books, our Librarians Committee offered ways where we might protect our freedoms to inquire, learn, and express ourselves.

CSU Bakersfield Librarian Ginny Barnes explained how, at a banned book giveaway event, attendees responded to the following prompt on a whiteboard: “It’s not banned books, it’s banning _______.” Eager participants began filling the board with words like “love,” “culture,” “growth,” “freedom,” “joy,” “knowledge,” “humanity,” “empowerment,” and “expression.”

Artist and theologian Tricia Hersey offered an intersectional approach to resistance and care that couldn’t have come at a better time. In her interactive session, she asked attendees to simply hold their space without having to think of some end gain. “Rest is resistance,” she said. “It is a political refusal against capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and ableism.”

June “Jumakae” Kaesith, a professional artist and wellness consultant, led two soothing workshops, one focused on meditation and another on movement. In our busy lives, we can often feel overwhelmed by the state of the world. Kaesith invited attendees to calm their turbulent waters within and allow the flames within their bodies to become gentle fires that warm them.

In their struggles as a Black trans woman, journalist, author, and podcaster, Tre’Vell Anderson reminded us that we can never forget to include the cheerful moments. “Most of what we have as the archive of trans representation in media are trauma stories. It’s not always as beautiful of a moment for us. The reality is we need to continue to tell the story of struggle, strife, and trauma. But despite all the trauma I have gone through in my Black trans life, there is a whole lot more joy and laughter,” they said.

American Sign Language artist Brandon Kazen-Maddox delivered a powerful session on radical empathy and inclusion.

“We are the ones who define ourselves,” said Kazen-Maddox. “It is not about knowing your place in a community, but rather about finding it.”

CSU Channel Islands Students for Quality Education intern Angelmarie Taylor, shared how her experiences as a Black student being surveilled and controlled is commonplace. In one semester, Taylor was pulled over 12 times by University Police. “They call it ‘routine,’ but it’s not. It’s racism,” said Taylor.

In the aftermath of a series of protests, marches, and rallies, the dean of students began stalking and surveilling Taylor. In one instance, the dean produced an 11-page report on everything that Taylor did during a campus action. “Every time I said a word, she wrote it down. If I stood in a spot for three minutes, she wrote it down. Reading this investigation report was incredibly violating,” said Taylor, during a session on student and faculty suppression at CSU campuses.

Management’s disturbing behavior ultimately culminated in Taylor’s abrupt and unexplained disenrollment from the university. For one month, Taylor could not access her online course materials. CFA members got involved and Taylor was eventually reinstated though no reason or apology has ever been given for her disenrollment.

During her talk, Avriel Epps, a computational social scientist, explains how AI and machine-learning technologies can and do harm marginalized communities.

Epps offered examples of certain negative societal biases of race and gender that are contained within these technologies, and how they can especially harm young people who only know of a world shaped by data-driven technologies.

“Machine learning and AI should not only work equally well for all people, but all technology should aspire to support a larger goal of social equity and ultimately transformative justice,” said Epps.

In his documentary, “Reimagining Safety,” filmmaker and author Matthew Solomon explores how policing and incarceration create death and destruction for marginalized communities and society at large.

The documentary sheds light on the incorrigible nature of policing, and that the very institution was born out of slave patrols. One interviewee asserted that police have always played a central role in propping up a status quo that has winners and losers, and that police serve as a tool for maintaining the advantages of the winners.

On Saturday, Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., highlighted for attendees that collaborating for the common good must go hand in hand with having a deep love for one another.

Glaude, a New York Times bestselling author and Professor at Princeton University, reminded conference goers that new conflicts will continue to arise, but we must struggle for the world we want.

Glaude calls us to be better people as we struggle together. “We must become the kinds of people democracies require,” he said. “No matter how vague the invocation of love may be, it remains the one force that transcends the differences that get in the way of our genuinely living together.”

Equity Conference session recordings will be posted over the next several weeks. For those videos, resources, and materials, visit the Equity Conference webpage.