The following proposal passed at the General Assembly of Occupy Boston on April 10, 2012:
The People of Color Working Group, Anti-Oppression Working Group and Decolonize
to Liberate Working Group request $1,000.00 to purchase a projector, video camera, and
screen to support educational and activism events.
The People of Color Working Group needs to do further internal education on different
issues to build solidarity, and they also want to be able to document their activism with a
video camera for further education within and beyond the OB community.
The Decolonize to Liberate Working Group is continuing to show films to deepen our
understanding of both the global impact of colonialism and its unique impact in the U.S.
context. We’re next planning to show “9500 Liberty”, a film which traces the impact of
anti-immigration legislation on a community in Virginia, as well as a film on the Indian
boarding school experience at a later date, etc.
The Anti-Oppression Working Group has a series of films they would like to do examinig
points of intersectionality among oppressions, particularly the systemic oppressions
of racism, classism, and hetero-patriarchy. In particular we’d like to begin with the
3-part series “Race: The Power of An Illusion”, especially parts two and three which
demonstrate the historical underpinnings to the racialization of wealth in the U.S. context.
We’d also like to sponsor another showing of “Inside Job” at some point, the best film to
date explaining the economic crash of 2008.
All three groups are finding that they have a shared analysis of the operation of white
supremacy and the legacies of colonialism in our Occupy movement, in the U.S. context,
and within the broader global context, hence we feel positioned to do this educational
work within OB but need equipment to share to do so.
The WGs have been borrowing equipment (most often one person’s personal projector)
but have found it’s increasingly difficult to manage the logistics of this. We believe that
dedicating equipment to these WGs will allow us to hold more events and educate more
people more quickly if we don’t have to plan around borrowing equipment. We have
overlap in membership between our groups which will make transitioning and being
responsible for the equipment less challenging. If the equipment we purchase is less
expensive than the $1,000.00 requested, we will only seek reimbursement for the amount
purchased or return funds as appropriate.
