 August 2005
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Jaime Lederer Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Editorial material in Peacework is published under a Creative Commons Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Gustavus Myers Anti-Racist Book Award Winners The books below received recognition as the outstanding anti-racist books of the year 2004 by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 617/521-2171, lorewill@myerscenter.org. The category of each award is followed by the title. Organizing for Racial and Economic Justice: To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City by Martha Biondi, (Harvard University Press 2003). The history recounted here challenges the conventional timeline claiming that the US civil rights movement began in the South in the mid-twentieth century. This book recounts the grassroots organizing and radical demands advanced by civil rights activists in New York City during and after WWII. Anti-racism Organizing: Building a Race and Immigration Dialogue in the Global Economy: A Popular Educational Resource for Immigrant & Refugee Community Organizers by Eunice Hyunhye Cho, Francisco Arguelles, Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, Sasha Khokha, (National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights 2004). Written to help organizers facilitate meaningful dialogues between people from different backgrounds, this resource book promotes constructive dialogues about racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, language barriers, anti-immigrant bias, and more. Feminism: Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux, (Norton 2004).
This ground-breaking biography of a cultural
icon unearths the complexities embodied in the life of the noted
poet, essayist, and activist Audre Lorde. DeVeaux writes of Lorde's
evolving perspectives on her Caribbean roots, her outsider experiences
in school, her sexual orientation and romantic adventures, her
marriage and children, and her relationships with various writers
and activists. Racial identity: It's Test Day, Tiger Turcotte by Pansie Hart Flood, Author and Amy Wummer, Illustrator, (CarolRhoda/Lerner Books 2004). In this children's book, a seven year old boy anxiously anticipates taking a standardized test. Tiger must fill in the bubble on the form that asks for his racial identity. As a child whose parents are Indian and Latina, he does not know how to answer the question and honor the richness of his heritage. Both author and illustrator are commended for their creative approaches to depicting Tiger's dilemmas. Asian Americans: Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images by M. Evelina Galang, Editor; Eileen Tabios, Sumaina Maira, Jordan Isip, Anida Yoeu Esguerra, (Coffee House Press 2003). This collaboratively developed anthology of incisive fiction, historical analysis, artwork, and more is a response to a disparaging racist remark printed in Milwaukee Magazine. The book includes the originating article and letters of complaint, an analysis of why the Philippines is relatively invisible in the telling of US history, and many essays, ads, cartoons, poems, jokes, and stories describing various Asian American experiences of discrimination and resistance. Arab Americans: Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims by Elaine C. Hagopian, Editor; Susan M. Akram, Naseer Aruri, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Samih Farsoun, Kevin R. Johnson, Robert Morlino, Nancy Murray, Will Youmans (Haymarket Books/Pluto Press 2004).
Cogent analyses of the relationship between accelerated repression
of Muslims and Arabs domestically, justifications for war on Afghanistan
and Iraq, and US empire building abroad. Several authors speak
to shifts in government policy, and to the unaccountability of
government and the media. The authors speak to ways that ordinary
people can resist these attacks on all of our fundamental rights.
Homophobia: The Cold War Persecution of Gays in the Federal Government by David K. Johnson, (University of Chicago Press 2004). President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal agencies drew thousands of young men and women to clerical and administrative jobs in Washington. That urban environment fostered a gay and lesbian subculture. The book contributes significantly to public knowledge of McCarthyism, the 1950s, and gay and lesbian history. Activism: Biography: Passing It On - A Memoir by Yuri Nakahara Kochiyama, (UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press 2004). Yuri Kochiyama's memoir offers insight into social conditions for Japanese Americans, and into those alliance builders who chose to work for social justice for all who are oppressed. The reader learns about; the experiences of families torn away by the government's camps in the 1940s; raising socially conscious children; and profiles a stalwart activist's decades of work for political empowerment. Includes 90 photographs and over 30 historical documents. Education: Racism: Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities by Amanda E. Lewis, (Rutgers University Press 2004). This ethnographic study of three public elementary schools in California examines how racial hierarchies are reproduced in day-to-day lives, and how the color line is drawn and redrawn in perceptions and practices by students, teachers and administrators. Working Class: Poverty: The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler, (Knopf 2004).
Noted journalist David Shipler describes from various angles the
faces, lives and issues of the unemployed, the underemployed,
and those exploited by multiple jobs. He covers a wide range of
topics such as race, immigration, substance abuse, corporate incentives,
globalization, and more. 
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