evolution beyond survival.

i wish i had about 80 copies of no snow here #11 right now! all these fierce media making women of color and i have no zines!!!!

[video: sinead o'conner, this is a rebel song]

how come you never say you’re sorry?

mizna: seeking graphic designer

via mizna:

Mizna is seeking a Graphic Design Artist to produce the program and poster for our Film Festival to be held in October 2008. Must be able to produce high quality illustrations and print layout. Should be able to work independently but meet the deadlines that are in place by Mizna staff. Knowledge of Arab American culture and/or Arabic language preferred.

Please e-mail resume to mizna@mizna.org and please make sure to put GRAPHIC DESIGN ARTIST in the subject heading.

or send resume to:
Mizna
2205 California St. NE #105
Minneapolis, MN 55418

Mizna is a forum for Arab American art. Visit our website at http://www.mizna.org

detroit palestinian town hall meeting

via palestine office:

Calling all Palestinians who care!

Palestinian Town Hall Meeting

Friday June 27, 2008 @ 7:00PM

Featuring

live video recorded poetry by Tamim Barghouti who is “Pushing Mahmoud Darwish’s Palestinian poetry to higher orbit” and discussion to

Build for an all-inclusive US Palestinian Popular Conference

August 8-10, 2008 in Chicago

Guest Speakers Muhammad Oweis & ‘Amer Othman

members of the National Coordinating Committee of US Palestinian Conference Network (USPCN) will lead the conversation. Please join:

Friday June 27, 2008 at 7:00PM

ACCESS Office

6451 Schaefer

(Betw. Ford Rd. and Warren Ave)

Dearborn, Michigan 48126

________________________________

Held Under the theme: “Reclaiming our voice…Asserting our narrative.”

The Chicago August Conference highlights include:

●Dr. Azmi Bishara ●Archbishop Atallah Hanna

●Abdul El-Bari Atwan ●Dr. Rabab Abdelhadi

●Dr. Tamim Barghouti (Poet and Political Scientist)

Dabkeh & zajal lessons, oral history recording

Quilt-making and art exhibit by Dr. Ibrahim Shalaby

Conference is held August 8-10, 2008 at the Wyndham O’Hare, 6810 N. Manheim Rd,

Rosemont, IL 60018

Register early for discount

: www.palestineconference.org ● 1-888-nakba

the 2008 allied media conference…

• The Future of Censorship

  Presenters: Mona Eldahry, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media; Steve Pierce, Hudson Mohawk Indymedia Center; Nada Elia, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

  What does the future of “free speech,” censorship and political repression look like through an Arab/Muslim lens? While mainstream media demonizes Arabs and Muslims, independent media and art made by Arabs/Muslims is deemed terrorist propaganda. Even the expression of solidarity can be criminal. This panel will draw lessons from the experience of AWAAM (Arab Women Active in Arts and Media) whose “INTIFADA NYC” t-shirts became the basis for a racist smear campaign against The Khalil Gibran International Academy and its founding principal, Debbie Almontaser. We’ll hear from the Hudson-Mohawk Indymedia center, who’s willingness to host Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal’s “Virtual Jihada” exhibit caused the city to shut down their community space. We’ll also hear the story of why the Ford Foundation revoked $100,000 from INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence moments before their Color of Violence III conference in 2005. From each of these stories we’ll build our collective knowledge of how to prepare for and respond to a future of increased censorship and political repression in all targeted communities.

• SPEAK: Media skills trainings for women and trans people of color

  Presenters: Brownfemipower; Devorah Hill, Laimah Osman, Mona Eldahry, Jamila and Yasmin Madadi of AWAAM (Arab Women Active in Arts and Media); Kameelah Rasheed; and more TBA

  You believe it is better to speak, but which medium will best amplify your voice and reach your community? Participants in this session can move between many different stations, getting a hands on training from a woman of color media expert and picking up a new skill at each one, including blogging, zine-making, stenciling, graphic design, sewing, textile stenciling (bring a t-shirt or something), video editing and more. This session is open to all women/trans people of color of all ages and from all levels of previous engagement with media making.

• • US-Palestine Youth Solidarity Network Live Video Conference

    Presenters: Palestine Education Project, Hook Productions, MNN Youth Channel

    The US-Palestine Youth Solidarity Network (YSN) will host a live video-conference with youth in Palestine. Participants will be responding to the media they have engaged with in parallel workshops in Palestine and at the AMC. Both workshops will have introduced digital stories, music videos, radio spots, and other media created by youth in both the U.S. and Palestine and this live video conference will be a chance for them to hear each other’s thoughts and questions. YSN partners in Palestine proposed this idea so that their young members can see how the digital stories and music they’ve created during YSN workshops are used and what impact they have.

  • Culture & Resistance from Brooklyn to Palestine

    Presenters: Facilitators from the Palestine Education Project; Students from Bushwick Community High School

    Using a mixture of demonstration and discussion, this workshop will share the Palestine /Israek Education Project’s (PEP) work using media in teaching about about Israel/Palestine. We will explore ways to raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle while developing ways for youth in the US to articulate and address their own connections to colonialism, racism, and militarism. Educators and students will co-facilitate, using Palestinian hip hop videos and lyrics, digital stories made by Palestinian youth in refugee camps, radio and video pieces created by youth in Brooklyn, and clips from the documentary “Slingshot Hip Hop” to jumpstart conversations around racism, occupation, and resistance. This workshop will provide concrete activity suggestions, hand-outs, and audio-visual materials.

  • A Media-based Economy for Detroit’s Future

    Participants: Aurora Harris, Broadside Press; Ron Scott, For My People; Khary Frazier, The Michigan Citizen; Shea Howell, The Michigan Citizen; Zak Rosen, Detroit Today; Oya Amakisi, Amakisi Unlimited
    Facilitator: Lottie Spady, Free D Media

    Jennifer Granholm has earmarked millions of dollars for her “21st century jobs” initiative. Detroit is home to hundreds of independent recording studios based out of peoples basements, garages and bathrooms. Free D media (In Our Own Backyard) has instituted a program to offer media-based cooperative economics skills to displaced workers in Detroit. Motown Records was started with an $800 loan from the Gordy family “co-op”in a house on W. Grand Blvd! What kind of economic future for Detroit can we advance through independent media?

  • Black/Arab Solidarity Caucus

    How can we use media to build coalitions among black and Arab communities? What could black/Arab solidarity mean? Organizers from Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Arab American Action Network, Palestine/Israel Education Project, Arab Women Active in Arts and Media (AWAAM), and Detroit’s black/Arab solidarity group will come together in this caucus to share their work and collectively answer these questions. Everyone interested in black/Arab coalition building is welcome.

  • Slingshot Hip Hop (Sundance Film Festival 2008 Official Selection)

    Q & A following the film with members of the Palestine Education Project

    Slingshot Hip Hop braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them. There will be a discussion with the director and producers following the film.

  • and more….

the popular conference for palestinians in the “u.s.”

click here:

Your input and involvement is NEEDED to make the Popular Conference the strongest, broadest, and biggest that it can be - a powerful gathering of the community that brings together families, students, women, health workers, youth, artists, filmmakers, shopkeepers and all sectors of the community for discussion, planning, and building of the Palestinian movement and its institutions! Contact us today to get involved!

Preliminary Program for the Popular Conference NOW POSTED! http://www.palestineconference.org/program.shtml

Register Today for the Popular Conference! http://www.palestineconference.org/register.shtml and click on Register for conference!

THE POPULAR CONFERENCE FOR PALESTINIANS IN THE U.S.:

RECLAIMING OUR VOICE, ASSERTING OUR NARRATIVE

August 8 - 10, 2008 - Wyndham O’Hare - Chicago, IL

The Popular Conference will constitute a significant step towards restoring old links while building new ones. It will provide an inclusive and impartial space that nurtures our unbreakable connectedness to Palestine and the Palestinian people. It is being built from the ground up to reflect the will of the participants. Anyone can submit an application to lead a workshop - more information is available at www.palestineconference.or

g!

Registration fees include 5 meals - Friday Dinner, Saturday Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and Sunday Brunch.

Registration fees DO NOT include hotel stay. You must call the hotel directly at (847)-297-1234 to reserve your room(s).

Don\’t forget to mention USPCN to get the special rate of $89 a night, plus tax. Make your hotel reservations early since the rate will
expire August 1st. REGISTER EARLY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE EARLY REGISTRATION DISCOUNT. REGISTRATION FEES WILL INCREASE AFTER JULY 8TH.

Contact us at conference@palestineconference.org or (88 48 NAKBA or (402) 708-9605 with any questions.

U.S. Popular Palestinian Conference Network
http://www.palestineconference.org

http://www.newjerseysolidarity.org/alawda/may2007/images/popconf.gif

بدء التسجيل للمؤتمر الشعبي الفلسطيني في الولايات المتحدة الامريكية

- شيكاغو – 8 – 8 – 2008

شاركوا في صناعة مستقبلكم قبل ان يصنعه الاخرون لكم

ندعو جميع افراد ومؤسسات الجالية الفلسطينية والعربية وكل

اصدقاء الشعب الفلسطيني في الولايات المتحدة الامريكية للبدء الفوري بالتسجيل

والمشاركة في المؤتمر الشعبي الفلسطيني الاول وبهدف ضمان

أوسع مشاركة شعبية ومن كافة القطاعات والشرائح والفئات الاجتماعية

والعمرية لابناء الشعب الفلسطيني في الولايات المتحدة.

يمكنكم التسجيل من خلال الموقع الالكتروني للمؤتمر

http://www.palestineconference.org/

او الاتصال مع احدى اللجان المحلية في بلدكم- مدينتكم

رقم الهاتف الرئيسي للمؤتمر الشعبي:

(88 48 NAKBA

(402) 708-9605

120 دولار للفرد ( التسجيل قبل الثامن من تموز 2008 )

هذا يشمل الحصول على قسيمة الاشتراك وضمان المشاركة في ورشات العمل

والامسية التراثية والفنية اضافة لخمس وجبات طعام

60 دولارا للطلاب وذوي الدخل المحدود

معا نصنع مستقبلتا ونحمي وحدتنا وحقوقنا

check me out: http://nadiaaboukarr.wordpress.com/

being home

in detroit

in the summertime

feels sooooooooo

good.

i was just thinking about this and i had to write it here really quick: i have a textbook, Elementary Modern Standard Arabic, that was my mom’s when she studied arabic. it hit me a few months ago when i was pondering interracial dating and what it sometimes means for women of color to get with white men: i am a woman of color and a white woman taught me how to be a woman- how does a white woman produce an arab woman? how did a white woman teach me how to be an arab woman?  when my mom was my age she had married my dad and immersed herself in my culture - what lessons can i get from this?

questions, questions.