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This is a topic started to address some questions that a few council members have with regard to language addressing the anti-oppression stance that the Longmont Green Party wishes to take, via their bylaws.They have graciously offered to discuss the issue more, now that they have been approved for recognition.
Thank you, Andrea. My name is Véronique Bellamy and I am one of the people who was integral in the creation of the Longmont Green Party's bylaws. I am working on a more formal response to each of your concerns with Josh, the Longmont Green Party's chair and we hope to have that for you sooner rather than later.
Hi Veronica,I assume you have seen the commentary about the bylaws provisions. The general request is, I believe, to remove paragraphs 2.2 and 2.2.1, or to re-word them.Thanks,Michael HaugheyJC Greens
I second the idea of re-wording or removing. The statement leaves itself wide open to the interpretation that the Longmont Greens oppose certain kinds of prejudice and tolerate other kinds of prejudice.Also, while I applaud your determination to run candidates for office, I suggest that you add some clarifications to 3.2.3 and 7.4 regarding partisan versus non-partisan races. 3.2.3. "agree to support, promote and/or endorse only Green Party candidates nominatedby this local, the Green Party of Colorado or the Green Party of the United States"Does this wording prevent party members from supporting, promoting, or endorsingcandidates in non-partisan elections? Because the Longmont Greens will not be nominating any candidate in a non-partisan local race. Can party members support, promote, or endorse, forexample, a Dem if there is no Green candidate in the race? If it should happen that aGreen Party member is nominated by the Dems, are Longmont Greens forbidden to support,promote, or endorse that candidate? This item appears to elevate party labels abovepositions and policies. 7.4. "Voting members will be responsible for endorsing candidates who are running in elections for local nonpartisan office."Political parties are not supposed to endorse candidates in non-partisan races. If the party envisions endorsing non-members of the Green Party in non-partisan races that have no Green Party member running, why are individuals prevented from doing this?
I would like to add a few thoughts to those posted by judyh: taken one step further, a candidate may run as a Green who does not really embrace Green values or who, for other reasons, is objected to by a Green Party member. Greens “should” support Greens, but that assumes that the Green candidate is truly Green AND acceptable to the individual. To make it a requirement that all Greens support all Green candidates goes too far, and can result in running poor candidates who do more harm than good. To require Greens to think a certain way also goes too far.By running good Green candidates we will not have any difficulty getting the support of true Greens. If we have difficulty, then we are not running good candidates and that is what needs to be changed, not rules to require support of bad candidates.Michael HaugheyJC Greens
Hi Véronique,[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Thank you for taking some time to explain further your chapter's bylaws. As I stated in the previous thread, some clarification of of 2.2 and 2.2.1 would be very helpful in understanding your motivations and thoughts concerning prejudice. At present, the chapter bylaws do not explicitly denounce or reject prejudice if it's not considered oppression. And by the definition the bylaws give, prejudice is not considered oppression. I find this troublesome and worrying. Prejudice is a violation of the Ten Key Values and should not be codified into any chapter's bylaws. I truly appreciate and look forward to your response as I personally seek to understand these issues and, hopefully, to allay my concerns. [/font]
Scott, the font size in your recent post is showing in my browser as 1.5, unreadably small. Maybe you could edit your post to increase the font size.
Sorry! Apparently copy and past from Word is an issue. That's okay, I can always use practice at typing 🙂Hi Veronique,Thank you for taking some time to explain further your chapter's bylaws. As I stated in the previous thread, some clarification of 2.1 and 2.1.1 would be very helpful in understanding your motivations and thoughts concerning prejudice. At present, the chapter bylaws do not explicitly denounce or reject prejudice if it's not considered oppression. And by the definition the bylaws give, prejudice is not considered oppression. I find this troublesome and worrying. Prejudice is a violation of the Ten Key Values and should not be codified into any chapter's bylaws. I truly appreciate and look forward to your response as I personally seek to understand these issues and, hopefully, allay my concerns.
Wow, with so many people responding here, I think I need to provide a response here and now. Keep in mind, this is my own personal opinion and not an official response of the Longmont Green Party. To get the easier contention out of the way, yes, the Longmont Green Party does intend to continue to support candidates running for non-partisan offices. Last year, I ran for the RTD Board of Directors and this year, I am running for Mayor of Longmont. Both are non-partisan offices and I'm hoping the Longmont Green Party will support me just as they did when I ran last year. I am a Green, I am committed to the Green Party and the fact that I am running as a non-partisan is simply a consequence of the fact that both offices are non-partisan.However, we did base our bylaws off of the Denver Green Party's and in the editing process, when we went through the part of supporting non-partisan candidates, it did seem to get jumbled in word salad. If you would like to suggest different wording that achieves our intent as stated above, I'll be more than happy to present that to the group at our next meeting. 🙂Now, while I would like to comment on our support for the non-privileged, I did promise Josh that we would release our statements with each others' approval and despite the fact that I am a politician (a fact that I continually find weird), I do honour my commitments. 🙂
Dear Friends,I must begin by thanking you for making this conversation possible. I believe this dialogue is an important one, and though it concerns matters that excite visceral reaction from all of us, it’s proof of the integrity of the Colorado Green Party that we’re able to talk to each other in spite of this.I regret that my earlier comments on §§2.2 and 2.2.1 of the Longmont Chapter Bylaws were made in haste and were for that reason more emotional than logical. Upon further consideration, I have identified two aspects of these Sections of the Bylaws that I find objectionable and have detailed these concerns in the paragraphs below. In the first, I take issue with the wording of §2.2.1 because, as it is written, this provision makes an unclear statement of its objective and, I believe, makes our Party vulnerable to undue criticism from the wider public. In the second, I have tried to explicate why it is more advantageous for an anti-oppression party to remain guiltless of committing the same logical crimes as historical racists, misogynists, &c. than to merely reject the claims that will ineluctably be made of reverse racism, misandry, &c.In my reading of §2.2.1, the author has made a justifiable and preemptive rejection of claims that the beliefs, aims, and activities of the Longmont Chapter of the Colorado Green Party constitute reverse racism or misandry. The purpose of making this statement of rejection, namely on the grounds that the charges of reverse racism and misandry are “false” and are often employed to “derail social justice movements” is a purpose I can identify with. I am left to wonder, however, at the wisdom of including this language in the Bylaws of the Chapter because, if this provision is meant as a rebuke to political enemies who wrongly conceive Green motives, then it is an impotent provision—the political enemies who level accusations of reverse racism and misandry against the Chapter won’t care one jot for the rejection set down in the Chapter’s Bylaws and they will still use unsavory characterizations to “derail” the Chapter’s arguments and to subvert the Chapter’s ends. What then remains for §2.2.1 to provide? The author’s desire to enshrine explicit rejection of the rhetorical stone so often lazily shied at social justice movements has instead provided enemies of social justice with easy ammunition. How long will it be before someone points out in The Times Call that in order to prove themselves innocent of reverse racism and misandry, the Longmont Chapter of the Colorado Green Party has had to redefine what’s odious about prejudice in terms of capacity to oppress? It seems unnecessary to lash together these two ideas, anti-oppression and explicit rejection of lazy arguments.The second point I wish to make is the more important one: while I deeply admire the Longmont Chapter’s commitment to solidarity with the oppressed, and while I fully support their self-definition as an anti-oppression party, I do not agree with the idea that combat with racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, &c. is most advantageously conducted by limiting the definition of those evils by parameters of institutionalized ability to oppress. Clearly racism against people with white skin is a vastly lesser problem in society than racism against people with brown or black skin. Clearly our efforts as a party and as human beings must be directed to rectification of those most urgent evils. But prejudice against people with white skin is still racism and deserves condemnation Prejudice against men is still as logically inconsistent as prejudice against women and likewise deserves condemnation. If the Longmont Chapter wishes to defeat accusations of racism, or misandry, or prejudice against any privileged segment of society, then all that is required of them is the acceptance of the moral responsibility to not judge, simplistically, whole elements of society. There is no “reverse racism” only racism. There is no acceptable prejudice, only that which deserves our stalwart hatred. If we take care with our views, and express them with the scrupulosity they deserve, they will be self-evidently not “reverse racism” or “misandry”. It is absolutely vital that in battling these monsters we do not become monsters ourselves.I urge the Longmont Chapter, as a friend and ally, to reconsider §§2.2 and 2.2.1, and the latter of these in particular. Being anti-oppression and anti-prejudice are not mutually exclusive. If the Chapter wishes to state that they prioritize resistance to prejudice compounded by institutionalized oppression, I would support wholeheartedly such action. If the Chapter wishes to include in their Bylaws explicit rejection of “the false ideas that are used to derail social justice movements, such as reverse racism and misandry” I would also wholeheartedly support this action. But not on the pretext that “reverse racism and misandry” are false ideas because one group of people suffers oppression in a way that another does not. Rather, let us see these false ideas as what they are, demonstrably incorrect because we, unlike true racists and true sexists, do not condone sweeping judgements of whole peoples.
Véronique, part of the problem with the wording as it exists is the confusion over nominating candidates for races. In non-partisan races, the political party factor is not supposed to intrude. Candidates volunteer to run, and they collect signatures from local voters who thereby nominate the candidates to be listed on the ballot. The political parties are not the nominating entity. The political party to which a candidate belongs will not be indicated on the ballot by a letter after his/her name. Multiple candidates of the same political party may compete for the same office. There is no Democratic Party nominee, no Republican Party nominee, no Green Party nominee. There are only citizens who decide to run and who collect enough signatures from local voters to meet the requirement for being listed on the ballot. The statement in your by-laws that the Longmont Greens will nominate candidates for non-partisan races is therefore inaccurate. The Longmont Greens may very well encourage their members to run for office, and members of the Longmont Greens may very well sign nominating petitions that candidates carry around. But the Longmont Greens as a political party will not nominate any candidate for a non-partisan race.
Véronique, you also have some rather restrictive language regarding the ability of Longmont Greens to support candidates. Political parties do like to pressure their members to contribute money to and speak in favor of the party’s official candidates, at least in public. But in non-partisan races the political parties do not have official candidates, and in some races there will likely be difficulty recruiting Longmont Greens to run every time a seat is up for election. Maybe you won’t have a member who lives in the election district. Maybe you won’t have a member who is qualified for a specialty office like district attorney or coroner. So consider what your members will do if there is no member of the Longmont Greens in a particular race, for whatever unavoidable reason. Political parties sometimes specify that their members cannot publicly support another party’s candidate if the member’s party has a candidate in the race, but members are free to support the candidate of their choice if their own party has no official candidate. Even under the most exacting standards of fidelity, I don’t see it as a betrayal of the party to vote for a decent Dem or a qualified Repub when there is no Green running.
Is the Longmont Green Party still planning to address concerns about the anti-oppression language in the by-laws? If so, http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power has a helpful review of the origin of the notion and some discussion on various sides of the issue. It's well worth the read.
Please excuse the lateness of this response.For reference, here is the part of the bylaws that this discussion thread refers to:2.2 The Longmont Green Party’s expression of the 7th and 8th Key Values, as well as of the Third Pillar of the Green Party (Social Justice) causes it to declare that we are an anti-oppression party, actively dedicated to the work of challenging white supremacy, cissexism and heteropatriarchy. As such, expressions of sexism, racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and other oppressive behaviors are not in keeping with the values of this party. 2.2.1. Further, the Longmont Green Party explicitly rejects the false ideas that are used to derail social justice movements, such as reverse racism and misandry. While prejudice may exist against white people, against men, against cisgender people, against heterosexual people (or any other privileged group), this prejudice is not oppression because there are no institutional power structures designed to disenfranchise these privileged groups.These expansions of the key values has led a few council members to disagree with these statements. We'd like to expand the thought and motive behind these declarations to hopefully bring some clarity.How standing against oppression is neither “divisive” nor “negative”The creation of these bylaws was a group effort. While we did adopt much of the language from the Denver Green Party, we discussed our anti-oppression stance at length when adopting our bylaws and we all agreed that supporting attempts to derail any progress towards social justice (such as the false oppression language used to advocate misandry, reverse racism, etc) would be counter intuitive to the Ten Key Values.The Green Party recognizes our nation’s real history, not its idealized historyWhite supremacy and racism are at the very root of this country’s history, laws, and government. From our nation’s birth to the present day, white supremacy has eroded and continues to erode at our strength in common unity. The Green Party must lead in the understanding of this history, and current reality. The invention of race distinctions and the so called white race were created to divide us so that an elite class could maintain control, and economic domination. Professor Jacqueline Battalora, Ph.D has given a presentation called “Birth of a White Nation” (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riVAuC0dnP4) which explains the creation of the legal “class” of white people.)People of different races than white legally were not allowed to become citizens because of US law from the birth of this nation, Naturalization Act of 1790 (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790), all the way up until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1952).Furthermore, some of our members, being from the south, were taught an alternative narrative of the civil war. The so-called War of Northern Aggression. "Heritage not hate" was (is) a normalized, although not valid, idea. Please read the the actual letters of secession from the Union, and remember the falseness of this normalized idea:http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.htmlhttps://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/Bigotry, (re)Branding & Our ResistanceThere are those who would stir up animus against minorities by co-opting anti-oppression language, not simply using the same old tools and labeling that is seen throughout our nation's history. As we discussed above, the ideals of the Confederacy are not wholly denounced in the South, but are commonly romanticized with slogans such as “Heritage, not Hate” and claiming that flying the Confederate flag is a homage to their history. The re-branding of bigotry using new labels such as “white pride”, “stop white genocide”, “heritage, not hate”, etc. are an attempt to revive the ideas of white supremacy and to recruit people into movements such as Richard Spencer’s “Alternative Right”.“Stop white genocide” (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zMzeKBEvaQ) is a sample false narrative of oppression. "White genocide", is not a reality, and not a valid declaration of oppression. It is simply the old rhetoric of “purity of the races”. This is an example of exactly what the Longmont Green Party refuses to be a platform for, and also openly rejects. The normalization of hate speech disguised as the free speech of the oppressed, is very much rampant today, and we know how to identify it and will not tolerate it.Conclusion: The Green Future of LongmontWhat our by-laws state is that we are an anti-oppression party. We are opposed to the oppression of all people. We also recognize the existence and intentional creation of socially divisive structures by a ruling elite in order to distract us from the work we need to do to make our world more just, equitable and green. We also recognize prejudice exists against privileged groups, but are only making a distinction between prejudice and oppression. Nowhere are we advocating prejudice against any group (that was quite a stretch for a member of the council to allude to). We are a party of equality in a nation that is unequal by design. To all who believe the said section of the bylaws advocate racism or prejudice, please consider this response.We look forward to working with all of you in the important work we have before us.Thank you,The Longmont Green Party
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