Book: Color of Violence: the Incite! Anthology

Organization: 
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
Date Published: 
January 1, 2007
Link: 
http://www.incite-national.org/resources/covanthology.html

Categories

ANNOUNCING COLOR OF VIOLENCE: THE INCITE! ANTHOLOGY!

In the tradition of This Bridge Called My Back, Color of Violence is an urgent, bold, and essential intervention in the war against women of color, their communities, and, ultimately, us all.


INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, a national organization of radical feminists of color, announces the launch of an anthology of critical writings demanding that we address violence against women of color in all its forms, including interpersonal violence, such as sexual and domestic violence, and state violence, such as police brutality, militarism, attacks on immigrants and Indian treaty rights, the proliferation of prisons, economic neo-colonialism, and violence from the medical industry.


Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology presents the fierce and vital writing of 33 visionary radical women and trans people of color. These writers not only investigate the intersecting ways in which violence and oppression exist in the lives of women of color, they also map innovative strategies of movement building and resistance used by women and trans people of color around the world. Of the many topics they address, Color of Violence asks us to consider that:

  • Women and trans people of color and their families often experience police brutality, even arrest, when they call 911 for assistance in domestic and sexual violence incidents (p. 150);
  • At the increasingly militarized U.S./Mexico border, immigrant women risk sexual and physical assault by civilian “vigilantes” and border patrol officers – along with the threat of arrest and deportation (p. 120);
  • As the war in Iraq rages on and casualty rates soar, reports of sexual violence by occupying U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians and U.S. women soldiers – the majority of whom are women of color – continue to emerge (p. 116)
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Color of Violence calls on both racial justice and anti-violence movements to collaboratively “develop strategies that challenge the criminal justice system and that also provide safety for survivors of sexual and domestic violence” (p. 223). Engaging the intersectional nature of violence against women of color, Color of Violence both expands the definition of violence against women and places women of color at the center of a movement to end oppression in all its forms. The writers in Color of Violence demand that we:
  • reconsider a reliance on the criminal justice system for solving women’s struggles with domestic violence;

  • acknowledge how militarism subjects women to extreme levels of violence perpetrated from within, and without, their communities;

  • recognize how the medical establishment inflicts violence—such as involuntary sterilization and inadequate health care—on women of color;

  • devise new strategies for cross-cultural dialogue, theorizing, and alliance building;

  • and much, much more.

    •
At a time of heightened state surveillance and repression of people of color, Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology is an essential intervention. And unlike most examinations of violence against women that recast them as “victims,” this pathbreaking collection highlights the work of survivors and activists in creating strategies of resistance.

0-89608-762-X | paper | South End Press | 336 pages | $20

After successful book launches in Toronto, Chicago, New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC, INCITE! is excited to announce January 2007 book launch events in Denver, CO and Ann Arbor, MI, as well as future events in the Bay Area and New Orleans.

For more information, please contact Andrea Ritchie at andreajritchie [at] aol [dot] com or 646.831.1243.


ORDERING INFORMATION:
Color of Violence is available from South End Press.


HISTORY OF ANTHOLOGY:
This anthology started six years ago, in 2000, in an attempt to document and commemorate the first Color of Violence Conference at Santa Cruz. INCITE! hoped that those who were not able to attend could access the conference's dialogue and analysis. INCITE! thought the anthology could take the conference conversations into people's homes, educational and organizing spaces and spark needed conversations about violence against us and our communities. We also hoped the anthology could ignite the movement by providing activists and organizers with historical perspectives, analyses, and possibilities for ending global oppression. As INCITE! and the movement evolved, so did the anthology. We found it important to include examples of local organizing efforts, documenting models of resistance on the ground in order to inspire and support movement building. The "War of Terror" brought heightened attacks against women of color, immigrant and refugee women and our communities. It also brought intensified violence against the communities the U.S. has been invading. We believed that addressing these issues was vital, so we re-opened the anthology for contributions through the 2nd Color of Violence conference in Chicago in 2002. Six years later, through all of our collective determination, efforts at writing and re-writing draft after draft, and remarkable perseverance and patience, the Color of Violence Anthology is OUT and doing the work it was intended to do!


TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction, by Andrea Smith, Beth Richie, Julia Sudbury, and Janelle White (with the assistance of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence collective members)

Part One: Reconceptualizing Antiviolence Strategies
1. Rethinking Antiviolence Strategies: Lessons from the Black Women’s Movement in Britain, by Julia Sudbury
2. Disability in the New World Order, by Nirmala Erevelles
3. Federal Indian Law and Violent Crime, by Sarah Deer
4. Feminism, Race, and Adoption Policy, by Dorothy Roberts
5. The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice, by Loretta J. Ross
6. Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing, by Andrea Smith
7. A Call for Consistency: Palestinian Resistance and Radical US Women of Color, by Nadine Naber

Part Two: Forms of Violence
8. The Color of Violence, by Haunani-Kay Trask
9. Four Generations in Resistance, by Dana Erekat
10. The War to Be Human / Becoming Human in a Time of War, by Neferti Tadiar
11. The Forgotten “-ism”: An Arab American Women’s Perspective on Zionism, Racism, and Sexism, by Nadine Naber, Eman Desouky, and Lina Baroudi
12. Reflections in a Time of War: A Letter to My Sisters, by Dena Al-Adeeb
13. Don’t Liberate Me, by S.R.
14. “National Security” and the Violation of Women: Militarized Border Rape at the US-Mexico Border, by Sylvanna Falcon
15. The Complexities of “Feminicide” on the Border, by Rosa Linda Fregoso
16. INS Raids and How Immigrant Women are Fighting Back, by Renee Saucedo
17. Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color, by Andrea J. Ritchie
18. Crime, Punishment, and Economic Violence, by Patricia Allard
19. Pomo Woman, Ex-Prisoner, Speaks Out, by Stormy Ogden
20. The War Against Black Women, and the Making of NO!, by Aishah Simmons
21. The Medicalization of Domestic Violence, by Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo

Part Three: Building Movement
22. Unite and Rebel! Challenges and Strategies in Building Alliances, by Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez
23. Sistas Makin’ Moves: Collective Leadership for Personal Transformation and Social Justice, by Sista II Sista
24. Disloyal to Feminism: Abuse of Survivors with the Domestic Violence Shelter System, by Emi Koyama
25. Gender Violence and the Prison-Industrial Complex, by Critical Resistance and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
26. Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice, by TransJustice
27. “The Personal is the Private is the Cultural:” South Asian Women Organizing Against Domestic Violence, by Puneet Kaur Chawla Sahota
28. An Antiracist Christian Ethical Approach to Violence Resistance, by Traci C. West
29. Taking Risks: Implementing Grassroots Community Accountability Strategies, by Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA)
30. poem on trying to love without fear, by maiana minahal