Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 08:32:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Nathan Newman <newman@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: THE NATION: Drop the Prop (187 that is)
To: Nathan Newman <newman@garnet.berkeley.edu>


(Hi all, this article talks about the Dec 10th protests and the 
electronic organizing from the 187resist list --Nathan)

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From THE NATION, January 9/16, 1995

"Drop the Prop"

        by Rose George


        "One, two, three, four!  We don't want your racist law!"  Even 
before they start chanting, the college students who marched against 
Proposition 187 on December 10 seem to have gotten their wish, as the 
California initiative lies blocked in a federal court.  But the 
anti-immigrant message underpinning 187--and the recent mass high school 
walkouts in California--still inspired more than 3,000 students to put 
down their term papers and take to the streets to mark the first National 
Day of Action for a nascent student movement.  Rallies in San Francisco, 
Philadelphia, and Amherst, among other places, rounded off a week of 
teach-ins and vigils, sit-ins and protests at more than twenty campuses 
across the country.
        In four frantic weeks at the end of the term, student 
organizations managed to mobilize an impressive array of people around an 
issue that, when not dismissed as merely "Latino," is seen as 
California's problem.  To be sure, the Mexican flags were flying in 
solidarity with the "victims of 187," but the louder message of the 
marchers was the one that got the feet on the street: Bigotry has no borders.
        "This is one of the most multicultural gathers of student 
activists that I've ever seen," said Swarthmore College professor Meta 
Mendel-Reyes as she surveyed the packed Free Quaker Meeting House in 
Philadelphia, where 500 students from eight colleges had gathered to 
protest 187's racist scapegoating.  Day-Glo antennae, mocking the 
demeaning term "alien" waved from brown, black, white, Republican, 
Democrat and anarchist heads.  Statements read out from students 
organizing in Madison, Boulder, Ann Arbor, Austin and Chicago were signed 
by groups as diverse as the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Bryn Mawr 
Republicans and the Grassroots Queers.  Clearly, the discriminatory ethos 
of 187 (embodied most recently in the Republican's proposed welfare 
reform bill) hit a raw nerve among more that the "immigrant" solidarity 
groups.  "One eighty-seven is an issue that transcends racial and ethnic 
distinctions," said University of Texas student Sheila Contreras, "and a 
LOT of people are angry."
        Channeling this fury into coordinated action has been possible in 
large part because of the information superhighway.  Diverse though they 
may be, these students have a couple of things in common: access to free 
e-mail and enough Internet savvy to know how to use it.  When Nathan 
Newman of U.C. Berkeley's Center for Community Economic Research set up 
the "187resist" list (an electronic discussion group using e-mail), he 
was astounded at the response.  Set up on November 20 with the Bay Area's 
Movimiento por los Derechos de los Immigrantes, "187resist" had 500 
subscribers within six days.  Accordin to Newman, who is involved in a 
project to get Bay Area community groups and labor unions on-line, this 
was an unprecedented rate of response for a progressive list.
        Equally astounding was the way the list served as a primary 
mobilizing tool.  "E-mail lists have definitely assisted organizations in 
the past by spreading info," said Newman.  "but this was the first time I 
ever personally saw organizing happening in real time as organizations 
formed in response to electronic messages."  On-line discussions 
mirroring the passion of dorm-room debates breathed life into dormant 
campus coalitions.  Organizing tips ("if 187 is not an issue on your 
campus, make it one!") came in info packets circulated by more 
established groups, such as Swarthmore's Coalition Against Xenophobia, 
Princeton's CAP-187 and the 187 veterans in California.
        Nor are the halls of academia untouched by the students' energy. 
Petitions and resolutions are currently circulating on the Internet, 
including an appeal to four academic professional associations to boycott 
California's conference facilities.  So far it has collected 300 
electronic signatures (to join the discussion, write to 
listserv@cmsa.berkeley.edu with the following message: Subscribe 187-L 
your name).
        Veterans of the huge Gulf War protests, the last large-scale
student mobilization, may sniff at the low numbers.  But it's early yet, 
and the ball is rolling.  Other boycotts are up for discussion; teach-ins 
and rallies are planned for next year.  If student activists continue to 
ally disgust for an increasingly vicious political culture with an 
effective use of cyberspace's immediacy; they could lead organizing into 
the next century.