Equity Conference 2023
From Here to There: Building the Social Justice Bridge
Equity Conference
A project of the Council for Racial and Social Justice, the Equity Conference is a chance for CFA members to connect for co-liberation. The now-annual event reflects the concerted efforts undertaken in the last several years to center Anti-Racism & Social Justice in all things CFA, beginning with the recognition that racism and white supremacy is institutionalized in our organization and a commitment to what we began calling our Anti-Racism & Social Justice Transformation.
“Solidarity is not the same as support. To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite… Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn.” ― bell hooks
The Council of Racial & Social Justice:
The CFA Council for Racial and Social Justice champions and promotes anti-racism and social justice in the CSU and CFA. The Council leads, organizes and acts to ensure CSU and CFA engage racially and socially just practices based on our guiding principles.
Equity Conference 2022, “From Here to There: Building the Social Justice Bridge”, showcased liberatory social justice work in educational institutions and our communities. We identified steps to dismantle systems of oppression and realize our radical future. Educators and activists such as Lorretta Ross, Gina Garcia, Astra Taylor, June Kaewsith, J. Luke Wood, Imani Barbarin, and Gloria Ladson-Billings, and addressed important issues such as disability rights and inclusion, critical race theory, impact of Hispanic Serving Institutions, race-lighting, caste, healing through ancestral knowledge, the radical history of yoga, and more.
The Equity Conference 2023, “Co-conspiring for an Equitable Future: Building the Social Justice Bridge,” will focus on anti-Blackness and anti-indigeneity in the CSU. Our goal is to learn and share ways to effectively organize and mobilize to achieve our goals for a more equitable future. We will emphasize being co-conspirators who actively participate in dismantling systems of oppression. Co-conspiratorship, in contrast to allyship, is a commitment to take action towards liberation and abolition, to working with marginalized communities and backgrounds in ways that take on some of the risk of fighting for equity against powerful and sometimes ambiguous agents.
This year’s conference will focus on our development as co-conspirators, organizers, and mobilizers, working towards scholar activism and radical praxis, engaging activist resistance, and mounting counternarratives from the perspectives of marginalized communities. This will guide our continuing themes:
1) Envisioning radically different futures
2) Strategies for Co-liberation
3) (In)/(Hyper)Visible Labor in the CSU
4) Care and Healing
In the spirit of access, justice, equity, and inclusion, this year’s conference will provide attendees with opportunities to have thoughtful conversations about research, policies, and practices with other CFA member-activists to co-conspire to build the social justice bridge to a more equitable future with intentionality and determination.
Conference Participation
We look forward to seeing you at this powerful conference. The registration link will be made available mid-February. For more information about the conference, contact Director of Programs for Anti-Racism and Social Justice, Audrena Redmond at aredmond@calfac.org and Events Specialist Kiarra “KiKi” Lee at klee@calfac.org.
Equity Conference Tri-Chairs,
Nicholas Centino
Talitha Matlin
Aparna Sinha
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Schedule of Events with descriptions
1:00pm – 4:00pm
“Bargaining Institute: Centering Anti-Racism and Social Justice in Bargaining and Organizing”
Members of the CFA Bargaining and Contract Development and Bargaining Strategies Team
The Bargaining Institute is a three-hour session at the 2023 CFA Equity Conference that is intended to provide attendees with an opportunity to learn and become active in the 2023 bargaining campaign in ways that center anti-racism and social justice. Presenters will provide background information on our 2023 reopener and facilitate attendees with interactive and engaging exercises focused on organizing and leadership. Our goal is to equip attendees with knowledge and skills to effectively win substantial gains for faculty using organizing and bargaining tools. This will be an interactive session and will not be recorded.
10:00am – 11:30am
“Welcome to CFA’s Equity Conference 2023“
Equity Conference Tri-Chairs
A conference welcome.
11:30am – 12:30pm
“We Are Owed: Language and Liberation”
Ariana Brown
In this artist talk, Ariana Brown considers how cis-heteropatriarchy and white supremacy inform the construction of cultural and national identities. Using poems and research from her new book, We Are Owed., Brown interrogates the accepted origin stories of Mexican and Mexican American identities, focusing on histories of Black relationality and resistance in Texas and Mexico. Combining storytelling, poems, and dialogue, this artist talk emphasizes Brown’s lived experiences growing up in Texas as a Black Mexican American and links them to the larger project of anti-Blackness within Texas and Mexico.
1:00pm – 2:30pm
KEYNOTE
“No More Police: A Case for Abolition”
Andrea Ritchie
A dynamic presentation on organizing, advocating, litigating, and agitating against policing and the criminalization of Black women, girls, trans, and gender nonconforming people for the past three decades.
3:00pm – 4:30pm
“Telling Your Anti-Racism Social Justice Story”
Melissa Morgan
This energetic workshop will help CFA chapters and activists tell their anti-racism and social justice organizing stories
5:00pm – 6:30pm
“Public Sociology: Planting Preemptive Seeds Through Wraparound Educational Empowerment”
Marisa Salinas and Xuan Santos
To help erase the margins in North San Diego County Latinx community, the presenters collaborated with San Marcos Middle School, an underperforming school in the region, to promote educational social change and empowerment by targeting students, families (predominantly Latinx), and staff/faculty. Our public sociological project aims to deliver a wraparound empowerment strategy where all stakeholders are heard and reminded about systemic inequality while promoting hope in these contexts.
10:00am – 11:30am
“Strategies for Co-liberation of Faculty and Students”
SQE Representatives – Angelmarie Taylor, Anri De Jesus, Courtland Briggs, Garrett Dasigan
In this presentation by representatives of Students for Quality Education participants will connect the dots between faculty, students and current issues such as Title IX and policing on CSU campuses.
1:00pm – 2:30pm
“Crutches and Spice”
Imani Barbarin
This workshop will center ableism. Imani Barbarin describes ableism as having always been the best way to perpetuate white supremacy under the guise of “progress for the disability community”. Now more than ever, white disabled people are presented with a choice: white supremacy or disability justice. Most disabled Black, Indigenous and people of color are firm trying to pull the disability community in the direction of justice, because whiteness has created the emergency, and there are disabled BIPOC in the building scrambling towards safety.
3:00pm – 4:30pm
KEYNOTE
“Finding Our Way to Community Justice Strategies”
Monishia “Moe” Miller
Strategies to engage communities in reconciliation and healing, to address, conflict and historical, trauma-based division.
5:00pm – 6:30pm
“Singing Our Way to Freedom: A Film and Discussion”
Paul Espinosa
How did a young Mexican American kid from a small rural town in the middle of nowhere become a leading musician of the Chicano civil rights movement? How did he learn about the power of music and imagination to take us on a journey towards freedom? Singing Our Way to Freedom chronicles the life of Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez from his humble beginnings as a farmworker in Blythe, California to the dramatic moment when he received one of his nation’s highest musical honors at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. As a young man in the 1960s, Chunky joined the picket lines in the California fields with Cesar Chavez, eventually becoming Chavez’s favorite musician. This session will not be recorded.
10:00am – 11:30am
“Asian American Solidarity with Black and Other Communities”
Diane Fujino
Asian Americans have rejected model minority acceptance and instead forged deep solidarities with Black and other communities. From a historical frame we will examine how global Cold War geopolitics and US racial liberalism helps to explain the origins of the model minority image and logic. We will discuss little know examples of Asian American activism and radicalism that speak to the importance of horizontal community engagements and scholar activism.
12:00pm – 1:50pm
“Caucus Open House”
CFA Caucuses
Learn more about the leadership and work of CFA’s constituent caucuses and how you can get involved. This will be an interactive session and will not be recorded.
2:00pm – 3:30pm
“Adopting A Disability Justice Framework”
Alex Locust
Whether on the runway or in a counseling session, Alex aspires to embody the tenets of social justice and fiercely advocates for equity in all community spaces. Armed with bombastic charm, humor, and a sharp wit, Alex synthesizes his professional insight with his lived experience to create engaging workshops grounded in cultural humility, intersectionality, and fostering empathetic, holistic views of marginalized communities.
4:00pm – 5:30pm
“Bystander Intervention”
Lynn Bowes-Sperry
A focus on “bystander intervention” in harassment and discrimination [more recently micro and macro-aggressions] as well as problematic behavior at work. This will be an interactive session where only spotlighted presenters will be recorded. No audience interaction will be recorded.
10:00am – 11:30am
KEYNOTE
“Unions are for Everyone”
Yvonne Wheeler
Inflammatory comments disparaging Black and indigenous communities made by the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (LACF) and three sitting Los Angeles City Council members were leaked in early October 2022. There were outcries for accountability and resignations. One result was the historic election of Yvonne Wheeler as the new President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. She is the first Black woman to hold the position and will oversee the organization of 300 affiliated unions and over 800,000 members. The discussion will center the vision for the future of labor organizing addressing equity and justice with an anti-racism and social justice lens.
11:30am – 12:30pm
“More Than 25 Screaming”
Melina Abdullah (BLMLA), Sheila Bates (BLMLA) and Henry Perez (Inner City Struggle)
On October 9, 2022 the public was shocked to hear leaked inflammatory comments made by three city council members and the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Three of the four resigned. One Los Angeles City Council members remains in office and has rebuffed calls for his resignation. This dynamic panel of Black and indigenous community organizers will share their ongoing co-liberation efforts for accountability and change. This will be an interactive session where only spotlighted presenters will be recorded. No audience interaction will be recorded.
12:30pm – 1:30pm
“Toward an Experimental Poetics of Radical Care & Deep Organizing”
Jason Magabo Perez
Jason Magabo Perez, an associate professor and program director of ethnic studies at Cal State San Marcos, was recently named poet laureate of the city of San Diego. Participants will experience Jason’s ability to weave stories based on the simple yet beautiful things that inspire all of us to live a life of love and understanding. To build neighborhoods and work spaces of varying cultures and backgrounds that combine to form shared community.
1:30pm – 2:30pm
“A Closing Reflection: CFA’s Equity Conference 2023”
Equity Tri-Chairs & CRSJ Co-Chairs
A conference reflection
Conference Speakers and Biographies
Continuing Education Credit
The CFA Equity Conference is offering a continuing education course at CSU Chico. Conference attendees who register for Class #5575, course MCGS 802B – SECT 201 and submit proof of registration to CFA will be reimbursed the $75.00 course cost. This is an excellent opportunity to build your resume. To register for this course, click here.
Book Vendor
Interested in purchasing a book from an Equity Conference presenter? Click here for CFA’s Book List at Reparations Club. Use the discount code EQUITY2023 for 10 percent off through June 1.
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