Institutionalized racism in higher education infects the national soul. Although subtle and difficult to comprehend in all of its manifestations, racism on campuses must be confronted by the citizenry of this country. How much longer can we be unquestioning supporters of a multi-billion dollar educational enterprise that is infecting the culture with a deadly dis-ease?

This dis-ease is not about overt acts of racial bigotry on college campuses so much as it is about the unquestioned white racial domination of the academic enterprise in all of its facets, and the tangible ways in which such domination results in the destruction of human lives, communities, and in the extreme, entire cultures.

College and university presidents, boards of trustees, tenured faculty and vested administrative staffs can no longer be trusted to address the deep and pervasive nature of institutionalized racism within the confines of the "hallowed halls," unaccountable to the stakeholders of the very enterprise who make wages, research monies, grants, fellowships, tuition dollars, enrollments, status, prestige, cultural influence, and political support possible. Anti-racist activism carried out by an informed and trained multi-racial citizens movement, with leadership by people of color (African, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American...ALANA), is the only vehicle for transforming the Amerikkkan Academy.

The challenge is ominous. Although this call to mobilize will be ridiculed by many people who still believe that the problem can be solved by its creators and perpetuators, it does not mean that we, as lovers of truth and justice, should not examine and implement the necessary transformational strategies in order to end this National Disgrace, the sacrificing of our young within an oppressively dysfunctional social order that is Amerikkkan higher education.

As I watch the Vermont campus where Maneshkona lives, I observe the confusion in people wrought by the racism which infects it. Maneshkona is strong and she resists. Maneshkona sleeps not far from a grove of pines. The Abenaki women who love her told me once that they call these trees "The Old Women." I used to sit there with my students during our days of struggle together. We dreamed together of the community we would build from our resistance and the love for our people. Maneshkona was one of many builders, one of many dreamers. The story of this time will be told some day to those who would have ears for listening.

Near to where The Old Women stand are three sacred ash trees. We planted them following the 1991 Waterman Takeover. Our wish was to signify that we, as people of color, as African, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American people, that we believe in our struggle to remain true to our heritage and the obligation therein to determine who we are, and who we shall become.

The sacred ash trees are symbols of our faith and resolve to reclaim what racism has taken from us through the high cultural institutions, the colleges and the universities of the so-called United States. Although the University "owns" the sacred trees we planted, it is our love and our spirit of resistance that ensures their survival and growth: the love of Maneshkona, Zapata, Kurihara, Mooko, Patterson, Trusclair, Tshikororo, Heard, Bigelow, Wong, Chi, Fajardo, Jagbandansingh, Razo, Fuster, Abreu, Kusakabe, Wiener, Keith, Choudhuri, Worsham, Douglas, Suares, Urgent, Torres, Hawksblood, Means, Karenga, Akbar, Slater, Martinez, Moses, Jaime, Senziwadia, Betgevargis, Takayama, Pena, Garcia, Barton, Lee, da Cruz, Mun Wah, and legions of others past and present.

I know this place in Vermont where Maneshkona makes her stand. It is on less than one acre of land-Abenaki land at that. It is a place where decades of struggle gave rise to a bold liberatory consciousness, witnessed briefly by a small group of ALANA students, elders, and our allies. We have seen it. We have nurtured it. We know its transformational power and potential. It is the anti-thesis of institutionalized racism.

We planted the sacred trees to mark a beginning. The beginning is a place on this Earth where ALANA people could come together in remembrance of the First Nations from which we are descended; where AIM warriors sang the true anthem of a Nation, where Benito Torres prayed quietly while making the prayer ties for our deliverance in this Seventh Generation. At the planting of the third tree, two dogs began to fight visciously until their brawling broke the Circle where we stood. It was as if the violence between the two domesticated animals foretold of the turmoil and destruction which have befallen Maneshkona´s community. These are scenes from her life which bind me to her as her Brother, in the same way that many have bonded together by our struggle in Vermont.

Now Maneshkona brings to our table the same question asked in 1991, when ALANA students made a pronounced stand in resistance to institutionalized racism, when they occupied the President´s Wing of the administration building for several weeks. As it was then, the question today for all of us is "How far are *you* willing to go to undo racism?"

This question speaks to one's convictions, to one´s beliefs, to what one does in broad daylight in front of others, and to what one does in the solitude of one´s heart.

Maneshkona chose to go without food. What will we choose? As Maneshkona goes without sustenance, what will we come to understand about institutionalized racism? What will we learn regarding the ways and means of institutionalized racism in colleges and universities which imbue their respective "missions." their "administrative structures," their "power arrangements," their "organizational cultures" and their "resource allocations?"

Will we comprehend what Maneshkona sees in her current role as an ALANA student leader, the symptoms of a pervasive national disorder about which so many thousands of people are in absolute denial?

Will we develop the courage to simply admit that institutionalized racism is a problem within our sacred Amerikkkan cow, "higher education?"

Will we be willing to go so far in our thinking as to move toward organizing for the peaceful transformation of these vital cultural institutions so that future classes of ALANA students will be spared the academically sanctioned ritualistic degradation that constitutes higher education today?

I will fast for one year in resistance against racism in higher education and in solidarity with ALANA students who are organizing themselves across the United States. Beginning 6 January 1996 I am engaging in a cyclical fast in four day increments. The four days coincide with the The Four Directions. For three days I will fast, and will rest on the fourth. Following the fourth day, I will resume fasting for another three day period. I will repeat this cycle for one full year.

The purpose of this fast is to call prolonged attention to this National Disgrace which Maneshkona has named in Vermont and which students of color across the country continue to wage struggle against at great personal expense. Through my prayers, meditation, physical and mental training, teaching, writing, organizing, and communicating, I will contribute my spirit to a strengthening effort, an effort to bring ALANA people together for this Long Walk. More of us will stand with Maneshkona across the country in order to bring institutionalized racism in Amerikkkan higher education into the light, lessening its power over us. I will dance the Sun Dance in Maneshkona's name.

Throughout the year I will invite ALANA students (and former ALANA students) to share their stories of survival and beyond so we might never see them be silenced again. And all of the former students who are now GateKeepers for wages in the "belly of the beast," will be invited to sign a National Pledge of Resistance that will circulate throughout the remainder of the 1995-96 Academic Year. Each signature will pledge a specific act of resistance which is in support of ALANA student struggles to peaceably establish a racism-free academy.

The National Pledge of Resistance Against Racism will be published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in September of 1997, the first month of the new Academic Year when the actions will be carried out across the country. A World Wide Web Page will go on-line in March of 1996 to expedite communication.

There will not be room for lip service, me-tooism, kum-ba-ya feel good nonsense. The National Pledge is about resistance for the sake of initiating a transformational movement against institutionalized racism. If not now, when will ALANA people rise up in peaceful collaboration to acknowledge the FACT that Maneshkona's oppression, and that of ALANA men and ALANA womyn on college campuses, represents a contemporary form of human sacrifice, a sacrifice of Spirit, a compromise of her humanity, a desecration of her ancestors who wished for her to live in freedom and with justice.

I was once a student at a more than predominantly white institution of higher learning (Notre Dame, Class of '77). At that time I was not aware of its power, the coercive nature of it assimilating processes, the transformational push and pull which could seduce a young mind into becoming a bleached and cultureless consumer. It was the Maneshkonas at the University of Vermont who taught me about the Struggle to Reclaim, to recover from lost heritage, lost integrity, lost humanity.

To Maneshkona, I pledge resistance and love for Our People. In the words of Hawksblood, "I will never learn words which mean goodbye."

This message is hereby entered into the public domain for the sake of undoing racism. Quote extensively, print it out, clip and paste, cross-post, do whatever....just make sure people know that the author was Anthony J. Chavez and that he takes full responsibility for its contents. Comments, feedback, condemnation, and roses can be sent to the access points contained in the signature below.

Anthony J. Chavez
131 Main St. Suite 607
Burlington, VT 05401
*FIRST CIRCLE*
Race & Culture Education Resources Group
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zapata@together.net

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