People’s Voices Discussion Circles and Tribunals

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Jacqui
About Jacqui

October 28, 2009

The People’s Voices event was an exciting gathering of social justice activists organized by Grassroots Global Justice. The format was that we had numerous discussion circles, on a range of issues including economic justice, gender justice, climate justice, and a variety of other topics, followed by everyone coming together to hold mock tribunals on each respective subject.

The session to which I was assigned was on macroeconomics and the burden of debt to impoverished countries. We had a robust discussion about the roots of poverty, including extractive industries, rules/laws to perpetuate the advantage of wealthy nations, and the enforcement of odious debt.

Throughout my presentation I emphasized, with examples, the racial aspects of exploitation and oppression, and others mentioned the similar race based patterns of domination. Somehow the scribe for our session (white male) completely neglected to make one mention of race in his otherwise extensive and detailed note taking. I had to pointedly state the omission to him and request rectification to which he reluctantly submitted, though I admit, I did have a bit of a “tone” in my comment out of beleaguered weariness with an old struggle. Unfortunately, his oversight is reflective of the denial and tendency to be dismissive or resistant when analyses/observations yield racial differentials.

The tribunal was a farcical affair where folks gave testimony about various matters from climate justice to economic justice, to women’s rights. We recorded the testimony on women’s rights and it can be found at www.youtube.com/womenofcolorunited