NEWS RELEASE
Date: February 20, 2015
From: INCITE! Women of Color and Trans People of Color Against Violence
Contact: Essence McDowell, incite.natl.media@gmail.com
Date: February 20, 2015
From: INCITE! Women of Color and Trans People of Color Against Violence
Contact: Essence McDowell, incite.natl.media@gmail.com
INCITE! to Host Color of Violence 4 Conference in Chicago
Large Convergence to Call for Strategies to End Gender, Racial, and State Violence while Dismantling Prisons and Policing
Chicago, February 4, 2015 - INCITE!, a national organization of radical women of color and trans people of color, will host a major conference entitled, Color of Violence 4 (COV4)--Beyond the State: Inciting Transformative Possibilities. The event will be held at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency McCormick Place on March 26-29, 2015.
The fourth “Color of Violence” conference that INCITE! has organized, COV4 is expected to draw over 1,000 organizers, scholars, artists, and students to develop movements for community-based strategies to end domestic and sexual violence; police, ICE, and military violence; the prison industrial complex; economic justice; and colonial violence.
Speakers include Angela Davis, an internationally renowned scholar, prison abolitionist, and former political prisoner; Cece McDonald, a black trans woman who was incarcerated for self-defense that inspired a movement for her freedom; and other prominent organizers, scholars, and artists such as Mariame Kaba, Beth Richie, Joo-Hyun Kang, Clarissa Rojas, Andrea Ritchie, Andrea Smith, Dorothy Roberts, members of the New Jersey 4, and many more.
This gathering will mark INCITE!’s fifteen years of engaging in grassroots organizing projects, critical conversations, national actions, transnational campaigns, and community building strategies to end colonial, racial, and gender-based violence against women of color, and trans & queer people of color.
“For the past 15 years, INCITE! has actively developed alternative models to keeping our communities and ourselves safe and alive. COV4 will learn from and build on various feminist of color community-based alternatives to interpersonal violence, the medical industry, law enforcement, the non-profit industry, and prisons,” says Xandra Ibarra, INCITE! member and anti-violence activist.
Although on-going systems of criminalization and punishment are occupying and devastating communities of color, those systems are still often considered the front-line response to violence within and against communities. INCITE! believes that challenging multiple interlocking forms of violence requires new conversations and transformative approaches.
“Again and again, we have seen policing and prisons fail survivors and victims of violence, and our communities. The state has incarcerated women of color who act in self-defense, extended a culture of confinement and surveillance in our communities, enacted sexual violence against people within prisons and deportation holding facilities, and failed or refused to protect Indigenous women and women of color from violence. Marissa Alexander, a domestic violence survivor who was incarcerated for three years for defending her life, has asked, ‘If you do everything to get on the right side of the law, and it’s a law that does not apply to you, where do you go from there?’ COV4 will be a major opportunity to begin to answer that question. We hope to imagine how to create the kinds of communities, networks, and practices we need that can help eradicate all forms of violence against women of color, trans/queer people of color, and our communities without relying on violent state systems,” states Alisa Bierria, organizing member of INCITE! and the Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign.
With the theme “Beyond the State: Inciting Transformative Possibilities,” the Color of Violence 4 conference seeks to incite conversations around the stories of women of color like Alexander, Marichuy Leal Gamino, Rasmea Odeh, and others whose experiences reflect how the state unjustly criminalizes, violates, or fails to protect women of color and trans & queer people of color.
With over 50 scheduled interactive workshops, brainstorm sessions, participatory research convenings, in addition to a dynamically curated art exhibition room and an extraordinary line-up of local arts and community vendors, COV4 will engage local, national, and international communities in asking: What anti-violence organizing strategies are activists, artists, scholars, workers, and community members imagining or implementing "beyond the state?” What kind of new spaces and models have been invented locally, nationally, and globally? What core questions still need exploration?
Chicago is the home to five founding members of INCITE!, most of whom are still actively involved in producing cutting-edge scholarship and strategizing responses to violence. Chicago’s anti-violence collectives and organizations, such as the Black Youth Project, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, Project Nia, and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, have been important leaders in developing the politics and practices of community accountability and transformative justice. These organizations have also helped break national stories and reorient mainstream media conversations about gender violence, mass incarceration, and police brutality.
COV4 registration is now open with rates ranging from $25 to $200. To register or learn more about INCITE! and COV4, explore our website, http://www.colorofviolence.org/. For up to date information, follow INCITE! on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/incitecommunitynews and Twitter at https://twitter.com/incitenews.
To apply for media credentials and/or to schedule a media interview with a speaker, please contact Essence McDowell at incite.natl.media@gmail.com.
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Chicago, February 4, 2015 - INCITE!, a national organization of radical women of color and trans people of color, will host a major conference entitled, Color of Violence 4 (COV4)--Beyond the State: Inciting Transformative Possibilities. The event will be held at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency McCormick Place on March 26-29, 2015.
The fourth “Color of Violence” conference that INCITE! has organized, COV4 is expected to draw over 1,000 organizers, scholars, artists, and students to develop movements for community-based strategies to end domestic and sexual violence; police, ICE, and military violence; the prison industrial complex; economic justice; and colonial violence.
Speakers include Angela Davis, an internationally renowned scholar, prison abolitionist, and former political prisoner; Cece McDonald, a black trans woman who was incarcerated for self-defense that inspired a movement for her freedom; and other prominent organizers, scholars, and artists such as Mariame Kaba, Beth Richie, Joo-Hyun Kang, Clarissa Rojas, Andrea Ritchie, Andrea Smith, Dorothy Roberts, members of the New Jersey 4, and many more.
This gathering will mark INCITE!’s fifteen years of engaging in grassroots organizing projects, critical conversations, national actions, transnational campaigns, and community building strategies to end colonial, racial, and gender-based violence against women of color, and trans & queer people of color.
“For the past 15 years, INCITE! has actively developed alternative models to keeping our communities and ourselves safe and alive. COV4 will learn from and build on various feminist of color community-based alternatives to interpersonal violence, the medical industry, law enforcement, the non-profit industry, and prisons,” says Xandra Ibarra, INCITE! member and anti-violence activist.
Although on-going systems of criminalization and punishment are occupying and devastating communities of color, those systems are still often considered the front-line response to violence within and against communities. INCITE! believes that challenging multiple interlocking forms of violence requires new conversations and transformative approaches.
“Again and again, we have seen policing and prisons fail survivors and victims of violence, and our communities. The state has incarcerated women of color who act in self-defense, extended a culture of confinement and surveillance in our communities, enacted sexual violence against people within prisons and deportation holding facilities, and failed or refused to protect Indigenous women and women of color from violence. Marissa Alexander, a domestic violence survivor who was incarcerated for three years for defending her life, has asked, ‘If you do everything to get on the right side of the law, and it’s a law that does not apply to you, where do you go from there?’ COV4 will be a major opportunity to begin to answer that question. We hope to imagine how to create the kinds of communities, networks, and practices we need that can help eradicate all forms of violence against women of color, trans/queer people of color, and our communities without relying on violent state systems,” states Alisa Bierria, organizing member of INCITE! and the Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign.
With the theme “Beyond the State: Inciting Transformative Possibilities,” the Color of Violence 4 conference seeks to incite conversations around the stories of women of color like Alexander, Marichuy Leal Gamino, Rasmea Odeh, and others whose experiences reflect how the state unjustly criminalizes, violates, or fails to protect women of color and trans & queer people of color.
With over 50 scheduled interactive workshops, brainstorm sessions, participatory research convenings, in addition to a dynamically curated art exhibition room and an extraordinary line-up of local arts and community vendors, COV4 will engage local, national, and international communities in asking: What anti-violence organizing strategies are activists, artists, scholars, workers, and community members imagining or implementing "beyond the state?” What kind of new spaces and models have been invented locally, nationally, and globally? What core questions still need exploration?
Chicago is the home to five founding members of INCITE!, most of whom are still actively involved in producing cutting-edge scholarship and strategizing responses to violence. Chicago’s anti-violence collectives and organizations, such as the Black Youth Project, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, Project Nia, and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, have been important leaders in developing the politics and practices of community accountability and transformative justice. These organizations have also helped break national stories and reorient mainstream media conversations about gender violence, mass incarceration, and police brutality.
COV4 registration is now open with rates ranging from $25 to $200. To register or learn more about INCITE! and COV4, explore our website, http://www.colorofviolence.org/. For up to date information, follow INCITE! on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/incitecommunitynews and Twitter at https://twitter.com/incitenews.
To apply for media credentials and/or to schedule a media interview with a speaker, please contact Essence McDowell at incite.natl.media@gmail.com.
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