Violent “Role Models” in Liberated/Critical Ethnic Studies

The figures in the list below are all excerpted from rejected early drafts of the California ESMC - the drafts authored by the leaders of Liberated/Critical Ethnic Studies. The problem is not the inclusion of any specific role model below, though many are indeed alarming. Rather, the issue is that wherever there is a choice for a given topic, there is a clear deference to the militant and/or Marxist figures, instead of key figures who do not pass the ideological litmus test of the Liberated/Critical Ethnic Studies framework. Indeed, of the 154 role models of color listed in an early draft of the ESMC, such seminal leaders as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis are simply omitted. (A reading describes such leaders as “passive” and “docile.”) Positive, non-violent, seminal role models that are not included in this “Liberated” role models list appear below for comparison.

 

Oscar López Rivera: Leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a clandestine paramilitary organization fighting for Puerto Rican independence. FALN was responsible for over 130 bomb attacks in U.S. cities between 1974 and 1983.

Lolita Lebrón: Led an armed group of Puerto Rican nationalists in an attack on the US House of Representatives in 1954. The group fired 30 bullets from a spectator’s gallery, wounding five congressmen. 

Assata Shakur: Member of Black Liberation Army, an organization engaged in armed struggle against the U.S. government through tactics such as robbing banks and killing police officers. Convicted of first-degree murder of police officer

Farabundo Martí: Augustín Farabundo Martí Rodríguez, popularly known as Farabundo Martí, was a revolutionary leader in El Salvador during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre. Helped start a guerrilla militant revolt of indigenous farmers.

Comandanta Ramona: Comandanta Ramona was the nom de guerre of an officer of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a militant, revolutionary indigenous autonomist organization based in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

Vickie Castro: Leader of East Los Angeles high school walkouts, which was the first act of mass militancy by Mexican Americans in modern California history and set the tone for militant activism across the Southwest.

Frantz Fanon: French West Indian political philosopher who argued that violence is a necessary tool of people’s political engagement. He referred to violence as the defining characteristic of colonialism and a cathartic reaction to the oppression of colonialism. 

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer. Regular columnist for Junge Welt, Marxist newspaper in Germany. Regularly quoted Mao’s “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” 

Yuri Kochiyama: Self-stated admirer of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Peruvian Maoist group Shining Path.

Bobby Seale: Co-founder of Soul Students Advisory Committee (revolutionary goals with slogan of “Freedom by any means necessary”). Associated with/implicated in several murders (of fellow Black Panthers Alex Rackley and Fred Bennett), but charges were dropped or not pressed.

 

 IN CONTRAST, the list of "Important Historical Figures Among People of Color” is missing countless positive, non-violent, non-Marxist role model figures who do not pass the Critical/Liberated “litmus test”:

 

  • Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, or any of the “Big Six” activists that organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

  • Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice.

  • Frederick Douglass, an integral abolitionist known for his powerful antislavery writings and orationsSenator Daniel Inouye (first Japanese American in U.S. House of Representatives and first in Senate), Congressman Robert Matsui, Congresswoman Doris Matsui, and Spark Matsunaga who worked with Mineta to make the Japanese reparation legislation a reality.

  • W.E. Du Bois, one of the key founders of the NAACP and the first Black American to earn a doctorate. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 is known to be an embodiment of his advocacy and writings.

  • Bryan Stevenson, lawyer and social justice activist who founded the Equal Justice Initiative to combat discrimination in the criminal justice system including wrongful convictions and the death penalty, which disproportionately convict Black men.

  • Condoleezza Rice, the first female Black Secretary of State and the first woman to serve as National Security Advisor.

  • Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan; three Black female mathematicians and engineers at NASA who overcame racial and gender discrimination barriers to become integral parts of winning the ‘space race.’ Mary Jackson was also the first female Black engineer to work for NASA. The trio is featured in the Oscar-nominated film, Hidden Figures.

  • Norman Mineta, who introduced and advocated for Japanese reparations legislation.

  • John Tateishi, who founded the Japanese American Citizens’ League (JACL) and directed the civil rights organization National Redress. Tateishi helped lead the eventually successful fight for reparations and wrote the book Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations.

  • Yo-Yo Ma, world-renowned Chinese-American cellist and prodigy. Recipient of countless awards and international recognition including 15 Grammys and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded under President Obama in 2011. Included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

  • Jorge Ramos, a Mexican-American journalist who anchors the Spanish language Univision nightly news and is known as the “Walter Cronkite of Latino America.” He was named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People.

  • Jose Hernandez, Mexican-American migrant farmer worker who became an engineer and NASA astronaut. Wrote From Farmer Worker to Astronaut in Spanish and English with the message for kids to set goals and persevere to achieve their dreams. A vocal immigration reform advocate who ran for Congress in 2012 at the urging of President Obama.

  • Julian Castro and Joaquin Castro, two twin brothers making large impacts in current American politics. Julian Castro was named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama and Joaquin serves in the U.S. House of Representatives.