Hola, mi gente. ¿Cómo están? Mi nombre es Albamar, me pueden decir Alba. El canal se llama "seriela" y estamos aquí para hablar de libros, algunos de ellos en español desde Puerto Rico.
Hello, my name is Albamar. You may call me Alba. Channel name is "seriela". We're here to talk about books, some of them in Spanish from Puerto Rico.
I am so glad to be taking a break from my break to collaborate with Sarah from Hardcover Hearts at Get to Work Wednesdays
which I'm going to rename
 for my purposes From Books to Action
yes because
as wonderful
as all the books are
at creating consciousness about
racial equity and
systemic racism
closing the book and doing nothing is,
you know, not going to cut it, people.
We've been doing this for a long, long
time.
So, getting right down to it because
you know
my phone will die out on me and it's
very hot already
in Puerto Rico. I will link Sarah's 
video down below, of course, and
the goal is to
answer the question: Where do we go from
here?
I've read the books, a number of books
and, fortunately,
many of them talk about the fact that
this is systemic
and there's a lot of hard work to be
done. But where to start,
right? What do we do?
and if you're interested, after I talk
about the books and the resources,
you can stay for a little story,
personal story,  of my own, as far as
activism is concerned.
If you're interested. What to do first?
I would suggest
identifying, of all those areas
in which
racial inequity manifests itself,
focus on what interests you the most.
And there is a plethora because it's
systemic.
And racial inequity manifests
itself
in health, in education,
in civil rights and human rights, in
the penal,
in the justice system - "justice
system"-
in the work environment, environmental
justice, right?
For now, for the specific season we're
in right now, which is the electoral
season,
voting, yes.
What interests you?
The digital divide -  tech - racial inequity
in the digital divide. Gender,
racial inequity in that arena.
If you can think of any more, let me
know
down in the comments below.
This is about doing the ground
work. Next, once you identify -
once I identify -
what interests me the most, what really
calls to me
of all those areas
and where, you know, we can see that there
is
a need for policy change,
which is what gladly
Angela Davis ... Remember that video I did
last year when I read this book?
Where she states that "If we had mounted
a more
powerful resistance in the 80s and 90s
during the Reagan-Bush era
and during the Clinton era, we would not
be confronting
such a behemoth today."
So there's a lot of work to be done.
Once you identify
what it is that you want to work on,
the area of your interest,
then, start small.
Start small. You can sign petitions,
right? One click. That's easy enough.
Donate and
show up. Show up at
the organizations that have been
formed because that is 
another suggestion. Start small and start
local, with the organizations that
already exist.
And for that reason is that I brought
this book, which has been on my
shelves. This is
Building Powerful Community
Organizations: A Personal Guide to
Creating Groups that can Solve Problems
and Change the World by Michael Jacoby
Brown.
This was from 2006. And Michael Jacoby
Brown
(has a video; I will link it down below) has 30 years
experience community organizing.
Community organizing - which is not the
same as mobilizing
people for marches. And I love marches,
don't get me wrong.
That's where I get everything out. I love
to march, I love to protest, I love to
picket.
But that doesn't really affect policy
change, right?
That requires long-term
commitment: being there and working
during the long haul, and that's
what this book is about.
it's about forming those organizations
if they have not been formed in your
community
and it's a workbook, very interesting,
very interesting workbook. He
suggests doing the exercises.
There are organizations
out there and maybe
you are fortunate enough to have one of
those organizations close by
which would be ideal. Of course, you're
going to use your
preferred searcher 
to find out. Just type out
"racial
equity" and you'll find
lots because I did it. You'll find lots,
especially in the United States.
I have to do that here, right? Follow my
own advice.
Which I did. So, that was number two:
start small, start local. Look for the
organizations.
That's number three: look for those
organizations, community organizations,
grassroots organizations, that deal with
racial inequity
already established and that you trust.
That have
a history of working
on those issues. For example,
the ACLU, the NAACP
and - you might be surprised -
church organizations.
Anybody who's ever been involved in a
church knows
that churches can organize, right?
And if you remember the Civil Rights era
as
I do, some of those
most organized were the churches.
Because people in the churches
know how to organize their people and
know how to mobilize their people.
Number one:
identify what your interests are, focus.
Number two: start small, start local.
Number three:
find an established organization,
a trusted organization with which you
can work.
This book suggests,
offers ways of forming
a grassroots organization from the
beginning
and some of the
important things that he mentions
in that book is the importance of
community
of that one-to-one contact.
Really, really important. And that's where
my
story comes in, my activism.
The most recent one, because you know -
I will link the card about my mom
and, you know, all of that in case you
missed it -
because I've been marching for
a very long time.
But there's a difference and why I know
that books are not going to cut it.
Because I can read
everything in the library
that has to do
with racial inequity and
systemic racism.
But if i don't get up and do something
nothing is going to get done.
Before I forget, there's a a wonderful
video, interview,
like a "making of" documentary of
Stokley Carmichael in which he makes that
distinction very clear -
the difference between mobilizing
and organizing. Because Stokely
Carmichael was an
organizer and he knew how to do that,
I will link that down below, also.
So, what happened to me? Really quick. I'm
already retired.
I'm sitting here, right here at my desk.
I'm listening to the radio - because radio
is important, people.
Radio is very important, especially when
you're
recovering from a hurricane. (I want to
send my heart out to
the people in Iowa, the devastation, and I
hope to find something so that you can
link down below and help.)
So I'm listening to the radio.
They're interviewing a young woman
who is talking about
the government's plan
to plant gas pipelines,
liquid natural gas pipelines,
parallel to one of the main highways in
the southern part of
Puerto Rico - Highway Number Two -
and mentioning the fact that every once
in a while
pipelines will explode - and I will link
that down below, too, because you had one
recently over there in the United States
in a residential area.
Yes. And I was appalled.
My heart just stopped. All I could
imagine was
my family members driving towards me
or driving back home on Highway 2
when one of these things exploded. What
did I do?
First, I confirmed the information.
I went on Highway Number Two, on
Highway Number One,
and saw the pipelines
right there, in the process of being laid.
And then, she had left an email.
I emailed her: "What can I do?
I want to help." I volunteered. And she
sent me back
a pdf of a flyer.
And I printed out the flyer and the
prettiest one,
along with the black and white ones, I
went out on the street,
two blocks down. The first, pretty one
in color, in a page protector,
I left for the mayor
ofJuana Diaz.
The mayor Juana Diaz was in electoral mode
at the time - this was before
a local election - and he was
during one of my visits to City Hall,
he was
handshaking as they do, right? Handshaking
everybody there.
I happened to be there and I asked him
about the pipelines, the gas pipelines.
And he said, "Oh
they're installed far away
from residential areas." Which was not
true, not true at all.
One of the pipelines was running
right behind a
recently constructed development of new
houses
and all along Highway Two.
And Puerto Rico is 100 by 35 miles.
You know, anything like that would blow
half the island away.
So I mentioned it to him
and I left that flyer.
Luckily that....  Back to the story! Phone
cut me off, so let's make the long
story short.
I started going to their meetings. I
started
to get to know the people,
and showed up for whatever it
was that I could do:
went to legislative sessions,
went to pickets, went to hand out
flyers,
anything that I could do for the
organization
I did. Come to find out that
this organization was
formed by a community that had been
environmentally attacked, time and time
again
throughout the decades. Not only
having been displaced
for an oil refinery
which has long been dead. The fumes
from that refinery, fumes from
different incineration projects
in the southern part of Puerto Rico and
then, later on,
after having won the pipeline
fight, because that was won,
then the coal ash dumping
in a dump - an
industrial waste 
site - in that same
town, Peñuelas. So this is a community
that has had experience
dealing with environmental justice
issues.
And that has been a long fight
that has many different prongs:
the grassroots organization, the
mobilizations, the pickets, the marches.
But also the legal aspect
taking these people to court and
also the legislative 
arm of the struggle which is
policy change, policy change.
But it all started at the grassroots
level.
That is
the message that I want to leave here.
And that's why this book and the other
ones that Sarah mentioned
in her video are so helpful.
Because what do we do? What do I do
after all the reading? There's a lot
of work to be done.
That's all I have to say before my
phone cuts me off again.
Please, feel free to comment down below
and offer your own suggestions and
your own books.
So, stay safe. Keep on reading, people.
Cuídense mucho, mi gente. Les quiero mucho. Adiós.
