The racism inherent at IndyMedia has been exposed in a brilliant and pungent article now making the grapevine all over the activist world. Check out this 5-part article in the links below.

This form of racism at the Twin Cities IndyMedia is what we African-American activists in LA have been experiencing with the IndyMedia collective here.



http://im-ur.com/site/ReadOpinion.ASP?ID=92252&CatID=106&CatTree=1;106&userid=7291 (Part I)

http://im-ur.com/site/ReadOpinion.ASP?ID=92253&CatID=106&CatTree=1;106&userid=7291 (Part II)

http://im-ur.com/site/ReadOpinion.ASP?ID=92254&CatID=106&CatTree=1;106&userid=7291 (Part III)

http://im-ur.com/site/ReadOpinion.ASP?ID=92256&CatID=106&CatTree=1;106&userid=7291 (Part IV)

http://im-ur.com/site/ReadOpinion.ASP?ID=92257&CatID=106&CatTree=1;106&userid=7291 (Part V)

As part of the solution to a long-standing problem faced by the Twin Cities Independent Media Center, this write-up documents why certain actions were taken by the collective.

Mr. Iginla began exhibiting disruptive behavior on several of the TC-IMC email lists around late January / early February. These behaviors included accusing members of racism, and suggestions that he might sue the collective or otherwise involve it in legal action. These accusations were all by email; Mr. Iginla would not meet to discuss them with the collective, despite several invitations to do so. At the same time, email from other addresses defending Mr. Iginla were received which included veiled threats of personal harm. By tracing IP addresses, we were able to determine that email from "Julie Rose" from New York and "Shoshana Rubin" from Los Angeles originated from the same computer that Mr. Iginla was posting from, usually within minutes of his posts. We believe that email coming from "Julie Rose" and "Shoshana Rubin" actually comes from Mr. Iginla.

At the April 7, General Meeting of the Twin Cities IMC, it was agreed by consensus to sever all ties with Biodun Iginla, a former member of the collective. The proposal was: “TC IMC will sever all ties with Biodun Iginla and his aliases.” Severing all ties was meant to mean that Mr. Iginla is not welcome at meetings, nor is his presence welcome on the listservs. The decision actually follows a statement made by Iginla himself, stating that he has personally decided to no longer be involved with our collective or the projects involving our collective, including our website. This decision may be reversed by consensus of the TC-IMC at a general meeting.



Following the approval of the first proposal, a second proposal was offered. The proposal was: “to hide posts from Biodun Iginla and his aliases from the newswire.” Though the posts will be available via the story administration page, they will not appear on the newswire. In light of the serious nature of this proposal, the meeting discussed it extensively. Initially, there were roughly an equal number of thumbs up as there were thumbs sideways but no one had a thumbs down which would signal a blocking concern. According to the TC-IMC consensus process, the sideways thumbs means the person has concerns, but not enough to block the measure. As per our process, we discussed the concerns. Another proposal was offered, to hide only posts that were incendiary or dealt with the internal mechanics of the group. After more discussion, that proposal was withdrawn because Mr. Iginla’s negative and destructive history forces us to remove him entirely from the newswire. The original proposal was accepted by a considerably wider margin. This decision may also be modified by a consensus decision of the Twin Cities IMC collective at a general meeting.

These decisions came after Biodun Iginla violated both the rules of the collective and the trust of its members. Mr. Iginla has, among other things, threatened the TC-IMC with lawsuits, claims to have involved the FBI in the business of our collective, initiated flame wars via multiple false email accounts on the listservs, and on at least one occasion, physically threatened a member of the collective under one of these false identities. The collective considers Mr. Iginla to be untrustworthy and will hide anything he posts to the TC-IMC site. We do have an editorial policy for removing inappropriate posts in general; however, in response to Mr. Iginla's continued disruption of our collective, and our newswire, including the actions mentioned above, we have agreed by consensus that Iginla will no longer be allowed to contribute to our collective or projects in any way from now on.

The third and final proposal was that a group write a summary of the events and briefly explain the actions taken. This text is the result of that decision. TC-IMC has prepared this statement in order to explain our actions to other IMCistas and to reply to any allegations presented by Mr. Iginla.

TC-IMC

We can be reached at mspimc@riseup.net

If you have concerns, and wish to speak by phone, please contact that address and we will work something out.

The anonymous "Arty" writes: "This form of racism at the Twin Cities IndyMedia is what we African-American activists in LA have been experiencing with the IndyMedia collective here."

Who's "we," Arty? I won't say there isn't racism in the LA IndyMedia collective. There's definitely a lack of racial balance reflecting the community, which has been a recurring topic of concern as long as I've been involved. This is a serious problem. So serious that I want to know who the "we" is. If there's a "we" of African-Americans upset about racism in the LA IMC, I want to meet with them ASAP. We could definitely use their input into our website working group. Maybe then I could ease off a bit from republishing items from the Black Radical Congress mailing list and The Black World Today. And I could concentrate more on my own anti-racist posts. (My most recent one is "College Prankster Exposed: David Horowitz's Hollow Arguments and Racist Subtext" http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=5896.)

Unfortunately, I'm afraid this is just a sham. There is no such group of disaffected black media activists who've experienced racism at the LA IMC. We'd actually be better off if there were such a group, because then we'd have someone to dialog with. As it is, we have a lot more work to do. These phony charges are worse than a slander, they're a way of confusing and obscuring the real difficulties we face in building the diversity we need to achieve.

If you're black and you're reading this--whether you agree or disagree--drop me a line. As a member of the LA website working group who's been active in it since D2K I would LOVE to have you participate in the editing of front page & developing special features.