New America Project believes that our society is confronted by large scale structures of oppression, including racism, cishetero-sexism {cissexism}, and capitalism. We believe that the key systems of oppression that operate in our lives are all inextricably linked. They have been shaped by each other over time and cannot be broken up and defeated in isolation. At the same time we want to go beyond opposing the current organization of society to think critically about what we want for our communities. We believe that the world we are trying to build will take the form of some kind of socialist society: where value is not defined by an individual's profitability, where reparations are made for the centuries of oppression that have come before, where no private individual controls the lives of others through jobs or wealth, where we are able to labor to meet our needs and democratically control our future.
So what does that mean?
It means a bunch of different things, and we’re gradually building our understanding as we figure it out together - and we are glad to welcome your voice to the conversation! Basically, we believe that the key systems of oppression that operate in our lives are all part of the same whole. Liberation for any one of us is tied to the liberation of the others. That means that as an org we try to work and build relationships in ways that begin to deconstruct our current society, taking time to do the hard work of understanding and caring for eachother. It means we approach things like our #NOTFiredUpForFall campaign as a broad framework, not a single issue campaign; working to connect issues of affordability on campus gendered/sexual violence, and white supremacy to each other and fighting to win on multiple fronts at once. It means our training team wants to build WITH you, not just unilaterally impose knowledge on you. We believe we have a lot to learn from each other, and the future will only get better if we can all shape it! AND it means that we’re dedicated to long term power building- not just showing up during an election or for a year and then disappearing. We’re Michigan based and we’re gonna be here fighting for Michigan for as long as we can.
Do you have to be a Socialist?
Nope! Though we talk about socialism a bit, and we’ll try to explain why we support an end to capitalism, but this is about winning on many different fronts! We will be working toward a basic analysis that super rich people shouldn’t control our society, but if you’re not comfortable identifying as a socialist that’s totally cool! Let’s work on the things we do agree on, and get some money, power and resources into the hands of working and oppressed peoples!
Our theory of change was adapted with the guidance and help of Michigan Student Power Network.
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