Posted: November 2nd, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: BAM-N, University of Michigan | No Comments »
I was excited to hear that BAM-N is being confronted for their confrontational and counter-productive tactics. Apparently BAM-N relied on an old tried and true tactic – hijack another meeting to use it as a platform to try to provoke conflict and strife. When I was on MSA we got pretty good at shutting them out.
Although there’s a lot of talk about “revealing” and “stopping” them now, let’s not forget they were struck a blow in 2001 when a broad coalition of student leaders orchestrated a major hearing of our own about BAM-N causing them to write not just one but two op-eds in the Daily in response. The journalistic attacks of 2001 played an important role in clearing the stage for the highly successful Students Supporting Affirmative Action which was the ONLY group speaking to reporters the day the U.S. Supreme Court announced their decision in the Michigan Affirmative Action cases. Although it’s frustrating that career Trotskyites don’t go away, current leaders should remember the past and exactly how easy it is to put them in their place on campus and in politics more generally.
What is missing from the 2001 story is an account of moving testimony at the meeting by MSA Vice President Jim Secreto who spoke of how he (a liberal) was attacked and called “the white devil,” by BAM-N, and by a Residential College student who had been a member who recounted the group’s extreme indoctrination methods which included dictating his personal schedule and forced study groups in Detroit. I also spoke to the group’s leadership and history, much of which is on www.nobamn.com.
Also, Dumi has more information about what’s going on now on campus on his blog.
> THEN: Michigan Daily, Sept. 21, 2001: “BAMN blasted for dominating racial issues”
> NOW: Michgian Daily, Nov. 2, 2005: “Groups clash at student gov’t meeting at MSA meeting“
Posted: October 31st, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: BAM-N, Justice, Michigan, University of Michigan | No Comments »
Alex Moffett, vice president of the NAACP, said BAMN tokenized and presented black students in a bad light when it bused in hundreds of black middle- and high-school students from Detroit for the Thursday rally on the Diag.
During the rally against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a proposal that could ban the use of affirmative action by the University and the state if it is approved by voters next year, the Detroit students were given microphones and could be heard yelling profanities and slurs at anti-affirmative action protesters at the back of the crowd. Moffett said the students came across as uneducated about affirmative action and faulted BAMN for putting them under the spotlight without preparation.
“Some of them didn’t even know why they were there — they were just there as tokens, so people would see a large number of black students,� Moffett said. “(BAMN was) just perpetuating untruths about young black students. As a community, we find that totally unacceptable.�
> Michigan Daily: “NAACP slams BAMN“
Posted: October 24th, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: BAM-N, University of Michigan | No Comments »
I just added some text to NoBamn.com after I heard some conservatives were advertising the URL at the University of Michigan at BAM-N organized events.
Posted: September 23rd, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: Michigan, University of Michigan | 4 Comments »
At Michigan, a different tune from conservatives:
TMD: Do you have a vision for the Review?
JDD: I definitely have a vision for the Review. I think that in the past, our paper has been led by people who maybe are upset with BAMN, or simply didn’t like affirmative action – basically, people who formed their political agenda in response to what others did. I don’t feel like that’s the case anymore because affirmative action is not this big boogeyman that we have to argue against anymore — I actually personally support affirmative action. I haven’t polled my edit board to see how they feel. But I think that if you sum up the Review in one sentence, this is not your older brother’s Michigan Review or your father’s Michigan Review. We’re not afraid of liberals, we don’t think that they’re these evil people, we don’t think that all professors are tenured radicals. I want the Review to be known as the intellectual capital of conservatism on this campus. I want to bring us back to the point where people can pick us up and read us and think about something differently than they did before they picked us up.
I’m not trying to create converts or anything like that. I just want to get you thinking. And I think the Review is going to be more of a paper that makes people think this year than we have in the past.
Posted: August 30th, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: BAM-N | No Comments »
More press on BAM-N’s trouble getting in FBI memos today, this time in the State News at MSU. And BAM-N was spinning it the best they could:
The national leaders of BAMN said they also plan to fight the accusations, not only for themselves, but for every civil rights group throughout the county.
“We feel strongly that the American people have a right to know their government is spying on its citizens,” co-chairman Luke Massie said. “We happen to have been in the wave of attacks on civil liberties.
“This government can’t get away with spying on its own people.”
Notice he said this government. The State News adds this to Luke’s talk of “spying”:
Although the document does not contain how information about the groups was collected, some say they are concerned that illegal surveillance methods could have been utilized.
“How they got that information is an open question,” Moss said. “That is a very important question. It was not clear from their statement.”
Members of the FBI don’t use illegal surveillance methods because it is a violation of federal law, Licht said.
Posted: August 29th, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: BAM-N, Michigan, University of Michigan | 2 Comments »
As a number of people have emailed to tell me, the ACLU announced that two peaceful Michigan political groups – BAM-N and Direct Action – were mentioned in an FBI report about domestic terrorism:
The document released today is an FBI report labeled, “Domestic Terrorism Symposium,” and describes a meeting that was intended to “keep the local, state and federal law enforcement agencies apprised of the activities of the various groups and individuals within the state of Michigan who are thought to be involved in terrorist activities.”
Among the groups mentioned are Direct Action, an anti-war group, and BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), a national organization dedicated to defending affirmative action, integration, and other gains of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The FBI acknowledges in the report that the Michigan State Police has information that BAMN has been peaceful in the past.
“Labeling political advocacy as ‘terrorist activity’ is a threat to legitimate dissent which has never been considered a crime in this country,” said Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan. “Spying on people who simply disagree with our government’s policies is a tremendous waste of police resources.” …
The ACLU launched its nationwide effort last year in response to widespread complaints from students and political activists who said they were questioned by FBI agents in the months leading up to the 2004 political conventions. The FOIAs seek two kinds of information: 1) the actual FBI files of groups and individuals targeted for speaking out or practicing their faith; and, 2) information about how the practices and funding structure of the task forces, known as JTTFs, may be encouraging rampant and unwarranted spying.
I detest BAM-N because they are militant, sectarian Trotskyites (which strongly resembles a cult) whose politics are detrimental to the goals of pragmatic progressive change I advocate, and I personally dislike many of the individuals in BAM-N who are dogmatic bullies. That said, in the course of my extensive research of BAM-N, which includes detailed interviews with former members and a survey of virtually every news story printed about them, I have never found a shred of evidence they have done anything illegal except perhaps encouraging their younger members to get into fights and throw things at political demonstrations. Unless the FBI knows something I don’t, I fear they are barking up the wrong tree.
> See the complete ACLY press release: “FBI Document Labels Michigan Affirmative Action and Peace Groups as Terrorists”
> What’s the deal with BAM-N? Read my archives here.
Posted: August 3rd, 2005 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: | Comments Off
This has been my personal blog since 2001. This page contains a guide to some of my favorite posts and offline records. A search engine and categorical index is available on the sidebar to the right.
Favorite Posts
Urban Planning
Washington, D.C.
D.C. Metro System
History
Other Favorites
Older Information
A variety of electronic records are available to the public at this domain that are not available through the blog search engine and archives. Below are a collection of links to help identify older content. If you’re looking for anything on the site, I suggest starting with a Google search of my domain.
Due to a technical glitch experienced by my hosting company, the posts on this blog from the past year are not easily accessible. However, most of the content was preserved by Google’s Cache. Here’s a topical index to my posts from September 2004 through July 2005: Last Working Index (July 4, 2005), Affirmative Action, Ann Arbor, Art, BAM-N, Blogosphere, Books, Elections, Glover Park, History, Justice, Maine, Michigamua, Michigan, New York City, Photos, Politics, Portland Photo Project, Site Announcements, Stencil Art, Student Government, Technology, University of Michigan, Washington D.C..
In July and August 2004 I wrote a D.C. blog to prepare for DCist: Goodspeed Update 2.0 Older archive pages: May 2004, April 2004, March 2004, February 2004, January 2004, December 2003, November 2003, October 2003, September 2003, August 2003, July 2003, June 2003, May 2003, April 2003, March 2003, February 2003 (Feb. 18-22), January 2003, December 2002, November 2002, October 2002, September 2002, August 2002, July 2002, June 2002, May 2002, April 2002, March 2002, February 2002, January 2002, December 2001, November 2001, Sept.-Oct 2001
Indexes: Saying Farewell to Ann Arbor (June 5, 2004), July 16, 2005 Index (Before 6/05 site problems/relaunch), The colors of goodspeedupdate. See this page On Archive.org
Offline Information
In February 2005 I deposited many of my papers I accumulated during my four and a half years living in Ann Arbor to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. The papers have been processed and are available to the public at that library. Click here to view the collection’s catalog entry: Robert Goodspeed Papers, 2000-2004. Also, the library has provided me this copy of the finding aid they prepared by the library: Robert Goodspeed Papers Library Finding Aid. (PDF)
Why the Bentley? First, I wanted this information preserved in a public yet secure location. Most of its salient information is already replicated on this website, and I believed the library will follow my wishes and make the information public. Second, as the University’s official archive their funding and future seems assured for the foreseeable future.
The collection, includes the following things:
- My Course Outline and Coursepack: I have included both the initial and then supplementary coursepack for a 1-credit honors mini-course I taught Winter 2004 titled “Student Activism and Social Change at the University of Michigan”. Some of the readings are from reports and books I found in the U-M libraries, some from the Michigan Daily, and some from books in my personal collection.
- Research for Investigative Journalism Work: Including eye-opening FOIAs about the re-structuring of the Organizational Studies major, University-coordinated activities with local law enforcement officials to crack down on the Naked Mile when it was decided the tradition should be abolished, police reports from on-campus incidents involving varsity football players in the late 1990s, names of members of the secret juries that heard appeals under the University’s Code of Student Conduct, a study commissioned by University Housing regarding the future of the University-operated snack bars, and more.
- Information about Vulcan and Michigamua: Membership information for both groups including a copy of a 2004 Vulcan publication with a member directory, and a copy of a Michigamua directory from 1997. Also included is a variety of materials accumulated about Michigamua including internal email correspondence I obtained as a reporter for the Michigan Daily, lists of members sent to me by anonymous sources, and miscellaneous other documents.
- My Thesis and Supplementary Documentation: I have included a copy of my thesis, titled Urban Renewal in Postwar Detroit: The Gratiot Area Redevelopment Project. I also include a binder of articles and other materials culled from old copies of the Michigan Chronicle and other sources in the U-M and Detroit Public Library on urban “renewal” in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s.
- A Large Collection of BAM-N Propaganda: I have long been fascinated by the organization the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary and the cadre of Trotkite organizers who operate it. I have compiled an archive of information about them on the website NOBAMN.com, and my papers include many of that information as well as a large collection of the organization’s publications and flyers.
- “Inside the Daily”: I have included a printed version of my Inside the Daily series.
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