Democracy Equality & Inclusion Human Rights Privilege Racism

Media Island, Reparations, and the Racism of the Old (White) Guard

What happens when a media organization formerly run by white men who claim to be radical leftists falls into the hands of a black woman? Do they accept the change in ownership and move on with their lives? Do they offer their support and encouragement at this opportunity to promote a much-needed space for women of color in the community? Or do sparks start flying as said men become hellbent on shutting down the collective under the guise of stopping “privatization of community resources”? If you guessed Door #3, you’ve won today’s grand prize!

Welcome to Media Island International, a longtime media collective in Olympia, WA housing an independent radio station, a social justice library, space for meetings and events, and much more. The group has existed for years as a gathering place for Olympia’s activist networks. It offered resources for local organizations to meet and hold fundraisers. Sounds like a sweet deal, and it was for a while. But despite its honorable mission, Media Island fell into the same bureaucratic traps that so many progressive organizations stumble into in failing to confront their own capitalistic tendencies.

The rabbit hole runs deep on this madhouse, but here are some cliff notes. Media Island operated under the control of a board of mostly white men for much of its existence with this dude Rick Fellows at the helm. The group’s activism, while legitimate, focused on causes one would expect out of a collective of white men, and many community members outside this identity reported feeling unsafe and unwelcome at HQ. Reports of needle-swapping that brought undercover cops to the party, sexual assaults by visitors, and an unrestricted guest policy that created potentially dangerous situations for younger female visitors in a town with an underground sex trade continued to alienate these communities for the next years of this leadership. These concerns went unaddressed by the board.

Enter Shawna Hawk, the woman now running the joint. Lisa Ganser wrote an excellent piece on Shawna’s rise at Media Island in the street journalist outlet Poor Magazine. That piece will bring you up to date on the slug, but here’s the short version. Hawk became involved with MI as part of a project with the local Hip-Hop Congress chapter. She was later invited to join the board by the sitting powers and became the only woman, the only black person, and the only person of color to hold a spot in this pit crew. Through a series of scandals involving infighting, monopoly control of finances, and sexual assault allegations, the old boys of the board faded away and plans to sell the property emerged. Hawk stepped up to take over the space instead of allowing it to fall into some rando’s hands and shifted the focus to its current mission: to provide a welcoming space for women and people of color and their accomplices in an over 85% white town.

And boy did some heads roll when this power transfer happened.

Suddenly our main man Rick became concerned about the “privatizing of community resources.” No mention of this during the years he’s owned separate property a couple blocks over that he rents to others; no self-reflection on this principle when his posse intended to sell the house; no objection from the rest of the sausage fest when he received a regular stipend as board chair from a resolution Hawk supported; no concerns about profit motive when he turned down an organization’s ask for use of his bus because they didn’t fork over his asking price. When a black woman assumed control of his little boys-only hideout, Ricky boy blows an artery. The timing alone would be suspect, but in the face of these other hypocritical factors, we see a trend that plays out all the time when the old (white) guard of past progressive movements is confronted with the intersections between race and other forms of oppression.

At the heart of all this is the fundamental topic of reparations, or compensation, for the wealth stolen from slave families during the centuries of the slave trade. This concept is summarized in the American phrase “40 acres and a mule”, which refers to some early proposals of this idea before the end of the Civil War when General William Tecumseh issued an order to deliver 40 acres of land and the loan of an Army mule to each former slave family. The order was never obeyed. Black intellectuals and organizations took up the issue over the next several decades with many lobbying Congress for some form of wealth restoration around the turn of the 20th century. Plans for reparations now catch mainstream attention as they have become a core element of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

Several proposals for how to fulfil these obligations exist and it remains a complex and much-debated issue, but any adequate reparations plan must include an economic component. The American Humanist Association calculated that descendants of slaves would control a much larger share of the country’s wealth had their ancestors been permitted to keep the profits of their labor. Instead, the typical white household now controls 16 times the wealth of a black one as reported in Forbes magazine in 2015. Closing that wealth gap cannot be done by simply wiping the scoreboard and pretending that everyone is now on equal footing regardless of past events. Such an argument is not that different from the symbolic racism of neo-conservatives who insist racial discrimination does not exist in today’s America.

The Media Island fiasco highlights a chronic problem with leftist organizations run by whites of the old progressive movements. In their wars against the capitalist institutions they (rightly) criticized for predatory hoarding of wealth, they became blind to the privilege necessary to hold an absolutist view of socialism. They believed they could secede from an economy based on private ownership and be free of the racial oppression that economy caused. Their approach collapsed when resource control of these organizations inevitably funnelled to the pastiest dudes around in addition to an inability to recognize that it is necessary to operate within capitalistic frameworks while living in a capitalist society, especially if one lacks the resources needed to secede in the first place. You can’t run a grocery co-op without electricity to keep your grass-fed beef cold or without lights so your customers don’t ram into shelves. You ain’t lasting many rounds if your management team is more concerned with ideological purity than pragmatic accounting, and that’s exactly what happened to the socialist co-ops, publishers, and radio stations who failed to open their eyes to the real world around them. Employee-owned cooperatives can and do thrive in the 21st century United States, but these collectives succeed because they recognize the need to engage with the monetary system to cover their operational needs. They also tend to be more conscious of racial wealth disparities caused by historical trauma than their forbears and they incorporate this insight into their management structures.

People of color do not have the privilege to indulge the secessionist fantasy because the stripping of their wealth remains central to the oppression they face over a century after the “official” end of slavery. Karl Marx identified socialism as the product of advanced industrial economies and argued that such a society was only possible after the structures of capitalism had grown to their fullest extent. Debate still rages in economist circles about how true this teleological interpretation rings, but the fact remains that socialist collectives can only grow when they have the resources to build a foundation based in capitalist principles. Whites tend to have these resources and are therefore in a better position to separate themselves from the larger capitalist framework, and even that will only succeed until the tax man comes knocking with an order to kill your lights. People of color, and slave descendants in particular, lack these resources. The Center for Economic Policy Research reports that black households suffered some of the greatest losses in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis at a 33% decline in wealth in real terms compared to 12% in their white counterparts’ households, and this wealth gap remained unchanged for the next eight years (https://voxeu.org/article/decline-african-american-and-hispanic-wealth-great-recession). This trend began decades before 2008 and black wealth has never matched white wealth since the Abe Lincoln flicked that pen in 1863.

Restoring the wealth of people of color is necessary for a multiracial society to leap forward into socialist organization, yet this reality is cast aside by white liberals of past decades as “divisive” and “the hoarding of community property.” Black people controlling their own spaces with private capital isn’t a takeover of community spaces as this old guard would have you believe; it’s black people’s attempt to catch up after centuries of having their assets pillaged from their homes and communities.

So when Rick Fellows and Co go storming the gates of Media Island demanding a black woman relinquish property they were planning to sell before she took the reins, releasing the address of the house in a town that saw white supremacist rallies at the nearby college only two years ago and dishing out lines like “we have to do something about this” in a way reminiscent of lynch mob battle cries of the last century, they perpetuate the racist structures that ensure the gap between white and black wealth never closes. Though not as overt as the burning crosses in the Bible Belt countryside, this rhetoric of class struggle trumping all other forms of oppression still carries white supremacist undertones that can only come from a place of privilege where one’s class status paints the only target on their back.

Many of the socialist collectives and businesses of the ‘60s and ‘70s no longer exist because of their unrealistic approach to how to maneuver in a capitalist society, hinting that it isn’t a good model to replicate. Rather than see the intersections of oppression in horizontal terms, they created their own rhetorical hierarchies and assigned their own woes to the op of the pyramid. Socialism needs to be a goal in moving towards a more just society, but as Marx argued, that can only be achieved by operating within capitalist frameworks until the great leap forward can be made, and everyone must be on a comparable level of wealth control to ensure that smooth transition. We certainly don’t get there by running bandos and overlooking sexual assault allegations as the old boys’ club did at Media Island for years. A woman of color now has a space to give a silenced community a voice and offer the faintest hope that people of color can reclaim the astronomical wealth stolen from them. Think about why that bothers you, and stuff your argument about it being “privatization” where the sun don’t shine.

By George Collins

You can read more Ungagged Writing here or hear from more left voices on our podcast.

6 thoughts on “Media Island, Reparations, and the Racism of the Old (White) Guard

  1. This opinion piece lacks the research and the insight of experience that is necessary to give it substantive journalistic merit. It’s clearly an opinion formed by talking to Shawna Hawk and her cadre in the hopes of gaining their esteem. However I can’t write an objective article myself but I can give a very informed opinion. I have been involved with Media Island since at least 2009. In 2010 I was on the board for a year. I was caretaker in 2015 for one year. I helped bring in over 25 different caretakers to the organization. I helped build and rebuild up the KOWA radio station. I helped encourage Shawna’s involvement from her first meeting in having a radio show, helped her in using the equipment for her show, proposed her along with one other to join the board and when Jimmy denied her, the last thing I did as I was leaving was make sure she became Station Manager. So I have a very informed opinion.

    I made mistakes.

    The first was trusting Jimmy Mateson, who is charming and well spoken, but turned out to be a deceitful and manipulative egotistical con man. The second was to trust Shawna Hawk, who stabbed me and everyone else in the back and teamed up with Jimmy showing herself to be in character, just like the vain white man Jimmy.

    I’ve written plenty of nuanced explanations of what really happened at Media Island, this comment doesn’t cover it, but feel free to contact me and I can send more info. But I don’t want to get into the personal attacks other than clearly stating that Jimmy is the problem mainly and Shawna’s involvement with him shows her true colors. The most important thing in my opinion is just that the new Media Island and KOWA since Shawna just doesn’t produce. It does a quarter the amount of events. It has only a tiny devout crew involved and has rejected anyone that even remotely makes Shawna or Jimmy feel threatened. The politics have become so mainstream as to beg the question of what’s the point as it is not radical nor diverse. When I was caretaker for instance we had two black women, one latina/ native woman, one Chamorro, and 3 white men. KOWA has no live shows from 9 before. She has one meeting a month for her self serving and super basic liberal black women in leadership group which she could frankly organize through the chamber of commerce as an easier fit then Media Island.

    And if folks want to talk rather than spread bs about me and Rick and Dana amongst others, then we can talk. We can solve these issues, build something better, but if they think they can run over us and erase the decade of volunteers that built KOWA and Media Island they’re in for continued problems. Because the truth is getting harder to hide.

    Moderators Note: This comment has been edited on the grounds of privacy.

    1. Your lack of faith in my journalistic skills are duly-noted. Those award-winning mentors of mine sure did a shit job. Guess I still have much to learn after half a decade on the beat.

      I don’t dispute your experience with the organization but that doesn’t necessarily make your take “informed”, especially if you were as close to the old guard as you say. Interesting how you left out that you were kicked off the board for causing all kinds of major problems.

      I was aware of Media Island as an Evergreen student years ago, and it didn’t have the best reputation as a safe place for people to come even then. This was years before I met Shawna, and she was far from the only source for this story. Maybe that clashes with the narrative you’ve got but it doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t coming from just one group of people.

      But setting your dispute of the facts aside, what is it on principle you disagree with in elevating the issues of people of color, which is nowhere close to “mainstream” politics in the United States? Diversity is not keeping a few POC around the joint to score brownie points when the cameras are rolling and then disregarding their unique concerns behind closed doors (curious that none of those people you cite stuck around by the way). It’s also not pretending everyone is on equal footing while ignoring historical issues that result in deep wealth inequality. Class and race cannot be separated. It is anti-socialist to argue otherwise.

      It’s also concerning that a group of “liberal black women” is an inherently bad thing. This is the kind of call to action that puts people in danger.

    2. I program for KOWA. We have the most solidly LEFT-programming of any station in the area. It’s just that a Left station can’t do shows about class and nothing else. We have many shows on economic justice, on the continuing struggle for a world free of war, hatred, exploitation and poverty. But there also needed to be programming about anti-LGBTQ prejudice, Islamophobia, white supremacy, xenophobia and the way these questions intersect with the fight for economic justice. There is nothing in our programming that could be called “mainstream”.

      And nobody was “stabbed in the back”. It’s just that there was a transition in leadership and that, as a result, different people are running KOWA/MII now than there were in the past. And as to events-more events are beginning to happen, but there had to be a slow process of getting to that as the work was done to make KOWA/MII safe for women and people of color again, to deal with the fall out of years of crisis in which much of the community viewed MII as a fundamentally dangerous place to set foot in. Shawna and Jimmy made sure that work of addressing the danger was done. What is needed now is an end to the war. In the name of the greater good of the Left in Olympia, just STOP. Do something else.

      1. To further clarify…when I said “more events”-what I said above should not be taken, by anyone, as implying that there was a time when Shawna wasn’t DOING events. There were always monthly events going on-but now, even more events are occurring and more will occur. Also, when I said “Shawna and Jimmy”, I should have said “Shawna, the driving force behind KOWA-FM and Media Island from the moment she took over, made sure that the work of addressing the danger was done. Shawna made sure that everything that had to be done to make MII better and make KOWA better was done”. I stand with Shawna and, as a man of the same age-or older-and the same race of most of those who have been trying to undermine and remove her, I say to those who are doing that “Get a life. Find your own project. Use your energies for something positive and healing. It serves no purpose for you to keep this conflict going. You are adults with minds and skills-put them to use making things better. OK?

  2. KOWA does have the best left radio in Oly. It has for a long time. The current schedule hasn’t changed significantly since it was programmed 3 years ago which was built on the schedule set two years before that with a different crew and was built before that by Chuks and a few others.

    Chuks put in 4-5 years as caretaker of Media Island and Station Manager from about 2006-2010. He is a radical and a black man, I just saw him a few weeks ago briefly. I started being involved in Media Island as he was in the process of leaving. I didn’t understand then all the dynamics of MII but I took the time to learn.

    Chuks came to Media Island from the Tacoma Catholic Worker Guadalupe House and was friends with Father Bix. As a Catholic Worker he had a very different idea of what MII should do. He welcomed in the homeless who were willing to help and during the winter it served as an independent overflow shelter. MII never got the recognition or the resources though to support that work but despite that, or because of it, it was very effective in providing warmth and some support for many homeless for a decade.

    I am convinced that the claims of MII as “unsafe” were overwhelmingly based on the stereotypes against the diverse homeless community. When I became involved in MII it was during this era, it didn’t deter me but I was aware that it deterred others for a number of reasons. It’s hard to hold an organizing meeting for causes in a homeless warming center and quasi shelter. It is also hard in an empathetic community that worked largely through direct democracy in spokes council meetings to change. MII struggled intensely for years with a stagnant decision making apparatus that Rick and Tom participated in but didn’t effectively address. Jimmy of course was nowhere, just a name on documents.

    Change however happened, for the better, but it was always tough. Building on the work of Chuks and others, KOWA started to gain movement again starting with Matt Fu. He organized a crew of volunteers that had as many as 11 local shows and great events. He implemented the Airtime schedule that has only gone through a few major updates but none since Shawna came onboard.

    The year before Jimmy came back and declared himself king, we had 9 local shows, had raised $20k for new equipment for KOWA and had an amazing crew of diverse people. Shawna contributed little to that besides her show of mainstream hiphop. She had been kicked off KAOS but we welcomed her because MII was a welcoming place that said yes to initiative. We as caretakers and volunteers were there to serve the community, not ourselves.

    It is as strong a condemnation as I can make to say that myself and many others felt she stabbed all her fellow volunteers in the back when she joined Jimmy. Jimmy has no radio show, he throws no events, raises no money, but he is aggressively in charge. Why? Shawna only does very self serving organizing work. Fundraisers that support her, women in color in leadership that supports her, cultural events that celebrate her. Media Island is much much less diverse now than it ever has been.

    These are facts. Shawna is the 4th black woman caretaker and the 6th black caretaker. She is the second black Station Manager. While I was there we had two black women, a latina indigenous woman, a Chamorro male and 3 white guys living there as caretakers. We’ve had possibly a majority women and poc as caretakers in the past 10 plus years. Board diversity was a problem but it still is, with Jimmy in charge and a board of two with Jimmy deciding ties that’s not an improvement.

    I respect KOWA volunteers. I was one off and on for years. I believe in the radio station. I worked hard to bring it out of a forgotten corner to front it as the most important aspect of MII and the schedule we developed which is still in effect is amazingly diverse. Well it was. I heard Shawna removed the Spanish language shows we had.

    I wanted Shawna to be a board member. I fought with Rick and Tom and Jimmy internally because they failed at meeting our needs as volunteers. We demanded two new board members. Shawna and another long-standing activist out of Portland who worked on a political prisoner show on KBOO. Jimmy rejected our negotiations with authoritarian vigor backed at the time by Rick and Tom my longtime friends who were absolutely wrong in sheepishly cowering behind him. It wasn’t until all volunteers ran out that Shawna saw opportunity in the disaster for herself and cozied up to Jimmy. She got a house and titles and he got obedience and a shield.

    I have our original KOWA 3 year plans that 20 of us had agreed to during a two day retreat to Hope Island. We had a great sophisticated radio station we were building. I hope someday it will become that station again but it just won’t under Shawna and Jimmy. They don’t care enough and they plan on hoarding that community asset forever.

    1. See, this is why many of my sources among the former board members advised me not to interview you. They warned me it would devolve into long rambling diatribes that obfuscate many of the truths surrounding this story, you’re proving them correct. Like I said, somebody who got booted off the board for constantly causing trouble isn’t a reliable source for a story like this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.