Diana Crowder – Candidate Statement and Questionnaire

diana@justiceunity.org

I decided to run for the WBAI Local Station Board because I felt it was time for me to pay for the education I received through years of listening. When I was part of ProLibertad, the campaign to free Puerto Rican political prisoners, I also had the privilege of speaking on air several times about that continuing struggle.

However, since then, major changes to WBAI have caused me great concern. The station has moved to the right. It no longer serves as an adequate resource for organizing. For instance, over the past two years, thousands of courageous young undocumented immigrants have marched, and some committed civil disobedience, demanding passage of the DREAM Act, winning a major-if incomplete-victory. Where was WBAI with the type of in-depth special coverage that used to happen on burning issues?

A migrant myself from Britain, a country that has exploited much of the world, I am active in the struggle for immigrants’ rights. I belong to Trabajadores Por la Paz, a Bronx-based immigrant women’s group. I want to see the station become more involved with issues that affect immigrants and the Spanish-speaking community in general. Most of this community has never heard of WBAI; I want to help build the station’s connection with this growing group of our neighbors. As I organize around issues of amnesty, racial profiling, and deportation, I want immigrants to be deeply informed on these issues by listening to WBAI.

This is one reason why the 2010 dropping of the daily Spanish-language progressive national/international news program “Informativo Pacifica” and burying of “La Voz Latina,” the sole hour of Spanish-language public-affairs programming, at 6AM on Saturday were so upsetting. The firing and banning of dissenting programmers without due process has also been alien to the WBAI I learned to love.

In addition to my social activism, I am a worker who was laid off and then rehired at a lower wage. My job is still insecure, as the NJ university where I work is being merged with another. But my union, Health Professionals & Allied Employees, Local 5094, of which I am a rep and chair of the Health & Safety Committee, fought for and won legislation to recognize the bargaining unit and contract.

So I understand on both a gut level and in political terms why now more than ever we need a radio station that is genuinely progressive, pro-worker, and anti-racist, with programming that provides in-depth investigative information that connects, informs, and mobilizes us. We need a radio station with gumption.

I am proud to run for the board as part of the WBAI Justice and Unity Campaign (www.justiceunity.org), which has been endorsed by CEMOTAP and the People’s Organization for Progress, among others.

Please vote for me and my colleagues in this suggested order:
1. Father Luis Barrios
2. Cerene Roberts
3. William Heerwagen
4. Sharonne Salaam
5. Russell Dale
6. Carlos Canales
7. Diana Crowder
8. Shahid Comrade
9. Ebon Charles
10. Eugene Hamond

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Answers to Candidate Questionnaire

1.    In what ways is your station moving in a positive direction, that you would want to continue or perhaps improve?

I want to see the station play more of a part in informing and helping organize communities, especially the Spanish-speaking community. While there are some Spanish-language music shows, the excellent daily progressive Spanish-language national/international news show was cancelled two years ago, and the only remaining local public-affairs show was moved to 6 AM on Saturdays. WBAI can better serve this community by expanding programming that gets out to where the people live and work, and by broadcasting their struggles and concerns.

I would invite representatives of WBAI:
to speak about the station at events in the Spanish-speaking and immigrant communities, tell them about the station and the programming, and
to listen to these communities, hear what they need from the station, and incorporate those things.

2.    In what ways is your station moving in a negative direction, that you would want to stop or change? What changes would you work for?

Moving away from community programming has been very negative. For example, some of George Galloway’s programs – often broadcast from England – have such a bad connection that I can barely hear what he’s saying. His is one of several morning shows by out-of-towners brought in after Wakeup Call’s local voices were cut by a third. We need more local hosts who are actively involved in struggle here.

WBAI’s mission includes reporting on the many local, national, and international struggles by encouraging each community to tell its organizing story so they feel connected, so they know others are out there struggling too. I don’t see WBAI adequately fulfilling this part of its mission. From my experience and connections (see below), I can bring WBAI to the Spanish-speaking community and vice versa.

WBAI also needs to provide investigative reporting that exposes the contradictions of the Democratic Party, which includes letting different communities talk about how they have been sold out.

3.    What key experience, connections, skills or traits would you bring to the Local Station Board to advance the station’s mission?

I have a Masters in Environmental Science and am a Certified Industrial Hygienist. I was co-founder/president of the NJ White Lung Association – asbestos victims who educate to prevent exposure. I was part of ProLibertad, the group that helped obtain the release of 11 Puerto Rican Political Prisoners in 1999. I am now:
a board member of the Work Environment Council in NJ, a coalition of labor, environmental, and community groups
a shop steward and health and safety chair of Health Professionals & Allied Employees, Local 5094
a member of a South Bronx immigrant women’s group, Trabajadores Por la Paz, and the May 1st Immigrant Rights Coalition.

I’ve often used my organizing skills to connect these struggles. I’m at home in the labor, environmental, Puerto Rican, and Latino communities. I understand that the fight is one fight.

I am also pursuing a spiritual journey and recognize the need for connection on a personal as well as a political level.

4.    What ideas do you have for helping the station and the Pacifica Foundation meet the financial challenges currently being faced?

WBAI should:
go to the communities they serve and want to serve and hold joint fundraisers with those community groups,
in the near future move off of Wall Street, with its outrageous rent, into an affordable part of the city, and
explore the feasibility of approaching banks about investing in a new home for WBAI under the Community Reinvestment Act.