Dania Rajendra

Dania Rajendra

Dania Rajendra lives in Brooklyn, New York. Married to Ajay Singh Chaudhary.

Dania Rajendra is closely associated with the Democratic Socialists of America and Liberation Road. At the October 2019 Progressive Strategy Summit, Dania Rajendra was listed as representing United for Respect, which was designed to co-opt Walmart.

She is the Director of the George Soros' Open Society Foundations-funded, anti-Amazon coalition Athena.

Bio

Dania Rajendra's biography from the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference in March 2019:

Dania Rajendra has worked in most corners of the efforts for social change in the US -- in the arts, in philanthropy, for unions and alt-labor organizations, and in academia. A former chair of the board of Political Research Associates, Dania now sits on the board of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and on the Advisory Council of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, among others.

Civil Liberties and Public Policy

Civil Liberties and Public Policy Logo

Dania Rajendra was listed as a speaker for Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP).

Progressive Caucus Action Fund Session

Dania Rajendra was involved in the Progressive Strategy Summit named "Building Power for the Rest of Us" held on October 24-25 2019 at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill. Dania Rajendra was listed as one of those "featured" in a panel headlined "From the Shop Floor to the House Floor: Bringing; Lessons from the Picket Lines into Policy Debates" which aimed to "discuss our shared goals of rebalancing our economy to achieve racial, gender, and economic justice."

Verbatim:

"A hallmark of the progressive movement is a belief that the experiences and needs of working people should animate our policy and politics. This session will bring together organizers, policy makers, labor leaders, advocates, and activists to discuss our shared goals of rebalancing our economy to achieve racial, gender, and economic justice. Bank workers from Santander and Wells Fargo, women working at Walmart, warehouse workers at Amazon, federal contract workers, and striking UAW workers will describe their campaign goals. Special guest members of Congress and national policy leaders will have the opportunity to describe the change they're fighting for in Washington and recent progress building worker power through legislative campaigns. Some of the questions that may be addressed include: How do we achieve better alignment between policy in Washington and people organizing on the front lines? What are the gaps in existing legislation that need to be filled to support working people in a rapidly changing economy? What are the steps we need to take to rein in corporate power, beyond traditional labor legislation? How does the legislation currently on offer build worker power and achieve racial, economic and gender justice?

Moderator: Dorian Warren, Center for Community Change

Featuring: Rep. Donald Norcross; Rep. Mark Pocan, CPC Co-Chair; Rep. Mark Takano; Randy Bryce; Emily Chatterjee, Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights; Jaya Chatterjee, Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Judy Conti, National Employment Law Project; Andrea Dehlendorf, United for Respect; Vasudha Desikan United for Respect; Jasmine Dixon, United for Respect; Richard Eidlin, American Sustainable Business Council; Joseph Geevarghese, Our Revolution; Terrysa Guerra, United for Respect; Desiree Hoffman, United Automobile Workers; Shane Larson, Communications Workers of America; David Madland, Center for American Progress; Emily Martin, National Women’s Law Center; Michelle McGrain, National Partnership from Women & Families; Guled Mohamad, United for Respect; Josh Nassar, United Automobile Workers; Jackie Parncutt, United Auto Workers, General Motors worker; Dania Rajendra, United for Respect; Larriese Reeves, Santander Bank worker; Alex Ross, Wells Fargo worker; Bill Samuel, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute

Linking White Supremacy and Anti-Abortion Movements

Dania Rajendra was listed as a speaker at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference in March 2019.

"Linking White Supremacy and Anti-Abortion Movements: Do you know how white supremacists on the right are strategizing to advance their movements? How are white nationalist movements linked to gender-based violence and anti-abortion politics? How much of our higher education has been infiltrated by far right funders and how can we reclaim the state of our knowledge production? Join Carol Mason, professor of gender studies at University of Kentucky; Dania Rajendra; Jalessah Jackson, Georgia Coordinator at SisterSong; and Jasmine Banks, Executive Director of UnKoch My Campus for a deep dive into the connections between racism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and reproductive politics.

"Strategies Against the Far Right" Retreat with Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

According to her bio at the "Strategies Against the Far Right" retreat held June 15-18, 2017 by the New York City affiliate of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Dania Rajendra "is a writer, editor, and extension faculty at The Worker Institute at Cornell University, board chair of Political Research Associates, and a member of the board of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Her previous experience includes work for worker justice and immigrants’ rights, in philanthropy, in the arts, and on the 2004 election cycle." Dania Rajendra was listed as one of the "approximately 55 participants" at the retreat.

In a Report Back from the Retreat, Dania Rajendra's participation was documented:

Racism and Anti-Semitism - Audrey Sasson and Dania Rajendra, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ)

"Audrey Sasson opened this presentation, which focused on the topic of anti-Semitism, how it relates to racism, and JFREJ’s work around these issues. Previously, JFREJ had bought into the silence on the left around anti-Semitism, considering Jews, or at least white Jews, to be a privileged group whose role is to be good allies. They began a process of self-examination as to why they were a left-wing Jewish group that was not talking about anti-Semitism. If we are not aware of the role of anti-Semitism in relation to racism and capitalism, JFREJ asked, how can we critique others for not being clear about it?

"Dania Rajendra continued by observing that nobody is more racist than the ruling class. Anti-Semitism gets mapped onto the one-percent and ninety-nine percent discourse, with Jews taking the role of the nefarious ruling classes. Here, anti-Semitism continues to function as the socialism of fools, as can be seen in the Trump campaign’s final television ad. When anti-Semites talk about “the Jew,” it has nothing to do with actual Jews. Rather, it’s about the idea of the Jew. It is a projection of power. Similarly, the Muslim functions as a stand-in, a bogey man for a kind of response to the economic and social system, as a displacement and a projection.

Criticism of George Soros is Antisemitic

From an article dated October 11, 2018 by Dove Kent (described as an "organizer, educator, and movement builder based in Durham, North Carolina) Dania Rajendra is the former Executive Director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice") quoting Dania Rajendra at the Jewish Current:

"Trump’s white nationalist audience knows what he means when he points the finger at Soros—he’s invoking a time-tested antisemitic strategy for undermining social movements. According to Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) Board Member Dania Rajendra:

Antisemitism and the idea of 'outside agitators' is the right’s most effective tool for delegitimizing both the message and messengers of social justice. If protest can be blamed on those outside of the state, then both the message and the messenger are untrustworthy. Delegitimizing both is necessary to eventually repress or expel said 'troublemakers' by the forces of 'law and order.' And in fact, we saw the president say exactly that to a conference of police the same week as his post-Kavanaugh-protest Soros tweet.

Athena

Dania Rajendra's Twitter Bio (screenshot)

Maya Shwayder of Non Perele referred to Dania Rajendra as the Director of Athena on 27 November 2019:

Radical wedding

Ajay Singh Chaudhary September 8, 2017 · ·

With Dania Rajendra, Dove Kent and Theo Luebke at Governors Island.

Jews for Racial & Economic Justice

Dania Rajendra April 14, 2017 ·

With Rafael Shimunov. Jews for Racial & Economic Justice.

The Activist

In 2001, the Editorial Board, of The Activist - journal of the Young Democratic Socialists, consisted of;

• Paul Fitzgerald
• Geoff Kurtz
• Daraka Larimore-Hall
• Oscar Owens
• Michael Rabinowitz
• Dania Rajendra
• Jessica Shearer

Cover illustrations were by Oscar Owens. Layout by Tracie McMillan.

Clarion

Dania Rajendra was co-editor of Clarion, the union paper of the Professional Staff Congress.

In These Times

As of 2009 Dania Rajendra was a member of the Editorial Board of Chicago based socialist journal In These Times.

Left Labor Project Presents: What Happened? What Now?

Left Labor Project Presents: What Happened? What Now? Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 6 PM - 9 PM, 310 W 43rd St, New York.

A converastion with Bill Fletcher, Jr., international activist and co-author of Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice.

This event is Co-sponsored by: Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, Committees of Correspondence Education Fund, Democratic Socialists of America, Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Those attending included Dania Rajendra .