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Another excellent essay by Sanyika Shakur, who was released from Pelican Bay SHU last August. As he wrote before his release:

i was born Nov 13, 1963. Raised in South Central Los Angeles, by a phenomenal single, working-class, mother. Cut my teeth in the hostile gang culture in South Central from the mid-70's til the late 80's. Was introduced to the New Afrikan Independence Movement, by way of the Spear & Shield Collective, in 1986, while in the SHU at San Quentin. It was also in 1986 that i became a Shakur. I am a founding cadre of the August Third Collective and a combatant in the New Afrikan Peoples Liberation Army. I have had an indeterminate SHU term since 1989, for being a threat to the safety and security of the institution - presumably CDCR, though i suspect it's the institution of capitalism. I am an author that has produced pieces for various movement publications over the years as well as a couple of books. Currently working with Kersplebedeb Publishing & Distribution to publish a collection of writings done here in Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit.

This essay is also posted on the Kersplebedeb website. More about, and by, Sanyika Shakur can be found at http://www.kersplebedeb.com/sanyikashakur.html.

Pathology of Patriarchy:
A Search for Clues at the Scene of the Crime

Sanyika Shakur

“The great divide between humans and animals provided a standard by which to judge other people, both at home and elsewhere. If the essence of humanity was defined as consisting of a specific quality or set of qualities, such as reason, intelligible language, religion, culture, or manners, it followed that anyone who did not fully possess those qualities was “subhuman”. Those judged less than human were seen either as useful beasts to be curbed, domesticated, and kept docile, or as predators or vermin to be eliminated” (1)

What We are going to do here is direct your attention to the pathology of oppression, but not simply as you are used to reading about it. The obvious points of contention will inevitably be touched on as they relate, to attendant ills, to the subject at hand, however, We will try to keep our focus - and your attention – trained on the issue in play! Please bear with us as We move along to connect the dots. We want to talk about homophobia – the fear and oppression of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. And We want to discuss this because as revolutionaries it is our duty to deal with all socio-economic and political phenomena that engages our reality (past, present and future). The obligation of the revolutionary is to make the revolution. That is to change oneself, encourage the people to change and then change the current system that oppresses. Of course, it would be ideal if, in 2012, We didn’t have to even deal with this matter. We wish that these issues had been resolved during the last hightide of consciousness. But sadly, that was not the case - and so here We are. No matter, the sooner begun, the sooner done, no? Right on!

We are learning as We go to recognize, overstand, isolate and deal with maladies as they arise, but have just begun to tie all these into the oppressive matrix of patriarchy as the origin of major ism’s that crush, kill, disrupt and destroy – as they oppress and exploit. It’s unfortunate, but We’re having to sometimes start from scratch every 30 or 40 years because We lack a continuity of consciousness in our struggle against capitalist – imperialism. And while issues of sexism have been dealt with in large part by women, it’s necessary We think to broaden the scope of the discussion of sexism to include homophobia and heterosexism. We are not in anyway, claiming to be experts on this issue. We are studying and struggling around the same things that most revolutionaries are – which is to say, We are looking for clues at the scene of the crime. Trying to connect the dots as they relate to individual, national and global oppression. We are, in essence, looking for ways to get free and stay free. Free, that is fromall forms of oppression.

Here’s the thing, really, if people are being oppressed because of who they naturally are (and We know this to be true), which may not fit into a patriarchal gender box, then this is due to a “sex” (or gender) issue. So We feel this still covers sex-ism. In other words, that patriarchy (male dominated systems of oppression) create categories for people to fit into in order to exploit and oppress. Therefore, so-called genders then become classes. A class of men, the dominant – masculine, violent, god, father, king president, boss, etc. –  and a class of women, the dominated – feminine, passive, holy ghost, homemaker, whore, etc. Oppression by “sex” is the oldest form of oppression on the planet. Older than institutionalized theocracies like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Theocratic regimes institutionalized male dominant systems of oppression thru laws, state bureaucracies and social relations. In fact, men deal with women and children as they did livestock.

“Nowhere is patriarchy’s iron fist as naked as in the oppression of animals, which serves as the model and training ground for all other forms of oppression”. (2)

Pathological Progression of Patriarchy

Why is it necessary to speak about patriarchy if We are discussing homophobia? And, why begin with the oppression of women and children if this is about oppression of gender outlaws? Well, what We have to do is a bit of excavation – some radical anthropology, if you will, because the fact of the matter is, We know that things don’t fall from the sky or magically appear out of thin air. We are looking for connections, contradictions and from these We’ll be rewarded with the truth of origins and the internal dynamics in the life process of the thing. The “thing” in this particular study is oppression as manifested thru the system of patriarchy – which We contend is the origin of a vast array of other forms of oppression. Which is precisely why We brought in the domestication of animals. We are learning that the same techniques used to domesticate animals were also used in the colonization of women and children and eventually every culture they encountered. Breeding, birth control, castration, segregation, exploitation and mass murder were methods learned first on animals and then on humans. And there was always a symbiotic relationship of know-how used between the two areas of domestication of animals, including their mass killing for capitalist markets and the mass production of commodities, such as cars, in the development of capitalist industry:

 “In his autobiography My life and Work (1922) Henry Ford revealed that his inspiration for assembly-line production came from a visit he made as a young man to a Chicago slaughterhouse. ‘I believe that this was the first moving line ever installed,’ he wrote, ‘The idea [of the assembly line] came in a general way from the overhead trolley that the Chicago packers use in dressing beef.’” (3)  

Capitalism came out of patriarchy, but We know that it is not exclusive to capitalism. It was a good ol’ boy network beforecapitalism is recognized to have created modern classes. It was the same good ol’ boy network under soviet so-called “socialism” and it was a good ol’ boy network in the civil rights movement and to a large degree, in the Black Liberation Movement. Patriarchy positions itself above all as the reason, the answer and the solution – all to the detriment of women and children, but that’s not all. Patriarchy is a pervasive system of oppression that reaches far and wide into the minds and actions of all. It produces sexism, of course, but more insidiously it relies upon its victims to perpetuate and promote it. Again, there’s no magic involved here. These things are knowable - and it follows that if We can identify, expose and challenge these things We can defeat them. Or, be defeated. And, should We do nothing, this will most certainly insure that things get worse.

Often times We miss the boat on overstanding the subtle ways We go about reinforcing patriarchal relationships in our daily lives. See, because domination is but one aspect of patriarchy. That’s just the obvious aspect of it. You know, like when Conquistadors pushed up in the Inca Empire, or the English vamped on India. The domination was obvious. But then came the missionaries, the laws, the state – the colonial culture. These caused the second, corresponding aspect, of patriarchy: Dependency. The colonized were made to feel that they’d been chosen as subjects for a great, all encompassing “civilizational” leap forward. That the invaders were sent by the “Great Father” in the sky, who’d sent word to the King, who in turn instructed the invaders to save the heathens from their wretched selves! Bring them into the modern world – by dint of canon and bayonet if necessary:

“Aristotle maintained that man’s domination over animals extended to slaves and women as well, another view that mirrored the political reality of the day, since human slavery and subordination of women were the norm in Ancient Greece. In hisPolitics, Aristotle wrote that such ‘uncivilized’ people as the neighboring Achaeans and Thracians ‘are slaves by nature, as the body is to the soul, or as beasts are to men.’ Aristotle believed it was as permissible to enslave people who did not possess ‘reason’ as it was to enslave the common, and for the most part live at random.” (4)

Legitimized thru Longevity

The same patriarchy which first oppressed women, (after having perfected the methods on animals) as “inferiors”, went on to evolve into the judeo-christian and Islamic institutions or theology that have scorched the planet today. This is why in every major religion god is ahe or him – Father, i.e. male (according to “gender”). The last messenger, prophet, offspring and the last one god supposedly spoke to – yep, you guessed it, men. Coincidence? Natural? Not a chance. To make matters worse, as if patriarchy could even be content with one form of oppression, Euro-Supremacists went a step further than some unseen spirit in the sky, they painted a picture of their god-father’s son in their image. They in effect became the prototype of the son of god image and thus in the direct lineage from god himself. Plato, Aristotle’s teacher created the idea of the Great Chain of Being this formalized the belief of the Greeks that they ranked higher than non-Greeks, women, slaves and of course animals.

“Medieval Christendom translated Plato’s image into a ladder which had God at the top and European Christian on the highest rung, a position that granted them a divine mandate as God’s overseers and stewards to rule over the rest of the ladder below. The idea that European man flawed and sinful though he might be, occupied a position on earth comparable to God’s position in the universe became a central idea in the religious and philosophical thought of Western civilization regarding man’s place in nature. Thus Europeanism had virtually unlimited authority to rule the natural world as ‘the vice regent and deputy or almighty God’.” (5)

And because of this “virtual unlimited authority” there’s a very dark, wretchedly oppressed and colonized Indian women, in Bombay with a picture of a prototypical European man on her wall who she believes is the son of god – her Lord and Savior – who died for her sins. And yet although he died for her “sins”, she is still paying a perpetual debt she never owed. And this scene is replicated a million times over across the planet in homes, hovels, huts, churches and prisons – in every colony. The theocracies are heavily invested in the business of patriarchy – in domestication and colonization. And the colonial subjects respond with fealty and dependency. Women tell their sons to “be the man of the house”. Men tell their wives to “stay in a woman’s place”. Men who show emotions are said to be “acting like little girls”. Women who exert themselves as humans are called “dykes and bulldaggers or butch”. Violence is masculinized and passivity is feminized. This is so because patriarchy has created two exclusive genders. Two neat little boxes to insert all of humanity. And this has been legitimized by theocracy and capitalism thru longevity and a corresponding dependency by the masses on a grand distortion of nature itself. The longevity We speak of here has to do with people divesting themselves of the responsibility of social investigation. Of simply allowing abnormalities to persist without challenge because “it’s always been this way” or “that’s just the way it is”. No, that’s notjust the way it is – it’s the way it’s been made. It hasn’t fallen from the sky, or been miraculously blinked into existence. This oppression is man-made (literally) – it serves someone’s interest. The people relinquish their power to oppression when they default on social investigation of curious and questionable systems. Patriarchy and its attendant ills slither on uninterrupted:

“Patriarchy is a form of social organization that produces what we commonly recognize as sexism. But it goes well beyond individual or systemic prejudice against women. It is, first of all, the false division of all people into two rigid categories (male and female) that are asserted to be natural and moral. Patriarchy attempts to destroy, socially or even physically, anyone who does not fit into one of these categories or who rejects this “gender binary”. Patriarchy goes on to define clear roles (economic, social, emotional, political) for men and women, and it asserts (falsely) that these roles are natural and moral. Under patriarchy, people who do not fit into or who reject these gender roles are neutralized with violence and ostracism. They are made to see and feel ugly, dirty, scary, contemptible, worthless. Patriarchy is harmful to everybody, and it is reproduced by everyone who lives with it.” (6)

Weaponized Patriarchy

In addition to patriarchy going on to “define clear roles for men and woman,” it also set in motion the ill definition of races. In creating itself first as a class of men, to domesticate and rule over animals, women and children, it was a logical progression of patriarchy to define all humans as being of different “races”. For a plurality of races made it that much easier to justify, implement and sustain Plato’s earlier design of the Great Chain of Being. Because patriarchy is necessarily hierarchal, it was but a short trip to the lunatic fringe ofracism, though actually it was really euro-supremacy. To call it “racism” would, in essence, subtly reinforce the false social construct of a plurality of races on the planet. When, of course, this is not true. So, We’ll call it what it is – euro-supremacy. Euro-supremacy is also euro-centricity. Though, just as patriarchy is not exclusive a capitalist thing, nor is it exclusively a European thing. It’s a man thing. It is highly contagious and must be combated constantly. It fastens a sense of entitlement that lends itself to taking liberties with other people’s lives and existence based solely on what is perceived to be “difference”. We focus our attention on euro-supremacy as an attendant ill/side effect of patriarchy because it was them (English, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgians etc.) who weaponized paternal relations in myriad conquests across the globe. It was the British Empire upon whom it was said “the sun never set”. In other words, its domination was global. And it is a fact that 99% of the borders between countries, nations and states were drawn by European colonialism.

What made euro-patriarchy weaponized, aside from the obvious, was that it created not only races of others, but made itself a race – a “white race” sitting atop the global food chain – the Great Chain of Being – doing their Fathers’ work on earth. “Whites” polar opposite became, of course, the “blacks”. Afrikans were made into the “black race”. Asians became “yellow” and North American indigenous nations became “red”. Having already had a few centuries of practice domesticating animals, women and children in Europe, it was but a small tactical adjustment to train their cutlasses, ropes and cannons onto the “colored” people they encountered. The pivot was such that it needed only to hoist the same inferior attributes it used against its own people onto the indigenous cultures it smothered. Everyone was demonized and maligned as “subhuman”, “animalistic”, “heathen” and in need of either elimination, colonization or paternalism. Genocide, oppression or protection (dependency). In any event all encountered cultures had to come under the influence of euro-centric patriarchy. Which is to say the culture of the invaders – the crown, the religion, the laws. Social conditioning and gender placement was, in essence the first human test run, the forerunner to, genetic engineering.

Grand Patriarchy

“People who do not fit into or who reject these gender roles are neutralized with violence and ostracized” – Who are the people who would reject these gender roles? Certainly they would be those who overstood patriarchy, colonialism, and who had a sense of self and kind so strong that they went deter-minded to assert themselves and be natural. Gender outlaws. Those who acted (and thought) outside of the box – the patriarchal gender box. However, when grand patriarchy came onto the scene, as a weaponized euro-supremacy,all indigenous people, male and female, became inferiors.

Indigenous men were domesticated under grand patriarchy just as women had always been. And to insure this, a constant, blatant and open hostile state of terror and siege was used to blanket any notion to the contrary. Euro-supremacy smothered everything. Every male not a European became “boy”, “buck”, “son”, or worse. They were explicitly forbidden to look a European male in the eyes. Grand patriarchy recognized one man – the European male. This was eventually utilized in the colonization of every encountered culture of the planet.

But not even this form of pervasive oppression eradicated patriarchy among those dominated. Oppressed men, those forbidden to be “men” under grand patriarchy, still would oppress oppressed women. Thus women felt a double blow of oppression under grand (on a national level) patriarchy and minor patriarchy – individually, in personal social relations. What’s more is, this individual patriarchy – now sexism – was compounded with the introduction of the colonizers’ religion into the mix as a chain of control. Western religion in the colonies became “force-multipliers” for patriarchy. Another weapon used in the war. Once indigenous men had been taught that this new god had given men dominion over women and children, these fell further down the Great Chain of Being (as created by Plato and reconfigured by Euro-Christians). Women, too, however reciprocated this travesty by believing this foolishness to be true, making it that much easier for their oppression to continue.

But isn’t it odd that the same religion that propelled the Euro-supremacists out of Europe and against the world in a war driven culture of conquest, made the people they encountered docile and meek? That instead of the indigenous males using the bible to oppress women they could have used it to push back against the invaders… what happened? It was perhaps the overwhelming military ability of that time. In any event, in a paradoxical twist, the colonized people served to reinforce the grand patriarchy with a spiritually ordained patriarchy of their own – even at the bottom rung of the ladder. Even under old colonialism where it is said that “Whole nations became as classes”, the ills of patriarchy persisted and found expression. Tho’ hardly to the extent it did on the grand level. Still…

Patriarchy in Neo-colonialism

Class, gender, race and bourgeois law all stem from patriarchy. The illusion that men (“Father”) knows best. To insure this doesn’t escape anyone, man created religion in his image as well and endowed god with all the human attributes of a brutish man: jealously, greed, vengeance, indifference, callousness and authoritarianism. When it’s said that “god created man in his image”, it’s actually the reverse of that: man created god in his image. Class, gender, religion, race and bourgeois law – homophobia and heterosexism too – are all created of patriarchy. These, to look at it in another way, are the walls constructed in the global mansion of patriarchy to keep the Great Father safely sequestered away from those buried under the floor, in the closet, used as domestics, maintenance workers and beasts of burden. To escape the gender box is, in essence, to become an outlaw of sorts. For one’s escape from such restrictive confines is aprotest – for one’s ability to be natural. Out and away from the stifling confines of patriarchy’s colonialism. But to protest is but one side of the equation. To protest is to go away from for self’s sake. An overstandable thing. But to rebel is to go against the malady in an attempt to destroy it. Protests are usually non-violent. A tactical method using hope as a morality play on power to have it change itself. Rebellion however is an active and often violent lunge at the power’s heart to start the bleeding and stop the breathing. But even this is but a tactic and must be educated if the action is to bring about change.

Under old colonialism gender outlaws were smashed on by church and state. Sharp shooting ideologues riled up the masses to reject “ab-normality” for morals superior to such “deviance”. Old colonialism, the general representative of patriarchy, used to push a line of gender authoritarianism. Even on a socio-economic level, old colonialism squatting dominantly over internal colonialism, however, has changed everything, but altered the perception of most things in order to continue to hold its empire together and reap benefits from oppression. The U.S. ruling class has, in its new and enlightened age of colonialism, come out as the main protector of civil rights against sexual, racial and religious discrimination. It bills itself as the force to make all “citizens” equal. Of course the paradox here is what We must focus on to find the truth. You see because as the ruling class goes about claiming to be interested in protecting civil rights it is, in actuality, promoting and reinforcing patriarchy. It’s the tactic ofproblem-reaction-solution. It’s a Machiavellian ruse of traditional state craft. Patriarchy created “gender” which begot sexism that leads to “sexual discrimination”. Patriarchy created “race” which begot racism and leads to “racial discrimination”. Patriarchy created religion – male dominated theocracies – which leads to “religious discrimination”. In other words, the very problems the masses are running to the state (representative of grand patriarchy) to solve, the state created and will then offer a solution to. Which without question will only strengthen the grip of patriarchy. It’s the symbolic reapplication of the ties that bind which keep the masses tethered to the machine. Orwell anyone?

Patriarchal Contamination

We, as seated so close to the epicenter of empire, patriarchy and all that this entails, are without question, thoroughly contaminated. Cross-pollinated social interaction and conditioning has exposed us all to such a degree that We can hardly recognize our sickness. It all seems “normal” and “natural” doesn’t it? That’s because We’ve gone to colonial schools, been socialized by its mass media, the propaganda of its many wars (even those against us), bourgeois elections, its culture of arrogance, smugness and indifference etc. Because of this, and our inability to make sense of it, We act as unconscious shock troops of its colonial edicts when confronted with ideas and actions which appear to run counter to its mores. Being homophobic is one such thing. And of course racism is another. The animalized names the dominant culture has used to denigrate us all with We'll turn around and use them on each other and ourselves to justify a sense of difference in imitation of patriarchy.

But you see, the neo (new) colonialism doesn't mind if its patriarchy is being imitated. That’s a plus for it. That means it's working. It means people aren't trying to stop it, they are trying to like it. They don't want to end patriarchy, they want to be card carrying members of the club. Have you seen the ex-correctional officer, rapper Rick Ross, with his shirt off? The idiot has huge tattoos on his torso of U.S. currency - complete with Franklin's face, Jackson and Jefferson! He wants in so bad he's a walking billboard - "Will Beg For Membership". That's how patriarchy stays afloat and operable - by being legitimized, replicated and practiced by the unconscious masses. Neo-colonialism has found it expedient to ease up on the blatant authoritarianism and to let the colonial masses "do their thing". As long as it is within the established framework of the game - of bourgeois law and order.

 So, while breaking out of the gender role is objectively wrong in the eyes of the patriarchy, it hasn't the time nor inclination to pursue such outlaws at this time. Actually, what the state has done under neocolonialism is act as if it's okay and has gone on the offensive in trying to insure the people that all is well. First it was "smash on sight". Then it was "don't ask, don't tell". Now it's "come on in grab a gun and help defend the empire". Same way it did with New Afrikans, Mexicanos, Puerto Ricans and Indigenous Nationals. 'Member that? Sure, it went like this: old colonialism, black codes, jim crow, segregation, civil rights and neo-colonialism - as integration. Those who refused to join the club were what? "Neutralized with violence and ostracized". Today We call them Martyrs, Prisoners of War, Political Prisoners and exiles. Those who joined We call neo-colonialists, petty-bourgeois, sell-outs and collaborators - enemies of the people. The choice is now ours. What are We going to be? Projectiles for the people or projectiles against the people? That is the question.

Neo-colonialism has put the colonies on autopilot. And the masses have been confused by this, thinking that they are somehow on a flight towards freedom. Because the establishment forces aren't actively smashing on what used to be obvious causes for reaction, the people think a general sense of new freedom has blanketed the situation. As Oprah has her own TV network. Jay Z wines and dines with Warren Buffet, Magic Johnson owns the L.A. Dodgers and Rock Bottom is in the whitest house. But the usual reins of state control and reaction have not been relinquished they've only been delegated to accommodation intermediaries to run the flight plan for the ruling class. The coordinates have been programed into the console, the flight is on autopilot, those the masses think are in control are only maintenance workers and sky marshals, flight attendants and observers, as the jumbo dream liner continues uninterrupted across this neocolonial terrain of war and class, amerikkkan style.

In this era of neocolonialism the main homophobes are the masses themselves. Where it used to be the state, the church and other rabid ideologues of patriarchy, now it's athletes, rappers and the idiot down the tier who somehow feels as if his so-called "manhood" is threatened by how or who another person lives and loves. The unconscious shock troops of patriarchy become the gatekeepers for their oppressors. That's why patriarchy can feel so comfortable with putting the colonies on auto-pilot. The inmates have assumed control of the asylum and all is well on the Western front. Never mind that the very culture of oppression that they are holding up by becoming little oppressors themselves is the actual threat to them. It's an animal farm trip, really. Or a Stockholm syndrome type of situation. Where the entity doing you the harm you side step to attack the one on your side - while loving your tormentor. Psych meds, anyone?

Harmful to Everybody

To overstand homophobia and heterosexism as oppressive tools of the patriarchy is to come to grips with one’s own reality. A reality that shouts its existence not from the confines of your own head or intellect - or even your culture. It's a reality put on you by an offending order of parties who wish only to control and exploit you to their delight and benefit. Those "shouts of reality" We speak of are from a distance of centuries past, and their antiquity gives them an air of prestige and legitimacy, but you mustn't be fooled. For this is the culture that ripped apart your ancestors - this is it. It's shinier now, has more pixels and is in high definition, but it is the same culture that pushed up on those shores and was mistaken as god. It is the very same system of control, too. The gatekeepers complexions have changed - We can see the madness thru the lens of BET and Univision now instead of just CBS and NBC, but look carefully and listen, it’s the same old thing - patriarchy, class, gender, race, colonialism. The same slings and arrows aimed at gender outlaws today are the same ones flung at us first when patriarchy drove up. We were the ab-normal ones then. And now, what, We've become so "normal" (amerikans) that We are oppressors, too? We've been amerikanized to the point where We can't even recognize We aren't even ourselves anymore. Yeah, "amerikkkan me".

In prison, the concentration of the patriarchy pathology is on steroids- even tho there are no women in men’s prisons. Not as prisoners anyway. No need really, cause patriarchy is also homophobia and heterosexism, so it finds expression in this way. Whether thru predation or hate outright, ill vibrations play out against gays or transgender prisoners as, invariably, they are referred to as "punk", "faggots", "bitches" etc. The hierarchal structure of prison groups preclude any form of socialization or respect with, or towards, gay prisoners. They are treated as "abnormals" - as less than human. They are usually "neutralized with violence and ostracized". Groups forbid their members from aiding any such person. And even tho' the prisoners are placed with nationals from oppressed and colonized nations, oppression and prejudice of gays and transgender prisoners goes on uninterrupted as patriarchal "morals" are imitated and replicated across the board.

The odd thing, tho one which points up the patriarchal reality in vivid fashion, is in most prison cultures the only party in a gay encounter that’s considered gay is the one assuming the so-called passive or feminine role. The masculine one, the top, is considered "the man" which somehow excludes him from being gay, or bi. It's his prerogative to fuck something, huh? And, much like sexism, out in Babylon, where the woman is considered less than, so too is it in prison with the gay or transgender prisoner. Tho' moreso since the homophobia and heterosexism is driven by the "morals" of religion. Of course patriarchy escapes mention altogether. Nevertheless, the pathology of patriarchy plays itself out even in the most oppressive situations imaginable.

The fact of the matter is, We can talk about this until We are out of breath, but until gays and transgender prisoners, and people at large, take their lives and existence into their own hands, organize and defend their reality, they'll continue to be victimized and exploited and that goes for any form of oppression. The oppressed have the responsibility to get free. Freedom is not given or granted - it's taken!The federal government is not going to legislate your safety into existence. The prison administration cannot - nor will it - protect you from hostile homophobes or predators. You have to organize yourselves in concert with methods that reflect your reality. We know that in the state prison at Walla Walla, in Washington, the revolutionary comrades organized Men Against Sexist Shit (MASS) to combat homophobia and heterosexism there. Revolutionaries should be on the front lines of combating all forms of oppression. We have to organize with the oppressed to strike for freedom or the neocolonialists will organize. Them against us and continue on.



Re-Build!
Sanyika Shakur
Pelican Bay - SHU

Notes

[1] Eternal Treblinka, Charles Patterson. [return to text]

[2] The Club, the Yoke, and the Leash: What can we learn from the way a Culture Treats Animals. Aviva Cantor, MS (August 1983)[return to text]

[3]Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility, Keith Thomas (New York, Pantheon Books, 1983)[return to text]

[4] The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Henry Friedlander, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1995) [return to text]

[5]Eternal Treblinka, Patterson[return to text]

[6] How Nonviolent Protects the State, Peter Gelderloos [return to text]

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Fundamentalism, feminism and anti-fascism

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The following of interest from the london anarcha feminist koelektiv:

June saw the fascist and undeniably opportunistic English Defence League (EDL) announce plans to march through Whitechapel in apparent protest at a planned United Kingdom – Islamic Conference (UK-IC) at the Troxy Centre, a conference which would see extreme Islamic fundamentalist speakers espousing their hate of Jews, women and homosexuals. Past years have witnessed the growth of Saudi-funded political Islam in Tower Hamlets, oppressing local Muslim communities and destroying Asian cultures, promoting repression of women, and beginning to dominate the local authority.

The rise in religious fundamentalism, whatever the religion may be, poses a serious and very real threat to women, who are seen as crucial in representing and transmitting the supposedly unchanging morals and traditions of the whole community. Women who fail to conform to so-called traditional family values are portrayed as placing the honour, well-being and future of the whole society or community at risk. The control of women’s minds and bodies is, therefore, at the heart of fundamentalist agendas everywhere and is something that must be challenged.

In the run up to that Sunday in Whitechapel, women’s bodies became a battleground on which both sides fought. “They (Muslims) want all women in burqhas” proclaimed the EDL and “we’re not fascist, we’ve got a LGBT division, we just care about the wimmin”. Anti-EDL groups and individuals also used women in their ideological battle; rumours were circulated that local Muslim women had been attacked and raped by the EDL, resulting in a large angry turn-out when the EDL youth division came for a “quiet” drink in Whitechapel.

A group called Women Against Fascism in their call-out on Indymedia for the mobilisation against the EDL, recognised how women are used in this battle without challenging these pervasive paternalistic attitudes to women. “The women who are against fascism are the friends, girlfriends, wives, sisters, aunties, grandmothers and mothers of young men who feel that they are being provoked into violence by the EDL. Boys of school age feel that they have to defend their mothers and sisters etc from the EDL who want to demonstrate in Whitechapel.” Their call-out made no mention of the UK- IC speakers.

Unite Against Fascism also concentrated solely on the EDL in their mobilisations against the far-right, ignoring the woman-hating, homophobic ideology of the right-wing Islamists and calling all those who pointed out the bigotry of the UK-IC speakers, and the need to oppose both sides equally, including anarchists, as islamaphobic and racist.

The UK-IC conference was thankfully cancelled and the EDL called off their planned demonstration in the area. The UAF still marched, unsurprisingly refusing to critique or even acknowledge the fundamentalism of the UK-IC or the right-wing islamist ideology of some of those who marched with them.

The EDL are a serious threat. Fascism must be challenged and stopped, but we cannot do this at the expense of challenging those with fundamentalist agendas. Fundamentalism and fascism both deserve our contempt, and this is the position that anarchists must take.

Class struggle, community cohesion and militant physical opposition are the only effective means to repel fascism and the conditions in which it flourishes and this may mean making political alliances with those who we consider to be religious moderates or even conservative secularists. But how do we as feminists/ anarchists navigate the awkward space between our secular views and those of even moderate religious persuasion? Paternalistic, misogynistic attitudes to women and homophobia are not just confined to realm of religious fundamentalism, it is unfortunately prevalent across all sections of society, including among those who consider themselves moderates, progressives or secular. Can we really, as anarchist women, work with and ally ourselves with those who have anti-woman, anti-queer attitudes, traditions and practices even if it is with the purpose of coming together as working class people to fight fascism?

Perhaps we need to use these times when we do connect with our neighbours over a common enemy despite religious, cultural or political differences, to raise our concerns about and contempt of misogyny, racism and homophobia, as well as pushing an anti-capitalist class-based critique of the state. In this battle against fascism, we must take care that we do not reinforce or accommodate patriarchal attitudes and so must confidently encourage dialogue that confronts and challenges the sometimes anti-women, anti-queer attitudes of even moderate people of faith and secularists.

.

Now is the time for discussion on fundamentalism and fascism and how we can organise and oppose both in an anti-sexist, inclusive way. Feminists must, while fighting all forms of religious fundamentalism, develop targeted feminist campaigns to take on the growth of political Islam and its misogyny, authoritarianism and distortion of the genuine variety of Muslim cultures. We must provide young people with alternatives–feminist, anarchist, secular and participatory–to the great big reactionary mosques and synagogues and churches. In our fight against fascism, we’ve got to be prepared to take on all forms of religious fundamentalism and manifestations of misogyny in everyday life.

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Not quite Stonewall: 40 years later the cops haven't changed, but we have

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protesting the raid on the Eagle

From Solidarity, a look at a police raid on an Atlanta leather bar, and reasons for the timid protest that followed:

Not quite Stonewall:
40 years later the cops haven't changed, but we have

by giselda
September 15, 2009

"Hey, Red Dog: Bored with Grandmothers?" Those words, scribbled with marker on a makeshift sign, lingered above a crowd mostly confused by their meaning. Who was Red Dog and what grandmother? In other communities in Atlanta, away from the gentrifying "gayborhoods" of Midtown, that sign could probably escape any need for clarification. This wasn't southwest Atlanta, though. The rally was gathered behind a leather gay bar, the crowd predominately middle-aged gay white men.

The circumstances behind the rally shouldn't have been a shock to the attendees. Nights before, officers of the Atlanta Police Department, with participation from the particularly brutal Red Dog Narcotics Unit, entered The Atlanta Eagle bar, apparently tipped off by complaints ranging from drug use to public or solicited sex. Around 62 patrons and staff were forced on the ground for an hour, many handcuffed, and searched by cops freely uttering homophobic and racist remarks.

Unfortunately for the APD, no weapons or drugs were found on anybody, forcing them to resort to Plan B - confiscating IDs and running a background check for potential outstanding warrants. Here, also, the APD struck out, so the patrol cars and paddy wagons left mostly empty, with the exception of The Eagle's staff, who were arrested for only wearing underwear. The officers charged the employees with unlicensed stripping (it was "underwear" night at the bar, but the act of actually stripping seems like a desperate stretch by the APD).

Luckily, a reporter from Atlanta Progressive News was on scene to break the story, and by afternoon time the next day many Atlanta area queers (at least in the limited demographic world of facebook) opened up various internet accounts to find some sort of reference to the raid and growing outrage. It was Stonewall all over again, many cried. The national publication The Advocate ran the story alongside constant coverage from Atlanta's smaller news outlets (the major Atlanta paper, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, was skittish), and solidarity actions in Atlanta were quickly planned, the largest being the rally behind the bar that was attended by hundreds.

For many of us, especially queer radicals, the story and immediate growing reaction was full of promise. This could be a chance to realize a queer agenda beyond marriage, and one that could help build unity between the queer community and other communities that traditionally face police brutality (in Atlanta, those communities are overwhelmingly black and poor). It would also be a chance to build unity, or at least secure an acknowledgment, to those within the queer community to which these events aren't at all shocking but rather routine - queers of color, transgendered people (particularly homeless), even men in the leather scene.

Those that do not look like, or share the vision of, the gay movers and shakers who attend the banquets of The Human Rights Campaign or Georgia Equality (both, not surprisingly, missing from the rally.) Those queers whose reality more closely parallels straight black men indiscriminately stopped, searched and even shot unarmed by officers of the APD and their most uncontrollable unit, Red Dog, than the reality of gays rushing out of an expensive Midtown townhouse to catch the neighborhood association meeting and help decide how many more "undesirable" crime committing elements should be removed to help make the neighborhood safer and more profitable for its white newcomers.

The story had a lot of other political promise, as well. Atlanta's electoral atmosphere leading up to November's elections has basically boiled down to two things - "I love the cops and can bring more into the city" and "I love the cops and can bring even more than your more." Public safety is on everyone's lips. The grandmother the sign at the rally was referring to, Kathryn Johnston - a 92 year old woman gunned down by Red Dog Narcotic Unit cops several years ago - was all but forgotten by white Atlanta as publications and neighborhood groups rushed to secure more cops - now - at any price. Ironically, the man at the head of this movement of white panic, Kyle Keyser, is gay, and was the only mayoral candidate to address the crowd at the rally, shedding his usual rhetoric of more cops with little oversight - instead timidly asking for answers from the force for this one event.

The raid on The Eagle suddenly became a useful tool, not only to funnel a new, angry crowd into a movement for police accountability but also to put local political candidates in a position where they may have to condemn police conduct instead of lavishing praise on the force and promising hundreds more on our streets if they're elected. Considering the growing influence of mostly white, middle-class gay Atlanta from gentrifying neighborhoods, local candidates may find themselves in a bit of a dilemma: condemn the raid and risk having an anti-police quote used by candidates competing for the frenzied, pro-police, white middle/upper class Atlanta voters? Or stay as neutral as possible on the subject and risk the fury of gay voters?

Hopes for an unleashed queer fury, not quite Stonewall but not quite HRC, were quickly dimmed by the organizers of the rally, however. Messages were sent out on facebook reminding potential attendees that this was not a protest against the APD - in which we supposedly have queer allies - but rather one in support of gay establishments. Any suggestion that the protest actually happen at the police department was scuttled. People spread solidarity messages around facebook, referencing how similar this felt to being gay in '69 rather than black in '09. This shouldn't happen to us, this hasn't happened to us lately.

An eery, subtle message being relayed through many such expressions was on display more explicitly by signs at the rally - how dare you treat us like THEM. Signs that kept asking the PD why they would target The Eagle rather than gangs, drug-pushers and muggers. "Who made this call?", one sign asked, placing The Eagle on one side of a seesaw and various street crimes piled up on the other. "We're law-abiding citizens," many said, and I never thought I'd see this again.

Where are we looking that we don't see it, exactly? Not in the overcrowded jails of the APD, where arrests are brought in mass after a Red Dog Unit raid or traffic block. We're not looking, apparently, in the face of Tramaine Miller and hundreds like him, shot unarmed by Atlanta cops throughout the years with little protest or rallies. In the signs of the rally that asked for an apology, the speakers who assured the crowds most cops are good and this is an oddity, all who came out once this year and maybe once in a decade to ask why this happened and how do we get answers to this one event the message was unintentionally, unknowingly chilling - this doesn't happen all the time.

But it does, and will continue to. The question now is what sort of reaction should the Atlanta queer community have? Should it be one that seeks answers to one event, maybe even forces some empty political statements and press release apology? Should it be a movement to solely stand in solidarity with gay establishments? Or should we consider longer term accountability for cops, not just when they attack our community but when they attack all, and work towards strengthening the Citizen Review Board and fighting for any oversight and justice we can for the Atlanta PD? Should we consider that sign, referencing Kathryn Johnston, almost out of place at the rally - "Hey Red Dog: Bored with (African-American) Grandmothers?" Perhaps in that sign there was an ability to make a connection and more wisdom than any commentary from the self-appointed, bourgeois heads of gay advocacy and their white, middle-class allies can actualize.

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Homophobic Death Squads in Iraq

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queers murdered by death squads in Iraq

From the Guardian, this report about political-homophobic murders in Iraq:

Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

"It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed.

Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi's group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone.

The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. "Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts," he told the Observer. "We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God's forgiveness before they are killed."

The violence against Iraqi gays is a key test of the government's ability to protect vulnerable minority groups after the Americans have gone.

Dr Toby Dodge, of London University's Queen Mary College, believes that the violence may be a consequence of the success of the government of Nouri al-Maliki. "Militia groups whose raison d'être was security in their communities are seeing that function now fulfilled by the police. So their focus has shifted to the moral and cultural sphere, reverting to classic Islamist tactics of policing moral boundaries," Dodge said.

Homosexuality was not criminalised under Saddam Hussein – indeed Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s was known for its relatively liberated gay scene. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group, a London-based human-rights group, a total of 680 have died in Iraq, with at least 70 of those in the past five months. The group believes the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women. According to Hali, Iraq has become "the worst place for homosexuals on Earth".

The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. "He didn't follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son," she said. "Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son's purified blood and telling me where to find his body."

She went with police to find her son's remains. "We found his body with signs of torture, his anus filled with glue and without his genitals," she said. "I will carry this image with me until my dying day."

Police officers interviewed by the Observer said the killings were not aimed at gays but were isolated remnants of the sectarian violence that racked the country between 2005 and 2006. Hamizi's group, however, boasts that two people a day are chosen to be "investigated" in Baghdad. The group claims that local tribes are involved in homophobic attacks, choosing members to hunt down the victims. In some areas, a list of names is posted at restaurants and food shops.

The roommate of Haydar, 26, was kidnapped and killed three months ago in Baghdad. After Haydar contacted the last person his friend had been chatting with on the net, he found a letter on his front door alerting him "about the dangers of behaving against Islamic rules". Haydar plans to flee to Amman, the Jordanian capital. "I have… to run away before I suffer the same fate," he said.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Shia militia known as the Mahdi army may be among the militants implicated in the violence, particularly in the northern part of Baghdad known as Sadr City. There are reports that Mahdi army militias are harassing young men simply for wearing "western fashions".

A Ministry of Interior spokesperson, Abdul-Karim Khalaf, denied allegations of police collaboration. "The Iraqi police exists to protect all Iraqis, whatever their sexual persuasion," he said.

Hashim, another victim of violence by extremists, was attacked on Abu Nawas Street. Famous for its restaurants and bars, the street has become a symbol of the relative progress made in Baghdad. But it was where Hashim was set on by four men, had a finger cut off and was badly beaten. His assailants left a note warning that he had one month to marry and have "a traditional life" or die.

"Since that day I have not left my home. I'm too scared and don't have money to run away," Hashim said.

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Homocide in Iraq

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From Gaywired by way of IntelligentaIndigena:

Iraq is one of only nine countries in the world where homosexual people are executed simply for being gay. While the New York Times reports that Iraqis are now able to “enjoy freedoms unthinkable two years ago,” – women are able to walk the streets unveiled and families can now gather in parks – the atrocities committed against gay men demonstrate that the country is far from achieving acceptable human rights standards.

As the Times notes, “The relative freedom of a newly democratic Iraq and the recent improvement in security have allowed a gay subculture to flourish here. The response has been swift and deadly.”

The months of February and March saw the bodies of 25 gay boys and men turn up in Sadr City. Most were shot, some many times, and several had notes attached to their bodies that read “pervert” in Arabic.

Towleroad recently provided a translation of a story from one UAE-based media network, which details a new horrific form of torture used against gay men. “Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.” The substance “is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cell phones in Iraq.”

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NY Trans and Queer Activists Criticize Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act

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An excellent statement from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, FIERCE, Queers for Economic Justice, the Peter Cicchino Youth Project and the Audre Lorde Project, about how hate crimes legislation is a bad idea, as is incarceration as a solution to violence in our communities:

SRLP announces non-support of the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act!

April 6, 2009

Dear members of the GENDA coalition and all allies in the struggle for trans liberation:

We write to you today because we are deeply concerned with the version of the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) that was recently introduced in the New York State Assembly. We are members of transgender and gender non-conforming communities of color, allies to these communities, and representatives of organizations that work to advocate for and increase the political voice of these communities. As written, the GENDA bill adds gender identity and gender expression to the protected categories of NY anti-discrimination law by adding it to the State Human Rights statute.

We are excited and heartened by progress on this front, as many of us have struggled to end discrimination against trans people for years. Unfortunately, the GENDA bill also includes gender identity and gender expression as a “protected” category under the NY hate crimes statute. We want and deserve legal protection from discrimination in the workplace, in housing, and in public accommodations.

Transgender people in New York are frequently fired from jobs; kicked out of housing, restaurants, restrooms and hotels; and harassed in schools and public institutions. It is essential that we have legal recourse to take action when trans people are discriminated against in this way. It is also essential that this form of discrimination is publicly declared unacceptable—in our state, in our society, and across the world.

It pains us that we nevertheless cannot support the current GENDA bill, because we cannot and will not support hate crimes legislation. Rather than serving as protection for oppressed people, the hate crimes portion of this law may expose our communities to more danger—from prejudiced institutions far more powerful and pervasive than individual bigots. In New York, the hate crimes portion of the penal code adds automatic penalty enhancements to certain crimes that are deemed to be hate crimes: crimes based on a person’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, religious practice, age, disability, or sexual orientation.

If a particular crime is deemed a hate crime by the state, the supposed perpetrator is automatically subject to a higher mandatory minimum sentence. For example, a crime that would carry a sentence of five years can be “enhanced” to eight years. As GENDA is currently written, if passed it would further expand this law, providing additional grounds for penalty enhancement.

As a nation, we lock up more people per capita than any other country in the world; one in one hundred adults are behind bars in the U.S. Our penalties are harsher and sentences longer than they are anywhere else on the planet, and hate crime laws with sentencing enhancements make them harsher and longer. By supporting longer periods of incarceration and putting a more threatening weapon in the state’s hands, this kind of legislation places an enormous amount of faith in our deeply flawed, transphobic, and racist criminal legal system. The application of this increased power and extended punishment is entirely at to the discretion of a system riddled with prejudice, institutional bias, economic motives, and corruption.

Trans people, people of color, and other marginalized groups are disproportionately incarcerated to an overwhelming degree. Trans and gender non-conforming people, particularly trans women of color, are regularly profiled and falsely arrested for doing nothing more than walking down the street. Almost 95% of the people locked up on Riker’s Island are black or Latin@. Many of us have been arrested ourselves or seen our friends, members, clients, colleagues, and lovers arrested, often when they themselves were the victims of a violent attack.

Once arrested, the degree of violence, abuse, humiliation, rape, and denial of needed medical care that our communities confront behind bars is truly shocking, and at times fatal. In popular conception, hate crime laws were enacted to protect oppressed minorities against bigots who would seek to terrorize a community through violent crime: racist lynchings, gay-bashing, anti-Semitic violence, and so forth. Unfortunately, the popular imagining of the operation of hate crime laws does not bear out in reality. Hate crime laws do not distinguish between oppressed groups and groups with social and institutional power.

Compared to white men, Black men are disproportionately arrested for race-based hate crimes. The second-largest category of race-based hate crimes tracked by the FBI is crimes committed against white people. Every year, the FBI reports a number of so-called “anti-heterosexual” hate crimes—incidents where members of the LGBT community have been prosecuted for supposedly targeting straight people with criminal acts.

If GENDA is passed with the hate crime component intact, trans people could be subject to “enhanced penalties” for crimes against non-trans people. The possibility of hate crime charges could arise in any dispute that involves gender identity or expression. In the case of the “New Jersey 4,” a group of young queer women of color were incarcerated for defending themselves against the homophobic attacks and slurs of a straight man, who accused them of committing a “hate crime” against him. It is all too easy for a prejudice-motivated attack to become a fight for survival, and for a fight to be turned against oppressed communities.

There might be some cold comfort in “enhanced sentencing” if it actually benefited our communities in any way. Unfortunately, the harsher penalties of hate crime laws have not been shown to prevent or deter hate crimes. It is hard to imagine that someone moved to brutally attack a trans person would pause to consider that they might get a longer sentence. In fact, there is some evidence that longer sentences actually increase the chance that an incarcerated person will repeat a crime after they are released. Incarceration does nothing to address the root reasons why someone was violent or hateful; it only plunges them into deeper poverty, further isolates them from their community, and subjects them to further violence and trauma.

In many cases, incarceration may worsen prejudices and make people more likely to be alienated and violent when they are released. Worst of all, when our society incarcerates someone who truly hates trans people, we provide them more opportunities to commit anti-trans hate crimes while incarcerated. Our many transgender community members in prison face intimidation, harassment, and violence on a daily basis.

Hate crime laws are an easy way for the government to act like it is on our communities’ side while continuing to discriminate against us. Liberal politicians and institutions can claim “anti-oppression” legitimacy and win points with communities affected by prejudice, while simultaneously using “sentencing enhancement” to justify building more prisons to lock us up in. Hate crime laws foreground a single accused individual as the “cause” of racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or any number of other oppressive prejudices. They encourage us to lay blame and focus our vengeful hostility on one person instead of paying attention to institutional prejudice that fuels police violence, encourages bureaucratic systems to ignore trans people’s needs or actively discriminate against us, and denies our communities health care, identification, and so much more.

Anything that expands the power of a system that damages our communities so severely is against our long-term and short-term interests. Any legal weapon that’s created to make our justice system more harsh and punitive cannot be trusted in the hands of institutions that have shown their prejudices and corruption time and time again. Because of the way this legislation has been turned against the communities they were intended to protect, we regard “sentence enhancement” hate crime laws as one of the greatest follies of late-20th-century liberal politics.

Some of us have expressed this concern to (other) members of the GENDA Coalition after we became aware of the hate crime aspect of the proposed bill. We know that this coalition of many organizations and hard-working community members has been working for years to make anti-discrimination law a reality in our state and we respect their dedication to this work. We were happy that some of us had an opportunity recently to engage in dialogue about the hate crimes provisions of GENDA with them. We left the conversation with the shared knowledge that the United States criminal legal system is deeply flawed, that it would be entirely possible to leave out the hate crimes portion of the GENDA bill when it was re-introduced this session, and that making such a change could mean that it would take more time to get the bill passed because of the need to educate our elected officials about these issues.

We are deeply disappointed that, with this knowledge, the majority of the GENDA Coalition decided that they would rather “come back to hate crimes legislation later” and still actively work to pass a version of the bill that would expand hate crime laws now. Trans communities know all too well what it’s like to be told “we’ll come back later to protect you.” One argument made in our conversation was that because so many other groups are covered by the New York hate crimes statute, trans people should not be “the sacrificial lamb.” Unfortunately, because “sentence enhancements” actually make communities more vulnerable to prejudice in the criminal legal system, it is the many other “protected classes” that have already been sacrificed on the altar of hate crimes.

The real victims who are liable to be thrown to the wolves in this case are the most marginalized members of trans and gender non-conforming communities: poor people, people without jobs or housing, people who resort to survival crimes in order to get by or access health care, people with substance abuse problems, sex workers, youth, people with disabilities, and so many more who are disproportionately targeted for violence, harassment, prejudice in the courts, and incarceration. These are the same people our community must mourn every year at the Trans Day of Remembrance. Can we really continue to shed tears and flowers for the dead if we eagerly hand the state more power to crush the same people?

The signatories to this letter cannot and will not support this version of the bill. We can not help pass a bill through the state legislature that could further endanger our communities. We hope and plead for a better GENDA bill that will make the hard-fought dream of anti-discrimination law a reality for all trans and gender non-conforming people in New York state, without sacrificing the most endangered members of our community. We also commit and ask others to join us in our commitment to work on real ways to address hate violence.

When thinking about responding to hate violence, we believe the most important question is not “who is the perpetrator and how can we punish them?” Rather, we want to ask “how can we help the survivor(s) and the community heal from this violence? How can we prevent it from happening again?” Many people and organizations in New York and around the world are doing creative, transformative work to find real solutions to these questions. Some organize communities to intervene in violence without relying on law enforcement.

Some develop alternate ways to resolve conflicts. Some help break down prejudice and fear with public education and training. Some help make sure that our communities have access to basic necessities in life and are not forced to be in situations where they are particularly vulnerable to violence. Some fight to hold the state accountable for violence it perpetrates against our communities. Some educate community members about ways to defend themselves and deescalate confrontations. Some provide services, advocacy, and support for survivors of violence.

These are just a few of the strategies that we have used and seen others use locally to develop the approaches to hate violence that we and our loved ones need and deserve.Please join with us in working to make New York State a safer and more just place for trans and gender non-conforming people. Please join us in supporting an improved version of GENDA that will provide much-needed legal protections against discrimination without endangering our communities and strengthening the prejudiced system of criminal punishment.

Sincerely,

Sylvia Rivera Law Project
FIERCE
Queers for Economic Justice
Peter Cicchino Youth Project
Audre Lorde Project

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Jasbir Puar's Homonationalism Talk: A Real Disappointment

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It is rare that i get angry at a public talk, but that's exactly what happened last night.

I was at the keynote address of Culture Shock, a series of events going on at McGill university, listening to Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar speak about "Homonationalism", and specifically about her book on that subject (Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times). Luckily, i found out afterwards that much of her talk was in fact her reading her answers in an interview she had givven to the online journal Dark Matter earlier this year, so i (and you) could check there to refresh my memory as i put down the following thoughts.

Where to begin?

Well, why not with language. It feels like fishing in a barrel to complain about the words with which most post-structuralist/postmodernist theories are crafted, but i think it's important to note. Telling, in more ways than one. What to say about a talk which is only comprehensible to people who have read Deleuze and Guattari, who know when you say "biopolitics" that you must mean it in the Foucoultian sense, and who can dangle more lines of flight from their affect than an ontology has epistemes???

Good theory sometimes needs to use words and phrases which are unfamiliar to most people. This is undeniable. Making every text accessible to every person requires not only removing complicated words, but also complicated ideas. Sometimes you need to do your homework to understand what someone is saying, and that's ok.

But good theory must always strive to minimize this necessary evil, to the degree possible without doing violence to its argument. "Theorists" who use words or phrases most people don't understand simply for the sake of it, who prefer obfuscation, or who have adopted it as their own little dialect, are almost always blowing smoke to cover for the paucity of their ideas. That this can become a habit in academic institutions, that this forms part of the culture of rarefied theory production, really doesn't earn anyone a free pass. Least of all someone speaking about a question of great political importance.

There was a lot of smoke being blown last night, and hardly a phrase got spoken without pimping it up with the fanciest shmanciest of fifty-dollar-words. So much so that while i think i know what was being said, i certainly don't know i know what was being said. And that, quite obviously, is a problem.

(Lest i be misunderstood, the above is not a criticism about style, it is a political criticism.)

So what did i understand Puar to be saying?

Puar's first point was that to criticize or work against homophobia or transphobia (and likely sexism, racism, and all kinds of other things too) within cultures, peoples, or countries which are victimized by imperialism, is to be complicit with imperialist oppression.

This is a crude position, one which has been hinted at in other arguments people have made over the past years regarding Hezbollah, Hamas, Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Ahmadinejad's Iran. (The only specific example given by Puar were a series of protests held in 2006 to mark the first anniversary of the execution of two queer teenagers in Iran, a case i have already mentioned, and reposted criticisms of, on this blog.)

In fact, without drawing any distinctions, acknowledging any other forms of solidarity activism, or providing any other examples to back up her charge, Puar accused the "Islamophobic Gay Left" of being complicit with imperialism, point finale. Rather than explain this in terms of political dynamics or material forces in the real world, without looking at the history/herstory that got us to this point, Puar stated that this imperialist bent was "constitutive" of queer identity as it has been constructed. (That she has also stated that "the rise of queer" is contingent, or dependent, on the rise of racism should be noted. Whether this is a contradiction in her thought, or a paradox she needs to explore, i do not know.)

While there were a lot of esoteric catchphrases summing up the whys and hows of this, there was nothing - nada, zilch - in the way of actual historical or political explanations. It seems this judgment on a terrain of struggle was the product of a lot of mental energy and pure logic, no actual practical experience necessary. That would just get in the way.

Essentially, stripped of the post-Deleuzian windowdressings, what i think i understood was (1) queer activism replicates some forms of oppression, especially around "race" and religious identity, (2) the queer tradition of being transgressive creates as its flipside the framing of the cultural or racial "other" as being the real transgressor/pervert, and the proof that these "facts" lead queerness to be pro-imperialist is (3) that imperialism really loves imperial homos theseadays.

In scattershot order:

(1) OF COURSE queer activism replicates other forms of oppression. All activity replicates most parts of the dominant culture, to some degree or another. Inactivity also replicates forms of oppression, in spades. The question those of us who actually want to change the real-and-existing world have to ask ourselves is, how can we frame our activity in a way that minimizes the bad shit, while putting ourselves in a good position to deal with problems as they arise. As a priority, those of us who hope for revolution need to break social movements away from the state while orienting them - and ourselves - constantly towards the most oppressed layers of society.

This may be what Puar means when she insists on the importance of intersectionality and assemblages, but acknowledging that people are oppressed in many different ways should not be used as an excuse to abstain from organizing around one specific form of oppression. Avoiding activism altogether certainly doesn't extricate you from oppressive social relations, either; it simply makes you dull and complicit.

(3) Imperialism Loves Imperial Homos. We've all noticed this. It was news several years ago, it's old hat now. There has been a sea change in popular representations of and (to a lesser degree) attitudes towards queers over the past twenty years. The LBGTIAetc. movement has become co-opted in step with its anxiety about adding letters to its acronym. The racist right-wing leadership of the movement is happy to front for imperialist crimes and doesn't actually give a shit about the most oppressed queers.

PLEASE! Tell us something we don't know!

Again, these are arguments in favour of activism, not against it. Activism against the movement leadership, perhaps, though more often than not simply engaging in militant activism with an eye to challenging all forms of oppression will be enough to make the old leadership irrelevant. The leadership is held by conservatives because there is a vacuum radicals are not filling.

(2) Queer Transgressivity Is Bad??? If there was a logical proof that traditions of queer transgression were to blame for the oppressive othering of imperialism's victims, i didn't get it. Saying it's so doesn't make it so, you have to show me why and how this mechanism works. Seriously, i'd be interested.

When one says - to give an example - that the condition of the labour aristocracy is dependent on the exploitation of the Third World proletariat, one can show numbers, trade balances, statistics regarding wages, displacement, and wealth produced or extracted. If you really want you can go down to the port in Old Montreal and see the wealth come in on container ships, or you can travel up to James Bay and see the hydroelectric dams fueling this economy and devastating Indigenous land. It's visible, it's material, and it's not shrouded in mystery. You can then disagree with the argument by marshaling your own facts, but you have to do so, because its a debate based on things really happening.

This is just an example, to show the method by which a political claim needs to be backed up.

The same method, the same standard of proof, needs to apply if you want to blame "queer transgressions" in the metropole for the horrors of Abu Ghraib. Show me how. Because my gut feeling is that the "transgressiveness" which results from traditions of being queer, or from myriad other traditions and ontologies (hey look, i can use those silly words too!), creates a space that makes people approachable by our side more than the system.

Sure, the ways people feel they don't belong or don't fit in can be - and are - exploited by the system to create insecurity, market niches and capitalist cures; but these same disatisfactions can be bound to liberation movements by theories which link one's unhappiness to the unhappiness of others.

More to the point, the desire to offend - which can definitely be oppressive - has to be judged in terms of who is being offended and who is doing the offending. When Salman Rushdie offended a generation of Muslim conservatives with his book The Satanic Verses, he did something - as a Muslim man, as a leftist, as a freethinker - incredibly dangerous and also fundamentally legitimate. As a "cultural worker", as an author, he was operating within a tradition of making the world a better place. When Bill Maher made his movie Religulous, clearly hoping to offend Protestants and Muslims around the world, he simply reinforced racist ideas about Muslims and urban liberal snobbery about those funny backwards born agains. As a "cultural worker", as a comedian, he was operating within a tradition of flattering the oppressor and legitimizing his violence. You don't need a degree in discursive analysis to see the difference in their intent and general orientation.

So why is it sometimes liberatory to offend people?

Being offended means being shocked, in an unpleasant way. We all internalize a lot of oppressive attitudes, not least amongst them being complacency towards what is happening in the world. We incorporate attitudes and beliefs bit by bit, without being aware of it. We are offended when we are confronted with a position or argument framed in a way that we can't ignore, and also can't assimilate without doing violence to previously held beliefs or identities. It's like a slap in the face.

Offending people can be oppressive, and being constantly offended is a way in which someone may be oppressed. But, for better or for worse, on a case-by-case basis it needs to be proven, not just stated, that this is oppression, and not just discomfort. Because when previously held beliefs are unexamined, when we adopted them unthinkingly, being offended is sometimes a necessary first step to force us to re-examine them. It may be unpleasant, but that doesn't mean it's always unwarranted.

Why is there such a connection between certain cultural traditions - not only the queer tradition, but so many others, from the blues to punk rock, from the dadaists to the women's liberation movement - and the penchant to offend?

Well, there's two parts of it.

On the one hand, it's undeniable that offending people can constitute a kind of acting out, an attention-getting mechanism, which may seem cathartic for the person doing it but really just amounts to an immature attempt to get the father-figure to notice you. So it can be dumb.

But more positively, many of us are oppressed by invisible conventions and codes which rely on their very invisibility for their strength. This way they seem natural - boys do this girls do that, such and such a part of the body is "private" and should remain covered, children are to be seen and not heard. Furthermore, many forms of abuse and oppression come with a smile - the steady psychic assault is accompanied by soothing words that there's nothing to worry about, it's all being done in the name of "love" (or community, or morals, or whatever). There is no polite way to effectively challenge this sick mindfuck, because the very form of being polite legitimizes these assumptions as being natural. Being offensive then acts as a declaration of war, getting the real relationship out in the open, forcing things off the terrain of politeness the oppressor sometimes depends upon. Because there is no protocol or etiquette that can contain liberation.

When oppression does not merely occur within the private sphere, but depends on the fact of privacy to draw its strength, being loud will always mean being offensive. And it will also be the best weapon in the psychological arsenal of the oppressed.

Certainly, in the case of queers, we have that tradition of transgression - think Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, sure, but don't forget Kuwasi Balagoon, Valerie Solanas or Windi Earthworm - and it formed a constitutive part of queer revolt. That this tradition is a lot less loud than it was twenty years ago, and that it has been replaced by popular culture sensations like Will and Grace and Brokeback Mountain, is plain for all to see. As is the fact that the acceptance of LBGTIAetc. themes in popular culture is part of a broader cultural dynamic that includes the rise of Islamophobia. But the fact that both these things have happened at the same time and are clearly connected is not enough to show cause and effect.

Rather than just look at things on the level of discourse - kind of like studying the oceans and all the creatures that live therein by simply observing seafoam - the rise of the homonationalist consensus can be tied directly to the triumph of neoliberalism and to the demise of the queer liberation movement as it existed even just two decades ago. A demise which was partly due to its successes, partly due the decimation reaped by AIDS, partly due to the conservative turn all previous liberation movements suffered in the 1980s-90s. Homonationalism is not the result of too much queer activism, but of "queer culture" divorced from its political goals and from the most dynamic aspects of its past, then repackaged and sold back to us as a consolation prize for still being stuck in capitalism.

Clearly, today, the leadership of the queer liberation movement has been seized by people with bad politics, and perhaps the movement as it exists should just be avoided or ignored, or even dismantled. Could be. But this doesn't mean we will be able to do without queer organizing, if we want to live in a world where queers are safe and free to live their lives.

That is because it is social relations themselves, the prevalence of homophobia and transphobia, and the structural connection between these forms of sexual horror and the reactionary political movements and cultural attitudes generated by imperialism within its center and around the world, that constantly generate the need for a queer response, call it Gay Liberation, Sexual Freedom, or LBGTIAetc. - the conditions which push individuals and communities to need that kind of politic are generated by external reality. The necessity cannot be argued away, though the responsibility can certainly be shirked. This doesn't mean having illusions about queer politics being the revolution, just a realization that it needs to be a part of it.

But some academics, such as Jasbir Puar, disagree. They tell us that for us here to engage in solidarity activism with queers elsewhere is to support imperialism. When i asked her afterwards if i had understood her correctly as being opposed to any queer political organizing, she responded that she wouldn't actually argue for or against political organizing. When a woman in the audience followed up by stating that she thought it was important to organize politically, Puar retreated to a position of stating that this was an "emergent question".

Really - this is a question just emerging now? i'd have thought the question emerged some time ago, and was answered some time ago, too.

It is unfortunate that high falutin' verbiage and accusations of racism and Islamophobia are enought to give someone a radical veneer. Again, there is a chance i am misrepresenting Puar - but i must stress that if this is so, it is a result of her choosing to adopt this kind of opaque and unintelligible post-structuralist slang, one which i think is chosen purposefully by a class of intellectuals who have a real interest in not being clearly understood. (And i know she can speak like a normal person - i found a good interview with his about work she did against domestic violence, and a funny interview with her about her love for the daytime soap General Hospital - i guess the trick is to get her to talk about something real rather than pomo abstractions.)

It is also unfortunate that various progressive student groups (Queer McGill, QPIRG McGill, 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy, QPIRG Concordia) chose to sponsor this talk as a keynote address in Culture Shock, which is supposed to be "two weeks of events aimed at exploring our cultural myths, particularly those surrounding immigrant, refugee, and racialised communities."

What is most unfortunate is that Puar's line has such appeal to many radical queers in the universities. The dynamic tension between sexual politics in the imperialist countries and their right-wing nationalist opposition is a real problem, one which we need to address. Unfortunately, Puar's approach replicates the very problem she sets out to criticize, abandoning the question of "how to act in solidarity with queers in countries victimized by imperialism," and in so doing abandoning the internationalist responsibility we all have towards each other, when we should be trying to figure out how to establish connections and working relations that bypass our enemies the state and the NGO complex.

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[Kasama Blog] Misuses of the Erotic: Debate Among Revolutionary Youth

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An interesting post by Jed Brandt on Mike Ely's Kasama blog about the anti-queer political line advanced by the (u.s.) Revolutionary Communist Party up until a few years ago: Misuses of the Erotic: Debate Among Revolutionary Youth.

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The Roots of Divers/Cite

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It’s coming up that time of year again: Divers/Cite, Montreal’s “LBGTA” pride event.

As some know, but too many do not, Pride in Montreal takes place later than in most North American cities, commemorating as it does not Stonewall, but Sexgarage, an after-hours party that was subject to a violent police raid in 1990. A raid that was followed by a queer protest against police brutality which would itself then be violently attacked by the police

Or as party-goer – and photographer – Linda Hammond recalls:

On the evening of Saturday, July 14th, 1990, a party attended by over 400 people in the warehouse district of Old Montreal became the scene of a violent police attack on its patrons. The incident sparked a chain of events which changed the face of Montreal gay politics and greatly affected the lives of those involved. The party was called SEXGARAGE, and the incident became regarded as the Stonewall of Montreal.

(Rather than give a play by play of the party, i'll just direct you all to Hammond's site - an excellent historical document of Montreal police homophobia and brutality, full of pictures - you have to click on the images, including the entry ticket, to see the display.)

As i mentioned above, the violent police raid provoked a peaceful "love in" against police brutality... which was itself attacked by cops from Station 25 (which at that time was where the C.O. Sud is today), who of course showed their homo-sensitivity by putting on rubber gloves before the fun began.

Summer of 90: police glove up before beating queer protesters in front of Station 25

Forty four people were arrested, countless more hurt. As one self-identified "heterosexual onlooker" wrote in to a local entertainment paper after the attack:

I saw a policeman push a woman across her breasts with his riot stick. I saw a policeman jab a young man in the groin with his riot stick. I saw another officer wear a grin of joy, as he grabbed a young man by his belt, clearly inflicting pain... These people needed protection from the police!

(Letter to the Editor, Montreal Mirror July 26 - Aug 9 1990)

But this show of brutality was not really a show of strength, and if the hope had been to intimidate the new generation of queer activists... well let's just say it didn't...

Doesn't power always looks the same when it has lost? Looking back at police actions that summer, it is clear that there was no plan, there was no strategy, and there was no real question of the queer community not "winning", all that was needed was the will to win. And for once, that there certainly was. (As to how much more could have been won, that's another story...)

A few days after the "love in" was attacked by Station 25, hundreds marched through the streets. Again and again, the link was made between police violence against queers and the police killings of Black youth in Montreal, and the ongoing repression of the First Nations. This was not "single issue", this was not "single community", and in the minds of those who marched with their signs against homophobia and taunted cops with their boxes from dunkin donuts, this was not a parade.

Now the police did not attack, which in retrospect can be read as "the police backed down".

Then again, a week later, on Sunday July 29th it was not hundreds but thousands of queers and supporters who marched through downtown Montreal, in what has since been commemorated every year as "Divers/Cite".

Sunday July 30th, 1990: not a parade, it was a demonstration

In terms roughly like what i have just recounted, the "summer of 90" has been described before. It's a story that gets surprisingly little play from the official Divers/Cite organizers, but it's not unknown, or inaccessible, and there's usually an article in a local newspaper or two around this time of year filling people in on the colourful history. Which is good.

But it all gives rise to two questions.

The most obvious: what the fuck happened since? It's been a long time now that Divers/Cite has been a parade more akin to St-Patrick's Day than a demonstration against oppression or police brutality. Indeed, a few years ago parade organizers welcomed former police chief Duchesneau to march with them (he was "shot" with waterguns full of red dye by some radicals who remembered the police murders and brutality that had occurred on his watch), and then the organizers actually had the police intervene to throw out a tiny contingent of queer anarchists. Like other corporate tourtisty events, Divers/Cite is now an excuse for the police to clamp down on homeless kids and sex workers who might spoil the sanitized atmosphere... or as the organizers of this year's radical queer "Pervers/Cite" event put it, Divers/Cite has become "white, mainstream and corporate", a far cry from what it was when it began.

And of course: this is not a Montreal phenomenon, but one which spans North America, as "Pride" events are generally corporate events, with little connection to or input from radicals or the oppressed.

For the moment, i'm not going to delve into that question, though i certainly think it's a problem worth pondering. (For those interested in resisting this trend, i encourage you to attend the Pervers/Cite demonstration on Sunday: it's meant to highlight the politics and solidarity which are absent from the official celebrations, and as a demonstration wil attempt to join the parade... people are all to meet at de Lorimier and Ontario at 11:30am, we're leaving at noon sharp...)


But again, that question, the "selling out" of pride is not what i'm going to go on about.

What i do want to ask, as it is rarely if ever discussed, is why did people fight back in 1990?

As i mentioned above, the police had no "master plan", beating up gay kids was not a "strategic priority" so much as a fun pastime, and when push came to shove and people shoved back, and then shoved back some more, the cops quickly made nice. Their priority (not entirely unrelated to question-#1-which-i-shall-not-ponder!) at that point was getting a handle on the movement, identifying reasonable spokespeople (generally spokesmen) and "making sure this doesn't happen again". & by "this" different people certainly felt entitled to understand different things...

So what made 1990 different was not the police, or the powers that be. It was the hundreds of people who showed up at the "kiss in" at Station 25 just days after the first police attack of Sexgarage, and got beaten and arrested for their trouble. More importantly, it was the hundreds more who showed up to march through the streets just days later, despite the threat of violence. And the thousands a week after that.

Again with hindsight, one must wonder how much further things could have gone, had the envelope been pushed, had the tendencies towards solidarity been stronger... but i digress... and it certainly was better than what we generally see... my point is that all it took to win was the desire to win, and the willingness to fight back.

So again: why did people fight back in 1990?

Queer Crisis / Colonial Crisis: The Journal de Montreal July 17th 1990

Two factors coincided to allow people to fight back that July.

First, 1990 was the summer of the so-called "Oka Crisis". This is not the place to go into details, but in a nutshell, the Mohawk Nation (which holds territory around Montreal) was engaged in one of the most intense standoffs with Canadian colonialism in the 20th century. In Kanehsatake not an hour away, an entire community was resisting the State (the Canadian Army would be called in a month later). The Mercier bridge between Montreal and the south shore had been seized by warriors who, day after day, night after night, confronted racist mobs and police.

Racism was at a fever pitch in Montreal, and yet amongst those who identified - no matter how vicariously or unrealistically - with the Indigenous struggle against the State, it was a time of intense hope. As one comrade - who had been a politically active anarchist for years - confided in me, this was the first time he had ever seen the possibility of armed revolution in Canada.

It is important to keep this in mind, because i think it's really central to what felt possible at that point. There is a tendency, i know, to separate struggles, and to look with skepticism for attempts to harness the energies of one people's tradition to another people's benefit - a kind of "political appropriation" - and this makes sense because people do rip off other people's struggles, generally to the advantage of whomever is least oppressed. But that's not what i'm talking about here - rather, what i'm referring to is something organic, unorchestrated, and fundamentally healthy which occurs when people see others fighting back and come to understand that this is a possibility for them too.

Nor was this all on the level of the abstract or the sub-conscious - at the time too some people wondered at the timing. Linda Hammond suggests that one reason Montreal cops may have been in need of some "beat that dyke" excitement may have been their feelings of being left out, as they "couldn't get the Indians". After the Station 25 attack the Journal de Montreal ran a side-by-side spread of photos of the queer fightback and the Mohawk resistance (see above). Many of the same activists who were involved in organizing against the police attacks were also involved in organizing in support of the Mohawk Nation, days being divided between both campaigns as best they could. Statements against racism and in support of the Mohawk struggle were made at both the July 22nd and 29th demonstrations against police homophobia - and many were those queers who missed that historic demonstration on the 29th because we had trekked to the rally held that day just outside Oka against Canadian colonialism.

All of which should not be overstated. What i'm describing is not cause and effect, rather a very meaningful coincidence. And any honest observer has to note that the trajectories of the Mohawk Nation and canadian queers over the next seventeen years could not be more different, with the latter being promised acceptance as the court jesters of the hetero-patriarchy and the latter continuing to be buffeted by the kind of economic and political exclusion capitalism reserves for its internal colonies... but again, i digress..

Montreal Daily News, sometime that week in March '89

There is a second, more overt, set of events which also did their part to foment the initial queer fightback in 1990.

On March 19th 1989 a young gay man living with AIDS, Joe Rose, was murdered on a Montreal city bus. The details quickly circulated amongst his friends, and got picked up by the media:

According to his companion, when Rose tried to leave the bus at Frontenac Metro station, the group surrounded him.

"They pulled off his hat," he said.

"They were chanting 'faggot, faggot'."

Rose's lover, who asked to be identified as Daniel told the Daly News details of the grisly crime circulated quickly in the gay community.

"They were playing football with him," Daniel said.

"They were throwing him back and forth, knifing him in the abdomen. When they finished their business he [Rose] walked three steps and collapsed.

"While he was lying there in the fetal position the group moved in and kicked him. They kicked him at least 50 times."

(Montreal Daily News, March 21st 1989)

Rose had been working on getting a hospice opened for PWAs, and had been thinking of starting a PWA magazine. He and many of his friends were part of a continent-wide wave of queer activism around AIDS, and within days of his murder there was a quickly-organized rally in downtown Montreal, and that same week several dozen people met in the space above the anarchist Alternative Bookstore and founded Reaction Sida, the idea being that this group could both act against street violence and politically to bring attention to the ongoing AIDS calamity.

It was a coming together of many different people from many different scenes - feminist dykes and gay men, anglophones and francophones, mainly but not only quite young... most from Montreal, but some who would travel back and forth to New York City where they were already active with ACT UP. As well as more than a few anarchists, as in the late 80s queer and AIDS-related campaigns seemed the closest thing in many of our lives to a mass movement with radical politics.

Reaction Sida did not last long, but before it faded it got to tag along as AIDS Action Now, ACT UP New York and hundreds of AIDS activists from across the continent descended on Montreal for the Fifth International AIDS Conference which luck had happening in Montreal that summer. In many ways it was a perfect match: the out of town activists had knowledge, experience, and undeniable legitimacy as they had often built real fighting organizations in their own cities. What Reaction Sida lacked in AIDS-related experience it made up for in local legitimacy and contacts, and so (with the hiccups and clashes that are par for the course in such situations) the match was consummated... and the protests were incredibly empowering.

The 5th IAC: AIDS activist crash the party?
AIDS activists are the party!

The International AIDS Conference was an event of the World Health Organization, and as you would expect was a top-down affair meant for professionals - doctors, politicians, researchers - with people living with AIDS and organizing around their illness hardly on the agenda. Indeed, the infamous $500 entrance fee was almost guaranteed to keep things that way.

From the beginning members of ACT UP, AAN and Reaction Sida took matters into their own hands. Storming the opening session, they confronted conference organizers with the choice of either calling the cops to arrest the demonstrators, or allowing them to stay. Calling the cops would have been a public relations disaster, and so the activists held the floor for an hour, chanting slogans and reading a ten point manifesto demanding an international code of rights for people infected with HIV, international standardisation of the criteria for approving drugs and treatments in order to speed up worldwide access to new therapies and guaranteed access to approved and experimental drugs and treatments and the right to confidential and anonymous testing for infection with HIV. The Mulroney government in particular was attacked for its lackadaisical approach towards the plague.

As one participant recalls:

I’ll never forget the sight of our ragtag group of 300 protesters brushing past the security guards in the lobby of the Palais de Congress, the fleet of “Silence=Death” posters gliding up the escalator to the opening ceremony or our chants thundering throughout the cavernous hall. There we were, the uninvited guests, taking our rightful place at the heart of the conference. And when PWA Tim McCaskell grabbed the microphone and “officially” opened the conference “on behalf of people with AIDS from Canada and around the world,” even the scientists stood and cheered.

But it was only when we refused to leave the auditorium and instead parked ourselves in the VIP section that the crowd realized that our action was more than just a symbolic protest. Despite threats and rumors of a potential “international incident,” we remained in our seats, alternately chanting and cheering, and giving notice that PWAs were “inside” the conference to stay. From that point on in the crisis, researchers would have to make extra room at the table for PWAs and their advocates.

(POZ, July 1998)

Indeed, conference organizers at first offered 200 free passes to PWAs, and then simply said that any self-identified PWA could attend for free. There was street theater, pointed interventions, and protests every day...

...in short, it was all a success, and a generation of Montreal queers felt that much more able to challenge the powers that be and win.

(That the "victory" at the IAC failed in any way to stem the overarching decline of the AIDS activist movement is, again, something we'll leave for another day.)

fun and games at the 5th International AIDS Conference

*******************

Finally, there was still a feminist movement in the late 1980s, and it retained a militant wing. Many of the leading activists in AIDS activist organizations - including Reaction Sida - were feminists and lesbians, and besides this there was a kind of "women's community" of struggle the likes of which has not been seen for some time. (i'm not in a position to comment on whether this was a good or a bad thing: many of the women involved in that scene were themselves harsh critics of what they described as the racism, transphobia, whore-bashing, and even sexphobia of their own movement. Yet obviously they themselves fought against these tendencies... my point being - and remember i observed this as a guy who was obviously not a part of it - it was their movement, and even in their criticisms they seemed to draw on lessons and strengths which came from their movement and its theoreticians.)

So i would also suggest that within this momentum of struggle which led to the decisive advances of 1990 there is a clear feminist trajectory. Already in the fall of '89 queers from Concordia's Women's Collective were holding kiss-ins to protest a local restaurant's lesbophobia. When Marc Lepine entered the University of Montreal engineering department on December 6th and killed fourteen women (as part of what he described as his struggle against feminism) local organizations including the Women's Defense Committee responded organizing a monster vigil of thousands.

The Women's Defense Committee would continue to carry out actions to protest sexism and male violence against women for the next few years. When police would next attack a Montreal queer demo in 1992, it would be because it was marching in solidarity with a WDC march protesting Canada's sexist laws criminalizing women who went topless. By that time the women from that scene had been elected to the Concordia Students Union under the slogan "Feminism Works", and they were having lots of fun and games of their own... all of which i am sure will be discussed some day - but not today!

*******************

It has been eighteen years since Joe Rose was killed and the International AIDS Conference was stormed, seventeen years since the Oka Crisis and the Sexgarage raids. It is in many ways a different world as processes as big and complex as neo-colonialism, the fall of the Soviet bloc and globalization have unleashed profound changes we are only beginning to identify.

Meanwhile, despite the hype, despite Will and Grace and gay marriage and "cool queers" there is more and more that needs to be done. "Gay acceptability" has come at a steep cost to gay runaways and sex workers and others who are now a liability to the respectable and admirable homosexual entrepreneur. Guppification plays out in a cruel dialectic with homophobic and whore-phobic violence, each of which makes the oppressed ever more vulnerable. The very public embrace of gay entertainers is cold comfort as we get the sneaking suspicion that we could simply be being set up as scapegoats when the water gets choppy.

There is as much reason to organize and fight back now as their ever was. The only question - now as seventeen years ago - is what will allow people to feel that winning is possible, that fighting back is worth it.

That's what we have to figure out.

**************

This year's radical queer march to join with the Divers/Cite parade is meeting on Sunday July 29th at 11:30 AM: meet at the park on the corner of de Lorimier & Ontario. At noon sharp, we will leave the park to join the Pride Parade. For more information see the Pervers/Cite call out.

**************

Thanks to the nice things people have told me about this text, i decided to lay it out as a pamphlet - it is available through my distro Kersplebedeb. You can email me at info@kersplebedeb.com to order a copy; also check out my Radical Literature page for loads more pamphlets and books.

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