May 8, 2008
There were helicopters all over Brooklyn yesterday afternoon. Thousands of people marched to protest the rulings handed down in the Sean Bell case. In class, my students laid it out in twenty minutes. Americans have rights. But 'Americans' are white, speak English, wear suits, are straight and have college degrees. Twenty minutes. Then later, I sat in a room of twenty LGB, Gender Variant and Intersexed folks who are outraged about the Sean Bell case, and all around the room I heard the same thing, "Where are our people?" And then the answer, "They are scared. They feel unsafe."Three of the women in the room had been harassed by police on the way to the meeting simply for being trans and walking through the Village. The cops assumed they MUST be prostitutes, not community organizers. I am so frustrated right now, because I feel the institutionalized poverty of queer people, of people of color, of disabled people, of non-native speakers. People are being criminalized for who they are. Their very essence is illegal. How can we make people illegal? Who has the right to do that?Every day the Bush regime erodes away at our freedoms, the things people have literally died for in this country, and most people can't be bothered to care. Where is the personal responsibility? Where are the good Samaritans?
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betwixt (anonymous) says...
It is truly scary to be an assumed danger in some armed police officers equation. To be on the wrong side of that equation can mean humiliation, fear and even death. I spent this morning on my way to the subway hoping that they weren't conducting bag searches. More info on the swarming of helicopters... (http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typep...)
May 8, 2008 at 12:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
billy (Billy Keefe) says...
I am worried that when they see all the cameras I am carrying around that I will be a special target within a targeted group. I don't feel that the camera makes me safer.
May 8, 2008 at 12:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wbabbit (Will Babbit) says...
I've just got to ask, and it doesn't seem safe to google at work...what's intersexed?
May 9, 2008 at 3:11 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
greenjeans1 (anonymous) says...
It's time we gathered together. Gay, multicultural, grey panthers, economically disadvantaged and everyone who believes in freedom. Like I remember the 60's and 70's and push for real transformation. WE lost ground with George Bush and I want to take it back.
May 9, 2008 at 8:53 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
That's cool greanjeans, but gather together and do *what* exactly? No snark here, I genuinely want to know.
May 9, 2008 at 8:56 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
billy (Billy Keefe) says...
Intersexed = Folks who have male and female reproductive organs
May 11, 2008 at 6:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
billy (Billy Keefe) says...
Do what? How about demand a living wage, an international living wage, reform the prison system, give local communities power over international corporations, ensure union rights for workers world wide, take guns away from the police, make more parks, demand sex worker rights, recognize the real ways in which people are disadvantaged, conserve energy, throw back beers, make music, enjoy each other, have really deep conversations, follow up with really silly conversations, make out, go swimming (in unpolluted water), buy things made by people who enjoy making them and retain the profits, sleep outdoors.
May 11, 2008 at 6:16 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wbabbit (Will Babbit) says...
And walk on rainbows!
May 12, 2008 at 10:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
justthefacts (anonymous) says...
In all seriousness - the best way to combat any entrenched ideas or seriously skewed view points is to JOIN THEM and work from within. That tactic may sound a bit like selling out, but more then one revolution succeeded because enough "spies" were doing their work from inside the institution being chanllenged. It takes patience and commitment to infiltrate and work for change. Like the really committed teachers who continue to teach new ideas, even to people who don't want to learn. Or the 20+ years of legal planning that the NAACP engaged in before filing Brown v. Topeka. Setting a good example, for a long long time, to all but especially to those you want to convince of your rectitude or have join you, may not be nearly as "fun" or provide immediate gratification, but in the long run (decades of it), it has the best chance of bringing about real change. Unless of course you have a magic wand or will resort to using nuclear weapons..........those things can make an immediate impact....
May 12, 2008 at 10:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )