SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: anarchoqueer@gmail.com
AND PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

As Radical Queers, we are in a constant war against the HRC. Our frustrations run much deeper than ENDA or any other single issue. However, I have often found myself unable to substantiate my frustrations when talking with more mainstream “LGBT” folks. So, me and a friend are planning to compile and edit a zine on why we hate the HRC. We are looking for more radical perspectives written in a language that would be accessible to more mainstream “LGBT” folks.

Talking points could/should include, but are not limited to:

Racism, Classism, Assimilation, Militarism/Imperialism, Transphobia, The Prison-Industrial Complex, The Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Immigration as a Queer Issue, Public Sex/Sexuality and Pleasure (and how the HRC tries to hide that as a part of our identities), The culture of respectability, Healthcare.

Or maybe, even more fundamentally, why there are no “separate issues.”

We would also be interested in writings on things people have done, actions that have been taken against the HRC, and why we don’t need the HRC. (We can do this shit ourselves!)

Remember, the intended audience is mainstream “LGBT” folks who aren’t already radical– this is an attempt to radicalize them!– so please make sure submissions are written in a way that will make sense to these folks. (I.e. don’t assume somebody knows what the prison industrial complex is or why we don’t like it.)

PLEASE EMAIL SUBMISSIONS, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS TO: anarchoqueer@gmail.com.

AND PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

Thanks!

Solidarity and Sodomy,
~Saffo

Take a visit on over at Rowland’s site, “By Any Means Necessary,” to read one of the best postings on Rick Warren. Rowland’s post “No Bigots At The Inauguration,” begins, “I really hate to say “I told you so,” often because it seems to relate to something that is not so positive, but, unfortunately, this seems to be another case of “I told you so.” Despite the illusions of some people on the “left” about him, this past week President-elect Barack Obama has continued down the path he has cut that demonstrates his ultimate faithfulness to the politics of the ruling-class in the United States. He has done this with every single one of his post-election decisions, beginning with his choice of cabinet officials and now continuing with his announcement that the right-wing evangelical pastor Rick Warren will be his choice for delivering the invocation at the presidential inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, 2009.”  The full posting can be read by clicking HERE.

Another posting follows. [Read more →]

Many thanks to People of Faith for sending this essay along to QWB. 

“How the Right-Wing Grinches Stole Christmas - The Co-Opted Gospel”
By Daniel C.Maguire

A devout atheist friend of mine often commented: “Wouldn’t it be something if Christians really believed what they say they believe - that the poor are their prime concern and that ending poverty is their mission!” My friend, warming to his topic, would continue his thought along these lines: The Bible says that the Christian gospel is ‘good news to the poor’ (Luke 4:18), that ‘the poverty of the poor is their ruin’ (Proverbs 10:15), and therefore ‘there shall be no poor among you’ (Deut 15:4) because the poor are the apple of God’s eye. (Ps. 72:14)

“If they believed that,” my friend would say, “Christians would be a stupendously powerful lobby for the poor, and no politician would dare neglect ‘the least among us.’ [Read more →]

Republished from Bashback! News  www.bashbacknews.wordpress.com

More Queer People Murdered. Lesbian and Gay Organizations Seem to Care Less.

By Beau Vyne

New Orleans Police discovered the bodies of three young, Black, Queer people in a 7th ward house Saturday. The three people, one of whom was gender variant, were all shot to death in the house sometime around 3 or 4am Thursday. Mainstream media and the Police are as of now ignoring the fact that the three people were queer and possibly trans. However, Facebook groups devoted to the three and comments on news sites, are raising interesting questions by Queer people of color as to why large Lesbian and Gay organizations are ignoring this. Many people have wondered as to whether there would be an LGBT organizational black out on such violence had the three been wealthy and white Gay businessmen. [Read more →]

EDITORIAL

Ode to shoes

Published Dec 17, 2008 3:51 PM

Ah, lowly objects of mundane human existence, forever condemned to carry on your backs the weight of the world, this ode is to you. Because of you we tenderfeet are able to trudge through burning deserts and freezing slush. We slap you upon the pavements of great metropolises and quiet villages until your seams split, your tongues loll and your soles disintegrate. You are then discarded to the ashbins of history, leaving no record of your great service to humanity.

But now comes a humble pair of shoes that shall live forever.

When you flew through the air, one after the other, in a transcendent arc that nearly clipped the ears of W. Mad Dog, a great sigh went up to the heavens and swept the globe. It was the sigh that comes when a door long shut is cracked open, when a torment long denied at last finds its breath. [Read more →]

Kelli Busey, friend and comrade of QWB has a great posting, “HRC Shameful Transham Day of Self Promotion” posted over at her blog site, planetransgender. Keli begins her piece by saying,

In honor of our Anarchist comrades who have put together a conference here in Hartford (see our calender of events) QWB submits this movie as a bit of history. You will be amazed by these wonderful freedom fighters appearing in the film. 

I was rattling around in my file cabinet today and came upon a very interesting article written by Adrienne Weller. The article is a write up about the movie, The Free Voices of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists. The write up was published in Freedom Socialist June-July 2008 and can be read here. The hour long movie is a documentary about the staff of the Yiddish language newspaper, Freie Arbeiter Stimme, and is the story of these fearless fighters for justice. View or download at www.freedocumentaries.org. On the home page just look under OUR FILMS and scroll down to Jewish Anarchists, give a click and enjoy. [Read more →]

In The Limelight Series—Latino Voices

Featuring our friend and comrade Bessy Reyna,

Conversacion con una Escritora.

Friday, September 19, 8pm. At the Green Streets Arts Center,

51 Green Street, Middletown Ct.

Seating is limited! Call for reservations (860) 685-7871.

$8, $5 members, seniors and students.

Visit www.greenstreetartscenter.org  for more information.

This essay is re-posted from the site, By Any Means Necessary. Be sure to check out the site here. Rowland has posted some real food for thought in a new essay titled, “On The Human Rights Campaign, Gay Marriage and Single Issue Activism.” Thanks to Rowland for permission to repost this essay.

On The Fight Against Patriarchy 

The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.”
-James Connolly

Patriarchy, in the narrowest definition of the term, means (from Greek) “father-rule,” however this tends not to fully encapsulate all of the social implications that stem from such a systems implementation. In short, it is one of the primary social constructs under which we live. It is made manifest in many ways, not least of which are the institutionalized forms of Western and Eastern religion. From the perspective of socialism though, we must recognize that the system of male-supremacy far pre-dates the rise of industrial, and even merchant, capitalism. However, the rise of capitalism, when combined with the already existing patriarchy, has lead to an intensification of the subordination and degradation of women through further manipulation of family life and sexuality (such as the widespread production and availability of pornography). This helps the bourgeoisie maintain their control over the working-class and other oppressed peoples. [Read more →]

This essay is written by Jessica of True Colors mentoring program. 

Envision yourself walking down the hallway with your significant other. People brush it off and barely even notice. You walk them to class and give them a kiss goodbye. Now imagine that your significant other being the same sex as you. The act of holding hands gets you a barrage of stares as if you were contaminated. Giving that simple kiss might get you some un-needed comments. You hear the voices buzzing like mosquitoes in your brain saying, “dyke” or “faggot”. They burn your ears. YOU wonder to yourself, “Why are they acting like this? What’s wrong with me?” In a sea of people you feel like a lone buoy. If being gay is such a beautiful thing, why are people treating us like we are aliens? When old friends act differently towards you. The warm embrace of a welcoming hug turns cold and empty. When you go into the locker room to change, the stares rush right back, the whispering gets louder; your ears burn even more. You see people scurrying to hide in fear that you might look at them in a sexual manner. You really start to think you’re diseased, but the only disease around is pure ignorance. [Read more →]

Please re-post as widely as you wish!

Call For Papers: “Queering Anarchism”

Radical queer politics and anarchism have much in common. Queer theory argues against traditional identity politics, recognizing the social construction of “sexuality” and identity categories. Anarchism argues against any structured hierarchical arrangement of humanity that allows some members of society to systematically exploit and oppress others. Thus, both projects argue for a need to move beyond hierarchical and naturalized arrangements of socially constructed identities–though, at times, articulating those arguments in different ways. Nevertheless, despite these commonalities, little has been written about the deep connections between anarchism and radical queer politics. This edited volume is an attempt to fill that gap.

With this book, the authors wish to assemble writings that are useful to activists (i.e. not written in obscure academic jargon and relatable to social movement contexts) working in the intersections of queer and anarchist politics. Many anarchists use the term “queer” as shorthand for the LGBT community and have little understanding of what queer theory can provide for a contemporary radical praxis and how it differs from traditional LGBT politics—even some radical strands. Likewise, there are many among the queer community who know little to nothing about anarchism—relying mostly on the sensationalist news medias’ construction of anarchists as terrorists, anti-organizationalists, etc. This volume, then, will be split into three sections (theory, praxis, and personal experience) featuring writing that deals specifically with these intersections. [Read more →]

“Nashawn Williams Addresses The Media” posted by Kevin over at the Undercurrent Blog is a video in 3 parts of the press conference held last Saturday at Charter Oak Cultural Center. Please click here. Nashawn William is a 16 year old black youth who was attacked by a gang of whites in Plainfield while waiting for a school bus in October 2007. Police are trying to close the case, no witnesses or arrests. Click here for a report from Frank O’Gorman on QWB’s blog. [Read more →]

Posted by Rowland Keshena on A Radical in Bermuda.

The Greenward Shift of the American Revolutionary Left

(Are Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party a real alternative for American workers and youth?)

* 

As I posted last night, one my biggest gripes with sections of the American revolutionary left (including the US branch of the IMT) is that they are undergoing a reorientation away from the construction of a new revolutionary worker’s movement and towards the left-social democrats of the Green Party USA. Two of the more prominent revolutionary socialist groups to have backed the Green Party this year are the Workers International League (the American branch of the IMT) and Solidarity. So we must ask ourselves, is the Green Party USA the best alternative out there for workers and revolutionary change? Also what is going on with current attempts to unify the campaigns of several American revolutionary socialist groupings?So to the first question, does the Green Party represent the best interests of the workers and revolution in the United States? I would have to say no, especially when we throw in the idea of revolution. While I’ll admit that the Greens are far more progressive than the Democrats, (just see here and here), and they certainly are at the forefront of the battle to protect the environment (something all real socialists support), they are still broadly a left-social democrat institution. Now, I know right now you might be saying “but I really like the Green Party’s platform“, hell so do I, it has many great points to it, and as I said, it is certainly far more progressive and left than even the most extreme Democrats like Dennis Kucinich, but the intrinsic problem with the Greens is that they have not come to grips with the systemic nature of the capitalist problem, even as it pertains to the environmental question. At the moment they still are in the mode of trying to reform capitalism into a cleaner, nicer, less-heartless variety, but once they realize that capitalism is irreformable I fully believe that their platform will shift more to the left. The Green Party does not offer up the fundamental revolutionary change that is really needed to emancipate the working class. So why support a non-revolutionary organization when well established revolutionary parties and movements already exist?

[Read more →]

A key inspiration to my process of organizing and activism has lately been driven by the amazing Ella Baker. Ella was a leading civil rights and human rights activist starting back in the 1930’s. In the world where many notable activists demand center stage for their voices and egos, Ella was a true leader who led from behind as well as working side by side in the struggle for human equality. As Ella stated, and Bernice Johnson Reagon lyrics proclaim in “Ella’s Song”:

“To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
And if I can shed some light as they carry us through the gale
The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hand of the young who dare to run against the storm
Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be just one in the number as we stand against tyranny
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot I come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survive”

All of us, no matter how big or how small we or our work are, should take stock in Ella’s vision and practice of activism! Another key belief of Ella’s was that “you must let the oppressed themselves define their own freedom.” A mantra that we in the the Trans community must embrace if we are to realize the true freedoms we desire. Metroline can attempt to marginalize or erase the power of the Trans movement, though we the Trannies, the Queens, the Kings, the Queers have and continue to define our own freedom ~ and not let our history or our futures be defined by Metroline, HRC or any other entity that attempts to marginalize our identity and beauty!

To learn more about Ella, I encourage you at least to read Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision.

Below are both a video of Sweet Honey in the Rock singing Ella’s song (lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon) and the inspiring lyrics, of which many lines are based on things Ella said. Enjoy.

Ella’s Song
Composed by Bernice Johnson Reagon, copyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.

Refrain: [Read more →]

“Want to define love, commitment, family, and sexual merrymaking on your own terms? Honey, that’s so last century.” Click here to read Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore thought provoking editorial from the San Francisco Bay Guardian published June 25, 2008.

“Now that the California Supreme Court has struck down the ban on same-sex marriage, everywhere we hear of couples who’ve been together 10, 20, or 30 years (or six months) rushing to tie the knot and proclaim: “finally … it’s … legitimate!” It’s hard to imagine a more wholehearted rejection of queer struggles to create defiant ways of living and loving, lusting for and caring for one another — methods not dependent on inclusion in the dominant institutions of straight privilege.”