Social Justice and Reactivity; Reflections on a conversation between Joe Rogan and Jamie Kilstein

Who'd have thunk THIS is what I'd feel the need to write about after such an absence...

In 2016, I was really invested in the podcast Citizen Radio and it's hosts.  And when accusations of predatory behavior came out about Jamie Kilstein, I was honestly devastated.  This was someone who I had promoted, supported monetarily, given his music album as gifts to loved ones... And then other people I was invested in said he had acted in a predatory manner towards them, aggressively enough that they ended their friendship with him.

When he disappeared in the face of these accusations, and even in the midst of my grief and upset, I honestly wished the best for him.  I hoped that he would take time off to reckon with and heal the damage we all knew he had.  That he had TOLD us he had.  I hoped he wouldn't hurt or kill himself.  I hoped that the consequences of his actions wouldn't suffocate him.  I hoped we wouldn't hear from him for years.

Well, in just the past couple of days I learned that he re-emerged.  And today I listened to his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast.  When it was over, I simply let silence enter the car as I sorted through really, really mixed feelings.  Their conversation brought up SO MUCH stuff for me.

Joe and Jamie talked a lot about what I would call the "reactive" culture we currently live in.  They spoke about the way that people simply react to things, instead of taking time with them.  They spoke about the way in which folks will be labeled as a "traitor" to the cause and excommunicated from social justice circles.  The spoke about the way in which people are immersed in communities that go from one outrage to another without rest or reflection.

And I have to agree with them on this point -- our society is highly reactive.  People on all parts of the political spectrum do this.  And this manifests differently from group to group, but there are certainly a lot of shared characteristics.

Jamie spoke about how being forced to take a step back from the way he was living his life has made it so that he is so much more healthy now.  And this reflects my own journey, and that of close friends of mine during this year.  It reflects things I've heard discussed on other podcasts, like The Friend Zone, where being "selfish" and disconnecting from the internet and taking time to meditate and read books is needed healing in our reactive world.  This made me happy.  I wanted such healing for him.

Jamie and Joe both spoke about how taking time with things is important.  They both talked about how this reactivity is a negative thing.

And then they played a clip from a confrontation between protesters and the President of a college.  And as this woman spoke with pain, and anger, and years of trauma in her voice -- they laughed.

After talking about how he has reflected on what brought him to the dire point he was in last year, as he spoke about how much he did not like the person he had become and how many issues there were to reckon with there -- Jamie also denounced the idea that his behavior had ever been predatory, and denied that there was anything he needed to learn on that front.

When discussing the very concept of predatory behavior in men, Joe characterized it as "just how men act" when they are seeking sex.

Then he went on to deny rape culture exists.

Beneath the anger I felt listening to this, I felt so sad, and so tired. 

They'd both utterly missed the point.

-------------

I remember a year or so ago I was having a conversation with one of my best friends about a guy I was into at the time.  I was telling them that this guy sometimes says things that are kinda racist, and it bothers me.  I was wondering if I should give up on him.  I'll never forget what my friend, a queer Afro-Latino Caribbean man, said to me: "well that depends on whether you want to let him be human."

I was stunned into silence.  I felt keenly embarrassed.  This is someone who knows me well, who knows my heart and mind as well as anyone alive.  Someone who is not afraid to call out racism, not afraid to call out homophobia, to tell someone who cut us off in the supermarket exactly how and why she's rude.  Not some shrinking violet who will accept challenges to his humanity without a fight.

But here he was, telling me it's ok to let someone be human.  Meaning, to be flawed.  Meaning, to have room to grow.

That's not an easy thing.

But it is a necessary thing.

I remember when he and I were living together while I was in college, when I was most immersed in the social justice circles of the Bay Area, when I was at my most unforgiving and reactive.  I remember being introduced to the idea of Transformative Justice through INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and feeling immediately how important such work is, I embracing it.  If you went by their words, most of my cohort embraced it too. But if you went by actions...many of them were also incredibly intolerant of the humanity of others.  I found this over and over again.  Perfection was demanded, or you were out.  I would even call the way some were treated as straight up abusive.  Tearing people down when they fucked up -- when fucking up is human.

So when Joe and Jamie were talking about this thing that happens on the left, I knew what they meant.  Yes, it's real.

But here's the thing that gets me when I talk or listen to white cis men like Jamie and Joe have these conversations -- they will say all this against reactivity and have all this analysis of how it effected them and constrained or hurt them -- and then will turn around and laugh and have no patience for those expressing their hurt and pain in ways they don't understand or agree with.  And that's where they lose me.

Because as far as I can see, the thing that will bring us away from reactivity isn't self-justification of our own actions and perspective -- it's COMPASSION.

Compassion.

Compassion is the thing I found lacking in my experiences with some people and activist groups, and is also the thing I FOUND among those with whom I'm still connected and learning; compassion is the thing that allows us to be human, to speak to pain someone else caused kindly but honestly, to reclaim what is ours to work on and let go what is not.  What allows us to be soft and feel the feelings underneath our triggers and egos and speak our truth and have healthy boundaries and also allows the people around us to still be human.

Compassion for OURSELVES and others.

I wish I had a grand ending thought to close on, but that's it, and that's what I've been working on for myself.  None of this is easy, but it's so important and so painful and so needed.  And although it took me a year to finish this, here it is and I hope someone else gets something out of it. 

Vijay Prashad: Deaths of children that don’t make news

Link to GazetteNet

Reprinted in full below, because Prashad says it better than I tried to do on Facebook a few days ago and it's really worth reading.

NORTHAMPTON — No community easily suffers the death of children. Accidents, violent crimes and illness: the cause is immaterial. 

No death of a child is for a reason. All such deaths are senseless. 

In his emotional address shortly after news came of the massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama pointed to the frequency of such mass crimes and nudged the country to widen our field of vision: “Whether it is an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.” 

The contrary nudge came in his last destination, the “street corner in Chicago.” 

When a singular mass killing occurs in mainly affluent suburbs, it shocks the nation — and rightly so. But it might be a shock to some to know that this year alone 117 children died from handgun violence in Chicago. These deaths do not get discussed, let alone memorialized in the national conversation of tragedy. 

There are at least two reasons for this. First, these deaths do not happen in a spectacular fashion. They take place in ones and twos, often in the lonely hours of the night when bullets depart from their targets and settle in the soft tissue of children asleep in their homes, or in the afternoon as they play on the sidewalk. 

Take the case of April 12. One-year-old Jayliah Allen was shot while she slept in her bed, the bullet entering the window. Seven-year-old Derrick Robeteau was shot in the leg while playing outside his grandfather’s home and a 7-year-old girl was shot as she stood outside her home. Three children hit by handguns in one day, but in an unspectacular form. 

Second, old racist habits linger. These are African-American and Latino kids, whose neighborhoods are considered dangerous. Which is why when Jayliah and Derrick were killed no one called their neighborhoods bucolic or thought that this violence was senseless. There is a hardness that has entered our consciousness, allowing us to avoid the sealed fates of these kids. 

No memorials exist as well for the 178 children killed by U.S. drone strikes in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Noor Aziz, 8, Talha, 8, Najibullah, 13, Adnan, 16, Hizbullah, 10, Wilayat Khan, 11, Asadullah, 9, Sohail, 7: these are some of the names of children killed by the drones. News reports frequently say “three militants killed,” and then a few days later, in the Pakistani press, one hears that amongst the dead were children with no association with the militants. Unlike the street shootings in Chicago, there have been mass killings by drones, which have received only minimal attention. On Oct. 30, 2006, a U.S. drone struck a school in Bajaur, Pakistan, killing 83 people. The New York Times story ran Nov. 10 with the headline, “American Strike in January Missed Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 By a Few Hours.” 

The Times noted in the story that the drone hit “a madrasa, or religious school,” but left it at that. It did not mention that only three of those killed were older than 20. The rest were between the ages of 7 and 17. 

There was no apology for this strike, authorized by the White House, no call to put an end to this kind of tragedy. One of the more unseemly coincidences of the Newtown massacre is that just down the road from the elementary school is Forecast International, a military intelligence firm that has been bullish on drones. 

On Oct. 23, Time’s Joe Klein was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Host Joe Scarborough spoke passionately against the use of drones, saying “it seems so antiseptic and yet you have 4-year-old girls being blown to bits because we have a policy that now says, ‘You know what? Instead of trying to go in and take the risk and get the terrorists out of hiding in a Karachi suburb, we’re just going to blow up everyone around them.’ ” 

Klein, a defender of the Obama record, answered emotionlessly, “The bottom line in the end is — whose 4-year-old gets killed? What we’re doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror.” 

Such a callous calculation is not Klein’s alone; it is reflected in the general lack of concern for what is being carried out in our name. 

No human beings can tolerate to see their children killed. No human beings, not anywhere.


Vijay Prashad, who lives in Northampton, is the author of “Arab Spring, Libyan Winter” (AK Press).

When Was the Last Time I Did a Round Up of Good Shit to Read?

I don't even know.  But as I was linkspamming the shit out of my Facebook friends (sorry y'all) I thought to myself that really I should be doing this here....  And it's going to be quite the clusterfuck of various areas of my interest and their recent discussion in media, so buckle up.  You're welcome!  :D


Cleveland anarchist bomb plot aided and abetted by the FBI

Rather than target real risks of domestic terror, like neo-Nazis, the FBI entrapment machine demonises anarchists and Muslims

A+ priorities and strategies FBI!  /sarcasm  This is one of the reasons why I am so burned out on anything professing to be "law and order" or "security" matters.  We're creating terrorists so we can catch them...instead of looking at ACTUAL TERRORIST GROUPS like neo-Nazis.  Oh, ok.


The homeless man and the NYPD cop's boots: how a warm tale turns cold

A picture that started as a seasonal heartwarmer has now become a reason not to feel sorry for the homeless as Hillman is painted as a wilful eccentric.

I was really struck by this story and what a great example it is of the demonization of the poor, the way that there is only one "proper" way to BE poor, and the way deviance from that narrative is SOUGHT OUT by people and then used to blame the poor for their situation and thus absolve all others of any complicity or guilt in the system that keeps them there.  I also think this overlaps with my final story....


In solidarity for the respect of Holy Places

In appreciation of the many gestures of solidarity from the Muslim world following the recent desecration of Christian Holy Places, the Auxiliary Bishop of Jerusalem, Bishop William Shomali, visited Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday, October 4 where he met Grand Mufti Mohammad Hussein and the grand magistrate of the mosque Abdel Adhim Salhab...The Bishop also assured Muslims the support of the Christian community with respect to their holy places.

People not being assholes.  I felt like I should mix it up a little bit.


Homefulness! A Real Solution to Houselessness

Homefulness, a project of POOR Magazine, is a solution of interdependence, love, and equity-sharing for landless youth, adults, and elders across Pachamama. It is a poor people-led, self-determined, truly green model for housing, art, microbusiness, spirituality, interdependence, self-accountability, caregiving, and community that incorporates the teaching of our elders, ancestors, and spiritual leaders in harmony with Mother Earth. We aim to create permanent and lasting solutions to houselessness for families in poverty who have been displaced, evicted, gentrified, and destabilized out of their indigenous lands and communities.

An IndieGoGo campaign that I would really encourage you to participate in, if you can!


Remember Their Names: In Memory of Kasandra, Cherica & Others

This tragic story pushes to the forefront an important issue in terms of domestic violence and murder. When the murderer is famous, attractive, rich, or charming people don’t want to believe that they are guilty. I don’t pretend to know Jovan Belcher’s heart, motives, or mind set when he fired numerous gunshots into the body of his baby’s mother, and then turned the gun on himself. I don’t know why his only option, in that moment, felt like a desperate one. I don’t know what caused him to murder Kasandra, but what I do know is that it was not Kasandra’s fault. I know that staying out until 1 o’clock in the morning at a concert was not an invitation to die. I know that it doesn’t matter what she wore that night, or what she may have said, or whether or not she may have been intoxicated, or rolled her eyes at him, or called him out of his name, or talked to another guy in passing, she didn’t deserve to die.

Nigeria: Security Forces Open Fire On Protesting Ogoni Community

Armed security forces protecting the interest of the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major, Shell, on Friday, opened fire on a protesting Ogoni community in the Rivers State axis of Southern Nigeria. The community, Eleme, was protesting against the presence of some Shell officials at the Ebubu Oilfield.

U.S. finalizes $3.4 billion settlement with American Indians

The missing funds at the center of the class-action case involve what are called Individual Indian Money accounts, which are supposed to represent the property of individual Indians. The accounts are held by the United States as trustee.
The lawsuit had accused the government of failing to account for the money, failing to make proper payments, and converting tribal money for the government's own use.
In making the announcement Monday, Obama remembered Cobell for "her honorable work." In 2009, she said that many represented in the class-action lawsuit "subsist in the direst poverty," and that the settlement is "significantly less than the full amount to which the Indians are owed."

This one made me happy, sort of, and also really fucking angry and sad.


The Adoption of Johnny Depp

A video from the 1491s recounting and dramatizing the events of Johnny Depp's adoption by LaDonna Harris of the Comanche nation. Not to be missed.  I'm serious.  Watch this shit.



WUT DUZ TRNAS GENDERE MENA?@??!

An absolutely wonderful infographic on what "Trans" means!!!!!!!  <3

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Confirmed for BBC Miniseries

If you've read this book, you know why I'm excited!


Who's Afraid of the Qassams?

So stopping Palestinian rockets is not a plausible explanation for Israeli attacks. Indeed, the Israeli leadership – at best – does not care much about such deaths, posturing to the contrary. There’s a reason for that. The Zionist political and intellectual elite makes a lot of cantankerous noises about the rockets falling on southern Israel, usually accompanied by the question, how would you respond if rockets were falling on your head? But less frequently noted is whose heads those rockets are falling upon. Sderot and other southern cities are not merely populated by Jewish Israelis. They are also populated by mostly Mizrahi, usually lower-class, Jewish Israelis, the outcome of a planning regime which puts some populations of Jews in some places and kept other populations of Jews in others. 

Sderot, summoned up so sedulously as the very symbol of Israeli terror and fear due to Hamas’s – mostly ineffectual – rockets was initially a transit camp for Kurdish and Persian Jews. Later, it was populated by Moroccans. And still later, Ethiopians and the darker Jews of the ex-Soviet Caucasus. That was where they were dumped, with the European elites concerned, according to a 1950 Jewish Agency brochure, that the darker Jews might create “quarters of poverty, filth, unemployment, and crime.” Accordingly, there needed to be “a greater effort to settle the immigrants in the countryside.” And so they were. 

[...]And so Tel Aviv, the cosmopolitan, Ashkenazi, cultural core of Israel could remain distant from the front lines of the conflict created by the policies pursued by its economic and political elites, while the cannon fodder on the Israeli periphery would bear their brunt.

So, yeah.  Let's keep this in mind when we're talking about rockets and "retaliation," yeah?


Finally, 'Squatters are not home stealers'

What the squatting dispute boils down to is a split between those who consider private property to be sacred, and those who would prioritise the right to shelter. Few people would happily forfeit a second home to squatters, but nor does it feel morally justifiable for a nation to have an estimated 930,000 empty homes while people sleep on the streets.

This is a really interesting article recounting the situation primarily for squatters in the UK, where a measure (section 144) was recently passed criminalizing them in new if not unprecedented ways, as well as in several other European countries and the United States.

The part I've highlighted here is, for me, one of the common denominators in all of these debates: private property and profit versus the right to shelter and measurements of worth outside of capitalist profit.

Even as I plan to buy a house one day and thus participate more directly than I currently do in the system of private property/profit (through equity), I really think we as communities need to THINK ABOUT what private property means to us, its "sacredness," its use for profit, and our priorities around use of space.  Because it's simply not a question of IF we have an excess of buildings - WE DO - and if people are going to put them to use as homes, gardens, community spaces; isn't that a GOOD THING?

I think it is. And I don't think everything needs to be about PROFIT, or that the use of space is only "good" if PROFIT is made.  But that's the way all this is constructed and POLICED right now.....

This is just one of those things I don't think many people know about, much less question. It's something I didn't know about or question until it was put in my face with the response to building "occupations" over the last couple of years.  So here I am...writing about it.

Must Read: "Notes from an Occupation 14: Shock and Awe! Or: How I learned to stop loving the motherfucking Police and start loving Oakland (part 1?)"

I think this is a pretty important post to read when thinking about what happened on Saturday...
File under: Things that made whatsername almost cry reading

First off, as I said on facebook, the only way I can really start this out is by saying “Fuck the Police!” And I well and truly mean it. I know many of you who have known me for years, and even a lot of my brothers and sisters in the Occupy movement, who have only known me for a few months, will probably be shocked that I’m at this point, and frankly, I am too. I’m torn up about it. I might laugh when I say it, but it’s that uncomfortable “Oh God.” laugh, because I’m really split about it. 

I’m very much in the nonviolence/no property destruction camp, and I was also one of those Occupiers who would argue “but the police are our friends!” and I was one of their first defenders, “oh they’ve got such a shitty job!” or “oh they’re caught between a rock and a hard place.” Hell, I’m sure I’ve tweeted and blogged about it in the past at some point. I still believe that right now, but at the same time, fuck that bullshit. Really. There comes a time when your orders are so wrong, so unjust, so ill conceived, poisonous and odious that you must refuse. You have to do it, for yourself, and for those people who you are about to cause harm to. That point has come and gone, more times in just the last few months during the police vs. occupy movement alone, setting aside, for a moment, all the decades of police brutality and oppression in certain neighborhoods and against certain races in our cities. Today, these Oakland cops were batshit insane, and were going buck wild all over town. Good people were hurt, good people were arrested, and many innocent people, both marchers and pedestrians, were put in harm’s way, for no justifiable reason. 

It’s not like I’m “new” to police brutality or I didn’t know it happens. I’ve read about it, written about it, and been an activist against it in the past. That said, there’s a distinct and jarring difference between seeing and knowing it on paper, and seeing people ridden down by motorcycle cops, or seeing people get their heads smashed into the pavement and all the other lovely, grisly things police like to do to assert the little power they’re given. I mean, sure, we can dress it all up nicely and call it “training” and “tactics” and whatnot, but really, Police are just a gang. A gang employed by the state, but a gang nonetheless. Enforcing laws, regardless of whether that law is right or not, and using their force of arms and the backing of the criminal justice system to keep us in line and make sure we follow our marching orders.  

Must Read: "The US schools with their own police"

File under "things that piss whatsername off"
From The Guardian

A few highlights:

The charge on the police docket was "disrupting class". But that's not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of "you smell".

"I'm weird. Other kids don't like me," said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. "They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: 'Put that away, that's the most terrible smell I've ever smelled.' Then the teacher called the police."

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

"Zero tolerance started out as a term that was used in combating drug trafficking and it became a term that is now used widely when you're referring to some very punitive school discipline measures. Those two policy worlds became conflated with each other," said Fowler.

Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of police in schools. Simpkins describes the case of a boy with attention deficit disorder who as a 12-year-old tipped a desk over in class in a rage. He was charged with threatening behaviour and sent to a juvenile prison where he was required to earn his release by meeting certain educational and behavioural standards.

"But he can't," she said. "Because of that he is turning 18 within the juvenile justice system for something that happened when he was 12. It's a real trap. A lot of these kids do have disabilities and that's how they end up there and can't get out. Instead of dealing with it within school system like we used to, we have these school police, they come in and it escalates from there."

According to the department's records, officers used force in schools more than 400 times in the five years to 2008, including incidents in which pepper spray was fired to break up a food fight in a canteen and guns were drawn on lippy students.

Chief Brian Allen, head of the school police department for the Aldine district and president of the Texas school police chiefs' association, is having none of it.

"There's quite a substantial number of students that break the law. In Texas and in the US, if you're issued a ticket, it's not automatically that you're found guilty. You have an opportunity to go before the judge and plead your case. If you're a teacher and a kid that's twice as big as you comes up and hits you right in the face, what are you going to do? Are you going to use your skills that they taught you or are you going to call a police officer?"

Read it all, there were too many priceless quotes to pull them all out.

Why can't we see that we're slowly but surely destroying ourselves with this ever-growing prison industrial complex??? Let's observe that these programs are particularly common in communities with high numbers of people of color, immigrants and poor working classes. In other words, groups of people who are already criminalized in mainstream USian discourse. Coincidence? I doubt it. Is it going to take this coming to white middle class suburbs before we take seriously how increased policing exacerbates and spreads the violence these police are supposed to be curtailing?? And if it does... by then will it be too late?

Whiteness and the Past

(via Rags 'n' Bones)

Oh the irony; Gifford's Life Saved by a Latino...in Arizona

Reposted from Tumblr...

Daniel Hernandez had been U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ intern for five days when she was shot Saturday outside Tucson.

The junior at the University of Arizona was helping check people in at the “Congress on Your Corner” event when he heard gunfire. He was about 30 feet from the congresswoman. When the shots began, he ran toward them.
[...]
Using his hand, Hernandez applied pressure to the entry wound on her forehead. He pulled her into his lap, holding her upright against him so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. Giffords was conscious, but quiet.

Ron Barber, Giffords’ district director, was next to her. Hernandez told a bystander how to apply pressure to one of Barber’s wounds.

Barber told Hernandez, “Make sure you stay with Gabby. Make sure you help Gabby.”

Hernandez used his hand to apply pressure until someone from inside Safeway brought him clean smocks from the meat department. He used them to apply pressure on the entrance wound, unaware there was an exit wound. He never let go of her.
[...]
The fact that Hernandez was nearby and able to react quickly probably saved Giffords’ life, said state Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson, and a hospital physician. He talked to Hernandez at the hospital after the shooting.

I had an incredibly strong emotional reaction reading this.  Anger. Sorrow. But a lot of anger. For reference, here is a picture of Hernandez:

Photo description: Hernandez (a young tall, fat, Latino man
with glasses) and Giffords (a middle aged white woman
whose face is covered with a white cloth and blood).
Giffords is on a stretcher and Hernandez is holding her hand.

Reading this Latino surname over and over again, and then looking at his picture… “This is in Arizona” kept coming to my head.

This is a body that the kyriarchally empowered majority of Arizona would love to be rid of (on more than one level).

A body that Arizona has literally criminalized.

This hero.

If that majority had their way, he wouldn't have even been there.

His is a body they say doesn’t belong, isn’t good enough to live in Arizona (or, let's be honest, in the U.S. for a lot of people).

His is a body, a fat, Brown, gay, body that isn’t “American”.  And we know many think that, because even children raised here aren't "American" enough to stay if their parents brought them here undocumented, right?

This hero.

All of those narratives (and more) are in this, for me.
And it just makes me want to cry with rage.

Immigration Check Point

Cops profiling illegal European immigrants!

Overall, this kind of amuses me.

Document the Silence - Where’s Aniysah?

PLEASE FOREWARD WIDELY.

On March 3rd, 2009, Aniysah was taken from her mother’s arms by New York’s Family Court System and placed in the care of Aniysah’s father who has a history of domestic violence offenses. Furthermore, there were no records verifying that she would be taken to a safe living environment or that she was enrolled in school. Questions about her health and well-being went unanswered. That was over 150 days ago. To date, Aniysah remains lost in the family court system. A system where black and brown children go missing every day. A system where black mothers like Aniysah’s are often left to fend for themselves in a brutal, dogged battle just to make sure their children are safe. On the surface, this case appears to be a simple custody dispute, however, if one digs deeper it is a story about the injustices of New York’s Family Court System and how it fails brown women and children daily and how it can be used to further terrorize and re-victimize survivors of domestic violence.

Here at Document the Silence, one of our goals is to break the silence surrounding violence against women of color, particularly those who are poor and working class. Moreover, we want to raise awareness about how this violence informs and intersects with various aspects of our culture, including the media, and the legal system. Thus, we think it’s critical to point out that the “Where’s Aniysah” campaign is not only about the failings of the family court system but is also about domestic violence and how it has shaped the legal struggles of Aniysah and her mother, Angeline. As a survivor of domestic violence at the hands of Anyisah’s father, Angeline is a living testament to the “intimate” connections between experiences of abuse among women of color and the mistreatment they experience in the family court system.
Because of the case is still pending we cannot list all the facts of the case in this email, but you can find all the facts on our website, (http://documentthesilence.wordpress.com).

It’s time to hold the family court system accountable. Document the Silence asks that you join them in the “Where’s Aniysah?” campaign by posting information about this case on your blogs, online social networks and throughout your community (http://documentthesilence.wordpress.com). At the website you will also find a petition, http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/wheresaniysah/ and additional facts and information about Anyisah’s case, and suggestions for what you can do to demand that justice is served on August 24, 2009. We especially encourage you to leave comments on the site expressing your support for Aniysah and any details about what you plan to do to help.

If you are in the New York City area, please show your support for Angeline’s case by coming to her next family court hearing on August 24, 2009 at 11:00 am. The courthouse is located at:

Courtroom E-123, Annex Building
Justice Fernando M. Camacho
125-01 Queens Boulevard
Kew Gardens, NY 11415

If you can make it to Angeline’s next court hearing on August 24, 2009, please let us know by emailing us at: WheresAniysah_Campaign@yahoo.com

Thank you in advance for doing your part in breaking the silence surrounding injustices against women and children of color.

In solidarity,

Document the Silence

Watching Sotomayor

Lindsey Graham - STFU.

Jeff Sessions - STFU.

Pretty much every Republican on that whole fucking committee?

SHUT

THE

FUCK

UP.

That's what I keep coming back to. There are so many individual moments I could talk about, but I'm sure most of you are watching and you have already seen them. Just so much white male privilege at work it's sickening. Paternalism, condescension, disrespect, and just flat out total lack of listening.

Given all this bullshit and Sotomayor's handling it with such evenness and patience, when we got to the "temperament" stuff it was HILARIOUS. I'm not caught up yet, but I'm guessing it's going to be more of the same.

Oy.

I can only shake my head

"The only moral abortion, is my own!"

That's just, wow.

Join the Impact - Nationwide Prop 8 Protest Update!

A LOT of new cities have been added in California, I'm going to the imagine the same is true for other states, find out if there is an event close to home!! And if you're going to be in Oakland, come join me at city hall!



http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com/

8:30AM Hawaii
10:30AM Pacific
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1:30PM Eastern

Open Letter

An Open Letter to White Non-Muslim Western Feminists

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Why is it...

...that whenever feminists and other social activists point out the links between events and/or attitudes we're "conspiracy theorists"?

Christians Offended by Proselytizing?

I cannot express how amusing I find this story.

Bartholomew's Notes on Religion reports on a Christian community that is offended and "fearful" about having another faith's beliefs "imposed" on them!

"An English translation of the Quran began appearing two weeks ago on the doorsteps of hundred of homes in the BraesTimbers neighborhood. The books came in plastic bags with a note attached from the ‘Book of Signs Foundation’ asking recipients to accept the Quran as a gift from the Muslim community. But some residents, like Greg and Sue Ann Pieri, said they feared the group is imposing its beliefs on non-Muslims and found the gesture offensive."

Oh noes! People sharing their faith with us how dare they! What makes them think this is ok?!?!

Hilarious.

W T F UW?!

From Cara

A story from the Seattle Times about the violent history of the University of Washington football team and the way that UW has worked to cover up their crimes for the sake of winning games. In 2000, the year that team won the Rose Bowl, a dozen of its players had been arrested or charged with a crime within the past year, and at least a dozen others had been arrested or charged with a crime during previous years that they were on the team. Those crimes include a robbery and shooting, domestic violence that ended in a broken nose, a broken arm and lacerated face by a player who had previously served jail time for choking his wife to unconsciousness, and sexual assault.

This article tells the story of a sexual assault, how the drugging and raping of a fellow student was covered up by everyone who could have possibly helped cover it up and dropped by prosecutors despite a victim that wanted to go forward, DNA evidence, an eye witness to part of the rape (he called the police) and several other witnesses willing to testify that the victim was either drunk or drugged out of her mind.

There's more at the Curvature, but even just that completely horrifies me.

Ummm, wow

The better she looks to herself, often measured by the reaction of others, the faster she learns in iddy-biddy steps to like herself. So, women less successful as female should look to exercising greater self-control over what they can change—their self-image.

O.O

"Women less successful as female"

Wow. WOW.

Or, how about, instead of women reinforcing to themselves the idea that their worth is in their appearance, they work on things that actually MATTER. And how about you, and the rest of us, help that along by finding worth in ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Our self worth is found in our brains, not our bodies! So let's put more effort there!

Part I, Part II

Nooses and Jena 6

I heard on the radio today that the judge on Mychal Bell's case has opened the trial to the media. Good. The idea that they were really going to try anything around this case behind closed doors makes me twitch. And apparently it made the Chicago Tribune twitch as well, thankfully.

I also read yesterday on The Wild Hunt about other noose cases. The latest one being in front of a pagan store in Bakersfield, CA. How lovely. Add that to the hanged Hillary witch at Samhain time and you just have an incredibly lovely time that we seem to be coming into right now.

Going back to the Jena 6, thinking about this case again brings to mind when it first hit my current events board (I understand now, quite late into the game), I was on my honeymoon and saw the protests on TV that were happening at the time. From watching the news and reading one (now I realize to be quite biased) story here were my initial thoughts at the time:

Certainly these boys did not go about this in the right way. However, the idea that a death threat like hanging nooses could go un-reacted to by those targetted by it is absurd. That that action did go un-reacted to by the authorities, I find disgusting. And the "attempted murder" charge is absolutely ridiculous. They beat up someone for threatening their lives. That's not attempted murder.

Everyone should be punished in this case, but the way things have gone so far, from the articles I've read (which weren't much, admittedly), I have a strong feeling I'm going to end up in the Jena 6 camp.

And the more I've learned, the more disgusted I've become. Looking back over the thread and reading people's responses as well I am struck by seeing the way an all white (as far as I know) audience dealt with it. From the stories quoted to the responses to those stories... Just, interesting. I was very glad to see that a few of us did realize this whole case didn't smell right, and one poster especially tried very hard to derail the side tangents of the people defending the authorities.

Very honestly I think this will be one of the defining issues of the state of civil rights in this country at this time. And that so many of the people I read just a) jumped to the conclusion that the case was overblown because of the involvement of Al Sharpton and b) jumped to the conclusion that 6 black students would try to "beat to death" white students over *just* nooses, I find...Um, naive? At best? That they wouldn't immediately think there had to be more to the story was astonishing. I'm interested to see what will happen when I post the updates around this case.

Also, if you don't mind, any PoC readers I may have, how do you feel about Wikipedia's recounting of the facts of the case? I am currently reading through the entire entry, and it doesn't seem to be exactly the story I've read on some blogs by PoC.

Where are you?

Posted on November 5, 2007 by Jessica Land

Feminists? Survivors? Lovers? Allies? Are you out there? Are you listening? Are you not mad as hell?

Ren’s previous post referenced Judge Deni’s infamous quote, but I really do not think that it can be reiterated enough: ” . . . [this case] minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.”

Now, I’ll ask again, beloved partners in defense of women’s rights, supporters of sexual freedom, revolutionaries waiting for the reverberating call to action, are you listening?

Because I don’t think you are, and it pains me. Unlike Ren, I am still shocked by the deafening silence over this case. I know people are talking, but why isn’t anyone outside of the sex worker community screaming?!?!?!

We could really use allied forces right now. We don’t even have to engage in the ’sex work debate’. We can unite as sisters and brothers in arms against sexual violence.

Everyone, especially the revolutionaries whom so many of us call friends and lovers, should be alarmed by Judge Deni’s ruling. It sets a dangerous legal precedent and suggests that serial rapists can prey on sex workers with impunity.

You must ask yourselves, ‘Is there a category of person for whom rape is part of the job description?’

Rape is a crime of violence in all cases, and should be prosecuted accordingly. Judge Deni, instead, has trivialized the crime of rape herself by refusing to acknowledge the bodily integrity of this survivor.

I think this case is very, very important. Stand up to this judge my brothers and sisters.

Stop selling yourselves short sisters...

Because it's worth saying.

a cat and twenty: above and beyond all this

There's a lot too this entry, all of it is important and worth reading, but what left me decided to post it, is this passage, quoted for truth.

but barring these impossible dreams, you know what i wish? i wish that we would stop apologizing. it's not easy - we've learned to say "i'm sorry" to try to preempt the whipping, or to lessen the lashes, or just to quiet our own minds while it's happening. we've learned that "sorry" helps us survive. but i wish we could start fighting back, just a little, in little ways.

so women - you women i know, you women i don't, any women who happen to read this, women everywhere, right now - start by not apologizing. don't apologize for just being what you are - don't apologize for the big and little things you do because you're a woman, or because you're a human being who happens to be a woman. don't qualify your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings - don't beat people to the punch of implying that they don't matter. "i know this might sound stupid, but..." "i know this is a dumb question..." "this is going to sound silly..."

stop. it is worth saying. you are worth hearing. women, please, say it, ask it, take it, do it - don't apologize.

there is nothing wrong with you.

Amen sister.

Since first reading it, this post has really had an effect on me. I have had to make some changes to the way I talk, myself, to stop from doing this so much. So thank you, a cat and twenty.