radfam

CeCe’s sentencing hearing TOMORROW!

freececemcdonald:

CeCe McDonald’s Sentencing Hearing is this Monday at 1:00pm, please come PACK THE COURTROOM!

Then come to the Noise Demo for CeCe at the Hennipen County Jail in Mpls at 10pm.

(Source: kittensatdaggersdrawn)

Prisons as a tool for reproductive oppression of trans* people

thanks to reina for recommending this. it’s written by gabriel arkles of the sylvia rivera law project. for those who are interested in the history and current forms of eugenics, it tells a little bit of the background of the claim that prison rules are for “preventing pregnancy.” this is just a little bit of what cece mcdonald is dealing with inside the prison industrial complex. TRIGGER ALERT: the sexual violence of the prison system is communicated in words (but not images). http://srlp.org/prisons/reproductiveoppression

who is with me

the question that is dogging me this week is:

who is with me in the moments when i feel most alone? 

one time when i got fired from a job in a very bad way, i was walking away from the building and my mind was reeling. as i was walking, i started to see the people who have helped me stay alive, and they were lining up behind me. some of them may have been carrying weapons to assist me in guerilla struggle against my boss. it’s interesting how quickly my mind came up with this image, and how vivid it was. 

i constantly think about groupings that could somehow bind me together with people i want to be near to. the concept of a family, or a lineage, a sangha, or anything you want to call it, is a big part of my worldview. the groupings that draw my thoughts the most seem to be the ones that challenge a structure…a lineage with my grandma and with early feminists that extends through time…a movement against imperialist wars that connect communities across distances…and any family grouping that holds up or extends the concept of care. 

…well, goodnight. sending love across the divide.

what i should have said

someone asked me to speak at a little rally that joined up with the big Million Hoodies March for Trayvon Martin at the U today. and i wasn’t prepared. and one of the things i said i now regret.

i said that trayvon martin did something good by bringing us together.

but he did not ask to die, and his death was not a righteous thing. if i twist his death to say it did something good for me, i am not acting in solidarity with the community that mourns him.

someone said something about that at the march at the u. and there were some other really moving speeches. maybe saying a few words at a small rally doesn’t matter, but…

this is what i think i should have said:

the criminal justice system gave the gun to the man who killed Trayvon Martin. this is the same criminal justice system that killed Troy Davis last September, that disproportionately incarcerates black men for drug crimes while white men disproportionately use drugs. i am a white woman, and in some very disturbing ways this system is set up to benefit me. at first i thought Trayvon’s death did a good thing for our community by bringing us together to end racial profiling and gun violence. but trayvon did not choose to die and he did not choose to have this meaning attached to his death. years ago, there was a 12-year-old boy named larry who was killed by another boy for giving him a valentine. today there is a trans woman named CeCe who is in prison even though she was the one who was attacked by white supremacists shouting racist, transphobic and homophobic slurs. these are people i never met. in some very real ways, i am not trayvon martin. if i twist these people’s lives to say they did something good for me, i am not acting in solidarity with those who love them. i have no glorifying words to speak about what has happened this week. but i am ready to walk with you for the sake of my own life, my family, and my humanity.

queering repro justice

ricky responds to questions about why queer people should care about repro justice. from oklahomans for reproductive justice:

Read More

Eviction

Here is a chance to defend a family targeted by state violence. Monique White, a North Minneapolis resident and the first homeowner in the country who decided to fight the big banks rather than get evicted from her home, is facing an eviction hearing tomorrow. Thanks to last week’s actions by Occupy Homes, the Attorney General ordered Freddie Mac to postpone her hearing so they could investigate possible fraud. But Freddie Mac said no, they are going to proceed with her hearing.

She and her extended family use her home as a base for connection and support. She is asking folks to come to this hearing and stand with her as she resists the system that caused the foreclosure crisis. Bobby Hull was the first in the nation to win his home back; now Monique needs our support.

Time to do this in the US?

The Australian Senate is advising the Australian government to apologize for taking away the children of thousands of unwed mothers.

Meanwhile, in the US, according to the 2011 investigative report by NPR, forced adoptions happen all the time—especially in South Dakota. The US government could apologize…but it might be even more important to stop doing it first.

liberation

the same day i heard that minnesota is starting to implement an immigrant persecution program, i heard of the hummingbird collective, a cross-class collaborative funding project to strengthen migrant rights.

cross-class activism is not a common thing. there is an assumption that it is hard to work across differences, and easier to work among people who share similar backgrounds and think similar thoughts. a funding collective starts from the opposite assumption, that people with access to wealth want to partner with those who know how to use it best, i.e. to strengthen oppressed communities.

this relates closely to the notion of family networks…groups of people who are very different but nonetheless want to support each other. and maybe even want to connect *because* of their differences.

there is liberation in that.

how censorship affects families

censorship is often framed as an issue of individual rights and freedom and access. it is that sort of issue, true, but it’s also about families, groups, and communities. here’s why: censorship affects the power of certain texts in the construction of norms for everyone. when a kid goes to school and learns what a family is, it matters what the lesson is. censorship means that kid will have to go to greater lengths, years later when the norms are already entrenched, to find out about all the real ways people live.

today, february 1, arizona is officially censoring books, classes and majors that teach chicana(o) studies, ethnic studies, anti-oppression and anti-racism. (see below for more info).

also, Susan Komen is stopping its donations to Planned Parenthood, the strongest nonprofit supporter of sex ed and repro justice. this is the organization that advocates for sex ed programs in schools. and makes materials for parents and caregivers to use who need to talk to kids about sex but don’t know how. or are scared.

so yes, censorship affects families.

below is a very thorough and helpful rundown of the Arizona situation by a very smart woman, cited at the end. thanks for reading. read a banned book today.

Arizona’s HB 2281 goes into effect today, February 1, 2012, and we are asking you to join a national Teach In and take a few minutes in your classes or other places to read a passage from one of the banned books.



This bill has taken Mexican American Studies out of school curriculum
especially in the Tucson Unified School District. It is also a threat to
ethnic studies in public education at all levels. The TUSD has recently
gone into classrooms and boxed up books considered to be part of this
program (while students were in classes). They have also regulated that
certain themes in other books cannot be taught. For example, if
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is taught, the theme of oppression cannot be.
The books being “banned” are from a variety of writers, not just those in Mexican Studies.



The seven books that were removed from TUSD classrooms are:



Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez
Message to Aztlan by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Fiere
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuña



There was some confusion in the news media about other works, such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Rodolfo Anaya’s Bless, Me Ultima, being removed as well. While some teachers, and administrators, questioned whether they could continue to use such works, and were told that they should “stay away from any units where race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes” the books were not removed from the classrooms.



This article may help clarify
From the January 17 Tucson Weekly “TUSD Banning Books? Well Yes, and No,
and Yes

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2012/01/17/tusd-banning-book-well-yes-and-no-and-yes
<http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2012/01/17/tusd-banning-book-well-yes-and-no-and-yes>



The American Library Association provides the following definitions for
challenged vs. banned books:



“A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those
materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.”



Since the books were removed from the curriculum, even if they remain in the library, they fit the ALA’s definition of a ban.



More information at
https://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm
<https://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm>



From American Indians in Children’s Literature (Debbie Reese)



Nation-wide responses to the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies
Department at Tucson Unified School District
<http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/01/nation-wide-responses-to-shut-down-of.html>



EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES:



In Tucson, students walked out of classes on Tuesday and held an Ethnic
Studies Teach-In off school grounds. Some were suspended for walking out,
and rather than stay home yesterday, they attended Mexican American
courses at the University of Arizona. Those are localized educational
responses to the shut-down of their classes.



A nation-wide educational response in the form of a National Teach-In will
take place on February 1st. Some things people can do include the
following:

*       View excerpts—specially selected for the Teach In—from Precious
Knowledge, the documentary about the MAS program that will be aired on PBS
in May.
*       In elementary classrooms or library read-alouds to elementary-aged
children, read aloud from one of the picture books used in the MAS
program. Two suggestions are Pam Mora’s The Desert is My Mother, Gary
Soto’s Snapshots from the Wedding.
*       With older students, introduce them to Matt de la Pena’s Mexican
WhiteBoy or Sandra Cisnero’s House on Mango Street.
*       Share what you know with your family, friends, and colleagues
*       Purchase a copy of Rethinking Columbus or one of the other books that
was boxed up and removed from classrooms, or, one of the books that was
used in the program.
*       Purchase a copy of Precious Knowledge. To order, write to
preciousknowledgedvd@gmail.com