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Taking names and remembering history: Poor little Mormons and the big gay menace

By Ari | Nov 15, 08 09:20 AM

The TIME article What Happens If You're on the Gay "Enemies List" reports that some queer folks have responded to people of color and Mormons who voted down marriage equality in California with some bigotry of their own. I don't know how wide-spread or real these acts of racism and religious intolerance are. I wish we queer folk could all commit to taking the higher ground and using only peaceful, respectful means to get equal rights. But it's not a perfect world, our country obviously has issues around identity politics, and some queer people are bigots, too. I'm not excusing these folks' behavior whatsoever, just pointing out that they're the exception, not the rule, when it comes to activism for queer equality.

This article also calls out queer folks for organizing efforts like Anti-Gay Blacklist, wherein the details of individual donors to the Yes on 8 campaign are posted on the internet so those who support marriage equality can boycott them and send mail to the companies they work for. Let's think about a few other times in which such lists of people have been used, which might point to whether this practice is acceptable. Right Wing Christians have posted lists of their own, which have made it easier for, say, Right Wing anti-choice activists to hunt down and murder doctors who give women abortions. The McCarthy-era blacklists destroyed people's lives. Some militant animal rights groups have used lists to target those who imprison and torture animals in labs for sidewalk demonstrations and harassment in front of these people's homes. None of these seem like good ideas to me. None of these strategies are respectful of people's space, privacy, and families. Some of these strategies are outright violent. Are the lists in California any better? Well, yes. They don't include home addresses and phone numbers, so far as I've seen. It seems their primary purpose is to facilitate boycotts, and to help people know where they can send letters. This is public accountability. This is putting faces on the oppressors. This isn't a call for violence, and this will not destroy people's lives. It might, however, mean they get less business and more mail from people they're oppressing. If that's uncomfortable for them that's too bad - they, after all, pulled together millions of dollars to oppress queer families, which I think is a little more egregious than encouraging letter-writing and economic boycotts. If they really had courage in their convictions, they'd welcome these lists put on the internet by gay people - after all, if they're on the moral high ground, why do they want to hide their faces?

Another article in the New York Times quotes Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church, who donated one million dollars in support of the oppression of families like mine. He calls our protests (including, presumably, the vast majority of our protests, which are peaceful and not marred by bigotry) "off-putting." He says, “I think that shows colors... by their fruit, ye shall know them.” Mormons and other religious groups have been showing their colors for generations. What is the fruit of homophobia? Queer teens are committing suicide. Transgender people are being raped and murdered. People born intersexed are being surgically altered and given drugs that change who they are without consent, in their infancy and childhood. Queer folks are shouted at and hurt in the streets. So many queer people are so crippled by internalized homophobia, or so wounded by the homophobia of their families and communities, that they can never self-actualize and be honest about who they are. Ashton and his millionaire friends might try to paint themselves as the victims now that we queer folks are finally lifting ourselves out of the ashes of history, but I'm guessing they're more afraid of us gaining full personhood than they are of our "enemies lists" and boycotts.

UPDATE, 11.18.08

Editorial: Vandalism, coercion are counterproductive to fight for gay marriage mentions the vandalism of Mormon churches and says of other incidents, "One ugly case was the boisterous protest by dozens of gay marriage supporters outside a small Los Angeles restaurant where the owner's daughter had contributed $100 to Proposition 8. The loss of customers threatened the livelihoods of employees, some of whom were gay and opposed the initiative." This is such a shame. It might not be home harassment but it's still harassment, and I don't think it will make this restaurant owner's daughter any more sympathetic to the idea of gay marriage. We can't bully people into seeing us as their equals.

Recycling...The Least You Can Do

By Shira | Nov 13, 08 01:23 PM

Did you know that November 10-16 is International Recycling Week? Neither did I, until it showed up in one of my RSS feeds. Recycling is a good thing, but really, it's the least you can do. If there is a recycling system set up in your region, how could you not wash out your cans and bottles and put them curbside? In Ithaca, recycling actually saves you money because it's free, whereas you have to pay for garbage collection by weight. The problem is that so much public campaigning goes into promoting recycling, and very few people know that there are much more drastic ways to reduce your waste.

For the past month, I've been participating in the Ithaca freeskool reading group on permaculture. We're reading David Holmgren's Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. In Holmgren's chapter on waste, he outlines that in an ideal system there is no "waste" - only material that can be repurposed for food, fertilizer or some other utility.

Most people have heard "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" in which the first is preferable and recycling is only what you should do after you've exhausted use, but Holmgren adds a couple more key Rs to the list - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle. To refuse is paramount, especially in the United States, which is disproportionately responsible for resource consumption and carbon emissions. To refuse is pretty easy when you start asking yourself "Do I really need this?" before purchasing new stuff.

Repair is another key step. Do you always get holes in your jeans in the same place - how many times have you patched your pants and kept wearing them? It might be easier to get a new DVD player when yours breaks but why not get it repaired - even if it takes a little more time and maybe even more money? The problem with our culture is that we're focused on convenience and money and have lost our understanding of true cost and true wealth.

Recycling is great and definitely something we should be doing as a society, but it is still very expensive and frustratingly limited. Even in a green oasis like Ithaca, there are only certain containers that can be recycled and the rest go to landfills. And don't even get me started on Tetra Paks.

So, while it's International Recycling Week, and I have your attention, why not think of some significant ways you could reduce your waste before recycling? Here are a few things we're doing:

Buying very little and whenever possible, getting stuff for free or stuff that's been owned and used by someone else first. We're planning on building our future home from mostly salvaged (and natural) materials.
Buying local to reduce the amount of resources and waste that go into transporting goods across the world.
Using tote bags instead of plastic/paper bags and buying food in bulk in reusable containers. The Greenstar coop has an awesome bulk food section, including shampoo and cooking oils!
Fixing stuff. Ari has a knack for sewing and has breathed new life into many pieces of clothing. When the cassette tape part of our stereo broke, we found a shop in Brooklyn that could fix it. Now we can keep listening to our cheesy tape collection from the 80s and 90s and there's one less piece of electronics in a landfill.
Composting. We're looking forward to having our own land and building a composting toilet. My dream is to convert methane gas produced by our poo into energy. In the meantime, we compost all of our organic material. We drop off our food compost at the coop, but in the spring, well put it into our garden.

So yes, recycling is good, but it's still a compromise when it comes to consumption and waste. Don't forget to first refuse, reduce, reuse and repair!

Previously:

Keith Oberman's Book of Love

By Shira | Nov 11, 08 04:51 PM

Keith asks us to spread happiness and protect the ember of love by defending the gay right to marriage...

Same-sex marriage and caged chickens: Human freedom, animal rights

By Ari | Nov 11, 08 04:30 PM

I just read a piece on the Huffington Post, Shaun Jacob Halper's Why Some Americans Don't Have Reason to Celebrate, and found it interesting from an animal rights perspective. It reads in part:

This past Election Tuesday, Californians turned out in droves to recognize the rights of caged-chickens while denying the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Passing Prop 2 and Prop 8, Californians secured a chicken's right to "extend its wings, lie down, stand up, and turn around" in confinement, while revoking basic democratic rights from gays; rights like equal protection under the law, the ability to pursue happiness, and the freedom to worship religion without state interference (that's right, there are Judeo-Christian confessions that view same-sex marriage as sacred). In short, Californians sympathize with chickens but not with gays.

Isn't he minimizing the plight of chickens, and saying one oppression is worse (more worthy of concern) than another? I agree it's tragically sad that so many Californian voters have made such an unjust and oppressive choice. But why compare it to their vote to treat innocent chickens with just a little more compassion, as if that decision is somehow silly or less important?

I too am queer, and I too want my partnership, my family, to be legally recognized and not discriminated against. But though I'm oppressed as a queer woman, I've got all kinds of privilege that make my life about a million times better and more free than that of almost any animal of almost any other species. The way that we treat domesticated animals like chickens is absolutely unconscionable - we literally bring them into the world in huge numbers, expressly to suffer and die for our benefit. That voters have made a tiny step toward treating living, feeling animals with just a little more kindness is a beautiful thing. I don't begrudge my feathered sisters their political win. Maybe the folks who care so much about chickens will one day open their hearts a little wider and extend some kindness to queer folks as well. Denigrating their love of animals will not help them to open their hearts.

Maybe Halper is on his way to this realization already, though he's yet to see the connection between the oppression of non-human animals and the oppression of human animals. He writes,

It is the gay community who has failed to build coalitions with other groups. Wake-up call to gay leadership: We must form institutional alliances with other minority communities and start supporting each others interests. We are not going to see these groups support our right to marry if we do not make an active effort to support them as well.

We need to start seeing allies everywhere, and treating everyone as our brothers and sisters in a universal struggle for peace and justice. Maybe some of those we treat with respect and love don't have the power or capability to give us anything in return - but it's not about reciprocity, it's about doing the right thing by our neighbors. A win for the chickens is a win for us all.

Art for feminist, socialist healthcare

By Ari | Nov 11, 08 04:07 PM

Thanks to Liz Henry of Composite: Poetics and Tech for using an illustration I did for her excellent post, Argentinian feminists in the early 1900s.

You can also see and comment on the art here: "socialist heath care" on Flickr. This art was originally an illustration for an article in Socialist Women, about a woman's struggle in the U.S. healthcare system. If anyone out there is still afraid of socialists, read about Socialist Party USA's wonderful healthcare campaign.

"The role of trust in high tech work- The case of Freelance Web-Designers in NYC"

By Ari | Nov 10, 08 03:36 PM

A while back I participated in a study by a Columbia sociology student named Matthias Thiemann, who has written a 120 page thesis in German based on his research. He's translated a four-page section of it which may be published as a chapter in an upcoming book, which I really got a kick out of and wanted to share here: The role of trust in high tech work- The case of Freelance Web-Designers in NYC (PDF)

Some highlights that I really identify with (and I guess I should, since I was part of the sample):

In sending away clients to cheaper, better suited competitors or building little devices free of charge, freelancers establish a reputation of putting the clients’ welfare first, generating trust. Such acts of gift-giving then can lead to overcome the volatility of market-demand by generating referral networks for the freelancer and binding the gift-recipients for the long term.

I totally do this! I learned this from Tekserve, where I first worked when we moved to NYC - and it's not something I do to get something out of people, with the expectation of returns. I do it because, like Tekserve, I care about the people I'm working with, and about their projects, and if I can do something that's perhaps small and easy for me, but of great value to my clients, I'll do it in a heartbeat. This is also why Shira and I sometimes refer clients to other designers - if we know someone who can do a given job better or more economically for some reason, we pass it on, because it's in our client's interest. And rather than losing us clients, often those same clients come back because they know we did them a good turn.

In the sample, the more successful freelancers deserve special attention to the communication process, attempting to include the wishes of the customers and providing them with the feeling that they are in command. This strategy does not only bind their clients to them and leads to several referrals due to the pleasant process of cooperation, it is also a lucrative strategy in itself. The increased trust into the interaction partner seems to arouse the desire to actively engage in the process of production. This not only increases the satisfaction with the final product, it also increases the amount of work time spent on a project which adds to the income of the designer.

Here too, we don't use this strategy so we'll spend more time and make more money, though of course those are nice side effects which do happen on some projects. Shira and I treat every design job not as merely a service for pay, but as a cooperative partnership - we specialize in helping to give form and reach to our clients' ideas. The result is that the client is usually very, very happy with the product, and the product is very, very useful to them. We do give advice and make calls as designers, because we often have a deeper understanding of communications strategy and visual design principles than do our clients (which is, after all, why they hire us), but we don't steamroll our clients into accepting things they don't dig. We like to work with people to make things they love, and which will last. It's good for the client, and Matthias's study is helping me see how good it is for us, too.

Click here to read the paper, and let me know if you too are a web designer who'd like to talk to Matthias. His research goes on...

America's First Dog

By Shira | Nov 10, 08 12:47 PM

I think it's really great that the Obamas are considering adopting a shelter dog. However, it seems unjust to me that Malia's allergies might sway the family to go for a "pure" breed. Since when does one person's allergy justify another's oppression? Perhaps it's time to consider adopting a different species altogether. The question is are Americans ready for a ferret in the White House?

Lioness in the New York Times

By Ari | Nov 6, 08 10:17 AM

The documentary Lioness has been featured in the New York Times. We did the website, branding, posters, and other outreach materials for the film, and are happy to see it getting out to a wider and wider audience. It offers a rarely-seen glimpse into the lives of female combat veterans, and the challenges they face when they come back home. Read the article, and visit the film site to get involved and take action on the issues.

A great animated film about Critical Mass

By Ari | Nov 6, 08 08:44 AM

Shira and I saw a simple, beautifully-done animated short a while back, about Critical Mass. I just found it online and wanted to share it. It's by filmmaker and Brooklyn bike commuter Nick Golebiewski, and you can see it in Quicktime format here. It's 2.5 minutes long - give it a looksee.

If you want it on DVD, you can get the short as part of a larger collection of media about Critical Mass, Still We Ride, from Microcosm Publishing.

Countering the badness with peace and love: No on Prop. 8, yes to equality

By Ari | Nov 6, 08 08:06 AM

My good friend Josh has written a beautiful, positive call to action for equality in California. Read it, and get excited!

Hey folks,

Damn I'm jazzed!

5 Great Things YOU can do about Prop 8!

1) Start feeling good!

The vote on 8 won't be certified until next month. Start visualizing and Secret'ing it to lose! The trick is to visualize it to the point where you feel REALLY good, like it's REALLY happening!

Also, remind yourself that while if Prop 8 does pass, it will be but a momentary setback in the civil rights movement... while at the same time, we are celebrating the groundbreaking civil rights victory of having for the first time a black President! Civil rights moves forward inexorably. We will prevail!

(If you don't understand how people of color and queers have more in common than less, talk to me.)

2) Feel REALLY good!

Novel lawsuits are already being filed, on the grounds that Prop 8 misused the amendment process to undermine the constitution itself. Other lawsuits are also being filed. It might be even MORE FUN if Prop 8 wins and then gets struck down in the courts! Hah! So if that feels even better to you, Secret that!

3) Fight FOR your equality, not AGAINST Prop 8, conservatives, or anything else... not even in your mind.

What you resist, persists. Fight FOR your equality, your right to be treated equal under the law, and your acceptance in our culture for who you are.

4) Shift to not fighting at all.

Resist the urge to see this as a war, an us versus them dynamic with winners and losers.

This is what many conservatives actually want. If your head is making war, then you are actually participating in the global war machine they support.

If you want peace on this planet, do not expect it until you can figure out how to assert your equality in peace.

Take action, certainly... but do it in a way that does not divide you from others. Stay connected to your friends and family members that are so wrapped up in their own fears that they could vote Yes on 8. Be an agent of change in their lives.

Create this change through love and unity, not war and separation.

5) Know what Prop 8 is really about and respond to that.

Realize that this is not really about marriage at all, but about keeping queers invisible, discriminated against, oppressed. So, be visible... be yourself, fearlessly, powerfully, and encourage others to do the same.

Examine your experiences to see if there are any ways, even little ways, that you still hide who you really are AND/OR allow others to express their homophobia without letting them know how their actions affect you.

Do you refrain from talking about your relationships at work even though straight coworkers do? When was the last time you let a homophobic joke go without saying something? Are you still hiding from any of your family members to some degree? Can you meet new people, spend any significant amount of time with them, and make it so they leave without really knowing you're gay/queer/trans/etc?

Even if you're "fully out", do you modulate it down sometimes? Under what circumstances? Are you living as queer as you actually are? If you're heterosexual, are YOU living as queer as you actually are?

Remember, if someone has to be uncomfortable or unhappy, it doesn't have to be you. :-)

BONUS! 6) Forward this message on!

Please feel free to mail, email, or repost this text. All I ask is that you include the original link: http://bunnykitteh.livejournal.com/155593.html

}{ugs,
Josh

Ps. In my rush to excite and empower you, I forgot one little thing... you may not be ready yet! (Thanks Ben, for reminding me!)

If you are feeling angry, sad, hurt... going through the stages of grief... or whatever process you're in, stick with it! Those feelings are sooo important. They are messages that your needs are not getting met.

It was through my own process of getting deeply in touch with the pain of being seen as less-than-a-person by people I grew up with, really getting what that means, that I was able to take back my power and choose my response.

Know that you are loved and surrounded by good wishes for your well being as you go through whatever you are going through right now.