News

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Stonewall Was Not a “Peaceful Protest”

For Pride 2019 and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, I wrote an op-ed for Out Magazine. 

Op-ed: Honor Our Stonewall Veterans by Being Your Most Queer Militant Self

The Stonewall rebellion was not a “peaceful protest.” Queer and transgender people threw shoes and bottles at cops who routinely raided gay bars, beat and raped queer and trans people. Today, under the direction of a multi-million dollar Pride industry, Stonewall is celebrated with big parades where police, the military, banks, and politicians wave rainbow flags. In some cities, the cops roll out special rainbow-painted police cars. The radical acts of rage and disobedience against illegitimate authority that erupted at Stonewall are now reflected back as a story about “progress” in which the institutions that run our lives through coercion and violence claim to be “gay friendly.” 

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New Syllabi and Article about Feminism and War

Sarah Lazare and I recently published an article raising concerns about the celebratory declarations the media has been making as women take leadership positions in defense industry companies and military and intelligence government agencies. Thanks to Jacobin for republishing it.

In other news, I am teaching Race and Law for the first time this semester, and teaching Gender and Law again and added some new books and articles. I am thinking about pulling together all the reading questions I give the students and posting those with the syllabi as well in case they are of use to other teachers or to reading groups. Look out for those soon!

And here is a picture of my dog Bennie, when he was a puppy, with the dearly departed Shelby.

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Organizational Culture Chart

In recent years, I have been spending more of my time helping organizations doing work I care about (mostly work to end borders, police and prisons) to build their organizational infrastructure to make it work and prevent conflicts that can tear us apart. In the course of that, we often have conversations about what the organizational culture is like now, its strengths and challenges, and what they want it to be like. This semester, at the end of my Poverty Law class when we were exploring critiques of the non-profit structure and alternatives, I made a little chart to help my students think about the structures of organizations they have been part of, and to stimulate discussion of how we build organizational culture that benefits the work we are trying to do. These days I am enjoying sharing more bits and pieces of early drafts of things and things that may never be further developed here, so here is this thing!

Cooperation Cats, by Meredith Stern, available at justseeds.org

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Building Accountable Communities Video Series

Please watch and share this new video series featuring Shannon Perez-Darby, Kiyomi Fujikawa, and Mariame Kaba, produced by me and Hope Dector. 

Accountability is a familiar buzz-word in contemporary social movements, but what does it mean? How do we work toward it? What does it look like to be accountable to survivors without exiling or disposing those who do harm? We made four short videos featuring Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby talking about these issues, and then recorded a live discussion between Shannon, Kiyomi, and Mariame exploring models for building accountable communities for the purpose of healing and repair. 

The online event:

Part 1: What is Accountability?

Part 2: What is Self-Accountability?

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