She is acutely aware of how the term “safe space” translates differently for women, depending on their ethnic and racial background, and that white women have historically been reluctant to make it out to what might be defined as a “Black space.”
Category: Prison industrial complex
“Radical queers haven’t yet figured out how to use film as politics; we’ve done it with performance and spoken word, but not with film. The assimilationists are winning the war because they’ve learned how to use film as propaganda by wrapping their message in the preferred discourse of civil rights.”
Joe Solmonese, executive director of Human Rights Campaign (HRC) , frequently finds himself in the eye of the LGBT political storm. In recent years, criticism of the nation’s largest gay organization has increased, whether for what many described as the betrayal over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) or its rumored agnosticism over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). The organization recently unveiled a nationwide campaign, No Excuses, which aims to empower LGBTs everywhere to talk to their members of Congress about the issues facing them. Solmonese talked to Windy City Times over the phone about the campaign, and about a range of legislative and political issues.
Chicago recently became a finalist in its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. An umbrella group of local activist organizations and Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) is using this media attention to highlight Chicago police brutality. At a June 19 press conference outside Mayor Daley”s office and an evening community forum at the Broadway United Methodist Church in Boystown, the group argued that Chicago did not have a right to host the Olympics given its record on police brutality, especially towards members of the LGBTQ community. Sponsors of the events included queer groups Amigas Latinas, Equality Illinois, and Gay Liberation Network.
A report from the Deaf Queer Resource Center ( www.deafqueer.org ) indicated that a murder in Waverly, Ohio, was being ignored, unlike the killing of Matthew Shepard, because the gay victim was a hearing-impaired, homeless man. The details of the murder were horrific: Daniel ‘Dano’ Fetty, 39 years old, had been living in his car after a fire, working at a local restaurant, and saving up for his next apartment.