Effects Of Thinking White People Are “All Like That”:
- Literally nothing other than white people having their feelings hurt on the internet
- I’m not joking there is no real world consequence of this
Effects Of Thinking People of Color Are “All Like That”:
Assata Shakur from Honey Magazine debut issue, 1998. Full article forthcoming.
“In some ways it was easier for my generation. Racism was blatant and obvious. The “Whites Only” signs let us know clearly, what we were up against. Not much has changed, but the system of lies and tricknology is much more sophisticated. Today young people have to be highly informed and acutely analytical, or they will be swept up into a whirlpool of lies and deception.”
-Assata Shakur
Pima County, Arizona, is the only county in the United States that tracks migrant deaths. Here’s every one since 2001.
(via queergiftedblack)
Help kickass trans activist and singer KOKUMO fund her second annual T.G.I.F. (Trans*, Gender Non-Conforming, Intersex Freedom) Pride Rally in Chicago. It’s rare for our movement to support spaces created by trans women of color. Let’s make a change.
Contribute funds here or reach out to T.G.I.F. organizers in Chicago (kokumomedia[AT]gmail[DOT]com) for opportunities to help with organizing or assisting with the 2013 rally.
KOKUMO is an amazing person and AHHH you should support the fuck out of TGIF!
(via queerpeopleofcolor)
![anarcho-queer:
The Queer Riots Before Stonewall
History generally speaks of the Stonewall Inn Riots as the first queer riot and turning point for LGBTQ liberation but before June 1969, two other riots broke out years before and some 3,000 miles away: The 1959 riot at Cooper’s Donuts in Los Angeles and a 1966 riot at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco.
Though knowledge of both has faded over the years, they provide an important illustration of where trans folk, queens and sexual outlaws figure into the modern LGBT rights movement and what led them to finally stand up to abuse and discrimination.
In the ’50s and ’60s, Los Angeles cops made a habit of screwing with queers: They would raided gay bars, marching the queers out in a line and arresting anyone whose perceived gender didn’t match what was on their ID. Occasionally, they’d even single out a few lucky victims for special attention in the form of insults and beatings. Entrapment was common: Attractively dressed vice cops would cruise gay bars, bathrooms and hook-up spots, pick up tricks and arrest them as soon their target leaned in for a kiss. In other cases, plainclothes cops would wait outside of gay hangouts, trail two men as they walked home and burst into their residence to catch them in the act.
As bad as gay men had it, trans people had it worse: With laws against cross-dressing on the books in California, police kept an eye out for them entering or leaving gay bars—any excuse to raid and shut the place down. (Many gay hangouts rejected trans folk for this very reason.)
Many in the trans community couldn’t get decent jobs (hell, they still can’t) and some resorted to hustling, giving the whole community the reputation of being prostitutes. The media often conflated homosexuals with cross-dressers, drag queens and trans people, making gay men and lesbians resent trans visibility even more.
So what better place to kick back than Cooper’s Donuts, an all-night eatery on Main Street in downtown L.A.? Smack dab between two gay bars—Harold’s and the Waldorf—Cooper’s become a popular late-night hangout for trans folk, butch queens, street hustlers and their johns.
One night in May 1959, the cops showed up to check IDs and arrest some queers:
Two cops entered the donut shop that night, ostensibly checking ID, and arbitrarily picked up two hustlers, two queens, and a young man just cruising and led them out. As the cops packed the back of the squad car, one of the men objected, shouting that the car was illegally crowded. While the two cops switched around to force him in, the others scattered out of the car.
From the donut shop, everyone poured out. The crowd was fed up with the police harassment and on this night they fought back, hurling donuts, coffee cups and trash at the police. The police, facing this barrage of [pastries] and porcelain, fled into their car calling for backup.
Soon, the street was bustling with disobedience. People spilled out in to the streets, dancing on cars, lighting fires, and generally reeking havoc. The police return with backup and a number of rioters are beaten and arrested. They also closed the street off for a day.
The Cooper’s Donut riot often gets confused with the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot some years later: There were similar political circumstances leading up both riots. And like Cooper’s, Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district was a popular all-night hangout for trans people (called “hair fairies” at the time), hustlers and assorted sexual renegades.
And both stories involve coffee cups.
In August 1966, a cafeteria worker called the police when some transgender customers at Compton’s became unruly. When a police officer attempted to arrest one trans woman, she threw a cup of hot coffee in his face. Within moments, dishes were broken, furniture was thrown, the restaurant’s windows were smashed and a nearby newsstand was burned down.
Trans people, hustlers and disenfranchised gay locals picketed the cafeteria the following night, when the restaurant’s windows were smashed again. Unlike the Stonewall riots, the situation at Compton’s was somewhat organized—many picketers were members of militant queer groups like the Street Orphans and Vanguard.
Also, the city’s response was quite different from the reaction in New York: A network of social, mental and medical support services was established, followed in 1968 by the creation of the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, overseen by a member of the SFPD. Directors Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker’s recount the historic two-day incident in their 2005 film, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/a12c89037a60dcbc09a331f74968ed75/tumblr_mkhmsoVjPP1r4vpxio1_500.jpg)
The Queer Riots Before Stonewall
History generally speaks of the Stonewall Inn Riots as the first queer riot and turning point for LGBTQ liberation but before June 1969, two other riots broke out years before and some 3,000 miles away: The 1959 riot at Cooper’s Donuts in Los Angeles and a 1966 riot at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco.
Though knowledge of both has faded over the years, they provide an important illustration of where trans folk, queens and sexual outlaws figure into the modern LGBT rights movement and what led them to finally stand up to abuse and discrimination.
In the ’50s and ’60s, Los Angeles cops made a habit of screwing with queers: They would raided gay bars, marching the queers out in a line and arresting anyone whose perceived gender didn’t match what was on their ID. Occasionally, they’d even single out a few lucky victims for special attention in the form of insults and beatings. Entrapment was common: Attractively dressed vice cops would cruise gay bars, bathrooms and hook-up spots, pick up tricks and arrest them as soon their target leaned in for a kiss. In other cases, plainclothes cops would wait outside of gay hangouts, trail two men as they walked home and burst into their residence to catch them in the act.
As bad as gay men had it, trans people had it worse: With laws against cross-dressing on the books in California, police kept an eye out for them entering or leaving gay bars—any excuse to raid and shut the place down. (Many gay hangouts rejected trans folk for this very reason.)
Many in the trans community couldn’t get decent jobs (hell, they still can’t) and some resorted to hustling, giving the whole community the reputation of being prostitutes. The media often conflated homosexuals with cross-dressers, drag queens and trans people, making gay men and lesbians resent trans visibility even more.
So what better place to kick back than Cooper’s Donuts, an all-night eatery on Main Street in downtown L.A.? Smack dab between two gay bars—Harold’s and the Waldorf—Cooper’s become a popular late-night hangout for trans folk, butch queens, street hustlers and their johns.
One night in May 1959, the cops showed up to check IDs and arrest some queers:
Two cops entered the donut shop that night, ostensibly checking ID, and arbitrarily picked up two hustlers, two queens, and a young man just cruising and led them out. As the cops packed the back of the squad car, one of the men objected, shouting that the car was illegally crowded. While the two cops switched around to force him in, the others scattered out of the car.
From the donut shop, everyone poured out. The crowd was fed up with the police harassment and on this night they fought back, hurling donuts, coffee cups and trash at the police. The police, facing this barrage of [pastries] and porcelain, fled into their car calling for backup.
Soon, the street was bustling with disobedience. People spilled out in to the streets, dancing on cars, lighting fires, and generally reeking havoc. The police return with backup and a number of rioters are beaten and arrested. They also closed the street off for a day.
The Cooper’s Donut riot often gets confused with the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot some years later: There were similar political circumstances leading up both riots. And like Cooper’s, Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district was a popular all-night hangout for trans people (called “hair fairies” at the time), hustlers and assorted sexual renegades.
And both stories involve coffee cups.
In August 1966, a cafeteria worker called the police when some transgender customers at Compton’s became unruly. When a police officer attempted to arrest one trans woman, she threw a cup of hot coffee in his face. Within moments, dishes were broken, furniture was thrown, the restaurant’s windows were smashed and a nearby newsstand was burned down.
Trans people, hustlers and disenfranchised gay locals picketed the cafeteria the following night, when the restaurant’s windows were smashed again. Unlike the Stonewall riots, the situation at Compton’s was somewhat organized—many picketers were members of militant queer groups like the Street Orphans and Vanguard.
Also, the city’s response was quite different from the reaction in New York: A network of social, mental and medical support services was established, followed in 1968 by the creation of the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, overseen by a member of the SFPD. Directors Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker’s recount the historic two-day incident in their 2005 film, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria.
(via transawareness)
![tranqualizer:
[photo: image of Eva Panjwani, a working-class Muslimah Queer South Asian immigrant resting against a dresser and smiling at the camera. text reads, “please help me pursue my dream of finishing college.]
Help Eva Learn and check out her fundraiser here! the goal is $1,700.
Short Story Long
My name is Eva Panjwani and today, I am asking you to make an investment in my future. Let me tell you a little about myself, paint a picture so to speak. I am 25 years old, and I live in Carrboro, North Carolina. I was born in Karachi, Pakistan; I split my childhoold between tiny Beach Park, Illinois and the industrious city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I am not so different from you. When I discover a song I like, I tend to listen to it on repeat for a while, until I find the next one. I was super into the Harry Potter series when I was younger, and dressed up for all the movie premieres. After ordering things from the menu at a restaurant, I inevitably get food envy when my friends’ choices arrive.
Growing up, I was always considered a smart kid. I was in the Academically Gifted program from 4th grade onwards, even though I came into US public schools with English as a Second Language. In high school, I exhausted all of my school’s options in advanced mathematics classes, and ended up applying and being accepted into the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.
Struggles with bullying and low self-esteem were a prominent part of my childhood and adolescence, and getting away from all the years of harassment was the biggest reason I applied to NCSSM. In high school, I was in a period of self-discovery like everyone else, and after hints of me being somehow “different” since I was 4 years old, I finally came out. To myself. Raised Muslim, I knew this was a Big Deal.
I got a good SAT score and ended up being admitted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with the prestigious Johnston Scholarship - a merit and need-based full ride. That was all back in 2006. Something else big happened to me in 2006: my father unexpectedly passed away.
Ever since then I have struggled with reoccuring issues related to:
supporting myself financially
mental health imbalances
figuring out who and where my community was.
I lasted a little over two years at UNC, relying on part-time jobs and the small amount of leftover scholarship money to feed myself and buy books, before all my problems caught up to me. I needed desperately to take time off from school to set straight my emotional world, and in doing so I lost my scholarship. I’m a working-class Muslimah Queer South Asian immigrant that has struggled immensely with my emotional and mental well-being. It’s not too easy finding out who to turn to, where to go. And my depression turned into anxiety too, panic attacks happening at an increasing rate, and thoughts of suicide haunted me. I was at rock bottom.
Since then, I have been able to turn my life around and seek support - via mental health professionals and through building a community for myself. I took responsibility for my well being and did what I needed to do to re-center my emotional world. I took night classes in culinary arts at Durham Technical Community College, and have been working in foodservice. I keep a semi-regular blog that chronicles what is has meant for me to learn self-care and self-love, in hopes of spreading to others. I have worked enough to have a small savings account to help me through financial ups and downs. I have a cat! I am an activist, and have tried to stay a part of the conversation on education reform, and the fight for Worker and Student Power here in NC. I help run a national radical youth blog.
In many, many ways I am emotionally and mentally different from the at-risk, distracted, and lonely young woman I was when I lost my scholarship. I know I am more pragmatic, I am more self-aware, I am quieter and I am resourceful. I want a second chance at finishing my degree, and I finally believe I am ready and able to pursue it
What I Need & What You Get
I am applying for nontraditional readmission to the University. In order for me to apply for nontraditional readmission, I have to show evidence of recent successful coursework via Carolina Courses Online - i.e. online classes through the Friday Center. The idea is to have a better understanding of my current academic promise. In order to do that, I need:
$1,182 towards tuition for 6 credit hours (2 classes).
$84.24 towards the accompanying fees for 6 credit hours (2 classes).
$250 towards textbooks - this is an estimate.
And the rest is towards the IndieGoGo fee(s).
Help Eva Learn and check out her fundraiser here! the goal is $1,700.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/09ab6716d2440dbf9540746c29846d8c/tumblr_mjyg1vZPdn1qb18gbo1_500.png)
[photo: image of Eva Panjwani, a working-class Muslimah Queer South Asian immigrant resting against a dresser and smiling at the camera. text reads, “please help me pursue my dream of finishing college.]
Help Eva Learn and check out her fundraiser here! the goal is $1,700.Short Story Long
My name is Eva Panjwani and today, I am asking you to make an investment in my future. Let me tell you a little about myself, paint a picture so to speak. I am 25 years old, and I live in Carrboro, North Carolina. I was born in Karachi, Pakistan; I split my childhoold between tiny Beach Park, Illinois and the industrious city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I am not so different from you. When I discover a song I like, I tend to listen to it on repeat for a while, until I find the next one. I was super into the Harry Potter series when I was younger, and dressed up for all the movie premieres. After ordering things from the menu at a restaurant, I inevitably get food envy when my friends’ choices arrive.
Growing up, I was always considered a smart kid. I was in the Academically Gifted program from 4th grade onwards, even though I came into US public schools with English as a Second Language. In high school, I exhausted all of my school’s options in advanced mathematics classes, and ended up applying and being accepted into the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.
Struggles with bullying and low self-esteem were a prominent part of my childhood and adolescence, and getting away from all the years of harassment was the biggest reason I applied to NCSSM. In high school, I was in a period of self-discovery like everyone else, and after hints of me being somehow “different” since I was 4 years old, I finally came out. To myself. Raised Muslim, I knew this was a Big Deal.
I got a good SAT score and ended up being admitted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with the prestigious Johnston Scholarship - a merit and need-based full ride. That was all back in 2006. Something else big happened to me in 2006: my father unexpectedly passed away.
Ever since then I have struggled with reoccuring issues related to:
- supporting myself financially
- mental health imbalances
- figuring out who and where my community was.
I lasted a little over two years at UNC, relying on part-time jobs and the small amount of leftover scholarship money to feed myself and buy books, before all my problems caught up to me. I needed desperately to take time off from school to set straight my emotional world, and in doing so I lost my scholarship. I’m a working-class Muslimah Queer South Asian immigrant that has struggled immensely with my emotional and mental well-being. It’s not too easy finding out who to turn to, where to go. And my depression turned into anxiety too, panic attacks happening at an increasing rate, and thoughts of suicide haunted me. I was at rock bottom.
Since then, I have been able to turn my life around and seek support - via mental health professionals and through building a community for myself. I took responsibility for my well being and did what I needed to do to re-center my emotional world. I took night classes in culinary arts at Durham Technical Community College, and have been working in foodservice. I keep a semi-regular blog that chronicles what is has meant for me to learn self-care and self-love, in hopes of spreading to others. I have worked enough to have a small savings account to help me through financial ups and downs. I have a cat! I am an activist, and have tried to stay a part of the conversation on education reform, and the fight for Worker and Student Power here in NC. I help run a national radical youth blog.
In many, many ways I am emotionally and mentally different from the at-risk, distracted, and lonely young woman I was when I lost my scholarship. I know I am more pragmatic, I am more self-aware, I am quieter and I am resourceful. I want a second chance at finishing my degree, and I finally believe I am ready and able to pursue it
What I Need & What You Get
I am applying for nontraditional readmission to the University. In order for me to apply for nontraditional readmission, I have to show evidence of recent successful coursework via Carolina Courses Online - i.e. online classes through the Friday Center. The idea is to have a better understanding of my current academic promise. In order to do that, I need:
- $1,182 towards tuition for 6 credit hours (2 classes).
- $84.24 towards the accompanying fees for 6 credit hours (2 classes).
- $250 towards textbooks - this is an estimate.
- And the rest is towards the IndieGoGo fee(s).
Help Eva Learn and check out her fundraiser here! the goal is $1,700.
(via queerandbrown)
Trans Immigrants Disproportionately Subject to Deportation and Detention, Suffer Special Gender-Related Harms in these Processes
Barriers to Getting any Legal Immigration Status:
- employment-based immigration not available because of job discrimination
- family-based immigration not available because trans people’s family members often reject them, trans marriages not seen as valid, chosen and extended family not recognized
- asylum and other claims often not available because of lack of access to trans-friendly legal help, less connections with immigrant communities to get information combined with strict timelines, bias and harassment from immigration officers
Criminalization of Trans People:
- most convictions and some arrests can make people deportable, even if they have status
- trans people falsely arrested for lack of proper identity documents or for using bathroom
- police profiling of trans people as violent, prostitutes
- committing survival crimes because lack access to legal employment or education (sex work, drugs, theft, etc)
Trans immigrants likely to be detained and/or deported:
- trans people disproportionately HIV positive, if from country where no access to HIV meds, deportation is death sentence. also, deportation can lead to serious transphobic violence, persecution, and imprisonment in home country.
- in detention trans people often isolated and/or targeted for rape, harassment abusive searches and other violence by staff and other detainees. gender misclassified based on genitals in sex segregated system
- can’t access hormones and other medical treatments while detained. forced to change gendered characteristics of appearance (cut hair, give up prosthetics, etc.). results in mental anguish and increased violence because appearance may conform even less to gender identity.
infograph via the Sylvia Rivera Law Project www.srlp.org info@srlp.org 212.337.8550
pdf version of above chart available here: http://srlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/disprop-deportation.pdf
(via anarcho-queer)
No charges in police murder case that ignited Anaheim unrest
March 20, 2013Officer Nick Bennallack was on a gang-enforcement patrol in the Anna Drive neighborhood on the afternoon of July 21 when he pulled up to a small group of men. Manuel Diaz, 25, a convicted gang member, bolted, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office concluded.
The officers gave chase, down an alley and into the front yard of an apartment house. There, Bennallack fired two shots, one hitting Diaz in the back-right side of his head, the other hitting him in his right buttock, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.
The police association said shortly after the shooting that officers saw Diaz pull something from his waistband and turn. Diaz was found to be unarmed; investigators found a cell phone registered to Diaz, as well as the two ammunition cartridges from Bennallack’s gun and a drug pipe, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Diaz’s mother, Genevieve Huizar, said she plans to stage a demonstration Thursday morning in front of the courthouse in Santa Ana.
“This is completely unjustified,” Huizar said. “The D.A. appointed himself the judge and jury for this officer. I’m never going to stop fighting until Nick Bennallack is in prison.”
Huizar has sued Anaheim for $50 million. Her attorney, Dana Douglas, said several witnesses reported seeing Diaz hit first in the buttocks. He fell to his knees, she said, and then was hit in the back of the head.
The D.A.’s account of events and his decision not to file charges does not change anything about the family’s civil lawsuit, Douglas said.
“This is exactly the result we unfortunately expected,” she said.
Bennallack said in a statement to investigators that he fired because he thought Diaz had a gun and was about to shoot at him and the officer with him. The other officer, Brett Heitmann, told investigators that he heard Bennallack shout something like “Guhhh!” immediately before the shooting, which he took to be the start of a warning: “Gun!”
The District Attorney’s Office concluded that Bennallack believed he was in imminent danger of being killed by Diaz, Rackauckas said.
“It is our legal opinion that the evidence does not support a finding of criminal culpability on the part of Officer Bennallack,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner said. “There is significant evidence that the officer’s actions were reasonable and justified under the circumstances.”
At the time of the shooting, Bennallack was under investigation in an earlier fatal shooting at an Anaheim apartment building. The District Attorney’s Office cleared him in that unrelated January 2012 shooting a few months ago.
Bennallack is a five-year veteran and a department rookie of the year. He returned to duty two weeks after the shooting of Diaz, after officials reviewed preliminary results of their investigation.
On Anna Drive on Wednesday, few residents wanted to speak about the District Attorney’s Office’s findings, saying they were afraid to give their names after a gang sweep targeted the neighborhood last year.
But Margarita Flores, 42, who runs a produce truck on Anna Drive, said the officer should have faced charges.
“What he did was not right,” she said. “Those who were fond of (Diaz) are going to be mad – against the police, against everybody.”
The Diaz shooting touched off more than a week of unrest in Anaheim and helped expose deep and long-standing divisions in the city.
It started in the hours after the shooting, when residents who knew Diaz from the neighborhood gathered at the site, yelling at officers and demanding answers. Officers fired bean-bag rounds and pepper balls into the crowd at close range; a police dog charged into the crowd, toppling a baby stroller and biting at least one person.
Anaheim police Chief John Welter later apologized, saying the police dog broke loose from its handler.
A few nights later, after another fatal police shooting about which D.A.’s Office has not issued a report, a crowd estimated at 1,000 gathered in front of Anaheim’s City Hall, where a City Council meeting was under way. Some had come to demand greater accountability for police and a greater voice for neighborhoods such as Anna Drive. Others had come from outside of Anaheim to protest police brutality.
Scores of officers in riot gear confronted them and, when they would not disperse, fired pepper balls and bean-bag rounds at them. As the crowd scattered, a few people smashed windows and vandalized storefronts.
Justice for Manuel Diaz, Kimani Gray & all other victims of police murder now!
