SuperWeed

I’m still busy writing other things (one of which you will see soon) and [grrr] grading, so let me send you elsewhere again.

The Black Looks blog is a collective effort of several African and one African American blogger. According to the blog’s founder, “I wanted to primarily focus on anything to do with African Women - a very broad term for a whole continent - and the African Diaspora that is socially, politically, racially, culturally, ethnically and sexually diverse. I also wanted to look at human rights, to challenge stereotypes and discuss issues such as gender, sexuality and racism and how these are constructed and manipulated by culture.” Recent posts have covered topics such as deceptive anti-poverty projects, police repression of LGBT activists in Uganda, and the ongoing 16 days of activism against gender violence.

I don’t know the orientation of the bloggers but this blog turns out to be one of the best sources of news about LGBTQ issues in Africa and within the Diaspora. But what I like best about Black Looks is that the diversity of issues covered really does reflect the stated mission. Often, activists and bloggers here in the USA say that they work within an understanding of the intersection of oppressions but then go on to act and write within an implicitly single-issue focus.

So, for example, anti-racist bloggers and activists have been all over the issue of the Jena 6 — six African American males who were disproportionately prosecuted for an assault perpetrated in the context of white hate crimes against them and their peers –while remaining comparatively silent on the issue of the four African American lesbians who received prison sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years for fighting back against a homophobic attack while the memory of the homophobic murder of their friend Sakia Gunn was still fresh in their minds. (Similarly, African American Sakia Gunn’s murder received much less attention from LGBTQ organizations than did the homophobic murder of white male Matthew Shepherd.)

Venice Brown, Terrain Dandridge, Patreese Johnson, and and Renata Hill were convicted by an all-white jury for fighting back against a man who choked, spat on, and threatened to rape them because they were lesbians. Why aren’t anti-racist activists marching for them with at least the same fervor that they defend six young men who jumped a white young man who had previously participated in acts of hate against them but was not at the time threatening them? Because they’re women? Because they’re lesbians? Because they’re lesbians who don’t conform to gender norms? Because the man who attacked them, like the man who killed their friend Sakia, was African American? Because it’s all just too complicated?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t defend the young black men collectively known as the Jena 6 from unjust prosecution. I just want to know why these young black lesbians don’t deserve the same protection from anti-racist activists who claim to oppose all forms of discrimination. And excuse me if I get emotional on this one but, while these four weren’t among them, some of Sakia Gunn’s grieving friends were my students a couple of years ago. It could easily have been them sitting in prison while their community and its alliies rally, yet again, to defend men. When are we going to see that it really is all connected, that an injury to one really is an injury to all, that none of us ever will be free so long as some of us are sitting in prison for defending ourselves, other animals, or the earth?

But I’m ranting again and all that I wanted to do was send you over to Black Looks for the antidote to the kind of thing that provoked this rant.

Also of interest today is this Center for Strategic Anarchy post on swarm intelligence. That’s the collective process that allows ants, bees, and other swarming animals to perform complicated cognitive and mechanical tasks without anybody being in charge. Besides providing links to several very interesting articles on the topic, this post explains its relevance to those of us interested in anarchist practice. It’s not such a stretch as it may seem! Way back in 1902, Peter Kropotkin wrote the book Mutual Aid, arguing that natural selection tends to favor cooperation over cut-throat competition. The more we learn about other social animals, the less “natural” warfare and other relatively late developments in the history of our species seem.

November 29th, 2007 | Category: Activism, Anarchism, Gender, Insects, Intersections, Queer, Race | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL