"Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992" gets UK premiere on April 14th, 2012

What follows is being cross-posted from *here*. I am so excited about seeing this documentary!!!! (And it annoys the piss out of me when Lesbian and Gay, or LGBTIQA films are categorised as only "Gay". But whatever. They didn't ask me, nor should they.)

"Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992" Gets UK Premiere Date - April 14th

News by Tambay | April 2, 2012 12:04 PM | 0 Comments

photo of Audre Lorde is from here

Previously profiled on S&A, it made its world premiere in the Panorama Documentary section at the Berlin Film Festival in February; and now Dagmar Shultz's Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 is scheduled to make its UK premiere on April 14th at Fringe Film Gay Film Festival which takes place at the Rich Mix (35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA) in East London.

It's being screened as part of the Fringe Film Gay film Festival.

Courtesy of Third World Newsreel, who acquired the 84-minute film, it made its USA premiere it at The Brecht Forum in New York City last week Monday, and will be out on DVD sometime this spring.

Specifically, the film focuses on...

Audre Lorde's years in Berlin in which she catalyzed the first movement of Black Germans to claim their identity as Afro-Germans with pride. As she was inspiring Afro-Germans she was also encouraging the White German feminists to look at their own racism

The film will serve as a historical document for future generations of Germans, which profiles and highlights, from the roots, the African presence in Germany, and the origins of the anti-racist movement before and after the German reunification, as well as facillitates an analysis and an understanding of present debates on identity and racism in Germany.

So UK folks, now you'll have your chance to check out the doc. Info on tickets can be found HERE.

A trailer for the film is [available to be viewed] below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mPEkqykAik&feature=player_embedded

Aung San Suu Kyi Brings Hope with Leadership

What follows is being cross-posted from The Guardian. Please click *here* to see the article in its original location.

Aung San Suu Kyi hails 'new era' for Burma after landslide victory

Thousands celebrate historic byelection victory as the National League for Democracy wins 40 out of 45 open seats

• Esmer Golluoglu in Rangoon
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 April 2012 11.27 EDT
• Article history

As Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to win her first public office, voters speak of the need for a fair election in Burma Link to this video Aung San Suu Kyi has hailed "the beginning of a new era" in Burma's politics after the country's Election Commission confirmed that her party had won a spectacular 40 out of 45 parliamentary seats in Sunday's historic byelection.
The confirmation was announced late on Monday on state TV and was three fewer seats than Suu Kyi's party had earlier claimed, but is a stunning victory nonetheless.

Speaking to thousands of red-clad supporters outside the headquarters of her opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), the Nobel laureate called the election "a triumph of the people" and said: "We hope this will be the beginning of a new era."

Traffic slowed to a crawl as throngs of people, many of them waving flags and clutching red and white roses, spilled into the street to cheer, clap and call out "Amay Suu" (Mother Suu) as her motorcade arrived. At least one person was trampled underfoot when bodyguards pushed back the crowds and people swarmed to the car to see the woman who spent almost 22 years under house arrest and who many hope will create a new future for Burma's 60 million people.

Aung San Suu Kyi spoke briefly in both Burmese and English to loud applause and cheers from the crowd.

"What is important is not how many seats we may have won, but that … the people participated in the democratic process," she said to great applause, before adding: "We invite all parties who wish to bring peace and prosperity to our country [to work together]."

Aung San Suu Kyi said the NLD would be filing complaints about the "rampant irregularities" that her party says took place in Sunday's election, and that only a proper investigation would ensure the democratic process.

The NLD contested 44 of 45 open seats in Burma's 664-seat parliament, a quarter of which are reserved for the military, which ruled the nation for nearly half a century. In 2010 a partially civilian government, led by president Thein Sein, took power and has since introduced a series of reforms – from the easing of censorship laws to the release of many political prisoners – that are slowly opening up Burma to the outside world.

Aung San Suu Kyi will soon trade her lakeside villa in Rangoon for a seat in the lower house of parliament in the capital, Naypyidaw, where the NLD will be a minority in Burma's national legislature. That, however, is a small point to most Burmese, who consider Sunday's vote a landmark election that will forever change the course of the country's history.

"Look at us – we are so happy, it's like we've each been released from prison," said warehouse manager Myint Ng Than, 61, as men around him danced outside the NLD headquarters and sang along to a Johnny Cash-inspired anthem calling for the end of "sham democracy" . "We have freedom now. Amay Suu will save us."

Exiled opposition leader Nyo Myint called the victory a "very exciting moment" for Burma and the "sign of people power in the [country's] political development".

He warned, however, that there may be a backlash from the military and its government supporters in parliament, who comprise the significant majority of the non-military reserved seats.

"This is a very scary moment for the current ruling hardliners – this is not the way they wanted to see things go," he said.

"They felt that they could win seats with the USDP [Union Solidarity and Development party] and maybe at this point they will challenge the election results … and persuade the military personnel to defend the current ruling privileges."

Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged the threat of such a backlash, particularly as her first priority upon taking office will be to implement constitutional reforms – among them scrapping the requirement that the military must fill a quarter of all parliamentary seats. She told a news conference last week that the military must remember that "the future of this country is their future, and that reform in this country means reform for them as well".

Such notions look unlikely to go down smoothly, at least in the near future, as the armed forces chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, vowed last week that the military would "abide and safeguard the national constitution" which promises a "political leadership role" to the army.

• Esmer Golluoglu is a pseudonym for a journalist working in Rangoon

Woman-hating is often mistaken for man-hating by anti-feminist men and other male supremacists

image of book cover is from here

 

Toto has the stamina to take on the silly misogynists on websites like Yahoo Answers. Please note the answers given to the question (click *here* to do so), loaded up with misinformation, that Andrea Dworkin hated people. Someone named Sara asks this:

Open Question

Why was andrea dworkin filled with hatred?

was she abused? and why did she looked like that? im all for equality but you have to take a shower once in a while....was her writings more a projection of her insecurities and pen!s envy?

 

Here is Toto's reply:

While the truth sometimes blows fiction out of the water--much to the disdain of those who believe fiction more than truthful facts--we must face these truthful facts: Andrea Dworkin was abused as a child, by molestation, and later in her early adulthood, as she survived rape and battery. She also did not hate men. There's so much evidence of her not hating men that one wonders where the rumor came from that she did.

She lived with a man she very much loved, after all, for the last thirty years of her life. She was close with and felt great love for her father, her brother, and her nephew--she has written about each of them. You can read all about it in her memoir, Heartbreak. She spoke to hundreds of men at a men's conference, not about how much she hated men, but about how men have to be responsible and ethical. (See the link to that speech below.) Where's the "hatred of men" in any of that? The truth also shows that even here, at this website, many years after her death, people still want to say hateful and dishonest things about her and other feminists, not about men.

The harsh truth is that men and many other people hate feminists--and women generally. The lie, perpetuated by anti-feminists and misogynists, is that feminists hate men. But then those that want to make their own hatred invisible often do so by pretending "They hate ME!" It's a sad reality when truth cannot be faced, even with evidence. Men's millennia-old rape of women, men procuring women and girls, men trafficking women and girls, men enslaving women and girls, men battering women to the point of hospitalization and death: these are global social problems. Not women doing such things to men or boys.

Source(s):

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/…
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/…

Alice Walker discusses the life and legacy of Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)

I never got to meet or speak with Adrienne Rich. Or Alice Walker for that matter. But there's still time with Alice. What I remember most about Adrienne was her willingness to struggle with whiteness and the unearned power that defines and sustains it, and her lesbian-feminist brilliance in analysing heterosexuality as a socially and politically compulsory condition for women, not a natural one.

Below is the video featuring Alice Walker. Below that is a transcript of the conversation.



To link to any of this, please click here: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/30/adrienne_rich_1929_2012_alice_walker

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): Alice Walker & Frances Goldin on the Life of the Legendary Poet

by via Democracy Now!, Wikipedia & Flickr
Friday Mar 30th, 2012 11:57 AM

Adrienne Cecile Rich (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.

In 1997, Adrienne Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."

Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz, California home.

640_audre-lorde-meridel-l...original image ( 1280x960)

PHOTO: Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur, Adrienne Rich 1980 by K. Kendall
"They led a writing workshop together in Austin, Texas. I was in it, and they let me take this picture of them."

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): Alice Walker & Frances Goldin on the Life of the Legendary Poet & Activist

by Democracy Now! — March 30, 2012

The legendary poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich, who died on Tuesday at the age of 82, was one of the most celebrated poets of the last half-century and a lifelong advocate for women, gay and lesbian rights, peace and racial justice. Rich drew widespread acclaim for her many volumes of poetry and prose, which brought the oppression of women and lesbians into the public spotlight. She was a key figure in the women’s movement and an uncompromising critic of the powerful. In 1997, Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage." We remember Rich’s life with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and Rich’s literary agent Frances Goldin.

Guests:

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, poet and activist. When Adrienne Rich was awarded the 1973 National Book Award, she refused to accept the award alone. She appeared onstage with poets Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, and the three accepted the award on behalf of all women.

Frances Goldin, Adrienne Rich’s longtime literary agent and friend.

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help Democracy Now! provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on the TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.

Transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: The legendary poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich died on Tuesday at the age of 82. Rich was one of the most celebrated poets of the last half-century and a lifelong advocate for women, gay and lesbian rights, peace and racial justice. Rich drew widespread acclaim for her many volumes of poetry and prose, which brought the oppression of women and lesbians into the public spotlight. She was a key figure in the women’s movement and an uncompromising critic of the powerful. Rich won numerous awards and honors, including the National Book Award for the 1973 collection Diving into the Wreck. Refusing to accept the award alone, she appeared onstage with poets Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, and the three accepted the award on behalf of all women.
AMY GOODMAN: In 1997, Adrienne Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art, quote, "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."
In a moment, we’ll be joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and Rich’s literary agent Frances Goldin. But first we’re going to go to Adrienne Rich herself, reading her poem "What Kind of Times Are These."

ADRIENNE RICH: There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Adrienne Rich reading her poetry. She died on Tuesday at the age of 82. Alice Walker, as well as Frances Goldin, her literary agent, are here to talk about her life.
Alice Walker, your thoughts about Adrienne?
ALICE WALKER: Well, it was very interesting. She and I saw each other infrequently and almost always by accident, so it was quite magical. We would be sometimes in an elevator together, and she would have come from one part of the country and me from somewhere else, and there we’d be. Or we’d show up at a movie, and there she’d be, and there I’d be. She was very close to a friend of mine, June Jordan, and so I got to know more about her through June, and also, of course, through her poetry, which was very meaningful to me. And my sense of her, the thing that I most loved, was her integrity. She lived exactly what she said. And this was so rare and so beautiful. And we will miss her.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the National Book Award in 1973 that she won for Diving into the Wreck that she insisted that you, Alice, and Audre Lorde accept the award with her on stage? Talk about that moment. Where were you?
ALICE WALKER: I was in Mississippi. I was, you know, fighting the good fight down there. But anyway, what happened was that we were all three nominated for this award. And we understood that we were living under apartheid and segregation and, you know, all of that, and that under such a system, which favored white people, she would get the award. We knew that. And so, we decided, before anybody—anything was announced, that we would not accept being ranked, and we would not accept the racism implicit in an award that would go to someone—you know, she was a great poet, but it would go to her also because she was a white person. And to her immense credit, she had no desire to be honored as we would be dishonored. And so, we got together. Audre called me in Mississippi, and we chatted about it, and Adrienne. And so, we decided that we could only accept an award so suspicious if we accepted it in the name of all women and indicate by that action that we understood that women were not honored in the arts and elsewhere.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Frances, you represented her for many years. Talk to us about how you first came to know her and what kind of person she was, and especially this issue of her stances on principle and social justice.
FRANCES GOLDIN: I met her at a dinner. The gay and lesbian rights groups had a dinner the night before, every year, when the publishing world came together in various countries—cities in the country. And I was sitting next to her and met her for the first time at that dinner. And we bonded, because we had similar politics, and we had wanted to meet each other for some time. And when the meeting was over, I said to her, "Can I hug you?" And she said, "It would be a pleasure." And we hugged. And then I said, "Well, if we can hug, can I kiss you?" And she said, "I would love to." And we left, and that happened.
And then I really campaigned for a couple of years to be able to represent her. And I remember taking a camera on a city bus, because they had on the billboards of the buses the poet of the month. And once, it was Adrienne. And so, I took a picture of that and sent it to her and said, "Millions of people in New York know about you because you were on the bus this morning." And, you know, I just courted her with anything I could think of.
And then, one day, she called and said, "I need some help. My publisher, Norton, has two offers from England, and I don’t know which one to take." So I said, "Well, just sit there, and don’t go away from your phone." And I called my British agent, because I certainly didn’t know which was the better of the two. And he called her, and she explained it, and he told her which was the best publisher for her. And she called back and said, "He was so wonderful, and he didn’t take any money, and he wouldn’t charge me." And I said, "Well, of course not. It was just a favor." And she said, "Well, then, can you represent the book?" And I said, "How can I? You signed a contract. And if I called with a question about it, they would hang up on me, because I didn’t agent this book." And she said, "Well, can you do my next one?" And I said, "Does night follow day?" And we became agent and author. And it’s been 25 years.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to that moment in 1997 when Adrienne Rich refused the National Medal for the Arts to protest the growing concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands. Adrienne Rich informed the Clinton administration of her decision in a July 3rd letter to Jane Alexander, the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts at the time, which administers the awards. Adrienne Rich appeared on Democracy Now! soon afterwards, and she read her letter.

ADRIENNE RICH: "Dear Jane Alexander,

“I just spoke with a young man from your office, who informed me that I had been chosen to be one of twelve recipients of the National Medal for the Arts at a ceremony at the White House in the fall. I told him at once that I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. I want to clarify to you what I meant by my refusal.

“Anyone familiar with my work from the early Sixties on knows that I believe in art’s social presence—as breaker of official silences, as voice for those whose voices are disregarded, and as a human birthright. In my lifetime I have seen the space for the arts opened by movements for social justice, the power of art to break despair. Over the past two decades I have witnessed the increasingly brutal impact of racial and economic injustice in our country.

“There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored. I know you have been engaged in a serious and disheartening struggle to save government funding for the arts, against those whose fear and suspicion of art is nakedly repressive. In the end, I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is inextricable from my concerns as an artist. I could not participate in a ritual which would feel so hypocritical to me.

"Sincerely,
Adrienne Rich"

AMY GOODMAN: Adrienne Rich, reading on Democracy Now! the letter she wrote to the actress Jane Alexander, who was then the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, rejecting the 1997 medal, the 1997 National Medal for the Arts. Alice Walker, your final thoughts on Adrienne Rich?
ALICE WALKER: I think that that letter demonstrates that integrity that she had that I so admired. And I think her legacy for all of us is to continue to believe in the power of art, especially in the power of poetry, and to keep moving and not to be dissuaded, not to be discouraged, but to take heart from a woman who lived for 82 years giving her very best, growing out of every shell that society attempted to force her into to become this really amazing figure of inspiration and hope and love.
AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, we want to thank you for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and activist. Frances Goldin, Adrienne Rich’s agent and friend. And we will post you reading, Frances, Adrienne’s letter to you on our website at democracynow.org.

With gratitude to my 200 most regular readers

image is from here

It appears that the world is spinning increasingly towards horrific destruction, despite the efforts of so many decent people to call the richest, whitest, most male supremacist criminals to account.

I find that in such times isolation and alienation are sources of depression and despondency.

Together we join together to resist, to challenge, and to radically transform our world.

Thank you for being part of my world.

Love to each and every one of you.

The Lynching of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman: a perspective

image of George Zimmerman (left) and Trayvon Martin (right) is from here

What follows was written by Carolyn Edgar of CNN and by Michael Skolnick of GlobalGrind. I found these excerpts posted together at Racialicious. I have inserted my own commentary in bold and brackets.

Trayvon Martin was a teenaged boy who was walking home from a convenience store. He was not engaged in an unlawful activity. [Other than being Black in the US and walking in a place where non-Blacks live.] He was in a place where he had a right to be – near the home of his father’s fiancée. [He should have had the right to be there.] George Zimmerman followed him [read: stalked him with the intention of doing harm], even after being told by the 911 dispatcher not to. [His fragrant disregard for the counsel of the 911 dispatcher demonstrates to me that he was wanting some form of public attention, or applause, for what he was about to do.] Zimmerman left his vehicle holding a loaded gun and began pursuing Martin on foot. It is plausible to infer that Zimmerman, not Martin, initiated the attack. The tapes indicate that Zimmerman may have been the aggressor in initiating contact with Martin. ["Plausible"? "May have been"? In what moral universe does disregarding the advice of someone trained to deal with crime and crisis, and instead stalking--with a deadly weapon--an innocent person, NOT constitute "initiating an attack"? How could a boy walking from a store where he purchased Skittles to the home of family constitute, and then screaming for help when his live was threatened, constitute "intitiating an attack"? The boy, by all accounts, was not seeking to engage in any way with the virulently white supremacist George Zimmerman. Would anyone think that a Black or Brown man similarly going after a white boy armed with Skittles would be regarded as anything other than behaving with an intent to kill?] Assuming the published reports are true, Martin, not Zimmerman, was exercising his lawful right to “stand his ground and meet force with force” by engaging in an altercation with Zimmerman. [Florida apparently has a law which allows (wealthier and whiter) people to murder (poorer and darker) people who are in their neighborhood if deemed "threatening". But last I heard, carrying Skittles and minding one's own business, such as by talking with a girlfriend on the phone, isn't threatening behavior to residents of a neighborhood.]

By questioning why Martin didn’t simply stop and answer Zimmerman’s questions, and characterizing Martin as the aggressor [aren't we supposed to teach kids not to talk to strangers?], Sanford Police Department Chief Bill Lee Jr. appears to have assessed the Martin case using the standards that apply to law enforcement officers. [This puts aside the rather unavoidable issue of white supremacist police forces systematically harassing and mass murdering people of color in the US.] This is wrong. Martin was under no legal duty to obey or to cooperate with Zimmerman in being questioned, because George Zimmerman is not a law enforcement officer. [And if he were? What right should a law enforcement officer have to stop such a youth?]

Being the local neighborhood watch captain [read: assassin or cold-blooded killer] does not elevate him to that status. Nor was Zimmerman asked by any law enforcement officer to assist in detaining Martin – in fact, he was specifically told not to follow Martin. Zimmerman is entitled to none of the presumptions available to law enforcement officers under Florida law. The presumptions of acting in good faith that are afforded to law enforcement officers do not apply to Zimmerman. [The presumption of acting in good faith should not apply to armed members of racist police forces.]
- Carolyn Edgar, CNN

I got a lot of emails about Trayvon. I have read a lot of articles. I have seen a lot of television segments. The message is consistent. Most of the commentators, writers, op-ed pages agree. Something went wrong. Trayvon was murdered. Racially profiled. Race. America’s [uber-white] elephant that never seems to leave the room. But, the part that doesn’t sit well with me is that all of the messengers of this message are all black too. I mean, it was only two weeks ago when almost every white person I knew was tweeting about stopping a brutal African warlord from killing more innocent children. [Yeah, about that: white celebs and news people, and their followers, are upset about human rights atrocities when whites don't commit them against Black and Brown people; let's see George Clooney speak out against white and male supremacy in the U.S.A.] And they even took thirty minutes out of their busy schedules to watch a movie about dude. They bought t-shirts. Some bracelets. Even tweeted at Rihanna to take a stance. But, a 17 year old American kid is followed and then ultimately killed by a neighborhood vigilante who happens to be carrying a semi-automatic weapon and my white friends are quiet. Eerily quiet. Not even a trending topic for the young man. [Thank you. And in a report about two kids who very negligently threw a shopping cart over a railing, causing a white woman below to be seriously injured, I took note of how many whites made sure to characterize the two youth as "thugs". The first comment on this story at Huffington Post reads as follows:

"WhatIThinkIs

2 Fans

05:24 PM on 11/04/2011

Charge them as adults with attempted murder. At 12 years old they should have known they could hurt someone. The severity of the charges must fit the severity of the crime."]

We’ve heard the 911 calls. We seen the 13 year old witness. We’ve read the letter from the alleged killer’s father. We listened to the anger of the family’s attorney. We’ve felt the pain of Trayvon’s mother. For heaven’s sake, for 24 hours he was a deceased John Doe at the hospital because even the police couldn’t believe that maybe he LIVES in the community.

There are still some facts to figure out. There are still some questions to be answered. But, let’s be clear. Let’s be very, very clear. Before the neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, started following him against the better judgement of the 911 dispatcher. Before any altercation. Before any self-defense claim. Before Travyon’s cries for help were heard on the 911 tapes. Before the bullet hit him dead in the chest. Before all of this. He was suspicious. He was suspicious. suspicious. And you know, like I know, it wasn’t because of the hoodie or the jeans or the sneakers. Cause I had on that same outfit yesterday and no one called 911 saying I was just wandering around their neighborhood. It was because of one thing and one thing only. Trayvon is black.

- Michael Skolnick, GlobalGrind

Again, thank you, Michael.

See also *here* and *here* for more on some of these stories at Democracy Now!

What I take from all of this is that the genocide of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people is on-going without relief across the Americas, across Central Asia (including the mass murder of an Afghan family by Sgt. Robert Bales), and across the globe, by wealthy white male supremacists and their imperialist militias. We know, too, that millions of women and girls will be raped, tortured, and murdered by men again this year, for the "crime" of being female, and that the gynocide will not be reported or understood in these terms. 

 

 

The issue of what constitutes crime (including hate crime), terrorism, and human rights violation and who is immune from any and all laws supporting human rights, will not likely be discussed by the most structurally powerful members of my society who engage in criminal and violating behavior. What will be defended in court by supremely well-paid attorneys is the rights of militias and rich folks and whites--disproportionately male--to threaten, harass, terrorise, and mass murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous people by any means "necessary" to sustain and affirm het white male and imperialist corporate power.

To sign the petition calling for the arrest of the assassin of Trayvon Martin, please see *here*.

The White Male His-story of Sexuality, and the Power of The Marginalised Voice

image is from here

Unlike some of my peers, I do not regard Sigmund Freud as unworthy of study. But nor do I place him at the center of such study. Across cultures and eras, white men have had some really bizarre ideas about sexuality and gender. They've theorised there's only one sex, and that there are only two (opposite) sexes. However many genders and sexes white men believe exist, they seem incapable of imagining a world in which men do not dominate and control women and "women's sexuality"--often enough a sexuality designed by men for men. I've watched enough white male science fiction wherein the white male writer or producer creates new worlds in future eras. I've watched enough to know that however far into the universe the white het male supremacist's mind goes, he cannot creatively conceive of women *not* dressing in tight outfits designed for his voyeuristic pleasure. He cannot conceive of her as not existing for him.

Whatever the theories, they have tended to serve both white and male supremacy against the bodies and and human rights of millions of women and girls of all colors and cultures. Their theories are also traditionally anti-lesbian and anti-gay. Their theories have functioned to promote the humanity of white (and usually het) men (the minority) while denigrating and demonising the humanity of everyone else (the majority). His inhumanity is often enough rendered invisible, or is termed something else--the product, perhaps, of unfortunate events early in his life. That white men, as a class, ensure that unfortunate events will systematically scar the lives of girls globally seems not to worry him. In this theories and in his world, only white men act out their pain in gynocidal and genocidal ways. White men traditionally theorise their pain as an explanation for their abusive actions. If painful childhoods, troubled by rape and invasion, were the source of acting out violence against other people, and if victimised people were allowed do violence to their perpetrators, men the world over would have a lot to worry about. And white men who travel the world over to rape trafficked and enslaved girls and women would have cause to worry a great deal.

What I look for in theory is a human story, a humane understanding, that reveals to the reader the role of white and male supremacy, among other forces of institutionalised ideology, in making things as they are. I look for theory to bring into focus the experiences and worldviews of the people who whites and men seek to silence and destroy.

One such theory of sexuality is found in Catharine A. MacKinnon's essay "Does Sexuality Have a History?", which may be read here:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0030.001/16:2?g=mqrg;page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image;xc=1

I've praised the following work before, and this time won't be the last. But one of the best essays on sexuality, one of the best theories on sex that I've seen, is the one that follows. Referencing the video (well, the audio), I don't quite understand the laughter from the audience at one point. Although times have changed and margarine isn't regarded in the same way as it was in the 1970s, nothing about her analogy is funny to me. Taken without today's negative associations, I see it as useful to her points, especially as it conjures such a tactile, sensual relationship to her ideas on the Erotic.

This is an early version of a speech and essay that later appeared in her brilliant collection of speeches and essays called Sister Outsider. It was delivered at a radical and feminist conference on pornography and prostitution in the late 1970s in San Francisco, CA, USA.



Here is a link to the speech as presented in that book:

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/08/uses-of-erotic-erotic-as-power-classic.html

Please consider the theories of radical feminist women of color as necessarily central to our understandings of all of us, and organise your revolutions around their ideas and visions.

image is from here