Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses
-
0:02 - 0:04[ Dean Spade ] So, yeah, first I wanted to say
thanks. It's really exciting to be here. -
0:04 - 0:08I'm really honoured to be part of a conversation
with the other folks who are gonna be in this -
0:08 - 0:12--who I can't see right now
but I trust are in front of you-- -
0:12 - 0:14[ Dean and audience laughing ]
-
0:14 - 0:16-who are all activists and scholars who
I really admire and inspired by, -
0:16 - 0:18so I feel really lucky.
-
0:18 - 0:22And I also just want to say, obviously
I'm coming to this work from the U.S., -
0:22 - 0:24so that's my frame,
-
0:24 - 0:29and there's some overlap obviously with
Canadian conditions and politics and histories, -
0:29 - 0:31but there's also a lot of divergence,
-
0:31 - 0:33so I hope it'll be useful,
-
0:33 - 0:36but it's my, sort of, framework.
-
0:36 - 0:39And I'm also gonna be reading,
because I'm trying to be really concise, -
0:39 - 0:43so that we can stick to our schedule,
so I apologize for reading. -
0:43 - 0:47So, yeah so when I was invited
to speak at this event, -
0:47 - 0:52I was asked to be part of a series that
I guess is about critical masculinities, -
0:52 - 0:56and so what I wanted to think about was
-
0:56 - 1:03how really highly-gendered roles in our very
militaristic, settler, white supremacist societies -
1:03 - 1:07--like spouse, soldier, police officer--
-
1:07 - 1:10have come to stand in a really complicated way
-
1:10 - 1:15as symbols right now, of sexual
and gender liberation in some contexts. -
1:15 - 1:19And how weird that is, especially given that
many feminist and queer movements -
1:19 - 1:22have sought to eliminate
the existence of those roles. -
1:22 - 1:26So I want to try to spend these few minutes
just talking and thinking about that. -
1:26 - 1:32So, I think in particular these conversations
about that dynamic that I just named, -
1:32 - 1:36are servicing in important ways right now,
-
1:36 - 1:40because of the role that equality
for gay and lesbian people, -
1:40 - 1:44and in some instances but not usually trans people,
is playing in global discourses about human rights, -
1:44 - 1:49increasingly the degree to which
countries have adopted certain high-profile -
1:49 - 1:51lesbian and gay law reforms,
-
1:51 - 1:56specifically granting marriage recognition,
and access to military service to gays and lesbians, -
1:56 - 2:02is framed as central to a country's reputation
regarding respect for human rights. -
2:02 - 2:05In recent years, the U.S. and Israel
have put significant resources -
2:05 - 2:11into framing countries with certain
lesbian and gay rights in place as "modern", -
2:11 - 2:14while framing countries
that don't have those in place -- -
2:14 - 2:17particularly framing Arab and African countries
as "backward" and "un-democratic". -
2:17 - 2:24And this strategy of using lesbian and gay rights,
particularly marriage and military participation, -
2:24 - 2:27as a marker of being
a human rights respecting country, -
2:27 - 2:31and particularly doing so in the face of charges
of ongoing significant human rights violations, -
2:31 - 2:33has been called "pinkwashing".
-
2:33 - 2:35Maybe that's a term
that a lot of people have heard. -
2:35 - 2:38So, in the U.S. context,
-
2:38 - 2:44Hilary Clinton's 2011 speech where she said
"gay rights are human rights", -
2:44 - 2:48along with the prevalence of references
to same-sex marriage and gay rights -
2:48 - 2:53at the 2012 Democratic National Convention,
-
2:53 - 2:55are examples of American pinkwashing.
-
2:55 - 2:58Clinton's [ inaudible ] is a relatively new logic
in U.S. imperialism. -
2:58 - 3:03That the U.S., regardless of failures
to protect queer and trans people -
3:03 - 3:08from state violence here in the U.S.,
where I am, not you [ laughs ], -
3:08 - 3:11will now use gay rights as a measure to...
-
3:11 - 3:13as a measure to countries
it seeks to intervene on. -
3:13 - 3:16Basically, like, "we're going to
call countries homophobic -
3:16 - 3:21"and that'll give us a good excuse to bomb them
or show up there and do weird military stuff." -
3:21 - 3:27Clinton uses lesbian and gay rights to bolster
the notion that the U.S. is the world's policing arm -
3:27 - 3:31forcing democracy and equality globally
on purportedly backward and cruel governments. -
3:31 - 3:34Gay rights operates as
a new justification for this imperial role, -
3:34 - 3:39a justification that fits really well within
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim framings -
3:39 - 3:43that have been developed during the war on terror,
and portray Arab and Muslim countries -
3:43 - 3:46as more sexist and more homophobic
than the U.S., Europe and Israel. -
3:46 - 3:50We also see this with the framing of
the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, -
3:50 - 3:52that it's supposed to, like, save Afghan women,
-
3:52 - 3:55like this kind of women-saving,
gay-saving framework is very popular, -
3:55 - 3:57the saving framework has a very long history,
-
3:57 - 4:00and in some ways the gay-saving
framework seen in a new way. -
4:00 - 4:02At the Democratic National Convention,
-
4:02 - 4:04Obama's [U.S. President] support for
same-sex marriage similarly helped him -
4:04 - 4:06portray his administration as progressive --
-
4:06 - 4:09and, like, the number of people
who buy into this is shocking -- -
4:09 - 4:12and equality-loving in order to obscure
his abysmal record on key issues -
4:12 - 4:16such as austerity, his failure to close
Guantanamo, ongoing drone strikes, -
4:16 - 4:19harsh sanctions against Iran,
the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, -
4:19 - 4:22and his record-breaking rates
of deportation -- -
4:22 - 4:25I'm sure you know he's the most deporting
president ever in the history of the United States-- -
4:25 - 4:27and I think in particular you see
this kind of American pinkwashing, -
4:27 - 4:30I've seen it again more recently
in his inaugural address, -
4:30 - 4:33he talked about Stonewall, which basically,
like, caused me to fall over, -
4:33 - 4:38y'know, it's again...
why is this guy talking about Stonewall? -
4:38 - 4:41Stonewall's a moment of resistance
to police brutality. -
4:41 - 4:45He's running the country that imprisons
more people than anyone in the world, -
4:45 - 4:47where queer and trans people
are still suffering -
4:47 - 4:50police violence and extremely horrifying
conditions of imprisonment. -
4:50 - 4:52Like, how does this fit?
-
4:52 - 4:57And also, recently he's
kind of made waves -
4:57 - 5:02because there's this really awful immigration
reform policy going around in the United States -
5:02 - 5:07that's supposed to be like the answer to
the unjust system of immigration enforcement, -
5:07 - 5:10but really it's just a way of
ramping up immigration enforcement. -
5:10 - 5:14And he said about it that he's gonna make sure
that gay and lesbian couples can be in on it, -
5:14 - 5:20and that is kind of this pinkwashing of this actually
really conservative set of policies and principles -
5:20 - 5:23around immigration that we're
supposed to be, like, grateful for. -
5:23 - 5:27And many people do articu- [ inaudible ]
-
5:27 - 5:29The term "pinkwashing"
is most frequently used to describe -
5:29 - 5:32the explicit strategy Israel has
undertaken in recent years -
5:32 - 5:34to market itself as a human rights leader,
-
5:34 - 5:42based on its stances on same-sex marriage,
and LGBT military service. -
5:42 - 5:44Israel has explicitly worked with
marketing experts to re-brand itself -
5:44 - 5:48trying to overcome its international reputation
as a brutal occupying force. -
5:48 - 5:51I think particularly in the face of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement -
5:51 - 5:53which has really raised a lot of awareness
-
5:53 - 5:57about, even further than before,
about these issues. -
5:57 - 6:01The new image is focused on portraying Israel
as a modern democracy in the Middle East, -
6:01 - 6:04surrounded by countries with supposedly
less enlightened policy and culture. -
6:04 - 6:08A key feature of that portrayal is
the articulation of Israel as a country -
6:08 - 6:13that recognizes gay and lesbian rights,
specifically marriage and military service, -
6:13 - 6:17and that it is an ideal destination
for gay and lesbian tourism. -
6:17 - 6:20As part of its pinkwashing efforts,
-
6:20 - 6:22Israel has funded tours of Israelis
to the United States -
6:22 - 6:27in order to discuss Israel's military and marriage
laws with respect to gays and lesbians. -
6:27 - 6:31So it's like a really aggressive kind
of propaganda machine. -
6:31 - 6:34Critics of same sex marriage and military
service advocacy in the United States, -
6:34 - 6:37and critics of pinkwashing,
-
6:37 - 6:40have suggested that it's necessary
to look at what these institutions are -
6:40 - 6:46in order to assess whether inclusion in them
is a felicitous goal for queer and trans politics. -
6:46 - 6:49The militaries of both the United States
and Israel have been accused of war crimes, -
6:49 - 6:53and operate daily in what have been identified
as illegal and immoral occupations. -
6:53 - 6:57In the case of Israel,
uh Palestine in the case of Israel. -
6:57 - 6:59And Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii,
-
6:59 - 7:03the part of North America currently known
as the continental United States, -
7:03 - 7:07the Northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands,
and more, in the case of the United States. -
7:07 - 7:12Internally, the U.S. military has a culture
and practice of sexism, racism, and torture, -
7:12 - 7:15that have been consistently identified
by survivors and critics. -
7:15 - 7:19Recent publications and the exposure
of classified documents -
7:19 - 7:22have further highlighted
the lawless violence of the U.S. military, -
7:22 - 7:25and the ways that its operations,
such as the occupation of Iraq, -
7:25 - 7:31are often motivated by profit-seeking corporations
with high level government ties, -
7:31 - 7:35rather than by the democracy-spreading rationales
commonly employed as justification. -
7:35 - 7:40The Israeli military's record similarly shows
-
7:40 - 7:43that from its initial ethnic cleansing
project undertaken in 1948, -
7:43 - 7:45when over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed,
-
7:45 - 7:49the Israeli government has used military power
to forcibly settle the land it now occupies, -
7:49 - 7:53and to remove, destroy, and erase
the prior inhabitants wherever possible. -
7:53 - 7:57The recent outcry against these atrocities
committed by Israel on the inhabitants of Gaza, -
7:57 - 8:04as well as the Israeli military's brutal 2010 raid of
the flotilla bound for Gaza to deliver aid, -
8:04 - 8:06have further drawn international attention.
-
8:06 - 8:12Israel's increasing threats toward Iran are further
building international opposition to Israeli militarism. -
8:12 - 8:15Despite the long-term critique Israeli militarism...
-
8:15 - 8:18[ inaudible ]
-
8:18 - 8:23...the U.S. and Israeli militarism specifically,
-
8:23 - 8:26in many movements that define the American left,
-
8:26 - 8:29the discourse about gay and lesbian soldiers
serving in the U.S. and Israeli militaries -
8:29 - 8:31has garnered support from many people,
-
8:31 - 8:34who otherwise oppose the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, -
8:34 - 8:37the Israeli attacks on Gaza
in 2008, 2009 and 2012, -
8:37 - 8:40and other highly publicized
Israeli and U.S. military activities. -
8:40 - 8:43Images of gay and lesbian service members
in uniform, holding hands and kissing, -
8:43 - 8:45in front of national flags,
-
8:45 - 8:48have successfully stirred
patriotic and pro-military sentiment, -
8:48 - 8:51deadening critical thinking
about patriotism and militarism, -
8:51 - 8:55by asserting such sentiments as a form
of sympathy for gay and lesbian people. -
8:55 - 8:58Similarly, long term left critiques
of marriage have been silenced -
8:58 - 9:02by the combination of relentless
right wing family values rhetoric, -
9:02 - 9:06and the articulation of the desirability of
marriage by same sex marriage advocacy - -
9:06 - 9:09- messages long contested
by feminists and anti racists. -
9:09 - 9:13Such as, that children benefit
from being raised by married parents, -
9:13 - 9:16that married people are healthier,
and contribute more to society, -
9:16 - 9:20or that marriage recognizes the most
important relationship people can have-- -
9:20 - 9:23are now mobilized
by same sex marriage advocates -
9:23 - 9:28and judges writing decisions that are considered
victories for same sex marriage advocacy. -
9:28 - 9:31These pro-marriage messages
are now articulated -
9:31 - 9:34as anti-homophobic statements
in the arguments for same sex marriage. -
9:34 - 9:37Feminist, anti-racist
and anti-colonial movements -
9:37 - 9:43have long worked to dismantle marriage,
and have identified rules about marriage -
9:43 - 9:45as central to organizing
foundational violences of the U.S.: -
9:45 - 9:48slavery, settler colonialism, and genocide.
-
9:48 - 9:51From the beginning, in the United States,
-
9:51 - 9:54marriage laws were key to organizing
who is property and who can hold property. -
9:54 - 10:00Identifying Indigenous systems of gender and family
formation as backward and in need of intervention, -
10:00 - 10:03and enforcing colonial and gender family norms
on Indigenous people -
10:03 - 10:05has been an important part of colonization.
-
10:05 - 10:09Marriage has been an important technology
of land theft and ethnic cleansing, -
10:09 - 10:12aimed at disappearing Indigenous people
in many ways. -
10:12 - 10:14One way, one example,
-
10:14 - 10:18is that the U.S. encouraged westward settlement
by promising male settlers 160 acres... -
10:18 - 10:21to every male settler who would move west,
-
10:21 - 10:27plus an extra 160 acres if he brings a wife.
-
10:27 - 10:31Putting that kind of marriage
as a promotion for settlement -
10:31 - 10:34next to what the U.S.
was simultaneously doing, -
10:34 - 10:40which was criminalizing traditional
Indigenous communal living styles. -
10:40 - 10:43And, like, where I sometimes live in Seattle,
-
10:43 - 10:47y'know, like burning down longhouses
and forcing people not to live in those ways, -
10:47 - 10:50and eliminating communal land holding methods,
-
10:50 - 10:54and enforcing male, individual ownership
-
10:54 - 10:58to facilitate displacing
Indigenous people from their land. -
10:58 - 11:02So in this way, management of
gender and family systems -
11:02 - 11:06has been essential to
displacement and settlement processes. -
11:06 - 11:13It's also been essential to structuring slavery.
-
11:13 - 11:18So, denying the family ties of slaves
was central to slavery, -
11:18 - 11:21ensuring that children would be born enslaved,
-
11:21 - 11:28and then later coercing marriage among newly freed
Black people after supposed emancipation, -
11:28 - 11:35and criminalizing them for adultery was one pathway
of re-capturing them into the convict lease system, -
11:35 - 11:41which was the predecessor of today's
U.S. mass imprisonment project -
11:41 - 11:46that centrally targets Black and native people.
-
11:46 - 11:53Today, marriage is still used to distribute essential
life chances like health care and immigration status, -
11:53 - 11:58in ways that produce and maintain
enormous racial disparities. -
11:58 - 12:02So, there are very few pathways
to immigration in the U.S., -
12:02 - 12:07and those are focused on either your family,
-
12:07 - 12:11so if you don't have any family ties to the U.S.
it's much much harder to immigrate; -
12:11 - 12:20or jobs, which of course, y'know,
is available to extremely few people. -
12:20 - 12:28And we still get our health care through our jobs
and usually through family ties as well. -
12:28 - 12:34So if you don't have a partner or spouse
who has healthcare, you can't get it. -
12:34 - 12:39And given the racialized distribution
of the most highly compensated jobs, -
12:39 - 12:46there's a really severe racial disparity in that
kind of family-based access to healthcare. -
12:46 - 12:51So obviously these are unjust ways to
give out the essential things people need, -
12:51 - 12:58and these kinds of marriage ties to basic needs
traps people in violent family scenarios, -
12:58 - 13:05and just causes most people to
have no path to these necessities. -
13:05 - 13:12So in this way marriage still structures racialized
social control through the family unit and family law. -
13:12 - 13:19And marriage has been specifically central to
anti-Black and anti-poor politics in the U.S. -
13:19 - 13:24There's a strong story
that's been very prevalent in the U.S. -
13:24 - 13:30that the reason people are poor is because they're
morally flawed and they need to get married more. -
13:30 - 13:35So like in 1996 when
President Clinton dismantled welfare, -
13:35 - 13:42that the law that was passed is called the
"Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act", -
13:42 - 13:46you can already hear the sort of racism
and anti-poor sentiment dripping off of that. -
13:46 - 13:51That law, y'know, all of its
findings section is all about -
13:51 - 13:55how the reason people are poor is
'cause they don't marry enough, -
13:55 - 13:57and how we have to get rid of this.
-
13:57 - 14:00And this is based in, y'know,
really racist sociology, -
14:00 - 14:03where one of the most famous
government reports about this -
14:03 - 14:06is called the Moynihan Report of the 1960's.
-
14:06 - 14:08It kind of articulates this idea
-
14:08 - 14:13that Black families were poor because
they were pathologically female-headed. -
14:13 - 14:17So, this notion that family structure
is the problem with poor people, -
14:17 - 14:19and specifically with Black poor people,
-
14:19 - 14:25has been this very prevalent racist notion that's
still very active in welfare policy in the U.S. -
14:25 - 14:29And both George Bush and Obama have had these...
spent millions of dollars on these -
14:29 - 14:34"healthy marriage" promotion projects
that force poor people to marry, -
14:34 - 14:40or that give you a financial incentive
if you're on welfare and you get married. -
14:40 - 14:43So all of this is about blaming poverty
on the failure to marry, -
14:43 - 14:48or the failure to have the state's idea
of a moral family structure. -
14:48 - 14:52Anti-racists and feminists
have sought to dismantle marriage, -
14:52 - 14:55identifying the family as a place of violence,
-
14:55 - 15:02and the institution of marriage as a key form of social
control of sexuality, racialized population control, -
15:02 - 15:07and just not an OK way to distribute life chances,
the basic stuff people need. -
15:07 - 15:10And they've worked to make it easier
to get out of marriage. -
15:10 - 15:14That was a huge feminist legal project for years,
was trying to make it easier to get a divorce, -
15:14 - 15:19because people couldn't get out of marriages
'cause of the way American law structured divorce. -
15:19 - 15:23And feminists have also fought to explode
romance myths and family roles that trap people, -
15:23 - 15:26and to disconnect marriage from vital resources.
-
15:26 - 15:31And there's also been an enormous amount
of legal work in the U.S. -
15:31 - 15:37to get rid of laws that disadvantage people if they
were "illegitimate", if they had un-married parents. -
15:37 - 15:41'Cause those laws, after it was
no longer explicitly permissible -
15:41 - 15:45to have laws that just excluded
Black people from certain opportunities, -
15:45 - 15:48those laws were the replacement.
-
15:48 - 15:52So part of this as well is
a whole history of anti-illegitimacy laws, -
15:52 - 15:55which are really, like, pro-marriage laws
with a penalty, -
15:55 - 15:59to be used in really explicitly anti-Black ways.
-
15:59 - 16:03Like in the U.S., in Israel marriage law
also plays a key role -
16:03 - 16:08in maintaining basic conditions of racialized
hierarchy necessary to settler colonialism. -
16:08 - 16:15This happens in a number of ways that are really
obvious parts of the ethnic cleansing project, -
16:15 - 16:20that seeks to win a demographic war
to ensure that Jews outnumber Arabs, -
16:20 - 16:24and that a particular, narrow defined
kind of Jewish life is cultivated. -
16:24 - 16:29One very obvious example is that
civil marriage does not exist in Israel. -
16:29 - 16:32So marriage between people of different religions,
-
16:32 - 16:36or even between people who have different
matrilineal or patrilineal Jewish heritage -
16:36 - 16:38is not allowed.
-
16:38 - 16:42And hundreds of Israeli couples
fly to Cyprus every month to get married. -
16:42 - 16:46This approach to marriage overall
is contested by many Israelis -
16:46 - 16:51who see it as a threat to freedom of religion;
-
16:51 - 16:55but it more broadly attests to the use of marriage
as a tool of population control -
16:55 - 16:59aimed at settlement and population
displacement and replacement. -
16:59 - 17:02Another prominent example is the
Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law, -
17:02 - 17:08the 2003 law that established that Palestinian
citizens of the Occupied Territories -
17:08 - 17:12who marry Israeli citizens
cannot acquire Israeli residency. -
17:12 - 17:16So Israeli citizens who marry people
from other places -
17:16 - 17:20win family munification through their marriages.
-
17:20 - 17:23Their new spouses can come
and live with them in Israel. -
17:23 - 17:27Since most of the Israeli citizens who marry
Palestinians from the Occupied Territories -
17:27 - 17:30are part of the 20% of Israeli citizens
who are Palestinian, -
17:30 - 17:35this primarily means that the Palestinian families
are being divided by this 2003 law. -
17:35 - 17:39While Jewish people all over the world have
the right to citizenship in Israel, -
17:39 - 17:43and... for immigration purposes interestingly,
-
17:43 - 17:46the definition of Jewish enough is very broad,
-
17:46 - 17:48because the goal is to encourage settlement.
-
17:48 - 17:52And others who marry Israeli citizens
can acquire residency in Israel, -
17:52 - 17:54Palestinians in the Occupied Territories
cannot access residency status -
17:54 - 17:57through their spouses in Israel.
-
17:57 - 18:01And this immigration policy
--and immigration policy in Israel in general-- -
18:01 - 18:06is focused on prioritizing
immigration of Jewish people, -
18:06 - 18:08there's a 3-track immigration system
-
18:08 - 18:13which prioritizes Jewish immigration
with immediate and automatic citizenship, -
18:13 - 18:16places non-Jewish foreign immigration second,
-
18:16 - 18:19with a multi-year process for
gaining residency or citizenship, -
18:19 - 18:24and provides a 3rd track for spouses
of Palestinian citizens of Israel, -
18:24 - 18:27as long as they are not residents
of the Occupied Territories -
18:27 - 18:29or states that Israel has declared enemy states.
-
18:29 - 18:34Unequal marital privileges are part of the
ethnic cleansing project of the state of Israel, -
18:34 - 18:36and impact thousands of families,
-
18:36 - 18:38maintaining forced separations,
-
18:38 - 18:43depriving Palestinian citizens of Israel of access
to state resources for their families, -
18:43 - 18:45that are available to Jewish citizens of Israel;
-
18:45 - 18:49and restricting movement for Palestinians.
-
18:49 - 18:52Clearly, increased access to Israel's
marriage regime for same sex couples -
18:52 - 18:57does not change or reform
the fundamental role of Israeli marriage law, -
18:57 - 19:02in enforcing occupation and state-sponsored racism.
-
19:02 - 19:04Lesbian and gay Palestinian citizens of Israel
-
19:04 - 19:08whose partners are from the Occupied Territories
face the same restrictions as straight people do. -
19:08 - 19:13What does it mean to recognize... to get to
seek recognition in a marriage system -
19:13 - 19:17overtly created to forward
an ethnic cleansing process? -
19:17 - 19:20What does it mean to declare such recognition
as a victory for equality -
19:20 - 19:23or evidence of enlightened human rights policy?
-
19:23 - 19:28[ MC interrupts to ask ] Dean, could we have
it wrap up in about 5 minutes or so? -
19:28 - 19:30[ Dean Spade ] Oh, much sooner than that!
-
19:30 - 19:32[ MC ] Oh, sorry, carry on!
-
19:32 - 19:36[ Dean Spade ] Thank you... I'm sorry that
our technical issues have made me so slow. -
19:36 - 19:39Just have one more paragraph. [ laughs ]
-
19:39 - 19:43The intensifying discourse
of Israeli human rights leadership -
19:43 - 19:49buoyed by same sex marriage and LGB
--and in Israel T-- military service, -
19:49 - 19:54brings to the surface in new ways ongoing tensions
in queer and trans politics, -
19:54 - 19:59about efforts at inclusion
in central state institutions and systems. -
19:59 - 20:02The demands of marriage and military participation
-
20:02 - 20:07are not only far from fulfilling feminist,
queer, trans and anti-racist imaginings -
20:07 - 20:10of sexual and gender liberation,
-
20:10 - 20:14but must also be analyzed as methods
of justifying and sustaining and expanding -
20:14 - 20:17colonial and imperial violence.
-
20:17 - 20:20it's not surprising that these demands
have risen to the surface, -
20:20 - 20:23and drowned out other images
of gender and sexual liberation -
20:23 - 20:25in corporate media owned and dominated
-
20:25 - 20:28by those who have invented and executed
the war on terror, -
20:28 - 20:32and also the same people who don't mind
developing new markets for wedding day creation. -
20:32 - 20:37The same media that has, y'know,
24 hours a day on TV in the United States, -
20:37 - 20:42shows about buying wedding dresses,
and shows about how cops are great and stuff. -
20:42 - 20:47The context... and y'know, movies about
how the U.S. military is amazing... -
20:47 - 20:55this context in the U.S. has created ready
and willing audiences for Israeli pinkwashing, -
20:55 - 21:00which is dearly needed as more and more of the
world names conditions in Israel as apartheid, -
21:00 - 21:06and it becomes more and more essential to maintain
U.S. financial support for Israeli military violence. -
21:06 - 21:12It's become commonplace to convince straight people
--as well as many queer people, -
21:12 - 21:13amazingly, even those who would say
they are anti-war-- -
21:13 - 21:19that our liberation is about becoming soldiers
and spouses, recuperating oppressive structures -
21:19 - 21:22by putting a gay flag on them
and saying they are good for gays. -
21:22 - 21:27I would argue that centuries of feminist,
anti-colonial, and anti-racist resistance -
21:27 - 21:30have proven that marriage and the military
are not good for anyone. -
21:30 - 21:34Today's anti-pinkwashing activists are encouraging
-
21:34 - 21:40those invested in resisting sexual, gender, and family
formation norms, to develop discernment, -
21:40 - 21:46not asking just "can we be included in existing
structures?", but "what are those structures?" -
21:46 - 21:54And if it's a prison cell, a cop, a tank, a wall,
a border, a soldier, or a state family formation norm, -
21:54 - 21:57you can wrap it in a rainbow flag all you want,
-
21:57 - 22:00and it still won't be anti-homophobic,
feminist or liberating. -
22:00 - 22:04So we have to ask: "can you have a movement
for sexual liberation or gender liberation -
22:04 - 22:08that does not contest colonization,
-
22:08 - 22:11especially when sexual and family regulation
is a central tool of colonization?" -
22:11 - 22:15I wonder, will contemporary
gay rights frameworks be remembered -
22:15 - 22:19as pro-war, pro-military, and pro-apartheid?
-
22:19 - 22:22That's all. [ audience claps ]
-
22:24 - 22:28[ Isabel Krupp, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid,
AKA QuAIA ] -
22:28 - 22:29My name's Isabel Krupp,
-
22:29 - 22:33and I'm a member of Queers Against
Israeli Apartheid, Vancouver, -
22:33 - 22:36which I'll refer to as QuAIA from now on,
-
22:36 - 22:40just so I don't trip over my own tongue
while I'm speaking. -
22:40 - 22:45I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we're on
un-ceded and occupied Coast Salish Territories, -
22:45 - 22:50the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish,
Stó:lō and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. -
22:50 - 22:56And this acknowledgement of the ongoing occupation
and colonization of this land, of Turtle Island, -
22:56 - 23:00is foundational to all of the work that QuAIA does.
-
23:00 - 23:04So, recognizing the ongoing
impacts of settler colonialism, -
23:04 - 23:10and working in solidarity with Indigenous movements
for sovereignty and decolonization, -
23:10 - 23:13is really what QuAIA is all about.
-
23:13 - 23:19We're a Palestine solidarity organization,
we work in solidarity with Palestinian movements -
23:19 - 23:24for sovereignty and against Israeli
apartheid, occupation, and colonization. -
23:24 - 23:27So it's really important for us
-
23:27 - 23:32to recognize how Canada and Israel
bolster each other’s colonial occupations, -
23:32 - 23:38both ideologically and materially, through
political, military, and economic support. -
23:39 - 23:43And I'd like to point out that Canada is one of the
key supporters of Israel in the world right now. -
23:43 - 23:49So if we want to effectively fight
against Israeli apartheid and occupation, -
23:49 - 23:56we need also to come out against
settler-colonialism here in Canada. -
23:56 - 24:01So for folks who would like to explore
these connections further, -
24:01 - 24:06there is a brilliant paper by Dana Olwan and Mike
Krebs on the topic, which I highly recommend. -
24:06 - 24:11So I've already used the phrase
“Israeli apartheid” several times. -
24:11 - 24:17and I know that's something that Dean has talked
about so I'm going to try not to overlap too much, -
24:17 - 24:20but I imagine that some folks in the audience
-
24:20 - 24:23aren't as familiar with a critical perspective
on the Israeli state. -
24:23 - 24:28I won't have time to get into like
an Israeli Apartheid 101 today, -
24:28 - 24:32so I encourage those less familiar with this topic
to seek out critical resources, -
24:32 - 24:35which QuAIA would be happy to help provide.
-
24:35 - 24:40But I will describe very briefly what I mean
when I say Israeli apartheid. -
24:40 - 24:45I'm talking about Palestinians in the West Bank
who live under a brutal military occupation, -
24:45 - 24:50which takes the form of illegal Israeli settlements,
-
24:50 - 24:56checkpoints, and a system of walls, barriers,
and roads accessible solely to Israeli settlers. -
24:56 - 25:00I'm talking about Palestinians living in Israel
who face discriminatory policies. -
25:00 - 25:04Like Dean was talking about a little bit,
currently there are over 25 laws -
25:04 - 25:09which target them specifically as non-Jewish
and reduce them to second class citizens. -
25:09 - 25:15I'm talking about Palestinians in the diaspora
and in UN-administered refugee camps -
25:15 - 25:21who are by default denied their UN-sanctioned
right to return to their lands. -
25:21 - 25:25And I'm talking about over 1.8 million
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip -
25:25 - 25:29who are living in an open air prison
under an illegal siege, -
25:29 - 25:33described by international experts
as a "slow genocide". -
25:33 - 25:37So again, I encourage anyone surprised by what
I am saying or what Dean was talking about -
25:37 - 25:43to seek out critical resources and particularly
to seek out Palestinian perspectives. -
25:43 - 25:47So, there is a growing international movement
– led by Palestinians – -
25:47 - 25:49against Israeli apartheid and occupation.
-
25:49 - 25:56In response, Israel's launched an aggressive well
funded PR campaign that Dean was talking about -
25:56 - 26:00to market itself as an oasis of tolerance
in the Middle East, -
26:00 - 26:03as this modern liberal democratic state –
-
26:03 - 26:07specifically, the only democracy
in the Middle East, right? – -
26:07 - 26:10in order to obscure its status
as an apartheid state. -
26:10 - 26:13And I think it's important to point out
that the implication here -
26:13 - 26:20is that Israel needs to practice apartheid,
colonialism, and genocide -
26:20 - 26:26in order to preserve these freedoms and democracy
and rights for gays and lesbians, right? -
26:26 - 26:32'Cause like Dean was describing, gay rights
discourse is a big piece of this PR campaign – -
26:32 - 26:40Israel is working really hard to brand itself
as the only gay-friendly country -
26:40 - 26:42in what they frame as an otherwise
hostile and homophobic region. -
26:42 - 26:46And we can see really clearly how this plays into
racist, imperialist, and orientalist ideas -
26:46 - 26:52around the “West” as modern and civilized
and the “East” as barbaric and backwards, right? -
26:52 - 26:59So this practice of appropriating
the struggle for gay rights discourse -
26:59 - 27:03to obscure, excuse, or justify state violence
is called “pinkwashing”. -
27:03 - 27:06And Dean made that very clear...
-
27:06 - 27:09And this practice, I'd like to point out,
is not unique to Israel. -
27:09 - 27:13In the Canadian context, we see an example of this
-
27:13 - 27:18when we look at the re-branding of the tar sands
and this idea, this myth of “ethical oil”, right? -
27:18 - 27:22In opposition to so-called “conflict oil” that
comes from countries like Saudi Arabia, -
27:22 - 27:28which are again constructed through
racist narratives as exceptionally homophobic. -
27:28 - 27:32So one of the things that
this practice of pinkwashing erases -
27:32 - 27:39is how state violence, including colonialism
and apartheid, impacts all Palestinians, -
27:39 - 27:42queer and straight, trans and cis.
-
27:42 - 27:45“There is no pink door in the apartheid wall” right?
-
27:45 - 27:50We hear this phrase, this slogan
in anti-pinkwashing activism, -
27:50 - 27:53“There is no pink door in the apartheid wall”.
-
27:53 - 27:58All of these supposed rights and freedoms
of “gay! friendly! Israel!”, -
27:58 - 28:01they don't extend to Palestinians.
-
28:01 - 28:04And as much as the Israeli state
decries Palestinian homophobia, -
28:04 - 28:10its regime of apartheid and occupation
creates challenges and barriers -
28:10 - 28:17for queer and trans Palestinians organizing
against homophobia and transphobia. -
28:17 - 28:24So I'm gonna, I'm gonna read a little quote
from a Palestinian queer organization, -
28:24 - 28:27Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment,
and Sanctions. And they say: -
28:27 - 28:32“As Palestinian queers, our struggle is not only
against social injustice -
28:32 - 28:37and our rights as a queer minority
in Palestinian society, -
28:37 - 28:43but rather, our main struggle is one against
Israel's colonization, occupation and apartheid; -
28:43 - 28:48a system that has oppressed us
for the past 63 years" -
28:48 - 28:50So that's Palestinian Queers for BDS.
-
28:50 - 28:53And I think this statement makes a lot of sense
-
28:53 - 28:56when we think about how social movements
for gender and sexual freedom -
28:56 - 29:01are contingent on freedom from the daily violence
of colonization, occupation, and apartheid. -
29:01 - 29:07I also want to acknowledge that these social
movements are alive and well in Palestine, -
29:07 - 29:10and several members of QuAIA Vancouver
-
29:10 - 29:15were able to meet a number of amazing Palestinian
queer and trans activists at the recent -
29:15 - 29:20World Social Forum "Free Palestine" in Brazil,
which included a Queer Visions stream. -
29:20 - 29:25So Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is one of
a growing number of queer activist groups -
29:25 - 29:28working to resist the pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid.
-
29:28 - 29:34And as queers and trans folks, we have the power
to interrupt this practice of pinkwashing. -
29:34 - 29:41When we come out against Israeli apartheid,
we interfere with the myth-making that's vital -
29:41 - 29:47to letting Israel get away with apartheid, colonialism,
and other forms state violence. -
29:47 - 29:50So, to give some background on QuAIA Vancouver:
-
29:50 - 29:55There's been a QuAIA presence in the Vancouver
Pride Parade for the past several years, -
29:55 - 30:00which I attended but personally
wasn't involved in organizing, -
30:00 - 30:03and I want to recognize that work that took place;
-
30:03 - 30:07but the current iteration of QuAIA Vancouver
came together just last summer -
30:07 - 30:14in response to 2 Israeli-funded films that were
being screened at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. -
30:14 - 30:16They were called “Joe + Belle” and “Invisible Men”.
-
30:16 - 30:21And in response to the screening of these films,
we came together under the banner of QuAIA -
30:21 - 30:29to call on the Queer Film Festival to come out in
solidarity with Palestinian queers and trans folks, -
30:29 - 30:34ultimately, to challenge pinkwashing
-
30:34 - 30:39by honouring the cultural boycott of Israel
for future seasons of the Festival. -
30:39 - 30:42So for those of you who aren't familiar
with the idea of cultural boycott -- -
30:42 - 30:44Dean mentioned BDS.
-
30:44 - 30:49So, in 2005, Palestinian civil society
launched a global movement -
30:49 - 30:53for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel,
which we call BDS. -
30:53 - 30:57So this includes economic boycotts,
divestment, sanctions advocacy, -
30:57 - 31:00but also a cultural and academic boycott,
-
31:00 - 31:05which targets cultural institutions,
projects, and events -
31:05 - 31:10that continue to serve the purposes of
the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime. -
31:10 - 31:15So I want to be clear that cultural boycott doesn't
target artists or filmmakers based on nationality, -
31:15 - 31:20but rather targets officially sponsored voices
that serve the interests of apartheid. -
31:20 - 31:26So in this context, we felt and we feel that it
is very important to call on our queer institutions, -
31:26 - 31:30like the Vancouver Queer Film Festival
-
31:30 - 31:33to come out against the Israeli apartheid regime,
-
31:33 - 31:39because if this queer film festival,
if this is a queer film festival, -
31:39 - 31:42it belongs to all of us, right?
-
31:42 - 31:45Including any Palestinian and Arab queers
and queers of colour -
31:45 - 31:52who may feel alienated from a festival that aligns
itself with institutional advocates for apartheid. -
31:52 - 31:57So as the Festival gears up again this Spring,
we're going to be organizing to make this happen, -
31:57 - 32:00to call on the Vancouver Queer Film Festival
-
32:00 - 32:04to come out in support of
Palestinian queer and trans folks. -
32:04 - 32:08So in the coming months,
we'll need community support. -
32:08 - 32:11And we want encourage everybody here today
to sign up for our email list, -
32:11 - 32:15which, there's a signup list at the back of the room,
-
32:15 - 32:18and to like us on Facebook if you're on there
[ laughter ], -
32:18 - 32:21and most importantly to come out
to future events and actions. -
32:21 - 32:24Because if we want to
hold our institutions accountable, -
32:24 - 32:29we need to show them
that we care about this, right? -
32:29 - 32:32So, yeah, because apartheid is a queer issue
-
32:32 - 32:36- it's not only a queer issue
but clearly it's a queer issue - -
32:36 - 32:42and as queers and trans folks
i think our role in this struggle is clear: -
32:42 - 32:46There's no pride in apartheid!
[ audience cheers ] -
32:46 - 32:49[ Anna Soole, Social Justice
& Decolonization Facilitator ] -
32:49 - 32:52Thank you Isabel, that was a great ending.
I liked that little... -
32:52 - 32:57So, first I want to say thank you
to Dean and Isabel for what you said, -
32:57 - 33:00and I want to say thank you
to Harsha for what you're gonna say, -
33:00 - 33:01and SFPIRG for having us.
-
33:01 - 33:05And I want to acknowledge that we are on
traditional Coast Salish territory. -
33:05 - 33:10And that I am... so... my name is Anna Soole,
and I'm Métis. -
33:10 - 33:16I'm Cree, Ojibwe, Apache, Algonquin and Lakota,
and I'm also French, Celtic, Dutch and German. -
33:16 - 33:23That's a lot of things to remember.
I'm kind of like a Heinz 57... -
33:23 - 33:27and so [ laughs ] I'm gonna be speaking
to my own personal experience, -
33:27 - 33:30more than... I'm not an academic,
-
33:30 - 33:35and so my framework is much more
cultural and from my own perspective. -
33:35 - 33:38And I'm gonna share some stories,
and I'm gonna share a little bit about who I am -
33:38 - 33:42and how what we're talking about today
has impacted me as an Indigenous woman. -
33:42 - 33:45And, before I do...
-
33:45 - 33:50one of the things in the work that I do
-I do decolonization work- -
33:50 - 33:55one of the things that's really important to me
is acknowledge the space that we're in. -
33:55 - 33:58And the space that we're in is what?
-
33:58 - 34:01Just call it out, what do you see?
-
34:01 - 34:04Concrete!
What else? -
34:05 - 34:08Rows! Exactly!
-
34:08 - 34:12So, we're in a space that is
specifically a settler space. -
34:12 - 34:16And so I just want to acknowledge that
we're talking about decolonization, -
34:16 - 34:20we're talking about colonialism, settler colonialism,
inside a settler space. -
34:20 - 34:26And in my culture, does anybody know
how we would be set up? -
34:26 - 34:28In a circle.
-
34:28 - 34:31And so a circle keeps us accountable to each other,
-
34:31 - 34:35so I often have a lot of conflict
about sitting on a panel, -
34:35 - 34:38because I feel uncomfortable
with a table between me and a group. -
34:38 - 34:44I feel uncomfortable being the voice,
when there's so much knowledge in a room. -
34:44 - 34:48And so I just want to acknowledge that,
and my own conflict with it. -
34:48 - 34:55And acknowledge ways... maybe in the future...
maybe how can we look at that as a group, -
34:55 - 34:58the people that are here,
-
34:58 - 35:02how can we look at that and changing these systems
that we're inside of even in this moment? -
35:02 - 35:05Um...
-
35:06 - 35:09So, just about me, I wanna acknowledge...
-
35:09 - 35:13I'm from a working class, Métis family,
-
35:13 - 35:15and I'm personally, financially, somewhat precarious,
-
35:15 - 35:18queer, and I have no high school diploma.
-
35:18 - 35:24But I present as a white, straight, middle class,
educated and employable person, -
35:24 - 35:29so I carry a level of privilege that my contemporaries
who wear their station more visibly -
35:29 - 35:32don't necessarily have access to.
-
35:32 - 35:37But that is specifically related to
my experience as an Indigenous woman, -
35:37 - 35:41because when Dean was talking about marriage,
-
35:41 - 35:46that was the topic that struck me the most,
that I wanted to speak to the most. -
35:46 - 35:49Talking about marriage and colonialism
in my family, -
35:49 - 35:53both of my grandmothers are Indigenous,
-
35:53 - 35:56and they both went to day school,
which is a lot like residential school, -
35:56 - 36:00and one of my grandmothers ran away when she
was 12 years old from Quebec to Vancouver; -
36:00 - 36:04and my other grandmother,
her whole family left Edmonton, -
36:04 - 36:10where we were well-established, well-known,
activist family that had everything stolen from us, -
36:10 - 36:13and the University of Alberta
is now built on our homestead. -
36:13 - 36:20So everybody came here, and both of my
grandmothers out of survival married white men. -
36:20 - 36:24And so I, every single day of my life,
-
36:24 - 36:27walk through the world carrying
the legacy of colonization on my skin. -
36:27 - 36:33Because I carry a privilege that was designed,
-
36:33 - 36:37and the design was for me to not identify
as an Indigenous person. -
36:37 - 36:40And so it's a radical act
for me to never identify as white. -
36:40 - 36:46Although I recognize my white privilege,
I identify as genocide white. -
36:46 - 36:50So my friend D. Williams, she was talking about
this concept of genocide white -- -
36:50 - 36:54or genocide brown depending on the experience-
-
36:54 - 36:58and for me that makes sense, because the reason
my skin is white is because of genocide. -
36:58 - 37:03And so it's a complicated experience for me
[ laughs ] to say the least. -
37:03 - 37:10When Indigenous women married white men,
they lost any status they might have. -
37:10 - 37:14Métis women actually didn't have any
status until the 80's -- -
37:14 - 37:22actually we didn't have any status until this month
[ laughs ] We have status now. -
37:22 - 37:26What we had was citizenship in the 80's,
-
37:26 - 37:34and so my grandmothers, they made their choices
according to that history. And it impacted my life. -
37:34 - 37:41It impacted abuse that was in my family and in my,
and in my own... on my own personal body. -
37:41 - 37:44And so, uh, I carry that with me every day.
-
37:44 - 37:49So I wanna... I just wanna read my notes because...
-
37:49 - 37:53it's nerve-wracking to
talk in front of a bunch of people -
37:53 - 37:56especially when you're not in a circle!
[ laughs ] It's really nerve-wracking! -
37:56 - 38:00So I'm just gonna look at my notes...
OK so the next thing I wanted to touch on -
38:00 - 38:04is that I was raised by a single mother,
she never got married, -
38:04 - 38:08and I never thought about marriage growing up.
-
38:08 - 38:13It wasn't something that like a lot of girls
in particular, people who are raised as girls, -
38:13 - 38:16are expected to think about their wedding day.
-
38:16 - 38:20There's a lot of pressure, socialization
to think about your wedding day, -
38:20 - 38:23think about what it's gonna be like to get married,
plan on getting married... I never had that. -
38:23 - 38:26And my experience was actually
that my mother was... was really... -
38:26 - 38:31she really didn't want me to get married.
-
38:31 - 38:37And... but I also saw the other side of it,
which was that my mother was a single mother, -
38:37 - 38:43and she didn't have access to a lot of the things
that my friends had access to, my friends parents. -
38:43 - 38:45My mom couldn't get a loan
without a man in the 80's, and so -
38:45 - 38:47we were very poor for a long period of time until
my mother joined the system, worked for the city, -
38:47 - 38:56and literally broke her back working for
her whole life so that we could survive. -
38:56 - 38:59So it's a complicated system.
-
38:59 - 39:03The reason we get... a lot of people feel
the pressure to get married, -
39:03 - 39:07is because the structure that we live inside
doesn't support not being married. -
39:07 - 39:12And so, what I wanted to sorta think about
or get people thinking about is -
39:12 - 39:18if you only have 1 concept of what is possible,
-
39:18 - 39:21of course you're gonna want to
live inside that concept. -
39:21 - 39:26So the paradox of human agency, speaks to the
idea that people's choices are never straightforward. -
39:26 - 39:32The context of our present particular times
and places, constraints and possibility, -
39:32 - 39:38shape not only our choices,
but even what we can imagine for ourselves. -
39:38 - 39:43So right now the queer community, especially in
the U.S., because in Canada we have marriage rights, -
39:43 - 39:47but in the U.S. the queer community
is trying to fit inside a structure -
39:47 - 39:51that is the only structure
that people can comprehend. -
39:51 - 39:58And if there's only one structure,
people are not going to be able to... -
39:58 - 40:03if there's only one possibility,
if it seems like there's only one possibility, -
40:03 - 40:08people aren't necessarily going to be able to create
the world that they would want for themselves -
40:08 - 40:11in a different system.
-
40:11 - 40:15So, uh, this is not just a... this is also about
the politics of identity. -
40:15 - 40:17It's about the politics of union,
and it's about the politics of family, -
40:17 - 40:22because if I'm gonna grow up
and become an old woman, -
40:22 - 40:28and not have a family to take care of me,
I'm basically going to be living in poverty. -
40:28 - 40:33And so, there's a lot of pressure on me
as a woman, to have children. -
40:33 - 40:38And there's a lot of pressure on me as a woman,
to have children, and be in a couple, -
40:38 - 40:44a specific kind of couple, with a romantic partner,
preferably a male, a cisgendered male. -
40:44 - 40:48So there's all of these pressures
that I'm expected to live inside of, -
40:48 - 40:53and, yes I want to have children, but I don't want
to have that pressure or that expectation, -
40:53 - 40:57I don't want it to be coming
from the fear of ending up alone. -
40:57 - 40:59So...
-
41:04 - 41:10I have an excerpt from an article that I wrote
about whether or not I wanted to be a mother... -
41:10 - 41:13thank you! It's perfect, it's how I wanted to end...
-
41:13 - 41:20So... the dominant culture has come to view
family as a small scale, intensely private unit. -
41:20 - 41:25In a healthy, traditional aboriginal community,
a child doesn't have just one mother. -
41:25 - 41:29She has aunties, cousins, sisters,
grandmas, and family friends. -
41:29 - 41:33Often, a biological mother is not
the most significant female in the child's life, -
41:33 - 41:39and this is not viewed as neglectful, as child psych-
ologist Dr. John Bowlby would have had us believe -
41:39 - 41:46when he said mid 20th century, when he mid
20th century coined the term "maternal deprivation". -
41:46 - 41:50In fact, it would be quite the opposite.
-
41:50 - 41:53The child has so many caregivers
in an aboriginal community -- -
41:53 - 41:57or a traditional prior to colonization
aboriginal community-- -
41:57 - 42:00that she is able to connect with and bond
to the women, men, or Two-Spirited people, -
42:00 - 42:02that are right for her at that time in her growth.
-
42:02 - 42:08Previous bonds with other women aren't lost or bro-
ken but maintained and evolved as the child evolves. -
42:08 - 42:13This works because the well-being of the family
community is valued above the individual, -
42:13 - 42:19whereas in contemporary settler colonial culture,
the individual is valued above the whole. -
42:19 - 42:23Bowlby's legacy has clearly entered
the dominant ideology of motherhood. -
42:23 - 42:29The requirement is that the individual mother should
have total responsibility for her own children at all times. -
42:29 - 42:33This has informed the decisions of colonizers
to remove children -
42:33 - 42:38from these traditional Indigenous family situations,
which we saw in the 60's Scoop, -
42:38 - 42:42which was taking Indigenous children out of their
homes and putting them into foster homes, -
42:42 - 42:45and it's still happening to this day.
-
42:45 - 42:49Indigenous children are taken
out of their homes and put in foster homes -
42:49 - 42:52more than any other children in Canada.
-
42:52 - 42:56... lost my place...
-
42:56 - 43:01...because the ethic of domination
has been used to corrupt, violate, -
43:01 - 43:04and attempt to destroy these traditions
through privatization of the family, -
43:04 - 43:08it's often challenging for the individualistic culture
of the colonized and colonizers -
43:08 - 43:12to understand or see the merits
in multi-shared child rearing. -
43:12 - 43:20In my ideal world, an interdependent community
of peaceful, practical, creative, spiritual people, -
43:20 - 43:23working together to respect and tend to the earth,
and each other, -
43:23 - 43:29sharing responsibility for each other's well-being,
and the well-being of the children, -
43:29 - 43:32whether a mother is single or attached
is irrelevant, -
43:32 - 43:35as the child has many dedicated,
loving role models of every gender, -
43:35 - 43:39who are positively engaged
in every aspect of the child's life. -
43:39 - 43:42Prospective parents make informed decisions
about when and whether to have children, -
43:42 - 43:45and access to birth control is unquestioned.
-
43:45 - 43:49The elderly are cared for by the whole community,
regardless of their blood ties, -
43:49 - 43:53and all community members basic needs are met.
-
43:53 - 43:57Some might label these values as anti-racist,
eco-feminist, with socialist leanings... -
43:57 - 44:01but I prefer the title Indigenous Feminist,
and I wear that with pride. -
44:01 - 44:09And I have one final thing, because I only have prob-
ably one minute left. I found this on Facebook today. -
44:09 - 44:11[ whispers to a fellow panelist ] Would you be willing
to hold this up? Thank you. -
44:11 - 44:18And I'll describe it for people who...
who can't see it. -
44:18 - 44:22So, it's a series of three circles at the bottom.
-
44:22 - 44:29The 1st circle has a series of multiple blue circles
in it, and outside is multicoloured circles. -
44:29 - 44:32And this is labeled as "Exclusion".
-
44:32 - 44:36So all around the border of the circle
has the multicoloured circles. -
44:36 - 44:41The 2nd circle has the blue circles in the centre,
and a smaller circle on the outside. -
44:41 - 44:47And it's got all the multicoloured circles in it.
Labeled as "Segregation". -
44:47 - 44:54The 3rd circle has blue circles inside of it, and
another circle inside of it with multicoloured circles. -
44:54 - 44:57And that's called "Integration".
-
44:57 - 45:02The final circle has all the circles,
blue and multicoloured, inside of it, -
45:02 - 45:05which changes the entire
formation of what it looks like. -
45:05 - 45:07And that's called "Inclusion".
-
45:07 - 45:13And I've worked in many non-Indigenous
organizations as an Indigenous person, -
45:13 - 45:18and it's... of course I'm the Indigenous person
who looks white, right? -
45:18 - 45:22So I get hired because I look like everybody else,
and I can easily fit into white culture. -
45:22 - 45:25Or so people think until they know me.
[ laughs ] -
45:25 - 45:31And so, what we're talking about here is
literally changing the structure of society. -
45:31 - 45:38So, not changing, not getting queer people to
be able to get married and join the military, -
45:38 - 45:41but what we're talking about
is getting rid of the military. -
45:41 - 45:47Changing the ideas of marriage. Changing our
ideas of what partnership and family looks like. -
45:47 - 45:49Thank you.
[ applause ] -
45:50 - 45:55[ Harsha Walia, No One Is Illegal ]
-
45:55 - 46:01That was it! [ audience laughter ]
That visual's incredible. -
46:01 - 46:05Thank you to the organizers
and thank everyone for being here, -
46:05 - 46:09thank you Dean and Isabel and Anna
for really amazing presentations. -
46:09 - 46:14I want to start by acknowledging that we're on
un-ceded, occupied, Coast Salish territories, -
46:14 - 46:18lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh,
Squamish and Stó:lō people. -
46:18 - 46:21And also too, as other speakers mentioned,
to really understand in a deep way what it means -
46:21 - 46:24to root our work
within an anti-colonial framework, -
46:24 - 46:31and what it means to really truly be in alliance with
Indigenous struggles against settler colonialism. -
46:31 - 46:35And everything that that means, right?
It means multiple things. -
46:35 - 46:38It means fighting in defense of the land,
it means fighting violence against women, -
46:38 - 46:42it means fighting against prisons and police,
and the military, -
46:42 - 46:46and all of the aspects of settler colonialism
that seep into our lives and our societies, -
46:46 - 46:50and the ways in which we live here on Turtle Island.
-
46:50 - 46:56I wanna pick up where folks were kinda left off,
and what people were talking about... -
46:56 - 47:00and particularly some of the stuff
that Dean was talking about -
47:00 - 47:03in terms of the co-optation of
queer and trans liberation movements -
47:03 - 47:06as well as women of colour movements,
-
47:06 - 47:11particularly for imperial, capitalist,
and colonial ambitions. -
47:11 - 47:15And particularly to talk about that in the intersection
of immigration, both historically and currently. -
47:15 - 47:19Y'know, first I do want to say
that it's not new, right? -
47:19 - 47:22There's this kind of new framework
that's been developing, -
47:22 - 47:27particularly with homonationalism when we talk
about it, or pinkwashing when we talk about it, -
47:27 - 47:30but I really think it's important to understand
that this recent branding has a long legacy -
47:30 - 47:34and has a long history in terms of colonial politics.
-
47:34 - 47:39And y'know in particular colonialism has
always cast people of colour communities -
47:39 - 47:43as barbaric, and savage, and backwards,
as you were mentioning Isabel. -
47:43 - 47:46And this is not new, right?
-
47:46 - 47:49The kind of gay-saving rhetoric
and the ideology of it is also not new. -
47:49 - 47:53I'm gonna give some historic examples of that.
-
47:53 - 47:57Most people think that that is a recent kind of...
-
47:57 - 48:03a recent evolution of y'know "save the women!"
[ laughs ] but they've both always worked together. -
48:03 - 48:07And so the kind of "save 3rd world women", "save
women of colour" and y'know, "save 3rd world gays", -
48:07 - 48:13have always been attendant processes of colo-
nialism, and have always been part of that project. -
48:13 - 48:17And the thing that is most deeply
offensive and ironic about that of course -
48:17 - 48:21is that colonialism itself has imposed
the most hetero-normative, patriarchal system -
48:21 - 48:25on communities of colour, right?
Particularly through the Victorian era. -
48:25 - 48:28So you have this simultaneous
kind of rhetoric and discourse -
48:28 - 48:34of saving communities of colour, while at the
same time imposing the most rigid and oppressive -
48:34 - 48:38family and community and societal structures
on our communities, right? -
48:38 - 48:41So, there's nothing kind of new about this.
-
48:41 - 48:46So I want to look at some examples,
particularly through a lens of immigration. -
48:46 - 48:50There's of course y'know a lot
of conversation that we've had, -
48:50 - 48:54Isabel laid out a lot of amazing history
in terms of pinkwashing, -
48:54 - 48:57Dean also talked about it
in the context of pinkwashing, -
48:57 - 48:59also the examples as we know of course
of the occupation of Afghanistan, -
48:59 - 49:04where, y'know, the entire rhetoric of occupation
and colonialism both locally and globally -
49:04 - 49:08has been rooted in this white saviour
industrial complex if you will, -
49:08 - 49:13but I also want to look at it through the lens
of immigration, which isn't often talked about, -
49:13 - 49:19and the ways in which state controls and border
controls are operating through these ways as well. -
49:19 - 49:22So, y'know, a lot of people here probably know
about the Komagata Maru, right? -
49:22 - 49:28So, the Komagata Maru was the ship in 1914
that turned, that was turned away -
49:28 - 49:31-376 predominantly Punjabi immigrants-
-
49:31 - 49:36was turned away from the shores of
British Columbia, here on the west coast. -
49:36 - 49:43And y'know, that's known as a very obvious
example of anti-migrant history in Canada. -
49:43 - 49:49Y'know, the Tory government recently made
an apology -or a kind of half-apology- -
49:49 - 49:54for the Komagata Maru, in the same vein as
the apology for the residential schools, -
49:54 - 49:57in the same vein as the apology
of the Chinese Head Tax, -
49:57 - 50:03y'know, totally token, offensive, symbolic gestures,
but y'know, people know about the Komagata Maru. -
50:03 - 50:05The thing that most people don't know about
-
50:05 - 50:10is the sodomy cases that were happening at the
same time as the Komagata Maru was happening. -
50:10 - 50:14So during 1909 and 1925, there was
a number of sodomy cases -
50:14 - 50:18that were being tried particularly
in the west coast of Canada. -
50:18 - 50:24And the largest proportion of men being tried
under sodomy laws at the time were Sikh men. -
50:24 - 50:29And in particular there was a really high profile case
in 1915... has anyone seen Rex Vs. Singh? -
50:29 - 50:34If not... check out the movie,
it's a really important movie, y'know, -
50:34 - 50:40that links and ties the connection between anti-
migrant sentiment and homophobia and transphobia, -
50:40 - 50:44and in particular with
the criminalization of communities -
50:44 - 50:48and the assertion of state power
in the act of criminalization. -
50:48 - 50:51And so in 1915, there was
a relatively high-profile "case", -
50:51 - 50:56where there were two Sikh men,
they were two Sikh millworkers, -
50:56 - 51:01and their names were Dalip Singh and [Naina] Singh,
-
51:01 - 51:04and they were two men
who were tried for sodomy in 1915. -
51:04 - 51:10And this was a time of... right.. one year after
the Komagata Maru was turned back, right? -
51:10 - 51:14So, this is again happening in a period
when there's heightened -
51:14 - 51:18-particularly anti-Sikh anti-Punjabi,
anti-south Asian- sentiment in BC, -
51:18 - 51:24where newspapers are filled with y'know, "Turn back
the Hindus!", "Hindus are invading our shores!", -
51:24 - 51:29while at the same time there's also a simultaneous
crackdown on working class gay men, -
51:29 - 51:33in particular, working in the mills.
-
51:33 - 51:37And so, the sodomy cases really are a confluence
of the ways in which the state -
51:37 - 51:40is simultaneously criminalizing under sodomy laws,
-
51:40 - 51:43and simultaneously criminalizing
under anti-migrant laws. -
51:43 - 51:49And again, the largest proportion of men tried
under these cases during 1909 to 1929 -
51:49 - 51:52were Sikh men, Sikh migrant men.
-
51:52 - 51:57And so again I say that to show
kind of an historic trajectory, -
51:57 - 52:03of the ways in which the state has been
actively criminalizing communities of colour, -
52:03 - 52:07particularly queer and trans communities of colour
through state processes. -
52:07 - 52:10And so I wanna move quickly to the current context,
-
52:10 - 52:14because again there's often a sense
that all of this is new. -
52:14 - 52:18And again in the current context we see
the same kind of thing, where on the one hand -
52:18 - 52:22the Canadian state is actively excluding
queer and trans communities of colour, -
52:22 - 52:26while at the same time it's upholding the myth
-
52:26 - 52:30of being welcoming for persecuted
queer and trans folks from the global south. -
52:30 - 52:33And so we see that these
parallel discourses are necessary. -
52:33 - 52:38So one of them is the kind of homonationalist dis-
course; y'know, similar to the Israeli pinkwashing: -
52:38 - 52:43"We're so welcoming", "We're this bastion
of queer and gay rights", -
52:43 - 52:47"Western civilization frees everybody", y'know,
"Western civilization is where equality rests"; -
52:47 - 52:53while at the same time, the reality on the ground
is one that is actively of persecution. -
52:53 - 52:57We see, particularly through immigration laws,
the ways in which heteronormativity -
52:57 - 53:02-and particularly an assimilation politic-
at various levels is being reinforced. -
53:02 - 53:09So one really kind of obvious on the face example,
is that until 2002 same-sex relationships -
53:09 - 53:12-so this is just same sex relationships,
-
53:12 - 53:16we're not even talking about diverse
queer familial relationships- -
53:16 - 53:20same sex relationships were not even recognized
until 2002 under the Canadian immigration Act -
53:20 - 53:25as being able to be qualified
under the Family Class, right? -
53:25 - 53:29So this is 10 years ago, or how many years ago?
10 years ago, right? -
53:29 - 53:34This is very recent, in terms of
Canadian immigration policy. -
53:34 - 53:38But just to move to kind of more recent examples,
-
53:38 - 53:42and then to talk about the ways in which homo-
nationalism has been an active part of Jason Kenney -
53:42 - 53:48-who is the current Minister of Deportation,
as some of us like to call him- -
53:48 - 53:52there's a number of ways in which we see...
I wanna talk about 3 of many examples, -
53:52 - 53:57I'll only give 3 examples ... of the ways
in which that active exclusion is happening, -
53:57 - 54:01and persecution is happening,
of queers and trans folks -
54:01 - 54:06who are trying to immigrate and particularly
claim asylum within Canada, -
54:06 - 54:10and then the final thing is kind of fortification of
homonationalism through the immigration system. -
54:10 - 54:13So the first is, y'know, the citizenship guide.
-
54:13 - 54:19So the citizenship guide was a brand new citizenship
guide for Canada, espouses Canadian values... -
54:19 - 54:23and we find out through the citizenship guide
that Canadian values means -
54:23 - 54:27-absolutely no reference to
queer and trans liberation struggles, -
54:27 - 54:30it doesn't even mention same sex marriage.
-
54:30 - 54:34But what it does have is a number
of recruitment ads into the military. -
54:34 - 54:40And this is the example of y'know
what Canada is presenting itself as, -
54:40 - 54:43in terms of for newcomers
and for people becoming citizens. -
54:43 - 54:47The Immigration and Refugee Board
has a number of new judges -
54:47 - 54:51that Jason Kenney and the
Conservatives recently appointed, -
54:51 - 54:55who are openly anti-queer judges.
Openly anti-queer. -
54:55 - 55:01One of them actually spoke at a fundraiser
that was an openly anti-queer fundraiser. -
55:01 - 55:05And he gets appointed by Jason Kenney,
to do what? -
55:05 - 55:12What kinds of claims is this person supposed
to be hearing? Anyone take a guess? ... -
55:12 - 55:19Yeah, basically, he is looking at claims
based on gender and sexual persecution. -
55:19 - 55:23And so this is the kind of system
that we have in place, right? -
55:23 - 55:29And the other thing that we have that y'know
completely continues to re-entrench -
55:29 - 55:34heteronormativity as well as
capitalist values and assimilative values, -
55:34 - 55:37is the Humanitarian and Compassionate
Claim in Canada right? -
55:37 - 55:41So this is like the claim that,
if you are trying to stay in Canada, -
55:41 - 55:43and your sponsorship has been refused,
-
55:43 - 55:48or you're one of the many refugees who are
increasingly being deported by Jason Kenney, -
55:48 - 55:53or you're thrown into prison, as women and kids
are increasingly being thrown into prisons, -
55:53 - 55:56the Humanitarian and Compassionate Claim
is something you can apply for, -
55:56 - 55:58and you have to have an income,
-
55:58 - 56:01if you have a spouse and children,
then that looks good, -
56:01 - 56:04if you're taxpaying, that looks good,
-
56:04 - 56:08y'know so it's basically the system
where immigration is increasingly becoming -
56:08 - 56:12a tool of capitalism and colonialism
and oppression and heteronormativity, -
56:12 - 56:14in terms of the kinds of immigrants...
-
56:14 - 56:18And y'know it's similar to
the examples that Dean was giving, -
56:18 - 56:21in terms of an immigration system that is
not based on justice, at all, right? -
56:21 - 56:26It's based on people who are gonna fulfill the needs
of the Canadian state and the Canadian economy. -
56:26 - 56:31But at the same time, so while we have this, y'know,
this level of persecution, oppression happening, -
56:31 - 56:34what do we have Jason Kenney do?
-
56:34 - 56:37Jason Kenney sends an email to everyone
who ever signed a petition for Alvaro [Orozco], -
56:37 - 56:41who is a young, queer, Latino man in Toronto
who was facing deportation, -
56:41 - 56:45and he, he spams that email list...
-
56:45 - 56:49-because when you sign those email petitions,
you give your email to Jason Kenney- -
56:49 - 56:52he sends every one of those people an email about
-
56:52 - 56:58how Jason Kenney is helping queers in Iran to come
to Canada. So this is what Jason Kenney does. -
56:58 - 57:04So there's a number of policies that are
actively anti-queer, anti-refugee, anti-migrant, -
57:04 - 57:10but everyone who's advocating for queer liberation,
for queer rights, for migrant rights, for migrant justice -
57:10 - 57:14gets emails about how the Conservative government
is saving queers in Iran. -
57:14 - 57:18Which is, y'know, part of the pinkwashing,
the imperialist agenda of the Tory government, -
57:18 - 57:22but really of the Canadian state, right?
This is just its current formation. -
57:22 - 57:29So I just want to echo in ending, what everyone
has already said, right? Which is: -
57:29 - 57:34How do we imagine -and how do we particularly
because I'm talking about a lens for migrant justice- -
57:34 - 57:36how do we imagine a lens for migrant justice
-
57:36 - 57:40that isn't dependent on people as labour,
or people as commodities? -
57:40 - 57:45That really truly respects and values
the diverse ways in which people are communing, -
57:45 - 57:47the diverse ways people are forming relationships,
-
57:47 - 57:51the diverse ways in which
people imagine family, right? -
57:51 - 57:54Because one of the other things
that Jason Kenney has done -
57:54 - 57:58is to say that people can't bring
their parents and grandparents any more, -
57:58 - 58:02because grandparents are using our tax...
are using our healthcare, right? -
58:02 - 58:05So Jason Kenney is active in this immigration system,
-
58:05 - 58:08is actually devaluing the various ways
in which people have families, -
58:08 - 58:12which include extended families
and doesn't just include your spouse, right? -
58:12 - 58:15It includes the ways particularly
for communities of colour, -
58:15 - 58:18in which family includes
many many people in our lives. -
58:18 - 58:21Listening to Anna talk it was making me weepy,
-
58:21 - 58:24because I grew up not calling my mother
but two other women, my moms, -
58:24 - 58:27and when I tell people that here,
people think it's really bizarre, -
58:27 - 58:30and assume that my mother was not part of my life.
-
58:30 - 58:35But... so how do we imagine
a kind of immigration system -
58:35 - 58:39where people are valued based on basic principles
of justice and dignity, right? -
58:39 - 58:44And also, an immigration system and a welcoming
of migrants that is fundamentally anti-colonial, -
58:44 - 58:47that respects that this land is not terra nullius,
-
58:47 - 58:54this land has been in the stewardship, taken care
of by Indigenous peoples for a very long time. -
58:54 - 58:59There's Indigenous laws on these territories. How do
we respect and honour and live under these laws? -
58:59 - 59:04How do we pledge allegiance to Indigenous
sovereign law, sovereign Indigenous laws, right? -
59:04 - 59:08Rather than pledging allegiance to a
totally fucked up colonial capitalist system -
59:08 - 59:11that makes us believe that people are expendable,
-
59:11 - 59:16that make us believe that the only way
to get ahead is to assimilate, right? -
59:16 - 59:21That the only way that we're gonna get ahead is by
buying into capitalism, by buying into colonialism, -
59:21 - 59:24by buying into cops and prisons
and sweatshops and apartheid, -
59:24 - 59:28rather than y'know, believing that we can actually
pledge allegiance to our communities, -
59:28 - 59:31and pledge allegiance to all our diverse families.
-
59:31 - 59:35And pledge allegiance to the sovereign Indigenous
laws of these lands. Thank you.
- Title:
- Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses
- Description:
-
Please i ask that folks do not edit these captions. Thanks!
Transcript at bottom.
This audio recording is of an interactive Skype event with author, activist & Seattle University Law Professor, Dean Spade, and local respondents:
Isabel Krupp (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid)
Anna Soole (Social Justice & Decolonization Facilitator)
Harsha Walia (No One is Illegal - Unceded Coast Salish Territories)It took place at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby Campus) and was organized by SFPIRG; the Department of Gender Sexuality & Women's Studies; the SFU Women's Centre; and Out on Campus.
Event Description:
The last forty years of queer and trans politics has seen a drastic shift. Much of 1960's and 70's queer and trans activism had complex and explicit ties to anti-war and anti-police movements, as well as to feminist disruptions of traditional gender roles including militarized masculinities. Today, a highly visible, corporate-funded gay and lesbian rights agenda declares that the key demands of queer and trans politics are to be offered entry into legal marriage and the military. Anti-colonial, feminist and anti-racist queer and trans activists and scholars contest this, and argue that the alignment of this pro-military, pro-marriage gay and lesbian rights politics with the global war on terror and the explosive growth of racialized criminalization and imprisonment are no coincidence. In this talk, Dean Spade will discuss the complex terrain of contemporary queer and trans politics, examining the racialized-gendered roles of soldier and spouse being offered in the name of "equality" and "human rights."
Speaker Bios:
Dean Spade is an associate professor at the Seattle University School of Law and is currently a fellow in the Engaging Tradition Project at Columbia Law School. In 2002 he founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit collective that provides free legal help to low-income people and people of color who are trans, intersex and/or gender non-conforming and works to build trans resistance rooted in racial and economic justice. He is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. www.deanspade.net
Isabel Krupp is a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid -- a group that formed to work in solidarity with queers in Palestine and Palestine solidarity movements around the world. Today, in response to increasing criticism of its occupation of Palestine, Israel is cultivating an image of itself as an oasis of gay tolerance in the Middle East, a practice that is called pinkwashing. As queers, we recognize that homophobia exists in Israel, Palestine, and across all borders. However, the struggle for sexual rights cannot come at the price of other rights. queersagainstapartheid.org
Anna Soole is Métis of the Cree, Ojibwe, Lakota, Algonquin, and Apache First Nations, and French, Celtic, Dutch and German heritage. She is a Queer Femme residing on Coast Salish Territories with her partner who is a Mayan Nicaraguan Trans Man. A seasoned Social Justice Facilitator, Experiential Educator, Forum Theatre Practitioner, Human Development Coach, and Consultant, she is actively decolonizing her mind, body, spirit, and heart every day.
Harsha Walia is a member of No One is Illegal-Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories, a grassroots anti-colonial migrant justice group with leadership from members of migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. Harsha has been active in anti-racist, migrant justice, feminist, anti-capitalist, Indigenous solidarity, and anti-colonial movements for over a decade. She is the author of the upcoming book Undoing Border Imperialism. noii-van.resist.ca
For more information on events like these, please visit www.sfpirg.ca
================
Captions and transcript courtesy of the Radical Access Mapping Project, Un-ceded Coast Salish Territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
To learn more, see: http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/
================TRANSCRIPT:
Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses
February 19, 2013,
Halpern Centre, SFU Burnaby[ Dean Spade, author, activist & Seattle University Law Professor ]
So, yeah, first I wanted to say thanks. It's really exciting to be here.
And I'm really honoured to be part of a conversation with the other folks who are gonna be in this --who I can't see right now but I trust are in front of you--[ Dean and audience laughing ]
-who are all activists and scholars who I really admire and inspired by, so I feel really lucky. And I also just want to say, obviously I'm coming to this work from the U.S., so that's my frame, and there's some overlap obviously with Canadian conditions and politics and histories, but there's also a lot of divergence, so I hope it'll be useful, but it's my, sort of, framework.
And I'm also gonna be reading, because I'm trying to be really concise, so that we can stick to our schedule,so I apologize for reading.
So, yeah so when I was invited to speak at this event, I was asked to be part of a series that I guess is about critical masculinities, and so what I wanted to think about was how really highly-gendered roles in our very militaristic, settler, white supremacist societies --like spouse, soldier, police officer-- have come to stand in a really complicated way as symbols right now, of sexual and gender liberation in some contexts. And how weird that is, especially given that many feminist and queer movements have sought to eliminate the existence of those roles. So I want to try to spend these few minutes just talking and thinking about that.
So, I think in particular these conversations about that dynamic that I just named, are servicing in important ways right now, because of the role that equality for gay and lesbian people, and in some instances but not usually trans people, is playing in global discourses about human rights, increasingly the degree to which countries have adopted certain high-profile lesbian and gay law reforms, specifically granting marriage recognition, and access to military service to gays and lesbians, is framed as central to a country's reputation regarding respect for human rights.
In recent years, the U.S. and Israel have put significant resources into framing countries with certain lesbian and gay rights in place as "modern", while framing countries that don't have those in place --particularly framing Arab and African countries as "backward" and "un-democratic". And this strategy of using lesbian and gay rights, particularly marriage and military participation, as a marker of being a human rights respecting country, and particularly doing so in the face of charges of ongoing significant human rights violations, has been called "pinkwashing". Maybe that's a term that a lot of people have heard.
So, in the U.S. context, Hilary Clinton's 2011 speech where she said"gay rights are human rights", along with the prevalence of references to same-sex marriage and gay rights at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, are examples of American pinkwashing. Clinton's [ inaudible ] is a relatively new logic in U.S. imperialism. That the U.S., regardless of failures to protect queer and trans people from state violence here in the U.S., where I am, not you [ laughs ], will now use gay rights as a measure to... as a measure to countries it seeks to intervene on. Basically, like, "we're going to call countries homophobic "and that'll give us a good excuse to bomb them or show up there and do weird military stuff." Clinton uses lesbian and gay rights to bolster the notion that the U.S. is the world's policing arm forcing democracy and equality globally on purportedly backward and cruel governments.
Gay rights operates as a new justification for this imperial role, a justification that fits really well within anti-Arab and anti-Muslim framings that have been developed during the war on terror,and portray Arab and Muslim countries as more sexist and more homophobic than the U.S., Europe and Israel.
We also see this with the framing of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, that it's supposed to, like, save Afghan women, like this kind of women-saving, gay-saving framework is very popular, the saving framework has a very long history, and in some ways the gay-saving framework seen in a new way.
At the Democratic National Convention, Obama's [U.S. President] support for same-sex marriage similarly helped him portray his administration as progressive --and, like, the number of people who buy into this is shocking --and equality-loving in order to obscure his abysmal record on key issues such as austerity, his failure to close Guantanamo,ongoing drone strikes, harsh sanctions against Iran,the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his record-breaking rates of deportation --I'm sure you know he's the most deporting president ever in the history of the United States-- and I think in particular you see this kind of American pinkwashing, I've seen it again more recently in his inaugural address, he talked about Stonewall, which basically, like, caused me to fall over, y'know, it's again... why is this guy talking about Stonewall? Stonewall's a moment of resistance to police brutality. He's running the country that imprisons more people than anyone in the world, where queer and trans people are still suffering police violence and extremely horrifying conditions of imprisonment. Like, how does this fit?
And also, recently he's kind of made waves because there's this really awful immigration reform policy going around in the United States that's supposed to be like the answer to the unjust system of immigration enforcement, but really it's just a way of ramping up immigration enforcement. And he said about it that he's gonna make sure that gay and lesbian couples can be in on it, and that is kind of this pinkwashing of this actually really conservative set of policies and principles around immigration that we're supposed to be, like, grateful for. And many people do articu- [ inaudible ]
The term "pinkwashing" is most frequently used to describe the explicit strategy Israel has undertaken in recent years to market itself as a human rights leader, based on its stances on same-sex marriage,and LGBT military service. Israel has explicitly worked with marketing experts to re-brand itself trying to overcome its international reputation as a brutal occupying force. I think particularly in the face of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which has really raised a lot of awareness about, even further than before, about these issues.
The new image is focused on portraying Israel as a modern democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by countries with supposedly less enlightened policy and culture.
A key feature of that portrayal is the articulation of Israel as a country that recognizes gay and lesbian rights,specifically marriage and military service, and that it is an ideal destination for gay and lesbian tourism. As part of its pinkwashing efforts, Israel has funded tours of Israelis to the United States in order to discuss Israel's military and marriage laws with respect to gays and lesbians. So it's like a really aggressive kind of propaganda machine.Critics of same sex marriage and military service advocacy in the United States, and critics of pinkwashing, have suggested that it's necessary to look at what these institutions are in order to assess whether inclusion in them is a felicitous goal for queer and trans politics. The militaries of both the United States and Israel have been accused of war crimes, and operate daily in what have been identified as illegal and immoral occupations. In the case of Israel, uh Palestine in the case of Israel. And Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, the part of North America currently known as the continental United States, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, and more, in the case of the United States.
Internally, the US military has a culture and practice of sexism, racism, and torture, that have been consistently identified by survivors and critics. Recent publications and the exposure of classified documents have further highlighted the lawless violence of the US military, and the ways that its operations, such as the occupation of Iraq, are often motivated by profit-seeking corporations with high level government ties, rather than by the democracy-spreading rationales commonly employed as justification.
The Israeli military's record similarly shows that from its initial ethnic cleansing project undertaken in 1948, when over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed, the Israeli government has used military power to forcibly settle the land it now occupies, and to remove, destroy, and erase the prior inhabitants wherever possible. The recent outcry against these atrocities committed by Israel on the inhabitants of Gaza, as well as the Israeli military's brutal 2010 raid of the flotilla bound for Gaza to deliver aid, have further drawn international attention. Israel's increasing threats toward Iran are further building international opposition to Israeli militarism.
Despite the long-term critique Israeli militarism... [ inaudible ] ...the US and Israeli militarism specifically, in many movements that define the American left, the discourse about gay and lesbian soldiers serving in the US and Israeli militaries has garnered support from many people, who otherwise oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2008, 2009 and 2012, and other highly publicized Israeli and US military activities.
Images of gay and lesbian service members in uniform, holding hands and kissing, in front of national flags, have successfully stirred patriotic and pro-military sentiment, deadening critical thinking about patriotism and militarism, by asserting such sentiments as a form of sympathy for gay and lesbian people.
Similarly, long term left critiques of marriage have been silenced by the combination of relentless right wing family values rhetoric, and the articulation of the desirability of marriage by same sex marriage advocacy -- messages long contested by feminists and anti racists. Such as, that children benefit from being raised by married parents, that married people are healthier,and contribute more to society, or that marriage recognizes the most important relationship people can have -- are now mobilized by same sex marriage advocates and judges writing decisions that are considered victories for same sex marriage advocacy. These pro-marriage messages are now articulated as anti-homophobic statements in the arguments for same sex marriage.
Feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial movements have long worked to dismantle marriage, and have identified rules about marriage as central to organizing foundational violences of the US: slavery, settler colonialism, and genocide. From the beginning, in the United States, marriage laws were key to organizing who is property and who can hold property. Identifying Indigenous systems of gender and family formation as backward and in need of intervention, and enforcing colonial and gender family norms of Indigenous people has been an important part of colonization. Marriage has been an important technology of land theft and ethnic cleansing, aimed at disappearing Indigenous people in many ways. One way, one example, is that the US encouraged westward settlement by promising male settlers 160 acres... to every male settler who would move west, plus an extra 160 acres if he brings a wife. Putting that kind of marriage as a promotion for settlement next to what the US was simultaneously doing, which was criminalizing traditional Indigenous communal living styles.
And, like, where I sometimes live in Seattle, y'know, like burning down longhouses and forcing people not to live in those ways, and eliminating communal land holding methods, and enforcing male, individual ownership to facilitate displacing Indigenous people from their land. So in this way, management of gender and family systems has been essential to displacement and settlement processes. It's also been essential to structuring slavery.
So, denying the family ties of slaves was central to slavery, ensuring that children would be born enslaved, and then later coercing marriage among newly freed Black people after supposed emancipation, and criminalizing them for adultery was one pathway of re-capturing them into the convict lease system, which was the predecessor of today's U.S. mass imprisonment project that centrally targets Black and native people.
Today, marriage is still used to distribute essential life chances like health care and immigration status, in ways that produce and maintain enormous racial disparities. So, there are very few pathways to immigration in the US, and those are focused on either your family, so if you don't have any family ties to the U.S. it's much much harder to immigrate; or jobs, which of course, y'know, is available to extremely few people. And we still get our health care through our jobs and usually through family ties as well. So if you don't have a partner or spouse who has healthcare, you can't get it. And given the racialized distribution of the most highly compensated jobs, there's a really severe racial disparity in that kind of family-based access to healthcare.
So obviously these are unjust ways to give out the essential things people need, and these kinds of marriage ties to basic needs traps people in violent family scenarios, and just causes most people to have no path to these necessities. So in this way marriage still structures racialized social control through the family unit and family law.
And marriage has been specifically central to anti-Black and anti-poor politics in the U.S. There's a strong story that's been very prevalent in the U.S. that the reason people are poor is because they're morally flawed and they need to get married more. So like in 1996 when President Clinton dismantled welfare, that the law that was passed is called the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act", you can already hear the sort of racism and anti-poor sentiment dripping off of that. That law, y'know, all of its findings section is all about how the reason people are poor is 'cause they don't marry enough, and how we have to get rid of this. And this is based in, y'know, really racist sociology, where one of the most famous government reports about this is called the Moynihan Report of the 1960's. It kind of articulates this idea that Black families were poor because they were pathologically female-headed. So, this notion that family structure is the problem with poor people, and specifically with Black poor people, has been this very prevalent racist notion that's still very active in welfare policy in the U.S. And both George Bush and Obama have had these... spent millions of dollars on these "healthy marriage" promotion projects that force poor people to marry, or that give you a financial incentive if you're on welfare and you get married.
So all of this is about blaming poverty on the failure to marry, or the failure to have the state's idea of a moral family structure. Anti-racists and feminists have sought to dismantle marriage, identifying the family as a place of violence, and the institution of marriage as a key form of social control of sexuality, racialized population control, and just not an OK way to distribute life chances, the basic stuff people need. And they've worked to make it easier to get out of marriage. That was a huge feminist legal project for years,was trying to make it easier to get a divorce, because people couldn't get out of marriages'cause of the way American law structured divorce. And feminists have also fought to explode romance myths and family roles that trap people, and to disconnect marriage from vital resources. And there's also been an enormous amount of legal work in the U.S. to get rid of laws that disadvantage people if they were "illegitimate", if they had un-married parents. 'Cause those laws, after it was no longer explicitly permissible to have laws that just excluded Black people from certain opportunities, those laws were the replacement. So part of this as well is a whole history of anti-illegitimacy laws, which are really, like, pro-marriage laws with a penalty, to be used in really explicitly anti-Black ways.
Like in the U.S., in Israel marriage law also plays a key role in maintaining basic conditions of racialized hierarchy necessary to settler colonialism. This happens in a number of ways that are really obvious parts of the ethnic cleansing project, that seeks to win a demographic war to ensure that Jews outnumber Arabs, and that a particular, narrow defined kind of Jewish life is cultivated.
One very obvious example is that civil marriage does not exist in Israel. So marriage between people of different religions, or even between people who have different matrilineal or patrilineal Jewish heritage is not allowed. And hundreds of Israeli couples fly to Cyprus every month to get married.
This approach to marriage overall is contested by many Israelis who see it as a threat to freedom of religion, but it more broadly attests to the use of marriage as a tool of population control aimed at settlement and population displacement and replacement.
Another prominent example is the Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law, the 2003 law that established that Palestinian citizens of the Occupied Territories who marry Israeli citizens cannot acquire Israeli residency. So Israeli citizens who marry people from other places win family munification through their marriages. Their new spouses can come and live with them in Israel. Since most of the Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians from the Occupied Territories are part of the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian, this primarily means that the Palestinian families are being divided by this 2003 law. While Jewish people all over the world have the right to citizenship in Israel, and... for immigration purposes interestingly, the definition of Jewish enough is very broad, because the goal is to encourage settlement. And others who marry Israeli citizens can acquire residency in Israel, Palestinians in the Occupied Territories cannot access residency status through their spouses in Israel.
And this immigration policy --and immigration policy in Israel in general-- is focused on prioritizing immigration of Jewish people, there's a 3-track immigration system which prioritizes Jewish immigration with immediate and automatic citizenship, places non-Jewish foreign immigration second, with a multi-year process for gaining residency or citizenship, and provides a 3rd track for spouses of Palestinian citizens of Israel, as long as they are not residents of the Occupied Territories, or states that Israel has declared enemy states.
Unequal marital privileges are part of the ethnic cleansing project of the state of Israel, and impact thousands of families, maintaining forced separations, depriving Palestinian citizens of Israel of access to state resources for their families, that are available to Jewish citizens of Israel; and restricting movement for Palestinians.
Clearly, increased access to Israel's marriage regime for same sex couples does not change or reform the fundamental role of Israeli marriage law, in enforcing occupation and state-sponsored racism. Lesbian and gay Palestinian citizens of Israel whose partners are from the Occupied Territories face the same restrictions as straight people do.
What does it mean to recognize... to get to seek recognition in a marriage system overtly created to forward an ethnic cleansing process? What does it mean to declare such recognition as a victory for equality or evidence of enlightened human rights policy?
[ MC interrupts to ask ] Dean, could we have it wrap up in about 5 minutes or so?
[ Dean Spade ] Oh, much sooner than that!
[ MC ] Oh, sorry, carry on!
[ Dean Spade ] Thank you... I'm sorry that our technical issues have made me so slow. Just have one more paragraph. [ laughs ]
The intensifying discourse of Israeli human rights leadership buoyed by same sex marriage and LGB --and in Israel T-- military service, brings to the surface in new ways ongoing tensions in queer and trans politics, about efforts at inclusion in central state institutions and systems. The demands of marriage and military participation are not only far from fulfilling feminist,queer, trans and anti-racist imaginings of sexual and gender liberation, but must also be analyzed as methods of justifying and sustaining and expanding colonial and imperial violence. It's not surprising that these demands have risen to the surface, and drowned out other images of gender and sexual liberation in corporate media owned and dominated by those who have invented and executed the war on terror, and also the same people who don't mind developing new markets for wedding day creation. The same media that has, y'know, 24 hours a day on TV in the United States, shows about buying wedding dresses,and shows about how cops are great and stuff.
The context... and y'know, movies about how the US military is amazing...
this context in the US has created ready and willing audiences for Israeli pinkwashing, which is dearly needed as more and more of the world names conditions in Israel as apartheid, and it becomes more and more essential to maintain U.S. financial support for Israeli military violence. It's become commonplace to convince straight people --as well as many queer people, amazingly, even those who would say they are anti-war-- that our liberation is about becoming soldiers and spouses, recuperating oppressive structures by putting a gay flag on them and saying they are good for gays.
I would argue that centuries of feminist,anti-colonial, and anti-racist resistance have proven that marriage and the military are not good for anyone. Today's anti-pinkwashing activists are encouraging those invested in resisting sexual, gender, and family formation norms, to develop discernment, not asking just "can we be included in existing structures?", but "what are those structures?" And if it's a prison cell, a cop, a tank, a wall, a border, a soldier, or a state family formation norm, you can wrap it in a rainbow flag all you want, and it still won't be anti-homophobic,feminist or liberating. So we have to ask: "can you have a movement for sexual liberation or gender liberation that does not contest colonization, especially when sexual and family regulation is a central tool of colonization?"
I wonder, will contemporary gay rights frameworks be remembered as pro-war, pro-military, and pro-apartheid? That's all. [ audience claps ]
[ Isabel Krupp, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, AKA QuAIA ]
My name's Isabel Krupp, and I'm a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Vancouver, which I'll refer to as QuAIA from now on, just so I don't trip over my own tongue while I'm speaking. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we're on un-ceded and occupied Coast Salish Territories, the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Stó:lō and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. And this acknowledgement of the ongoing occupation and colonization of this land, of Turtle Island, is foundational to all of the work that QuAIA does.
So, recognizing the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, and working in solidarity with Indigenous movements for sovereignty and decolonization, is really what QuAIA is all about. We're a Palestine solidarity organization,we work in solidarity with Palestinian movements for sovereignty and against Israeli apartheid, occupation, and colonization. So it's really important for us to recognize how Canada and Israel bolster each other’s colonial occupations, both ideologically and materially,through political, military, and economic support. And I'd like to point out that Canada is one of the key supporters of Israel in the world right now. So if we want to effectively fight against Israeli apartheid and occupation, we need also to come out against settler-colonialism here in Canada.
So for folks who would like to explore these connections further, there is a brilliant paper by Dana Olwan and Mike Krebs on the topic, which I highly recommend.
So I've already used the phrase “Israeli apartheid” several times. and I know that's something that Dean has talked about so I'm going to try not to overlap too much, but I imagine that some folks in the audience aren't as familiar with a critical perspective on the Israeli state. I won't have time to get into like an Israeli Apartheid 101 today, so I encourage those less familiar with this topic to seek out critical resources, which QuAIA would be happy to help provide.
But I will describe very briefly what I mean when I say Israeli apartheid.
I'm talking about Palestinians in the West Bank who live under a brutal military occupation, which takes the form of illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and a system of walls, barriers, and roads accessible solely to Israeli settlers. I'm talking about Palestinians living in Israel who face discriminatory policies. Like Dean was talking about a little bit, currently there are over 25 laws which target them specifically as non-Jewish and reduce them to second class citizens. I'm talking about Palestinians in the diaspora and in UN-administered refugee camps who are by default denied their UN-sanctioned right to return to their lands. And I'm talking about over 1.8 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who are living in an open air prison under an illegal siege, described by international experts as a "slow genocide".
So again, I encourage anyone surprised by what I am saying or what Dean was talking about to seek out critical resources and particularly to seek out Palestinian perspectives.
So, there is a growing international movement – led by Palestinians – against Israeli apartheid and occupation. And in response, Israel's launched an aggressive well-funded PR campaign that Dean was talking about to market itself as an oasis of tolerance in the Middle East, as this modern liberal democratic state – specifically, the only democracy in the Middle East, right? – in order to obscure its status as an apartheid state. And I think it's important to point out is that the implication here is that Israel needs to practice apartheid,colonialism, and genocide in order to preserve these freedoms and democracy and rights for gays and lesbians, right? 'Cause like Dean was describing, gay rights discourse is a big piece of this PR campaign – Israel is working really hard to brand itself as the only gay-friendly country in what they frame as an otherwise hostile and homophobic region. And we can see really clearly how this plays into racist, imperialist, and orientalist ideas around the “West” as modern and civilized and the “East” as barbaric and backwards, right?
So this practice of appropriating the struggle for gay rights discourse to obscure, excuse, or justify state violence is called “pinkwashing”. And Dean made that very clear... And this practice, I'd like to point out, is not unique to Israel.
In the Canadian context, we see an example of this when we look at the re-branding of the tar sands and this idea, this myth of “ethical oil”, right? In opposition to so-called “conflict oil” that comes from countries like Saudi Arabia, which are again constructed through racist narratives as exceptionally homophobic.
So one of the things that this practice of pinkwashing erases is how state violence, including colonialism and apartheid, impacts all Palestinians, queer and straight, trans and cis. “There is no pink door in the apartheid wall” right? We hear this phrase, this slogan in anti-pinkwashing activism,“There is no pink door in the apartheid wall”. All of these supposed rights and freedoms of “gay!friendly! Israel!”, they don't extend to Palestinians. And as much as the Israeli state decries Palestinian homophobia, its regime of apartheid and occupation creates challenges and barriers for queer and trans Palestinians organizing against homophobia and transphobia.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna read a little quote from a Palestinian queer organization, Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. And they say:
“As Palestinian queers, our struggle is not only against social injustice and our rights as a queer minority in Palestinian society, but rather, our main struggle is one against Israel's colonization, occupation and apartheid; a system that has oppressed us for the past 63 years"
So that's Palestinian Queers for BDS. And I think this statement makes a lot of sense when we think about how social movements for gender and sexual freedom are contingent on freedom from the daily violence of colonization, occupation, and apartheid. I also want to acknowledge that these social movements are alive and well in Palestine, and several members of QuAIA Vancouver were able to meet a number of amazing Palestinian queer and trans activists at the recent World Social Forum "Free Palestine" in Brazil, which included a Queer Visions stream.
So Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is one of a growing number of queer activist groups working to resist the pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid. And as queers and trans folks, we have the power to interrupt this practice of pinkwashing, when we come out against Israeli apartheid, we interfere with the myth-making that's vital to letting Israel get away with apartheid, colonialism, and other forms state violence.
So, to give some background on QuAIA Vancouver:
There's been a QuAIA presence in the Vancouver Pride Parade for the past several years, which I attended but personally wasn't involved in organizing, and I want to recognize that work that took place; but the current iteration of QuAIA Vancouver came together just last summer in response to 2 Israeli-funded films that were being screened at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. They were called “Joe + Belle” and “Invisible Men”. And in response to the screening of these films, we came together under the banner of QuAIA to call on the Queer Film Festival to come out in solidarity with Palestinian queers and trans folks, ultimately, to challenge pinkwashing by honouring the cultural boycott of Israel for future seasons of the Festival.
So for those of you who aren't familiar with the idea of cultural boycott -- Dean mentioned BDS. So, in 2005, Palestinian civil society launched a global movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, which we call BDS. So this includes economic boycotts, divestment, sanctions advocacy, but also a cultural and academic boycott, which targets cultural institutions, projects, and events that continue to serve the purposes of the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime. So I want to be clear that cultural boycott doesn't target artists or filmmakers based on nationality, but rather targets officially sponsored voices that serve the interests of apartheid.
So in this context, we felt and we feel that it is very important to call on our queer institutions, like the Vancouver Queer Film Festival to come out against the Israeli apartheid regime, because if this queer film festival, if this is a queer film festival, it belongs to all of us, right? Including any Palestinian and Arab queers and queers of colour who may feel alienated from a festival that aligns itself with institutional advocates for apartheid. So as the Festival gears up again this Spring, we're going to be organizing to make this happen, to call on the Vancouver Queer Film Festival to come out in support of Palestinian queer and trans folks. So in the coming months, we'll need community support. And we want encourage everybody here today to sign up for our email list, which, there's a signup list at the back of the room, and to like us on Facebook if you're on there [ laughter ], and most importantly to come out to future events and actions. Because if we want to hold our institutions accountable, we need to show them that we care about this, right? So, yeah, because apartheid is a queer issue - (it's not only a queer issue but clearly it's a queer issue - and as queers and trans folks i think our role in this struggle is clear: There's no pride in apartheid! [ audience cheers ]
[ Anna Soole, Social Justice & Decolonization Facilitator ]
Thank you Isabel, that was a great ending.I liked that little... So, first I want to say thank you to Dean and Isabel for what you said, and I want to say thank you to Harsha for what you're gonna say, and SFPIRG for having us. And I want to acknowledge that we are on traditional Coast Salish territory. And that I am... so... my name is Anna Soole,and I'm Métis. I'm Cree, Ojibwe, Apache, Algonquin and Lakota, and I'm also French, Celtic, Dutch and German. That's a lot of things to remember.I'm kind of like a Heinz 57... and so [ laughs ] I'm gonna be speaking to my own personal experience, more than... I'm not an academic, and so my framework is much more cultural and from my own perspective. And I'm gonna share some stories,and I'm gonna share a little bit about who I am and how what we're talking about today has impacted me as an Indigenous woman.
And, before I do... one of the things in the work that I do -I do decolonization work- one of the things that's really important to me is acknowledge the space that we're in. And the space that we're in is what? Just call it out, what do you see? Concrete!What else? Rows! Exactly! So, we're in a space that is specifically a settler space. And so I just want to acknowledge that we're talking about decolonization, we're talking about colonialism, settler colonialism,inside a settler space. And in my culture, does anybody know how we would be set up? In a circle. And so a circle keeps us accountable to each other, so I often have a lot of conflict about sitting on a panel, because I feel uncomfortable with a table between me and a group. I feel uncomfortable being the voice, when there's so much knowledge in a room. And so I just want to acknowledge that,and my own conflict with it. And acknowledge ways... maybe in the future... maybe how can we look at that as a group, the people that are here, how can we look at that and changing these systems that we're inside of even in this moment?
So, just about me, I wanna acknowledge... I'm from a working class, Metis family, and I'm personally, financially, somewhat precarious, queer, and I have no high school diploma. But I present as a white, straight, middle class,educated and employable person, so I carry a level of privilege that my contemporaries who wear their station more visibly don't necessarily have access to. But that is specifically related to my experience as an Indigenous woman, because when Dean was talking about marriage, that was the topic that struck me the most, that I wanted to speak to the most.
Talking about marriage and colonialism in my family, both of my grandmothers are Indigenous, and they both went to day school,which is a lot like residential school, and one of my grandmothers ran away when she was 12 years old from Quebec to Vancouver; and my other grandmother, her whole family left Edmonton, where we were well-established, well-known,activist family that had everything stolen from us, and the University of Alberta is now built on our homestead. So everybody came here, and both of my grandmothers out of survival married white men. And so I, every single day of my life, walk through the world carrying the legacy of colonization on my skin. Because I carry a privilege that was designed, and the design was for me to not identify as an Indigenous person. And so it's a radical act for me to never identify as white. Although I recognize my white privilege, I identify as genocide white. So my friend D. Williams, she was talking about this concept of genocide white -or genocide brown depending on the experience- and for me that makes sense, because the reason my skin is white is because of genocide. And so it's a complicated experience for me[ laughs ] to say the least.
When Indigenous women married white men, they lost any status they might have. Metis women actually didn't have any status until the 80's -actually we didn't have any status until this month [ laughs ] We have status now. What we had was citizenship in the 80's, and so my grandmothers, they made their choices according to that history. And it impacted my life. It impacted abuse that was in my family and in my, and in my own... on my own personal body. And so, uh, I carry that with me every day.
So I wanna... I just wanna read my notes because... it's nerve-wracking to talk in front of a bunch of people especially when you're not in a circle![ laughs ] It's really nerve-wracking! So I'm just gonna look at my notes...
OK so the next thing I wanted to touch on is that I was raised by a single mother,she never got married, and I never thought about marriage growing up. It wasn't something that like a lot of girls in particular, people who are raised as girls, are expected to think about their wedding day. There's a lot of pressure, socialization to think about your wedding day, think about what it's gonna be like to get married, plan on getting married... I never had that. And my experience was actually that my mother was... was really... she really didn't want me to get married. And... but I also saw the other side of it,which was that my mother was a single mother, and she didn't have access to a lot of the things that my friends had access to, my friends parents. My mom couldn't get a loan without a man in the 80's, and so we were very poor for a long period of time until my mother joined the system, worked for the city, and literally broke her back working for her whole life so that we could survive. So it's a complicated system.
The reason we get... a lot of people feel the pressure to get married, is because the structure that we live inside doesn't support not being married. And so, what I wanted to sorta think about or get people thinking about is if you only have 1 concept of what is possible, of course you're gonna want to live inside that concept.
So the paradox of human agency, speaks to the idea that people's choices are never straightforward. The context of our present particular times and places, constraints and possibility, shape not only our choices,but even what we can imagine for ourselves. So right now the queer community, especially in the US, because in Canada we have marriage rights, but in the US the queer community is trying to fit inside a structure that is the only structure that people can comprehend. And if there's only one structure, people are not going to be able to... if there's only one possibility, if it seems like there's only one possibility, people aren't necessarily going to be able to create the world that they would want for themselves in a different system.
So, uh, this is not just a... this is also about the politics of identity. It's about the politics of union, and it's about the politics of family, because if I'm gonna grow up and become an old woman, and not have a family to take care of me,I'm basically going to be living in poverty. And so, there's a lot of pressure on meas a woman, to have children. And there's a lot of pressure on me as a woman, to have children, and be in a couple, a specific kind of couple, with a romantic partner, preferably a male, a cisgendered male. So there's all of these pressures that I'm expected to live inside of, and, yes I want to have children, but I don't want to have that pressure or that expectation, I don't want it to be coming from the fear of ending up alone.
So...
I have an excerpt from an article that I wrote about whether or not I wanted to be a mother... thank you! It's perfect, it's how I wanted to end...
So... the dominant culture has come to view family as a small scale intensely private unit. In a healthy, traditional aboriginal community,a child doesn't have just one mother. She has aunties, cousins, sisters, grandmas, and family friends. Often, a biological mother is not the most significant female in the child's life, and this is not viewed as neglectful, as child psychologist Dr. John Bowlby would have had us believe when he said mid 20th century, when he mid 20th century coined the term "maternal deprivation". In fact, it would be quite the opposite. The child has so many caregivers in an aboriginal community -or a traditional prior to colonization aboriginal community- that she is able to connect with and bond to the women, men, or Two-Spirited people, that are right for her at that time in her growth.Previous bonds with other women aren't lost or broken but maintained and evolved as the child evolves. This works because the well-being of the family community is valued above the individual.
Whereas in contemporary settler colonial culture,the individual is valued above the whole. Bowlby's legacy has clearly entered the dominant ideology of motherhood. The requirement is that the individual mother should have total responsibility for her own children at all times. This has informed the decisions of colonizers to remove children from these traditional Indigenous family situations,which we saw in the 60's Scoop, which was taking Indigenous children out of their homes and putting them into foster homes, and it's still happening to this day. Indigenous children are taken out of their homes and put in foster homes more than any other children in Canada.
... lost my place...
...because the ethic of domination has been used to corrupt, violate, and attempt to destroy these traditions through privatization of the family, it's often challenging for the individualistic culture of the colonized and colonizers to understand or see the merits in multi-shared child rearing. In my ideal world, an interdependent community of peaceful, practical, creative, spiritual people, working together to respect and tend to the earth,and each other, sharing responsibility for each other's well-being, and the well-being of the children, whether a mother is single or attached is irrelevant, as the child has many dedicated, loving role models of every gender, who are positively engaged in every aspect of the child's life. Prospective parents make informed decisions about when and whether to have children, and access to birth control is unquestioned. The elderly are cared for by the whole community,regardless of their blood ties, and all community members basic needs are met.
Some might label these values as anti-racist,eco-feminist, with socialist leanings... but I prefer the title Indigenous Feminist,and I wear that with pride.
And I have one final thing, because I only have prob-ably one minute left. I found this on Facebook today. [ whispers to a fellow panelist ] Would you be willing to hold this up? Thank you. And I'll describe it for people who...who can't see it.
So, it's a series of three circles at the bottom. The 1st circle has a series of multiple blue circles in it, and outside is multi-coloured circles. And this is labeled as "Exclusion". So all around the border of the circle has the multi-coloured circles. The 2nd circle has the blue circles in the centre, and a smaller circle on the outside. And it's got all the multi-coloured circles in it.Labeled as "Segregation". The 3rd circle has blue circles inside of it, and another circle inside of it with multi-coloured circles. And that's called "Integration". The final circle has all the circles, blue and multi-coloured, inside of it, which changes the entire formation of what it looks like. And that's called "Inclusion".
And I've worked in many non-Indigenous organizations as an Indigenous person, and it's, of course I'm the Indigenous person who looks white, right? So I get hired because I look like everybody else, and I can easily fit into white culture. Or so people think until they know me.[ laughs ] And so, what we're talking about here is literally changing the structure of society. So, not changing, not getting queer people to be able to get married and join the military, but what we're talking about is getting rid of the military. Changing the ideas of marriage. Changing our ideas of what partnership and family looks like. Thank you. [ applause ]
[ Harsha Walia, No One Is Illegal ]
That was it! [ audience laughter ]That visual's incredible. Thank you to the organizers and thank everyone for being here, thank you Dean and Isabel and Anna for really amazing presentations.
I want to start by acknowledging that we're on un-ceded, occupied, Coast Salish territories, lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh, Squamish and Stó:lō people. And also too, as other speakers mentioned, to really understand in a deep way what it means to root our work within an anti-colonial framework, and what it means to really truly be in alliance with Indigenous struggles against settler colonialism. And everything that that means, right? It means multiple things. It means fighting in defense of the land,it means fighting violence against women, it means fighting against prisons and police,and the military, and all of the aspects of settler colonialism that seep into our lives and our societies, and the ways in which we live here on Turtle Island.
I wanna pick up where folks were kinda left off,and what people were talking about... and particularly some of the stuff that Dean was talking about in terms of the co-optation of queer and trans liberation movements as well as women of colour movements, particularly for imperial, capitalist, and colonial ambitions. And particularly to talk about that in the intersection of immigration, both historically and currently.
Y'know, first I do want to say that it's not new, right? There's this kind of new framework that's been developing, particularly with homonationalism when we talk about it, or pinkwashing when we talk about it, but I really think it's important to understand that this recent branding has a long legacy and has a long history in terms of colonial politics. And y'know in particular colonialism has always cast people of colour communities as barbaric, and savage, and backwards,as you were mentioning Isabel. And this is not new, right? The kind of gay-saving rhetoric and the ideology of it is also not new. I'm gonna give some historic examples of that.
Most people think that that is a recent kind of... a recent evolution of y'know "save the women!"[ laughs ] but they've both always worked together. And so the kind of "save 3rd world women", "save women of colour" and y'know, "save 3rd world gays", have always been attendant processes of colo-nialism, and have always been part of that project. And the thing that is most deeply offensive and ironic about that of course is that colonialism itself has imposed the most hetero-normative, patriarchal system on communities of colour, right?Particularly through the Victorian era. So you have this simultaneous kind of rhetoric and discourse of saving communities of colour, while at the same time imposing the most rigid and oppressive family and community and societal structures on our communities, right? So, there's nothing kind of new about this.
So I want to look at some examples, particularly through a lens of immigration. There's of course y'know a lot of conversation that we've had, Isabel laid out a lot of amazing history in terms of pinkwashing, Dean also talked about it in the context of pinkwashing, also the examples as we know of course of the occupation of Afghanistan, where, y'know, the entire rhetoric of occupation and colonialism both locally and globally has been rooted in this white saviour industrial complex if you will, but I also want to look at it through the lens of immigration, which isn't often talked about, and the ways in which state controls and border controls are operating through these ways as well.
So, y'know, a lot of people here probably know about the Komagata Maru, right? So, the Komagata Maru was the ship in 1914 that turned, that was turned away -376 predominantly Punjabi immigrants- was turned away from the shores of British Columbia, here on the west coast. And y'know, that's known as a very obvious example of anti-migrant history in Canada. Y'know, the tory government recently made an apology -or a kind of half-apology- for the Komagata Maru, in the same vein as the apology for the residential schools, in the same vein as the apology of the Chinese Head Tax, y'know, totally token, offensive, symbolic gestures,but y'know, people know about the Komagata Maru.
The thing that most people don't know about is the sodomy cases that were happening at the same time as the Komagata Maru was happening. So during 1909 and 1925, there was a number of sodomy cases that were being tried particularly in the west coast of Canada. And the largest proportion of men being tried under sodomy laws at the time were Sikh men. And in particular there was a really high profile case in 1915... has anyone seen Rex Vs. Singh? If not... check out the movie, it's a really important movie, y'know, that links and ties the connection between anti-migrant sentiment and homophobia and transphobia, and in particular with the criminalization of communities and the assertion of state power in the act of criminalization.
And so in 1915, there was a relatively high-profile "case", where there were two Sikh men, they were two Sikh millworkers, and their names were Dalip Singh and [Naina] Singh, and they were two men who were tried for sodomy in 1915. And this was a time of... right.. one year after the Komagata Maru was turned back, right? So, this is again happening in a period when there's heightened -particularly anti-Sikh anti-Punjabi, anti-south Asian- sentiment in BC, where newspapers are filled with y'know, "turn back the Hindus!", "Hindus are invading our shores!", while at the same time there's also a simultaneous crackdown on working class gay men, in particular, working in the mills.
And so, the sodomy cases really are a confluence of the ways in which the state is simultaneously criminalizing under sodomy laws, and simultaneously criminalizing under anti-migrant laws. And again, the largest proportion of men tried under these cases during 1909 to 1929 were Sikh men Sikh migrant men. And so again I say that to show kind of an historic trajectory, of the ways in which the state has been actively criminalizing communities of colour, particularly queer and trans communities of colour through state processes.
And so I wanna move quickly to the current context, because again there's often a sense that all of this is new. And again in the current context we see the same kind of thing, where on the one hand the Canadian state is actively excluding queer and trans communities of colour, while at the same time it's upholding the myth of being welcoming for persecuted queer and trans folks from the global south.
And so we see that these parallel discourses, are necessary. So one of them is the kind of homonationalist dis-course; y'know, similar to the Israeli pinkwashing: "We're so welcoming", "We're this bastion of queer and gay rights", "Western civilization frees everybody", y'know, "Western civilization is where equality rests"; while at the same time, the reality on the ground is one that is actively of persecution. We see, particularly through immigration laws,the ways in which heteronormativity -and particularly an assimilation politic-at various levels is being reinforced. So one really kind of obvious on the face example,is that until 2002 same-sex relationships -so this is just same sex relationships, we're not even talking about diverse queer familial relationships- same sex relationships were not even recognized until 2002 under the Canadian immigration Act as being able to be qualified under the Family Class, right? So this is 10 years ago, or how many years ago?10 years ago, right? This is very recent, in terms of Canadian immigration policy.
But just to move to kind of more recent examples, and then to talk about the ways in which homo-nationalism has been an active part of Jason Kenney -who is the current Minister of Deportation, as some of us like to call him- there's a number of ways in which we see... I wanna talk about 3 of many examples,
I'll only give 3 examples ... of the ways in which that active exclusion is happening, and persecution is happening, of queers and trans folks who are trying to immigrate and particularly claim asylum within Canada, and then the final thing is kind of fortification of homonationalism through the immigration system.
So the first is, y'know, the citizenship guide. So the citizenship guide was a brand new citizenship guide for Canada, espouses Canadian values... and we find out through the citizenship guide that Canadian values means
-absolutely no reference to queer and trans liberation struggles, it doesn't even mention same sex marriage. But what it does have is a number of recruitment ads into the military. And this is the example of y'know what Canada is presenting itself as, in terms of for newcomers and for people becoming citizens.The Immigration and Refugee Board has a number of new judges that Jason Kenney and the Conservatives recently appointed, who are openly anti-queer judges. Openly anti-queer. One of them actually spoke at a fundraiser that was an openly anti-queer fundraiser. And he gets appointed by Jason Kenney, to do what? What kinds of claims is this person supposed to be hearing? Anyone take a guess? ... Yeah, basically, he is looking at claims based on gender and sexual persecution. And so this is the kind of system that we have in place, right?
And the other thing that we have that y'know completely continues to re-entrench heteronormativity as well as capitalist values and assimilative values, is the Humanitarian and Compassionate Claim in Canada right? So this is like the claim that, if you are trying to stay in Canada, and your sponsorship has been refused, or you're one of the many refugees who are increasingly being deported by Jason Kenney, or you're thrown into prison, as women and kids are increasingly being thrown into prisons, the Humanitarian and Compassionate Claim is something you can apply for, and you have to have an income, if you have a spouse and children, then that looks good, if you're taxpaying, that looks good; y'know so it's basically the system where immigration is increasingly becoming a tool of capitalism and colonialism and oppression and heteronormativity, in terms of the kinds of immigrants...
And y'know it's similar to the examples that Dean was giving, in terms of an immigration system that is not based on justice, at all, right? It's based on people who are gonna fulfill the needs of the Canadian state and the Canadian economy. But at the same time, so while we have this, y'know, this level of persecution, oppression happening, what do we have Jason Kenney do? Jason Kenney sends an email to everyone who ever signed a petition for Alvaro, who is a young, queer, Latino man in Toronto who was facing deportation, and he, he spams that email list... -because when you sign those email petitions, you give your email to Jason Kenney- he sends every one of those people an email about how Jason Kenney is helping queers in Iran to come to Canada. So this is what Jason Kenney does. So there's a number of policies that are actively anti-queer, anti-refugee, anti-migrant, but everyone who's advocating for queer liberation, for queer rights, for migrant rights, for migrant justice gets emails about how the Conservative government is saving queers in Iran. Which is, y'know, part of the pinkwashing, the imperialist agenda of the Tory government, but really of the Canadian state, right?This is just its current formation.
So I just want to echo in ending, what everyone has already said, right? Which is: How do we imagine -and how do we particularly because I'm talking about a lens for migrant justice- how do we imagine a lens for migrant justice that isn't dependent on people as labour, or people as commodities? That really truly respects and values the diverse ways in which people are communing, the diverse ways people are forming relationships, the diverse ways in which people imagine family, right? Because one of the other things that Jason Kenney has done is to say that people can't bring their parents and grandparents any more, because grandparents are using our tax... are using our healthcare, right? So Jason Kenney is active in this immigration system, is actually devaluing the various ways in which people have families, which include extended families and doesn't just include your spouse, right? It includes the ways particularly for communities of colour, in which family includes many many people in our lives. Listening to Anna talk it was making me weepy, because I grew up not calling my mother but two other women, my moms, and when I tell people that here, people think it's really bizarre, and assume that my mother was not part of my life.
But... so how do we imagine a kind of immigration system where people are valued based on basic principles of justice and dignity, right? And also, an immigration system and a welcoming of migrants that is fundamentally anti-colonial, that respects that this land is not terra nullius, this land has been in the stewardship, has been taken care of by Indigenous peoples for a very long time.
There's Indigenous laws on these territories. How do we respect and honour and live under these laws? How do we pledge allegiance to Indigenous sovereign law, sovereign Indigenous laws, right? Rather than pledging allegiance to a totally fucked up colonial capitalist system that makes us believe that people are expendable, that make us believe that the only way to get ahead is to assimilate, right? That the only way that we're gonna get ahead is by buying into capitalism, by buying into colonialism, by buying into cops and prisons and sweatshops and apartheid, rather than y'know, believing that we can actually pledge allegiance to our communities, and pledge allegiance to all our diverse families. And pledge allegiance to the sovereign Indigenous laws of these lands. Thank you.
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 59:47
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Romantic Notions: Gay Soldiers, Cops & Spouses |