QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

postervirus:

AIDS ACTION… BY MICAH LEXIER with DARIEN TAYLOR & ERIC MYKHALOVSKIY 

Utilizing his trademark techniques of found imagery, simplicity and repetition, Micah Lexier has created a poster that addresses the decidedly unsexy, but complex issue of access to treatment. Quality of care, accuracy of information, even access to treatment itself is dependent on a myriad of factors, both personal and practical. Lexier was tasked with the challenge to create a poster that itemized a number of these extenuating circumstances.  Playing with duplication and a simple colour inversion, Lexier riffs on AIDS Action Now’s dated but indelible logo to focus on the simple but nuanced message that access to treatment is not equal for all.

(via kittiesinqueerland)

heterogeneoushomosexual:

ACT UP | SAN FRANCISCO
AIDS IS NOT OVER, NEITHER ARE WE, 2012
_______________________________________________________.

(via manicpixiedreambakla)

street-popper:

Manifestation des travailleur-se-s du sexe by dprezat on Flickr.

(via lustnspace)

manifestacionesextranas:

“We also have to face that the rules mostly don’t benefit targeted people and never have, and when good rules get created they are not followed or enforced, so to actually change the conditions of maldistribution we need mass mobilization and direct action to force deep transformation. Helping people get by as much as possible under awful conditions is part of that kind of transformative process, but it is not enough on its own, especially for those (like people targeted and caged by criminal and immigration systems) who are on the violent losing end of all those rules and for whom legal relief is usually not available.”

"Sometimes, I feel excluded even within the LGBTQ community. I remember the gay clubs in West Hollywood that would deny my friends and I entrance because of our Mexican matriculation. And I remember the faces they would give me, one of confusion and then of disgust that seemed to be thinking: “Mexican, Illegal, Fake.” How are we fighting for acceptance in the LGBTQ community when many do not accept their queer brothers and sisters who are also oppressed as undocumented immigrants? […] My struggle and voice as an undocumented Latino gay man hopes to bring together not only my LGBTQ community of color but to show how crucial it is for both movements to accept the fact that LGBTQ issues are irrefutable immigrant rights issues. Alone, we’re vulnerable. Together, we are stronger. To ostracize one from another is something we can no longer afford to do."

Alex Aldana, Queer and Undocumented: I Am Walking From San Francisco To Washington D.C. For The DREAM Act (via queerdesi)

nysylc:

Rosario, Sara and Janet, three brave women, took part in a peaceful demonstration to urge NY Governor Cuomo to stand up for undocumented youth by adding the NY Dream Act into the State Budget. The NY Dream Act would allow these three women and thousands of similar youth to have access to state financial aid to achieve their college educational goals. Instead of having Governor Cuomo stand with us, he continues to stay silent and not take action.

Rosario, Sara and Janet decided that the inaction of Governor Cuomo to be the voice for students was enough to prompt action. Currently, Rosario, Sara and Janet risked everything to bring the voice of undocumented youth to Governor Cuomo to take leadership and state publicly that everyone should have access to college education, regardless of immigration status. There is nothing that stops Immigration from taking action even after their release….see more pictures here

(via queerdesi)

“[S]imply telling people we are queer, or being queer in a public context, is not the only or even the most important way for us to be politically engaged. The idea that it is is born from political perspectives in which queerness stands alone, and is not navigated alongside economic, racial, geographic or cultural oppression. Not only might there be other ways of challenging our communities than just by coming out to them, there may be more revolutionary and transformative methods to employ, ones which can incorporate a wider range of voices and struggles, and which don’t merely depend on individual identification to promote change. We can agree that there are many more ways to fight unjust systems than simply coming out.”

(Source: thatneedstogo)

"What counts as activism? Why didn’t the kind of emotional self-care me and my girls were doing—talking to each other about all the fucked-up shit we were going through as brown girls—count? Why didn’t my best friend driving her elderly East African mother to the doctor and renegotiating her way through the layers of the racist, sexist, condescending bullshit medical system count as activism? Did staying alive count as activism? Did re-learning Tamil, one of my Sri Lankan family’s languages, count? Did cooking good Sri Lankan food and learning how to cook those recipes I didn’t have female family members around to teach me count? As a South Asian femme immigrant who was having a shitty week, did shopping at the MAC counter and finding the perfect shade of fuchsia lip gloss for my milk-tea skin count?"

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “A Time to Hole Up And a Time to Kick Ass” in We Don’t Need Another Wave (via kru-pa)

always reblog because survival IS revolutionary.

(via sistahmamaqueen)

(via theoceanandthesky)

(Source: thatneedstogo)

karapassey:

Why do people feel the need to hold onto their ability to oppress others? Why is it important to them?

(via stompy-boots)

Men’s space in the feminist movement.

golden-notebook:

Male-identified allies SHOULD BE: 

• Assisting feminist leaders. 
• Supporting feminism and standing up for women in contentious, hostile spaces. (Not speaking for them - standing up for them.) 
• Listening more than speaking. 
• Asking, “How can I help?” 
• If in a role as a candidate for a graduate degree in gender studies, or a professor in W&GS, centering women in discussions - always, always, always - and going out of your way to include women speakers. 

Male-identified allies SHOULDN’T BE: 

• Acting as feminist leaders. 
• Speaking over women in contentious, hostile spaces, if not asked or requested to do so.
• Speaking more than listening.
• Asking, “But why don’t you accept me?” with the insinuation that support is conditional on being coddled. 
• If a candidate for a graduate degree in gender studies, or a professor in W&GS, centering every conversation on you and your penis, and what ~* other dudes *~ think about feminism. Being sure to talk over women at every turn, and focus class discussions on jizz facials.

In response to this, and the ensuing controversy. 

(via stfuconfederates-deactivated201)

hfml:

aan-poster-virus-2011:

ALLYSON MITCHELL

FUCK YEAH.

(Source: postervirus, via deeplezstonerwitch)

cognitivedissonance:

Meet Cheri Honkala. She’s running for sheriff of Philadelphia as the Green Party candidate, and she’s amazing. Her statement:

My name is Cheri Honkala and I’m running for Sheriff of Philadelphia to keep families in their homes. Every 7 seconds in this country a family is going into foreclosure. The banks received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money and yet they refuse to help out struggling homeowners and continue to increase blight and homelessness in our communities. Well, I’m here to act as the people’s bailout! When I’m elected Sheriff, I will refuse to throw anyone out of their home. We live in the richest nation in the world and there is no reason why we can’t house every man, woman, and child.

I’m also working to establish community land trusts. There are over 40,000 vacant properties in our city and having democratic community-based control over these properties offers the potential for housing people in need of homes and creating more urban gardens, farms, and public spaces.

I will refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We are a nation of immigrants and must work together and not against one another if we’re going to survive this economy.

In the past 10 years our civil liberties have been degraded through legislation like the Patriot Act. As the people’s Sheriff I will uphold the US Constitution.

I believe in transparency. The previous Philadelphia Sheriff’s office cannot account for 53 million dollars. I will ensure that the financial records and activities of the Sheriff’s office are public and accessible.

I’m a formerly homeless mother who, for over 25 years, has been fighting for economic human rights alongside poor and homeless people in Philadelphia and across America. Together we’ve been working on the sources, not just the symptoms of our problems, to create a more compassionate and sustainable economy. My campaign for Sheriff is a rare opportunity for us to do something real and significant about the crisis we are facing. Let’s make history again in Philadelphia. Please support my campaign.

Please Donate, Volunteer, and Spread the Word…

Another Philadelphia is coming November 8

If you live in or near Philly, spread the word. Visit her site for videos of her debating and discussing Occupy Wall Street. Remember, it’s not the worst idea to occupy the polls as well as the streets.

Gay black youths go from attacked to attackers

notime4yourshit:

Whenever there’s trouble around the Chinatown and Gallery Place Metro stations in the District, the finger of blame often points to a most unusual group of suspects: a black gay gang called Check It.

Depending on whom you talk to, they’re just a bunch of mischievous gender benders and drama queens, vulnerable gay youths seeking safety in numbers. Or, they’re one of the largest, more aggressive gangs in the city.

To hear the leader of Check It tell it, there may be some truth to both.

“I just got tired of people beating on me and calling me faggie,” Tayron Bennett, 21, told me recently. He’d helped to organize Check It while a student at Hine Junior High School. Other gay youths from his Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast soon joined, followed by gay youths from throughout the city.

D.C. police estimate that Check It has a core membership of about 20 and counts between 50 and 100 others as “associates.”

“At first, I tried fighting bullies one-on-one, but they don’t fight fair; they fight two and three on one,” Bennett said. So the youths got together and “started carrying mace, knives, brass knuckles and stun guns, and if somebody messed with one of us then all of us would gang up on them.”

Check It.

Read More

(via dammitcaleb-deactivated20130328)