Lived experiences are so powerful.
The session started out a little rough. I think when there are traditional academic moderators introducing a panel of real-life academics, power and privilege always become evident. After a some what long-winded introduction by a professor, Theresa Martinez blew me away. She started by apologizing for her 9th grade education and her nerves. But she then went on to say some of the most profound words I have ever heard about prison, prostitution, sterlization, addiction, systematic abuse, and how institutional classism and racism negate choice. She ended her section of the panel with showing the audience her parole release papers. 26 years of parole. Who needs a doctorate degree to change the world?
Next was Pooja Gehi, a member of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project in NYC. Although I was familiar with the problematic issues with hate crime legislation, I think a lot of folks in the room were shocked. The fact that hate crime laws actually work to give more resources to police who then terrorize poor communities of color. Specifically, transwomen face over policing and brutality just for "walking while trans." For more info about this, check out the new Queers for Economic Justice Project: "The New Queer Agenda" edited by Lisa Duggan! You can also google the case of "The New Jersey Four" which actually used hate crime laws to charge Black lesbian women with a more serious offense against a heterosexual man. (IE they were lesbians so they must hate men)
And finally, JESSICA YEE! She was amazing. Self described as a "Two-Spirit Indigenous hip-hop feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter," she began her section by asking the room whose land we were on. Three people in the entire room of over a hundred people knew. "How dare we talk about colonization if we don't even know who's land we're on!" I've got to be honest, after this exchange happened...I stopped taking notes and focused intensely on her wealth of knowledge. One really powerful point she made about the ridiculously high rates of death and disappearences of native women in Canada and The United States. She then goes on to rightfully critique orgs like NOW that simply feature or tolerate a First Nations speaker here or there when they feel like it. "If 18,000 white women went missing, don't you think feminists would be up in arms?"
She then went on to share jaw-dropping stats about the high rates of sexual abuse, childhood molestation, and depression of native women. Look her up. Read her work. She just released a new book that really calls out the privileged, white, academic, feminist bullshit we've all been told to use as the main means of educating ourselves and new generations of feminists.
Fuck that. Real-life academics. Lived realities. Study that!
Favorite quotes:
"Outside of the Nation to this systematic fuckery...sorry but English is the tool of the colonizers, and it won't get any help from me"
- Yee
"We can't say that we're all in solidarity because we're all oppressed in the same way....cause we're not"
-Yee
"Education can't come at the cost of our own communities crumbling because we're too tired."
-Yee
"I don't want to have to scare you into caring."
-Yee
"We need consensual allyship. Some communities aren't ready for your imposed partnership. Have you ever even been on a res? How can you be my ally if you don't know who I am?"
-Yee
"I need you just as much as you need me. What are 'we' going to do!"
-Martinez
"This privileged professor asked "how did this happen to you?" And I was like "are you kidding me?" But then I realized he really didn't know. I mean I suffered from reproductive oppression from when I was 10 years-old, but privileged educators have never seen what we seen or been through what we been through. WE have to educate the higher ups too."
-Martinez
The session started out a little rough. I think when there are traditional academic moderators introducing a panel of real-life academics, power and privilege always become evident. After a some what long-winded introduction by a professor, Theresa Martinez blew me away. She started by apologizing for her 9th grade education and her nerves. But she then went on to say some of the most profound words I have ever heard about prison, prostitution, sterlization, addiction, systematic abuse, and how institutional classism and racism negate choice. She ended her section of the panel with showing the audience her parole release papers. 26 years of parole. Who needs a doctorate degree to change the world?
Next was Pooja Gehi, a member of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project in NYC. Although I was familiar with the problematic issues with hate crime legislation, I think a lot of folks in the room were shocked. The fact that hate crime laws actually work to give more resources to police who then terrorize poor communities of color. Specifically, transwomen face over policing and brutality just for "walking while trans." For more info about this, check out the new Queers for Economic Justice Project: "The New Queer Agenda" edited by Lisa Duggan! You can also google the case of "The New Jersey Four" which actually used hate crime laws to charge Black lesbian women with a more serious offense against a heterosexual man. (IE they were lesbians so they must hate men)
And finally, JESSICA YEE! She was amazing. Self described as a "Two-Spirit Indigenous hip-hop feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter," she began her section by asking the room whose land we were on. Three people in the entire room of over a hundred people knew. "How dare we talk about colonization if we don't even know who's land we're on!" I've got to be honest, after this exchange happened...I stopped taking notes and focused intensely on her wealth of knowledge. One really powerful point she made about the ridiculously high rates of death and disappearences of native women in Canada and The United States. She then goes on to rightfully critique orgs like NOW that simply feature or tolerate a First Nations speaker here or there when they feel like it. "If 18,000 white women went missing, don't you think feminists would be up in arms?"
She then went on to share jaw-dropping stats about the high rates of sexual abuse, childhood molestation, and depression of native women. Look her up. Read her work. She just released a new book that really calls out the privileged, white, academic, feminist bullshit we've all been told to use as the main means of educating ourselves and new generations of feminists.
Fuck that. Real-life academics. Lived realities. Study that!
Favorite quotes:
"Outside of the Nation to this systematic fuckery...sorry but English is the tool of the colonizers, and it won't get any help from me"
- Yee
"We can't say that we're all in solidarity because we're all oppressed in the same way....cause we're not"
-Yee
"Education can't come at the cost of our own communities crumbling because we're too tired."
-Yee
"I don't want to have to scare you into caring."
-Yee
"We need consensual allyship. Some communities aren't ready for your imposed partnership. Have you ever even been on a res? How can you be my ally if you don't know who I am?"
-Yee
"I need you just as much as you need me. What are 'we' going to do!"
-Martinez
"This privileged professor asked "how did this happen to you?" And I was like "are you kidding me?" But then I realized he really didn't know. I mean I suffered from reproductive oppression from when I was 10 years-old, but privileged educators have never seen what we seen or been through what we been through. WE have to educate the higher ups too."
-Martinez
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