Casa Ruby will be a touchstone for the local Latino LGBT community.
A Latino LGBT community services center called Casa Ruby is scheduled to open its doors in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood on June 6, according to transgender activist Ruby Corado, the new center’s founder and director.
Corado said the center will operate in a 750-square-foot office space on the lower floor of a converted townhouse at 2822 Georgia Ave., N.W. She said the rented office comes with additional outdoor patio space in the rear of the building, which is located a few blocks from the Columbia Heights Metro station.
“It’s going to be an LGBT center with a primary focus on Latinos, which is the population that I have been working with,” said Corado, a native Spanish speaker. “But it’s open to everybody.”
Corado said the city’s existing LGBT Community Center on the 1300 block of U Street, N.W., has been welcoming to the LGBT Latino community. But similar to most other LGBT groups in the D.C. metropolitan area, Corado said the existing center lacks Spanish speaking staff or volunteers. She said a sizable number of LGBT Latinos in the area aren’t fluent in English.
“Right now there is nothing for the Latino LGBT community that is run by LGBT Latinos,” Corado said.
According to Corado, each of the new center’s five-member volunteer staff will be fluent in English and Spanish.
David Mariner, executive director of the LGBT Community Center on U Street, said the Latino GLBT History Project rents office space at the center and other LGBT Latino groups have used the center’s space for various activities.
He said the center doesn’t have the resources at the present time to hire a Spanish speaking staff person.
“I love Ruby and look forward to working with her,” Mariner said.
Among other things, Corado said she envisions Casa Ruby as a one-stop community service center for Latino LGBT people that will provide support and referrals to other service providers on such matters as immigration issues, substance abuse, domestic violence, counseling, employment services and HIV/AIDS education and prevention.
Corado said she decided to use her name for the center’s title to create an atmosphere of support and comfort and a place where people can socialize as well as seek services.
The exterior of Casa Ruby, which Corado says will be named for her because she wants it to feel like a home.
“I want this to this to sort of be a home,” she said. “I want them to feel this is their place. If they don’t have anything out there for their needs like a place to stay I want them to come and I will help them find that.”
Corado said she used her own personal funds to secure the lease and finance the start-up of the center. She said she established Casa Ruby as a project of Latinos En Accion, an LGBT organization she helped to found several years ago as a non-profit corporation with a 501 C (3) tax-exempt status.
Under the structure of the new center, supporters can make tax deductable donations, she said.
She said she has been speaking with D.C. government officials, including officials with the Office of Latino Affairs, over the possibility of obtaining city grants for various services.
Supporters of the center have already donated interior design services and furniture, computers and a flat-screen TV.
She said Casa Ruby will host a grand opening reception at the center starting at noon on June 6. She is hopeful that Mayor Vincent Gray will be among the notables attending the opening ceremony.
“I’m using my life savings to sustain this project for the next year,” said Corado. “I’m doing it because I believe there is a need for it and we can make a difference for the community we’re all a part of.”
She added, “I want to repeat that although the primary focus is with Latinos, it’s for everybody. That’s why I call it Casa Ruby because many people know me. And I want people to know that it’s a home for everybody.”
Mariner said the D.C. Center’s effort to seek a larger space in the city’s Reeves Municipal Building less than a block from its current office moved ahead last week when it submitted its formal bid for the new space.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” he said.
The center’s bid is part of an official invitation by the city for potential tenants to offer a level of rent they are willing to pay for vacant office space at the Reeves Building. Mariner said the invitation, or request for proposal (RFP), was open to both non-profit organizations like the center or commercial businesses such as retail stores or restaurants. He said the center’s bid stresses that the center would provide an important community service that most businesses don’t offer and the city should give special consideration to granting the center a lease in the building.
The center is being forced to leave its current space in 2013, when the building in which it’s located will be razed to make way for a new hotel.
Supporters charge that racism and transphobia in legal system continue the assault against McDonald
May 2, 2012
Minneapolis, MN – Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald accepted a plea agreement, May 2, to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the second degree in the criminal case resulting from the racist, transphobic assault that she survived last June.
The prosecution originally charged her with felony murder in the second degree. However, after entering into plea negotiations this morning, the defense and the prosecution settled on the reduced charge. McDonald will be sentenced on June 4 at 1:30 p.m. under Hennepin County Judge Daniel Moreno to 41 months in prison. According to a statement from her support committee, “The executed sentence will be reduced by one third, for ‘good time’ and credit for the time McDonald has served pending this resolution.”
The plea agreement comes nearly a year after McDonald was arrested, interrogated, denied adequate medical care for a laceration she suffered during the attack, and held in solitary confinement for a month for being a transgender person. During the pre-trial proceedings, supporters raised worldwide support for the demand that the charges against McDonald be dropped. Last month, supporters delivered 15,000 signatures and dozens of letters of support for McDonald from organizations and prominent individuals from around the globe to Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman. Freeman consistently failed to exercise his professional discretion and take a stand against racism and transphobia by dropping the charges.
“Freeman’s aggressive prosecution of CeCe was a continuation of the racist, transphobic assault that led to her being charged and resulted in the tragic death of one of the assailants,” said Kris Gebhard of the CeCe McDonald Support Committee. “We’ve been proud to stand with CeCe as she fought this unjust prosecution and will continue to stand with her as she fights for justice as a trans woman of color within the prison system.”
In a press conference after the plea agreement was accepted in court, Katie Burgess of the Trans Youth Support Network addressed the crowd of supporters filling the steps outside the Hennepin County courthouse. Burgess stated, “Over the past 10 months I have witnessed the legal system isolating and attacking another young trans woman of color in our community, CeCe McDonald. And over the past 10 months, I have also witnessed our community say very clearly, ‘You are not alone, CeCe! And we have had enough!’”
Burgess continued, “With the whole world watching, Freeman’s office consistently chose not to take the opportunity to stand up against racism and transphobia. Freeman himself said, and I quote, ‘The criminal justice system is not built for, nor is it necessarily good at, solving a lot of society’s problems.’”
Burgess concluded, “We know that this system is not designed to deliver justice to young trans women of color. We are going to continue to support CeCe as she goes through this process and continue to stand for justice for all trans people and people of color so that this is the last time a young trans woman of color has to go through this.”
Supporters will pack the courtroom for the sentencing on June 4 and continue to rally support for McDonald and to demand justice for all trans people and people of color.
Minneapolis, MN – Jury selection for Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald’s trial began May 1, amidst a national outcry. On April 30, national figures Mara Keisling, founding Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and Leslie Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues, flew into Minneapolis to attend the first scheduled day of McDonald’s trial. In an open letter calling on Michael Freeman to cease prosecution of McDonald, Feinberg commented, “The right of self-defense against all forms of oppressions – the spirit of Stonewall – is at the heart of the demand to free [McDonald].” Mara Keisling echoed this sentiment, stating, “People are being killed out there, and CeCe is being punished for not being killed.”
On April 27, over 40 supporters overflowed McDonald’s pre-trial evidentiary hearing, in which Judge Moreno heard motions regarding what evidence will be allowed in trial. Although Judge Moreno ruled that McDonald supporters will not be allowed to wear “Free CeCe” t-shirts or anti-swastika buttons in court, supporters were not deterred, and overflowed the court room again April 30 for the continuation of the hearing.
Most notably, Judge Moreno sustained a motion from the prosecution to exclude the deceased’s criminal record, which includes three assault convictions. Schmitz was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend’s 14-year old daughter and his ex-girlfriend’s father. Judge Moreno has yet to rule whether the swastika tattoo on the deceased’s chest will be admitted into the trial, either in photos or testimony. Judge Moreno refused to approve the defense’s request for expert witness to testify about climate of violence transgender people navigate in Minneapolis and nationally. He has yet to rule on whether an expert witness can educate the jury about what the word “transgender” means.
McDonald’s defense argued that the deceased’s prior assault convictions, the swastika tattoo and expert testimony about the incredibly disproportionate level of violence transgender people face provides crucial context to the case by demonstrating that McDonald had reason to fear for her life on June 5, 2011. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reported in 2010 that “transgender women made up 44% of the 27 hate murders in the United States, while representing only 11% of total survivors and victims.”
Also noteworthy, in the April 30 continuation of the pre-trial hearing, the prosecution stated that no weapon had been recovered from the scene on the night of June 5 and that it remains unclear what the weapon that caused the deceased’s fatal wound was.
Minneapolis, MN – After initially refusing a meeting, Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman agreed to meet with CeCe McDonald’s family and supporters April 24. Hours before the meeting, Freeman’s office issued a letter to McDonald’s supporters defending his decision to charge her with two counts of second degree murder.
During the meeting, Freeman cited his office’s three-hour staff training in 2010 and a lesbian employee to demonstrate his awareness of the issues facing LGBTQ people. Supporters cited a petition with over 14,500 signatures and letters from over 35 local and national organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Coalition of Anti-violence Programs, and Outfront Minnesota, to demonstrate the international concern over his ongoing prosecution of McDonald.
Freeman’s letter made special note of his office’s longstanding relationship with LGBT organization Outfront Minnesota. Cheré Suzette Bergeron, who attended today’s meeting as Outfront Minnesota’s Anti-Violence Program Coordinator, told Freeman, “It is deeply troubling that you have not responded to our letter asking why charges are being pressed in this case when they have been dropped in similar cases,” and reiterated Outfront Minnesota’s concern over Freeman’s treatment of McDonald.
Freeman was adamant that gender, race, sexual orientation and class do not play into his prosecution decisions. Supporters repeatedly stated that these factors have been at play in every moment of CeCe’s case, from the initial attack she experienced through her arrest and current incarceration. Lex Horan, a Support Committee member stated, “Freeman described the incident as a neutral conflict between two groups of people in the street. He refuses to acknowledge that CeCe was attacked because of her race and gender. Claiming colorblindness in this case doesn’t make Freeman objective; it makes him ignorant of the reality facing transgender women of color.”
In a letter to Freeman, the National Coalition of Anti-violence Programs noted that they have responded to three murders of transgender women in April alone. McDonald supporter Billy Navarro Jr. made note of this statistic and said, “So many transgender women of color are attacked and violently killed. In this case, CeCe is basically being prosecuted for surviving.”
Rai’vyn Cross, McDonald’s sister, closed the 30-minute meeting by saying, “We’re not going to get justice.” Indeed, Freeman himself had acknowledged earlier in the meeting, “The criminal justice system is not built for, nor is it good at, solving a lot of society’s problems.” Support Committee members agreed with this assessment of the criminal legal system, but contended that prosecuting McDonald condones violence against transgender women of color and makes problems plaguing society, including racism, sexism and transphobia, worse.
McDonald was scheduled to have a pretrial evidentiary hearing April 24, at 9 a.m. About 40 of McDonald’s supporters arrived to demonstrate their support in the courtroom. However, the hearing was continued. McDonald’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday, April 30.
The reason this play, “8″, is being published here on The prison gates are open… is due to the news blog’s heavy support in the LGBTQ movement and for equal rights to every human being, no matter their gender, race, religion, or even their sexual orientation. This was an historical case and resembles the current struggle continuing on today against anti-LGBTQ bigotry and violence in the United States. The latest victory for the LGBTQ community was the Supreme Court’s overturning of Prop. 8 on February 7, 2012, declaring the ban of same-sex marriage being unconstitutional:
Featuring an all-star cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Lynch, Kevin Bacon and others, “8″ is a play written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and directed by acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner. It is a powerful account of the case filed by the American Federation for Equal Rights (AFER) in the U.S. District Court in 2010 to overturn Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that eliminated the rights of same-sex couples to marry in the state of California. Framed around the trial’s historic closing arguments in June 2010, 8 provides an intimate look what unfolded when the issue of same-sex marriage was on trial.
The above video mentions homosexuality being condemned and responded by sending those of the Cuban LGBTQ community in labor camps. As a response to this statement, I present the following article below, which was originally published by the Workers World Party on March 4, 2007:
1965 UMAP brigades: What they were, what they were not
By Leslie Feinberg
‘I am absolutely opposed to any form of repression, contempt, scorn or discrimination with regard to homosexuals. It is a natural tendency and human that must simply be respected.’ —Fidel Castro, 1992
One of the worst slanders against the Cuban Revolution is that the workers’ state was a “penal colony,” interning gay men in “concentration camps” in 1965. That charge, which refers to the 1965 mobilization of Units to Aid Military Production (UMAP), still circulates today as good coin.
Therefore the formation and ending of the UMAP work brigades in the history of the Cuban workers’ state is vitally important for today’s activists to study very carefully and thoroughly. Those who are working the hardest to make a revolution in the heartland of imperialism will pay the most careful attention, and bring the most genuine solidarity and humility—teachability—to this important analysis.
For those worldwide who struggle against oppression based on sexuality, gender and sex, the sharpening of this sexual/gender/sex contradiction in Cuba in 1965 offers this critical lesson: The way sexuality and the sexes are socially organized, and gender is socially assigned and allowed to be expressed, always has a history.
Since the overturning of matrilineal, cooperative societies, strict organization based on race, sex, gender expression and sexuality has served the dictates of ruling-class economic organization, and has been under the knuckles of state regulation and repression.
Pre-revolutionary Cuba was no exception.
Spain exports Inquisition
Without understanding Cuba’s historical process, it’s impossible to understand its revolutionary process.
Researcher Ian Lumsden noted in his study on Cuba and homosexuality, “There is much speculation about the incidence of homosexual activity between Cuba’s [I]ndigenous people, as there is with respect to other parts of the New World. Whatever its true extent, it was used as a pretext for Spain to enslave [N]atives on the grounds that they were not fully human.”
He explained that, “Condemnation of sodomy and subsequently of homosexuality, along with repressive mystification of women’s sexuality, have long been at the core of Spanish Catholic dogmas regarding sexuality.” Only crimes against the king and heresy ranked higher as crimes than “sodomy” in the Middle Ages.
Lumsden added, “There was competition between the Inquisition and the secular courts about who should have authority to exorcise it from the body politic.”
Sentences ranged from castration to being burned alive.
The domestic Spanish crusade against “sodomy,” he explained, was driven by the ruling class’ “desire to expunge Moorish cultural influence from Spain, which they associated, among other things, with homosexual and cross-dressing behavior.”
Pivotal impact of slavery
Lumsden paraphrased, “As Julio Le Riverend, Cuba’s leading economic historian, reminds us, the development of Cuba, particularly since the 18th century, cannot be understood without recognizing the pivotal impact of slavery as a mode of production on all social relations, including domestic ones. Homosexuality among slaves occurred in a context—that is, a country whose dominant culture was both racist and homophobic.”
The system of plantation slavery—both chattel and latifundia—created rural enslavement in which the masters on the island, and the masters across the Florida Straits, claimed to own the bodies and lives and labor of enslaved workers.
The patriarchal slave-masters, landowners and their overseers dictated the clothing enslaved workers could wear; where they could live and in what arrangements; when the sexes could meet; where, when and how they could have sex; if they could marry and, if so, who they could marry.
Of the more than 40,000 Asian laborers counted in the 1871 Cuban census, for example, only 66 were women and the law forbade Chinese males from marrying African-Cubans.
Enslaved African males outnumbered females by a ratio of almost two to one. Males were often housed together in isolated regions in single-sex barracones—plantation barracks—in which no women were allowed.
In his oral narrative, former enslaved African laborer Esteban Montejo told Miguel Barnet about men coupling with other men in everyday life in the barracones. And he offered a glimpse at how they were gendered in relation to each other. Montejo only refers to the partner who looks after a marido (husband) as what the Spanish would term “sodomite.”
Montejo said it was only “after slavery that that word afeminado appeared.”
Centralization and commodification
Capitalism and imperialism did not invent homosexuality or gender variance in Cuba; these market forces centralized, commodified and commercialized them.
Rural poverty made capitalist relations—the often empty promise of jobs—a magnet that drew hundreds of thousands of campesin@s from the impoverished countryside to the cities, in particular the capital Havana, in search of wage work.
“During this period of severe sexual repression in advanced capitalist nations,” researchers Lourdes Arguelles and B. Ruby Rich explained, “homosexual desire was often channeled into illegal and lucrative offshore markets like the Havana underworld.” (“Hidden From History”)
The crime syndicates and wealthy Cubans with ties to the Batista dictatorship gave “preferential hiring” to Cuban homosexuals, many of them feminine and/or cross-dressing males, to serve the demand of the dollar, and those whose wallets were filled with them.
“Other buyers of homosexual desire,” Arguelles and Rich elaborated, “were the fathers and sons of the Cuban bourgeoisie, who felt free to partake of homoerotic practices without being considered homosexual as long as they did not take the passive, so-called female role in sexual relations. Yet another common practice for Cuban heterosexual men was the procurement of a lesbian prostitute’s favors for a night.”
Poverty drew many heterosexual Cuban men “into this underworld or alternatively into a homosexual underground dominated by the Cuban homosexual bourgeoisie,” the two researchers added. The bourgeois Cuban male homosexual of this era sought out masculine men from the laboring class.
“Thus,” Arguelles and Rich observed, “in many ways, pre-revolutionary homosexual liaisons in themselves fostered sexual colonialism and exploitation.”
Overall, the pre-revolutionary state regulated this sex-for-profit industry, rather than repress it.
Fidel: ‘We were forced to mobilize’
Shutting down the exploitative, unproductive economic industries in Havana after seizure of state power was just one task. Building a planned, productive economy that could meet the needs of 9 million urban and rural workers was a whole other job—and a difficult one, at that.
“Let me tell you about the problems we had,” Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro recalled. “In those first years we were forced to mobilize the whole nation because of the risks we were facing, which included that of an attack by the United States: the dirty war, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Missile Crisis.”
Fidel Castro—referred to as “Fidel” by supporters of the Revolution and “Castro” by enemies—talked extensively about the UMAP in two interviews. The first was in a published conversation with Tomás Borge, published in “Face to Face with Fidel Castro” (Ocean Press: 1992). The second was in conversations between 2003 and 2005 with Ignacio Ramonet, published by the Cuban Council of State in April 2006.
Recalling the period of 1965, Fidel outlined three obstacles in organizing this island-wide emergency mobilization to defend the Revolution and to build the economy.
The first two: The CIA was beaming messages to entice skilled workers and technicians to emigrate. And members of Catholic, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventist religious organizations would not take up arms in defense of the island.
“[A]t the triumph of the Revolution,” Fidel explained, “the stage we are speaking of, the male chauvinist element was very much present, together with widespread opposition to having homosexuals in military units.”
Fidel said that as a result, “Homosexuals were not drafted at first, but then all that became a sort of irritation factor, an argument some people used to lash out at homosexuals even more.
“Taking those three categories into account we founded the so-called Military Units to Support Production (UMAP) where we sent people from the said three categories: those whose educational level was insufficient; those who refused to serve out of religious convictions; or homosexuals who were physically fit. Those were the facts; that’s what happened.
“Those units were set up all throughout the country for purposes of work, mainly to assist agriculture. That is, homosexuals were not the only ones affected, though many of them certainly were, not all of them, just those who were called to do mandatory service in the ranks, since it was an obligation and everyone was participating.”
Sexual, gender contradictions sharpened
Revolutionary re-organization in Cuba in 1965, staring down the barrel of imperialism’s cannons, had to reintegrate a numerically large homosexual/transgender population from the cities back into the rural agricultural production.
This returning workforce from the capitalist urban center had to go back to the rural agricultural production that many had left earlier in their lives.
When large numbers of feminine homosexuals returned to the countryside from Havana, it was not just a conflict of differently socialized sexual expression, but a collision between historically differently gendered workforces.
Capitalist relations had consolidated and commercialized the industry which had given mass expression to this sexuality and gender expression in males, and shaped these as commodities on the auction block of the market.
The urban homosexuality/transgender culture, dress, mores and social semaphores seemed to many Cubans—even men who had sex with men and women who had sex with women—to have washed up on the island’s shores on the waves of oppressive and exploitative capitalist and imperialist cultures.
Arguelles and Rich stressed that at the time of the revolution, “Erotic loyalty (and, in the case of women, subservience) to the opposite sex was assumed as normal even by homosexuals. Hence, for many Cubans of this era, homosexuality was a mere addendum to customary marital roles. Among others, it was just a profitable commodification of sexual fantasy. For the vast majority, homosexuality made life a shameful and guilt-ridden experience.”
Fidel stresses that the UMAP “were not internment units, nor were they punishment units; on the contrary, it was about morale, to give them a chance to work and help the country in those difficult circumstances. Besides, there were many who for religious reasons had the chance to help their homeland in another way by serving not in combat units but in work units.”
Fidel cut cane; children worked in the fields. Renowned Cubans such as musician and poet Pablo Milanés and Baptist pastor and MP Raúl Suárez worked in the UMAP.
The whole island was at hard at work building an independent existence, in economic soil deeply furrowed by the combines of colonialism and imperialism.
Fidel shut down the UMAP
Fidel Castro stated categorically about the UMAP, “I can tell you for sure that there was prejudice against homosexuals.”
On the island, the Cuban National Union of Artists and Writers (UNEAC) reportedly protested treatment of homosexuals working in UMAP, prompting Fidel to check it out for himself.
A Cuban who worked in a UMAP, interviewed by Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal in 1970-1971, related that Fidel slipped into a UMAP brigade one night and lay down in one of the hammocks. The interviewee said: the UMAP guards would sometimes cut the hammock cords with their sabers. “When one guard raised his saber he found himself staring at Fidel; he almost dropped dead. Fidel is the man of the unexpected visits.” (“In Cuba”)
A youth described as a “young Marxist revolutionary” told Cardenal that 100 young males from the Communist Youth were sent to the UMAP to report back about how they were treated. “It was a highly secret operation. Not even their families knew of this plan. Afterward the boys told what had happened. And they put an end to the UMAP.”
Closing the UMAP required further large-scale reorganization of agricultural work, the lifeblood of the economy.
One youth concluded to Cardenal, “[W]e who were in the UMAP discovered that the Revolution and the UMAP were separable. And we said to ourselves: We won’t leave Cuba, we’ll stay and make what is bad not bad.” (Jon Hillson, blythe.org)
Fidel: ‘Overcoming legacy of chauvinism’
Fidel explained that during this period of early revolutionary history, “Concerning women, there was a strong prejudice, as strong as in the case of homosexuals. I’m not going to come up with excuses now, for I assume my share of the responsibility. I truly had other concepts regarding that issue.
“I am not going to deny that, at one point, male chauvinism also influenced our attitude toward homosexuality,” he said.
“We inherited male chauvinism and many other bad habits from the conquistadors. I would say that it corresponded to a given stage and is largely associated with that legacy of chauvinism.”
Fidel stressed, “Homosexuals were certainly discriminated against—more so in other countries—but it happened here too, and fortunately our people, who are far more cultured and learned now, have gradually left that prejudice behind.
“We have made a real advance—we can see it, especially in the young people, but we can’t say that sexual discrimination has been completely wiped out and we mustn’t lower our guard.”
Fidel said, “I must also tell you that there were—and there are—extremely outstanding personalities in the fields of culture and literature, famous names this country takes pride in, who were and still are homosexual.
“Today the people have acquired a general, rounded culture. I’m not going to say there is no male chauvinism, but now it’s not anywhere near the way it was back then, when that culture was so strong. With the passage of years and the growth of consciousness about all of this, we have gradually overcome problems and such prejudices have declined. But believe me, it was not easy.”
Fidel Castro concluded in 1992: “I am absolutely opposed to any form of repression, contempt, scorn or discrimination with regard to homosexuals. It is a natural tendency and human that must simply be respected.”
Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro.
On December 20 I was invited to attend the regular meeting of the Education, Culture, Science and Technology Commission of the National Assembly of the People’s Power, held at the International Conference Center, where Heriberto Feraudy, who chairs the José Antonio Aponte Commission against Racial Discrimination of the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC) talked about the race problem in Cuba. It was the excellent presentation of a summary of previous discussions about this issue.
I asked from the floor from the section assigned to guests and took the opportunity to introduce myself as Director of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) and member of the Aponte Commission, and gave them my opinion about how we have approached and worked on this topic. As with any other form of discrimination, racism has a socioeconomic origin found in the relations of domination imposed by the power groups in class societies.
Whoever suffers from racial problems also suffers from other forms of discrimination based on their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, economic status, location, religion, ethnic extraction, language and many other excuses to blow up any individual or collective feature out of all proportion with a view to its use as a tool of domination.
My views sparked off an in-depth discussion among the legislators who made up this Commission. The most interesting thing about the debate was that it took the cross-sectional relationship among multiple forms of discrimination as the starting point for analysis, to which end plenty of eloquent examples were mentioned about Cuba’s present situation. Miguel Barnet, Abel Prieto, Ricardo Alarcón and Zuleica Romay made enlightening interventions in the same spirit.
I quoted Fernando Martínez Heredia, who says that socialism is a process of cultural transformation, which practice has proved to be true after 53 years of Revolution. If we don’t design permanent educational and communication strategies –as CENESEX has done in the last few years in the field of sexual orientation and gender identity– our society won’t be able to implement the cultural changes it intends to do for the sake of emancipation and full justice.
There were comments about the need to establish legislation against all forms of discrimination that, I believe, must make special emphasis on the definition of their specific ways of expression. Beyond any criminal penalties, we must undertake a far-reaching work based on dialogue about and participation in this complicated effort to change our way of thinking.
McDonald granted furlough to work, denied request to return to college
December 21, 2011
Minneapolis, MN – Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald appeared in court, Dec. 20 for a hearing where it was decided that her trial will begin on April 30, 2012, instead of the original start date of Jan. 9. Judge Moreno also ruled that, given the delayed trial date, McDonald will be permitted furlough time to seek employment and, once she finds a job, to go to work. The defense argued that McDonald should be granted furlough time to return to continue her schooling at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, given that she has been a “model citizen” in the months since her release from jail. However, Judge Moreno ruled against this request. The prosecution opposed both work and educational furloughs for McDonald, although they did not cite any specific rationalization for their position.
Both the defense and the prosecution in McDonald’s case supported the continuance. The defense plans to call an expert witness to testify regarding Dean Schmitz’s toxicology on the night that he attacked McDonald, but this witness is unavailable for the earlier trial date. The prosecution cited “pending legal issues,” noting that they need to conduct a handwriting analysis on a letter that McDonald allegedly wrote to the Minneapolis Star Tribune in June, as well as verify the credentials of the defense’s expert witness.
“We’re glad that the judge granted CeCe’s request for work furlough. But it’s alarming that they’re keeping her from continuing her college education – why won’t they let a Black woman go to school but they will let her work?” said local hip-hop artist Heidi Barton-Stink. “These charges have disrupted CeCe’s life for too long already. The only real solution is for Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman to drop these unjust charges so that CeCe can go back to her life.”
Although McDonald was given less than 24 hours notice of today’s court proceedings, around 20 of her family members and supporters filled the courtroom to remind the prosecution and the judge that McDonald has strong community backing.
“It’s clear that the prosecution thinks that, with the delayed trial date, community support for CeCe and public attention on her case will diminish,” said Jay Jahmia Masika of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition. “But we see right through this; we know that the prosecution doesn’t have anything on CeCe and they need more time to scramble to put together a case. We’ll keep showing up to every court date and throwing events for CeCe, no matter when she goes to trial.”
Chrishaun McDonald is a young African-American transgender woman who was attacked by a group of white adults while walking by the Schooner Tavern on Lake Street in South Minneapolis. The attack occurred early on the morning of June 5. As Ms. McDonald and her friends walked past the bar on their way to Cub Foods, patrons of the bar attacked them with transphobic and racist slurs and bashed Ms. McDonald’s face with a glass beer mug, puncturing her cheek all the way through and lacerating her salivary gland. Although Ms. McDonald was the target of a hate crime; she was singled out and charged with second degree murder after one of the attackers died as a result of injuries sustained in the ensuing fight.
Supporters will continue to spread the word about the injustice McDonald is suffering in the legal system and demand that Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman drop the charges against her. Visit http://supportcece.wordpress.com or email mpls4cece@gmail.com for more information.
Amsterdam's mayor unveils a plaque commemorating the city's first gay marriage. Photo: AFP
A French gay couple were married on Saturday in the south-western town of Cabestany in a gesture they and the town’s Communist mayor hope will help change French law, which does not recognise homosexual marriage.
“There are times when you have to be an outlaw,” declared Cabestany’s mayor Jean Vila before Saturday morning’s ceremony, appealing to other mayors to follow his example.
Saturday’s happy couple, 37-year-old artist Guillaume and 48-year-old photo-lab manager Patrick, say they were married both as a demonstration of love and as an activist gesture so that “very soon in France two people of the same sex can get married legally”.
“We are citizens, the same as everybody else,” they commented.
Their marriage lines contain the phrase “unfortunately this document has no official character, since the law today forbids marriage between people of the same sex, but it signifies the wish of the local authority to see the law change”.
The only gay marriage so far celebrated in France, in the western town of Bègles in 2004, was annulled by the courts.
Although France introduced civil partnerships, known as Pacs, in 1999, the Constitutional Council this year ruled that the law defines marriage as being “the union of a man and a woman”.
But several abstained and Solidarity Minister Roselyne Bachelot, who supports a change, declared that the question would be “the debate” of the 2012 presidential election.
Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Portugal do recognise gay marriage.
Families Minister Claude Greff slammed Saturday’s ceremony as an “electoralist provocation” ahead of the 2012 presidential poll, claiming that it would only make positions more rigid.
These are hard times. There doesn’t appear to be any respite coming soon. The political atmosphere has shifted in response to the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. This crisis, because of how the changes in technology, communication and production have made the world smaller, is global in its impact.
Corporations and financial institutions on Wall Street have become profitable again. Their profits were made possible by the more than $16 trillion in tax money doled out to them by Washington and because they have shed millions of jobs, ripped up workers’ contracts, forced concessions down the workers’ throats and because they make those left with a job work harder and produce more in less time.
There are cutbacks at every level of government — cuts to education, health care, housing, federal nutrition programs and other vital social services. Government workers are being laid off and their collective bargaining rights curtailed in places like Wisconsin — the birthplace of public sector unions — and in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana to name a few states.
These are hard times, confusing times, where, no matter which political party the heads of government at the local, state and federal level answer to, the common program is for cutbacks, cutbacks, cutbacks for the workers and the poor and tax breaks, subsidies and bailouts for the corporations and the rich.
But times change. The political atmosphere shifts in response to real events. It has once again. The Occupy Wall Street movement, like the uprising in Wisconsin earlier in the year but on a grander and broader scale, has awakened youth and students, labor — all sectors.
It has grown from seeds planted by the conditions of accelerating poverty, joblessness, disenfranchisement and frustration with a political system that favors the wealthy elite. Perhaps this movement’s greatest achievement to date is that it has opened up new, broad, vitally needed political space.
It rose suddenly and brazenly, goaded on by threats and intimidation. It shows no sign of waning. This movement has captured the imagination of people the world over who have been waiting, hoping that the roots lurking just under the soil will push upward.
But where does it go from here?
The United States was created from the destruction of the societies and the way of life of the original inhabitants of the North American continent. The wealth of the country stemmed from this destruction of the lives of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the seizure of half of Mexico, the colonization of the land of sovereign nations such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines, the corporate grab of the Western Hemisphere.
Indigenous people, the descendants of African slaves, the offspring of the people from the northern half of Mexico, the people of Puerto Rico continue to live in the United States and suffer the effects of centuries of genocide, slavery, land theft and racist policies that have been pervasive throughout U.S. history.
Drawn into the U.S. are people who left their homelands because of war — be it the war in Iraq that has raged for eight years; the war in Afghanistan that has persisted for ten; the wars more than one generation ago in Vietnam and Korea — or economic warfare imposed on their countries through the so-called North American Free Trade Act, structural adjustments or austerity — all emanating from Wall Street.
We, the overwhelming majority, comprise the working class. It is a multinational class that speaks many languages, has many different cultures, customs, beliefs and religions.
For the movement to grow, it has to accept the peculiar history of the development of the U.S. What we all want is an equal, just society with an equitable distribution of wealth, one where people are not exploited and where young people are not thrust into Wall Street’s wars for profit and plunder.
But that society does not yet exist.
A broad movement must be multinational, in solidarity with all people and their issues, against racist repression, sexism, homophobia, and in support of the struggles of people who suffer disproportionately under this oppressive system.
While in general the conditions heaped upon all of our class are bad, Black, Latinos/as, Indigenous people and other people of color suffer higher rates of unemployment, poverty, lack of access to health care, in addition to regular oppression and repression.
The attacks against immigrant workers, the raids and deportations, the attacks against Muslims and the attacks against Black people — be they in the form of police brutality, incarceration or police occupation of communities of color — must all be seen as attacks against a sector of the working class.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Unity and solidarity are needed.
Any grouping that seeks to scapegoat immigrants, Muslims, people of color is no friend of the working class. It is instead doing the bidding of Wall Street by attacking the most dispossessed, most disenfranchised. Any opportunists who think that demagogy against Wall Street that serves a racist, sexist or homophobic perspective must be given no quarter. Our class is diverse and we must always be aware of its diversity.
This movement will grow and can be transformative. We will learn what works and what doesn’t. We will learn lessons from our mistakes and our victories, and we will march forward.
An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!
All Power to the People!
Hales is an organizer of the national student struggle against austerity; an Occupy Wall Street, anti-police brutality and anti-war activist and a member of Fight Imperialism Stand Together.
These are hard times. There doesn’t appear to be any respite coming soon. The political atmosphere has shifted in response to the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. This crisis, because of how the changes in technology, communication and production have made the world smaller, is global in its impact.
