Key Issues

Use your white skin to end racial violence and injustice

. We don't need sensational videotapes to remind us that every day in this country black people are being gunned down and murdered. White folks in general, either through antipathy or chronic disconnect, have dispensed with people of color. Through their inaction, they say it's okay for black communities to devolve into armed neighborhoods and for cops to become street executioners with no accountability. The only form of true privilege is when you give it to someone who has none. This is the motto we lived by. The rest is just bullshyte. Just having white skin is a privilege. And, if you are ...

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

More on the racist roots of our founding

When the Revolutionary War began, the odds of a united, continental effort to resist the British seemed nearly impossible. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected thirteen colonies to stick together in a war against their cultural cousins. In this pathbreaking book, Robert Parkinson argues that to unify the patriot side, political and communications leaders linked British tyranny to colonial prejudices, stereotypes, and fears about insurrectionary slaves and violent Indians. Manipulating newspaper networks, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and their fellow agitators broadcast stories of British agents inciting African Americans and Indians to take up arms against the American rebellion. ...

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in Campaigns / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

How To Get To Reconciliation

Introduction To commemorate July 4, yesterday, I wrote about the necessity for a US Truth & Reconciliation Commission (USTRC), an obvious concept that could someday "become the center to all the fireworks, BBQs, and white-centric glad-handing that takes place." Included were the threads that promise the inevitability of a  U.S. Reconciliation and Truth Commission (USRTC), articulated most notably by modern icon-philosophers such as MLK, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, particularly his real-world success in reconciling a just as wily South Africa. We have to start making amends somewhere — searching for reconciliation together is the only route out of the bondage of the current insanity ...

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

July 4: The Lonely Road of Reconciliation 

July 4 can be a good time for reflection, and it seems that every year, we have had something to say for the holiday, such as: religion, real and fake; an explanation of why sexual freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms; and, a 7-minute video montage of street interviews asking, "What Does Sexual Freedom Mean To You?" Last year, though, I took a different approach, tied in with my life-long search for answers to the cratering of modern civilization that we are witnessing today. While I believe that America may be the world’s best hope for universal human rights ...

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in Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Good Morning, America! (Part 2)

Editor's Note: Be sure to check out Part 1 where Moses reacted to the news of open service for transgender people. Below is Part 2, Moses' direct response to my originating post, Facing Military Reality, which cited the evil of war as the the background to our noble support our troops and the new policy of transgender service in the military.

  I agree. Despite the fact that transgender folks have been given a green light to serve openly in the military, there will still be many obstacles hindering full integration, just like freeing slaves did not erase racism ...

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Kushaba Moses Mworeko 0 comments

Good Morning, America! (Part 1)

Editor's note: I recently addressed the new policy allowing transgender people to serve in the military as a step back a bit to consider the military is a large, violent, and oppressive system in dire need of new direction, inclusive as it may be. My good friend, Moses, at the same time, offersed his take on the new policy, Good Mornight, America (Part 1), below. In Part 2 of his post, Moses responds directly to my initial post which attempted to separate love for our troops and the evil of war.

  On June 30, 2016 Defense Secretary Ashton B. ...

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Kushaba Moses Mworeko 0 comments

Where Have All The Transgender People Gone?

The announcement of open service for transgender troops happens to coincide with the release of new Williams Institute report showing that the number of adults identifying as transgender in the US has doubled in the last 5 years to 0.6%. Since traveling the country over the last decade to interact and work with trans activists, I learned one important fact that indicates this new Williams Institute estimate is far, far too low. The transgender people that make themselves highly visible as a political act, in fact, represent a small handful. Consider how many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people there are ...

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Facing Military Reality

It's official: Transgender people will serve openly in the US armed forces. While this can be considered a step forward toward full acceptance and protection of transgender people in our culture and human rights in general, we are still very, very far from that. On top of that, it's still important to remember that our armed services only "further the violence of one of the central institutions of global oppression." Yesterday's excellent Op-Ed at Truth-Out.org, "Transgender Troops" Should Be An Oxymoron, is required reading for every LGBT activist because it pinpoints the cause of the right-wing shift of our biggest ...

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

#GagOnIt

The "Gays Against Guns" (GAG) campaign received a jumpstart at Sunday's NYC Pride Parade and elsewhere in the country. On command, these marchers stopped chanting, and laid down on the pavement in a "die-in," a dramatic exclamation driving home the point. The GAG campaign emerged following the Orlando massacre at a gay night club two weeks ago, and mirrors the sit-in for gun control by heroic democrats literally sitting down on the floor of the US House of Representatives, and many coordinated civil actions across the country for today's National Day of Action Against Gun Violence. Fifty years ago as ...

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in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Let the Good News Flow

Flickr/creativecommons

Just yesterday, I noted a trifecta of good news, and today two more actions by the US Supreme Court immediately followed: The justices refused to entertain an appeal by pharmacists to use religious exemptions in their refusal to fill birth control prescriptions; and they finally ended the quest of county clerks like Kim Davis in Kentucky, all of whom are government employees, from refusing marriage licenses based on their religious beliefs. Sometimes, more and more frequently these days, we see more good news, more progress towards that better world we can envision. Our manifesto describes the mechanics ...

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in Campaigns / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized  by Alison Gardner 0 comments