What in the hell has been going on with the Oscar Grant movement?
And I am not talking about the infamous “Violence is Not Justice” PSA that Youth Uprising put out (but that was pretty fucking bad).
I’m talking about the patriarchy.
Yes, I said it.
There is something eerily similar about the type of patriarchy that has emerged in the Grant movement to what has been coined “disaster patriarchy.” It’s like a mix of opportunism with a we-have-no-time-to-focus-on-women’s-liberation-we-are-in-a-state-of-emergency! madness. Shall we call it "riot patriarchy"? “rebellion patriarchy”? “emergency patriarchy?” Either way, the endless bombardment of machismo is just embarrassing. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.
The rush of testosterone that fills the crowd when the riot police move in terrifies, fascinated and humiliates me. I am humiliated to be part of a movement with such bravado. I don’t know how to describe it really. It reminds me so much of the organizing that went down after Katrina….
I really wanted to punch a guy in the face that grabbed me during the last demo but how could I do that when 20,000 members of law enforcement are just waiting for an excuse to pounce? Don’t get me wrong, Too Sexy for 501c3 does not endorse nor participate in violence against egotistical organizers—not because it’s unprincipled behavior but because it’s just not very sustainable and we don’t like being lectured by those peacemaking-coalition-builders about how we have to put our claws away in the face of repeated disrespect.
I wonder if this most recent wave of manliness has gone completely unchecked? At the risk of being painted as a petty bitch or outside agitator by all, I ask you, are we only going to discuss gender justice and sexual harassment when we talk about reproductive rights? I’d much rather see it being brought up by men of color than the white anarcho-femmes who travel to Chiapas every year and try to school me on Zapatism@.
I know people have brought up the opportunism and the egoism in the Grant movement but the thing about all this opportunism and egoism is that patriarchy is like its food. We’re just feeding the beast until it self-congratulates itself into a national Oscar Grant movement tour complete with pictures of organizers on shirts instead of Grant's.
…
I'm tempted to begin a conversation applying Marcuse's theory that the market is sustained by sex drive to the activist community in the Bay Area... but I don't want to bore you to death with more of my beating dead horses and it is already a f-ing miracle that you are still reading. I’ll have to brush up on my Marcuse and save that for another rant down the line.
Now that I have gotten all that off of my chest, lets get back to business shall we?... Have you given feedback on the new design?? All you have to do is CLICK HERE!
Yours in dyslexic banter,
Half of Too Sexy for 501c3
p.s. please email me resources, zine and journal articles about riot/rebellion patriarchy. What I have been reading so far is soooo unsatisfying. Feel free to comment on the irony of my rant in light of our new tshirt design (if you think it’s ironic, you obviously don’t get it). Or use the comment section to vent about your experiences with riot/rebellion/disaster patriarchy as well—that’s what we’re here for! I would heart you for it!
