A victory for Palestine activism in NYC

Wesley House reports on a victory for Palestine solidarity activists in New York.

February 26, 2013

LGBT rights activists protest the center's former policy banning Palestine solidarity events

THE NEW York City LGBT Community Center announced in mid-February that it was ending its two-year moratorium against hosting events relating to Israel and Palestine. Pressure from queer activists and community members forced the center to reconsider its policies and open its doors to members wishing to organize around this cause.

About one month prior to the reversal, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) applied to rent a space in the New York City LGBT Center to host a reading with Sarah Schulman, author of Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. The event was scheduled to take place during Israel Apartheid Week, an annual series of university lectures, cultural performances and film screenings that aim to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system. QAIA's request was rejected because, according to the center, the event didn't abide by the room rental policy.

The ban was initially established in 2011 after Siege Busters Working Group, an organization supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, was prohibited from hosting its "Party to End Apartheid," despite having organized at the Center previously.

According to Glennda Testone, executive director of the LGBT Community Center, the "decision to cancel the room reservation was made with input from a range of stakeholders."

The most vociferous of these stakeholders was staunch Zionist and gay porn producer Michael Lucas, who threatened to withdraw all financial contributions to the Center should the Siege Buster event take place. Despite his open Islamophobia--Lucas says he "hates Muslims, absolutely," and claims the Koran is a modern-day Mein Kampf that encourages Muslims to kill gays and Jews--the Center caved under the pressure. Ironically, its statement declared that events or groups condoning hate speech and bigotry would not be allowed to organize in the center.

As a historic site of queer activism and organizing, the center's ban was inconsistent with its mission statement of fostering activist spirit within queer communities. The ban also highlighted institutionalized efforts to squelch anti-Zionist organizing and depoliticize queer communities by suggesting their opposition to the state of Israel has no room or relevance in the modern LGBT movement.

Activists within the LGBT movement and their supporters rejected this attitude as delegitimizing queer activist efforts and the Palestinian solidarity movement.

The significance of queer communities and their role in social movements should not be understated. Historically, radical queer activists were aligned itself with the antiwar, anti-racist and anti-colonial movements, recognizing that sexual liberation can be achieved under a racist and militaristic state. Given the racist ideology of Zionism, it should come as no surprise that queer communities organized against the state of Israel.

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THE QAIA event featuring Sarah Schulman--now scheduled for March 11 at the center--will address the issue of "pinkwashing," a term used to describe how Israel invokes supposed LBGT rights to divert attention away from the atrocities committed against the Palestinians population.

According to the Jewish Daily Forward, in 2005, the Israeli prime minister's office and the Foreign Ministry agreed on a plan to try to improve the image of Israel abroad. The rebranding campaign launched by the Brand Israel Group, a coalition of marketing and communication executives, sought to achieve this by downplaying aspects of Israeli society that may lead people to associate it with apartheid and the military, such as its treatment towards Palestinians. Instead, the campaign would highlight aspects that could lead to tourism, such as food, art and nightlife.

Portraying Israel as a "gay haven"--despite the fact that nearly half of the Israeli population considers homosexuals to be "deviants"--was a major part of the rebranding campaign.

To the American eye, the inclusion of LGBT people in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) might seem "progressive" especially following the celebrations in the U.S. after the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But this attitude ignores the existence of queer Palestinians who suffer from the violence inflicted by the IDF as it carries out massacres and raids on an ongoing basis. Incorporation into a racist military project is in no way liberation for LGBT people in Israel--and obviously not for Palestinians.

Some proponents of Israel point to the existence of homophobia in Palestine and surrounding Arab countries. These claims not only selectively recognize homophobia only in Arab and Muslim communities, disregarding the history of Christian and Jewish communities, but they also mistakenly expect liberation to flourish under occupation and imperialism.

It is important to recognize that movements for sexual liberation must align themselves with Palestine. Solidarity with Palestine means taking a stand against settler-colonialism--a racist and sexist system that has historically subjugated and oppressed people of color, women and sexual minorities. Israel's deliberate use of pinkwashing exploits Israeli and Palestinian LGBT communities in order to justify continued illegal expansion and the oppression of Palestinians.

The reversal of the LGBT Center's moratorium is an important victory. As J.F. Mulligan, a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, said:

We continued to raise visibility by marching in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens Pride marches. We protested the Salute to Israel Parade, and we endorsed other BDS actions around the city to keep the LGBT Center fresh in people's mind as a violator of free speech, and an institution that lacked transparency and is becoming more corporatized and less of a "community" center.

However, activists are still concerned regarding Center guidelines that declare, "No group utilizing the Center shall engage in hate speech or bigotry of any kind." In a response to the Center statement, QAIA said, "We completely deplore bigotry of any kind, but we cannot help but wonder who will define 'hate speech' and or 'bigotry of any kind.'"

As demonstrated in last month's controversy surrounding Brooklyn College's BDS event with Omar Barghouti and Judith Butler, criticism of Israel's unlawful policies and violent occupation of Palestinian territory are regularly painted as "anti-Semitic."

We should also reject attempts to depoliticize queer communities and their solidarity with Palestine by marking their efforts as "not LGBT-focused." As Mulligan said:

FAQ: Rape Culture 101

October 19, 2009 · by shakesville · in gender, op-ed, Social Justice, terminology, violence

This post was written by Melissa McEwan and originally published at Shakesville on October 09, 2009 Editor’s note: this post does not follow the usual FF101 FAQ conventions, but it’s being included in the FAQ list anyway.

[Trigger warning.]

Frequently, I receive requests to provide a definition of the term “rape culture.” I’ve referred people to the Wikipedia entry on rape culture, which is pretty good, and I like the definition provided in Transforming a Rape Culture:

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

But my correspondents—whether they are dewy noobs just coming to feminism, advanced feminists looking for a source, or disbelievers in the existence of the rape culture—always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like?

It is not a definition for which they’re looking; not really. It’s a description. It’s something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery. Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.

Rape culture is treating straight sexuality as the norm. Rape culture is lumping queer sexuality into nonconsensual sexual practices like pedophilia and bestiality. Rape culture is privileging heterosexuality because ubiquitous imagery of two adults of the same-sex engaging in egalitarian partnerships without gender-based dominance and submission undermines (erroneous) biological rationales for the rape culture’s existence.

Rape culture is rape being used as a weapon, a tool of war and genocide and oppression. Rape culture is rape being used as a corrective to “cure” queer women. Rape culture is a militarized culture and “the natural product of all wars, everywhere, at all times, in all forms.”

Rape culture is 1 in 33 men being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another (“I’ll make you my bitch”). Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding. Rape culture is ignoring the cavernous need for men’s prison reform in part because the threat of being raped in prison is considered an acceptable deterrent to committing crime, and the threat only works if actual men are actually being raped.

Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women’s daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.

Rape culture is victim-blaming. Rape culture is a judge blaming a child for her own rape. Rape culture is a minister blaming his child victims. Rape culture is accusing a child of enjoying being held hostage, raped, and tortured. Rape culture is spending enormous amounts of time finding any reason at all that a victim can be blamed for hir own rape. Rape culture is judges banning the use of the word rape in the courtroom. Rape culture is the media using euphemisms for sexual assault. Rape culture is stories about rape being featured in the Odd News.

Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “be aware of barroom risks” or “avoid these places” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.

Rape culture is “nothing” being the most frequent answer to a question about what people have been formally taught about rape.

Rape culture is boys under 10 years old knowing how to rape.

Rape culture is the idea that only certain people rape—and only certain people get raped. Rape culture is ignoring that the thing about rapists is that they rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance.

Rape culture is the narrative that sex workers can’t be raped. Rape culture is the assertion that wives can’t be raped. Rape culture is the contention that only nice girls can be raped.

Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck. Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Rape culture is avoiding talking about what an absurdly unreasonable expectation that is, since rapists don’t announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple.

Rape culture is people meant to protect you raping you instead—like parents, teachers, doctors, ministers, cops, soldiers, self-defense instructors.

Rape culture is a serial rapist being appointed to a federal panel that makes decisions regarding women’s health.

Rape culture is a ruling that says women cannot withdraw consent once sex commences.

Rape culture is a collective understanding about classifications of rapists: The “normal” rapist (whose crime is most likely to be dismissed with a “boys will be boys” sort of jocular apologia) is the man who forces himself on attractive women, women his age in fine health and form, whose crime is disturbingly understandable to his male defenders. The “real sickos” are the men who go after children, old ladies, the disabled, accident victims languishing in comas—the sort of people who can’t fight back, whose rape is difficult to imagine as titillating, unlike the rape of “pretty girls,” so easily cast in a fight-fuck fantasy of squealing and squirming and eventual relenting to the “flattery” of being raped.

Rape culture is the insistence on trying to distinguish between different kinds of rape via the use of terms like “gray rape” or “date rape.”

Rape culture is pervasive narratives about rape that exist despite evidence to the contrary. Rape culture is pervasive imagery of stranger rape, even though women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger, and nine times more likely to be raped in their home, the home of someone they know, or anywhere else than being raped on the street, making what is commonly referred to as “date rape” by far the most prevalent type of rape. Rape culture is pervasive insistence that false reports are common, although they are less common (1.6%) than false reports of auto theft (2.6%). Rape culture is pervasive claims that women make rape accusations willy-nilly, when 61% of rapes remain unreported.

Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that there is a “typical” way to behave after being raped, instead of the acknowledgment that responses to rape are as varied as its victims, that, immediately following a rape, some women go into shock; some are lucid; some are angry; some are ashamed; some are stoic; some are erratic; some want to report it; some don’t; some will act out; some will crawl inside themselves; some will have healthy sex lives; some never will again.

Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that a rape victim who reports hir rape is readily believed and well-supported, instead of acknowledging that reporting a rape is a huge personal investment, a difficult process that can be embarrassing, shameful, hurtful, frustrating, and too often unfulfilling. Rape culture is ignoring that there is very little incentive to report a rape; it’s a terrible experience with a small likelihood of seeing justice served.

Rape culture is hospitals that won’t do rape kits, disbelieving law enforcement, unmotivated prosecutors, hostile judges, victim-blaming juries, and paltry sentencing.

Rape culture is the fact that higher incidents of rape tend to correlate with lower conviction rates.

Rape culture is silence around rape in the national discourse, and in rape victims’ homes. Rape culture is treating surviving rape as something of which to be ashamed. Rape culture is families torn apart because of rape allegations that are disbelieved or ignored or sunk to the bottom of a deep, dark sea in an iron vault of secrecy and silence.

Rape culture is the objectification of women, which is part of a dehumanizing process that renders consent irrelevant. Rape culture is treating women’s bodies like public property. Rape culture is street harassment and groping on public transportation and equating raped women’s bodies to a man walking around with valuables hanging out of his pockets. Rape culture is most men being so far removed from the threat of rape that invoking property theft is evidently the closest thing many of them can imagine to being forcibly subjected to a sexual assault.

Rape culture is treating 13-year-old girls like trophies for men regarded as great artists.

Rape culture is ignoring the way in which professional environments that treat sexual access to female subordinates as entitlements of successful men can be coercive and compromise enthusiastic consent.

Rape culture is a convicted rapist getting a standing ovation at Cannes, a cameo in a hit movie, and a career resurgence in which he can joke about how he hates seeing people get hurt.

Rape culture is when running dogfights is said to elicit more outrage than raping a woman would.

Rape culture is blurred lines between persistence and coercion. Rape culture is treating diminished capacity to consent as the natural path to sexual activity.

Rape culture is pretending that non-physical sexual assaults, like peeping tomming, is totally unrelated to brutal and physical sexual assaults, rather than viewing them on a continuum of sexual assault.

Rape culture is diminishing the gravity of any sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, or culture of actual or potential coercion in any way.

Rape culture is using the word “rape” to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like “That ATM raped me with a huge fee” or “The IRS raped me on my taxes.”

Rape culture is rape being used as entertainment, in movies and television shows and books and in video games.

Rape culture is television shows and movies leaving rape out of situations where it would be a present and significant threat in real life.

Rape culture is Amazon offering to locate “rape” products for you.

Rape culture is rape jokes. Rape culture is rape jokes on t-shirts, rape jokes in college newspapers, rape jokes in soldiers’ home videos, rape jokes on the radio, rape jokes on news broadcasts, rape jokes in magazines, rape jokes in viral videos, rape jokes in promotions for children’s movies, rape jokes on Page Six (and again!), rape jokes on the funny pages, rape jokes on TV shows, rape jokes on the campaign trail, rape jokes on Halloween, rape jokes in online content by famous people, rape jokes in online content by non-famous people, rape jokes in headlines, rape jokes onstage at clubs, rape jokes in politics, rape jokes in one-woman shows, rape jokes in print campaigns, rape jokes in movies, rape jokes in cartoons, rape jokes in nightclubs, rape jokes on MTV, rape jokes on late-night chat shows, rape jokes in tattoos, rape jokes in stand-up comedy, rape jokes on websites, rape jokes at awards shows, rape jokes in online contests, rape jokes in movie trailers, rape jokes on the sides of buses, rape jokes on cultural institutions…

Rape culture is people objecting to the detritus of the rape culture being called oversensitive, rather than people who perpetuate the rape culture being regarded as not sensitive enough.

Rape culture is the myriad ways in which rape is tacitly and overtly abetted and encouraged having saturated every corner of our culture so thoroughly that people can’t easily wrap their heads around what the rape culture actually is.