[SMRT.risingtide] Extensive thoughts on a tricky situation and a proposal to save meeting time

[rory breasail]

Hey Lee, the general consensus here is that we would rather not add an
additional hour meeting to the house that day as our meeting, potential
comm's catch up, and our own collective house meeting are all happening in
our living room already that day.

I agree this conversation definitely needs to continue, but can't imagine
it taking less than an hour so not sure about scheduling for Sunday.
Thoughts?


On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 11:38 AM, Lee Veeraraghavan <leecvee at hotmail.com>wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm sending this to the hornet and SMRT, and also Foye and Teresa to pass
> to Comms and Solidarity.  Basically, after yet another acrimonious meeting
> on Tuesday (which I stormed out of!  Wheee!  *So mature.*) I think we can
> all agree that altogether too much meeting time has been spent on this
> topic.  I think this is because emotions run high on sensitive issues, and
> we just need to dedicate the space to work through them.  I don't think
> this space should be collective meeting time (at least not anymore!), so I
> propose that anyone who feels that they need to express something on the
> issue meet an hour before Sunday's meeting just to talk it through, and get
> the emotions out, and feel heard and valued.
>
> I should say that after Tuesday (indeed, after Sunday), I have had several
> long conversations on the topic with people who didn't necessarily agree
> with me that were not only productive, but downright pleasant.  Against my
> desires and also my better judgment, I have taken a fairly strong position
> on this issue, and taken up a lot of space.  I don't want to be that person
> anymore, but I think it was necessary at the time.  So that I don't have to
> yell and fulminate anymore, I've written down my thoughts on the issue, and
> would appreciate it if the people who want to show up on Sunday at noon
> were to read and engage with them.  I have taken out almost all the
> inappropriate jokes, Hitler references, and the extended disquisition on
> liberalism, the police, and the nature of language, so...you're welcome.
>
> Cody, Ray, Rory - is your place free to be volunteered for such a purpose
> at noon?  :)  If not, I propose we meet at Cafe Deux Soleils.
>
> You people are fucking amazing.  Essay copied below.
>
> Lee
>
> *Thoughts on the matter*
>
>
> I worry that in bringing up the racist remarks made in workshops given by
> our allies, I may have been misinterpreted.  I am not suggesting that we
> scrub our allies before they speak.  I am pointing out that the
> hand-wringing over our perceived hypocrisy in sponsoring speakers with
> toxic views is suspect, in light of the fact that we already do so without
> a second thought.  And I don't have a problem with this, because I
> generally feel quite confident that we know who we are, what we stand for,
> and that we are clear about it.
>
>
> I think that, given the broken social worlds we inherit, we must realize
> when we talk about the importance of creating a safe space, that it can
> only ever be a *safer* space.  The more we try to sanitize our movement,
> the more we risk replicating the logic of the *limpiezas*, of Indira
> Gandhi, of Slobodan Milosevic, Vancouver developers, DGR.  The cleaner we
> try to make it, the more arbitrary the standard will come to be as we are
> each found wanting, and all fall by the wayside, one by one.
>
>
> To be perfectly clear, I think that we should not sponsor a speaker with
> an established track record of making - and defending! -
> transphobic/transmisogynist remarks.  Zoe is not that person.  Furthermore,
> I think that if our indigenous allies make off-the-cuff racist statements
> about mixed-race people, it should be understood as arising from our
> blood-soaked history - in which the notion of a pure bloodline was used to
> divide and conquer.  (Notwithstanding, I think it is not OK to make those
> statements, and I wish that we as a group were more confident about calling
> our allies on it.  I am willing to bet money that if pressed on the issue,
> the people who made those comments would clarify and/or retract them.)  I
> hope we can also find the heart to understand - without condoning -
> transphobic/transmisogynist remarks made by the allies of our allies as
> part of the brutal legacy of patriarchy.
>
>
> Safe(r) spaces in organizing are important.  But more important is trust.
> I believe that a trustworthy person isn't necessarily one who has a perfect
> score on policy; but who can acknowledge the messiness of the world, and
> firmly say "I can't fix all of this, but this is what I stand for anyway."
> We don't need to aggressively police space to make people feel safe, if we
> are clear and consistent about what we believe.  I think we have been
> that.  I hope we continue to be that.  We are going up against the people
> with all the money, and all the guns.  We have to be really fucking strong,
> and in ways that they can't comprehend.  I think this means we must have
> enough confidence in who we are and what we stand for that we can be
> *supple*.
>
>
> With that in mind, here are the questions I think deserve serious
> engagement before we start to uninvite our allies from things:
>
>
> How is membership in DGR, which we agree is a problematic, oppressive
> institution, any different from membership in, say, the Catholic church, or
> any other oppressive institution where you have to take an oath of
> allegiance?  If I were to someday get a job Stateside (ha!) and take out
> American citizenship - where you have to swear all sorts of crazy shit to
> the flag knowing full well that your tax dollars are going to bomb innocent
> brown people far away - does the fact that I swore that oath a) necessarily
> preclude me from working against the state, and b) make me fundamentally
> untrustworthy and unwelcome in a space designated 'safe'?
>
>
> And finally, and perhaps more crucially, why must we adopt an oppositional
> stance to define ourselves?  Do we really need to draw a line in the sand
> in order to communicate that transinclusivity is fundamental to how we
> organize?  (For that matter, do we need to refuse to meet with ENGOs to
> prove that we do not agree with their model?)  If we constantly refer back
> to DGR, condemning them, in order to prove that we are not transphobic,
> isn't that a pitiful kind of proof?  Personally, I have no desire to be
> forever indebted to what we are not in order to define what we are.  We
> will never bring a new politics into being as long as we are hobbled by the
> ontologies of the old.
>
>
> Conclusions I draw from what I have laid out:
>
>
> I think that if people agree with the implications of what I have written
> here, the only tenable position is to apologize to Zoe, and invite her to
> our April training.  I also think that we should refrain from condemning
> organizations that sponsor speakers such as Lierre Keith in the future, and
> when asked to sign onto such letters, instead release statements to the
> effect that "Rising Tide Vancouver-Coast Salish Territories welcomes the
> opportunity to organize with trans people: the new and better world we
> envision values trans people, and we don't want to work towards bringing
> this world into being without them."  If we are called out for hypocrisy, I
> think we should be very honest about the struggle we had to get to this
> place, and confident in our belief that we did the right thing.
>
>
> And if we decide to follow this course of action, I think that if some
> security agent is watching, it will scare the living shit out of them.
>
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