Bash Back! News

actually it would be “Anarch-Queers”

hi!
you call your convergence “national”. what do you mean? that people from other countries are not invited? i hope that was a mistake and your anti-racism is also combined with anti-nationalism.

Sounds fun! However, I am not digging the pic on this page. Co-opting images of some of the anti-imperialist struggles currently underway in the homelands of poc lead by poc to promote a radical queer conference that intends to address racism within white radical queer communities is not a positive demonstration of anti-racist practice. Other anti-racist radical groups have addressed the issue to show solidarity with poc struggles by developing imagery and or signage that linked the spirit of solidarity that did not appropriate the visual representation of poc struggles. The promo pic may reach out to more people if it had the images of the people organizers are trying to reach.

i think patrick is talking about the pic on the main page (the header). & i think they may have a point but i think to assume face-covers are a total appropriation of an anti-imperialist poc struggle is a rushed judgment. first face covers & arms serve a very practical purpose. they protect our identities and our lives from the tons of individuals who have threatened to “sacrifice us to their to new england g-d” (see the hate mail section). not all of us, patrick dunn, have the luxury of being able to organize openly. secondly, i don’t think the imagery of a bunch of rad queers armed in pink with bats and hammers is co-opted imagery per se, but maybe my mental file of “covered people with bats” is need of desperate updating.

further even if you’re referring to specific “imagery” such as keffiyehs, from what i’ve seen of the fashion of the global north they have become a statement of solidarity. i think to assume that a pink keffiyeh “appropriates the visual representation of poc struggles,” is based on the shaky assumption that keffiyehs are only appropriate to be worn by “certain” people, which totally ignores the large industry of palestinian womyn who, thanks to the international embargoes, depend on the sale of these & many other goods (olive oil, e.g.) for their & their families’ livelihood. of course, i think the sale of keffiyehs at shitty consumeristic clusterfuck sweatshops like wet seal & hot topic is troubling but i dont think that we’re talking about the same level of cultural abuse as those assholes.
but then again, maybe i’m wrong. below, im posting a link on the cultural history of the keffiyeh & its emergence as a fashion trend from al arabiya. btw, i dont the operative above was wearing it to be fashionable.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/12/08/61595.html

i think these conversations about co-option are good & need to happen in the white-dominated anarchist communities of the global north but without nuance, these conversations quickly become accustory and usually elicit only finger-pointing and very little growth.

to partly address this, the context is that the photo was originally used as propaganda for an anti-nazi action at pridefest. no one is “coopting images…to promote a radical queer conference”. this is always the head banner of our page, and is from an explicitly anti-racist/heterosexist action. secondly, only one person in the photo is wearing something that has a checkered pattern that may resemble a kuffiyah. as someone whose first activism was palestinian solidarity activism, i think that it is quite appropriate to wear the kuffiyah in solidarity with the palestinian struggle be you of any racial background. women’s coops and fondations in palestine make a good deal of their money on kuffiyahs made for westerners to wear in solidarity. i personally wear one to most actions regardless of the issue involved. while i certainly understand the problems of co-optation, i think that a queer person wearing a pink (or otherwise) kuffiyah as a sign of solidarity with global resistance to racism and oppression in a photo with an explicitly anti-racist purpose is not co-optation. but i’d be interested to hear others. and mayo, i don’t know if you’ve ever worn a kuffiyah around your face like that, but it’s hella fuckin’ warm and has kept my face from freezing many a time in this midwest winter

1. That picture was not a promo for this convergence, it was for an anti-racist action that happened in Milwaukee

2. Masking up, especially when confronting violent neo-nazis (who have murdered ARA organizers and queers) is necessary.

I agree completely with mayo here. If the context needs to be mentioned it’s not an effective picture, at least not in the way you’re intending. This is not about masking up, it is about appropriating politicized imagery for your own struggle rather than in solidarity with the struggles from which you are appropriating.