WEBVTT
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[ Dean Spade ] So, yeah, first I wanted to say
thanks. It's really exciting to be here.
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I'm really honoured to be part of a conversation
with the other folks who are gonna be in this
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--who I can't see right now
but I trust are in front of you--
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[ Dean and audience laughing ]
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-who are all activists and scholars who
I really admire and inspired by,
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so I feel really lucky.
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And I also just want to say, obviously
I'm coming to this work from the U.S.,
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so that's my frame,
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and there's some overlap obviously with
Canadian conditions and politics and histories,
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but there's also a lot of divergence,
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so I hope it'll be useful,
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but it's my, sort of, framework.
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And I'm also gonna be reading,
because I'm trying to be really concise,
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so that we can stick to our schedule,
so I apologize for reading.
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So, yeah so when I was invited
to speak at this event,
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I was asked to be part of a series that
I guess is about critical masculinities,
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and so what I wanted to think about was
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how really highly-gendered roles in our very
militaristic, settler, white supremacist societies
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--like spouse, soldier, police officer--
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have come to stand in a really complicated way
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as symbols right now, of sexual
and gender liberation in some contexts.
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And how weird that is, especially given that
many feminist and queer movements
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have sought to eliminate
the existence of those roles.
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So I want to try to spend these few minutes
just talking and thinking about that.
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So, I think in particular these conversations
about that dynamic that I just named,
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are servicing in important ways right now,
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because of the role that equality
for gay and lesbian people,
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and in some instances but not usually trans people,
is playing in global discourses about human rights,
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increasingly the degree to which
countries have adopted certain high-profile
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lesbian and gay law reforms,
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specifically granting marriage recognition,
and access to military service to gays and lesbians,
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is framed as central to a country's reputation
regarding respect for human rights.
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In recent years, the U.S. and Israel
have put significant resources
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into framing countries with certain
lesbian and gay rights in place as "modern",
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while framing countries
that don't have those in place --
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particularly framing Arab and African countries
as "backward" and "un-democratic".
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And this strategy of using lesbian and gay rights,
particularly marriage and military participation,
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as a marker of being
a human rights respecting country,
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and particularly doing so in the face of charges
of ongoing significant human rights violations,
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has been called "pinkwashing".
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Maybe that's a term
that a lot of people have heard.
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So, in the U.S. context,
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Hilary Clinton's 2011 speech where she said
"gay rights are human rights",
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along with the prevalence of references
to same-sex marriage and gay rights
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at the 2012 Democratic National Convention,
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are examples of American pinkwashing.
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Clinton's [ inaudible ] is a relatively new logic
in U.S. imperialism.
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That the U.S., regardless of failures
to protect queer and trans people
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from state violence here in the U.S.,
where I am, not you [ laughs ],
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will now use gay rights as a measure to...
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as a measure to countries
it seeks to intervene on.
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Basically, like, "we're going to
call countries homophobic
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"and that'll give us a good excuse to bomb them
or show up there and do weird military stuff."
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Clinton uses lesbian and gay rights to bolster
the notion that the U.S. is the world's policing arm
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forcing democracy and equality globally
on purportedly backward and cruel governments.
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Gay rights operates as
a new justification for this imperial role,
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a justification that fits really well within
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim framings
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that have been developed during the war on terror,
and portray Arab and Muslim countries
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as more sexist and more homophobic
than the U.S., Europe and Israel.
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We also see this with the framing of
the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan,
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that it's supposed to, like, save Afghan women,
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like this kind of women-saving,
gay-saving framework is very popular,
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the saving framework has a very long history,
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and in some ways the gay-saving
framework seen in a new way.
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At the Democratic National Convention,
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Obama's [U.S. President] support for
same-sex marriage similarly helped him
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portray his administration as progressive --
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and, like, the number of people
who buy into this is shocking --
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and equality-loving in order to obscure
his abysmal record on key issues
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such as austerity, his failure to close
Guantanamo, ongoing drone strikes,
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harsh sanctions against Iran,
the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
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and his record-breaking rates
of deportation --
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I'm sure you know he's the most deporting
president ever in the history of the United States--
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and I think in particular you see
this kind of American pinkwashing,
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I've seen it again more recently
in his inaugural address,
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he talked about Stonewall, which basically,
like, caused me to fall over,
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y'know, it's again...
why is this guy talking about Stonewall?
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Stonewall's a moment of resistance
to police brutality.
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He's running the country that imprisons
more people than anyone in the world,
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where queer and trans people
are still suffering
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police violence and extremely horrifying
conditions of imprisonment.
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Like, how does this fit?
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And also, recently he's
kind of made waves
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because there's this really awful immigration
reform policy going around in the United States
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that's supposed to be like the answer to
the unjust system of immigration enforcement,
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but really it's just a way of
ramping up immigration enforcement.
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And he said about it that he's gonna make sure
that gay and lesbian couples can be in on it,
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and that is kind of this pinkwashing of this actually
really conservative set of policies and principles
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around immigration that we're
supposed to be, like, grateful for.
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And many people do articu- [ inaudible ]
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The term "pinkwashing"
is most frequently used to describe
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the explicit strategy Israel has
undertaken in recent years
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to market itself as a human rights leader,
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based on its stances on same-sex marriage,
and LGBT military service.
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Israel has explicitly worked with
marketing experts to re-brand itself
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trying to overcome its international reputation
as a brutal occupying force.
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I think particularly in the face of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
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which has really raised a lot of awareness
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about, even further than before,
about these issues.
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The new image is focused on portraying Israel
as a modern democracy in the Middle East,
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surrounded by countries with supposedly
less enlightened policy and culture.
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A key feature of that portrayal is
the articulation of Israel as a country
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that recognizes gay and lesbian rights,
specifically marriage and military service,
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and that it is an ideal destination
for gay and lesbian tourism.
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As part of its pinkwashing efforts,
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Israel has funded tours of Israelis
to the United States
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in order to discuss Israel's military and marriage
laws with respect to gays and lesbians.
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So it's like a really aggressive kind
of propaganda machine.
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Critics of same sex marriage and military
service advocacy in the United States,
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and critics of pinkwashing,
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have suggested that it's necessary
to look at what these institutions are
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in order to assess whether inclusion in them
is a felicitous goal for queer and trans politics.
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The militaries of both the United States
and Israel have been accused of war crimes,
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and operate daily in what have been identified
as illegal and immoral occupations.
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In the case of Israel,
uh Palestine in the case of Israel.
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And Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii,
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the part of North America currently known
as the continental United States,
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the Northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands,
and more, in the case of the United States.
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Internally, the U.S. military has a culture
and practice of sexism, racism, and torture,
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that have been consistently identified
by survivors and critics.
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Recent publications and the exposure
of classified documents
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have further highlighted
the lawless violence of the U.S. military,
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and the ways that its operations,
such as the occupation of Iraq,
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are often motivated by profit-seeking corporations
with high level government ties,
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rather than by the democracy-spreading rationales
commonly employed as justification.
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The Israeli military's record similarly shows
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that from its initial ethnic cleansing
project undertaken in 1948,
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when over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed,
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the Israeli government has used military power
to forcibly settle the land it now occupies,
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and to remove, destroy, and erase
the prior inhabitants wherever possible.
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The recent outcry against these atrocities
committed by Israel on the inhabitants of Gaza,
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as well as the Israeli military's brutal 2010 raid of
the flotilla bound for Gaza to deliver aid,
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have further drawn international attention.
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Israel's increasing threats toward Iran are further
building international opposition to Israeli militarism.
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Despite the long-term critique Israeli militarism...
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[ inaudible ]
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...the U.S. and Israeli militarism specifically,
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in many movements that define the American left,
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the discourse about gay and lesbian soldiers
serving in the U.S. and Israeli militaries
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has garnered support from many people,
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who otherwise oppose the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan,
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the Israeli attacks on Gaza
in 2008, 2009 and 2012,
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and other highly publicized
Israeli and U.S. military activities.
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Images of gay and lesbian service members
in uniform, holding hands and kissing,
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in front of national flags,
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have successfully stirred
patriotic and pro-military sentiment,
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deadening critical thinking
about patriotism and militarism,
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by asserting such sentiments as a form
of sympathy for gay and lesbian people.
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Similarly, long term left critiques
of marriage have been silenced
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by the combination of relentless
right wing family values rhetoric,
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and the articulation of the desirability of
marriage by same sex marriage advocacy -
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- messages long contested
by feminists and anti racists.
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Such as, that children benefit
from being raised by married parents,
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that married people are healthier,
and contribute more to society,
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or that marriage recognizes the most
important relationship people can have--
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are now mobilized
by same sex marriage advocates
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and judges writing decisions that are considered
victories for same sex marriage advocacy.
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These pro-marriage messages
are now articulated
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as anti-homophobic statements
in the arguments for same sex marriage.
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Feminist, anti-racist
and anti-colonial movements
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have long worked to dismantle marriage,
and have identified rules about marriage
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as central to organizing
foundational violences of the U.S.:
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slavery, settler colonialism, and genocide.
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From the beginning, in the United States,
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marriage laws were key to organizing
who is property and who can hold property.
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Identifying Indigenous systems of gender and family
formation as backward and in need of intervention,
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and enforcing colonial and gender family norms
on Indigenous people
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has been an important part of colonization.
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Marriage has been an important technology
of land theft and ethnic cleansing,
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aimed at disappearing Indigenous people
in many ways.
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One way, one example,
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is that the U.S. encouraged westward settlement
by promising male settlers 160 acres...
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to every male settler who would move west,
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plus an extra 160 acres if he brings a wife.
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Putting that kind of marriage
as a promotion for settlement
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next to what the U.S.
was simultaneously doing,
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which was criminalizing traditional
Indigenous communal living styles.
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And, like, where I sometimes live in Seattle,
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y'know, like burning down longhouses
and forcing people not to live in those ways,
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and eliminating communal land holding methods,
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and enforcing male, individual ownership
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to facilitate displacing
Indigenous people from their land.
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So in this way, management of
gender and family systems
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has been essential to
displacement and settlement processes.
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It's also been essential to structuring slavery.
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So, denying the family ties of slaves
was central to slavery,
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ensuring that children would be born enslaved,
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and then later coercing marriage among newly freed
Black people after supposed emancipation,
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and criminalizing them for adultery was one pathway
of re-capturing them into the convict lease system,
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which was the predecessor of today's
U.S. mass imprisonment project
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that centrally targets Black and native people.
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Today, marriage is still used to distribute essential
life chances like health care and immigration status,
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in ways that produce and maintain
enormous racial disparities.
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So, there are very few pathways
to immigration in the U.S.,
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and those are focused on either your family,
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so if you don't have any family ties to the U.S.
it's much much harder to immigrate;
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or jobs, which of course, y'know,
is available to extremely few people.
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And we still get our health care through our jobs
and usually through family ties as well.
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So if you don't have a partner or spouse
who has healthcare, you can't get it.
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And given the racialized distribution
of the most highly compensated jobs,
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there's a really severe racial disparity in that
kind of family-based access to healthcare.
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So obviously these are unjust ways to
give out the essential things people need,
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and these kinds of marriage ties to basic needs
traps people in violent family scenarios,
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and just causes most people to
have no path to these necessities.
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So in this way marriage still structures racialized
social control through the family unit and family law.
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And marriage has been specifically central to
anti-Black and anti-poor politics in the U.S.
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There's a strong story
that's been very prevalent in the U.S.
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that the reason people are poor is because they're
morally flawed and they need to get married more.
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So like in 1996 when
President Clinton dismantled welfare,
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that the law that was passed is called the
"Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act",
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you can already hear the sort of racism
and anti-poor sentiment dripping off of that.
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That law, y'know, all of its
findings section is all about
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how the reason people are poor is
'cause they don't marry enough,
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and how we have to get rid of this.
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And this is based in, y'know,
really racist sociology,
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where one of the most famous
government reports about this
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is called the Moynihan Report of the 1960's.
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It kind of articulates this idea
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that Black families were poor because
they were pathologically female-headed.
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So, this notion that family structure
is the problem with poor people,
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and specifically with Black poor people,
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has been this very prevalent racist notion that's
still very active in welfare policy in the U.S.
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And both George Bush and Obama have had these...
spent millions of dollars on these
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"healthy marriage" promotion projects
that force poor people to marry,
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or that give you a financial incentive
if you're on welfare and you get married.
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So all of this is about blaming poverty
on the failure to marry,
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or the failure to have the state's idea
of a moral family structure.
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Anti-racists and feminists
have sought to dismantle marriage,
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identifying the family as a place of violence,
00:14:54.891 --> 00:15:01.793
and the institution of marriage as a key form of social
control of sexuality, racialized population control,
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and just not an OK way to distribute life chances,
the basic stuff people need.
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And they've worked to make it easier
to get out of marriage.
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That was a huge feminist legal project for years,
was trying to make it easier to get a divorce,
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because people couldn't get out of marriages
'cause of the way American law structured divorce.
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And feminists have also fought to explode
romance myths and family roles that trap people,
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and to disconnect marriage from vital resources.
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And there's also been an enormous amount
of legal work in the U.S.
00:15:30.606 --> 00:15:36.803
to get rid of laws that disadvantage people if they
were "illegitimate", if they had un-married parents.
00:15:36.803 --> 00:15:41.359
'Cause those laws, after it was
no longer explicitly permissible
00:15:41.359 --> 00:15:45.195
to have laws that just excluded
Black people from certain opportunities,
00:15:45.195 --> 00:15:47.648
those laws were the replacement.
00:15:47.648 --> 00:15:51.903
So part of this as well is
a whole history of anti-illegitimacy laws,
00:15:51.903 --> 00:15:54.541
which are really, like, pro-marriage laws
with a penalty,
00:15:54.541 --> 00:15:58.978
to be used in really explicitly anti-Black ways.
00:15:58.978 --> 00:16:03.085
Like in the U.S., in Israel marriage law
also plays a key role
00:16:03.085 --> 00:16:07.841
in maintaining basic conditions of racialized
hierarchy necessary to settler colonialism.
00:16:07.841 --> 00:16:15.266
This happens in a number of ways that are really
obvious parts of the ethnic cleansing project,
00:16:15.266 --> 00:16:19.547
that seeks to win a demographic war
to ensure that Jews outnumber Arabs,
00:16:19.547 --> 00:16:24.043
and that a particular, narrow defined
kind of Jewish life is cultivated.
00:16:24.043 --> 00:16:28.681
One very obvious example is that
civil marriage does not exist in Israel.
00:16:28.681 --> 00:16:31.723
So marriage between people of different religions,
00:16:31.723 --> 00:16:35.992
or even between people who have different
matrilineal or patrilineal Jewish heritage
00:16:35.992 --> 00:16:38.409
is not allowed.
00:16:38.409 --> 00:16:41.861
And hundreds of Israeli couples
fly to Cyprus every month to get married.
00:16:41.861 --> 00:16:45.724
This approach to marriage overall
is contested by many Israelis
00:16:45.724 --> 00:16:51.104
who see it as a threat to freedom of religion;
00:16:51.104 --> 00:16:54.846
but it more broadly attests to the use of marriage
as a tool of population control
00:16:54.846 --> 00:16:59.100
aimed at settlement and population
displacement and replacement.
00:16:59.100 --> 00:17:02.433
Another prominent example is the
Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law,
00:17:02.433 --> 00:17:08.100
the 2003 law that established that Palestinian
citizens of the Occupied Territories
00:17:08.100 --> 00:17:12.317
who marry Israeli citizens
cannot acquire Israeli residency.
00:17:12.317 --> 00:17:16.498
So Israeli citizens who marry people
from other places
00:17:16.498 --> 00:17:19.626
win family munification through their marriages.
00:17:19.626 --> 00:17:22.791
Their new spouses can come
and live with them in Israel.
00:17:22.791 --> 00:17:26.533
Since most of the Israeli citizens who marry
Palestinians from the Occupied Territories
00:17:26.533 --> 00:17:30.473
are part of the 20% of Israeli citizens
who are Palestinian,
00:17:30.473 --> 00:17:35.259
this primarily means that the Palestinian families
are being divided by this 2003 law.
00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:39.138
While Jewish people all over the world have
the right to citizenship in Israel,
00:17:39.138 --> 00:17:43.016
and... for immigration purposes interestingly,
00:17:43.016 --> 00:17:45.699
the definition of Jewish enough is very broad,
00:17:45.699 --> 00:17:48.413
because the goal is to encourage settlement.
00:17:48.413 --> 00:17:52.195
And others who marry Israeli citizens
can acquire residency in Israel,
00:17:52.195 --> 00:17:54.386
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories
cannot access residency status
00:17:54.386 --> 00:17:57.083
through their spouses in Israel.
00:17:57.083 --> 00:18:01.423
And this immigration policy
--and immigration policy in Israel in general--
00:18:01.423 --> 00:18:06.026
is focused on prioritizing
immigration of Jewish people,
00:18:06.026 --> 00:18:08.353
there's a 3-track immigration system
00:18:08.353 --> 00:18:12.551
which prioritizes Jewish immigration
with immediate and automatic citizenship,
00:18:12.551 --> 00:18:16.003
places non-Jewish foreign immigration second,
00:18:16.003 --> 00:18:18.798
with a multi-year process for
gaining residency or citizenship,
00:18:18.798 --> 00:18:23.949
and provides a 3rd track for spouses
of Palestinian citizens of Israel,
00:18:23.949 --> 00:18:26.591
as long as they are not residents
of the Occupied Territories
00:18:26.591 --> 00:18:29.058
or states that Israel has declared enemy states.
00:18:29.058 --> 00:18:33.512
Unequal marital privileges are part of the
ethnic cleansing project of the state of Israel,
00:18:33.512 --> 00:18:35.930
and impact thousands of families,
00:18:35.930 --> 00:18:37.981
maintaining forced separations,
00:18:37.981 --> 00:18:42.549
depriving Palestinian citizens of Israel of access
to state resources for their families,
00:18:42.549 --> 00:18:45.463
that are available to Jewish citizens of Israel;
00:18:45.463 --> 00:18:48.501
and restricting movement for Palestinians.
00:18:48.501 --> 00:18:52.454
Clearly, increased access to Israel's
marriage regime for same sex couples
00:18:52.454 --> 00:18:56.921
does not change or reform
the fundamental role of Israeli marriage law,
00:18:56.921 --> 00:19:01.587
in enforcing occupation and state-sponsored racism.
00:19:01.587 --> 00:19:04.396
Lesbian and gay Palestinian citizens of Israel
00:19:04.396 --> 00:19:08.250
whose partners are from the Occupied Territories
face the same restrictions as straight people do.
00:19:08.250 --> 00:19:13.413
What does it mean to recognize... to get to
seek recognition in a marriage system
00:19:13.413 --> 00:19:17.051
overtly created to forward
an ethnic cleansing process?
00:19:17.051 --> 00:19:20.333
What does it mean to declare such recognition
as a victory for equality
00:19:20.333 --> 00:19:22.576
or evidence of enlightened human rights policy?
00:19:22.576 --> 00:19:27.581
[ MC interrupts to ask ] Dean, could we have
it wrap up in about 5 minutes or so?
00:19:27.581 --> 00:19:30.002
[ Dean Spade ] Oh, much sooner than that!
00:19:30.002 --> 00:19:32.274
[ MC ] Oh, sorry, carry on!
00:19:32.274 --> 00:19:36.068
[ Dean Spade ] Thank you... I'm sorry that
our technical issues have made me so slow.
00:19:36.068 --> 00:19:39.484
Just have one more paragraph. [ laughs ]
00:19:39.484 --> 00:19:43.147
The intensifying discourse
of Israeli human rights leadership
00:19:43.147 --> 00:19:49.190
buoyed by same sex marriage and LGB
--and in Israel T-- military service,
00:19:49.190 --> 00:19:54.301
brings to the surface in new ways ongoing tensions
in queer and trans politics,
00:19:54.301 --> 00:19:59.230
about efforts at inclusion
in central state institutions and systems.
00:19:59.230 --> 00:20:02.255
The demands of marriage and military participation
00:20:02.255 --> 00:20:06.974
are not only far from fulfilling feminist,
queer, trans and anti-racist imaginings
00:20:06.974 --> 00:20:09.607
of sexual and gender liberation,
00:20:09.607 --> 00:20:14.002
but must also be analyzed as methods
of justifying and sustaining and expanding
00:20:14.002 --> 00:20:16.783
colonial and imperial violence.
00:20:16.783 --> 00:20:19.884
it's not surprising that these demands
have risen to the surface,
00:20:19.884 --> 00:20:22.543
and drowned out other images
of gender and sexual liberation
00:20:22.543 --> 00:20:25.265
in corporate media owned and dominated
00:20:25.265 --> 00:20:27.949
by those who have invented and executed
the war on terror,
00:20:27.949 --> 00:20:32.137
and also the same people who don't mind
developing new markets for wedding day creation.
00:20:32.137 --> 00:20:36.837
The same media that has, y'know,
24 hours a day on TV in the United States,
00:20:36.837 --> 00:20:42.208
shows about buying wedding dresses,
and shows about how cops are great and stuff.
00:20:42.208 --> 00:20:46.650
The context... and y'know, movies about
how the U.S. military is amazing...
00:20:46.650 --> 00:20:54.554
this context in the U.S. has created ready
and willing audiences for Israeli pinkwashing,
00:20:54.554 --> 00:20:59.894
which is dearly needed as more and more of the
world names conditions in Israel as apartheid,
00:20:59.894 --> 00:21:06.124
and it becomes more and more essential to maintain
U.S. financial support for Israeli military violence.
00:21:06.124 --> 00:21:11.569
It's become commonplace to convince straight people
--as well as many queer people,
00:21:11.569 --> 00:21:13.470
amazingly, even those who would say
they are anti-war--
00:21:13.470 --> 00:21:19.191
that our liberation is about becoming soldiers
and spouses, recuperating oppressive structures
00:21:19.191 --> 00:21:21.918
by putting a gay flag on them
and saying they are good for gays.
00:21:21.918 --> 00:21:26.829
I would argue that centuries of feminist,
anti-colonial, and anti-racist resistance
00:21:26.829 --> 00:21:30.227
have proven that marriage and the military
are not good for anyone.
00:21:30.227 --> 00:21:33.674
Today's anti-pinkwashing activists are encouraging
00:21:33.674 --> 00:21:39.558
those invested in resisting sexual, gender, and family
formation norms, to develop discernment,
00:21:39.558 --> 00:21:45.998
not asking just "can we be included in existing
structures?", but "what are those structures?"
00:21:45.998 --> 00:21:54.161
And if it's a prison cell, a cop, a tank, a wall,
a border, a soldier, or a state family formation norm,
00:21:54.161 --> 00:21:57.015
you can wrap it in a rainbow flag all you want,
00:21:57.015 --> 00:21:59.846
and it still won't be anti-homophobic,
feminist or liberating.
00:21:59.846 --> 00:22:04.448
So we have to ask: "can you have a movement
for sexual liberation or gender liberation
00:22:04.448 --> 00:22:07.685
that does not contest colonization,
00:22:07.685 --> 00:22:11.092
especially when sexual and family regulation
is a central tool of colonization?"
00:22:11.092 --> 00:22:15.295
I wonder, will contemporary
gay rights frameworks be remembered
00:22:15.295 --> 00:22:18.685
as pro-war, pro-military, and pro-apartheid?
00:22:18.685 --> 00:22:21.596
That's all. [ audience claps ]
00:22:23.925 --> 00:22:28.354
[ Isabel Krupp, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid,
AKA QuAIA ]
00:22:28.354 --> 00:22:29.297
My name's Isabel Krupp,
00:22:29.297 --> 00:22:32.639
and I'm a member of Queers Against
Israeli Apartheid, Vancouver,
00:22:32.639 --> 00:22:35.831
which I'll refer to as QuAIA from now on,
00:22:35.831 --> 00:22:39.559
just so I don't trip over my own tongue
while I'm speaking.
00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:45.385
I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we're on
un-ceded and occupied Coast Salish Territories,
00:22:45.385 --> 00:22:50.004
the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish,
Stó:lō and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
00:22:50.004 --> 00:22:55.579
And this acknowledgement of the ongoing occupation
and colonization of this land, of Turtle Island,
00:22:55.579 --> 00:22:59.542
is foundational to all of the work that QuAIA does.
00:22:59.542 --> 00:23:03.845
So, recognizing the ongoing
impacts of settler colonialism,
00:23:03.845 --> 00:23:09.526
and working in solidarity with Indigenous movements
for sovereignty and decolonization,
00:23:09.526 --> 00:23:12.710
is really what QuAIA is all about.
00:23:12.710 --> 00:23:18.864
We're a Palestine solidarity organization,
we work in solidarity with Palestinian movements
00:23:18.864 --> 00:23:24.298
for sovereignty and against Israeli
apartheid, occupation, and colonization.
00:23:24.298 --> 00:23:26.681
So it's really important for us
00:23:26.681 --> 00:23:32.107
to recognize how Canada and Israel
bolster each other’s colonial occupations,
00:23:32.107 --> 00:23:38.401
both ideologically and materially, through
political, military, and economic support.
00:23:39.489 --> 00:23:43.267
And I'd like to point out that Canada is one of the
key supporters of Israel in the world right now.
00:23:43.267 --> 00:23:48.761
So if we want to effectively fight
against Israeli apartheid and occupation,
00:23:48.761 --> 00:23:56.341
we need also to come out against
settler-colonialism here in Canada.
00:23:56.341 --> 00:24:00.718
So for folks who would like to explore
these connections further,
00:24:00.718 --> 00:24:06.180
there is a brilliant paper by Dana Olwan and Mike
Krebs on the topic, which I highly recommend.
00:24:06.180 --> 00:24:11.175
So I've already used the phrase
“Israeli apartheid” several times.
00:24:11.175 --> 00:24:16.923
and I know that's something that Dean has talked
about so I'm going to try not to overlap too much,
00:24:16.923 --> 00:24:19.766
but I imagine that some folks in the audience
00:24:19.766 --> 00:24:22.999
aren't as familiar with a critical perspective
on the Israeli state.
00:24:22.999 --> 00:24:27.948
I won't have time to get into like
an Israeli Apartheid 101 today,
00:24:27.948 --> 00:24:31.970
so I encourage those less familiar with this topic
to seek out critical resources,
00:24:31.970 --> 00:24:35.177
which QuAIA would be happy to help provide.
00:24:35.177 --> 00:24:40.116
But I will describe very briefly what I mean
when I say Israeli apartheid.
00:24:40.116 --> 00:24:45.388
I'm talking about Palestinians in the West Bank
who live under a brutal military occupation,
00:24:45.388 --> 00:24:49.545
which takes the form of illegal Israeli settlements,
00:24:49.545 --> 00:24:55.614
checkpoints, and a system of walls, barriers,
and roads accessible solely to Israeli settlers.
00:24:55.614 --> 00:24:59.980
I'm talking about Palestinians living in Israel
who face discriminatory policies.
00:24:59.980 --> 00:25:04.346
Like Dean was talking about a little bit,
currently there are over 25 laws
00:25:04.346 --> 00:25:09.160
which target them specifically as non-Jewish
and reduce them to second class citizens.
00:25:09.160 --> 00:25:15.407
I'm talking about Palestinians in the diaspora
and in UN-administered refugee camps
00:25:15.407 --> 00:25:20.862
who are by default denied their UN-sanctioned
right to return to their lands.
00:25:20.862 --> 00:25:25.160
And I'm talking about over 1.8 million
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
00:25:25.160 --> 00:25:29.001
who are living in an open air prison
under an illegal siege,
00:25:29.001 --> 00:25:32.944
described by international experts
as a "slow genocide".
00:25:32.944 --> 00:25:36.903
So again, I encourage anyone surprised by what
I am saying or what Dean was talking about
00:25:36.903 --> 00:25:42.541
to seek out critical resources and particularly
to seek out Palestinian perspectives.
00:25:42.541 --> 00:25:46.649
So, there is a growing international movement
– led by Palestinians –
00:25:46.649 --> 00:25:49.186
against Israeli apartheid and occupation.
00:25:49.186 --> 00:25:55.660
In response, Israel's launched an aggressive well
funded PR campaign that Dean was talking about
00:25:55.660 --> 00:26:00.352
to market itself as an oasis of tolerance
in the Middle East,
00:26:00.352 --> 00:26:03.398
as this modern liberal democratic state –
00:26:03.398 --> 00:26:07.317
specifically, the only democracy
in the Middle East, right? –
00:26:07.317 --> 00:26:09.809
in order to obscure its status
as an apartheid state.
00:26:09.809 --> 00:26:12.999
And I think it's important to point out
that the implication here
00:26:12.999 --> 00:26:19.849
is that Israel needs to practice apartheid,
colonialism, and genocide
00:26:19.849 --> 00:26:26.427
in order to preserve these freedoms and democracy
and rights for gays and lesbians, right?
00:26:26.427 --> 00:26:32.039
'Cause like Dean was describing, gay rights
discourse is a big piece of this PR campaign –
00:26:32.039 --> 00:26:39.990
Israel is working really hard to brand itself
as the only gay-friendly country
00:26:39.990 --> 00:26:41.755
in what they frame as an otherwise
hostile and homophobic region.
00:26:41.755 --> 00:26:46.483
And we can see really clearly how this plays into
racist, imperialist, and orientalist ideas
00:26:46.483 --> 00:26:51.925
around the “West” as modern and civilized
and the “East” as barbaric and backwards, right?
00:26:51.925 --> 00:26:58.734
So this practice of appropriating
the struggle for gay rights discourse
00:26:58.734 --> 00:27:02.640
to obscure, excuse, or justify state violence
is called “pinkwashing”.
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:05.764
And Dean made that very clear...
00:27:05.764 --> 00:27:08.893
And this practice, I'd like to point out,
is not unique to Israel.
00:27:08.893 --> 00:27:12.520
In the Canadian context, we see an example of this
00:27:12.520 --> 00:27:17.794
when we look at the re-branding of the tar sands
and this idea, this myth of “ethical oil”, right?
00:27:17.794 --> 00:27:22.195
In opposition to so-called “conflict oil” that
comes from countries like Saudi Arabia,
00:27:22.195 --> 00:27:27.908
which are again constructed through
racist narratives as exceptionally homophobic.
00:27:27.908 --> 00:27:32.431
So one of the things that
this practice of pinkwashing erases
00:27:32.431 --> 00:27:38.788
is how state violence, including colonialism
and apartheid, impacts all Palestinians,
00:27:38.788 --> 00:27:42.126
queer and straight, trans and cis.
00:27:42.126 --> 00:27:45.329
“There is no pink door in the apartheid wall” right?
00:27:45.329 --> 00:27:49.635
We hear this phrase, this slogan
in anti-pinkwashing activism,
00:27:49.635 --> 00:27:53.400
“There is no pink door in the apartheid wall”.
00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:58.177
All of these supposed rights and freedoms
of “gay! friendly! Israel!”,
00:27:58.177 --> 00:28:00.840
they don't extend to Palestinians.
00:28:00.840 --> 00:28:04.476
And as much as the Israeli state
decries Palestinian homophobia,
00:28:04.476 --> 00:28:09.593
its regime of apartheid and occupation
creates challenges and barriers
00:28:09.593 --> 00:28:16.571
for queer and trans Palestinians organizing
against homophobia and transphobia.
00:28:16.571 --> 00:28:23.964
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna read a little quote
from a Palestinian queer organization,
00:28:23.964 --> 00:28:27.387
Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment,
and Sanctions. And they say:
00:28:27.387 --> 00:28:32.381
“As Palestinian queers, our struggle is not only
against social injustice
00:28:32.381 --> 00:28:37.040
and our rights as a queer minority
in Palestinian society,
00:28:37.040 --> 00:28:42.945
but rather, our main struggle is one against
Israel's colonization, occupation and apartheid;
00:28:42.945 --> 00:28:47.689
a system that has oppressed us
for the past 63 years"
00:28:47.689 --> 00:28:50.030
So that's Palestinian Queers for BDS.
00:28:50.030 --> 00:28:52.570
And I think this statement makes a lot of sense
00:28:52.570 --> 00:28:55.696
when we think about how social movements
for gender and sexual freedom
00:28:55.696 --> 00:29:01.001
are contingent on freedom from the daily violence
of colonization, occupation, and apartheid.
00:29:01.001 --> 00:29:06.600
I also want to acknowledge that these social
movements are alive and well in Palestine,
00:29:06.600 --> 00:29:10.477
and several members of QuAIA Vancouver
00:29:10.477 --> 00:29:15.200
were able to meet a number of amazing Palestinian
queer and trans activists at the recent
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:19.980
World Social Forum "Free Palestine" in Brazil,
which included a Queer Visions stream.
00:29:19.980 --> 00:29:25.120
So Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is one of
a growing number of queer activist groups
00:29:25.120 --> 00:29:28.271
working to resist the pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid.
00:29:28.271 --> 00:29:34.240
And as queers and trans folks, we have the power
to interrupt this practice of pinkwashing.
00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:41.189
When we come out against Israeli apartheid,
we interfere with the myth-making that's vital
00:29:41.189 --> 00:29:47.215
to letting Israel get away with apartheid, colonialism,
and other forms state violence.
00:29:47.215 --> 00:29:50.041
So, to give some background on QuAIA Vancouver:
00:29:50.041 --> 00:29:55.001
There's been a QuAIA presence in the Vancouver
Pride Parade for the past several years,
00:29:55.001 --> 00:29:59.882
which I attended but personally
wasn't involved in organizing,
00:29:59.882 --> 00:30:02.662
and I want to recognize that work that took place;
00:30:02.662 --> 00:30:06.995
but the current iteration of QuAIA Vancouver
came together just last summer
00:30:06.995 --> 00:30:13.602
in response to 2 Israeli-funded films that were
being screened at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
00:30:13.602 --> 00:30:15.612
They were called “Joe + Belle” and “Invisible Men”.
00:30:15.612 --> 00:30:21.097
And in response to the screening of these films,
we came together under the banner of QuAIA
00:30:21.097 --> 00:30:28.690
to call on the Queer Film Festival to come out in
solidarity with Palestinian queers and trans folks,
00:30:28.690 --> 00:30:33.659
ultimately, to challenge pinkwashing
00:30:33.659 --> 00:30:38.733
by honouring the cultural boycott of Israel
for future seasons of the Festival.
00:30:38.733 --> 00:30:41.989
So for those of you who aren't familiar
with the idea of cultural boycott --
00:30:41.989 --> 00:30:44.216
Dean mentioned BDS.
00:30:44.216 --> 00:30:48.950
So, in 2005, Palestinian civil society
launched a global movement
00:30:48.950 --> 00:30:53.199
for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel,
which we call BDS.
00:30:53.199 --> 00:30:56.982
So this includes economic boycotts,
divestment, sanctions advocacy,
00:30:56.982 --> 00:31:00.010
but also a cultural and academic boycott,
00:31:00.010 --> 00:31:04.810
which targets cultural institutions,
projects, and events
00:31:04.810 --> 00:31:09.788
that continue to serve the purposes of
the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime.
00:31:09.788 --> 00:31:15.097
So I want to be clear that cultural boycott doesn't
target artists or filmmakers based on nationality,
00:31:15.097 --> 00:31:20.329
but rather targets officially sponsored voices
that serve the interests of apartheid.
00:31:20.329 --> 00:31:26.166
So in this context, we felt and we feel that it
is very important to call on our queer institutions,
00:31:26.166 --> 00:31:29.939
like the Vancouver Queer Film Festival
00:31:29.939 --> 00:31:32.993
to come out against the Israeli apartheid regime,
00:31:32.993 --> 00:31:38.753
because if this queer film festival,
if this is a queer film festival,
00:31:38.753 --> 00:31:41.538
it belongs to all of us, right?
00:31:41.538 --> 00:31:45.253
Including any Palestinian and Arab queers
and queers of colour
00:31:45.253 --> 00:31:51.762
who may feel alienated from a festival that aligns
itself with institutional advocates for apartheid.
00:31:51.762 --> 00:31:57.218
So as the Festival gears up again this Spring,
we're going to be organizing to make this happen,
00:31:57.218 --> 00:32:00.434
to call on the Vancouver Queer Film Festival
00:32:00.434 --> 00:32:04.000
to come out in support of
Palestinian queer and trans folks.
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:07.810
So in the coming months,
we'll need community support.
00:32:07.810 --> 00:32:11.297
And we want encourage everybody here today
to sign up for our email list,
00:32:11.297 --> 00:32:14.750
which, there's a signup list at the back of the room,
00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:17.906
and to like us on Facebook if you're on there
[ laughter ],
00:32:17.906 --> 00:32:20.852
and most importantly to come out
to future events and actions.
00:32:20.852 --> 00:32:24.285
Because if we want to
hold our institutions accountable,
00:32:24.285 --> 00:32:28.632
we need to show them
that we care about this, right?
00:32:28.632 --> 00:32:31.778
So, yeah, because apartheid is a queer issue
00:32:31.778 --> 00:32:35.848
- it's not only a queer issue
but clearly it's a queer issue -
00:32:35.848 --> 00:32:41.645
and as queers and trans folks
i think our role in this struggle is clear:
00:32:41.645 --> 00:32:46.432
There's no pride in apartheid!
[ audience cheers ]
00:32:46.432 --> 00:32:49.496
[ Anna Soole, Social Justice
& Decolonization Facilitator ]
00:32:49.496 --> 00:32:51.960
Thank you Isabel, that was a great ending.
I liked that little...
00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:56.743
So, first I want to say thank you
to Dean and Isabel for what you said,
00:32:56.743 --> 00:33:00.098
and I want to say thank you
to Harsha for what you're gonna say,
00:33:00.098 --> 00:33:01.139
and SFPIRG for having us.
00:33:01.139 --> 00:33:05.021
And I want to acknowledge that we are on
traditional Coast Salish territory.
00:33:05.021 --> 00:33:09.825
And that I am... so... my name is Anna Soole,
and I'm Métis.
00:33:09.825 --> 00:33:16.322
I'm Cree, Ojibwe, Apache, Algonquin and Lakota,
and I'm also French, Celtic, Dutch and German.
00:33:16.322 --> 00:33:22.502
That's a lot of things to remember.
I'm kind of like a Heinz 57...
00:33:22.502 --> 00:33:26.885
and so [ laughs ] I'm gonna be speaking
to my own personal experience,
00:33:26.885 --> 00:33:30.477
more than... I'm not an academic,
00:33:30.477 --> 00:33:34.748
and so my framework is much more
cultural and from my own perspective.
00:33:34.748 --> 00:33:37.824
And I'm gonna share some stories,
and I'm gonna share a little bit about who I am
00:33:37.824 --> 00:33:41.824
and how what we're talking about today
has impacted me as an Indigenous woman.
00:33:41.824 --> 00:33:45.390
And, before I do...
00:33:45.390 --> 00:33:49.945
one of the things in the work that I do
-I do decolonization work-
00:33:49.945 --> 00:33:54.567
one of the things that's really important to me
is acknowledge the space that we're in.
00:33:54.567 --> 00:33:57.978
And the space that we're in is what?
00:33:57.978 --> 00:34:00.791
Just call it out, what do you see?
00:34:00.791 --> 00:34:04.468
Concrete!
What else?
00:34:05.132 --> 00:34:07.796
Rows! Exactly!
00:34:07.796 --> 00:34:12.239
So, we're in a space that is
specifically a settler space.
00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:15.617
And so I just want to acknowledge that
we're talking about decolonization,
00:34:15.617 --> 00:34:19.934
we're talking about colonialism, settler colonialism,
inside a settler space.
00:34:19.934 --> 00:34:25.964
And in my culture, does anybody know
how we would be set up?
00:34:25.964 --> 00:34:27.998
In a circle.
00:34:27.998 --> 00:34:31.084
And so a circle keeps us accountable to each other,
00:34:31.084 --> 00:34:34.638
so I often have a lot of conflict
about sitting on a panel,
00:34:34.638 --> 00:34:37.607
because I feel uncomfortable
with a table between me and a group.
00:34:37.607 --> 00:34:44.385
I feel uncomfortable being the voice,
when there's so much knowledge in a room.
00:34:44.385 --> 00:34:47.963
And so I just want to acknowledge that,
and my own conflict with it.
00:34:47.963 --> 00:34:55.129
And acknowledge ways... maybe in the future...
maybe how can we look at that as a group,
00:34:55.129 --> 00:34:58.142
the people that are here,
00:34:58.142 --> 00:35:01.967
how can we look at that and changing these systems
that we're inside of even in this moment?
00:35:01.967 --> 00:35:04.645
Um...
00:35:05.569 --> 00:35:09.335
So, just about me, I wanna acknowledge...
00:35:09.335 --> 00:35:12.641
I'm from a working class, Métis family,
00:35:12.641 --> 00:35:15.293
and I'm personally, financially, somewhat precarious,
00:35:15.293 --> 00:35:18.452
queer, and I have no high school diploma.
00:35:18.452 --> 00:35:24.272
But I present as a white, straight, middle class,
educated and employable person,
00:35:24.272 --> 00:35:29.435
so I carry a level of privilege that my contemporaries
who wear their station more visibly
00:35:29.435 --> 00:35:32.205
don't necessarily have access to.
00:35:32.205 --> 00:35:36.967
But that is specifically related to
my experience as an Indigenous woman,
00:35:36.967 --> 00:35:40.672
because when Dean was talking about marriage,
00:35:40.672 --> 00:35:45.858
that was the topic that struck me the most,
that I wanted to speak to the most.
00:35:45.858 --> 00:35:49.390
Talking about marriage and colonialism
in my family,
00:35:49.390 --> 00:35:52.539
both of my grandmothers are Indigenous,
00:35:52.539 --> 00:35:56.315
and they both went to day school,
which is a lot like residential school,
00:35:56.315 --> 00:36:00.337
and one of my grandmothers ran away when she
was 12 years old from Quebec to Vancouver;
00:36:00.337 --> 00:36:04.022
and my other grandmother,
her whole family left Edmonton,
00:36:04.022 --> 00:36:09.728
where we were well-established, well-known,
activist family that had everything stolen from us,
00:36:09.728 --> 00:36:13.470
and the University of Alberta
is now built on our homestead.
00:36:13.470 --> 00:36:19.789
So everybody came here, and both of my
grandmothers out of survival married white men.
00:36:19.789 --> 00:36:23.544
And so I, every single day of my life,
00:36:23.544 --> 00:36:27.152
walk through the world carrying
the legacy of colonization on my skin.
00:36:27.152 --> 00:36:33.022
Because I carry a privilege that was designed,
00:36:33.022 --> 00:36:36.513
and the design was for me to not identify
as an Indigenous person.
00:36:36.513 --> 00:36:40.244
And so it's a radical act
for me to never identify as white.
00:36:40.244 --> 00:36:45.535
Although I recognize my white privilege,
I identify as genocide white.
00:36:45.535 --> 00:36:50.175
So my friend D. Williams, she was talking about
this concept of genocide white --
00:36:50.175 --> 00:36:53.651
or genocide brown depending on the experience-
00:36:53.651 --> 00:36:57.816
and for me that makes sense, because the reason
my skin is white is because of genocide.
00:36:57.816 --> 00:37:03.391
And so it's a complicated experience for me
[ laughs ] to say the least.
00:37:03.391 --> 00:37:10.266
When Indigenous women married white men,
they lost any status they might have.
00:37:10.266 --> 00:37:14.105
Métis women actually didn't have any
status until the 80's --
00:37:14.105 --> 00:37:22.138
actually we didn't have any status until this month
[ laughs ] We have status now.
00:37:22.138 --> 00:37:25.758
What we had was citizenship in the 80's,
00:37:25.758 --> 00:37:33.715
and so my grandmothers, they made their choices
according to that history. And it impacted my life.
00:37:33.715 --> 00:37:40.587
It impacted abuse that was in my family and in my,
and in my own... on my own personal body.
00:37:40.587 --> 00:37:44.472
And so, uh, I carry that with me every day.
00:37:44.472 --> 00:37:48.986
So I wanna... I just wanna read my notes because...
00:37:48.986 --> 00:37:52.905
it's nerve-wracking to
talk in front of a bunch of people
00:37:52.905 --> 00:37:56.147
especially when you're not in a circle!
[ laughs ] It's really nerve-wracking!
00:37:56.147 --> 00:37:59.504
So I'm just gonna look at my notes...
OK so the next thing I wanted to touch on
00:37:59.504 --> 00:38:04.467
is that I was raised by a single mother,
she never got married,
00:38:04.467 --> 00:38:08.041
and I never thought about marriage growing up.
00:38:08.041 --> 00:38:12.925
It wasn't something that like a lot of girls
in particular, people who are raised as girls,
00:38:12.925 --> 00:38:16.355
are expected to think about their wedding day.
00:38:16.355 --> 00:38:19.792
There's a lot of pressure, socialization
to think about your wedding day,
00:38:19.792 --> 00:38:22.933
think about what it's gonna be like to get married,
plan on getting married... I never had that.
00:38:22.933 --> 00:38:26.287
And my experience was actually
that my mother was... was really...
00:38:26.287 --> 00:38:30.968
she really didn't want me to get married.
00:38:30.968 --> 00:38:36.535
And... but I also saw the other side of it,
which was that my mother was a single mother,
00:38:36.535 --> 00:38:42.548
and she didn't have access to a lot of the things
that my friends had access to, my friends parents.
00:38:42.548 --> 00:38:45.281
My mom couldn't get a loan
without a man in the 80's, and so
00:38:45.281 --> 00:38:46.717
we were very poor for a long period of time until
my mother joined the system, worked for the city,
00:38:46.717 --> 00:38:56.100
and literally broke her back working for
her whole life so that we could survive.
00:38:56.100 --> 00:38:59.491
So it's a complicated system.
00:38:59.491 --> 00:39:03.442
The reason we get... a lot of people feel
the pressure to get married,
00:39:03.442 --> 00:39:06.987
is because the structure that we live inside
doesn't support not being married.
00:39:06.987 --> 00:39:12.048
And so, what I wanted to sorta think about
or get people thinking about is
00:39:12.048 --> 00:39:17.617
if you only have 1 concept of what is possible,
00:39:17.617 --> 00:39:20.871
of course you're gonna want to
live inside that concept.
00:39:20.871 --> 00:39:26.177
So the paradox of human agency, speaks to the
idea that people's choices are never straightforward.
00:39:26.177 --> 00:39:31.572
The context of our present particular times
and places, constraints and possibility,
00:39:31.572 --> 00:39:37.673
shape not only our choices,
but even what we can imagine for ourselves.
00:39:37.673 --> 00:39:42.796
So right now the queer community, especially in
the U.S., because in Canada we have marriage rights,
00:39:42.796 --> 00:39:47.129
but in the U.S. the queer community
is trying to fit inside a structure
00:39:47.129 --> 00:39:51.184
that is the only structure
that people can comprehend.
00:39:51.184 --> 00:39:57.714
And if there's only one structure,
people are not going to be able to...
00:39:57.714 --> 00:40:03.459
if there's only one possibility,
if it seems like there's only one possibility,
00:40:03.459 --> 00:40:07.639
people aren't necessarily going to be able to create
the world that they would want for themselves
00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:11.054
in a different system.
00:40:11.054 --> 00:40:14.594
So, uh, this is not just a... this is also about
the politics of identity.
00:40:14.594 --> 00:40:17.264
It's about the politics of union,
and it's about the politics of family,
00:40:17.264 --> 00:40:21.906
because if I'm gonna grow up
and become an old woman,
00:40:21.906 --> 00:40:27.816
and not have a family to take care of me,
I'm basically going to be living in poverty.
00:40:27.816 --> 00:40:33.325
And so, there's a lot of pressure on me
as a woman, to have children.
00:40:33.325 --> 00:40:38.301
And there's a lot of pressure on me as a woman,
to have children, and be in a couple,
00:40:38.301 --> 00:40:44.381
a specific kind of couple, with a romantic partner,
preferably a male, a cisgendered male.
00:40:44.381 --> 00:40:47.633
So there's all of these pressures
that I'm expected to live inside of,
00:40:47.633 --> 00:40:53.144
and, yes I want to have children, but I don't want
to have that pressure or that expectation,
00:40:53.144 --> 00:40:56.515
I don't want it to be coming
from the fear of ending up alone.
00:40:56.515 --> 00:40:58.589
So...
00:41:03.726 --> 00:41:10.162
I have an excerpt from an article that I wrote
about whether or not I wanted to be a mother...
00:41:10.162 --> 00:41:13.408
thank you! It's perfect, it's how I wanted to end...
00:41:13.408 --> 00:41:19.539
So... the dominant culture has come to view
family as a small scale, intensely private unit.
00:41:19.539 --> 00:41:24.893
In a healthy, traditional aboriginal community,
a child doesn't have just one mother.
00:41:24.893 --> 00:41:29.199
She has aunties, cousins, sisters,
grandmas, and family friends.
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:33.486
Often, a biological mother is not
the most significant female in the child's life,
00:41:33.486 --> 00:41:38.932
and this is not viewed as neglectful, as child psych-
ologist Dr. John Bowlby would have had us believe
00:41:38.932 --> 00:41:46.215
when he said mid 20th century, when he mid
20th century coined the term "maternal deprivation".
00:41:46.215 --> 00:41:49.633
In fact, it would be quite the opposite.
00:41:49.633 --> 00:41:53.048
The child has so many caregivers
in an aboriginal community --
00:41:53.048 --> 00:41:56.576
or a traditional prior to colonization
aboriginal community--
00:41:56.576 --> 00:41:59.834
that she is able to connect with and bond
to the women, men, or Two-Spirited people,
00:41:59.834 --> 00:42:02.436
that are right for her at that time in her growth.
00:42:02.436 --> 00:42:07.897
Previous bonds with other women aren't lost or bro-
ken but maintained and evolved as the child evolves.
00:42:07.897 --> 00:42:12.668
This works because the well-being of the family
community is valued above the individual,
00:42:12.668 --> 00:42:18.859
whereas in contemporary settler colonial culture,
the individual is valued above the whole.
00:42:18.859 --> 00:42:22.943
Bowlby's legacy has clearly entered
the dominant ideology of motherhood.
00:42:22.943 --> 00:42:28.557
The requirement is that the individual mother should
have total responsibility for her own children at all times.
00:42:28.557 --> 00:42:33.017
This has informed the decisions of colonizers
to remove children
00:42:33.017 --> 00:42:37.755
from these traditional Indigenous family situations,
which we saw in the 60's Scoop,
00:42:37.755 --> 00:42:42.358
which was taking Indigenous children out of their
homes and putting them into foster homes,
00:42:42.358 --> 00:42:45.316
and it's still happening to this day.
00:42:45.316 --> 00:42:48.664
Indigenous children are taken
out of their homes and put in foster homes
00:42:48.664 --> 00:42:51.885
more than any other children in Canada.
00:42:51.885 --> 00:42:56.110
... lost my place...
00:42:56.110 --> 00:43:00.671
...because the ethic of domination
has been used to corrupt, violate,
00:43:00.671 --> 00:43:03.969
and attempt to destroy these traditions
through privatization of the family,
00:43:03.969 --> 00:43:08.474
it's often challenging for the individualistic culture
of the colonized and colonizers
00:43:08.474 --> 00:43:12.017
to understand or see the merits
in multi-shared child rearing.
00:43:12.017 --> 00:43:19.801
In my ideal world, an interdependent community
of peaceful, practical, creative, spiritual people,
00:43:19.801 --> 00:43:23.443
working together to respect and tend to the earth,
and each other,
00:43:23.443 --> 00:43:28.574
sharing responsibility for each other's well-being,
and the well-being of the children,
00:43:28.574 --> 00:43:32.403
whether a mother is single or attached
is irrelevant,
00:43:32.403 --> 00:43:35.495
as the child has many dedicated,
loving role models of every gender,
00:43:35.495 --> 00:43:38.861
who are positively engaged
in every aspect of the child's life.
00:43:38.861 --> 00:43:42.438
Prospective parents make informed decisions
about when and whether to have children,
00:43:42.438 --> 00:43:45.154
and access to birth control is unquestioned.
00:43:45.154 --> 00:43:49.307
The elderly are cared for by the whole community,
regardless of their blood ties,
00:43:49.307 --> 00:43:52.713
and all community members basic needs are met.
00:43:52.713 --> 00:43:57.329
Some might label these values as anti-racist,
eco-feminist, with socialist leanings...
00:43:57.329 --> 00:44:00.737
but I prefer the title Indigenous Feminist,
and I wear that with pride.
00:44:00.737 --> 00:44:08.989
And I have one final thing, because I only have prob-
ably one minute left. I found this on Facebook today.
00:44:08.989 --> 00:44:11.320
[ whispers to a fellow panelist ] Would you be willing
to hold this up? Thank you.
00:44:11.320 --> 00:44:17.750
And I'll describe it for people who...
who can't see it.
00:44:17.750 --> 00:44:21.526
So, it's a series of three circles at the bottom.
00:44:21.526 --> 00:44:28.604
The 1st circle has a series of multiple blue circles
in it, and outside is multicoloured circles.
00:44:28.604 --> 00:44:32.183
And this is labeled as "Exclusion".
00:44:32.183 --> 00:44:36.160
So all around the border of the circle
has the multicoloured circles.
00:44:36.160 --> 00:44:41.379
The 2nd circle has the blue circles in the centre,
and a smaller circle on the outside.
00:44:41.379 --> 00:44:47.320
And it's got all the multicoloured circles in it.
Labeled as "Segregation".
00:44:47.320 --> 00:44:53.561
The 3rd circle has blue circles inside of it, and
another circle inside of it with multicoloured circles.
00:44:53.561 --> 00:44:56.625
And that's called "Integration".
00:44:56.625 --> 00:45:01.571
The final circle has all the circles,
blue and multicoloured, inside of it,
00:45:01.571 --> 00:45:05.374
which changes the entire
formation of what it looks like.
00:45:05.374 --> 00:45:07.333
And that's called "Inclusion".
00:45:07.333 --> 00:45:13.291
And I've worked in many non-Indigenous
organizations as an Indigenous person,
00:45:13.291 --> 00:45:18.200
and it's... of course I'm the Indigenous person
who looks white, right?
00:45:18.200 --> 00:45:21.946
So I get hired because I look like everybody else,
and I can easily fit into white culture.
00:45:21.946 --> 00:45:24.624
Or so people think until they know me.
[ laughs ]
00:45:24.624 --> 00:45:31.199
And so, what we're talking about here is
literally changing the structure of society.
00:45:31.199 --> 00:45:38.029
So, not changing, not getting queer people to
be able to get married and join the military,
00:45:38.029 --> 00:45:40.867
but what we're talking about
is getting rid of the military.
00:45:40.867 --> 00:45:47.308
Changing the ideas of marriage. Changing our
ideas of what partnership and family looks like.
00:45:47.308 --> 00:45:48.569
Thank you.
[ applause ]
00:45:50.440 --> 00:45:55.428
[ Harsha Walia, No One Is Illegal ]
00:45:55.428 --> 00:46:01.103
That was it! [ audience laughter ]
That visual's incredible.
00:46:01.103 --> 00:46:05.433
Thank you to the organizers
and thank everyone for being here,
00:46:05.433 --> 00:46:09.356
thank you Dean and Isabel and Anna
for really amazing presentations.
00:46:09.356 --> 00:46:14.078
I want to start by acknowledging that we're on
un-ceded, occupied, Coast Salish territories,
00:46:14.078 --> 00:46:17.679
lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh,
Squamish and Stó:lō people.
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:21.462
And also too, as other speakers mentioned,
to really understand in a deep way what it means
00:46:21.462 --> 00:46:24.486
to root our work
within an anti-colonial framework,
00:46:24.486 --> 00:46:30.689
and what it means to really truly be in alliance with
Indigenous struggles against settler colonialism.
00:46:30.689 --> 00:46:34.790
And everything that that means, right?
It means multiple things.
00:46:34.790 --> 00:46:38.384
It means fighting in defense of the land,
it means fighting violence against women,
00:46:38.384 --> 00:46:41.684
it means fighting against prisons and police,
and the military,
00:46:41.684 --> 00:46:45.894
and all of the aspects of settler colonialism
that seep into our lives and our societies,
00:46:45.894 --> 00:46:50.125
and the ways in which we live here on Turtle Island.
00:46:50.125 --> 00:46:55.857
I wanna pick up where folks were kinda left off,
and what people were talking about...
00:46:55.857 --> 00:46:59.857
and particularly some of the stuff
that Dean was talking about
00:46:59.857 --> 00:47:03.387
in terms of the co-optation of
queer and trans liberation movements
00:47:03.387 --> 00:47:06.050
as well as women of colour movements,
00:47:06.050 --> 00:47:10.522
particularly for imperial, capitalist,
and colonial ambitions.
00:47:10.522 --> 00:47:14.816
And particularly to talk about that in the intersection
of immigration, both historically and currently.
00:47:14.816 --> 00:47:18.848
Y'know, first I do want to say
that it's not new, right?
00:47:18.848 --> 00:47:21.829
There's this kind of new framework
that's been developing,
00:47:21.829 --> 00:47:26.613
particularly with homonationalism when we talk
about it, or pinkwashing when we talk about it,
00:47:26.613 --> 00:47:30.470
but I really think it's important to understand
that this recent branding has a long legacy
00:47:30.470 --> 00:47:33.940
and has a long history in terms of colonial politics.
00:47:33.940 --> 00:47:39.169
And y'know in particular colonialism has
always cast people of colour communities
00:47:39.169 --> 00:47:43.250
as barbaric, and savage, and backwards,
as you were mentioning Isabel.
00:47:43.250 --> 00:47:45.954
And this is not new, right?
00:47:45.954 --> 00:47:49.357
The kind of gay-saving rhetoric
and the ideology of it is also not new.
00:47:49.357 --> 00:47:52.559
I'm gonna give some historic examples of that.
00:47:52.559 --> 00:47:56.901
Most people think that that is a recent kind of...
00:47:56.901 --> 00:48:02.508
a recent evolution of y'know "save the women!"
[ laughs ] but they've both always worked together.
00:48:02.508 --> 00:48:07.425
And so the kind of "save 3rd world women", "save
women of colour" and y'know, "save 3rd world gays",
00:48:07.425 --> 00:48:12.967
have always been attendant processes of colo-
nialism, and have always been part of that project.
00:48:12.967 --> 00:48:17.274
And the thing that is most deeply
offensive and ironic about that of course
00:48:17.274 --> 00:48:21.367
is that colonialism itself has imposed
the most hetero-normative, patriarchal system
00:48:21.367 --> 00:48:25.419
on communities of colour, right?
Particularly through the Victorian era.
00:48:25.419 --> 00:48:28.483
So you have this simultaneous
kind of rhetoric and discourse
00:48:28.483 --> 00:48:34.446
of saving communities of colour, while at the
same time imposing the most rigid and oppressive
00:48:34.446 --> 00:48:37.952
family and community and societal structures
on our communities, right?
00:48:37.952 --> 00:48:41.424
So, there's nothing kind of new about this.
00:48:41.424 --> 00:48:45.624
So I want to look at some examples,
particularly through a lens of immigration.
00:48:45.624 --> 00:48:49.829
There's of course y'know a lot
of conversation that we've had,
00:48:49.829 --> 00:48:53.931
Isabel laid out a lot of amazing history
in terms of pinkwashing,
00:48:53.931 --> 00:48:56.685
Dean also talked about it
in the context of pinkwashing,
00:48:56.685 --> 00:48:59.350
also the examples as we know of course
of the occupation of Afghanistan,
00:48:59.350 --> 00:49:03.966
where, y'know, the entire rhetoric of occupation
and colonialism both locally and globally
00:49:03.966 --> 00:49:08.093
has been rooted in this white saviour
industrial complex if you will,
00:49:08.093 --> 00:49:13.345
but I also want to look at it through the lens
of immigration, which isn't often talked about,
00:49:13.345 --> 00:49:19.095
and the ways in which state controls and border
controls are operating through these ways as well.
00:49:19.095 --> 00:49:22.496
So, y'know, a lot of people here probably know
about the Komagata Maru, right?
00:49:22.496 --> 00:49:27.908
So, the Komagata Maru was the ship in 1914
that turned, that was turned away
00:49:27.908 --> 00:49:31.392
-376 predominantly Punjabi immigrants-
00:49:31.392 --> 00:49:36.296
was turned away from the shores of
British Columbia, here on the west coast.
00:49:36.296 --> 00:49:42.609
And y'know, that's known as a very obvious
example of anti-migrant history in Canada.
00:49:42.609 --> 00:49:48.692
Y'know, the Tory government recently made
an apology -or a kind of half-apology-
00:49:48.692 --> 00:49:53.750
for the Komagata Maru, in the same vein as
the apology for the residential schools,
00:49:53.750 --> 00:49:57.134
in the same vein as the apology
of the Chinese Head Tax,
00:49:57.134 --> 00:50:02.522
y'know, totally token, offensive, symbolic gestures,
but y'know, people know about the Komagata Maru.
00:50:02.522 --> 00:50:05.225
The thing that most people don't know about
00:50:05.225 --> 00:50:09.994
is the sodomy cases that were happening at the
same time as the Komagata Maru was happening.
00:50:09.994 --> 00:50:14.477
So during 1909 and 1925, there was
a number of sodomy cases
00:50:14.477 --> 00:50:18.168
that were being tried particularly
in the west coast of Canada.
00:50:18.168 --> 00:50:23.690
And the largest proportion of men being tried
under sodomy laws at the time were Sikh men.
00:50:23.690 --> 00:50:29.418
And in particular there was a really high profile case
in 1915... has anyone seen Rex Vs. Singh?
00:50:29.418 --> 00:50:33.749
If not... check out the movie,
it's a really important movie, y'know,
00:50:33.749 --> 00:50:39.871
that links and ties the connection between anti-
migrant sentiment and homophobia and transphobia,
00:50:39.871 --> 00:50:43.667
and in particular with
the criminalization of communities
00:50:43.667 --> 00:50:47.514
and the assertion of state power
in the act of criminalization.
00:50:47.514 --> 00:50:51.452
And so in 1915, there was
a relatively high-profile "case",
00:50:51.452 --> 00:50:55.712
where there were two Sikh men,
they were two Sikh millworkers,
00:50:55.712 --> 00:51:00.910
and their names were Dalip Singh and [Naina] Singh,
00:51:01.094 --> 00:51:04.480
and they were two men
who were tried for sodomy in 1915.
00:51:04.480 --> 00:51:09.944
And this was a time of... right.. one year after
the Komagata Maru was turned back, right?
00:51:09.944 --> 00:51:13.654
So, this is again happening in a period
when there's heightened
00:51:13.654 --> 00:51:18.467
-particularly anti-Sikh anti-Punjabi,
anti-south Asian- sentiment in BC,
00:51:18.467 --> 00:51:24.221
where newspapers are filled with y'know, "Turn back
the Hindus!", "Hindus are invading our shores!",
00:51:24.221 --> 00:51:29.450
while at the same time there's also a simultaneous
crackdown on working class gay men,
00:51:29.450 --> 00:51:32.682
in particular, working in the mills.
00:51:32.682 --> 00:51:36.561
And so, the sodomy cases really are a confluence
of the ways in which the state
00:51:36.561 --> 00:51:39.963
is simultaneously criminalizing under sodomy laws,
00:51:39.963 --> 00:51:43.041
and simultaneously criminalizing
under anti-migrant laws.
00:51:43.041 --> 00:51:48.692
And again, the largest proportion of men tried
under these cases during 1909 to 1929
00:51:48.692 --> 00:51:52.011
were Sikh men, Sikh migrant men.
00:51:52.011 --> 00:51:57.440
And so again I say that to show
kind of an historic trajectory,
00:51:57.440 --> 00:52:03.389
of the ways in which the state has been
actively criminalizing communities of colour,
00:52:03.389 --> 00:52:06.936
particularly queer and trans communities of colour
through state processes.
00:52:06.936 --> 00:52:10.347
And so I wanna move quickly to the current context,
00:52:10.347 --> 00:52:14.103
because again there's often a sense
that all of this is new.
00:52:14.103 --> 00:52:18.436
And again in the current context we see
the same kind of thing, where on the one hand
00:52:18.436 --> 00:52:22.281
the Canadian state is actively excluding
queer and trans communities of colour,
00:52:22.281 --> 00:52:26.128
while at the same time it's upholding the myth
00:52:26.128 --> 00:52:29.973
of being welcoming for persecuted
queer and trans folks from the global south.
00:52:29.973 --> 00:52:32.853
And so we see that these
parallel discourses are necessary.
00:52:32.853 --> 00:52:38.183
So one of them is the kind of homonationalist dis-
course; y'know, similar to the Israeli pinkwashing:
00:52:38.183 --> 00:52:43.320
"We're so welcoming", "We're this bastion
of queer and gay rights",
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:47.237
"Western civilization frees everybody", y'know,
"Western civilization is where equality rests";
00:52:47.237 --> 00:52:53.401
while at the same time, the reality on the ground
is one that is actively of persecution.
00:52:53.401 --> 00:52:57.290
We see, particularly through immigration laws,
the ways in which heteronormativity
00:52:57.290 --> 00:53:01.742
-and particularly an assimilation politic-
at various levels is being reinforced.
00:53:01.742 --> 00:53:08.809
So one really kind of obvious on the face example,
is that until 2002 same-sex relationships
00:53:08.809 --> 00:53:12.009
-so this is just same sex relationships,
00:53:12.009 --> 00:53:16.239
we're not even talking about diverse
queer familial relationships-
00:53:16.239 --> 00:53:19.954
same sex relationships were not even recognized
until 2002 under the Canadian immigration Act
00:53:19.954 --> 00:53:24.943
as being able to be qualified
under the Family Class, right?
00:53:24.943 --> 00:53:29.411
So this is 10 years ago, or how many years ago?
10 years ago, right?
00:53:29.411 --> 00:53:33.738
This is very recent, in terms of
Canadian immigration policy.
00:53:33.738 --> 00:53:38.058
But just to move to kind of more recent examples,
00:53:38.058 --> 00:53:41.765
and then to talk about the ways in which homo-
nationalism has been an active part of Jason Kenney
00:53:41.765 --> 00:53:47.988
-who is the current Minister of Deportation,
as some of us like to call him-
00:53:47.988 --> 00:53:52.070
there's a number of ways in which we see...
I wanna talk about 3 of many examples,
00:53:52.070 --> 00:53:57.240
I'll only give 3 examples ... of the ways
in which that active exclusion is happening,
00:53:57.240 --> 00:54:01.115
and persecution is happening,
of queers and trans folks
00:54:01.115 --> 00:54:05.729
who are trying to immigrate and particularly
claim asylum within Canada,
00:54:05.729 --> 00:54:10.205
and then the final thing is kind of fortification of
homonationalism through the immigration system.
00:54:10.205 --> 00:54:13.298
So the first is, y'know, the citizenship guide.
00:54:13.298 --> 00:54:18.691
So the citizenship guide was a brand new citizenship
guide for Canada, espouses Canadian values...
00:54:18.691 --> 00:54:23.062
and we find out through the citizenship guide
that Canadian values means
00:54:23.062 --> 00:54:26.936
-absolutely no reference to
queer and trans liberation struggles,
00:54:26.936 --> 00:54:29.731
it doesn't even mention same sex marriage.
00:54:29.731 --> 00:54:34.287
But what it does have is a number
of recruitment ads into the military.
00:54:34.287 --> 00:54:39.514
And this is the example of y'know
what Canada is presenting itself as,
00:54:39.514 --> 00:54:43.086
in terms of for newcomers
and for people becoming citizens.
00:54:43.086 --> 00:54:47.087
The Immigration and Refugee Board
has a number of new judges
00:54:47.087 --> 00:54:51.267
that Jason Kenney and the
Conservatives recently appointed,
00:54:51.267 --> 00:54:55.269
who are openly anti-queer judges.
Openly anti-queer.
00:54:55.269 --> 00:55:00.615
One of them actually spoke at a fundraiser
that was an openly anti-queer fundraiser.
00:55:00.615 --> 00:55:04.787
And he gets appointed by Jason Kenney,
to do what?
00:55:04.787 --> 00:55:12.259
What kinds of claims is this person supposed
to be hearing? Anyone take a guess? ...
00:55:12.259 --> 00:55:18.929
Yeah, basically, he is looking at claims
based on gender and sexual persecution.
00:55:18.929 --> 00:55:22.995
And so this is the kind of system
that we have in place, right?
00:55:22.995 --> 00:55:29.204
And the other thing that we have that y'know
completely continues to re-entrench
00:55:29.204 --> 00:55:33.983
heteronormativity as well as
capitalist values and assimilative values,
00:55:33.983 --> 00:55:37.094
is the Humanitarian and Compassionate
Claim in Canada right?
00:55:37.094 --> 00:55:40.524
So this is like the claim that,
if you are trying to stay in Canada,
00:55:40.524 --> 00:55:42.932
and your sponsorship has been refused,
00:55:42.932 --> 00:55:47.584
or you're one of the many refugees who are
increasingly being deported by Jason Kenney,
00:55:47.584 --> 00:55:52.989
or you're thrown into prison, as women and kids
are increasingly being thrown into prisons,
00:55:52.989 --> 00:55:56.177
the Humanitarian and Compassionate Claim
is something you can apply for,
00:55:56.177 --> 00:55:57.679
and you have to have an income,
00:55:57.679 --> 00:56:01.419
if you have a spouse and children,
then that looks good,
00:56:01.419 --> 00:56:04.025
if you're taxpaying, that looks good,
00:56:04.025 --> 00:56:07.903
y'know so it's basically the system
where immigration is increasingly becoming
00:56:07.903 --> 00:56:11.641
a tool of capitalism and colonialism
and oppression and heteronormativity,
00:56:11.641 --> 00:56:14.466
in terms of the kinds of immigrants...
00:56:14.466 --> 00:56:17.916
And y'know it's similar to
the examples that Dean was giving,
00:56:17.916 --> 00:56:21.129
in terms of an immigration system that is
not based on justice, at all, right?
00:56:21.129 --> 00:56:26.316
It's based on people who are gonna fulfill the needs
of the Canadian state and the Canadian economy.
00:56:26.316 --> 00:56:31.223
But at the same time, so while we have this, y'know,
this level of persecution, oppression happening,
00:56:31.223 --> 00:56:33.709
what do we have Jason Kenney do?
00:56:33.709 --> 00:56:37.042
Jason Kenney sends an email to everyone
who ever signed a petition for Alvaro [Orozco],
00:56:37.042 --> 00:56:40.990
who is a young, queer, Latino man in Toronto
who was facing deportation,
00:56:40.990 --> 00:56:45.010
and he, he spams that email list...
00:56:45.010 --> 00:56:49.380
-because when you sign those email petitions,
you give your email to Jason Kenney-
00:56:49.380 --> 00:56:51.849
he sends every one of those people an email about
00:56:51.849 --> 00:56:58.386
how Jason Kenney is helping queers in Iran to come
to Canada. So this is what Jason Kenney does.
00:56:58.386 --> 00:57:04.277
So there's a number of policies that are
actively anti-queer, anti-refugee, anti-migrant,
00:57:04.277 --> 00:57:09.830
but everyone who's advocating for queer liberation,
for queer rights, for migrant rights, for migrant justice
00:57:09.830 --> 00:57:13.673
gets emails about how the Conservative government
is saving queers in Iran.
00:57:13.673 --> 00:57:18.441
Which is, y'know, part of the pinkwashing,
the imperialist agenda of the Tory government,
00:57:18.441 --> 00:57:22.464
but really of the Canadian state, right?
This is just its current formation.
00:57:22.464 --> 00:57:28.622
So I just want to echo in ending, what everyone
has already said, right? Which is:
00:57:28.622 --> 00:57:33.833
How do we imagine -and how do we particularly
because I'm talking about a lens for migrant justice-
00:57:33.833 --> 00:57:36.385
how do we imagine a lens for migrant justice
00:57:36.385 --> 00:57:40.232
that isn't dependent on people as labour,
or people as commodities?
00:57:40.232 --> 00:57:45.217
That really truly respects and values
the diverse ways in which people are communing,
00:57:45.217 --> 00:57:47.473
the diverse ways people are forming relationships,
00:57:47.473 --> 00:57:51.297
the diverse ways in which
people imagine family, right?
00:57:51.297 --> 00:57:54.431
Because one of the other things
that Jason Kenney has done
00:57:54.431 --> 00:57:57.924
is to say that people can't bring
their parents and grandparents any more,
00:57:57.924 --> 00:58:01.684
because grandparents are using our tax...
are using our healthcare, right?
00:58:01.684 --> 00:58:04.579
So Jason Kenney is active in this immigration system,
00:58:04.579 --> 00:58:07.938
is actually devaluing the various ways
in which people have families,
00:58:07.938 --> 00:58:11.966
which include extended families
and doesn't just include your spouse, right?
00:58:11.966 --> 00:58:14.777
It includes the ways particularly
for communities of colour,
00:58:14.777 --> 00:58:17.528
in which family includes
many many people in our lives.
00:58:17.528 --> 00:58:20.922
Listening to Anna talk it was making me weepy,
00:58:20.922 --> 00:58:24.488
because I grew up not calling my mother
but two other women, my moms,
00:58:24.488 --> 00:58:27.459
and when I tell people that here,
people think it's really bizarre,
00:58:27.459 --> 00:58:30.256
and assume that my mother was not part of my life.
00:58:30.256 --> 00:58:34.537
But... so how do we imagine
a kind of immigration system
00:58:34.537 --> 00:58:39.239
where people are valued based on basic principles
of justice and dignity, right?
00:58:39.239 --> 00:58:44.389
And also, an immigration system and a welcoming
of migrants that is fundamentally anti-colonial,
00:58:44.389 --> 00:58:47.075
that respects that this land is not terra nullius,
00:58:47.075 --> 00:58:53.757
this land has been in the stewardship, taken care
of by Indigenous peoples for a very long time.
00:58:53.757 --> 00:58:59.015
There's Indigenous laws on these territories. How do
we respect and honour and live under these laws?
00:58:59.015 --> 00:59:03.978
How do we pledge allegiance to Indigenous
sovereign law, sovereign Indigenous laws, right?
00:59:03.978 --> 00:59:07.888
Rather than pledging allegiance to a
totally fucked up colonial capitalist system
00:59:07.888 --> 00:59:11.010
that makes us believe that people are expendable,
00:59:11.010 --> 00:59:15.756
that make us believe that the only way
to get ahead is to assimilate, right?
00:59:15.756 --> 00:59:20.738
That the only way that we're gonna get ahead is by
buying into capitalism, by buying into colonialism,
00:59:20.738 --> 00:59:24.192
by buying into cops and prisons
and sweatshops and apartheid,
00:59:24.192 --> 00:59:27.865
rather than y'know, believing that we can actually
pledge allegiance to our communities,
00:59:27.865 --> 00:59:31.301
and pledge allegiance to all our diverse families.
00:59:31.301 --> 00:59:34.602
And pledge allegiance to the sovereign Indigenous
laws of these lands. Thank you.