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| Socialist
Party Statements: Anniversary
of the Stonewall Rebellion |
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Statement of Solidarity on the Anniversary
of the Stonewall Rebellion
by Amber R.
Clifford-Napoleone Convener, Queer Commission of the SPUSA
In the
early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided a
Greenwich Village bar: The Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn, a
gay and
lesbian neighborhood bar with a large number of African
American and Latino patrons, was also well-known as a safe space for
those who did not conform to gendernorms: butch lesbians, effeminate
gay men, and transsexual and transgendered persons before the terms
were in popular
use. All of these factors brought the police to Stonewall in 1969
for
the purpose of illegally raiding the bar, and arresting its occupantsan
action not unknown in New York in the 1960s. On that fateful day,
however, the
Stonewall's patrons had enough. Nobody knows who threw the first
bottle that day. It may have been Sylvia Rivera, a transgendered
activist and later a founding mother of political movements on
behalf
of transgendered and transsexual Americans. It may have been a
still
unidentified butch lesbian arrested in the bar. Over 2000 GLBTQ
Americans clashed with 400 police officers on June 28. Arrests
and
beatings were concentrated among Stonewall's African American, Latino,
butch and trans patrons. What ensued was known in the New York
press
and among the police as the Stonewall riots. For gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transgendered, transsexual and queer
Americans, and later the world, that fateful day marked the beginning
of the Stonewall Rebellion. With shouts of "Gay Power," the
rebellion
that lasted five days in New York began to spread across the
country.
Gay, lesbian, trans and other queer Americans took to the streets to
protest their continued oppression, objectification, and
criminalization. This singular event, the Stonewall Rebellion,
marked
the beginning of the modern GLBTQ liberation movement, and brought
GLBTQ political and social struggles out of the closets on onto
American streets. Using this date as the flashpoint, cities
across
America and around the world continue to celebrate the last week of
June as Pride Weekend, a weekend where we remember the Rebellion,
organize to continue the fight for queer liberation, and celebrate our
culture, community, families and history.
Today, the struggle for queer liberation continues. GLBTQ persons
in
the United States are still denied over 1,000 Federal rights guaranteed
to heterosexuals. GLBTQ Americans continue to live daily with
violence, both verbal and physical, and this violence continues to
escalate despite years of work to pass poorly enforced hate crimes
legislation. In August 2006, in Greenwich Village not far from
the
famous Stonewall Inn, four African American lesbian women were verbally
and physically attacked on the street. These women were convicted
of
assault on their assailant, a man who ripped the hair from the women's
scalps and threw lit cigarettes at them. For defending
themselves,
these four young women have received sentences ranging from 4 years to
11 years. Fred Phelps, the ultra-conservative religious leader
from Topeka, Kansas, continues to
protest at the funerals of GLBTQ Americans, harassing their families
and claiming that their deaths were deserved punishments. Police
across the country continue to raid bars and sweep streets after
parades.
Thousands of young GLBTQ people are homeless, left to live on the
street because their own families could not accept them. This
summer,
in solidarity with GLBTQ people across the country, remember Stonewall
and continue its legacy by working for queer liberation.
Recognize the
capitalist roots of oppression based on gender and sexuality, refuse to
force others to conform to heteronormativity, resist and call attention
to homophobia in all its forms, and join the Socialist Party and its
commissions in the continued struggle for a just world for everyone.
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