I always spend Valentine's evening at the vigil and march for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. The work its organizers do to keep their love and rage for their friends and family alive means a lot to me, and that they invite anyone who wants to be there into it.
It's a really really strong reminder of how cops and the state and extractive industry works hand in hand to try and destroy Indigenous women. I think it'd be a hard event to attend and come away with any kind of belief that justice or dignity or human thriving can come from a carceral system. I appreciated reading this this morning, after being there last night. I'm glad to hear Joan Little may still be alive, I hope her life is peaceful and happy.
I really appreciated this reminder of how organizers and organizing from history is neither one-dimensional or just a "starting point" to do bigger and better organizing now. In our overstimulating, polycrisis times, we need to channel that kind of clarity.
Do you think the carceral feminists of the 70s map directly onto the modern-day radical feminists (TERFs) of today? As in, these tendencies are fundamentally about "protecting the club" than liberation
Hey Taka!! Such a great question. I'd say in many ways yes but it's probably not totally 1:1. In addition to some pretty straightforward shared concerns, there's something shared about a vexed relationship to hegemonic power - appealing to it for protection, while insisting that one is victimized in ways that are misunderstood by the mainstream. My brain is a little too fried at the moment to give a longer answer but I'll be thinking about this question more and would love to elaborate further at some point - it probably deserves its own post! I'm also really excited to read Sophie Lewis's book Enemy Feminisms which is coming out literally tomorrow, which definitely covers some related material. I know that Sophie is thinking and writing about how feminisms of the past (both ones we would consider good and bad) transmute into the politics of today and I'm looking forward to seeing how she connects some of these dots.
I always spend Valentine's evening at the vigil and march for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. The work its organizers do to keep their love and rage for their friends and family alive means a lot to me, and that they invite anyone who wants to be there into it.
It's a really really strong reminder of how cops and the state and extractive industry works hand in hand to try and destroy Indigenous women. I think it'd be a hard event to attend and come away with any kind of belief that justice or dignity or human thriving can come from a carceral system. I appreciated reading this this morning, after being there last night. I'm glad to hear Joan Little may still be alive, I hope her life is peaceful and happy.
what a meaningful Valentine's Day tradition. Thanks for sharing about this <3
I really appreciated this reminder of how organizers and organizing from history is neither one-dimensional or just a "starting point" to do bigger and better organizing now. In our overstimulating, polycrisis times, we need to channel that kind of clarity.
Do you think the carceral feminists of the 70s map directly onto the modern-day radical feminists (TERFs) of today? As in, these tendencies are fundamentally about "protecting the club" than liberation
Hey Taka!! Such a great question. I'd say in many ways yes but it's probably not totally 1:1. In addition to some pretty straightforward shared concerns, there's something shared about a vexed relationship to hegemonic power - appealing to it for protection, while insisting that one is victimized in ways that are misunderstood by the mainstream. My brain is a little too fried at the moment to give a longer answer but I'll be thinking about this question more and would love to elaborate further at some point - it probably deserves its own post! I'm also really excited to read Sophie Lewis's book Enemy Feminisms which is coming out literally tomorrow, which definitely covers some related material. I know that Sophie is thinking and writing about how feminisms of the past (both ones we would consider good and bad) transmute into the politics of today and I'm looking forward to seeing how she connects some of these dots.