Sylvia Rivera and the Spirit of Solidarity

June 29, 2022June 29, 2022 ~ Schuyler Kempton ~ Leave a comment

Symbol of gay and trans pride in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. By Emercado2020 via Wikimedia Commons. Shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Originally published in the June 12, 2022 issue of The Weekly Letter newsletter.

On June 24, 1973, Sylvia Rivera took the microphone at the Christopher Street Liberation Day rally in Washington Square Park, NYC. Facing boos from the crowd, Rivera spoke:

“Y’all better quiet down. I’ve been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail that write me every motherfucking week and ask for your help, and you all don’t do a goddamn thing for them…. They’ve been beaten up and raped after they’ve had to spend much of their money in jail to get their self home and to try to get their sex changes. The women have tried to fight for their sex changes or to become women of the Women’s Liberation and they write STAR, not the women’s groups, they do not write women, they do not write men, they write STAR because we’re trying to do something for them…. I have been beaten. I have had my nose broken. I have been thrown in jail. I have lost my job. I have lost my apartment for gay liberation and you all treat me this way?…”

(See video of the speech here.)

While Rivera was a pioneer who fought for all members of what is today called the LGBTQ+ community, her contribution to the struggle of transgender and gender nonconforming people was especially deep. Along with Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera founded the organization Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which adopted a left-wing manifesto for liberation and provided support for transgender prisoners and unhoused transgender people.

(Gender terminology was in flux during Rivera’s time, and Rivera described her own gender identity in different ways during her life. She is commonly considered a trailblazer for transgender rights, and I primarily use the term “transgender” here to refer to the community she fought for.)

However, the presence of Rivera and others who identified as drag queens at the rally was virulently opposed by members of the organization Lesbian Feminist Liberation, which considered drag queens “female impersonators” (during her own speech, a member of the organization, Jean O’Leary, referred to Rivera as “a man”). Rivera asserted in her speech that she and other gender nonconforming people were marginalized due to factors of race and class. She said that unlike the “men and women that belong to a white, middle-class… club,” those at STAR House “are trying to do something for all of us…”

Rivera was anguished by her treatment at the rally. The context of Rivera’s speech is discussed in the 2017 documentary The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson (available on Netflix). In an archival interview featured in the documentary, Rivera says that after the rally she attempted to kill herself (her life was saved by Johnson). She then left the gay liberation movement.

When Rivera returned to activism years later, she resumed her struggle against the oppression of transgender people. And she was not afraid to criticize the mainstream of the gay liberation movement when it marginalized the transgender community. One focus of Rivera’s ire was the attitude that trans people should wait for their rights until after gays and lesbians secured theirs.

The story of Sylvia Rivera has a lot to teach us. On the negative side, it tells us that social movements can shamefully marginalize those who are multiply oppressed—and on the front lines of the movement—in the name of pragmatism and respectability. The disdain of some feminists toward drag queens also indicates that for some on the left, ideology can take precedence over solidarity.

We can see this fairly clearly in the position of trans-exclusionary radical feminists today. But we can also see the privileging of ideology over solidarity in other contexts, such as in the history of left-wing support for repressive countries because of their status as ‘workers’ states’ or supposedly anti-imperialist states. From the Communists who denied or excused Stalin’s atrocities to Western leftists who viewed Syrian revolutionaries as American puppets, the left has often lost its way regarding international issues due to unquestioning adherence to faulty doctrines.

However, Sylvia Rivera’s uncompromising commitment to the transgender community, to LGBTQ+ liberation more broadly, and her STAR organization’s support for a revolutionary transformation of society as a whole represents the left-wing spirit of solidarity at its best. From the personal to the system-wide, Rivera believed in a revolution from the bottom-up. Her insistence that no one be left behind is an example of a left-wing impulse that is perhaps most elegantly stated in the Industrial Workers of the World slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

The importance of prioritizing support for political demands for equality over dubious ideological speculation is argued in an episode of ContraPoints by the YouTuber Natalie Wynn. Wynn argues that opponents of transgender rights distract by asking trans people to justify their gender identity through asking questions like, “what is a woman?” This leads to a dead-end debate about metaphysics and semantics. But the real issue, Wynn says, is not the metaphysics of gender but the concrete reality of inequality and discrimination against trans people.

(Wynn has herself been criticized for comments and actions that have been viewed as marginalizing non-binary people. An article on the website Pride addresses this controversy.)

I think this focus on achieving equality can also help reframe some of the issues that are embroiled in the ‘culture wars.’ Whatever the right-wing may say, the LGBTQ+ movement is not attempting a cultural takeover—it’s demanding dignity and equal status. It’s engaged in a political struggle.

If the fight against oppression is a core part of the left-wing project, then our focus has to be on how we can achieve equality—or, more accurately, equity—concretely in the real world. Although our basic commitments are informed by theory, we must be wary of the ways in which doctrine can steer us away from solidarity.

We are in the middle of a wave of backlash against political and social progress made by the LGBTQ+ community. As a heterosexual and cisgender man, I don’t presume to propose how to guard against the backlash and take the next steps forward. But I will do my best to be in solidarity with the struggle for equity. An injury to one is an injury to all.

After Minneapolis, Activists Demand: Defund the Police

June 14, 2020June 14, 2020 ~ Schuyler Kempton ~ Leave a comment

Nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd have renewed the movement against police brutality and the larger system of white supremacy in the United States. The assertion of this movement is simple: Black Lives Matter. But recently a demand has captured widespread attention as well: Defund the Police. Annie Lowrey of The Atlantic characterizes the demand as meaning the end of “mass incarceration, cash bail, fines-and-fees policing, the war on drugs, and police militarization, as well as getting cops out of schools.” However, defunding is just one half of the equation:

It would also mean funding housing-first programs, creating subsidized jobs for the formerly incarcerated, and expanding initiatives to have mental-health professionals and social workers respond to emergency calls.
More broadly, the demand to divest from policing doubles as a call to invest in safety, security, and racial justice.

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) has a section of their website on defunding the police. Under the heading “Values & Vision,” M4BL writes, in part:

For much of U.S. history, law enforcement meant implementing laws that were explicitly designed to subjugate Black people and enforce white supremacy. That’s why Black people, along with hundreds of thousands of others, are calling for city, state, and federal governments to abolish policing as we currently understand it…
We know the safest communities in America are places that don’t center the police. What we’re looking for already exists, and we already know it works. We need look no further than neighborhoods where the wealthy, well-connected, and well-off live, or anywhere there is easy access to living wages, healthcare, quality public education and freedom from police terror.

M4BL also emphasizes: “When we talk about defunding the police, we’re talking about making a major pivot in national priorities.”

Under the heading “Tough Q&A”, M4BL poses the question, “If we defund/disband the police, who’s going to keep people safe?”, answering:

Defunding the police doesn’t mean an immediate elimination of all law enforcement, nor does it mean immediately zeroing out police-department budgets. We know that peacekeeping is an essential service. But a transition from over-reliance on excessive, brutal, and discriminatory policing to right-sized, reorganized, and demilitarized safety strategies is the right way to go. We can innovate new approaches to security and accountability that better serve the needs of the people without creating massive gaps in service. We learn from global partners non-militarized ways of preserving safety and enforcing laws.

In response to popular pressure, there is already movement from politicians toward defunding and disbanding police departments.

According to The New York Times, the organization Black Lives Matter Brooklyn “has called for at least $1 billion to be cut from the” NYPD budget; on June 7, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he would cut NYPD funding, although he did not specify how much. On June 12, the New York City Council proposed a $1 billion funding cut (CBS News).

And in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, the city council on June 12 “unanimously passed a resolution to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department…” according to Reuters. In the resolution, five city council members wrote, “‘The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color.'”

The demand to defund the police is not likely to meet the same response across the country as it has in Minneapolis—at least, not in the short term. But the Minneapolis city council resolution combined with movement toward police defunding in New York City proves that the demand can find political traction.

Solidarity with Whom? Venezuela and the US Left

January 27, 2019June 3, 2019 ~ Schuyler Kempton ~ Leave a comment

Disclaimer: These are some provisional thoughts from a U.S. American whose opinions should be given significantly less weight than the opinions of activists and citizens in Venezuela whose futures are at stake.

On January 23, massive anti-government demonstrations were held in Venezuela, an outpouring of rage at Nicolás Maduro following years of economic deprivation and increasingly authoritarian rule. While speaking at one of the rallies, National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó assumed the title of interim president. I write that line with caution. The New York Times and other news outlets have used the term “self-declared president,” but that’s somewhat misleading. In an appearance on the Al Jazeera English program Inside Story, Christopher Sabatini, editor of the website Global Americans, noted that Guaidó has the backing of the National Assembly, the sole “legitimately elected body today in Venezuela.” In contrast, Maduro is now serving a second term as president by virtue of a 2018 election in which leading opposition parties were barred from competing. Sabatini argues that this election was illegitimate “by any international standard.” This illegitimacy opened the door for Guaidó to invoke Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution, which enables the president of the National Assembly (Guaidó) to become interim president of the country in the absence of another president. The interim president then has an obligation to call new elections, which Guaidó has pledged to do. Sabatini makes the case that “this is really the only route right now. It’s not perfect, I’ll admit.”

It’s in this context that the U.S. and many countries in the Americas have declared their support for Guaidó. Asked about whether the involvement of outside countries like the U.S. and Canada was helpful, Sabatini replied:

I don’t know, I must admit. You know, there’s part of me… that says that something had to happen, there was a need for a moment of change… [Maduro] has crippled the country, caused over three million people to leave the country, it’s been a disaster. So, you have to look for that opening. Having said that, this is a bold move. Given the history of U.S. intervention in the hemisphere, which has, say in Guatemala in 1954 declared support for an unconstitutional president in a coup… the U.S.’s position is helped by the support of Canada and at least, at last count about seven to nine countries in Latin America that agree. I think it’s important, I think it’s a bold move, but I think what you’re going to see is a division not just in the region—of course you’ve got Nicaragua and Cuba and Mexico and Uruguay that have not recognized Guaidó as the president—but also globally, you’re going to see China and Russia back Maduro, so this is going to have implications beyond just the region and beyond domestic politics in Venezuela—it’s going to have a global reach. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think it’s a good move, it’s an important move, but I think history will have to be the judge of this, because it’s a bold gambit.”

A joint statement by several human rights organizations in the Americas concluded,

The only solution to Venezuela’s crisis lies in a credible negotiated process that leads to free and fair elections that allow Venezuelans to choose their own leaders. The conditions for such a solution cannot be achieved through international pressure alone; they must be created through careful diplomatic engagement. In this spirit, we applaud recent efforts by the European Union, the governments of Mexico and Uruguay, as well as past statements by the Lima Group, all of which have expressed an interest in advancing a negotiated solution. Pairing pressure with creative diplomacy is the best way to facilitate a return to democracy

Given all this, it’s reasonable for there to be disagreement in the U.S. about whether it was the right decision for our government to recognize Guaidó. In addition, it’s incumbent upon the U.S. left to ensure that U.S. interests are not imposed on Venezuela. But this discussion should be informed by the fact that Maduro has systematically attempted to consolidate power by dismantling democratic institutions even as the economic and humanitarian crisis in the country worsens. And the discussion should take it as a given that Guaidó does indeed have far greater moral and legal legitimacy than Maduro, regardless of whether the U.S. has a right to point that out. Unfortunately, leading figures in the U.S. left have skipped that nuance altogether.

On January 24th, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) wrote on Twitter,

A US backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump’s efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region. We must support Mexico, Uruguay & the Vatican’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful dialogue.

The tweet was ‘liked’ by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), a fellow progressive member of congress elected in last year’s blue wave (Tlaib has not herself written a statement on Venezuela).

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), responded to a call by commentator Rania Khalek for progressive criticism of “the Trump administration’s right wing coup in Venezuela” by writing,

Let me get this straight. The US is sanctioning Venezuela for their lack of democracy but not Saudi Arabia? Such hypocrisy. Maduro’s policies are bad and not helping his people, but crippling sanctions or pushing for regime change will only make the situation worse.

Khalek has also been retweeted by Rep. Omar.

In response to a statement by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) supporting U.S. recognition of Guaidó, Rep. Khanna wrote,

With respect Senator Durbin, the US should not anoint the leader of the opposition in Venezuela during an internal, polarized conflict. Let us support Uruguay, Mexico, & the Vatican’s efforts for a negotiated settlement & end sanctions that are making the hyperinflation worse.

This was retweeted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Again, it’s not a problem in and of itself that some progressive Democrats disagree with Trump’s recognition of Guaidó as interim Venezuelan president. But there are several things that I do find troubling:

First, the description of a U.S. “coup” ignores the legal and constitutional context of Guaidó’s assumption of the interim presidency and U.S. recognition of him. On the possibility of a coup, Venezuelan journalist Reynaldo Trombetta writes:

Of course, some think this is a coup organised by Donald Trump. That it’s all about oil. It’s impossible to know for sure, though the dissatisfaction on the streets of Venezuela is clearly very real and justified. There are probably some very excited oil executives somewhere fantasising about getting their hands on the largest crude reserves in the world. It will be up to the Venezuelans to stop them. But as things stand, those reserves are right now in the hands of Russia, China and Cuba, and those shouting about Venezuela’s sovereignty don’t seem to mind that at all.

The labelling of the entirety of the Venezuelan opposition as “far right” is clearly unfair. Trombetta notes, “Guaidó is 100% working class” and his “fight is about rebuilding Venezuela, not about giving back power to the politicians who ruled the country between 1958 and 1998.”

Second, Reps. Khanna and Omar have retweeted and borrowed the arguments of commentators who routinely apologize for authoritarians. Omar retweeted an episode of Empire Files, a program on TeleSUR English (which is funded in part by the Venezuelan government) hosted by former RT anchor Abby Martin. Khanna has retweeted Glenn Greenwald, whose misinformation on Syria has been extensively documented (here, for example). And Rania Khalek—who, as mentioned above, both Khanna and Omar have engaged with on Twitter—obfuscates war crimes committed by the Assad regime in Syria. I’d like to think that the small group of writers on the left who are willing to whitewash atrocities have relatively little influence. But it’s become clear that—like the alt-right commentators who have the ear of Donald Trump—Martin, Greenwald, Khalek, and others are able to drive the narrative and influence members of congress.

Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, these criticisms of U.S. policy have not, so far as I can tell, been paired with any comments resembling support for Venezuela’s popular movement against Maduro. The statements hint at solidarity with Venezuela as a state (at least against U.S. interference) but not solidarity with Venezuelans themselves. There is no recognition of Venezuelan anti-government activists as people with agency who are determined to change the direction of their country.

My intention here is not simply to attack otherwise progressive members of congress. We’ve seen far too much of that from the right-wing and even mainstream press. Further, I do not wish to discredit everything said in the tweets. I frankly do not know what the impact of U.S. sanctions has been on the Venezuelan economy. A majority of Venezuelans (56% to 32%) oppose U.S. sanctions, according to a December 2017 poll. In a January 2018 article, Francisco Rodríguez, former head of the Venezuelan Congressional Budget Office, made the case against further sanctions. And the recent statement by human rights organizations in the Americas said:

It is fundamental that the international community ensure that any sanctions that may be imposed against the Maduro regime are coordinated, linked to concrete and clearly-communicated objectives and that they avoid worsening the country’s dire humanitarian emergency. In this context, we are deeply concerned by indications of renewed interest in an embargo on Venezuelan oil or other forms of broad economic sanctions, which would undoubtedly impact everyday Venezuelans and further restrict the ability to pay for imports of already scarce food and medicines.

Finally, the appointment of Elliot Abrams as U.S. special envoy for Venezuela highlights the serious risk of the U.S. opting for a disastrous neoconservative intervention utterly at odds with the spirit of the anti-Maduro uprising. A CNN piece summarizing Abrams’ bloody past is worth quoting at length:

Abrams’ controversial past in the region included his downplaying of human rights abuses by Central American governments close to the United States while serving at the State Department under President Ronald Reagan.

One instance involved the largest mass killing in recent Latin American history: the December 1981 massacre of nearly 1,000 men, women and children in the Salvadoran village of El Mozote by US-trained and -equipped military units.

A Human Rights Watch report on the massacre said that Abrams at Senate hearings “artfully distorted several issues in order to discredit the public accounts of the massacre,” insisted the numbers of reported victims were “implausible” and “lavished praise” on the military battalion behind the mass killings.

In 1991, facing a multi-count felony indictment, Abrams agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts for withholding information to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. He was sentenced to two years probation and 100 hours of community service, and later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.

Progressive politicians have a right and a responsibility to vigorously oppose any neoconservative moves taken by Abrams (Ocasio-Cortez has already taken notice, retweeting this post). But a watchful eye on U.S. policy must be accompanied by solidarity with the popular uprising against Maduro.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, advocacy group The Syria Campaign posted the Dr. King quote,

True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.

The demand for more than a “negative peace” has historically animated the left. But in response to suffering in places that we do not have personal ties to, the U.S. left has often been willing to call for peace without justice. In Venezuela, with global solidarity and “creative diplomacy” there is a chance to achieve both. It’s not too late for U.S. activists and politicians to meet that challenge.

Chelsea Manning’s Senate Campaign is a Human Rights Opportunity

January 21, 2018June 7, 2019 ~ Schuyler Kempton ~ Leave a comment

Chelsea_Manning,_18_May_2017_(cropped) — Photo by Tim Travers Hawkins. Source: Wikimedia Commons

I’m excited about Chelsea Manning’s Senate campaign. Manning, a former soldier who leaked information about U.S. military attacks on civilians and top-secret diplomatic cables, among other information, to Wikileaks, was released from prison last May. To enter politics less than a year later is courageous. Manning was convicted of violating the Espionage Act for the leaks and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Her imprisonment was condemned by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which noted in a 2014 statement that “[b]y disseminating classified information via Wikileaks she revealed to the world abuses perpetrated by the US army, military contractors and Iraqi and Afghan troops operating alongside US forces… [n]otable amongst the information revealed by Private Manning was previously unseen footage of journalists and other civilians being killed in US helicopter attacks.” On January 17 of last year, Manning’s sentence was commuted by president Obama.

Manning’s bravery in blowing the whistle on human rights abuses and enduring subsequent imprisonment, including “three years in pre-trial detention, including 11 months in conditions which the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as cruel and inhumane,” according to the statement by Amnesty International, is quite sufficient. But Manning also exhibited bravery by coming out as a transgender woman in a 2013 public statement immediately following her conviction in court. Since her release, Manning has become a symbol of pride for the LGBTQ community.

In a column for The Guardian published last January, Manning argued that the key lesson from the Obama presidency was that progressives should never “start off with a compromise.” Citing conservative resistance to all elements of Obama’s progressive program, Manning concluded, “[o]ur opponents will not support us nor will they stop thwarting the march toward a just system that gives people a fighting chance to live.” She also added that it was time “to actually take the reins of government and fix our institutions.” Now Manning is setting out to do just that.

On January 14, Manning published a video on YouTube declaring her candidacy for U.S. Senate as a Democrat, challenging incumbent Ben Cardin in the Maryland Democratic primary on June 26. In the video, Manning maintains a no compromise stance:

We need to stop asking them to give us our rights.
They won’t support us.
They won’t compromise.
We need to stop expecting that our systems will somehow fix themselves.
We need to actually take the reins of power from them.

(as transcribed in the YouTube video description)

One reason I’m excited for Manning’s Senate run is because we badly need more elected representatives who care about protecting civilians and supporting human rights. A senator Chelsea Manning would be a powerful advocate for the principles of justice and human rights in Trump’s retrograde America. But theoretical and political traps lie in waiting. Manning’s commitment to take on the U.S. military is necessary, but what will her position be on human rights abuses and civilian killings committed by other countries?

What Manning’s approach to Syria will be is a key question. I focus on Syria in part because of the magnitude of the crisis. From March 2011 to March 2017, over 200,000 civilians were killed in the country, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. The Syrian government is responsible for 94% of civilian deaths during that time, utilizing barrel bombs, chemical attacks, and starvation sieges, among other weapons and methods of killing. Syrian civil society and medical relief organizations have repeatedly called for action from the international community, including military action if necessary, to stop the bloodshed (sources: 1, 2, 3). There has been no global response even remotely sufficient. Since 2013, 400,000 people in the Eastern Ghouta area outside of Damascus, which is rebel-controlled, have been under siege by the Syrian government’s military. Both Eastern Ghouta and the province of Idlib were declared “de-escalation zones” in a deal between Russia, Iran, and Turkey, and agreed to by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. But on January 14, the White Helmets, a medical rescue group, reported that 177 civilians had been killed in Eastern Ghouta since December 29, when Syrian and Russian military forces began a campaign to retake the area. The Syrian regime has also begun an offensive to retake the province of Idlib, where 2.6 million people live. Mustafa al-Haj Youssef, of the White Helmets in Idlib, said “[t]he bombing is constant. It’s not daily but hourly, on the whole region, and it seems to be completely random.”

I also focus on Syria because I have little doubt that Manning will take the right stance on crises in places like Palestine and Yemen, where the U.S. is directly complicit in perpetrating human rights abuses through support for Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, with the U.S. at the center of analysis, others on the left have come up short in demonstrating solidarity with Syrian revolutionaries and civilians under attack. Academic and journalist Danny Postel argues that

[t]he Left’s responses fall into three main categories:

explicit support for the Assad regime
monochrome opposition to Western intervention, end of discussion (with either implicit or explicit neutrality on the conflict itself)
general silence caused by deep confusion

It’s likely that many of Manning’s supporters in the U.S. fall into one of these three categories. Postel writes that the second position listed “represents an (ironically) Eurocentric/US-centric stance (it’s all about the West, not the Syrian people) — a total abandonment of internationalism.”

Manning can avoid falling into the same trap by putting solidarity first and echoing the demands of Syrian activists. One imperative is stopping Syrian and Russian government attacks on civilians from the air. By taking up this issue, Manning could help stop atrocities like Collateral Murder (committed by the U.S. in Iraq) from continuing to happen in Syria (committed by the Assad government and Russia). As a whistleblower, Manning brought to light civilian casualties and other abuses of human rights. As a candidate for office, she can call for measures to prevent these atrocities from happening.

Chelsea Manning’s Twitter bio reads, in part,