FOF #2200 – Two Black Women

Aug 10, 2015 · 1985 views

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People are hopping mad at Marissa Johnson & Mara Willaford for halting a political rally in Seattle moments before presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was scheduled to speak.

By challenging the liberal candidate, these two black women are now facing a lot of heat. Many activists from Black Lives Matter are asking them to apologize and some people outside of the movement suspect sinister forces are at play.

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  1. Excited to hear that tomorrow’s podcast is about PrEP! Thanks for covering the Marissa Johnson & Mara Willaford controversy in Seattle, I had not heard about this. I share your belief in the advantages of eating at home and making your own meals as a way to better nutrition. I hope the actual release of Stonewall (2015, dir. Roland Emmerich) helps to clarify the current debate about LGBT history and the politics of racial representation. Thanks for referencing Sylvia Rivera’s speech at Latino Gay Men of New York, which I recorded and published in 2007. In the complete transcript Sylvia states that the drag queens began the riots: “Part of history forgets, that as the cops are inside the bar, the confrontation started outside by throwing change at the police. We started with the pennies,the nickels, the quarters, and the dimes.“Here’s your payoff, you pigs! You fucking pigs! Get out of our faces.” This was started by the street queens of that era, which I was part of, Marsha P. Johnson, and many others that are not here.” (CENTRO Journal 2007, pages 118-19) She then goes on to insist that the riots were an event marked by the presence of many people of diverse backgrounds, including radical (cisgender) straight activists as well as people of color, transgender folks, and white gays and lesbians: “But we also have to remember one thing: that it was not just the gay community and the street queens that really escalated this riot; it was also the help of the many radical straight men and women that lived in the Village at that time,that knew the struggle of the gay community and the trans community” (119). You may access a free copy of her speech here: https://www.academia.edu/2502474/Sylvia_Rivera_s_Talk_at_LGMNY_June_2001_Lesbian_and_Gay_Community_Services_Center_New_York_City

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