Tampa Bay Coalition
Posts this News Update in Support and on Behalf of;
 
Chicago Anti-Bashing Network CABN
 
CABN News
August 30, 2002 
 
Trans Rights to be Main Focus of 4th Annual Shepard March

With apparent hated-related murders of Transgendered and gender varient people running far ahead of last year, this year's 4th Annual March Against Anti-Gay Hate on Saturday, October 5th will focus on the need to oppose anti-Trans hate and violence.  Specifically, we want to use the rally to promote passage of the "Gender Identity Amendment" to Chicago's Human Rights Ordinance, which would protect transgender and other gender variant people from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.

It's Time, Illinois reports that while through late November of last year there were 11 apparent hate murders against transgendered or gender variant people over the preceeding 12 months, during just the first 8 months of this year, 18 people were murdered. Passage of anti-discrimination legislation, while not ending violence, at least begins to help change the hate climate in which violence thrives, by sending the message that anti-Trans discrimination shouldn't be tolerated.  For more information on what you can do to help pass the Gender Identity Amendment, please check out the It's Time, Illinois website at www.itstimeil.org

Besides Miranda Stevens-Miller, former chair of It's Time, Illinois, other speakers addressing the issue of anti-LGBT hate and discrimination will include Lynn Sprout, who was fired from her nursing job of 18 years for standing up to anti-Lesbian hate.  When Sprout attempted to take personal leave time to care for her terminally ill lover with whom she'd been partnered 18 years, instead of receiving compasion from her employer, she encountered anti-Lesbian vitriol.  The downstate LGBT rights direct action group, 85% Coalition, has championed Sprout's case against anti-Lesbian bigots at Carle Hospital in Urbana, IL. 

CABN's Kentin Waits will also address the rally about the problem of anti-gay hate.  Waits currently is pursuing a civil suit against the City of Chicago, after police gay-bashed him July 23, 2000 in an interrogation room of the Belmont and Western police station.  As an Amnesty International report on the attack noted, Kentin said that "while handcuffed, he was slammed into doors and walls by the arresting officers, resulting in lacerations to his wrists, and bruises to his upper arms. He states that the police officers led him to an interrogation room with its windows papered over, and handcuffed him to an overhead bar. One officer is then reported to have slapped Mr Waits around the face and head before kneeing him in the groin. During the assault the officer is alleged to have called Mr Waits a 'fucking faggot' and 'gay mother-fucker' -- among other anti-gay epithets."

With the Bush adminstration apparently hell-bent on launching another war against Iraq, it would be unconscienable to hold an anti-violence rally without addressing this state-sponsored violence as well.  A speaker, yet to be named, will therefore also address the issue of why LGBT people should oppose this proposed war.

We encourage all readers of this message to join us at the next CABN meeting to help us organize the October 5th march and rally.  Our next meeting is 7 pm, Wednesday, Sept. 4th at Ann Sather's Restaurant, 929 W. Belmont Avenue, 2nd floor (wheelchair accessible).

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Support A-Zone in the Face of Anti-Gay Attack

At 2 am, Saturday, August 17th five homophobes yelling anti-gay epithets attacked a member of the Autonomous Zone collective and broke two of the building's plate glass windows.  Fortunately there were no serious injuries. The Autonomous Zone is an anarchist info shop and community center in Chicago.

The five attackers are self-proclaimed members of "77 Street Punks," a violently homophobic and racist gang with ties to organized white supremacist hate groups.  Three of the attackers were arrested were arrested for vandalism and assault.

The confrontation began with the yelling of anti-gay slurs, such as "Faggots!" outside of the shop.  Upon hearing this, a collective member, who was alone in the shop, stepped outside in order to investigate. One of the attackers asked the collective member whether the Azone was "a bunch of anarchists or something?" When politely told that "some of us are" one of the attackers punched the collective member in the face, only slightly injuring him since he was able to move back in time to avoid a solid blow.

Two of the other attackers began breaking the A-zone windows. At that point the collective member ran back into the A-zone space and was pelted with milk crates that had been holding free books. As the A-zone member went further into the space, he was charged at by three or four of the 77 Street Punks. The A-zone member then picked up a big orange chair and swinging it, was able to intimidate the attackers into leaving the shop.  A passing police squad car then intercepted the attackers and arrested three of them.

"We believe the Autonomous Zone was attacked for being anarchist and supporting the Queer Liberation struggle, as well as having openly queer collective members," said one of its members. "The A-zone has actively made the connection between Queer Liberation and Anarchism. "

Help the A-zone repair its damaged shop and send the message that no one, regardless of political beliefs, has to stand alone against homophobic violence.  Attend an emergency benefit 7 pm, Saturday, August 31st at the Autonomous Zone, 2129 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago.  $5 or more admission, but absolutely no one turned away for lack of funds. The money will go towards fixing the window as well as A-Zone rent.

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The Threat of War Against Iraq
Why We Must Oppose It

This year's CABN booth at Northalsted Market Days focused on why LGBT people should oppose another war on Iraq.  We passed out over 5000 anti-war flyers to a very good response, as we focused on the appalling slaughter a new war would bring, and drew the connection between the recent flood of social service cutbacks in our community with the billions of dollars that the Bush adminstration and many leaders of both parties want to spend on another war. 

To help organize against another war, we invite you to attend one or more of the several anti-war activities listed in the Calendar below.  CABN is particularly active in helping the Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism organize a 7 pm, Friday, Sept 13th event entitled "Countdown to WAR on Iraq: Why We Must Oppose It," featuring leading activists from the Mexican-American, African-American, Puerto Rican and Arab communities: Emma Lozano, Jean Lionel-Baptiste, Dr. Jose Lopez and Mahmud Ahmad.  Also featured will be Rev. Dan Dale, a member of a recent solidarity delegation to the Philippines.  The event will be at 7 pm, Friday, Sept 13th at Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan, 2nd floor, Chicago (take the Red or Blue line el trains to the Jackson stop, walk a few blocks east to Michigan, and then south a few blocks to the address).  For more information, call the Coalition at 312.458.9559 or e-mail CABN at CABNstopthehate@aol.com

An anti-war op ed piece, an expanded version of our Market Days flyer, was published in a Connecticut LGBT paper and on a few websites.  Here is the text of it:

The Next WAR
…and Why We Should Oppose It
Those who think war "isn't an LGBT issue" are fooling themselves

by the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network

The United States is poised to launch another war against Iraq.  The last one killed more than 100,000 people and, according to the United Nations, another 500,000 children were killed by preventable diseases brought on by U.S.-imposed sanctions following the war.  People from ALL communities should be appalled at the prospect of another wholesale slaughter. 

The official justification for this next war -- Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction -- is laughable.  Even IF Saddam Hussein possessed such weapons, his capacity to produce and deploy them was greatly reduced by the last war. 

A political survivor, Hussein knows that unleashing such weapons would only prompt an immediate, overwhelming U.S. response and spell the end of his regime. The Bush administration already has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iraq and other nations.  In this context, the only circumstance in which Hussein would use such weaponry outside his borders would be in a "doomsday" scenario -- if his personal survival and that of his regime were at stake as the United States was set to roll into Baghdad.  Such a situation could be produced by the very war the U.S. says it must start to prevent such slaughter.

The United States has long tried to dominate world politics through its military might. Arguing for a more beligerant U.S. foreign policy in 1992, current Deputy Defense Sec. Paul Wolfowitz wrote that U.S. military intervention around the world should be "a constant feature."  With a second war in less than two years, he'll get his wish, unless people organize to prevent it.

Millions of people around the world realize that another U.S. war on Iraq will not be about anything so noble as stopping weapons of mass destruction.  Instead, they rightly see another war as aimed at increasing U.S. domination of a region already resentful about our government's heavy-handed presence there.

Bush and his allies in both political parties don't want peace -- they want to control the oil of the Middle East.  A new U.S. war against Iraq would be the crassest real politic.  While the U.S. gets most of its oil from elsewhere, many of the nation's largest firms profit enormously from their preferential access to the region's markets, leveraging U.S. political alliances with local dictatorships.  More importantly, by controlling the main source of oil consumed by Europe and Japan, the U.S. helps maintain its overwhelming dominance in world politics at the expense of its main economic competitors. Most of Europe's and Japan's leaders aren't thrilled by this economic dagger hanging over their necks, and are alarmed that another large chunk of the region's oil resources, Iraq, might be forcibly drawn into the U.S. orbit. 

Opposing this new war is not only the right thing to do -- it's also in the best interests of most people in the U.S.  Not only will the Iraqi people pay for a new war with their lives, but we will as well.  The cost of another war on Iraq, and the occupation following it, is estimated at $60 billion. And unlike the previous Gulf War, there's little prospect that other countries will pick up the tab.

As the Bush administration transparently prepares yet another expensive war, almost every Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered leader in this country is silent about it, even as they complain about the wave of cutbacks hitting our LGBT community service providers.  Yet more federal arms spending means less money to the states, which in turn means less services at the local level.

In Chicago, three AIDS service providers recently collapsed into one.  Two other leading gay-oriented social service agencies, Horizons and Howard Brown Health Center, recently garnered headlines in the local gay press as they both announced big cutbacks. Even as new AIDS cases disproportionately hit African Americans, the State of Illinois wiped out $2.5 million previously designated for AIDS minority outreach.  Examples of cutbacks like these that will hurt or cause the premature deaths of people in our community are being repeated around the nation.

No LGBT person or organization can, in good conscience, decry these cutbacks without denouncing the barbarous waste of the military budget used to fight these wars.  The latest increase in U.S. "defense" spending is, by itself, greater than the military spending of every other nation in the world.  Total U.S. military spending is greater than that of the combined military spending of the next 16 largest powers.

A generation ago, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s early opposition to the Vietnam War brought on him the scorn not just of conservative hawks, but most liberal leaders as well.  But it was the right thing to do. King realized he could not win desparately needed anti-poverty programs at home if the United States continued to pay to fight the war in Vietnam.  But then, the more he examined the U.S. war to dominate Southeast Asia, the more he saw that the war was immoral in its own right.  King saw a war fought to extend U.S. power in the world at the expense not only of the Vietnamese, but of most Americans. 

Today, both major parties are fixated on augmenting the richest Americans' wealth and power by increasing U.S. control over the world's most valuable commodity: oil.  And they're willing to pay with other people's blood to get it. 

A generation ago, the world mobilized to stop another U.S. power grab in Southeast Asia.  Today, the second U.S. war on Iraq already has been delayed several months beyond when the Bush administration probably first wanted to launch it.  This delay to the war is in large part due to the fact that most citizens in the Middle East and Europe are opposed to it, and have forced their governments to at least verbally stand up against U.S. demands for another war.

As people living in the country preparing to launch this new war, we in the United States have a particular responsibility to join the worldwide movement against it.  We in the LGBT community need to join our local anti-war organizations and help them spread the word, and to enlist our LGBT organizations in opposing the ridiculous military spending that drains the funding out of a host of urgently needed services.  This new war would be against the interests of most people in this country, LGBT and otherwise, and of those abroad too.  And as in King's time, opposing it is the right thing to do.

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The "Gay Left" Strikes Back

In the Pride edition of the Chicago Free Press, columnist Louis Weisberg launched a broad attack against "the Gay left," and CABN and Queer to the Left in particular.  While the Free Press ran an edited version of our reply, we invite readers to check out the full version which can be found on the CABN website (www.CABN.org) at the following URL:  http://cabn.org/press/71802reply_Weisberg.html

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CABN Calendar

Saturday, August 31 - Benefit for A-Zone to help it recover from anti-Gay attack.  7 pm, 2129 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago.  $5 or more admission, but absolutely no one turned away for lack of funds.  See details above.

Wednesday, Sept. 4 - Next CABN meeting.  All who want to work against hate and discrimination are welcome!  7-8:30 pm, Ann Sather's Restaurant, 929 W. Belmont, 2nd floor, Chicago.

Wednesday, Sept. 11 - Join a remembrance of the innocent victims of 9/11 which does NOT forget the innocent victims of the U.S. war on Afghanistan which followed it.  Vigil organized by the 8th Day Center for Justice.  7-8:30 am, Federal Plaza, southeast corner of Adams and Dearborn, Chicago.  For more information call 312.641.5151.

Wednesday, Sept. 11 - Join another remembrance of 9/11 that doesn't classify some innnocent lives as worth more than others.  Oak Park Coaltion for Truth and Justice will sponsor a "Procession for Peaceful Tomorrows and a Peace Observance" beginning at 6:30 pm, Scoville Park (Lake Street & Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, IL).  The event will have a candlelight procession along Lake Street ending with music, performance and speakers at the First United Church of Oak Park, 848 Lake Street.  For more information, contact Amy at 708.445.1633 or go the following website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OPCTJ

Friday, Sept. 13 - "Countdown to WAR on Iraq: Why We Must Oppose It."  Sponsored by the Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism (of which CABN is a member).  A diverse group of community leaders speak out against Bush's threatened war against Iraq.  7-8:30 pm, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Avenue, 2nd floor, Chicago.  See details in notice above. 

Friday, Sept. 13 - Monthly CABN call-in show on Chicago Access Network Television, 6:30 - 6:55 pm on cable channel 21 in Chicago.  This month's guest is Kentin Waits, survivor of anti-gay bashing by Chicago police.

Sunday, Sept. 15 - Follow-up organizing meeting to the "Countdown to WAR" event above.  12 noon, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Avenue, 2nd floor, Chicago.

Wednesday, Oct. 2 - Monthly CABN meeting.  7 pm, 929 W. Belmont Avenue, 2nd floor (wheelchair accessible).  Help us organize for the rally just a few days later!!

Saturday, Oct. 5 - 4th Annual March Against Anti-Gay Hate, 8 p.m., corner of Halsted & Roscoe, Chicago.  Featured theme this year is opposing the attacks on Transgendered and gender variant people, and organizing for passage of the Trans-inclusive amendment to Chicago's Human Rights Ordinance.

Tuesday, Oct. 22 - National day of protests against police brutality.  Sponsor: October 22nd Coalition.  Details t.b.a.

Saturday, Oct. 26 - National day of protests against the U.S. threat of war on Iraq.  Sponsor: International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition.  Local co-sponsor: Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism.  Details t.b.a.

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"Formed in response to three September '98 anti-gay bashings in the "Boy's Town" neighborhood…[we] respond to all serious hate crimes, no matter which scapegoated group is targeted.  We will actively seek out and work with individuals and organizations in other communities to assist them in responding to hate crimes which target them. Only by the active involvement of grass roots people from all communities can we isolate the bigots and thus lessen hate crimes."                                           -- from the CABN founding statement
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CABN, 4404 N. Magnolia, #420, Chicago, IL 60640        888.471.0874
CABNstopthehate@aol.com
www.CABN.org

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