Gender JUST (Justice United for Societal Transformation), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois teamed up for a forum entitled "Gay Inc: Marriage, Policing and War" on March 1 at the Lozano Public Library to discuss the impact of those concepts on LGBT people of color, youth and those with a low income.
Panelists specifically focused on same-sex marriage and civil unions; schools and militarization; and hate-crimes legislation.
Representing Gender JUST was founding member, writer, academic, activist and commentator Yasmin Nair. [Note: Nair also writes for Windy City Times.] Nair discussed Gender JUST's mission and promoted the book that she wrote an introduction to, Against Equality, before speaking about marriage equality and civil unions. Nair traced the history of same-sex marriage and civil unions. "Gay marriage in the wake of neoliberalism has become another way for privatization of society to come about" she said. Nair went on to talk about how privatization is everywhere in our society and used Chase Bank as an example, since there are many branches and ATMs in the city.
What this focus on capitalism does, Nair related, is put the burden on the family structure, which makes marriage the focal point of society and takes away the responsibility of the state to provide things like healthcare benefits and immigration. Nair said that it's not surprising that same-sex marriage has become important in recent years, adding that she felt the concept is wrong because it says "there are no alternatives outside that framework" and that "marriage will solve all of these problems."
Jesus Palafox, an AFSC consultant and staff member of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, talked about the work of the AFSC before he moved onto the militarization of Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Palafox pointed out that the majority of JROTC students are minorities and these programs are used to Americanize Latinos and African-Americans.
He added that sometimes JROTC programs are added to schools when principals are not aware any such programs are being included. Palafox then said that the salaries of JROTC instructors are more than what the average teacher makes; moreover, the military instructors do not need teaching certificates.
Owen Daniel-McCarter, a project attorney with the Transformative Justice Law Project and instructor at DePaul University, talked about what the project does before telling the audience what its "three overarching values are which guides our work—including the right to self-determination free from government control, family control, the medical industrial complex, the non-profit complex or any other complex; the long-term movement for prison abolition; and working towards transformative justice models."
Daniel-McCarter then expressed his opposition to hate-crimes legislation since, he said, "we are colluding with the idea that prisons rehabilitate people, solve the problem of violence and are not the cause of institutionalized violence in the community" if we support it. Daniel-McCarter went on to say that the United States has the highest incarceration levels of any country and that the majority of those people are minorities—a result, he added, of the white supremacy of this country's legal system. At the end of his remarks Daniel-McCarter asked, "What are some other models for liberation?" before entertaining questions and comments from the audience.
After the Q&A session the panelists plugged their organizations and reminded everyone to check out the documentary "Homotopia" (which wasn't screened at the event due to technical difficulties) to a crowd of about 30 attendees who spent time talking to the panelists and each other following the forum.
To find out more about Gender JUST visit www.genderjust.org . There's more about the American Friends Service Committee at afsc.org and information about the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois at www.tjlp.org .
