[Nyclocal] statement of solidarity on the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion by SPUSA Queer Commission

[SocialistAlliances]

http://socialistparty-usa.org/statements/stonewall2007.html

Statement of Solidarity on the Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion
by Amber R.Clifford-Napoleone Convener, Queer Commission of the SPUSA

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided a Greenwich Village bar: The Stonewall Inn.

  The Stonewall Inn, a gay and lesbian neighborhood bar with a large number of African
American
and Latino patrons, was also well-known as a safe space for those who
did not conform to gendernorms: butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, and
transsexual and transgendered persons before the terms were in popular
use.
All of these factors brought the police to Stonewall in 1969 for the
purpose of illegally raiding the bar, and arresting its occupantsan
action not unknown in New York in the 1960s.

  On that fateful day, however, the
Stonewall's
patrons had enough. Nobody knows who threw the first bottle that day.
It may have been Sylvia Rivera, a transgendered activist and later a
founding mother of political movements on behalf of transgendered and
transsexual Americans. It may have been a still unidentified butch
lesbian arrested in the bar. Over 2000 GLBTQ Americans clashed with 400
police officers on June 28. Arrests and beatings were concentrated
among Stonewall's African American, Latino, butch and trans patrons.
What ensued was known in the New York press and among the police as the
Stonewall riots.

  For gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual and queer
Americans,
and later the world, that fateful day marked the beginning of the
Stonewall Rebellion. With shouts of "Gay Power," the rebellion that
lasted five days in New York began to spread across the country. Gay,
lesbian, trans and other queer Americans took to the streets to protest
their continued oppression, objectification, and criminalization. This
singular event, the Stonewall Rebellion, marked the beginning of the
modern GLBTQ liberation movement, and brought GLBTQ political and
social struggles out of the closets on onto American streets. Using
this date as the flashpoint, cities across America and around the world
continue to celebrate the last week of June as Pride Weekend, a weekend
where we remember the Rebellion, organize to continue the fight for
queer liberation, and celebrate our culture, community, families and
history.



Today, the struggle for
queer liberation continues. GLBTQ persons in the United States are
still denied over 1,000 Federal rights guaranteed to heterosexuals.
GLBTQ Americans continue to live daily with violence, both verbal and
physical, and this violence continues to escalate despite years of work
to pass poorly enforced hate crimes legislation. In August 2006, in
Greenwich Village not far from the famous Stonewall Inn, four African
American lesbian women were verbally and physically attacked on the
street. These women were convicted of assault on their assailant, a man
who ripped the hair from the women's scalps and threw lit cigarettes at
them. For defending themselves, these four young women have received
sentences ranging from 4 years to 11 years. Fred Phelps, the
ultra-conservative religious leader from Topeka, Kansas, continues to
protest at the funerals of GLBTQ Americans, harassing their families
and claiming that their deaths were deserved punishments. Police across
the country continue to raid bars and sweep streets after parades.
Thousands of young GLBTQ people are homeless, left to live on the
street because their own families could not accept them. This summer,
in solidarity with GLBTQ people across the country, remember Stonewall
and continue its legacy by working for queer liberation. Recognize the
capitalist roots of oppression based on gender and sexuality, refuse to
force others to conform to heteronormativity, resist and call attention
to homophobia in all its forms, and join the Socialist Party and its
commissions in the continued struggle for a just world for everyone.

http://socialistparty-usa.org/statements/stonewall2007.html



      
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