SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2023, AT 9:30 AM
NATO Parade of Nations Protest
Town Point Park, Norfolk, VA

On Saturday, April 22, Norfolk will hold a parade to honor NATO, the North American Treaty Organization, which has its North American command center in the city. We invite you to join us in protesting it.

The wars we should be fighting are the ones here at home against global warming, poverty, racism, homelessness, evictions, attacks on trans people, and for accessible health care. To date, the U.S. government has sent more than $116 BILLION to Ukraine to fight the present war, while making it clear that it has no interest in ceasefires or negotiations. That’s more money than the federal government spends in a year on education. It’s 10 times what it spends on the Environmental Protection Agency.

This is OUR tax money that’s being squandered on a war that benefits no one except the arms manufacturers, while it pushes us closer to a nuclear confrontation that no one can win.

Join us on Earth Day as we peacefully protest the rise of U.S. militarism and the role NATO plays in carrying out acts of aggression around the world.

Join us as we demand, “Fight Poverty, Racism & Global Warming, not NATO’s Wars!”

The event begins at 10 am. Be sure to get there early. There’s some parking in the Freemason district or in one of the nearby city garages. We will set up along the parade route near the review stand. Look for the banner and signs!

For more information contact: peaceandplanet757@gmail.com

This protest was initiated by the Hampton Roads Coalition for Peace & Planet and has been endorsed by Norfolk Catholic Worker, the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, and the Odessa Solidarity Campaign.

New York Community Action Project  will be hosting an emergency response action for the elderly man shot and killed by the police in Bed-Stuy on Monday, April 17th at Herbert Von King Park by the Greene and Marcy Ave entrance at 6:30 p.m.

Jailynn Butler-Thomas is a student at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles. She spoke with Struggle-La Lucha about support for the recent Los Angeles Unified Public School District (LAUSD) strike and opposition to armed police in public schools.

Struggle-La Lucha: In a news article about the LAUSD strike, your organization, “Students Deserve,” was written about because of the support that you carried out. But there was also a reference to your organization’s ongoing struggle against armed police being stationed in schools. I’d like to start with you telling our readers a little about that.

Jailynn Butler-Thomas: There’s so much backlash that myself and my peers and those who are fighting for police-free schools have to deal with. I think that a big part of it is the difference between restorative and punitive justice. 

Punitive justice is like breaking something down. Punishment, punishment, punishment. 

Not helping, like fixing or healing, or just building up rather than breakdown. 

We’re young, we’re children, and we’re going to have conflict, we’re going to make mistakes. That’s bound to happen. 

Putting police in our schools to harass us and criminalize us, beat it out of us, or pepper spray us, or harass it out of us is not the solution. Police presence on campus is more harmful. 

We’re not saying that there doesn’t need to be somebody there for safety reasons. We’re just saying that police that are armed with any kind of weapon are not safe for students. Because of how they treat students, anything can happen any time. A lot of the times, police don’t solve the problem, they only escalate it. 

In Uvalde, Texas, the police didn’t go inside. They stood outside and waited. It got to the point where parents are running inside to their children. I think that that’s like a prime example that police don’t help. 

In a situation at my school in 2019, a fight broke out, and police were just pepper spraying anyone in the area. Just students walking to class. The nurse’s office was overflowing with students getting pepper sprayed — students who were just walking into class and didn’t do anything wrong. 

Something similar happened recently at Garfield high school. Police aren’t helping the situation. A bunch of cops that are gonna hurt children and take away from their learning experience and turn schools into this prison-like situation isn’t the answer. That’s gonna take away from our education. 

I think the real answer for us is restorative justice. We’re not saying the schools don’t need anyone there for these situations. But why not pull people from the community, why not have people there for safe passage after school? Why not have a better solution that doesn’t involve students getting criminalized? 

Police on campus is an uncomfortable situation for people of color because of how they’re being treated. We don’t feel safe. You’re not gonna want to come, you’re not gonna be engaged. You’re gonna be distracted, and that is going to take away from your education.

SLL: Your support for the strike was so vigorous. It got the attention of the media that students supported the strike. How did that come about? Do your co-students come from pro-union families?

JBT: So, I think there are many factors why students stood behind teachers and staff. Yes, some people’s families have a history of union struggles. But also, we see these faces every day. 

These are the people welcoming us, feeding us, and taking care of us, making sure that we’re learning, making sure that we’re safe, asking how our day is going at school.

I also think a huge factor, the main factor that rallies students behind UTLA and Local 99, is that they’re struggling, and we’re struggling, and that unites us. Our fight to make the Black Students Achievement Program (BSAP) permanent and to gain mental health support and support for immigrant students is something that’s driving us.

This isn’t anything new – we’ve been fighting for these things for a very long time.

We conducted a survey that was historic. It showed that 87% of students are benefiting from the BSAP program. Black students are benefiting from it. 

It also showed that 49% of Black students don’t have enough mental health support, as well as showing that 45% of Black students’ schools don’t have enough resources in general, which isn’t fair and it’s not okay. 

We have to sit in front of the school board’s new superintendent and literally beg for things that we deserve and are necessities and are literally the bare minimum for a good educational experience, while the superintendent, who gets paid more than the [U.S.] president, sits on $5 billion in reserve. 

He can’t give us the money that we were promised. It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t make sense that teachers and these essential workers were getting paid below poverty level but have to negotiate in the first place. 

It doesn’t make sense the superintendent is acting as if we are asking for so much, but we’re asking for what we deserve. He gets paid to take care of teachers, staff, and students, and we shouldn’t have to fight for this. That is what unites us all. 

This strike has shown that when teachers, students, and parents come together, they can really shut it down. I think that the school district and superintendent are scared about that because it was beautiful and it made an impact. And we’re not gonna stop until we get these things. We’re all struggling, and that’s what brings us together in solidarity.

The days following LSU’s victory in the women’s NCAA basketball championship should have been the best of Angel Reese’s young life. Those days should have been packed with praise, celebration, and love. 

Instead, Angel Reese was mired in attacks from a racist media and political establishment hellbent on the degradation of Black athletic excellence and exaltation of white athletic proficiency. 

In the wake of her command championship performance, Reese spoke out about the racist backlash and attacks she has faced from the basketball media sphere all season. Reese commented, “All year, I was critiqued about who I was. … I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. But when other people do it, y’all say nothing.”

The most incredible thing about this powerful statement is that it preceded the most intense scrutiny and attack on Reese yet. In the wake of the championship game, sports media commentators attacked Reese as “classless” because of a gesture she made towards Iowa star player Caitlin Clark at the end of the championship game. 

It is true that in the waning minutes of the final tournament game, Angel Reese made John Cena’s signature “now you see now you don’t” gesture in Clark’s direction, which entails a person waving their hand in front of their face. Reese stood by her actions, as she should. The critiques of this proud young Black woman for living her life are nothing but hollow racist attacks barely shrouded in “sportsmanship.” 

The reality of this double standard became even more apparent as images and videos of Clark making the same gesture in the previous two NCAA tournament games circulated on social media. However, when Clark, who is white, made the same gesture to opponents throughout the tournament, there was no outrage. There were no accusations of classlessness. There was no great moral condemnation. That is reserved for Black athletes. 

The losers in the White House 

Believe it or not, the hypocrisy of the situation had not yet reached its peak. Enter Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States, on April 3, not even 24 hours after LSU’s victory.

Speaking at Colorado State University, Dr. Biden declared that Caitlin Clark and the Iowa team should join LSU in the White House visit, even though they lost. The losing team has never attended the White House ceremony ever in the past. 

To justify the ludicrous invitation, Biden commented, “I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come [to the WHITE House] too because they played such a good game.” That is an interesting perspective considering Iowa lost by 17 points. LSU shot nearly 20% better from the field than Iowa, outrebounded the Hawkeyes by 11, and registered more assists. The game was never particularly close. 

For Dr. Jill Biden to speak as if Iowa played a game remotely comparable to the effort LSU gave on the floor can only be described as one thing, a joke. Angel Reese agrees. 

The championship game was incredible, not because it was hotly contested but because Angel Reese and her teammates put on an absolute clinic. The Tigers scored the most points in championship game history. They dominated Clark, a player many consider the best in college basketball, thanks to the outstanding defensive play of senior and veteran leader Alexis Miller. This team is exemplified by incredible competitors and young Black women making their communities and family proud. 

The ‘Great White Hope’

That should be the focus. But, instead, Jill Biden and the entire media establishment are resolved to coddle white athletes who lose and promote age-old racist “Great White Hope” mythology. The term “Great White Hope” originated in the 1910s as a rallying cry for a boxer to defeat Jack Johnson, a Black man and heavyweight champion of the world at the time. Johnson’s marriages to white women and other personal relationships with white women were used to promote anti-Black race riots across the United States. Eventually, Johnson was prosecuted and convicted under the racist Mann Act, a law used commonly to prosecute Black men involved with white women, including Chuck Berry. 

New York Times sports columnist William Rhoden characterized the Great White Hope phenomenon and racist double standard in a recent article discussing the attacks on Angel Reese: 

“My other takeaway from the weekend is that Great White Hope-ism is gender neutral. What I’ve observed over the years is that whenever you have a white star in a sport dominated by Black athletes, the white star is swathed in extra layers of praise and adulation. This could be Christian McCaffrey in the NFL or Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic in the NBA. Now we see it, or rather hear it, with Clark.” 

The racist double standard isn’t new. White athletes are competitive. Black athletes are classless. White athletes are passionate. Black athletes are angry. White athletes are skilled. Black athletes are brutish. 

Lionizing a racist bully

One only has to look at the incessant lionization of white NFL quarterback Tom Brady, even though his sideline outbursts, temper tantrums, and full-on meltdowns are infamous. Despite Brady’s unquestioned status as a bully, the media and the NFL heap praise upon him, and not just in terms of his football prowess. 

Boston University even went as far as to say that Brady’s greatest achievement was his leadership, not his hall-of-fame career on the field. That’s right, a globally acclaimed university holding up a bully, racist Trump supporter, and cheater as a prime example of leadership. 

Meanwhile, LSU Coach Kim Mulkey, ironically, accused the South Carolina women’s basketball team and their coach Dawn Staley of winning because they play like the game is a bar fight. The racist undertones of that accusation against a prominent Black woman coach and a majority Black women’s team are impossible to ignore. What better way to undermine Black achievement than to invoke eugenic race tropes regarding inherent Black physical brutality? 

The historical and contemporary sports landscape is littered with examples of racist hypocrisy and all forms of discrimination. Tom Brady is lionized. Caitlin Clark is coddled. Brett Favre is honored as an all-time great, despite radical right-wing politics and theft of millions from federal welfare grants. 

Athletes of color, as well as those in the LGBTQ+ community, face an entirely different situation. As of this day, Colin Kaepernick is unofficially banned from the NFL for his courageous 2016 protests against police brutality. Trans collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas won an NCAA title in the women’s 500-meter freestyle yet was still openly derided by fascist demagogue Ron DeSantis and his right-wing mob. After Thomas won, DeSantis declared that the second-place contestant, Emma Weyant, was the true winner. DeSantis, frothing at the mouth with anti-trans panic, asserted that Thomas’ win was an affront to all women athletes and that the NCAA was fraudulent in recognizing her victory. Insanity. 

Remembering Glenn Burke

Attacks on oppressed athletes can be brutal and unwavering. There is no better example of this than the story of Glenn Burke, a Black baseball player in the 1970s who was also the first openly gay person to play professional baseball. Burke spent significant time in the Los Angeles Dodgers minor league system before finally breaking into the big leagues in the spring of 1976. He scuffled at times but immediately became wildly popular in the clubhouse and among the Dodgers’ fan base. 

For these reasons, players and fans alike were shocked when after a career-best 1977 season, Burke was traded to the Oakland Athletics just 19 games into the 1978 season. The trade made little sense at the time from a baseball perspective. Burke was young, dynamic, a terror on the base paths, and improving every day. 

However, Burke was gay, and this was unacceptable to Dodgers’ upper management, including bigoted manager Tommy Lasorda Sr. The trade to Oakland was the beginning of the end of Burke’s career. The A’s hired manager Billy Martin, a known homophobe, and racist, who introduced Burke to the team with a homophobic slur. 

It later came to the surface that the real reason Burke was traded was Lasorda’s homophobia. As manager, Lasorda Sr. wielded much influence within the Dodgers’ organization. Lasorda Sr. was embarrassed by rumors that Burke was actually romantically involved with his close friend and fellow gay man, Tommy Lasorda Jr., the son of the Dodgers’ manager. Later, both Lasorda Jr. and Glenn Burke died from the AIDS epidemic. Before passing, Burke fell out of baseball and struggled with addiction problems. A man destroyed simply for being Black, gay, and loving the game of baseball. 

This is all to say the vicious racism and sexism on display in the attacks on Angel Reese and her LSU teammates are another brutal chapter in a long history of relentless smear campaigns against prominent Black athletes. 

As a movement, we must not only remember Glenn Burke, Jack Johnson, and Colin Kaepernick but also fight for and support Angel Reese, Lia Thomas, and Britney Griner as they struggle against racist media narratives and political defamation. 

Black Lives Matter! Trans Lives Matter! Stand with Angel Reese!

New York City’s Times Square was packed on April 10 with a protest against the U.S. military’s latest incursion on Philippine sovereignty.

The Pentagon has sent over 12,000 troops to the Philippines for the annual Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) military exercises. Along with them are 5,400 Filipino forces.  These maneuvers ― the largest in their 30-year history ― are aimed at the People’s Republic of China.

Demonstrations against these dangerous provocations have occurred in the Philippines and around the world. Filipino people don’t want to be part of the Pentagon’s World War 3.

A statement from BAYAN USA Northeast ― one of the Filipino organizations calling the protest ― described the menace of these maneuvers:

“These actions will only further stoke tensions between the U.S. and China and will leave the Filipino people caught in the crossfire. We hold our protest at the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square to denounce the recruitment of working-class youth to wage imperialist wars to enforce the interests of the one percent.”

The BAYAN statement pointed out that current Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son of the notorious dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has provided a welcome mat to U.S. armed forces. There are now nine U.S. military bases in the Philippines.

Protesters carried a large banner reading “U.S. troops out of the Philippines,” along with many signs. Chants included, “From Palestine to the Philippines, Stop the U.S. War Machine!”

Joining BAYAN, which called the protest, were the Malaya Movement USA; GABRIELA, National Alliance of Women; Migrante International; the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS); New York Boricua Resistance; Palestinian Youth Movement; New York Community Action Project; and the NY Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.

Speakers from these organizations, along with Veterans for Peace, appealed to onlookers to oppose the U.S. war drive.

Speaking for Struggle – La Lucha newspaper, Bill Dores reminded people it was the 125th anniversary of the 1898 U.S. invasion of the Philippines. He called it “a war for imperialist conquest, in which one million Filipino people died the same year they invaded Puerto Rico and Cuba.”

Referring to the latest U.S. military moves, Dores said that “this endless war is a pretext for plundering people, the working class and oppressed communities in the United States. They’re cutting food stamps. They just threw 15 million people off Medicaid.” 

Amidst the flashing advertising signs of Times Square on a Monday evening, many people stopped to listen to the talks about the war danger. Leaflets were handed out.

Working and poor people in the U.S. need to oppose the Pentagon war buildup and U.S. support for the Marcos regime that’s killing Filipino workers, peasants, and activists.

The March 21 Santee School Board meeting was my first time seeing Christynne Lilly Wood in action. Wood — mother, grandmother, auntie, retired health care worker, and community activist — was on the list to speak to the Santee school board members along with many others, including parents, students, teachers, and community activists. The subject centered on adding a children’s book, “I Am Jazz” — number 2 on the list of banned books in all Santee public schools and libraries.

As the room filled, Wood greeted and directed people to sit and went to the staff, asking for more chairs, reminding people who wanted to speak to sign in to get on the list. She seemed to know most of the people, which was comforting knowing that this meeting was not filled with haters. Banned Books was going to be first on the agenda.

Christynne Wood, pronounced Kris-tin, is the African American trans woman who was the most recent target of the racist, anti-trans panic that continues to sweep through the country. I am sure most people have heard about this incident or rather some version of it because it made national news.

Showered with lies

On December 29, last year, Wood showered after her weekly water aerobics class at a Santee YMCA, where she has been a member for quite some time. But this day, a 17-year-old white girl reported to the YMCA staff that she was traumatized when she saw a naked man in the women’s changing area. The staff explained that the person she saw was a trans woman and she had every right to use the women’s bathroom and dressing area.

The 17-year-old did not like that answer. She repeated her made-up, well-rehearsed, descriptive, and emotionally dramatic story to the Santee City Council and news broadcasters like Tucker Carlson. Carlson and other fascist mouthpieces rebroadcast the lie until the truth came out.

Wood initially did not know about the incident until a friend from her aqua class called her, expressing how sorry she was about what had happened in the dressing room, and sent a video of the 17-year-old on Instagram. After viewing the video, Christynne started crying and shaking.

The YMCA was forced to close when a hate rally was staged outside the facility. Wood listened to the lies as she stood with the counter-protesters and supporters. Many were patrons of the Santee YMCA.

‘We Love Chrissy’

After weeks of being demonized by right-wing media and listening to repeated lies, Wood spoke at the January 25 Santee City Council meeting, where she explained what happened. She showered and dressed in a private stall after her water aerobics class. Wood said, “I am a mom and Grandma. I am a threat to no one.” Her supporters filled the Council chambers, many holding signs with a heart that read, “We Love Chrissy.” Her statement was recorded and posted on YouTube. 

The 17-year-old girl then slightly changed her story, saying she saw the backside of a man and hid in a nearby shower stall until he left.

Christynne and I met for breakfast at her favorite restaurant in Santee a week before the school board meeting. When I arrived, I walked in and told the woman at the counter that I was there to meet up with someone, and instantly she pointed me in the direction of the table where Christynne sat, waving me over. She commented how much she appreciated people who pay attention to time. Then, she told me to look over the menu, order what you want, “everything is good,” and insisted on paying the bill.

She knew most of the waitresses by first name and ordered her “usual” breakfast. After breakfast, she was scheduled for a photo shoot at the San Diego Union-Tribune, so we were on the clock. I introduced myself and told her that I and a few friends from Los Angeles came to the Santee City Council to show our support earlier this month. I thanked her for making time in her busy schedule to speak with me.

She said you and your group must attend the Santee School Board meeting next week. “We are going to demand that ‘I Am Jazz,’ a book on the list of Banned Books, is added to all Santee public schools and libraries.”

The story of Jazz Jennings

“I Am Jazz” is the story of a transgender child based on the real-life experience of a transgender activist, Jazz Jennings.

According to PEN America, a national advocacy group for literacy and free expression, this children’s book is one of several banned picture books in the United States in the school year 2021-2022. 

At breakfast, I spoke about the 17-year-old who reported to the Santee YMCA staff that she was terrified when she saw a naked male in the women’s changing room.

Christynne said she was shocked by the teen’s complaint and that the most graphic part of the story could not be true because she has had gender reassignment surgery. The whole incident was a manufactured lie.

I asked if she could talk about her childhood and journey to become a community activist and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.

Wood, a Black woman born in 1956, grew up in Ohio during the ’60s and ’70s and originally moved to California in 1975 during her first Navy enlistment. She returned to San Diego County to stay in 1980, which Woods said “was the best decision I ever made.”

SLL: When did you realize that “I have a girl brain but a boy body,” a quote from the book “I Am Jazz”?

CLW: Oh, I knew when I was four years old. My kindergarten teacher told my Grand Auntie, who raised me, that I identified with the girls. She would let me lie down with the girls for nap time.

My Auntie told me not to share this with everybody; People can be cruel, and it could be dangerous. We would play “dress-up” inside the house; it was our secret.

In the 8th grade, I checked out “Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography” from the library. I would keep it and just renew it over and over. Jorgensen, a celebrity, entertainer, and memoirist, was the first internationally known transexual personality of the 20th century to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery in the early 1950s and provided an unprecedented example for thousands of gender dysphoric individuals who followed in her footsteps.

SLL: You had some support from your auntie; what about your parents and other relatives?

CLW: My mother didn’t raise me. She was rarely around, visiting on rare occasions. I am a self-reliant woman. I’ve been on my own for over 36 years. I began medical transition in July of 2016 when I started estradiol and HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy).  I legally changed my name and gender in San Diego Superior Court in February 2017. My first surgery, breast augmentation, was in May of 2019 at Sharp Grossmont Hospital. My final surgery was at Sutter Mills-Peninsula Hospital in San Francisco with Dr. Marci Bowers on Wednesday, January 29, 2020.

I visited my mother with my daughter, granddaughter, and niece. I hadn’t seen her for over 30 years. My mother did not recognize me at first. When she did, her response was, “You finally became the person you wished to be.” She never got it. It was not a choice. It is all about who I am. My daughter and granddaughter are happy that I am fully transitioned.

After my mother died, I had no reason to go to the state of Ohio, and I don’t plan to go there ever again.

SLL: Do you have times when you think back on who you were before?

CLW: Everything from my life in Ohio is dead, including the person I was. I have moved on. It’s dead and buried. I feel liberated — free to be who I am.

SLL: Were you working when you transitioned? If so, how did your job react when you completed the surgery and changed your name?

CLW: I was employed by the San Diego County Health and Human Services Association (HHSA) for 29 years, retiring on June 30, 2018. 

I chose to actively report to my supervisor, who was supportive. When it came to using the bathroom, there was resistance from some of my co-workers as to which bathroom I was to use. My supervisor told me that it is company policy that it is my right to use the female bathroom, but she did offer a suggestion. She could arrange for me to speak to all my co-workers about my gender identity and name change if I chose to do so. I agreed to talk to my co-workers, and even though there was still some resistance, I gained a lot of support.

SLL: What about the cost of your transition? Was it difficult getting a doctor using your health insurance plan?

CLW: My PCP doctor referred me to have a psychological examination, which confirmed that there is no doubt that I was a candidate for and should get the hormone medications, and I was cleared to prepare for full transition surgery if that was my choice.

Not every transgender person wants to get bottom surgery. It is up to the individual. In my case, I knew I had to have a full-depth vaginoplasty, and it had to be with Dr. Bowers.

Everything was covered through my insurance, and my co-pay was within my budget.

When it was time for my name change, a lawyer at the San Diego LGBT center took my case pro-bono, and I got my name changed along with all my papers. So, I am fully transitioned and ready to move forward with my life.

SLL: I’ve seen the word women with an X or Y replacing the E. What do you think about that spelling when it comes to trans or gender-neutral women?

CLW: I can understand this generation’s usage of the spelling as a means of expanding the word “women” to be more inclusive, but as for me, I don’t want to be characterized or given a category. I am a woman.

Christynne Wood praises the compassion, courage, and love of the Cameron Family YMCA in Santee, her Aqua Sisters, and the faith leaders who openly support her.

Wood was named Transperson of the Year at the Transgender Empowerment Day at the SD LGBTQ Center in San Diego – April 7, 2023.

She received the Bayard Rustin Award in February 2023.

She is actively speaking out against banning books, especially those that teach about love, acceptance, and understanding.

Dear friend,

We are asking for your help to send an important LGBTQ+ delegation to Cuba this May to learn about the inclusive new Families Code and the impact of the U.S. blockade.

We’re all aware of the terrible attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in the United States, especially targeting our transgender and Two Spirit siblings. People’s rights to life-saving gender-affirming healthcare, and even to exist in public, are being legislated away in state after state. Queer spaces are besieged by right-wing mobs, including in cities like New York and San Francisco that were considered safe. Truly, we need to revive the spirit of Stonewall.

All the more remarkable, then, is Cuba’s incredible leap forward in LGBTQ+ rights with the passage of its new Families Code last year. Not only same-sex marriage, but equality of queer families before the law, equal standing for chosen families with biological families, parent-child relations based on rights and responsibilities, and mandated education promoting acceptance, support and full rights for all people – all this just 90 miles from Ron DeSantis’s Florida!

Cuba has long been a beacon to the people of the world, despite a grueling 60+-year U.S. blockade. And the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. is no stranger to the Cuba solidarity movement.

This May a delegation of LGBTQ+ activists from the U.S., organized by Women in Struggle-Mujeres en Lucha, will travel to Cuba for a week of activity to learn about the new Families Code, how it was accomplished, and the detrimental impact of U.S. policies on queer communities and all Cubans. This delegation includes veteran organizers as well as several young people from across the country. Your donation will help ensure that these activists can bring these lessons back to our communities, where they are urgently needed!

To donate: Please DONATE HERE on PayPal or contribute through Venmo@SolidarityCenter. You can also make checks out to Solidarity Center and mail to 703 E. 37th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Do not write Cuba on checks or on electronic donations! You can use “for trip” in the memo.

Please give generously!

Yours in solidarity,

Bob McCubbin

Bob McCubbin is the author of the ground-breaking 1976 book, ‘The Roots of Lesbian & Gay Oppression—A Marxist View.’ McCubbin’s achievement was to offer a historical analysis of when, where, why and how LGBTQ+ oppression developed. In 2019, Struggle-La Lucha published McCubbin’s ‘Socialist Evolution of Humanity—Marx & Engels were Right!,’ an in-depth study focusing on human social/sexual relations and the changing status of women.

The U.S. corporate-controlled media are concealing the climate crisis’s severity and breadth. Coverage of extremely destructive weather is so slanted, biased, and Eurocentric that people in the United States and Europe may not even realize how calamitous the situation is for the Global South.

Weeks of rain and snowstorms, a cyclone, and a tornado that slammed the West Coast of the U.S. were all over the headlines. The damage was horrific. There was extreme flooding from breached levees near Sacramento. Flooding and debris flow throughout the state. 

A rare double-eyed cyclone attacked the Bay Area. Snow in the San Bernardino and Sierra Nevada mountains left 10-foot drifts. A tornado hit the Los Angeles area, leaving thousands without power and trapped in their homes. Dozens died.

Earth’s longest-lived tropical storm ever

There was no way to downplay what happened to the West Coast. But during March, the deadly tropical Cyclone Freddy slammed Malawi, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, and Mozambique. Most U.S. media did not cover the immense death toll and damage to eastern Africa.

As of March 27, the Institute for African Studies reports, more than 700 people died, and almost an equal number are reported missing. Most of the deaths occurred in Malawi. Nearly 700,000 people in the region have been displaced. Floods have destroyed power structures, washed away infrastructure, and contaminated community wells. Mozambique and Malawi were already dealing with a cholera outbreak, and the case numbers are rising.

Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lasting storm ever and traveled a greater distance than any before. The energy equaled an average entire hurricane season in the North Atlantic. Winds blew for ten minutes straight at 140 mph. Its peak wind was 168 mph, mowing down wood-frame buildings as it moved. It hit Madagascar after crossing the entire Indian Ocean, then Mozambique and Zimbabwe a few days later. It headed out over the water and regained strength, only to return to land and carry out more destruction, then repeated that two more times.

Industrial capitalism has been the driver of global warming. The biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere today are the United States and Great Britain. Today on a per-capita basis, the United States is still the worst. 

Global South nations are responsible for only a tiny fraction of carbon emissions. But after more than a century of wars, trade sanctions, and the theft of their natural resources at the hands of U.S., British, and French imperialism, they are far less able to recover. 

‘A litany of broken climate promises’

Deep poverty, debt to the giant banks in the U.S., and the IMF’s debt-trap aid have left much of the world extremely vulnerable. At the most recent conference that took place in Egypt – COP27 – representatives from the Global South took a united stand. Finally, they forced the imperialist countries into an agreement for a “loss and damage fund” after decades of the U.S. and other imperialist countries resisting. But predictably, there are already delays in nominating members to a committee to carry it forward.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reacted to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued on March 20, which followed the pattern of not naming the U.S. directly. In an April 4 Op-Ed in the Washington Post, Guterres described the report as “a litany of broken climate promises,” revealing a “yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality.” 

Guterres wrote that high-emitting governments and corporations “are adding fuel to the flames by continuing to invest in climate-choking industries. Scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate effects.”

Since Biden’s whittled-down legislation that was supposed to be a big step toward mitigating global warming was finally passed, and promises were made to curtail fossil fuel production, the administration has done an about-face. Instead, their proxy war against Russia has escalated the lucrative exploitation of fossil fuels. The Willow project in Alaska – a gift to Conoco Phillips and a climate change bomb – is only the latest in a series of betrayals of the goals set at international conferences.

In this era of the “New World Order,” imperialist wars and punishing sanctions are not fought for victory alone. Even if U.S. troops pull out from a war as they did in Afghanistan, the destruction they leave behind continues the process of concentrating wealth and power in the hands of mega-corporations and banks. It strengthens them against workers at home as well. The climate crisis is a by-product of capitalism that adds to that process. 

Contributing to a full-blown, cooperative, international effort to deal with climate change, fulfilling the “loss and damage fund,” helping the Global South recover as fast as possible, and ending the destructive exploitation of fossil fuels are simply not on the agenda of the U.S. ruling class. The climate crisis won’t be whittled away with a few reforms here and there. It has never been more evident than now. A militant and international workers’ movement for socialism and the end of imperialism is the only solution to keeping the planet habitable for the future.

In dozens of cities across the United States, people took to the streets on April 8 to stand with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and say, “Hands off Al-Aqsa!” They expressed outrage at the Zionist occupation police invading Al-Aqsa Mosque in Al Quds (Jerusalem) and attacking people at prayer during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. While the Biden regime has criticized the openly fascist regime now running the occupation regime in Palestine, it has not cut one dime from the massive flow of arms and money to the Zionist colonial project. In New York City, hundreds rallied and marched in Times Square, above.

SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2023 AT 5:00 PM PDT
Queer Liberation Party for LGBTQ+ Cuba Trip
Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice – L.A.

A celebration fundraiser to help send Jordan David on the LGBTQ+ delegation to Cuba, to learn about Cuba’s Code of Freedom for Families.
Featuring: Maebe A Girl & Pain Behaviour, Crook, Shantillly, Artem & Melan
Video message from Mariela Castro Espin, Director of Cuba’s
National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX)
DRAG & ROCK & Violin
Spoken Word & COMMUNITY
Donation $10 $15 No one turned away for lack of funds jordandavid4weho@gmail.com