Baltimore Reportback: Eyewitness
Cuba’s Queer Rights Revolution
Monday, 6/26, 5:30 pm @ 2011 N. Charles St.

Hear members of the Women In Struggle/Mujeres En Lucha delegation:

Lizz Toledo, Dee Deans, Kiana Fok who were a part of the LGBTQ+ group delegation that traveled to Cuba to learn about Cuba’s new “families code” and to participate in Havana’s equivalent of Gay Pride.

We are proud to host them this Monday, 6/26/23
@ 2011 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218

Gather 5:30 pm for refreshments & slide show
6 pm discussion starts promptly and ends at 7 pm

Our guest speakers Lizz and Dee are from Atlanta.
Their plane leaves Monday night, but they were happy to sit down and share their experiences before departing.

Get PDF here

• Demand grows to take Cuba off list of terrorism sponsors
• Build National March for Trans Youth!
• Good riddance to Pat Robertson: Preacher of bigotry came from the ruling class
• Teamsters fight for union rights
• Longshore workers to review proposed union contract
• A trans person reflects on Cuba and Florida: 90 miles and a world apart
• ‘What do we want? Reparations!’ Celebrating Juneteenth in Newark, N.J.
• Galveston reenacts Juneteenth
• The propaganda of history
• No pride in genocide: Boston rejects Zionist pinkwashing
• Honduras: Derecha perpetua ataques terroristas contra el pueblo
• Honduras: Expose right-wing attacks against the people
• Gobierno de PR intenta sustituir la población

Esta semana pasada, el Comité de Descolonización de la ONU celebró la vista sobre lo que se ha llamado el caso de Puerto Rico, sobre el derecho inalienable de Puerto Rico a la libre determinación e independencia.

Desde que la ONU aprobó la Resolución 1514 (XV) en el 1960 para la erradicación de las colonias, reconociendo la independencia como un derecho humano fundamental y acorde con la Carta de la ONU, se han celebrado ya 41 vistas sobre el caso nuestro.

Recordemos que EUA disfrazó el estado colonial de PR poniéndole el nombre de Estado Libre Asociado en el 1952 para no tener que rendir informes a las Naciones Unidas. Pero esta farsa fue desenmascarada en el 2016 cuando el Tribunal Supremo estadounidense concluyó en un caso de doble exposición, que es el Congreso de EUA quien impera en PR. Desde entonces, en PR ya no es solo el independentismo quien habla de colonia. 

Sobre 60 organizaciones de PR y su diáspora leyeron ponencias oponiéndose al estado colonial. Hasta representantes anexionistas que obstinadamente siguen lacayos del gobierno yanqui y piensan que la integración a los EUA daría soberanía a PR. 

Sin embargo, las presentaciones independentistas fueron claras y contundentes ilustrando la necesidad urgente de autodeterminación e independencia porque a través de la Junta de Control Fiscal y las privatizaciones de los servicios esenciales se está llevando a cabo una insostenible intensificación del poder colonial que está destruyendo a la población boricua.

Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Rusia, Siria y Venezuela fueron los proponentes de la resolución que fue respaldada por los países de la CELAC y el Movimiento de los Países no Alineados. 

Queda que la ONU se decida a llevar de una vez por todas este reclamo a la Asamblea General y que no quede como un simple ejercicio de oratoria cada junio.

Para Radio Clarín de Colombia, les habló, Berta Joubert-Ceci.

Does anyone care that hate preacher Pat Robertson croaked on June 8? Those inheriting his $100 million fortune must have been waiting for the 93-year-old to die. 

The loot came from Robertson’s broadcasting empire, African diamond mines, and other capitalist enterprises. One venture that didn’t pan out was an oil refinery in Santa Fe Springs, California, near Los Angeles. 

It wasn’t allowed to spew benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals over South Central LA in the name of sweet Jesus and Robertson’s bank account.

First and foremost, Pat Robertson was a worshiper of the slave owners’ confederacy. He made sure that he was buried in the same Lexington City, Virginia, cemetery where Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson decomposed. 

Much of his revenue came from those in pain and/or suffering from incurable diseases. Like other alleged faith healers, Robertson claimed to be able to intervene with god – in exchange for some blessed dollars, of course.

Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network helped elect scores of union-busting, women-hating, homophobic, and transphobic politicians. War criminal George W. Bush welcomed Robertson’s support. 

One of Robertson’s last outbursts attacked the teaching of Black history. 

Here are more of Robertson’s repulsive statements:

• He claimed that Haitian people made a pact with the devil when they overthrew the French slave masters. World capitalism – which was born with the African Holocaust – has never forgiven Haitians for their revolution.
• He predicted that hurricanes might strike Orlando, Florida, because of LGBTQ+ Pride activities. All the more reason to mobilize in Orlando in defense of trangender youth on Oct. 7.
• Robertson spread hate against Muslims. He labeled those in the government who were not his type of Christians as “termites.”  
• He called the women’s movement a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
• Robertson called for the assassination of the elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías.

Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, believed in a Jesus who helped the poor and stopped a woman from being stoned to death. Pat Robertson would have given rocks to the lynch mob. 

Electrocuting seven Black men for revenge

Robertson wasn’t known for his fiery sermons. He never built a megachurch with thousands of members.

Yet Robertson had the biggest business empire of all the right-wing preachers. CBN—the Christian Broadcasting Network—spread lies and hate in 70 languages. Robertson’s flagship show, “The 700 Club,” still airs daily on basic cable network Freeform, owned by the Walt Disney Company. 

Robertson also ran for president in the Republican primaries in 1988.

Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, Sr., has a larger enrollment than Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. But Regent Law School has placed 38 judges on the bench. 

The key is that Pat Robertson came right from the ruling class. His daddy, Absalom Willis Robertson, was for 20 years a U.S senator from Virginia. He also spent 13 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A. Willis Robertson was the junior partner of Senator Harry Byrd Sr. in running one of the most racist political machines in U.S. history. Literacy “tests” and poll taxes kept Black people from voting.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 1954 ruling against school segregation, the Byrd machine shut down Black schools without any replacement.

Schools in Prince Edward County were closed for five years. Byrd called this “massive resistance.”

To terrorize Black people everywhere, the Byrd machine arranged the frame-up and execution of the Martinsville 7. These were seven young Black men, aged between 18 and 23, who were wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia.

They were Francis DeSales Grayson, Frank Hairston Jr., Howard Hairston, James Luther Hairston, Joe Henry Hampton, Booker T. Millner, and John Clabon Taylor.

They were sent to the electric chair despite a defense campaign led by the Civil Rights Congress. Four were electrocuted on Feb. 2, 1951, and the remaining three were electrocuted on Feb. 5, 1951.

Seventy years later, in 2021, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued a pardon to these martyrs.

The Martinsville 7 were murdered in revenge for the successful defense of the Scottsboro, Alabama, defendants during the 1930s. These nine young Black men were falsely accused of raping two white women.

A worldwide campaign led by Black churches, Black fraternal organizations, and the Communist Party saved their lives. But in 1951, during the anti-communist witch hunt, the Byrd machine was able to murder the Martinsville defendants.

‘That pack of God damn fools’

Pat Robertson was 20 years old at the time of these executions, while his father was a U.S. senator. If Pat Robertson had said anything in defense of the Martinsville defendants it might have saved their lives.

The Byrd machine was also a player in the military-industrial complex. Norfolk, Virginia, is the world’s largest naval base.

Harry Byrd’s brother was Admiral Richard Byrd, a famous navy aviator who flew over Antarctica. 

Admiral Byrd named a mountain range there after their cousin, David Harold Byrd. D.H. Byrd was a Texas oil man who co-founded the Civil Air Patrol, whose members included the young Lee Harvey Oswald. 

D.H. Byrd also owned the building that housed the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. The Warren Commission claimed that Oswald fired the shots from there that killed President John F. Kennedy, although many people believe that Oswald wasn’t the shooter. 

Regent University will probably erect a statue of Pat Robertson, but few will remember the bigot. Robertson is one of many who have served the wealthy and powerful in the name of religion.

He had nothing in common with Malcolm X or the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Pat Robertson was like those satirized in John F. Kendrick’s poem “Christians At War,” whose last stanza follows:

“Onward, Christian soldiers! Blight all that you meet;
Trample human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as tyrant’s tools;
History will say of you: ‘That pack of God damn fools.’”

Washington, D.C., June 23 — In a growing mosaic of solidarity across the U.S., people are taking to the streets to say no to the way their government is punishing Cuba for their example of humanity in these precarious times. This weekend in over 30 cities, there will be protests to visibly express it.

In Washington, D.C., there will be a national focus with a march on the White House to bring attention to a callous foreign policy that has endured through Democratic and Republican administrations, generating an ever-turning multi-million dollar industry based on hatred guided by greedy, corrupt politicians with no regard to the consequences for the Cuban people.

Cuban solidarity activists occupy right-wing Cuba hater Bob Menendez’s office – 3 arrested

Today one of those politicians, Senator Bob Melendez from New Jersey, a man of Cuban descent who lurks in the shadows as chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, while capitalizing on his heritage and bludgeoning to death any steps on Capitol Hill to improve relations with the island, was called out in his office by a team of 13 Cuban solidarity activists from the National Network on Cuba, Pastors for Peace and Code Pink who insisted on talking to Menendez about his positions and pending corruption charges against him.

After they were refused a meeting by his staff, the group decided to sit in until he came. For the next hour, the team read letters from small business owners in Cuba, who Menendez is fond of speaking for, singing popular Cuban songs and talking to his less-than-interested staff about the lethal impact that the policy of the blockade is having on the Cuban family. At one point, with people filling the halls with interest about what was going on, the Capitol Police were summoned in force with over 20 officers showing up 3 of the team were arrested, and after 3 hours in jail, they were released with a citation for a July 12 court date.

Resolutions reflect deep support for improving relations with Cuba

Over the past years, in a slow but steady campaign, people who support Cuba and its right to exist on their own terms have been signing resolutions in City Councils, County Boards, State Legislatures, School Boards, Labor Councils, Labor Unions, and other organization have passed resolutions, from coast to coast, which have addressed:

• Ending the blockade
• Saving Lives through scientific collaboration
• Urging that Cuba be removed from the U.S. List of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT)

In a moment of coincidence, we learned today that the New York City Council passed Resolution 0825, which calls for the end of the Blockade, and that Cuba be removed from the SSOT. What this resolution marks is that these 93 popular resolutions represent over 50 million people as part of their represented populations.

The U.S. government is at odds with the growing sentiment of the American people when it comes to the cruel and criminal blockade of Cuba that has gone on now for 61 years, bringing unnecessary hardship to the Cuban people. The island’s original crime was to struggle for its independence and to choose a path of sovereignty not aligned with the pre-ordained Monroe Doctrine of 1820 that claimed all of Latin America was under the tutelage of the U.S.

Since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the U.S. has thrown everything at Cuba to try and bring down their impressive social achievements under the longest blockade in modern history that has stolen $144 billion from the Cuban economy and now has an additional 243 harsh sanctions (levied by Trump and dutifully continued by Biden despite his campaign promises to the contrary) that affect every aspect of the lives of the Cuban people.

Cuba has never invaded or threatened the U.S. or any other for that matter but was added to the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) by Reagan in 1982, which has made it impossible for Cuba to conduct normal international trade. Obama took Cuba off in 2015, but Trump reinstated it for no reason connected to reality, and Biden doubled down on it despite no evidence and with no one in the U.S. thinking Cuba is a threat of any kind.

For the last 20 years, nearly every country in the United Nations has voted to condemn the unilateral blockade. They have stood with Cuba because of the injustice of it all and how Cuba shows the possibility of a better world that isn’t based on the obscene accumulation of wealth of a few with the downward spiraling of the ability of many in the U.S. to stay housed and fed.

The people of the U.S. are saying no to the draconian policies its government has towards the island, and meanwhile, we are deprived of normal people-to-people interaction that we have with just about any other country; and gaining access to many health treatments not available here, or cultural and educational exchange and trade opportunities. But all of that is starting to change, and with conditions deteriorating the way they are and confidence in the government at an all-time low; why should we believe what they tell us about Cuba? You can’t fool the people forever, and the time is up on the lies about Cuba.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English

Statement by Borotba (Struggle), revolutionary Marxist organization banned by the Ukrainian government.

Stop the armed conflict in the rear! The unity of anti-fascist forces is the key to our common victory

June 24 — The whole world is closely following the events unfolding in connection with the actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin and part of the Wagner private military company.

The long conflict that existed between Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu has grown into a stage that threatens the entire state.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has previously attracted sympathy for his sharp criticism of the plagues of oligarchic capitalism, corruption, as well as individual failures and erroneous decisions during the special military operation. However, with the development of the confrontation with the military leadership of the Russian Federation, this criticism began to acquire an exaggerated character, and the motives of a personal confrontation with Sergei Shoigu began to come to the fore, and not criticism of the socio-economic situation and military organization.

The situation when a private, non-state-controlled organization, in fact, a private army, has become an important factor of power is in itself unhealthy. As a result, regardless of possible subjective intentions, Prigozhin actually started an armed rebellion by a private person against the state.

We, as critics of the capitalist system, could not previously disagree with many of the critical speeches of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Also, the steadfastness and courage of the Wagner PMC fighters in the confrontation with the fascist regime of Ukraine could not but arouse sympathy. But having embarked on an adventurous action, moving the armed confrontation deep into Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin threatened the front, which the Kiev regime and its masters in the West will definitely take advantage of.

The situation is developing rapidly, and we hope that all sides of the confrontation will show prudence and prevent bloodshed tens of kilometers from the front line. We are convinced that the country’s top leadership is capable of finding a way out of this dangerous situation. Conclusions must be drawn on the fight against the vices of the state and social system, inherited from the 1990s but preserved even in the conditions of the special military operation.

We address the soldiers and officers fighting at the front: Comrades! We are few, but we are among you. We are aware of the difficulties that arose and are arising in the process of organizing military operations, mistakes, and injustices, part of the responsibility for which, of course, lies with the military leadership. We never called for hiding difficulties and varnishing reality to please the authorities. We experienced it just like you. But we are convinced that armed adventures will not lead to an improvement in the system but can only lead to our common defeat.

We hope that the fighters of PMC “Wagner,” who supported their commander, will look at the situation with a cool head and realize that this path leads nowhere. Similar situations have already happened in history — the rebellion of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the speech of M.A. Muravyov in 1918, the rebellion of Nestor Makhno, who refused to join the united Red Army, the Kronstadt uprising, the rebellion of the anarchists of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Regardless of the intentions, sometimes honest and idealistic, such actions have always fallen into the hands of the darkest forces.

Now it is important to end the armed conflict inside the country as soon as possible to unite efforts in the fight against the Kiev regime and NATO imperialism. In the conditions of confrontation with imperialism, internal contradictions must be resolved in a peaceful democratic way, on the basis of a broad public discussion with the participation of the people, and not by conspiracies from above and personal adventures.

Long live unity and solidarity!

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source: Borotba

In June, the union contract dispute between 22,000 longshore workers in 29 ports on the West Coast — members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) — and the port bosses — the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) — began to heat up.

ILWU members, angry that they had gone over a year without a contract, began to take steps to make their dissatisfaction known. It was then that they finally began hearing some results. On June 12, ILWU President Willie Adams announced to members of his union that the Longshore Caucus, the highest governing body of elected delegates, was preparing to review the terms of a contract just negotiated with the PMA.

Adams said: “We will discuss, we will debate and then at that point [the Longshore Caucus] will decide if this comes to you — the rank and file. We will be going through the contract and you’ll be asking questions. You’ll be debating it in our fair and true democratic process and you will vote it up, or you will vote it down.”

Overriding the democratic process of the union, the big business-controlled media leaked reports meant to strengthen the hand of the bosses in negotiations. The Wall Street Journal reported some terms of the proposed agreement as if it were a done deal and, at the same time, gave grossly inflated figures on the workers’ incomes. During contract negotiations, the press often reports on union workers’ incomes as a way to divide them from those who receive lower pay.

Terminal bosses profits $510 billion 

The ILWU union contract expired 13 months ago. During the past year, the PMA has balked at contract negotiations. Their profits have been astronomical, according to a June 2 ILWU press release: “PMA member carriers and terminal operators made historic profits of $510 billion during the pandemic. In some cases, profits jumped nearly 1000%. Even as shipping volumes return to normal in 2023, PMA members have continued to post revenues that far exceed pre-pandemic times by billions of dollars.

“ILWU workers risked and lost their lives during the pandemic to ensure grocery store shelves were stocked, PPE was made available, essential medical supplies were reaching our hospitals.” Record volumes of goods were moved, enabling the shipping industries’ astronomical revenues. “Despite this fact, from pre-pandemic levels through 2022, the percentage of ILWU wages and benefits continued to drop compared to PMA rising revenues.”

Gabriel Prawl, a longshore worker, a leading member of the Million Worker March Movement, and president of the Seattle A. Philip Randolph Institute, said that “longshore workers on the whole coast have been working above and beyond the requirements of their jobs, thereby violating their own safety rules to keep the supply chain moving.”

Longshore jobs are among the most dangerous. Clarence Thomas, a retired ILWU member, said: “The waterfront tonnage is moved by cranes and container movement machines. If anything hits you it’s either going to maim you for life or it’s going to kill you. I have seen signs at maritime terminals that disclose there are known carcinogens on the premises such as particulate matter, which is soot from diesel fuel. Longshore workers work in rain, sleet, snow, day and night. They’re subjected to a number of health challenges. A longshore brother was found to be unresponsive in the crane and he subsequently died of a heart attack in the hospital. It took 45 minutes to access the crane.”

Working safely antagonizes bosses

Up and down the West Coast after a full year of stalled contract negotiations, ILWU members began to follow the safety procedures designated for dangerous jobs, “working by the book.” Working safely antagonizes the carriers and terminal operators. It’s safer, slower, and it lowers profits.

In Seattle on June 2, port bosses fired ILWU Local 52 workers on the night shift and again on the morning shift. In response to the bosses’ attack in Seattle, the militant ILWU Local 10 in Oakland, California, stopped work and did not return over the weekend. CNBC reported that the port shutdowns were expected to spread across the West Coast as workers protest over wage negotiations in contract talks with port management.

Perhaps the most decisive impact on the port bosses was the preparations initiated by the militant African American Longshore Coalition (AALC) in the Ports of Oakland, Seattle, and Tacoma, Washington, for a “West Coast Stop Work Action to Commemorate Juneteenth” — June 19, 1865, the date that the last enslaved Black people in Texas were informed of their emancipation.

Thomas said, “It is a reminder that the job of ending all forms of slavery is not yet finished. The U.S. was built on the backs of enslaved labor. On Juneteenth, we celebrate the emancipation as our commitment to fight against the legacy of slavery, the long-standing impact of systemic racism and white supremacy, and all forms of discrimination which are used to keep the working class divided.

“Karl Marx made it abundantly clear that enslaved Black people in North America had to be free before wage slaves of the working class could be free of exploitation. As Marx wrote. ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to win,’” Thomas concluded.

UPS Teamsters take a strike vote

On June 12, the UPS Teamsters reported that 97% of the members voted to authorize a strike. The overwhelming unity of the members gives the union negotiating committee maximum leverage to win their contract demands with United Parcel Service Corporation.

The vote allows the “UPS Teamsters Negotiating Committee to call a strike should UPS fail to come to terms on new contract by July 31, when the union’s current Agreement expires. The Teamsters represent more than 340,000 UPS package delivery drivers and warehouse logistics workers nationwide,” the union said in a statement.

Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said, “The strongest leverage our members have is their labor and they are prepared to withhold it to ensure UPS acts accordingly.”

Negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS began on April 17. Union representatives and rank-and-file members serve on the national negotiating committee. The UPS Teamsters Agreement is the largest private-sector contract in North America. Full-and part-time UPS Teamsters are working together for a new five-year agreement that guarantees higher wages for all workers, more full-time jobs, an end to forced overtime and harassment from management, elimination of a two-tier wage system, and protection from heat and other workplace hazards.

The strike authorization vote sends a clear message to UPS that the Teamsters are determined to take necessary action to secure a decent contract. The union reports UPS corporation hauled in more than $100 billion in profits just last year.

Amazon Teamsters drivers walk out in first-ever strike

In late April, Amazon delivery drivers and dispatchers in Palmdale, California, organized a union with Teamsters Local 396 in Los Angeles. They walked out of the delivery facility on June 15 to demand that Amazon bargain with them. According to a Teamsters statement, the 84 drivers currently on strike have held picket lines before, but this is the first time Amazon drivers have walked out in the U.S.

At Amazon’s “delivery service partner” — Battle-Tested Strategies (BTS) — workers had negotiated and ratified a union contract, the first agreement covering workers in Amazon’s massive delivery network. Despite the absolute control Amazon wields over BTS and workers’ terms and conditions of employment, it has refused to recognize and honor the union contract. Instead, Amazon has violated federal labor laws through dozens of unfair labor practices.

“Amazon has no respect for the rule of law, the health of its workers, or the livelihood of their families,” said Randy Korgan, Director of the Teamsters Amazon Division. “Workers are on strike today because the only thing this corporate criminal cares about is profits. We are sending a message to Amazon that violating worker rights will no longer be business as usual.”

Amazon drivers organized over concerns for their safety in extreme temperatures, which regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit during Palmdale summers.

“The back of an Amazon van feels like an oven in the summer,” said Cecilia Porter, an Amazon Teamsters driver. “I’ve felt dizzy and dehydrated, but if I take a break, I’ll get a call asking why I’m behind on deliveries. We are protecting ourselves and saying our safety comes first.”

“We are on the picket line today to demand the pay and safety standards that we deserve. We work hard for a multibillion-dollar corporation. We should be able to provide food and clothes for our kids,” said Raj Singh, another Amazon Teamsters driver.

Supreme Court rules against Seattle Teamsters

All organized labor’s right to strike has been threatened by the June 1 Supreme Court ruling against Teamsters Local 174 in their fight with a Seattle concrete firm, Glacier Northwest, in Washington State.

The union called for a strike when contract negotiations between Glacier Northwest and the local Teamsters union broke down. Drivers walked off the job following the union’s instructions to bring their trucks back to Glacier’s facility and to leave the trucks’ mixing drums spinning so that the concrete could be dumped before it began to harden.

The company sued the union in state court for intentionally damaging its property. The state court initially dismissed the lawsuit, as the union’s strike actions are protected by federal law under the National Labor Relations Act.

The anti-labor Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision. The single dissenting Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote: “Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the NLRA even if economic injury results.”

Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement that the ruling “opens the door for corporations to sue their own workers. The ability to strike has been on the books for nearly 100 years, and it’s no coincidence that this ruling is coming at a time when workers across the country are fed up and exercising their rights more and more.”   

On June 19 in Galveston, Texas, a Juneteenth reenactment march to the county courthouse started at Reedy Chapel AME Church. Galveston is the birthplace of Juneteenth, which celebrates the beginning of the enforcement of the end of slavery in Texas and is now a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.

At the courthouse, “General Orders No. 3” was read. Issued in 1865, the order declared that all enslaved peoples in Texas were free. That was over two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had legally freed them. The Emancipation Proclamation was finally enforced by thousands of Black soldiers who had fled slavery and joined the Union Army. 

After hearing the order read at the Galveston courthouse, the jubilant crowd marched back to Reedy Chapel, singing songs such as “Which Side Are You On?” and “We Shall Not Be Moved.” 

At the church, a program was held featuring a descendant of a church member from the original Juneteenth and the city mayor and a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by a community member. Speeches highlighted the fights for absolute equality that came before and the necessity to continue the struggle.

SLL photos: David Card

June, 21 2023

We are writing as queer, trans, Two Spirit, non-binary, Palestinian, Arab, Black, Indigenous, white, Latinx, and Jewish people living in the Boston area on occupied Massachusett, Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Wabanaki lands.

We were disappointed to learn that Boston Pride for the People chose to co-host a Pride event with the Israeli consulate and other zionist organizations. This event, framed as a celebration of the experiences of queer Jewish community members, centers the experiences of queer Israeli settlers living on top of Palestinian villages stolen through violent expulsion and colonialism. This event is part of a broader strategy of recruiting support for the Israeli state by rebranding itself as queer-friendly in an effort to mask the Israeli state’s ongoing violence against Palestinians—known as “Brand Israel.” The Brand Israel campaign intentionally markets Israel as a “gay-friendly” country and a gay tourism destination, a strategy that queer Palestinians and those in solidarity have termed “Pinkwashing.”

The Pinkwashing narrative that Israel is gay-friendly is not only harmful to Palestinians, it is also disingenuous and false. LGBTQ+ marriages are not legal in Israel. Egregiously, the Israeli military threatens and attempts to extort Palestinians based on private information about their gender, sexual history, and medical needs. This practice, which can include threatening to “out” LGBTQ+ Palestinians, displays the violent character of zionism that is antithetical to queer liberation. As Al-Qaws, a queer Palestinian organization writes, “The open inclusion of gay officers in the Israeli occupation army is used as proof of liberal forward-mindedness, but for Palestinians the sexuality of the soldier at a checkpoint makes little difference. They all wield the same guns, wear the same boots, and maintain the same colonial regime.”

Despite being told why this event would be harmful, Boston Pride for the People still chose to co-sponsor this event with the Israeli Consulate. While professing to be progressive and inclusive of oppressed communities, BP4TP has chosen to exclude Palestinian queers and their allies, including other Indigenous people, members of other communities of color, and anti-zionist Jews from the local LGBTQ+ community through their sponsorship of this event.

The harm behind this event is further illustrated by the actions of its cosponsors. For example, Combined Jewish Philanthropies actively funds Israeli settlement projects and has provided $661,100 to the Boston Police Foundation. Wider Bridge, whose events have been protested across the country, explicitly aims to build support for the state of Israel among queer communities in the US.

This event, along with all pinkwashing and Brand Israel events, obfuscate the daily violence committed against Palestinians. This week, nearly 100 Palestinians were wounded and six were killed by Israeli forces invading Jenin. Just last week the Israeli state raided the Ein Beit Al-Mai refugee camp in the city of Nablus, demolishing a home, injuring six Palestinians, and killing twenty-year-old Palestinian Khalil Yahya Anis. At least 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of this year, at least 21 of them Palestinian children.

As queer and trans people and colonized people who are allies of the queer and trans struggle, we know that our history is a history of struggle and resistance. We are still resisting attacks on trans youth and violence against Black and Indigenous 2SLGBTQIA+. Our struggle is also against imperialism and colonialism. Upon their arrival to Turtle Island, European colonizers not only attempted to destroy Indigenous connections to the land; they violently criminalized Two-Spirit, non-cisnormative, non-heteronormative, non-nuclear, non-monogamous experiences, reframing these natural ways of being as “deviant.” Resisting transphobia and homophobia means resisting colonialism, solidarity with Indigenous peoples, and rejecting these ideas that have been forced on us.

As Marsha P. Johnson said, there can be, “No Pride For Some of Us Without Liberation For All of Us.” We cannot claim to support queer and trans liberation while passively or actively supporting Israeli violence and colonialism.

SUPPORTERS OF THIS LETTER LISTED BELOW

Organizations supporting this letter:

Adalah Justice Project
Al-Awda New York
Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
Boston Revolutionary Socialists
Brown Students for Justice in Palestine
Catalyst Project
Communist Workers League
Falastiniyat
Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice
Jewish Voice for Peace Boston
Jewish Voice for Peace Ohio
Malaya Movement Massachusetts
Massachusetts Bail Fund
Massachusetts Trans Political Coalition
MIT Coalition Against Apartheid
Muslims for Just Futures
North American Indian Center of Boston
Palestinian Feminist Collective
Palestinian Youth Movement Boston
Socialist Unity Party
Stonewall Liberation Organization
Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return at University of Washington
Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine
United American Indians of New England
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
Wellesley Students for Justice in Palestine
Women In Struggle-Mujeres En Lucha
Workers World Party Boston

Individuals supporting this letter:

Evelyn Lillemoe
Aaron Kirshenbaum
Randi F
Jill Charney
Zho Ragen
Darakshan Raja
Leah Muskin-Pierret
Clara Lincoln
Sandra Tamari
Bob McCubbin
Susie Lepow
Rhonda Davis
Rochelle Watson
Hope Denese Freeman
M Liebert
Melinda Butterfield
Bijin B
Heike Schotten
Lux Trevelyan
Jillian Ferreira
Kevin Heaton
Emmaia Gelman
Saif R
Lita Kelley
Meriam I
Ali A
Haya Aldoori
Graciela Berman Reinhardt
Shannon Lawler
Jeff Melnick
Elizabeth Ruckus
S Flynn
Aicha Belabbes
bob bowes
Owen B
Molly Tunis
Alexander S
Ankush B
Johannah Murphy
Aliza Shapiro
Pam Rogers
Jordan H.
Anthony Davis-Pait
Ron Davis
Molly W
Aliyah Chutkan
Jake Pettigrew
Amahl Bishara
Emery Jeffreys
William R.
Tara A
Kathy Roberts
Evan Greer
Sara Driscoll
Evan G
Jadyn L
Rory P
Ester S.
Robin Ruhm
Chase Spearance
Lilienne Rapoza
Isaac Rodriguez Zuniga
Sara Amin
Eleanor Roffman
Safiyyah Ogundipe
Cat Knarr
Maggie Vascassenno
Sharon Black
Susanna Bohme
Leo G
Jude G
Cameron R.
Dina Jacir
Johnny Lapham
Alice W
Evalynn Davis
Elizabeth Endo
Steve Lord
Sibelle Grisé
Madeline Poage
Mairead Skehan Gillis
Ava Ladd
Ali Blake
Will H.
Susan K. Jacoby