solidarity is sexy

Vancouver status of women used this as the title for "a night of connection poetry and music to build VSW's volunteer base and raise support for Haiti"that they held last February.

I think solidarity IS sexy, but we don't often acknowledge that, or talk about it in those terms. It's certainly rare to recruit turnout with a slogan like that! I love that it was a feminist group that used it.

What does it mean that solidarity is sexy? There are the loaded relationships between Latin Americans (usually men) and North Americans (usually women) that come out of solidarity work. But I'm not just thinking about that, though certainly some more open talk about that would be useful for solidarity organizing.

It's not just the people that do solidarity work that are sexy, but something about the very idea itself. Making connections across difference to be more powerful in our organizing for a better world - it's hot!

Hearing the silences in the stories

It's important to remember that we can't hear it all or really 'know' another's experience when we listen to their personal stories. I've posted before about using fade outs. (Wim Wenders had women from the DRC telling their rape stories and their images fading in and out while they were telling them. It works to remind you that you can't fully see them.) The video above uses a strange black and white cut in that seems to serve as a similar reminder.

the Warsaw ghetto says free the Gaza ghetto

this "liberate all ghettos" graffiti in hebrew was painted on the walls of the old Warsaw jewish ghetto. great solidarity action!

Yonatan Shapira, former Israeli Air Force captain and now refusenik and BDS activist, said:

‘Most of my family came from Poland and many of my relatives were killed in the death camps during the Holocaust. When I walk in what was left from the Warsaw Ghetto I can’t stop thinking about the people of Gaza who are not only locked in an open air prison but are also being bombarded by fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones, flown by people whom I used to serve with before my refusal in 2003.

I am also thinking about the delegations of young Israelis that are coming to see the history of our people but also are subjected to militaristic and nationalistic brainwashing on a daily basis. Maybe if they see what we wrote here today they will remember that oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza’.

thanks to the people's geography site for this one.

yet another post about empathy

I'm in love with the guy who does these animations. Ok, I haven't met him, but I have spent way too long watching all of the RSA animation videos. They're fantastic! This one is about empathy, and there is another one of David Harvey, the best known living geographer, explaining the economic crisis.

solidarity with the dead

Powerful video from a campaign in Spain against impunity for the crimes of the Franco regime. Here's one case where I'm perfectly ok with trying to "be the one you're with".