low end theory

Right before the National Equality March of a couple weeks past, a group identifying themselves as Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage! issued a hell of a statement. It’s really worth reading.

For me, what the queer kids are saying here is so important because they reach beyond what is the typical queer critique of same-sex marriage—that marriage is an outmoded, oppressive, restrictive, and bankrupt institution (still an important critique these days). They’re trying to move beyond the liberal gay politics that equates social equality with the capacity to serve openly in the military. And they’re moving beyond this critique and that politics in a call for alliances that might look bizarre—at least to some—in the name of community…

(More after the jump)

In their article “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror’” (2008), Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem critique white gay discourses in Germany and Britain that trade in Islamophobic constructions of a gay-friendly, sexually liberated ‘West’ and a homophobic, sexually oppressive ‘Islam’ as the West’s Other. They argue that these constructions are validated in the politics of the ‘war on terror’ and the erosion of migrant citizenship, and that racism is “the vehicle that transports white gays and feminists into the mainstream” (p. 72). Their work extends a tradition of antiracist feminisms that analyse the complicities of feminist and sexual politics in colonialism, war, and other forms of state violence. Writing collaboratively as trans of color, queer Muslim, and migrant feminist scholars and organizers, Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem call for a different kind of sexual politics…

[More after the jump]

Picture from the February 1970 issue of Black World, page 17, after the jump:

Laura Goode has an excellent blog post on the 9/24 events at UC Berkeley at Ethnoblog, featuring a little color commentary from yours truly.

An edited version of this post appeared on Wiretap on 9/25/09.
On September 24th, 2009, students, professors, lecturers, clerical workers, alumni, and other concerned people at all ten campuses of the University of California (UC) walked out of class and work in order to protest the University’s—and the state of California’s—massive disinvestment in the system of [...]

Jeez, this post ended up being longer than expected.
From Megan McArdle:
There’s another intuition that at least libertarians have, which is that it is not as bad to have undesirable things result from an impersonal process than from an active decision. It is bad if someone’s house burns down and they couldn’t afford insurance. [...]

(Backdated: originally Posted at Low End Theory Tumblr)
Clarity & M.I.A. – Paper Planes (Remix)
between working on my department’s recent job search and trying to find some semblance of time to do my own work, i still try to make beats, even though in a lot of significant ways my life as a hip-hop artist is [...]