Tune into Out-FM on Tues., August 22, 2023 from 8:00-9:00pm, on 99.5 FM WBAI/NY or listen live at https://www.wbai.org/listen-live/
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News
For Arthur Leonard's LGBT LAW NOTES go here: https://www.lgbtbarny.org/law-notes
Nathalie Amazan of Queer Muslim Network of New York City
Queer Muslim Network of New York City Prays at Site of Death of O'Shae Sibley
On August 6, 2023, the group Queer Muslim Network of New York City held a prayer activity at the Brooklyn gas station where queer dancer O'Shae Sibley was killed. The killing took place after several men from the neighborhood made racist and homophobic verbal assaults on Sibley, escalating to his murder. Media accounts reported that one of the attackers said Muslims in that neighborhood would be offended by the vogue dancing performed by Sibley's group. Nathalie Amazan, a cofounder of the Queer Muslim Network of NYC, discusses the group’s prayer action, the social issues of queer Muslims, and the possible reasons for the confrontation that ended in Sibley's death.
Peter Jonas
An Open Letter to My (Chelsea) Neighbors, by Peter Jonas
(Peter Jonas is a contributing producer to Out-FM)
As a Chelsea West Village resident of 26 years, I have concerns about how we, as a community, respond to diversity and to unpleasant and at times unsafe manifestations of poverty, systemic racism, and homo/transphobia. Post after post after post on the nextdoor platform fire off angry diatribes about packages being stolen from foyers, subway fare evasion, drug store shop lifting, drug dealing in Washington sq park, loitering and drug use in the streets… and an excessively long thread of alarm about neighbors feeling threatened by occasional caravans of Black youth on non-electric bicycles who you are criminalizing because, as you say “they’re not obeying traffic laws and who knows what they’re gonna do” and comment after comment after yet another angry comment of “call the police!” Of course, none of you are naming their blackness as what really scares you. It seems to be far more than you care to even acknowledge to yourselves, let alone admit openly, and your codes seem to do you just fine. You also seem to be just fine with calling the police on Black men, in turn putting their lives at risk… for running red lights on bicycles.
Whether it’s about young Black men on bicycles or people having mental health crises or so called thieves who are quite likely struggling to survive… common themes of these complaints and the comments that follow reek of right wing talking points as they call for more police and more arrests and less wokeness as they blame liberals and democrats for street crime and urban decay.
The prospect of a nightclub opening on 9th avenue that would feature trans dancers has brought on a couple of recent threads, one of which is excessively long, with a common theme among the comments sounding like “I’m not homophobic or transphobic and don’t you dare call me that but here’s my homophobic, transphobic, sensationalistic dehumanization and demand for exclusion.” Now while I can admittedly resonate with an aversion to late night drunken banter outside my window … and sidewalks overcrowded and obstructed by hooting and hollering revelers, the main talking points against this club of trans dancers are fears of drug use, prostitution, and other so called criminal activity that you assume it will bring in and how it endangers the children that go to the nearby schools several hours after the party has gone home.
Oh where to begin…
The assumption itself aside that such bogusly illegal acts will necessarily follow the opening of this club of trans dancers …what if they do?
Prostitution? So what. Are we really that puritan in 21st century NYC? Can we not recognize sex work as a legitimate trade for consenting adults, a way for people to earn a living when other options are next to nil? Can we not condemn and fight sex trafficking while at the same time differentiate and support those who are making their own choices… and give them some agency? If we are concerned about sex work culture in terms of how it effects people negatively…. rather than shame it and criminalize it, can we explore and challenge systemic issues, such as poverty and homophobia and transphobia, that create “sex work as only option” scenarios such as when queer youth get kicked out of their homes by bigoted parents and can’t get hired anywhere and need to find a way to survive? Probably not in this conversation, as it doesn’t seem to be the wellbeing of potential sex workers you’re concerned about, but, rather, children that occupy the nearby schools the next day who will be somehow tainted…and perhaps groomed? This classic Anita Bryant protect the children mentality reeks of transphobia and perpetuates the systemic marginalization and discrimination that lead to the need for the safe space of dance clubs such as the one you are villainizing and also lead to consequences of sex work and drug use and homelessness and mental health issues which so many of you fear.
And the drug use that you assume will occur… how exactly will that affect you and your children who can access violent and pornographic imagery on the electronics you furnish them? Have you been complaining all along about all the bars in the neighborhood, many of which spill onto the sidewalks? Have you been calling for an alcohol ban? Are you able to differentiate between use and abuse? Are you concerned about substance abuse among marginalized populations and interested in exploring systemic causes and harm reductive strategies? Or is this, as any other so called nuisance you’ve named, merely a quality of life issue for the affluent mainstream that should be solved by exclusion, police, and incarceration?
To those who post about missing packages with surveillance photos of mostly Black and brown and some gender non-conforming appearing suspects captioned “ARREST THIS THEIF!” Chelsea has one of the widest income gaps in the city, which says a lot. As long as there is a vast, continuously widening discrepancy of wealth, as the rich get richer and in turn make the poor even poorer, and basic needs become more and more unaffordable and inaccessible, especially to people of color and trans folk, there will always be somebody who can’t resist packages lying around. Fulfill your “lock them up” fantasies, and your packages will still not be safe from those desperate to survive and who feel like they have absolutely nothing to lose. We can try and change this dynamic systemically… but in the meantime, just as you would not leave your apartment doors unlocked, stop ordering expensive packages that would be a big deal to replace. This suggestion is especially dedicated to the irate neighbor whose missing package was worth $3000. Seriously.
To those who post and comment about subway and street safety, both data and common sense would tell us that the hyper-policing you beg for will not deter street crime, and it will not address the underlying problem. Police respond to crime. They don’t prevent it. Poverty creates street crime. If you don’t want anyone jumping turn-styles or jumping you, advocate for access to food, shelter, employment, healthcare, mental healthcare, and substance abuse rehab services.
To those who complain about displays of mental instability, and callously want these people banished to who knows what kind of vortex, consider what it would do to you, psychologically, to be thrown away… to lose your home, your comfort, your safety, your health, and to be blamed and shamed and shunned and criminalized. Consider how that would impact your stability whether or not you have underlying mental health issues. What if you or a loved one did have an underlying mental health issue that made it difficult to impossible to maintain employment and navigate a confusing and competitive system that is far from accommodating and sometimes hostile to your condition? While it is treated as such, having an unstable or otherwise non-functioning condition is not a crime. Treating sickness with hand cuffs and guns… that, as far as I am concerned, is the crime.
Dear Neighbors, most of us who reside in Chelsea and the West Village are fortunate and privileged. Let’s use our access to resources and power to challenge systems of inequity and oppression. Instead of obsessing on protecting our wealth and comfort and safety with so called law and order, let’s expand our protection needs to who you currently see as the other…and explore ways we can approach issues with compassion and justice.
Let’s do some internal work and challenge our implicit biases that make us feel unsafe when we are not actually unsafe.
To address instances when we are actually unsafe, let’s pan out and consider systemic causes and just solutions.
Instead of criminalizing victims of poverty, let’s criminalize policies that create poverty and urban decay, that result in skyrocketing, out of reach housing costs and aggressive gentrification.
Being poor is not a crime. Siphoning wealth and resources away from people and neighborhoods and communities, as far as basic human rights go, is a crime. Denying basic needs is a crime. Punishing victims of a system that set them up to fail…also a crime.
Rather than scream for more police and arrests, let’s scream for living wages and reparations and equitable wealth distribution.
My dear neighbors,
You have been exhibiting a dangerous and disturbing type of collective distress. Let’s slow down, take a breath, put down our pitchforks, and adopt politics of caring and sharing and community building rather than blaming and shaming and shunning. Let’s approach this with love, y’all. Love and justice.
Your neighbor,
Peter Jonas