December 4, 2015

“MISOGYNY

ON THE MAG MILE:

A TURNING POINT”

– BLACK QUEER

WOMEN

ORGANIZERS

ATTACKED DURING

BLACK FRIDAY

DEMONSTRATION

By Alexander Aplerku, AFROPUNK Contributor

On Black Friday, several Black queer women organizers were attacked by male attendees during Chicago’s Black Friday demonstration on the Magnificent Mile. Radical Faggot reports: “As organizers began to address the crowd, several well-known Black elders forced their way to the front, pushed youth organizers [youth groups such as BYP100, FLY and Assata’s Daughters were in attendance] back from the mic, and one man actually began elbowing a young, Black, queer woman in the face. Minutes later, when one of the heads of BYP confronted the elder, he swung on a second Black woman, shouting sexist and homophobic slurs, and a small scuffle ensued.” WTF?! As RadFag clearly states, these women are the same freedom fighters who have fought tirelessly for the black community: “The Black, queer women targeted in this attack were the same ones who had been clashing with police in the streets all week, including the night the video of Laquan was released. They were the same organizers who had staged and been arrested in the shutdown of the IACP conference in Chicago last month. They were the youth who have been working tirelessly to lift up the name of Rekia Boyd, and who created a seamless campaign to fire Dante Servin, the officer who killed her. They were the same youth who have been instrumental in organizing for and ultimately winning a trauma center for the South Side, and who led the original Black Friday shutdown of the Magnificent Mile in 2014. In short, they were badass, Black, queer, young women who have orchestrated and overseen long-term campaigns for Black lives in the city of Chicago with little to no support from the male elders who attacked them.”

>via: http://www.afropunk.com/profiles/blogs/feature-misogyny-on-the-mag-mile-a-turning-point-black-queer