Statement received from NightShade PGH on 03.08.18

Today, March 8, 2018, marks International Women’s Day, and across the globe millions of women and gender non-conforming people are showing up in solidarity with one another—many folks taking part in an international strike, rejecting capitalism as a means of liberation from the patriarchy. Actions ranging from strikes and protests to rallies and meetings have been reported in Spain, Kenya, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, and countless other locations around the United States and world. Nightshade is keeping an active eye on these various movements, and stands in solidarity and excitement with them as those involved continue to fight for their demands, big and small.

Particularly, it is important to remember the roots of International Women’s Day, which originated in 1909 as International Working Women’s Day, and its direct relationship with labor movements. While massive attention was drawn to the Women’s Day march last year in DC, marked by a sea of stunningly-gendered pink pussy hats, along with it came critiques of white-feminism and other organizing strategies which neglected to honor the voices of women of color and trans-women, and neglected to address the position of incarcerated women, poor women, and other women marginalized on multiple axes, in relation to capitalism and white supremacy. This year, however, Women’s Day falls right amidst the Teacher’s Strike in West Virginia, where, like in many states, 75% of teachers are women. According to Tithi Bhattacharya, an organizer involved with the International Women’s Strike,

“the core strength of [the teacher’s strike] lies in the fact that it is vast majority women, and because women play a very significant role bridging the gap between the workplace, the home and the community, when the teachers went on strike, a vast portion of the community was immediately galvanized in support of the teachers. So churches came out, community members came out, because women are not just teachers, they’re mothers, they’re church members, they’re breadwinners in their family. So they sort of form this astonishing bridge between the workplace and the home, making visible both kinds of labor.”

Compensation for unpaid or underpaid labor, whether in community organizing, emotional/care work, teaching, or elsewhere, is demanded on this day by women worldwide. The failure of current structures, whether on an institutional scale or in the household, to provide due credit, compensation, and support to women and gnc folks is a direct result of the interplay between capitalism and the heteronormative patriarchy. As demonstrated by a recent crackdown on sex-work and strip clubs in New Orleans, neoliberal privatization and gentrification, also known as “(re)development,” goes hand-in-hand with violence against women and trans- people, particularly those already in close proximity to gendered and sexual violence.

It is true, and has been shown by all of the recent strikes and acts of feminist resistance, that capitalism cannot function without the exploitation of women and gnc folks. And until that exploitation ends, we will not be free. Beyond this, Nightshade also stands in solidarity with those demanding an end to all violence against women and gnc people–the physical and sexual assault, the policing and gendering of our bodies, the repression of our minds and spirits. Every year when this day comes around, we are as sick and tired of being oppressed as any other day. We recognize that our fight against capitalism is a feminist fight, it is an intersectional fight, it is a queer fight. And we also understand that the worlds we build together, here and now, are crucial to the then and there of our imaginations, to our liberated futures which connect us to so many feminists past, present, and to come. We realize that the end to violence does not come without ceaseless practice of healing, defense, accountability, and learning new ways to be with one another. This requires ongoing work, where we hold each other with care and bravery, and move towards a world beyond patriarchy and all other forms of dominance.

As March 8th comes to a close, we encourage you to show love to the women and gnc folks in your life, not just today but every day. We mourn those who have been stolen from us so far this year by acts of gendered violence, and will continue to fight like hell for the living. Remember that this fight does not end when the spotlight disappears: this month Nightshade is holding a queer dance fundraiser where all proceeds will go to Survived and Punished, a collective which supports survivors of domestic violence criminalized for defending themselves, and we hope to see you there!

With queer love and rage, today and every day,

–The Nightshade Collective

Nightshade Pgh – Issue #1: Declaration

Nightshade is a collective of womyn and queer folks devoted to ensuring a safer community for women/POC/queer/trans folk in Oakland. Queers bash back! 

We are planning on putting our first zine out at the end of the month! The theme for the first issue is DECLARATION. So you can submit any type of art, writing, poetry, etc. which fits the theme and the groups ideologies. Create something beautiful about a topic you think the world needs to draw attention to.

DEADLINE: May 16th

Submit by emailing nightshadepitt@gmail.com

In Our Hands – Issue #2:
Breaking the Silence

Trigger warning: Sexual assault, violence, rape, abuse

In Our Hands—a survivor-centered community accountability reading, discussion, action and support group—is seeking submissions for the next issue of our zine. Our goal with this zine is to offer insight to other survivors on how to manage their own experiences and create an accountability process that is useful and empowering to them. We aim to dismantle Rape Culture by examining each piece of its extremely complex structure. One of the first steps in this process is to identify violent, abusive, and oppressive behaviors. We are looking for stories from survivors of sexual violence, abuse, and/or oppression about your experience and struggles with “breaking the silence.”

Some issues we would like this zine to address are:

• The process of identifying and recognizing what happened or is happening, and finding language to come forward about it;
  
• The problematic yet common occurrence of violence and re-traumatization that comes with survivor disclosure;
  
• The difficulty of dealing with other people’s emotions upon disclosure (such as coping with the emotional reactions of friends, family, intimate partners, as well as strangers, enemies, and allies of your perpetrator(s)); Conflicting emotions or confusing memory details.
• How did/do you reconcile those internal conflicts.

This zine is also aimed at supporters and allies of Survivors. We would like to hear from Survivors about:

• What types of support have you experienced that were helpful or harmful?
• What do you wish you had throughout your process of coming forward, holding accountability, and personal healing?

You may choose to address these questions directly, in essay form, or through other forms of creativity, such as poetry or visual art. We ask that written submissions please be limited to 2,000 words or less. Creative forms should be 2 pages or less, at 5.5×8.5″/page.

Please e-mail your submissions to in.our.hands.pgh@gmail.com.

To submit anonymously via email, you may use:https://anonymousemail.me/
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fanonymousemail.me%2F&h=VAQFY9VaOAQHJEExz6b2kceaPxoyHSm_G-5tNrTKQ42-jow&enc=AZMi2dP-qgv42EiYzFZ3Q1pb3_bfLXIaqHbGNNVtC3tzCCcOto7qSLMQcBlpBhP5uYhPrxSGwIq-3t5dS5Q0-k2LipYEbDFPKV47-v8H9UOzlvcSNwtDVoB7yQCFVDyvHfOhUqEJTabIbZZR0PgnUDayDoTG1jMcGzEeeGA_a7gOxE9akhRP6HebN_H5qoYry_Y&s=1>
(make sure to write “anonymous” or a pen name in the section titled “name”).

You can also mail a hard copy or digital file to:
In Our Hands
C/O The Big Idea Bookstore
4812 Liberty Ave.
Pittsburgh PA 15224

The deadline for submission is June 1, 2016.

Link to first zine:
http://in-our-hands-pgh.tumblr.com/zine

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miYWMe80mtA&w=560&h=315]

(cut to 10 minutes for the first disruption)

Some brave women took the lead in standing up to MRA Milo Yiannopoulos at Pitt.

TW: This jagoff literally got Trump bro’s to applaud in order to intentionally trigger survivors of assault, said campus rape culture doesn’t exist, spewed a ton of racist bullshit, and everything else you can imagine. 

Several students left the assembly room in tears.

“2468 STOP THE VIOLENCE STOP THE RAPE”

“WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER, WE’RE FEMINISTS AND WE’LL FUCK YOU UP”

Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition statement:

We do not believe that Milo should be censored, or that the administration has any right to prevent a student group from hosting controversial speakers.

That being said, the reality of campus rape culture is not an opinion, it is daily violence experienced by 1 in 5 of our female classmates. When Milo told a crowd of Trump-bros that rape culture isn’t real, they cheered. When he told them that applause would trigger survivors of assault, they clapped, pointed and laughed at women that were crying in the audience.

We are not trying to change their minds, we know they will never admit to their roles in oppression. There is no “debate” to be had over and over again in some imaginary vacuum, racism and sexism must be confronted.

If we do not confront bigots, we have no hope of stopping their violence. You cannot ignore hate-mongers because the violence they inspire will only spread. You cannot ignore large gatherings of racists and sexists because they will only continue to normalize their discourse and build their capacity to act. Trump’s new right-wing is part of a national movement that is growing in popularity regardless of the attention we give them.

The varying types of disruptions taken on by autonomous students, Pitt Against Debt members, USASers and PSSC were not intended to silence an “opinion” but rather to let the bros in the audience know that the culture of violence they perpetuate will no longer be tolerated.

Milo doesn’t just piss us off or upset us, he is threatening people. We went there to show the racists, transphobes, rapists and sexists in attendance that they are not welcome on this campus. We will fight back, because some of our lives depend on it.

PSSC post-Milo solidarity event statement:

This past week the Pitt College Republicans Hosted speaker Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of Pittsburgh. As many of us know, Milo’s presentation was blatant hate speech that incited acts of violence against marginalized students and created general fear and anxiety amongst many members of the Pitt Student body.
Following this event, many Pitt students are wondering what to do next. How do we as students move forward after an evening of such hate and trauma?

Some students want to reform the school or the SGB to bar speakers like Milo from our University. This idea is a great way to stop inciting hate speech from reaching our campus. However, censorship is a slippery slope, and this plan of action fails to address the broader reasons for Milo’s presence at Pitt. We cannot myopically view Milo’s appearance as a result of SGB or administration oversight. Rather, we must understand Milo’s hate speech within its national, political context.

Milo’s speech is part of a nationwide movement of hatred, of threatening and murdering our brothers and sisters from marginalized and oppressed communities. It is no coincedence that students were chanting “TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP” as feminist protesters disrupted Milo’s event. Monday night highlighted a movement of hatred on our campus and in our nation that is bigger than one speaker or one student club. This is a national movement that condones misogyny, homophobia, racism, transmisogyny and xenophobia. This is a national movement that has called for it’s followers to carry out acts of violence against people from marginalized or otherwise oppositional communities. Thus, we must address Milo’s presence and form strategies of resistance based on the national context in which this event and its aftermath is occurring.

As we move forward as a student body, we need to take into account the contingency of students on our campus who are currently willing to terrorize students from marginalized and oppressed identities. What do we do as students when we see men harassing our sisters at a South O party this weekend? What do we do tomorrow when we see the police threatening our friends of color?

The administration and our SGB has given us wishy-washy answers promising that they are making changes but enusring us that change is slow to come. Unfortuantley, promises of change from our systems of governance are often more about PR and attracting prospective students than fundamentally addressing the issues that we as students have. Has anyone noticed a decrease in sexual assault since the It’s on Us campaign began? Has any trans student felt safer now that we have gender neuteral housing? The changes that the administration and SGB can offer us are important but they do not address the root reason for the hatred that is unleashed against marginalized students on this campus. The promises of “change will happen” does more to pacify us and to stop us from fighting for our needs than it does to fully address the problems we have.

With reform only going so far to address our concerns, we need to think of new ways to ensure that students on our campus are safe and able to express their identies. We must fundamentally change the way that we as students support one another. Our struggles are united in an effort to oppose the movement of hatred that Milo represents. In that regard, it is important that we stand with one another to support eachother, to provide for one another. We need to change the culture of our campus from one of apathetic disregard towards issues from marginalized students to active participation in ensuring that students from marginalized groups are respected and safe.

With this in mind, join us tomorrow night to discuss our needs and to discuss how we as students can provide for one another and empower eachother to stand in solidarity against hatred. Join us as we choose to stand in solidarity for love and care.

One of the flyers that was thrown in the air:

Communiqué distributed during the first autonomous disruption:

Ok, we get it. You disagree. Why didn’t you just ask some tough questions? Isn’t that a better use of your right to free speech?

The discourse of free speech in democracy presumes that no significant imbalances of power exist, and that the primary mechanism of change is rational discussion.

There can be no truly free speech except among equals—among parties who are not just equal before the law, but who have comparable access to resources and equal say in the world they share.

Just last month in Pittsburgh, Janese Talton Jackson was shot to death for telling a man “no.” Is a woman really as free to express herself as a man, when even a simple “no” can get her killed?

Ideas alone have no intrinsic force. Our capacity to act on our beliefs, not just to express them, determines how much power we have. In this sense, the “free speech in crisis” slogan is strikingly apt: in America, you need capital (and often times some good ol’ white cis-male privilege) to participate, and the more capital you have, the greater your ability to enact the ideas you buy into.

In a country where nearly every textbook, every classroom, and every TV-screened political debate affirm the logic of hetero-normative patriarchy, capitalism and the State, the “free and equal exchange of ideas” is a hollow gesture. Given this larger context, most dialogue around “the issues” is just a superficial repetition of foregone conclusions, based on the unexamined larger frameworks for understanding that we’ve already been given. This is what passes for “debate” in this society. It should be no surprise that its function is to keep things as they are.

What’s more, what is the point of debate if there is no sanctioned action to achieve the results of that debate? If every misogynist was suddenly convinced of the reality of sexism, would the Patriarchy suddenly crumble? We would still find ourselves in a place where our only choices lie between the endless deliberations of useless politicians, on the one hand, and the direct action of our own social forces, on the other.

So this all raises the question: What happens when the debate is over? Do we act then? But what if our acting stifles further debate? Is that bad? When do we act?

This action is in solidarity with the brave queer folx and women at Rutgers. You are an inspiration, and we send our love, rage and solidarity.

Shout out to the UNControllables at the University of North Carolina, we totally ripped off The Divorce of Thought from Deed for this communiqué.

Some Street Justice:

The Student Government Board held a forum for students to voice their concerns about the event, a blatant attempt to recuperate student anger within the conventional channels. Some reformist groups took the bait and are now attempting to force the administration and SGB to remove their neutrality clause and restrict the ability for student groups to book controversial speakers. Should they succeed, the admin will clearly use their new power to censor anarchist and other revolutionary speakers, not just hate-mongers. And it’s hard enough to secure any funding for the events that radicals book in the first place. However, the forum did at least embarrass the school and catalyze a wave of solidarity efforts.

At the forum, several Pitt Republicans mocked and photographed survivors of sexual assault as they courageously relived their trauma in front of a large crowd. In retaliation, an unknown number of hackers created fake facebook accounts for these assholes, editing their real photos as negatives and flipping them upside down, and posted their personal information online, including their home addresses and their parents’ phone numbers. The next day, flyers with the fascist assholes’ names, faces, and parents’ phone numbers were spotted around campus.

While we think this autonomous action is pretty badass, we’re not going to get that personal and repost the information.

You can read the reformist demands HERE

Photo cred goes to Cayley Dittmer!