Showing posts with label The Nation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Nation. Show all posts

Sunday, July 7, 2013

The Nation Article About Christine Quinn And Homonationalism

From "The Powerful Lesson of New York's Police Oversight Law" (The Nation) :

"Then there was Christine Quinn, notorious for her vow to offer Police Commissioner Ray Kelly the same job. Perhaps she just is not that angry about how Kelly has treated Muslims and people of color New Yorkers, whether gay or straight. But the NYPD has also directly profiled queer people. It’s common for transgender and non-gender-conforming people to be stopped and arrested for prostitution simply for carrying condoms, and until recently many trans people were afraid to carry condoms for fear they could be used as evidence against them in court. I’m not alone in my ire for Quinn or my sense that she’s a flip-flopper (e.g., she voted no on 1080, but yes on 1079). There was even an “LGBT against Quinn” contingent at last weekend’s pride march. How depressing that a host of prominent gay and lesbians groups and activists—most recently Edith Windsor herself—have endorsed Quinn’s run for mayor. That’s homonationalism in action."

 photo 2013-06-30LGBTAgainstQuinn_zps4582a162.jpg

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Ed Koch and the AIDS Crisis - A Historical Fact Checking Duel Between NYT and YouTube Videos

In response to the biased "praises" and instant beatification of Ed Koch, I made a YouTube video set to music by Dalida, to help visualise former Mayor Ed Koch's complete failure on the AIDS crisis.

My video was made in response to the video promoted by The New York Times, which whitewashes any responsibility or culpability of the AIDS crisis away from former Mayor Ed Koch :

I'd love to hear what folks think ?

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Ed Koch, the Closet, Neoliberalism, and AIDS

From The Nation

The instant beatification of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has a lot of folks itching to do some grave dancing. Leftists will denounce Koch because he was one of the original neoliberal mayors, ushering in a regime of gentrification and finance-driven inequality that defines the city to this day. Minorities regard him with suspicion because he marginalized the city’s black and Hispanic leadership and inflamed racial fault lines to corner the white vote, presaging the Sister Souljah moments that would come to afflict the national Democratic Party. And yet even there, among the new Democrats, Koch was never a stalwart, breaking with the party to endorse George W. Bush for president in 2004 and flirting with the neocons over Israel late in his life.

All that said, there is a special place reserved for Koch in gay hell—because he was mayor during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, which he is widely seen as failing to do enough about, and because it’s commonly assumed that Koch was a closeted gay man. “I hope he’s burning next to Roy Cohn”—or sentiments quite like it—have appeared frequently on my Facebook feed, especially from vets of ACT UP. ...

Read more : Ed Koch and the Cost of the Closet (The Nation)