Iowa football settles race bias lawsuit using taxpayer money


IIn this Dec. 19, 2019, file photo, Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand speaks in Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 19, 2019. A proposed settlement for more than $4 million has been reached in the lawsuit brought by former Iowa football players who alleged racial discrimination in coach Kirk Ferentz's program. The office of State Auditor Rob Sand disclosed the proposed settlement on Monday, March 6, 2023, and he was scheduled to speak at a news conference where he will announce his opposition to using taxpayer money to pay a portion of the settlement unless university athletic director Gary Barta is fired. (Brian Powers/The Des Moines Register via AP, File, File)

ERIC OLSON
Mon, March 6, 2023

Iowa taxpayers will pay $2 million to help the University of Iowa athletic department settle a lawsuit brought by former football players who allege racial discrimination existed in coach Kirk Ferentz's program, a state board decided in a vote Monday.

The state's Appeal Board voted 2-1 to approve the use of taxpayer funds for half of the $4.175 million settlement over the objection of State Auditor Rob Sand, a board member who said athletic director Gary Barta should be fired for a series of lawsuits ending in settlements under his watch.

“I can’t imagine a private company that would still have someone at the helm after four discrimination lawsuits under that person’s leadership,” Sand said at a news conference before the vote. "The athletic department, they’ve got the funds for it. The broadcast deal brings tens of millions of dollars every year going forward. I don’t know why they can’t cover their own mistakes and pay for their own mistakes instead of having taxpayer’s do it.”

The lawsuit filed in November 2020 involved former players including former star running back Akrum Wadley and career receptions leader Kevonte Martin-Manley. They alleged they were demeaned with racial slurs, forced to abandon Black hairstyles, fashion and culture to fit the “Iowa Way” promoted by Ferentz, and retaliated against for speaking out.

A message was left for Tulsa-based attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, who brought the lawsuit on behalf of about a dozen Black former players.

In response to a request for comment from Barta, the athletic department sent a statement attributed to him, saying the department “remains committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for every student-athlete and staff member involved in our program.”

“The Hawkeyes over-arching goal to win every time we compete, graduate every student-athlete that comes to Iowa, and to do it right, remains our focus,” the statement reads.

Barta has been Iowa's athletic director since 2006. In a statement to the Appeal Board, Sand noted four discrimination cases totaling nearly $7 million in damages under Barta's watch. The largest of those was $6.5 million to settle a lawsuit in 2017 over the firing of former field hockey coach Tracey Griesbaum. The money used to pay that settlement came from the athletic department, which does not rely on taxpayer funding.

State treasurer Roby Smith and Department of Management director Kraig Paulsen are the other two Appeal Board members.

Paulsen, before voting yes, said it's not up to the board to play a role in Barta's employment status.

“We’re here to make a decision as to what’s in the best interest of (Iowa) and it seems to me, upon the recommendation of the Attorney General, this is the wise decision to make,” Paulsen said, according to Des Moines television station KCCI.

Barta, Ferentz, his son and offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz and former strength coach Chris Doyle were dismissed from the lawsuit last week, which signaled that a proposed settlement was imminent.

Kirk Ferentz said in a statement he is “greatly disappointed” in how the matter was resolved. He said negotiations took place between the plaintiffs’ attorney and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which represents the university and the state Board of Regents.

“These discussions took place entirely without the knowledge or consent of the coaches who were named in the lawsuit,” Ferentz said. “In fact, the parties originally named disagree with the decision to settle, fully believing that the case would have been dismissed with prejudice before trial.”

Ferentz added that “as part of the settlement, the coaches named were dismissed from the lawsuit and there is no admission of any wrongdoing.”

The agreement calls for $2.85 million to be divided among 12 players and $1.9 million to go to Solomon-Simmons Law for fees and expenses.

In addition, the university would direct $90,000 to support graduate or professional school tuition for the plaintiffs, with no individual receiving more than $20,000, and provide mental health counseling for the plaintiffs through March 15, 2024. The athletic department also is required to hire University of Texas Black studies professor Leonard Moore to oversee a five-year diversity, equity and inclusion plan.

The players initially sought $20 million in damages plus the firings of Barta and the Ferentzes.

Doyle agreed to leave Iowa five months before the lawsuit was filed after widespread accusations that the longtime strength coach used his position to bully and disparage former players, particularly those who are Black. Iowa agreed to pay Doyle $1.1 million in a resignation agreement.

In 2020, before the lawsuit, the university hired the Husch Blackwell law firm to review the program after dozens of former players, most of them Black, spoke out on social media to allege racial disparities and mistreatment. Their activism came as protests against racial injustice swept the nation following the death of George Floyd and after attempts to raise concerns inside the program resulted in only minor changes.

The report said that some of the football program’s rules “perpetuated racial or cultural biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity.”

Iowa football settles race bias lawsuit using taxpayer money

ERIC OLSON
Mon, March 6, 2023 

Iowa taxpayers will pay $2 million to help the University of Iowa athletic department settle a lawsuit brought by former football players who allege racial discrimination existed in coach Kirk Ferentz's program, a state board decided in a vote Monday.

The state's Appeal Board voted 2-1 to approve the use of taxpayer funds for half of the $4.175 million settlement over the objection of State Auditor Rob Sand, a board member who said athletic director Gary Barta should be fired for a series of lawsuits ending in settlements under his watch.

“I can’t imagine a private company that would still have someone at the helm after four discrimination lawsuits under that person’s leadership,” Sand said at a news conference before the vote. "The athletic department, they’ve got the funds for it. The broadcast deal brings tens of millions of dollars every year going forward. I don’t know why they can’t cover their own mistakes and pay for their own mistakes instead of having taxpayer’s do it.”

The lawsuit filed in November 2020 involved former players including former star running back Akrum Wadley and career receptions leader Kevonte Martin-Manley. They alleged they were demeaned with racial slurs, forced to abandon Black hairstyles, fashion and culture to fit the “Iowa Way” promoted by Ferentz, and retaliated against for speaking out.

A message was left for Tulsa-based attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, who brought the lawsuit on behalf of about a dozen Black former players.

In response to a request for comment from Barta, the athletic department sent a statement attributed to him, saying the department “remains committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for every student-athlete and staff member involved in our program.”

“The Hawkeyes over-arching goal to win every time we compete, graduate every student-athlete that comes to Iowa, and to do it right, remains our focus,” the statement reads.

Barta has been Iowa's athletic director since 2006. In a statement to the Appeal Board, Sand noted four discrimination cases totaling nearly $7 million in damages under Barta's watch. The largest of those was $6.5 million to settle a lawsuit in 2017 over the firing of former field hockey coach Tracey Griesbaum. The money used to pay that settlement came from the athletic department, which does not rely on taxpayer funding.

State treasurer Roby Smith and Department of Management director Kraig Paulsen are the other two Appeal Board members.

Paulsen, before voting yes, said it's not up to the board to play a role in Barta's employment status.

“We’re here to make a decision as to what’s in the best interest of (Iowa) and it seems to me, upon the recommendation of the Attorney General, this is the wise decision to make,” Paulsen said, according to Des Moines television station KCCI.

Barta, Ferentz, his son and offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz and former strength coach Chris Doyle were dismissed from the lawsuit last week, which signaled that a proposed settlement was imminent.

Kirk Ferentz said in a statement he is “greatly disappointed” in how the matter was resolved. He said negotiations took place between the plaintiffs’ attorney and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which represents the university and the state Board of Regents.

“These discussions took place entirely without the knowledge or consent of the coaches who were named in the lawsuit,” Ferentz said. “In fact, the parties originally named disagree with the decision to settle, fully believing that the case would have been dismissed with prejudice before trial.”

Ferentz added that “as part of the settlement, the coaches named were dismissed from the lawsuit and there is no admission of any wrongdoing.”

The agreement calls for $2.85 million to be divided among 12 players and $1.9 million to go to Solomon-Simmons Law for fees and expenses.

In addition, the university would direct $90,000 to support graduate or professional school tuition for the plaintiffs, with no individual receiving more than $20,000, and provide mental health counseling for the plaintiffs through March 15, 2024. The athletic department also is required to hire University of Texas Black studies professor Leonard Moore to oversee a five-year diversity, equity and inclusion plan.

The players initially sought $20 million in damages plus the firings of Barta and the Ferentzes.

Doyle agreed to leave Iowa five months before the lawsuit was filed after widespread accusations that the longtime strength coach used his position to bully and disparage former players, particularly those who are Black. Iowa agreed to pay Doyle $1.1 million in a resignation agreement.

In 2020, before the lawsuit, the university hired the Husch Blackwell law firm to review the program after dozens of former players, most of them Black, spoke out on social media to allege racial disparities and mistreatment. Their activism came as protests against racial injustice swept the nation following the death of George Floyd and after attempts to raise concerns inside the program resulted in only minor changes.

The report said that some of the football program’s rules “perpetuated racial or cultural biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity.”

___

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/ap_top25 Sign up for the AP Top 25 newsletter here: https://link.apnews.com/join/6nr/morning-wire-newsletter-footer-internal-ads

Oklahoma voters reject legalizing recreational marijuana





 Oklahoma Marijuana Store manager Josh Poole is pictured in a Mango Cannabis medical marijuana dispensary, Monday, March 6, 2023, in Oklahoma City. 
ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 7, 2023


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma voters on Tuesday rejected the legalization of recreational marijuana, following a late blitz of opposition from faith leaders, law enforcement and prosecutors.

Oklahoma would have become the 22nd state to legalize adult use of cannabis and join conservative states like Montana and Missouri that have approved similar proposals in recent years. Many conservative states have also rejected the idea, including Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota last year.

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and many of the state’s GOP legislators, including nearly every Republican senator, opposed the idea. Former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, an ex-FBI agent, and Terri White, the former head of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, led the "no" campaign.

“We’re pleased the voters have spoken," said Pat McFerron, a Republican political strategist who ran the opposition campaign. "We think this sends a clear signal that voters are not happy with the recreational nature of our medicinal system. We also think it shows voters recognize the criminal aspects, as well as the need for addressing mental health needs of the state.”

Oklahoma voters already approved medical marijuana in 2018 by 14 percentage points and the state has one of the most liberal programs in the country, with more than 2,800 licensed dispensaries and roughly 10% of the state’s adult population having a medical license to buy and consume cannabis.

On Tuesday's legalization question, the “no” side was outspent more than 20-to-1, with supporters of the initiative spending more than $4.9 million, compared to about $219,000 against, last-minute campaign finance reports show.

State Question 820, the result of a signature gathering drive last year, was the only item on the statewide ballot, and early results showed heavy opposition in rural areas.

“Oklahoma is a law and order state," Stitt said in a statement after Tuesday's vote. "I remain committed to protecting Oklahomans and my administration will continue to hold bad actors accountable and crack down on illegal marijuana operations in our state.”

The proposal, if passed, would have allowed anyone over the age of 21 to purchase and possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, plus concentrates and marijuana-infused products. Recreational sales would have been subjected to a 15% excise tax on top of the standard sales tax. The excise tax would be used to help fund local municipalities, the court system, public schools, substance abuse treatment and the state’s general revenue fund.

The prospect of having more Oklahomans smoking anything, including marijuana, didn't sit well with Mark Grossman, an attorney who voted against the proposal Tuesday at the Crown Heights Christian Church in Oklahoma City.

“I was a no vote because I'm against smoking,” Grossman said. “Tobacco smoking was a huge problem for my family.”

The low barriers for entry into Oklahoma's medical marijuana industry has led to a flood of growers, processors and dispensary operators competing for a limited number of customers. Supporters had hoped the state's marijuana industry would be buoyed by a rush of out-of-state customers, particularly from Texas, which has close to 8 million people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area just a little more than an hour drive from the Oklahoma border.

Michelle Tilley, campaign director for Yes on 820, said despite Tuesday's result, full marijuana legalization was inevitable. She noted that almost 400,000 Oklahomans already use marijuana legally and “many thousands more” use it illegally.

“A two-tiered system, where one group of Oklahomans is free to use this product and the other is treated like criminals does not make logical sense,” she said in a statement.

Oklahoma Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Effort To Legalize Recreational Marijuana

Jonathan Nicholson
Tue, March 7, 2023 

Oklahoma voters sharply rejected a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana Tuesday, a defeat that came almost five years after voters had easily approved the legalization of medical marijuana.

With almost all precincts having reported, the vote on State Question 820 was 62% opposed and 38% in favor.

“We think this sends a clear message that Oklahomans oppose the unfettered access to marijuana we have experienced under our so-called medical program. Voters clearly want to protect our children, crack down on organized crime and improve the mental health of those in our state,” said Pat McFerron, a spokesperson and pollster for Protect Our Kids No 820.

The campaign was a relatively low-key affair, though, as the vote was pushed back from the November 2022 date marijuana proponents had been hoping for to March, where the initiative was the sole item to be voted on in many places.

Supporters of legalized recreational marijuana saw that placement as one of the main obstacles to its approval.

“With a March special election and no other issues on the ballot, we knew from the beginning this would be an uphill battle,” said Brian Vicente, a lawyer and a steering committee member for the pro-legalization group Yes on 820.

Michelle Tilley, the group’s campaign director, said it was only a matter of time before Oklahoma joined 21 other states in approving marijuana for recreational use.

With a March special election and no other issues on the ballot, we knew from the beginning this would be an uphill battle.Brian Vicente, steering commitee member for the Yes on 820 pro-legalization group

“There are almost 400,000 Oklahomans ― that’s almost 10% of our population ― using marijuana legally; there are many thousands more using marijuana acquired off the illicit market,” she said.

“A two-tiered system, where one group of Oklahomans is free to use this product and the other is treated like criminals does not make logical sense.”

Proponents touted the prospect of additional tax revenue for the state from expanding the marijuana market and the fairness of allowing people with minor convictions in marijuana cases to have them expunged.

Opponents, led by former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, a onetime FBI agent, pointed to problems with the existing medical marijuana regime as well as fears that legalizing recreational marijuana would bring more crime and environmental problems.

Legalization advocates held a decisive edge in cash for the campaign, raising $3.2 million through the end of 2022 and airing broadcast TV commercials in the closing weeks. The anti-legalization side, according to its pollster Pat McFerron, was expected to spend only about $250,0000 and concentrate on satellite and cable TV ads.

Ethan McKee, vice president of Mango Cannabis, weighs marijuana flowers at an Oklahoma City dispensary on Feb. 28.

Ethan McKee, vice president of Mango Cannabis, weighs marijuana flowers at an Oklahoma City dispensary on Feb. 28.

But the backdrop was in many ways unfavorable to marijuana advocates. In November, four Chinese nationals were found shot to death at a farm in rural Kingfisher County in a crime that made headlines statewide and that law enforcement officials said showed the potential pitfalls of a larger cannabis industry.

In addition, there had been growing and bipartisan consensus that regulation of medical marijuana, which was approved in a similar statewide vote by a 57% to 43% margin in 2018, had not kept up with the industry’s explosive growth. Oklahoma has nearly three times as many licensed cannabis dispensaries and almost as many licensed grow facilities as California, despite the latter having 10 times Oklahoma’s population and having already legalized recreational marijuana years ago.

Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general praised the vote Tuesday, saying, “Regardless of where one stands on the question of marijuana legalization, the stark reality is that organized crime from China and Mexico has infiltrated Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry.”

The recreational marijuana measure voted on Tuesday would have allowed sales to residents 21and older and taxed them at 15%. Proceeds from the taxes would have been split among schools, drug treatment programs and state and local governments. It also would have allowed for the expungement of minor marijuana-related criminal convictions.

According to the pro-legalization advocates, about 4,500 Oklahomans are arrested annually over small amounts of marijuana. Ryan Kiesel, a senior adviser to Yes on 820, said expungement of criminal records must still be fought for.

“We have thousands of families being torn apart and thrown into chaos every year because a mom or a dad has a small amount of marijuana that would be legal in 21 other states and legal in Oklahoma for medical card holders,” he said.

Ahead of the vote, Drummond told the Tulsa-based Black Wall Street Times he was willing to look at making expungement easier.

“If it does not pass, I do think in the spirit of criminal justice reform, marijuana possession and consumption should be addressed. And there should be a mechanism considered by the legislature that I’m happy to administer toward the expungement of those things,” he said.

'We are going to keep showing up.' Activists rally at Oklahoma Capitol for gun reforms

Aspen Ford and Jessie Christopher Smith, Oklahoman
Tue, March 7, 2023 

More than 50 gun safety advocates rallied Monday morning at the Oklahoma Capitol to demand legislators strengthen the state's gun laws.

Members and volunteers of the Oklahoma chapter of Moms Demand Action ― a nationwide movement that started after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting more than 10 years ago ― and the parent nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety gathered on the steps of the Capitol to call for tightening gun loopholes and passing commonsense gun reform.

"I know we’re dealing with a false reputation here that we’re trying to take people’s guns, but we're gun owners," said Beth Furnish, a volunteer leader for the Moms Demand Action chapter. "Like a lot of Oklahomans, we have firearms at home. We have veterans. We have a broad representation of concerned people that are just fed up with lawmakers not doing anything to address gun violence that’s impacting people’s lives."

Members and volunteers of the Oklahoma chapter of Moms Demand Action and the parent nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety gathered Monday on the steps of the Capitol to call for tightening gun loopholes and passing common sense gun reform.

More:How America’s schools have changed since deadliest mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary

Several other participants at the rally voiced similar feelings, emphasizing that they were not opposed to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the right to bear arms, but felt that passing "reasonable regulations" would help lessen higher rates of gun violence.

Cacky Poarch, 55, said she joined Oklahoma's Moms Demand Action after the Parkland shooting in 2018, and feels compelled by the mass shootings she sees in media reports to advocate for more gun safety.

"We, of course, have seen so many school shootings over and over and over," Poarch said. "Unfettered access to firearms makes us less safe on so many levels."

Joshua Harris-Till, a cousin of the late Emmett Till, also joined the group Monday. He said people in his family have been affected by gun violence and believes the state needs to do a better job preventing people with histories of mental health issues from having such easy access to firearms.

"My two little brothers were 13 and 10 the first time they got shot, and I lost my sister to that," Harris-Till said. "It’s something that’s extremely important. And there’s multiple stories for folks in our organization who relate to things like that, who don’t want other families to go through what they’ve gone through."

Harris-Till told The Oklahoman he believes that many of the state's legislators, who are overwhelmingly Republican, don't necessarily advocate so fiercely for loosening gun restrictions because they believe the bills will make it out of committee, but because they want to remain part of a national narrative and need to "prove they're more 2A than the next guy" to their constituents.

"It’s not like their constituents are saying, 'Hey, we need more pro-gun bills'; it’s them saying, 'Hey, I have to be pro-gun to be reelected,'" Harris-Till said, attributing the state's hyper-partisan focus on guns to "demagoguery."

Moms Demand Action members rally Monday on the south plaza of the Capitol.

State Rep. Trish Ranson, D-Stillwater, championed a bill that would repeal the state's 2020 anti-red flag law and allow for "extreme risk protection orders" that prohibit or temporarily remove firearms from an individual if they pose a threat to themselves or others. Ranson said the bill never even had a committee hearing.

“But I wanted to start the conversation," Ranson said. "I think we need to have common sense gun laws so that way everyone is safe, but not just gun owners.”

Ranson said she is often discouraged by the state's high rate of domestic abuse and increasingly vitriolic rhetoric against teachers who, under some proposals, could even be asked to carry firearms in place of security personnel. Ranson believes it would be unhealthy for both the teachers and the students to have the dynamics of their classroom relationship complicated by a gun.

"At some point, people have to understand the logic in the way we treat each other," Ranson said. "I just feel like there will be a time when things balance out and the pendulum will swing back and we’ll be able to find some common sense gun laws that we can put in place."

State Sen. Julia Kirt was originally scheduled to speak at the rally Monday, but could not attend due to illness. Her office, however, provided a statement of support for the organizers.

"I always appreciate having people in the People's House voicing their concerns and sharing the common sense reforms they see to issues like gun violence," Kirt's statement read.

Candace Frates, of Tulsa, claps Monday at Moms Demand Action rally on the south plaza of the Capitol.

Some advocates consider SB 1046 ― a bill proposed by state Sen. Darrell Weaver and state Rep. Robert Manger that would make the first conviction of violence against a pregnant woman a felony ― as the most viable proposal out of Oklahoma's current Legislature.

But activists with Moms Demand Action hope that continued advocacy will bring awareness to other statewide proposals.

"The gun violence doesn’t stop, so we are going to keep showing up," Furnish said. "Until lawmakers respond to the people in this state, we’re going to keep coming. We make our presence known, we’re watching, we’re demanding that they do something."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Organizers, volunteers rally at Oklahoma Capitol to demand gun reform

Tank Fire Prompts Evacuation at Port of Catoosa, Oklahoma

The roof of a chemical tank (foreground) caught fire at the Port of Catoosa on Wednesday, prompting a full evacuation (

Tulsa Fire Department / Gabe Graveline)

PUBLISHED FEB 17, 2023 12:48 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

On Wednesday, a fire broke out on the top of a chemical storage tank at the Port of Catoosa, an inland port at the western end of Oklahoma's Verdigris River. 

The fire broke out at about 0900 hours local time on Wednesday, and the port and a nearby elementary school were evacuated as a precautionary measure. Smoke from the tank was drifting towards a residential area, so local residents were ordered to shelter in place while fire crews responded to the blaze. 

According to the Tulsa Fire Deparment, the tank was empty at the time that the fire broke out. The first fire crew on scene reported fire and heavy smoke, and they applied water to extinguish the fire. Once the fire was out and temperatures on the tank fell, the site was turned back over to the tank farm operator. 

"You know, we prepare for it," Port Director David Yarbrough told local media. "Every now and then, something goes not according to plan, and you just react, and you do what you gotta do."

The extent of the damage to the tank is still under investigation, but some amount of soil surface remediation is expected. 

Image courtesy Tulsa Fire Department / Gabe Graveline

Port of Catoosa is a 2,000-acre industrial park and intermodal port on the northeast edge of Tulsa, and it is one of the largest, furthest-inland riverine ports in the United States. Its lessees employ about 3,000 people in a variety of manufacturing industries. The Verdigris River connects the port with the Arkansas River, then onwards to the Mississippi, and handles about 1,000 barges per year in traffic. 

Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier Set for Monday, Feb. 6th

Leonard Peltier  was arrested in Canada on Feb. 6, 1976. 

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF FEBRUARY 04, 2023

On February 6, 1976, Leonard Peltier was arrested in Hinton, Alberta, Canada. Monday, February 6th will mark the 47th anniversary of his arrest.

Following a controversial trial, Peltier was convicted of aiding and abetting murder of two FBi agents and has been imprisoned ever since. Many people and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others believe Peltier is a political prisoner who should be immediately released.

To mark the anniversary, people worldwide will commemorate Monday as a Day of Solidarity for Leonard Peltier, who is currently incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Coleman, Florida.  

As he enters his 48th year of incarceration, hundreds of his supporters will host “Rise Up for Peltier” events in numerous cities around the world, including Paris, Rome, Berlin, Switzerland. 

In the United States, events will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Rapid City, South Dakota; Tampa, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tulsa, Oklahoma; San Francisco, California; and Washington, D.C. 

Related: A Message to President Biden: No Prisoner Swap Needed to FREE Leonard Peltier

Peltier is 78 years old in deteriorating health with multiple serious ailments. Supporters have been asking President Joe Biden to grant clemency so that he can spend his final years with his loved ones and tribal community.

Those interested in sending President Biden a letter should address the letter as follows:

President Joseph Biden 

The White House 

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW 

Washington, DC 20500 USA

JESUS RAISED THE DEAD, VIAGRA CAN TOO

‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

This year’s Super Bowl will feature a $20 million pair of pro-Jesus ads promoting the idea that Jesus ‘gets us,’ part of the larger ‘He Gets Us’ campaign. Organizers hope to spend a billion dollars in the next three years to redeem Jesus’ brand.

He Gets Us social media posts. Courtesy images

January 26, 2023

By 

Bob Smietana

(RNS) — The first time she saw an ad for “He Gets Us,” a national campaign devoted to redeeming the brand of Christianity’s savior, Jennifer Quattlebaum had one thought on her mind.

Show me the money.

A self-described “love more” Christian and ordinary mom who works in marketing, Quattlebaum loved the message of the ad, which promoted the idea that Jesus understands contemporary issues from a grassroots perspective. But she wondered who was paying for the ads and what their agenda was.

“I mean, Jesus gets us,” she said. “But what group is behind them?”

For the past 10 months, the “He Gets Us” ads have shown up on billboards, YouTube channels and television screens — most recently during NFL playoff games — across the country, all spreading the message that Jesus understands the human condition.

The campaign is a project of the Servant Foundation, an Overland Park, Kansas, nonprofit that does business as The Signatry, but the donors backing the campaign have until recently remained anonymous — in early 2022, organizers only told Religion News Service that funding came from “like-minded families who desire to see the Jesus of the Bible represented in today’s culture with the same relevance and impact He had 2000 years ago.” 

But in November, David Green, the billionaire co-founder of Hobby Lobby, told talk show host Glenn Beck that his family was helping fund the ads. Green, who was on the program to discuss his new book on leadership, told Beck that his family and other families would be helping fund an effort to spread the word about Jesus.

“You’re going to see it at the Super Bowl — ‘He gets Us,’” said Green. “We are wanting to say — we being a lot of people — that he gets us. He understands us. He loves who we hate. I think we have to let the public know and create a movement.”

---

RELATED:  A $100 million ad campaign wants to fix Jesus’ image. His followers remain a problem.

---

Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a branding firm based in Grand Haven, Michigan, that is working on the “He Gets Us” campaign, confirmed that the Greens are one of the major funders, among a variety of donors and families who have gotten behind it.

Donors to the project are all Christians but come from a range of denominational backgrounds, said Vanderground. 

Organizers have also signed up 20,000 churches to provide volunteers to follow up with anyone who sees the ads and asks for more information. Those churches are not, however, he said, funding the campaign.

A Vegas-themed “He Gets Us” campaign advertisement at Harmon Corner in Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of “He Gets Us”

The Super Bowl ads alone will cost about $20 million, according to organizers, who originally described “He Gets Us” as a $100 million effort. 

“The goal is to invest about a billion dollars over the next three years,” he said. “And that is just the first phase.”

One of the ads that aired during the NFL playoffs was titled “That Day” and tells the story of an innocent man being executed.

“Jesus rejected resentment on the cross,” the ad says. “He gets us. All of us.”

A billion-dollar, three-year campaign would be on a par with advertising budgets for major brands such as Kroger grocery stores, said Lora Harding, associate professor of marketing at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

“This is a really remarkable ad spend for a religious organization or just a nonprofit in general,” said Harding, who worked on the “Open hearts, open minds, open doors” campaign for the United Methodist Church.

Religious-themed ads have been relatively rare at the Super Bowl. The Church of Scientology has run ads in the past, and in 2018 Toyota ran an ad with the message “We’re all one team,” featuring a rabbi, a priest, an imam and a saffron-robed monk headed to a football game, where they sat next to some nuns.

Closer to the “He Gets Us” model was the Christian Broadcasting Network’s $5 million national campaign to promote “The Book,” a repackaged version of The Living Bible translation, with a catchy theme song sung by country legend Glen Campbell.

Lora Harding. Photo by Sam Simpkins/Belmont University

Harding said that despite the cost, advertising at the Super Bowl makes sense for “He Gets Us.” Organizers want to reach a mass audience that is paying attention. Super Bowl ads have become part of the pageantry of the big game.

“There just aren’t ways to reach an attentive, engaged audience that size anymore,” she said.

She also said that the anonymity of the group behind the ads plays to the group’s advantage. It would be easy for viewers to dismiss an ad coming from a faith-based organization or religious group. The “He Gets Us” ads wait until the end to mention Jesus and don’t point to any specific church or denomination.

“That makes it even more powerful, and hits the message home in a really compelling way,” she said. “I think it does make Jesus more relevant to today’s audiences.”

Some viewers, including some evangelical Christians, are skeptical. Author and activist Jennifer Greenberg supports the idea of trying to reach those outside the faith and wants people to understand that Jesus gets them. But that’s not the whole message of Christianity.

“Yes, Jesus can relate to you,” she said. “But what did Jesus come primarily to do? He came to die for our sins.”

Connecting emotionally with Jesus is great, she added. But that won’t save your soul.

“I can look at Buddha or Sarah McLachlan or Obama and I can find things in common with them,” she said. “But that does not mean they are going to save me.”

A “He Gets Us” campaign advertisement in New York’s Times Square. Photo courtesy of “He Gets Us”

Michael Cooper, an author and missiologist, agrees. While Cooper is a fan of the ads, saying they powerfully communicate the human side of Jesus, they leave out his divinity.

“I began to wonder, is this the Jesus I know?” he said.

Cooper and a colleague offer what he called a “constructive critique” of the campaign in an upcoming article for the Journal of the Evangelical Missiological Society. That article calls for clearer messaging about the divine nature of Jesus.

“This wasn’t just a great teacher or preacher who was incarnated,” he said. “This was God himself.”

Ryan Beaty, a former Assemblies of God pastor and current doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma, said he’s been fascinated by the ads and wonders how the country’s political polarization may affect how the ads come across.

His conservative friends, he said, see the ads — such as one depicting Jesus as a refugee — as too political. Other folks who are more liberal see the ads as not going far enough.

Beaty also wonders if people outside the church will find the ads more compelling than true believers.

“People of no faith — or moderate learnings toward faith — will find these more compelling than people who identify with the Christian faith or strongly identify with politics,” he said.

Seth Andrews, a podcaster, author and secular activist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said the campaign seems to be marketing a version of Jesus that’s more in touch with modern American culture than earlier, more dogmatic versions.

“They are latching on to this touchy-feely, conveniently vague, designer Jesus,” he said.

Jason Vanderground. Courtesy photo

Andrews poses the question of what Jesus would think of the amount of money spent on the ads. Would he prefer that the money be spent on ministering to people’s physical needs or making the world a better place?

“Or would he say, no, go ahead and spend $100 million to tell everybody how great I am?”

While the ads are meant to reach what Vanderground called “spiritually open skeptics,” a secondary audience is Christians, whose reputations have fallen on hard times in recent years.

“We also have this objective of encouraging Christians to follow the example of Jesus in the way that they love and treat each other,” he said.

For her part, Quattlebaum said that in the end, she’s a fan of the ads, because they focus on the main message of Christianity.

“It all goes to Jesus,” she said. “ And if it all goes back to Jesus, it all goes back to love.”

---

RELATED:  $100 million media campaign depicts human side of Jesus in outreach to skeptics

---

REAL CRT

The hidden story of when two Black college students were tarred and feathered

Karen Sieber, Humanities Officer, Minnesota Humanities Center, University of Maine

THE CONVERSATION
Sun, January 15, 2023 

Newspaper coverage of the incident is hard to find. New York Herald

One cold April night in 1919, at around 2 a.m., a mob of 60 rowdy white students at the University of Maine surrounded the dorm room of Samuel and Roger Courtney in Hannibal Hamlin Hall. The mob planned to attack the two Black brothers from Boston in retaliation for what a newspaper article described at the time as their “domineering manner and ill temper.” The brothers were just two among what yearbooks show could not have been more than a dozen Black University of Maine students at the time.

While no first-person accounts or university records of the incident are known to remain, newspaper clippings and photographs from a former student’s scrapbook help fill in the details.

Although outnumbered, the Courtney brothers escaped. They knocked three freshmen attackers out cold in the process. Soon a mob of hundreds of students and community members formed to finish what the freshmen had started. The mob captured the brothers and led them about four miles back to campus with horse halters around their necks.

Before a growing crowd at the livestock-viewing pavilion, members of the mob held down Samuel and Roger as their heads were shaved and their bodies stripped naked in the near-freezing weather. They were forced to slop each other with hot molasses. The mob then covered them with feathers from their dorm room pillows. The victims and bystanders cried out for the mob to stop but to no avail. Local police, alerted hours earlier, arrived only after the incident ended. No arrests were made.

Incidents of tarring and feathering as a form of public torture can be found throughout American history, from colonial times onward. In nearby Ellsworth, Maine, a Know Nothing mob, seen by some as a forerunner to the KKK, tarred and feathered Jesuit priest Father John Bapst in 1851. Especially leading into World War I, this method of vigilantism continued to be used by the KKK and other groups against Black Americans, immigrants and labor organizers, especially in the South and West. As with the Courtney brothers incident, substitutions like molasses or milkweed were made based on what was readily available. Although rarely fatal, victims of tarring and feathering attacks were not only humiliated by being held down, shaved, stripped naked and covered in a boiled sticky substance and feathers, but their skin often became burned and blistered or peeled off when solvents were used to remove the remnants.
Discovering the attack

When I first discovered the Courtney brothers incident in the summer of 2020 – as Black Lives Matter protests took place worldwide following the May death of George Floyd – it felt monumental to me. Not only am I a historian at the university where this shameful event occurred, but I’ve also devoted the past five years to tracking down information about the Red Summer of 1919, the name given to the nationwide wave of violence against Black Americans that year.

University alumni records and yearbooks indicate the Courtney brothers never finished their studies. One article mentions possible legal action against the university, although I couldn’t find evidence of it.

The Courtney brothers, pictured tarred and feathered inside the livestock-viewing pavilion on the University of Maine’s campus. 

Seth Pinkham papers, Fogler Library, University of Maine

Local media like The Bangor Daily News and the campus newspaper reported nothing on the event. A search of databases populated with millions of pages of historic newspapers yielded just six news accounts of the Courtney brothers incident. Most were published in the greater Boston area where the family was prominent, or in the Black press. While most of white America was unaware of the attack, many Black Americans likely read about it in The Chicago Defender, the most prominent and widely distributed Black paper in the nation at the time.

Anyone with firsthand memory of the incident is long gone. Samuel passed away in 1929 with no descendants. Roger, who worked in real estate investment, died a year later, leaving a pregnant wife and toddler behind. Obituaries for both men are brief and provide no details about their deaths. My efforts to speak with Courtney family members are ongoing.

No condemnation

The tarring and feathering is also missing from official University of Maine histories. A brief statement from the university’s then-president, Robert J. Aley, claimed the event was nothing more than childish hazing that was “likely to happen any time, at any college, the gravity depending much upon the susceptibilities of the victim and the notoriety given it.” Rather than condemn the mob’s violence, his statement highlighted the fact that one of the brothers had previously violated unspecified campus rules, as if that justified the treatment the men received.
A cross-country search

When I began my research on the Red Summer in 2015, almost no documents about the events were digitized, and resources were spread out across the country at dozens of different institutions.

I spent much of 2015 on a 7,500-mile cross-country journey, scouring material at over 20 archives, libraries and historical societies nationwide. On that trip, I collected digital copies of over 700 documents about this harrowing spike in anti-Black violence, including photographs of bodies on fire, reports of Black churches burned, court documents and coroners’ reports, telegrams documenting local government reactions and incendiary editorials that fueled the fire.

I built a database of riot dates and locations, number of people killed, sizes of mobs, number of arrests, supposed instigating factors and related archival material to piece together how these events were all connected. This data allowed me to create maps, timelines and other methods of examining that moment in history. While each event was different, many trends emerged, such as the role of labor and housing tension spurred by the first wave of the Great Migration or the prevalence of attacks against Black soldiers that year.

The end result, Visualizing the Red Summer, is now used in classrooms around the country. It has been featured or cited by Teaching Human Rights, the National Archives, History.com and the American Historical Association, among others.

Yet most Americans have still never heard about the Black sharecroppers killed in the Elaine Massacre in Arkansas that year for organizing their labor or the fatal stoning of Black Chicago teenager Eugene Williams for floating into “white waters” in Lake Michigan. They weren’t taught about the Black World War I soldiers attacked in Charleston, South Carolina, and Bisbee, Arizona, during the Red Summer.

There is still work to do, but the recent anniversaries of events like the Tulsa Massacre or the Red Summer, which coincided with modern-day Black Lives Matter protests and the killings of Americans like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, have sparked a renewed interest in the past.

This new discovery brings my research back home to campus. It has afforded me an opportunity to engage students with the events of the Red Summer in new ways.

As the humanities specialist at the McGillicuddy Humanities Center, I worked with students in a public history class in the fall of 2020 to design a digital exhibit and walking tour of hidden histories at the University of Maine. This tour includes the attack on the Courtney brothers. Intentionally forgotten stories, or those buried out of shame or trauma, exist everywhere. By uncovering these local stories, it will become more clear how acts of violence against people of color are not limited to a particular time or place, but are rather part of collective American history.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Karen Sieber, University of Maine.

Read more:


For universities, making the case for diversity is part of making amends for racist past


Why I teach a course called ‘White Racism’


3 things schools should teach about America’s history of white supremacy

 

After Club Q, We Must Build a Movement for Queer and Trans Liberation

The Club Q shooting is part of a wave of fascist violence. Now’s the time for a mass movement for LGBTQ liberation.

By

 

Keegan O’Brien , 

SPECTRE

Published

December 11, 2022

Photographs of victims of the Club Q mass shooting are on display at a memorial on November 23, 2022 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

RJ SANGOSTI / MEDIANEWS GROUP / THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

Refuge in an Unaccepting World

Daniel Davis Aston, a 28-year-old trans man, was a bartender at Club Q. He loved poetry and the arts. According to friends, his handsome smile and warm, charming energy was contagious. Earlier this year Aston moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma back to Colorado Springs to be closer to family and begin his medical transition. Like so many trans and queer people, he sought refuge and found it — in Club Q, Colorado’s Spring’s only LGBTQ nightclub and home to the city’s close-knit, vibrant queer community. In a cruel and unaccepting world, gay bars have a rich, long-standing history, serving as a second home for trans and queer people migrating to cities in search of greater social freedom and autonomy that urban life often provides. Queer bars offer a space to let your guard down and simply be yourself, free from the humiliating stares and judgment of the outside world. For so many of us, walking into our first queer bar or club is a memory we cherish and carry with us years later; cemented in our consciousness as the moment we finally realize we aren’t alone.

On November 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance, Anderson Lee Aldrich walked into Club Q and within a matter of seconds, unleashed a marauding storm of bullets from their high-powered assault rifle, killing five people and critically injuring another twenty five. Raymond Green Vance (22), Daniel Davis Aston (28), Ashley Paugh (35), Derrick Rump (38), and Kelly Loving (40). We have an obligation to know their names. Each one of them was a beautiful, complex human being with their own unique story, their own community of friends, lovers, and family who knew them intimately, loved and cared for them. The trauma of Saturday night’s shooting will echo far beyond those who were violently ripped away. The indescribable emotional pain and heartache that comes from losing a loved one to murder, the constant state of fear and hypervigilance that results from having your sense of safety and belonging shattered, the accumulated rage and bitterness at a world that allows this level of depravity, carries on for a lifetime in those who survived the carnage, and everyone that knew and loved the victims.

Contextualizing the Horror

On the night of Saturday, June 12, 2016, I celebrated pride weekend. I was 27; shirtless, drenched in sweat and laughing, arms around friends — my girls, my sisters — dancing away the night to a soundtrack of gay anthems. We were packed into the basement of a raunchy, yet quintessentially iconic, gay bar in Boston, known for its racy, oiled up go-go dancers, foul-mouthed drag queens, and laughably cheesy, yet weirdly hot 80s porn that played on the bar’s TVs. That same night, 49 LGBTQ people, mostly Latinx people of color, were murdered and 53 critically injured when a homophobic mass murderer walked into Pulse Nightclub in Orlando and unloaded a barrage of bullets with his high-powered, automatic assault rifle. When I woke up the next morning, checked my phone, and saw the news, I froze; my heart sank in a state of utter shock. The carnage and horror was unfathomable. I was unable to wrap my head around it. The impact on LGBTQ people was devastating and permanent. I wrote an article shortly after attempting to understand the roots of the violence in Orlando. Six years later, here we are again.

Raymond Green Vance (22)

JEN WHITE-JOHNSON

Homophobic and anti-trans violence are long-standing and present features of American society, a product of institutionalized and structural oppression endemic to capitalism’s regulation of gender and sexuality, most intensely experienced at the intersections of class and race. Yet in the past 15 years, the struggle for LGBTQ equality has seen meaningful gains, measured in leaps and bounds compared to previous decades, in cultural visibility and formal laws. Set against this social and political backdrop, the anti-LGBTQ massacre at Pulse marked a distinct and qualitative turning point in the scale and intensity of violence and destruction directed against trans and queer people. Colorado Spring builds on this grotesque horror, signaling the growth of a violent, ever more confident far right. These devastating events remind us that even our most sacred spaces, the bars and clubs that make up the foundation of our community, the places where we build friendships, meet lovers, and form bonds that shape the trajectory of our lives, are possible targets in today’s landscape of political polarization and an emboldened reactionary right.

Colorado Springs has a particularly dark and unique history of homophobia and bigotry. The city is located in El Paso County, home to 3 of the country’s 5 military command bases. In 2016, Trump won 58% of the county’s vote. Colorado Springs houses the national headquarters for Focus on the Family, the notorious right-wing Christian hate group that considers LGBTQ people to be living in sin. For decades, it has been one of the most influential forces in the anti-LGBTQ movement. Beginning in the 1980s, and through the 2000s, Colorado Springs became a key organizing base for the religious right and a hub for anti-gay think tanks. Conservative Christian families migrated to the city en mass, and the city’s population grew rapidly, with evangelical and fundamentalist churches opening in large numbers. The Christian right became a dominant force in local and statewide politics, earning Colorado its reputation as the “Hate State” by LGBTQ activists in the 1990s. In 1992, due to the efforts of evangelical groups — most of them based in Colorado Springs — Colorado passed Amendment 2, a statewide referendum that prohibited the state from passing anti-discrimination laws. Although the policy was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court in 1996, the amendment successfully heralded Colorado Springs as a key frontier in the war against LGBTQ people. Much has changed in Colorado over the past decade. The LGBTQ community has grown, anti-discrimination laws have been passed, and most of the evangelical churches and civic groups of the 90s and 2000s have shut their doors, but the shadows of the past hang ominously over the present.

There is a full-scale war being waged by the far right and GOP establishment against LGBTQ people, and trans and gender non-conforming people are in their crosshairs.

In 2022, 238 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation have been introduced in state and municipal legislatures across the country, the highest number in decades. To put this in perspective, 2017 saw only 41 proposed bills. There is a full-scale war being waged by the far right and GOP establishment against LGBTQ people, and trans and gender non-conforming people are in their crosshairs. Reactionary attacks have included physical disruptions of drag queen story hours by Proud Boys and alt-right thugs; a conservative media-manufactured panic around bathrooms and trans women and girls’ participation in sports; and Texas, Florida, and other Republican-dominated state legislatures’ dystopian laws authorizing a full-scale assault on young trans people’s basic right to exist and on their families who affirm them.

This is the social context for the horror and carnage that unfolded in Colorado. These realities are interconnected. Colorado is the inevitable outcome of this hate-fueled political ecosystem, and a harbinger of the proto-fascist terror and violence yet to come.

As Eric Maroney details, the increasing visibility of trans and queer people in society, along with feminism and women’s increased social power outside the home, have become the alt-right’s new obsession and scapegoat for a whole series of economic anxieties produced by neoliberal capitalism’s restructuring and deregulation. For four decades, the American capitalist class and their bipartisan political representatives in government have waged a one-sided class war. Corporate privatization of public resources, decades of austerity, union busting, and industrial restructuring and automation have shattered the power of organized labor, decimating the limited social safety net and economic opportunity that existed for the working class and poor people, a dynamic acutely pronounced for Black and Brown workers.

A cursory glance at the towns and cities dotting America’s forgotten industrial areas illustrates a living nightmare for whole regions abandoned by the country’s economic elites and their political class. We see the growth of mass incarceration, workers permanently pushed out of the labor market; an opioid crisis spiraling out of control, and an increasing mortality rate triggered by drug addiction, alcoholism and suicide as people struggle to cope with the trauma of economic and social dislocation. The pain and suffering for working class communities is real and measurable, including white families. This is the social landscape in which traditional conservative, alt-right, and explicitly fascist elements converge to produce a contradictory political ecosystem of extreme nationalism and pseudo-populism, xenophobic racism, and traditional, heteropatriarchal values — and with it the rise of far-right terror.

Portrait of a Terrorist

Only now is more information, still limited and partial, beginning to come out about Anderson Lee Aldrich and their hate-fueled rampage. (Aldrich claims to identify as non-binary, although there is speculation that this is a ploy by their defense team to preempt hate-crime charges.) Several facts are clear. Aldrich grew up in a family deeply affected by addiction, mental illness, physical abuse, and economic insecurity. Their father is a former MMA fighter turned porn actor who is addicted to crystal meth. Aldrich’s dad was violent and abusive, which led to a divorce and caused him to lose custody of Aldrich when they were a young child. In an interview after Saturday’s shooting, Aldrich’s father went on a bizarre homophobic rant. Meanwhile, Aldrich’s mother struggled with substance abuse and mental illness. She lost custody of Aldrich when they were a teenager. Aldrich went on to live with their grandmother, which was a tumultuous experience. They were badly bullied in school and online for their bodyweight and socioeconomic status. Last year, Aldrich kidnapped their grandmother and called in a bomb threat, followed by an armed standoff with police. Although they were taken into custody, no charges were filled, allowing them to legally purchase an assault rifle the following year.

Derrick Rump (38)

JEN WHITE-JOHNSON

Aldrich came from a conservative family steeped in reactionary politics. Their grandfather, Randy Vopel, is a right-wing California assemblyman, Trump fanatic, and MAGA Republican. He openly defends the January Capitol insurrection, promotes COVID denialism, claims the election results were fraudulent, vehemently opposes the Black Lives Matter movement, and aggressively advocates for anti-LGBTQ laws opposing queer inclusive curriculum in schools and trans youth access to hormones and participation in sports. Even as we wait for a clearer elucidation of Aldrich’s motives, understanding their familial environment and the country’s political context helps illuminate the ecosystem of reactionary ideas that set the stage for their violent atrocities.

Trumpism is characterized by a nauseating mixture of economic nationalism, racist xenophobic bigotry, and reactionary state and vigilante violence. It is a political alliance between sections of capital and the petite bourgeoisie, whose project is to restore a sense of nationalist, heteronormative, and white supremacist vitality in the face of downward mobility, declining imperial power abroad, and economic stagnation at home. Feminism and LGBTQ people who don’t conform to traditional systems of gender regulation are vilified for eroding the nuclear family structure. In turn, they are blamed for America’s declining global economic standing. Capital is incapable of carrying out this project of intensified class domination and increased exploitation on their own. They turn to a generation of deeply alienated white youth, mostly men from downwardly mobile petit bourgeois and working-class homes, whose family lives have been torn asunder as the financial floor has collapsed beneath their feet. These disgruntled young men become a primary audience for the far right’s reactionary rhetoric, which seeks to redirect legitimate bitterness and rage at the injustices of our society onto queer and trans people, immigrants and people of color, scapegoated for the ravages of neoliberal capitalism for which they’re not to blame.

Finding Hope

Meanwhile, just before the weekend’s carnage, Gay Inc. was celebrating on Wall St as Grindr, the popular hookup and dating app for gay, bi, and queer men, become a publicly traded company. Outrage and fiery speeches are to be expected from mainstream LGBTQ groups in the aftermath of Colorado’s shooting, but their strategy will remain unchanged. Groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the National LGBTQ Task Force will inevitably pour millions into political campaigns for Democratic politicians who do the bare minimum in performative action, making empty proclamations, and proposing legislation with no chance of passing through Congress without outside pressure.

The heinous violence displayed in Aldrich’s hate-fueled rampage in Colorado Springs is a clear and stark reminder of the menacing, lethal threat that today’s determined far right continues to pose to trans and queer people, and anyone living outside capitalism’s imposed sexual and gender boundaries.

Most self-proclaimed trans and queer “movement leaders,” far from building any kind of grassroots, participatory movement, are caught up in building their own social media brand, mired in a mix of self-righteous moralism and middle-class identity politics leveraged to further their own personal agenda. We’re only two years out from the country’s largest anti-racist rebellion in decades, where countless online activists created radical Instagram personalities, only to leverage them to gain corporate sponsorships and lucrative book deals. While the unique business model and structure of social media platforms contributes to this trend, social movements have always encountered the pressures of corporate co-optation and middle-class careerism. As struggles wane and mass protest and militancy fizzle out, the horizons of possibility narrow, generating a tendency towards greater accommodation rather than confrontation.

Daniel Davis Aston (28)

JEN WHITE-JOHNSON

A world of LGBTQ NGOs exists, many providing crucial and meaningful direct services to the most vulnerable members of our community–services that are completely non-existent from the state. But these groups face serious structural impediments to initiating disruptive, militant organizing, operating within a system where they’re forced to compete for corporate sponsorships and government grants that fuel their work. This creates inevitable pressures to acquiesce and contain their organizing within the bounds of capitalism’s accepted legal frameworks.

The heinous violence displayed in Aldrich’s hate-fueled rampage in Colorado Springs is a clear and stark reminder of the menacing, lethal threat that today’s determined far right continues to pose to trans and queer people, and anyone living outside capitalism’s imposed sexual and gender boundaries. The urgency of birthing a militant, grassroots and participatory LGBTQ movement is clear and present. We need a movement that helps build mass power among ordinary, working-class queers and our allies, that engages in disruptive social action, and that nurtures democratic activist networks and structures of collective resistance and dissent. Our movement must foreground the intersectionality of our struggles, integrating class, race, gender and sexuality, into a radical, anti-racist, feminist, and emancipatory vision of collective liberation from capitalism and its interlocking systems of oppression. The pressing need for a left that can speak to the desperation and rage of working people whose lives have been upended by the ravages of neoliberal capitalism is all around us. Our task is to provide a radical challenge, grounded in solidarity, to the far right’s agenda of scapegoating and bigotry.

Such a transformative movement would ideally be grounded in solidarity, emphasizing the shared and common nature of our battles and the capacity for political transformation in ordinary people. There must be a willingness to patiently engage and assume best intentions, to reflect, listen, and grow in community with one another. We live in a deeply unequal society where bourgeois ideology and the competition of daily life under capitalism define the way working-class people understand and make sense of the world and relate to one another. Absent the influence of an organized left to counteract those pressures, it is inevitable that most people internalize ideological features of the system. When a person chooses to reject those ideas and join the ranks of our movements, they deserve to be welcomed as comrades in struggle, not treated with suspicion and hostility. Our side faces immense challenges that no single person, organization, or identity category by default holds all of the answers. Winning will require a willingness to learn from the experiences and contributions of others and a commitment to comradely debate and dialogue.

It was the bravery and heroism of ordinary people that stopped the killing spree at Club Q from spiraling even further. Richard Fierro, a straight Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran, out at a gay bar for his first time to support his daughter and her friends, jeopardized his life to tackle and subdue Aldrich within seconds of his opening fire. A trans woman helped Fierro restrain the mass killer by stomping her heels into his face. No one is coming to save us: not the Democrats, no matter how “progressive,” not the Human Rights Campaign, not the next up-and-coming TikTok influencer, and most definitely not the CEOs of rainbow capitalism. Our collective emancipation, our community’s safety, our willingness to struggle, fight and win a liberated future:

that will be up to us.

On November 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance, Anderson Lee Aldrich walked into Club Q and within a matter of seconds, unleashed a marauding storm of bullets from their high-powered assault rifle, killing five people: Raymond Green Vance (22), Daniel Davis Aston (28), Ashley Paugh (35), Derrick Rump (38), and Kelly Loving (40)

JEN WHITE-JOHNSON

Spectre would like to extend a special thanks to the artist Jen White-Johnson for letting us use the artwork including with this piece. White-Johnson can be found on Instagram at @jtknoxroxs and on the web at jenwhitejohnson.com.