Feature image photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Frontline Action Hub
It’s a heavy heavy heavy day. I’ve rounded up some news for you and am sending you my love, always — and a demand that you stay hydrated!
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Autostraddle Editor in Chief Carmen Phillips wrote about Brittney Griner’s 9.5-year sentencing by a Russian court today: “It’s so hard to keep writing these posts in what can most often feel like a helpless situation. Today is harder than most. But I have to hope — because really, what’s the other choice? — that this guilty verdict is the next step to bringing her home, quickly and safely. There’s no other way.”
+ The official White House statement on Griner’s sentencing.
+ At least 40 out athletes are competing at the Commonwealth Games.
+ Cartoons have been turning kids into gay Satan worshipers for a century.
+ England’s historic Euro win could mark a turning point for queer women in football.
+ What should an LGBTQ museum be? “Why is all this attention being turned toward queerness now? ‘The people who were part of the early waves of the recent queer liberation movement are hitting an age where they’re thinking about legacy, and what the future of the movement looks like,’ said Ben Garcia, the executive director of the forthcoming American LGBTQ+ Museum. ‘There’s a number of people who have moved out of the white-hot moment of activism into a more reflective space.'”
Saw This, Thought of You
+ After going solar, I felt the sudden bliss of abundance.
+ How the world’s biggest four-day workweek trial run changed people’s lives.
+ Getting started with activism when you don’t know how: “Here’s the funny part. We convince ourselves that by staying tapped in, we are better serving the movement, and then what is actually happening is that we’re exhausted, we’re desensitized, and we know a lot of what’s happening, but it doesn’t make us any more strategic at disrupting it.”
+ Millions of images from Ebony and Jet Magazines will soon be available to all.
+ How 19th-Century activists ditched corsets for one-piece long underwear.
+ Is women’s soccer leaving home?
Political Snacks
+ The Justice Department has finally brought charges against four current and former Louisville, Kentucky police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor in her home in 2020. The DOJ is also investigating whether the Louisville Metro Government and Louisville police engaged in “a pattern or practice of abusing residents’ civil rights.” Obviously the answer to that is going to be a resounding yes. In fact, if you haven’t yet read Mother Jones’ interview with relatives of Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake who went to Ohio to protest and ended up in jail and the hospital, today’s a good day for that refresher. Holding Breonna’s mother, Tamika Palmer, in my heart today (and every day, and Cherelle Griner too.)
I honestly cannot express how powerful & important this is. People must understand this work was the core mission at the founding of the @TheJusticeDept. To protect the rights of Black people when state processes fail or refuse to do so. Grateful to AG Garland & @CivilRights. https://t.co/j417LJ93n0
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@SIfill_) August 4, 2022
+ Are y’all following the Alex Jones trial? It is the most bonkers thing I have ever seen in my entire life, including all one hundred seasons of Glee. His lawyer accidentally turned over his entire phone to the Sandy Hook plaintiffs and then didn’t do anything to get it back! Now the January 6 Committee is coming for it! Amazing. Anyway: Down the rabbit hole, or: why people fall for conspiracy theories.
+ Four charts that show just how big abortion won in Kansas.
+ “Your bedroom is on the ballot.” How Democrats see abortion politics after Kansas.
+ The upstart union challenging Starbucks.
+ NYPD lawsuit payouts on track to be highest in recent history.
+ Is this the abortion clinic of the future?
+ Biden officials plan to declare monkeypox a public health emergency.
1) the alex jones trial is just full of one in a million chances coming true at his expense and i’m delighted. ruin that man!
2) it is very strange to have been stressed about monkeypox since like, memorial day, and see the world at large *just now* starting to panic, and to do it in a homophobic and unhelpful way. also the public health messaging and response has been so abysmal! we have learned absolutely nothing! and in my state we had polio! what year is it!
i am always so interested in questions of archiving, curating, framing, memorializing, queer cultures – i look forward to seeing how these spaces (hopefully) proliferate and develop over time.
I saw screen cap of Jone’s ex-wife tweeting she will be going to subpoena the data & go after him for fucking their kids up.
I’m on the Missouri side of Kansas City and am so proud of Kansas! Was honestly surprised (but thrilled!) it passed. The GOP and Catholic Church are probs looking like surprised Pikachu rn.