Editors' Letter - Igniting the Kindred

Recent months have tested both the generosity of our despair and the endurance of our hope. Days after the US elected a Black president, a Black transwoman was murdered in Tennessee. Earlier in the year, Duanna Johnson had been brutally beaten by the Memphis police. Now the system now tells us we should rely on those same police for justice in her killing. Andrea Ritchie’s article in this issue highlights Johnson’s life, and challenges movement priorities and commitments. From the Oakland cops’ execution of Oscar Grant to the latest round of Israeli terror on the people of Gaza, it has been a tough few months. We recall June Jordan’s call two decades ago: “We need a rising up, an Intifada, USA.” We’re still working on it, June!

In this tricky, contradictory, Obama moment, insight and inspiration is all around if we look for it. The NYC-based Audre Lorde Project offers US-based organizers a sharp analysis of the political climate and movement opportunities in a statement issued on the eve of the inauguration, re-printed here. From supporting the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement against Israeli Apartheid in solidarity with Palestinians, to preparing for the worst of the economic crisis among the most marginalized sectors of the population, ALP offers a model of a broad solidarity worldview rooted in specific local organizing.

Jumping off from Southerners On New Ground’s recent 15th anniversary celebratory gatherings, this issue’s theme is highlighted in a section edited by Sendolo Diaminah called “Igniting the Kindred: Visions of Queer Radicalism.” This section represents a new hub in Left Turn’s ongoing coverage of LGBT organizing, and our examination of sexual and gender struggle and transformation throughout every strand of the North American and global intifada.

As we approach the 40th anniversary of Stonewall this June, we reflect and prepare for the future of anti-oppression radicalism. Though we know that sexual and gender rebellion on Turtle Island started centuries ago, we take inspiration from the visionaries of the late 60s/early 70s era—from the uprisings at Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall Inn, and groups like Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries and Third World Gay Revolution. We trace the lineage of revolutionaries of all sexualities and genders who grappled with the questions and anticipated the answers of what we now call queer & trans liberation politics—from Emma Goldman to Harry Hay to Huey Newton, Sylvia Rivera to Kuwasi Balagoon to Gloria Anzaldua.

We are blessed to have over 100 members of the Left Turn kindred (see page 34) sustaining the costs of our all-volunteer project with some spare cash every month. We need and dearly appreciate the support (www.leftturn.org/donate), as we do our creative best to support all our work toward the much better world the whole world deserves.

In solidarity,
Left Turn Editorial Collective