Daily Archives: March 26, 2021

TV: Would it be safe to say that people should keep that same energy?

MK: Of course, people should always keep the same energy. I mean, I don't believe in burning yourself out. I do believe that, you know, you should take breaks and enjoy your life and do a whole bunch of other things too. It's not a 24/7 struggle. And I think we should be counting on, like, a relay race where people tag in and tag out as they need to. But in order for that to really work, we have to have many more people we have to be organizing with. How are we going to incorporate more people and how are we going to do political education with more people? How are we going to get a cohesive vision of a world that we want to inhabit with more people? So that's the work. That's the work going forward. And it's always been the work.

TV: The uprising last summer was one of the most widespread in recent history. What do you see as the most enduring legacy of the 2020 rebellion?

MK: I think it's hubris to suggest that we can tell you what's coming out of a thing that's so recent that's still in play. It's not like people have stopped organizing; [there are] people in Minneapolis on the streets right now around Derek Chauvin's trial. Everything that's going on has an origin and a legacy. And if you understand that, I feel like you're a lot more patient because we're not on the same time clock. I'm on a 500-year clock; I'm not on a seven-month clock. And I think the temporality of organizing and the temporality of living should condition you to be humble because you don't know how what you're doing today will impact the future, or if it will impact the future. You just do the work now by asking better questions than what you were asking six months before then. That's the best we can do.

TV: When prison revolts happen, what can non-incarcerated people do to show support and solidarity?

MK: Take your lead from those folks on the inside. They usually always have demands that they put out for outside people to amplify and support. And there are currently lots of outside organizers who are partnering up with incarcerated resisters and incarcerated comrades who are taking action. So follow their lead. That's my answer.

TV: Lastly, have you felt despair through all of this? If so, what advice would you give to yourself that could be helpful to others who may be feeling despair around abolition and hope that things will change?

MK: My response is that, no, I'm not ever really despairing. I have been disappointed. I have been frustrated. I have been angry. I have all those feelings. But despair for me feels like throwing in the towel and [thinking] like nothing can change. And I know that's not true. I think even people who feel despair sometimes also know that's not true. I think you should find the thing that resonates with you and hold onto that and keep reminding yourself that you're not alone. There are people in every corner of the world struggling to make the world just a tiny bit better for themselves, their families, and their communities, and the fact that we don't know all those people is actually super comforting, because it means that there are enough of us doing this work.

If you are a young person, you definitely have so much to offer and to bring to the world. Your ideas and your thoughts and your dreams and all those things matter so, so much. And I hope you'll bring your stone to the pile, too, and keep building.

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Mariame Kaba, Abolitionist and Author, on We Do This Til We Free Us - Teen Vogue

By Cait Kemp@caitlinkemp09

As part of the Day To Confront Racism series that took place on Thursday, March 25, Springfield College hosted a panel discussion titled, John Brown: The City of Springfield Connection to this Abolitionist and Accomplice. The workshop panelists included Joseph Carvalho III, Daryll Moss, and William Nash and was moderated by Assistant Professor of History, Ian Delahanty.

The Day to Confront Racism was on March 25, which is also International Day Of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The goal was to not let this important day go by without conversation, so the Day to Confront Racism was created in order to acknowledge the important stories dealing with racism that involve Springfield College and the surrounding area. Guest speakers of all different perspectives and experiences were brought together to discuss these important topics for students and faculty to listen in and learn.

Panelist Joseph Carvalho III is the co-editor of the Springfield Republican newspaper Heritage Book Series, and was the former president and executive director of the Springfield Museums. He also authored and edited multiple books in the Heritage Book Series.

The next panelist was William Nash, professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures at Middlebury College. He is also the author of multiple books and the recipient of three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lastly was Daryll Moss who rounded out the trio of panelists for the midday workshop. Moss is the executive director of Afro Renaissance Arts Society in Springfield, and was previously the director of Constituent Services, also in Springfield.

The workshop focused on the significance of abolitionist John Brown and his involvement with the city of Springfield. John Brown is probably most well known for his raid of Harpers Ferry and seizure of the federal army and arsenal there. With just several supporters he rallied to join him, Brown strove to acquire weapons to distribute to slaves and freedom fighters, and spark similar movements throughout the country. Unfortunately, his intentions did not go exactly as planned and Brown and his supporters were soon taken back over by the US Marines and Robert E. Lee. For his valiant efforts to support slaves and the African American population, he was put on trial and sentenced to death.

What many might not know about Brown is his affiliation with Springfield and the work he did not just for the community, but in conjunction with them. Brown was in Springfield from 1846 to 1849, and came back periodically throughout the years after that.

He came to Springfield because of the established black community that already existed, which included the Old Yankee African American population as well as groups that came from the Midatlantic states and some of the south atlantic states. It was this wave of a new group who created the first African American church in Springfield, which was thriving at the arrival of Brown.

The unique thing that many might overlook is the fact that Brown did not build this community by himself, but became a part of it because of its already established leadership. Brown was able to help this community become even more successful than it already was through his devout efforts of abolition, and his radical empathy, as Nash described it during the workshop.

We can think about radical empathy as being more than just the idea of putting yourself in someone elses place, or walking in someone elses shoes, and taking actions that will not only help that person but will also ultimately change and improve our society, said Nash. For me when I think about John Brown in Springfield I think about the enactment of those ideas.

Brown was an abolitionist through and through. A lot of times in history we see people who believed in the abolition of slavery, yet still had racist tendencies or believed African Americans were beneath whites in some way. However, Brown truly believed that African Americans should be as free as he is, and he fought for that cause for much of his life.

Frederick Douglass, the famed escaped slave who became a leading abolitionist in the north, visited the church in Springfield and met Brown who really influenced his thinking on the end of slavery. Brown told him that the only way out of slavery was violence and war, and showed him his plan to create a corridor into the South for slaves to come and have the ability to defend themselves.

On reflecting his meeting with Brown, Douglass wrote, Though a white gentleman, he is in sympathy with the black man and is deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.

I think perhaps his intensity of advocacy against evil, and when we confront evil society its going to take people to commit to a great deal to fight it, and [Brown] is an example of it, said Carvalho on the takeaway of Browns abolition work.

Moss proposed the comparison of Browns ideals and the American racial climate we live in today, making audience members consider the similarities and differences of racism in the 1800s versus now.

Even today, Brown comes up a lot in conversations in discussing allyship with the black community, and what that should look like in order to create effective movements and relationships.

A real ally is one whos willing to put blood, life, family on the line to ensure that his neighbor is just as free as he is, said Moss.

The panel provided an important discussion about empathy, being an ally, and understanding the impact that both of these things can have on the issues with racism that is still so prevalent in our world today. Insight from many different perspectives was provided, and it was an engaging way to learn more about racism for students, faculty, and members of the Springfield College community.

Photo: Springfield College

The Past is the Present focuses on impact of 1619 Project

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Springfield's connection to John Brown, Abolitionist and Accomplice - SC Student Media

Giada Lagan traces the history ofcivil society organisations in Northern Ireland and explains why their work in tackling youth unemployment is being put at risk both by the pandemic and Brexit.She writes that, other than funding, what must also be maintained is the promotion of values necessary for such organisations to continue developing future connections, training, education and solidarity.

It has long been said that, during the period of violent unrest and beyond, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have been the glue holding Northern Ireland together. CSOs have had a significant impact in tackling issues from the bottom up and in shaping public, cross departmental youth unemployment policies and politics. Over the years, organisations focused on youth unemployment specifically have formed a much larger proportion of all civil society organisations in Northern Ireland (47.9%) than they have in Scotland (21.1%), Wales (15%) and England (5.5%). Why does Northern Ireland present such an anomaly in the youth work wider UK context?

To investigate the genesis of CSOs role in the field of youth unemployment, it is necessary to first historicise multidimensional context of conflict and division. Since its establishment in 1920, the Parliament at Stormont has behaved like an independent legislature. Inequalities appeared as the result of institutionalised routines, which were only strengthened when British troops were sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 to take over some of the roles which the police could no longer perform. In 1970, when British troops started to operate under the Special Powers Act, they were immediately identified by the nationalist community as relating to Stormont rule, and this eventually led to rioting and civil strife. Subsequently, the abolition of the Parliament in 1972 and the imposition of direct rule from Westminster ended half a century during which the unionists had operated a virtual monopoly of power.

Northern Irelands ambiguous constitutional status and the inequalities entrenched within it made it impossible for the nationalist community to identify with the states institutions. Catholics resented the sacrifice of their identity to political expediency by both Ulster Unionism and Irish separatism; driven by fears of absorption, they started a long tradition of autonomous local community work. The first republican networks and CSOs were born during the conflict, as these were the only groups perceived as trustworthy and able to take care of the communitys most basic needs. Employment and education of young people were at the core of this work. Unionist CSOs developed later, as they were more aligned to the state or to one of the many established churches (the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church).

The work of CSOs continued to evolve after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA). The GFA constitutional template, with its three interlocking strands, is complex, elaborate, and purposefully ambiguous because it is the outcome of negotiations between a variety of political actors with very different preferences. The Agreement accorded considerable salience to the role of CSOs, pledging continuing support and enhanced financial assistance for the work of reconciliation, especially among young people facing particular development difficulties. Moreover, the GFA recognises the importance of employment for the reintegration of former political prisoners within Northern Irish society. Such provisions have formally institutionalised processes for structuring politics and systems of public policymaking from the bottom up, consciously fragmenting political and institutional power by creating interdependent institutional layers. The expectation was that if these new institutions and ways of pushing for social change became embedded, all of the various political actors, regardless of their preferences, would become locked into a cooperative set of institutions in which the costs of exit would be very high.

The problem that the GFA negotiators could not foresee was the intermittent existence of the executive power-sharing institutions. The desired new cooperative framework should have been filtered by the new establishment, but political and symbolic divisions are still compromising the work and (too often) the existence of the Northern Ireland executive. Such circumstantial condition has de facto increased civil-society reliance on the voluntary sector. CSOs, in the absence of an executive, are the main representatives of peoples and especially young peoples needs from the bottom up.

Finally, we need to account for the impact of EU peacebuilding. This has generally been overlooked by existing analysis, with some notable exceptions. Through economic instruments such as the INTERREG the PEACE programmes the EU was able to fund, create, and develop new ways of working together. These programmes were an especially unique peacebuilding instrument aimed at empowering CSOs to take a more active part in the public policymaking process. They created new alliances and new partnerships between the statutory, private, and voluntary/community sectors. New partnerships were also facilitated between communities and groups at the project level, undertaking cultural, education, and training activities. Recently, the programme PEACE IV (2014-2020) was specifically aimed at young people. Employment has never been mainstreamed in the PEACE programmes, but it has always been considered as a by-product of a peaceful society.

If the practical impacts of the PEACE package have always been questioned, it is undeniable how the experience of working in the EU framework has left a positive imprint on CSOs work. The EU approach has focused on the critical role of the British and Irish governments, thus anchoring the existence of grassroots networks to national agendas. This allowed CSOs to engage directly with the EU, learning from the past, consolidating peace, normalising the needs of the region and lobbying for positive societal change. The unusual openness of the UK government to this vertical communication channel allowed the EU to steer direct engagements between the Commission, the Northern Ireland administration, and CSOs. The latter gained significant autonomy especially in representing the local level in the EU arena, battling for funds conscious of having a deep understanding of the social context in which they were acting. This EU experience inaugurated a new tradition of autonomous grassroots work that benefitted all public sectors in Northern Ireland, including youth unemployment work.

Shedding light and historicising the social forces that played a role in shaping todays context of Northern Ireland youth work helps us to reflect on ways in which policymakers and practitioners might seek to positively develop and enhance the activities of this sector in a post-COVID and post-Brexit context. Northern Irelands reliance on CSOs reflects very much the fragmented nature of the history and society as a whole, the volatile status of executive politics, and the EU peacebuilding strategy. If Northern Ireland seems to have maintained meaningful funding opportunities for young people and youth organisations (also thanks to the Republic of Irelands engagement), much work will still need to be done to help engender an environment that allows space for the individual to become more involved in non-partisan collective action. There is no clear, unifying agenda for the future that underlines what CSOs can hope to achieve, but it is incumbent to promote values and principles that would underpin future connections, training, education and solidarity comparable to the opportunities available to all young people in the EU.

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About the Author

Giada Lagan is a Research Assistant at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data , School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. She currently works with Dr Sioned Pearce at the project Youth unemployment and civil society under devolution: a comparative analysis of sub-state welfare regimes. She is the author ofThe European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process (Palgrave McMillan, 2021).

Photo by Bewakoof.com Official on Unsplash.

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How the crucial work of civil society organisations in Northern Ireland is being put at risk by COVID-19 and Brexit - British Politics and Policy at...

The city of Bangkok will go dark for an hour on Saturday, joining thousands of cities across the globe for Earth Hour, an annual initiative where lights are turned off to raise awareness about protecting the planet. The deputy governor of Bangkok, Sopon Pisuttiwong, says lights be off from 8:30pm to 9:30pm on Saturday, joining 7,000 other cities in darkness.

Just an hour with the lights off can save the city millions of baht. During last years lights-off hour, the citys electricity consumption was reduced by 2,483 megawatts. It ultimately saved 10.15 million baht in potential electricity costs.

126 places in Bangkok will turn off the lights, including the Emerald Buddha Temple, Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Sao Ching Cha, Rama VIII Bridge and Wat Saket. Many building owners have also said they will flip the switch for Earth Hour.

People are asked to turn off any unnecessary lights during the Earth Hour. Those who are encouraged to make a social media post using the hashtags #Connect2Earth, #SpeakUpForNature and #BangkokSustainability.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has participated in Earth Hour since 2008. Since then, the city has said its carbon footprint has been reduced by 12,227 tonnes and the city has saved a total of 80.87 million baht in electricity costs.

In a recent news release, the executive director for Business for Nature, Eva Zabey, said this years Earth Hour comes at a critical time.

Leading companies recognize they need to act now to both cut greenhouse gas emissions and reverse nature loss by 2030.

Earth Hour is taking place during a critical year, when world leaders are due to agree an ambitious global agreement on nature. Let us use this symbolic moment to think about how we work together across society, business and government to change our course towards a nature-positive, net-zero and equitable future.

SOURCE: Nation Thailand

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The Charity Commission focuses on charities meeting public expectation, but they also need to remain true to their stated purpose, even when doing so may prove controversial.A report on our colonial past

The National Trust has acted in accordance with its charitable objects. This shouldnt be headline news, but it has been for the last six months. This suggests there is still work to be done by the charity sector to provide a stronger narrative about the work charities do and the value they provide to society, especially at this time.

Many readers will already be familiar with the basic facts. Last September the National Trust published an interim report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery. Elements of the charitys membership, of the press and of parliament decried the Trusts alleged entry into the culture wars, in a move to trash our nations past. The now former Chair of the Charity Commission wrote a piece in the Daily Telegraph advising the National Trust not to 'lose sight' of what members expected and Oliver Dowden has recently summoned the heads of heritage organisations to his office for a chat.

On reading the (115 page) report one wonders how many people have done likewise. Commissioned almost a year before widespread Black Lives Matter protests last summer and the toppling of Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour, its a carefully researched, fact-based, piece of academic work, setting out the colonial and slavery context of properties within the Trusts estate.

Yes, the entry for Chartwell does refer to Winston Churchills opposition to the Government of India Act in 1935 which granted India a degree of self-governance and mentions that he was Prime Minister during the devastating Bengal Famine of 1943. This accounts for two paragraphs in the whole report.

But if this fact had been omitted, wouldnt the Trust have been accused of whitewashing history? The report refers to the description of Churchills life by leading historians as exceptionally long, complex and controversial but that isnt news and doesnt diminish him as a historic figure or as a great leader. And what some strident headlines have omitted to mention is that the report highlights those historic figures connected with the Trusts properties who supported, as well as opposed, the movement for the abolition of slavery, such as Lord Castlereagh, whose family seat was Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland.

On concluding its compliance case the Charity Commission concluded that there were no grounds for regulatory action against the National Trust.

Its trustees were able to demonstrate that they had explicitly considered and determined that commissioning and publishing the report was compatible with its charitable purposes. They had recognised and carefully considered the potential negative reaction that could result from the reports publication, having consulted with a panel of 2,000 members before commissioning the research.

The closest the Commission comes to any criticism of the charity is to suggest a possible lack of foresight in pre-empting the extent of the reaction to the report and for not having done more to clearly explain the link between the report and the Trusts purpose.

Indeed, the historic interest of the Trusts lands, buildings and property are central to its charitable purposes:

The preservation for the benefit of the nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest and, as regards lands, for the preservation (as far as practicable) of their natural aspect, features and animal and plant life. Also the preservation of furniture, pictures and chattels of any description having national and historic or artistic interest.

As the Trusts Director-General Hilary McGrady has explained in her recent blog post about the interim report, the charity takes a Retain and Explain approach to history, ...to look at an aspect of history that is there in many of the places we care for places that should help curious people come face to face with history and feel they can arrive at their own views

The fact is that history isnt just about beautiful architecture, although thats certainty part of it and this brings to mind the immortal words of Orson Welles character in The Third Man:

in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

The foreword to the Trusts interim report speaks of culture helping us forge an important, critical commonality, the sort of shared understanding that is important to healthy societies.

While the Charity Commissions mission in recent years has been to increase public trust and confidence in charities with a focus on paying due regard to public expectation, without seeking to patronise anyone, who is currently assuming the task of educating the public about what charities actually do, of explaining that charities arent gentle or fluffy and shouldnt just stick to their knitting, as one long-forgotten Government Minister put it a number of years ago, but should continue to push the boundaries in looking to change the world, as they have done for centuries?

In a footnote the interim report explains that in 2017 the National Trust marked 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality with its Prejudice and Pride programme, and remarks that although supported by many, a vocal minority felt threatened by what it saw as an unwelcome departure from the narratives to which they had become accustomed.

Undoubtedly in normal times many of us value the opportunity to have a coffee and a slice of cake in the magnificent grounds of National Trust properties, but we need to understand that the Trust is advancing its charitable purposes and fulfilling its mandate by providing the historical context of those properties, helping us to answer the question how we all got to where we are now.

There has been talk of a body to assume the role of advocate for the charity sector, to provide a realistic and compelling narrative for the breadth and quality of charities work, in explaining that to plug the gaps which state provision and private endeavour cant fill you cannot always rely upon a group of volunteers with sporadic and inadequate funding always to deliver a professional level of performance. And that you cant necessarily expect an organisation to have a coherent, long-term, strategy if you dont fund its core costs and if you make it apply for funding each year for the coming one.

Until someone takes responsibility for that narrative, every charity and its trustees must continue to tell their own story, explaining to all stakeholders how they use the support they receive to advance their charitable purposes every day.

There has been a spate of Supreme Court rulings and important regulatory investigations and decisions from the Charity Commission in the last six months. Sometimes you cant see the wood for the trees and so we will be looking to draw out some key messages for charity trustees from those decisions at our forthcoming two-part webinar, to be held on 21st and 28th April 2021 and for which you can register here.

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Building the nation's trust connecting a charity's work to its purpose - Shoosmiths legal updates

LaSaia Wade likes to say she is the culmination of every person who has walked before her, beside her and will continue to carve a path long after her.

I am because we are is her guiding principle, a translation of ubuntu philosophy that defines the human experience as being part of a collective. This thousands-year-old ethos originating from sub-Saharan Africa has been invoked by politicians, activists and theorists. Today, 33-year-old Wade uses the mantra to define the ever-growing families she belongs in.

In her home office in Chicago, surrounded by monitors and with her six-month-old baby cooing off-screen during a Zoom call, Wade imagines the future: she and her fiance are at the heads of a long table and every seat in between them is filled. Young and old, biological relatives and found family are joined as one, all of their stories inextricably linked to each other.

I will not be able to eat without you. You will not be able to breathe without me. Its something that me and my fiance talk about a lot. We are happy to have a child. We are happy to build our own family, Wade says, her voice softening as she describes what she wants for her future. Our dream is to be able, in our 60s and 70s at the tip of the table, [to] say I am because we are.

Wades definition of family extends beyond her immediate circle. As an Afro-Latina transgender woman, she sees herself as one of many matriarchs that support generations of LGBTQ people.

I am a mother to a community that has no mothers, Wade says. But I have yet to be recognised as an elder, nor will I place that title on me just yet, because Im a new biological mother. Im literally [learning] to really understand what it looks like to be a mother and catering that into the work that I do looks completely different.

Wade has had a number of role models who have taught her not only about motherhood but the kaleidoscopic experiences of being a woman. Her tone turns serious as she reflects on the lessons her mothers have imparted to her. Marea Wade, her biological mother, taught her how to be a woman and Valerie Spencer taught me how to be a happy trans woman, Wade says.

She first met Spencer some eight to 10 years ago, neither woman could remember exactly when, at a speaking engagement in Memphis, Tennessee, that hosted transgender women renowned for their activism across the country.

Wade remembers her excitement at being surrounded by her elders. Spencer walked up to her to tell her she was gorgeous and ask her if she was hungry.

What I remember is we had so much fun. Often the warriors are fighting in their own silos, and we dont get to be warrior women together, Spencer says from her home in Los Angeles, California.

A therapist, minister and activist for nearly 30 years, 54-year-old Spencer delivers each word as if she is holding a sermon.

She had her own cadre of maternal figures, including her biological mother, who taught her to always be presentable. Even before she began her work in activism in the early 1990s when she was in her 20s, she knew she had to be a positive example.

A smile spreads across Wades face as she recounts how Spencer took her under her wing that day and describes how Spencer was, and continues to be, resolute and no-nonsense.

Shes going to explain to you that, Yes, I love you, I care for you, and I understand that youve gone through some trauma and so on and so forth, but also understand that other people have, as well. What does that look like? Youre talking all of this, but where is that work that youre supposed to be doing? Wade says. Shes very intentional around that. She saved me when I didnt have anyone else to save me.

At that time, when Wade was just starting out in activism, she was mired in loss and a cloud of negativity. She began organising in 2010 after her friend, another transgender woman, was found murdered with her hands tied by the side of the road.

Three years later, Wade was fired from a communications job for being trans, and finding steady employment continued to be a struggle in the years that followed. Despite having multiple degrees in business, human resources and accounting Wade explains that no one would hire her because she was trans and involved in community organising.

I was very toxic after that. I was angry, rightfully so, Wade says. You took away my sustainability. You took away what the world told me: that if I graduated, I will be OK.

Eventually, drawing on her experience of living through hardship, she sought another way.

Im a hood-educated girl. I was a poor girl with roaches crawling all over me. I had to figure out ways to take care of my siblings when my parents were drug addicts, Wade says.

That way was the Brave Space Alliance (BSA), Chicagos first and only Black- and transgender-led LGBTQ centre. Wade announced its creation in 2017, as she led the Trans Liberation March in her hometown Chicago after returning from Tennessee. With more than 3,000 attendees, it was the largest demonstration for transgender people in the Midwest at the time.

Within the last year, the centre has become a focal point in combatting the myriad, intersecting struggles faced by Black and brown transgender and gender-nonconforming people in Chicago that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wade explains that it has serviced more than 300,000 people dealing with food insecurity through the Crisis Pantry Network and raised thousands of dollars through fundraising and an expansive but targeted mutual aid programme.

I enjoy the work that I do, and I feel as though I am following in my ancestors footsteps to create an oasis in the midst of a desert.

LaSaia Wade

BSA continues to prove what Black and transgender people are capable of accomplishing because the system has continually forced them to look after their own. Still one of the most segregated large cities in the country, there is a stark divide in the resources available to the South and West sides of the city compared with the majority-white North Side.

Before the pandemic, Black Chicagoans poverty rate was double that of white residents, and the unemployment rate for Black people in Chicago was 21 percent in 2017 higher than the national average. Studies on LGBTQ life in the city are scarce, and it is even rarer to find analyses that take racial disparities into account. A March 2018 report by the Chicago Department of Public Health, however, said transgender adults were far more likely to have worsened physical and emotional health.

Chicago has also been haunted by the murders of Black transgender women as violence against them has continued to grow.

Historically, Chicago was one of the first cities to adopt moral laws that criminalised transgressing gender norms. The city introduced a fine equal to anywhere between $600 and $2,300 in todays money for cross-dressing in 1851, which was much higher than the average punitive fine, according to A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History. Nevertheless, a flourishing LGBTQ scene developed and often transcended race and class lines in the city centre.

At the same time, Windy City Times reported in 2009, the South Sides Bronzeville neighbourhood was Chicagos Harlem: an enclave for creative and sexual freedom in the Black community. Things began to change as post-war urban renewal projects and redlining relegated Black residents to poorer communities and moved gay institutions farther north. The Civil Rights era also shifted attitudes towards LGBTQ people, the report said, as Black Chicagoans began to lose their sexual freedom when they began to work toward equality, because the civil rights movement mostly worked to uplift the race.

Within the complex community created by generations of oppressed people is a negative space created by city, state and federal institutions. Wade describes Chicago as a deep hole, a void that Brave Space Alliance needed to fill.

I enjoy the work that I do, and I feel as though I am following in my ancestors footsteps to create an oasis in the midst of a desert, or in the midst of panic or trauma or drama however you want to phrase it, Wade says. I just want people to understand BSA has built a culture that Chicago cannot live without any more.

Now that Wade and her organisation are the focus of media attention and local acclaim, how can Chicago reconcile that the city is the reason they need to exist? Wade will not let that contradiction go unnoticed. She holds firm that there is no place like Chicago, and BSA could only thrive in a city that makes ruthlessness look natural.

Chicago is like a black widow. Shes beautiful. She spins the most glamorous webs, the most intriguing types of understanding of what its biology is, Wade says. But the thing about Chicago is that it has no remorse when it comes to your life, who you are as a person and their politics. A black widow dont take no wives or husbands. It will slay you after it gets what [it needs from you].

She sees two opposing truths: The people make Chicago, and Chicago kills the people. The citys history has been defined by being home to radical thought leaders while simultaneously attacking the ideas they championed.

Chicago was once home to Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, and it was the birthplace of the Rainbow Coalition that is still the foundation for todays social justice movements. It was also the city that killed Hampton in his sleep. As far back as the Haymarket riot in 1886, Chicago was the heartland of the labour rights movement and the centre of violent repression in response.

And in February 2021, Mayor Lori Lightfoots office honoured Wade with the LGBTQ+ Activism Award while still embroiled in controversy over the citys treatment of activists just like Wade.

The celebratory event came only days after a report by the citys inspector general revealed massive failures by top city and police officials in responding to last years protests set off by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. That is why Wade ensured those who honour her must celebrate the whole of what she represents, including the fight to abolish the police.

When youre going to talk about LaSaia Wade on Black History Month and award LaSaia and Brave Space Alliance, youre going to talk about how were an abolition organisation, too, Wade says. If youre going to talk about me, youre going to talk about me correctly.

No matter how much acclaim Wade receives for her work, her found-family mother, Spencer, always expects her to achieve more.

Shes the type of woman [to say], Oh you got an award? All right. So are you not going to run for governor? Wade shakes her head, a grin playing on her face as she thinks of what Spencer would say about her accomplishments thus far. Im saving 300,000 people, and [shes] worried about if I become mayor!

Wade explains that community organising is like a bunch of nuts and bolts that are trying to build a structure, and people like Spencer are what brings it all together, even though Spencer is based thousands of miles away on the West Coast.

Wade says Spencer holds her accountable and offers new perspectives on implementing programmes as a board chair at BSA. The organisation has been rolling out gender-affirming rooms with donated items like lipstick and chest binders and will soon launch virtual mental health services.

The two are in constant contact about issues big and small and their interactions go both ways. Spencer laughs when she says that Wade had to force her to finally choose what redesigns she wanted for her home office after a year of indecision, a small moment that shows how they have pushed each other to grow throughout the years.

I want my people to be great, because I know them to be great. Ive seen what theyre capable of. I know those skills are transferable to any area of life.

Valerie Spencer

As much as Spencer has inspired Wade in creating BSA, she has had to evolve alongside the community. Spencer was present for the development of a new language in the 1990s, and now she is learning from Wade and the staff at BSA about gender-neutral pronouns and existing as gay and transgender, describing herself as a very heteronormative transwoman.

On the other hand, Spencer mentors Wade based on what she has learned from decades of activism. She took over the work of AIDS Diva Connie Norman in 1992 after Norman approached her in a church parking lot.

She stepped out to have a cigarette and she said to me, Im dying and I want you to take over my work, Spencer says. That was when she continued Normans efforts to raise awareness around the AIDS epidemic and how it affected transgender women. Spencer moved on to work in the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions HIV prevention planning committee in Los Angeles County for two years and continued to do social services outreach at local, state and federal levels in the years that followed.

In the early days, it was difficult because people only knew us as transsexual transvestites, Spencer says. The word transgender wasnt around yet. Im a part of an elite crew of women who made that word so.

Norman died of complications from the AIDS virus in 1996. A Los Angeles Times obituary from that year captures what the language around trans identity was like then, describing Norman with words that are seen as outdated by todays standards. In the years that followed, many could not envision transgender women as more than stereotypes, Spencer explains.

She also remembers a time when she was speaking at a clinic in Texas and asked where the trans staff members were. Her voice grows animated as she recounts a woman proudly telling her, We aint got none of them people working here, lady.

Dont be proud of that. You are at least 13 years behind civilisation, and because youre the one that signs the cheque, nobody has told you how backward you are, Spencer recalls thinking at the time.

I want my people to be great, because I know them to be great. Ive seen what theyre capable of. I know those skills are transferable to any area of life, Spencer says. She believes in her communitys potential to thrive and pivoted her work to make it real. That is why she stepped away from HIV prevention at 37 years old to obtain a masters degree in social work.

Along with practising behavioural therapy in California, she created the Holistic Empowerment Institute to offer master classes in leadership to Black and brown transgender women. She says her true agenda is to encourage women to pursue an education, and she wants to make that more feasible by teaching them the skills they will need to complete it. That includes laying the groundwork for academic tools, from learning proper research citations to working on emotional wellbeing in order to lead the community.

Having a healthy mindset is one of the crucial lessons she hopes Wade will internalise, describing happiness as something that must be practised. Spencer knows from experience that activists are often overcome by personal struggle, no matter how much recognition they receive for their work.

She details her own bouts of poverty earlier in life and how she had to balance organising against the systemic inequalities her community faced with fighting through it herself. Many pioneering transgender activists faced the same challenge, like Marsha P Johnson, who was a leading figure in the Stonewall Inn protests and gay liberation movement, but led a life plagued by addiction, homelessness and mental health problems.

Spencer warns that an oppressed community can become codependent with its leaders, so finding space to step back and let others help is imperative. She oversees the behind-the-scenes work at BSA including finances and maintaining ethical guidelines to assist Wade for that reason.

I know that LaSaia is powerful, and so I dont want a small existence for her. I want the biggest, happiest, juiciest, baddest, shiniest piece of happiness that yall have for her in the store, Spencer says. I want LaSaias work everyones work to be lastingly recognised on a long-term basis so that it can be globally impactful. I dont just want her to be an influence in Chicago.

For Wade, the part of the story she wants people to remember is what will outlive her and any recognition she may receive: for generations, Black transgender women made space for their own definition of what it means to be, and that cannot be taken away.

I dont care about being erased. What I care about is: Are my people going to thrive? Regardless of what it looks like, Ive made my stamp in Chicago and the state of Illinois. There is no one that can erase the work Ive done, Wade says. Im not in the work to be seen. Im in the work to change the lives of people.

Read more:

Warrior women together: Mothers of the Black trans family - Al Jazeera English

The Senedd. Picture by Senedd Cymru. Inset: Charlie Evans.

A Tory candidate is worried that the Senedd is being used to push for independence.

Charlie Evans, who is standing in Dwyfor Meirionnydd, has insisted that he doesnt want to abolish Wales national parliament, but suggested it was being used to promote separatism.

The candidate added that he wanted to see more localism, where more power was devolved to local authorities.

He also said that the Conservatives shouldnt do a deal with Abolish the Assembly to form the next Welsh Government, following reports that his partys leader in the Senedd, Andrew RT Davies, had refused to rule one out.

He told Golwg360: My only worry is that the Senedd, over the past few years, has been used by separatists to push the independence cause.

Thats why worry with the present settlement. However, I dont believe in abolishing the Senedd. I think it should continue to exist.

But I also believe we should have more localism as well by devolving power to local authorities.

Therefore, on this specific question, Im not in favour of abolition, but there are real worries that the mechanism of the institution is being used to promote separatism.

Deal with Abolish

When asked about reports on WalesOnline that the Conservative leader in the Senedd, Andrew RT Davies, had refused to rule out a deal with Abolish the Assembly to form a government, he said: No bargains. Thats my position.

According to the opinion polls were really close to being the second biggest party in the Senedd. Therefore, our strategy probably will be to form a minority government.

If there are specific issues where other parties, such as Plaid, Abolish, or whoever else in the Senedd, want to support us, through for example getting rid of NVZ (nitrate vulnerable zone) regulations, Im sure wed welcome that.

But there wont be pacts, there wont be election bargains. If were the largest party wed definitely want to form a minority government with Andrew RT Davies as First Minister.

When Andrew RT Davies was asked if he would rule out a deal with Abolish unequivocally, he said: I see no reason why we want to work with Abolish whatsoever.

Read more here:

Tory candidate 'worried' that Senedd is being used to push independence - Nation.Cymru