Unknown Rights Are No Rights At All

Guest post: Katherine Cross, core collective member of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and co-editor of The Border House, gave the following remarks at the opening plenary of the From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedomconference PopDev co-hosts with our partner program CLPP every April.

So, just what is “a right?”

You see, there is something about “rights”– those things we keep fighting and dying for, those amorphous, evanescent phantoms of liberty that keep us striving towards the infinite horizon of change. Rights are what movements like ours are built on. So what are they?

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to low income trans people and trans people of colour in New York City, has a rather novel idea of what rights are.

We believe that a right is something that you can touch, can taste, can live and breathe. It is something tactile, material, with a size and shape that is known, and something that is more than a phantom of a whisper of a thought on parchment: a right is the recognition of your humanity. For SRLP this has meant one thing: rights require justice in order to be exercised. In order to be something more than “theoretical.”

If a woman has a right to reproductive choice, but cannot afford it, then for all practical intents and purposes SHE HAS NO RIGHT to reproductive choice. That is reality, and it is a reality that Sylvia Rivera Law Project has attended to. Human dignity requires material conditions, it requires economic justice, and it requires the power that knowledge brings. There is a reason that “Know Your Rights” brochures are our most popular offerings.

Unknown rights are no rights at all.

We Are the Movement

Courtney Hooks, PopDev Reproductive & Environmental Justice Fellow for 2011-2012, gave the following remarks at the opening plenary of the From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom conference on April 13th-15th.

I was asked to wrap this plenary up.

Before I start, I want to acknowledge that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. Women. With rounded hips. Often small in stature. Who gave graciously. The full extent of their contributions may not have been known during their present or after their ascent, but it extends infinitely. So I raise my hand toward the sky in g

ratitude or all of those who came before me and brought me here today.

I’m shaking, my heart is beating a mile a minute. It’s almost like I have a crush on ya’ll and I’m trying to build up the nerve to ask you out on a date. I have sweaty palms. I wish I could be more suave, but — not gonna lie — I’m an awkward black girl through and through, #trufax.

Truth is, I’m incredibly inspired by all of the movers and shakers that got up on stage today and spoke their truths to power. I’m incredibly inspired by all of you here in this room. Whether it’s your first time or your 20^th time here, each of you, each of us is bringing such valuable life experiences and perspectives and wisdom to this conference.

So, where are we? What are the conditions that we’re living under? This list won’t be exhaustive — but here are some things that have been on my mind.

Meet Michael Tobias: Ecologist, Animal Lover, Anti-Immigrant Activist

What makes environmental racism so insidious is that at first glance, it seems to rely purely on numbers and nature: two realms that purportedly exist outside of politics. However, ecologist Michael Tobias has made his career out of drawing connections between these apparently disparate ways of seeing the world. He relies on the assumption that numbers are indisputable and separate from politics, to issue his new public-service announcement—a to-the-point tally of the increasing populations of California, the United States, and the planet. Ominous background music and lighting accent his urging for “a serious dialogue” about curbing population growth—with clean water, air, food, and our children’s future listed as the victims of our inability to enact such austerity measures.

At first, it seems very straightforward: acting for the health of our planet helps everyone, regardless of political affiliation, race, class, gender, or nationality, ecology says. It ensures enough resources to continue going around, now and in the future. However, this viewpoint both fails to account for the true misdistribution of resources currently in effect today, and also aims not for an equal distribution of future resources, but for a continued disproportionate favoring of resources for the Western, white world.

How about the animals, though? Surely animal rights exist outside the realm of human bigotry, right?

Labor, Gender & Globalization: The Implications of My Underwear

Lately, all I can think of when I look at patterned clothing is where it came from. For some reason artificial patterns—stripes, polka dots, texts or cartoon characters—bring factories to mind for me more quickly. It may be because the uniformed chaos is so clearly machine-printed, and emphasizing the methodical kind of system made to churn out many million copies of a product.

For better or worse, studying science has only intensified my natural impulse to obsess over complex processes. I can’t help my preoccupation with the origins of these fabrics—who stamped the hounds-tooth pattern onto tens of thousands of rain boots? Who attached the clasps to all of my bras, and all of my friends’ bras, and all of the bras worn by all of the students in my school, and all of their friends’ bras? Whose daily work is dedicated to this? And when I checked the “made in” labels, why were they almost all from Asia?

Luckily, I now have some answers to my questions. In late October, I had the unique opportunity to have lunch with the renowned Thai organizer Jittra Cotshadet (sometimes Hampshire College is a really cool place to be). In the news, she’s usually called a labor activist, but I’d argue we could just as easily call her a women’s rights activist.

Reproductive Justice Conference 2011!

Tomorrow kicks off the 30th Anniversary Reproductive Justice Conference, From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom!

PopDev workshops include Progressive Visions for Immigrant Rights, Environmental Justice: Toxic Legacies & Transformative Change, Reproductive Technology & the New Eugenics, The Center of Somewhere: Marginalized Issues in Global Reproductive Health, Indigenous People Organize, Politics of Population Control, and many more.

Want to meet a few of the awesome people presenting?