Die a silent death
A 21-year-old transwomyn was murdered on Thursday after being shot three times outside of her Memphis apartment building.  Investigators are brushing it all under the rug saying that it was a robbery gone bad.  What they fail to admit is that the womyn still had her purse and all its contents when she died.  They also fail to acknowledge that police were called to the apartment complex two weeks earlier when two men showed up at the transwomyn’s apartment: one carrying a knife, the other carrying a sledgehammer.

The lesson here seems to be an old one: identity doesn’t count in the eyes of the law.  Everyday trans folks, non-trans people of color, people with disabilities, wimmin, and so on are targeted because of their identity.  But to acknowledge that identity as a motivation of violence would have to admit a larger societal and cultural problem (and, possibly, lead to an admission of persynal responsibility in the continuation of those systemic problems).  We cannot allow identity to be erased once again.  It may be a construct, but it doesn’t mean it has no affect.

Funding the Revolution
President Bush recently signed over $500 million dollars in federal aid to faith-based organizations to promote anti-same-sex marriage.  Under the law, faith-based groups are able to circumvent local and human rights laws that are supposed to protect LGBT workers.  But Bush isn’t the only one to blame.  The funding was attached to a Congressional deficit reduction bill (funny, spending money in a deficit reduction bill). That means that the bill had to pass both houses of Congress.  So the entire federal legislative body is complicent in the attack on civil rights.

A wall is just a wall
Enraged by the US government’s new emphasis on strenthening border patrols and the long-lived treatment of Mexico as a second-class citizenry, Mexicans across the political board are taking action.  From diplomatic battles to boycotts against US goods to street protests, things are heating up in Mexico.