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BACK TO THE ER Poor Families Will Be Hardest Hit by Republican Health Bill By Viji Sundaram, New America Media
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OLIVIA OLIVIA
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Suzanne Deakins, Ph.D., H.W.M. Regular Contributor GLAPN
Sossity Chiricuzio
Columnist and Feature Reporter
BERKELEY, Calif. – The healthcare bill introduced by House Republicans on Monday will cause millions of people to lose their health insurance, experts say.
How are you able to draw primary care doctors to treat your Medi-Cal patients when the reimbursement rate for the program is so low — in fact, one of the lowest in the country?
Among the hardest hit will be low-income families, who will be forced to go back to the Emergency Room for their medical care, says Marty Lynch, executive director of LifeLong Medical Care, a 40-year-old Federally Qualified Health Clinic with 14 locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. FQHCs like his — long the safety net for poor and undocumented families in underserved areas — are now bracing for the fallout from the planned repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Health care payment methodology for FQHCs is ruled by federal law. It’s a lot better than what doctors in the Medi-Cal network get in other health care facilities.
Around 5 million Californians were able to get health insurance thanks to the ACA’s expansion of Medi-Cal (California’s name for the health insurance program for low-income people known as Medicaid in the rest of the nation) and the federal tax subsidies the ACA provides for those who buy insurance through the online marketplace. The state’s uninsured rate dropped to a record low of 7.1 percent last year. The majority of patients who today access FQHC services in California have insurance either through Medi-Cal or Covered California, the state’s online marketplace.
So with more Medi-Cal patients coming to your clinic since the ACA, has your bottom line improved, and by extension, has that allowed you to expand services?
Many of those customers could lose their health insurance under the new bill, called the American Health Care Act, which would change Medicaid funding so that states would be forced to choose Medicaid funding as a block grant or as a per capita cap. Health care advocates believe neither funding mechanism will cover ongoing statewide needs.
larry lewis
They have spoken out strongly against the bill. Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president and chief executive office of CaliforniaHealth + Advocates, observed that the new bill would abandon “our most vulnerable communities by rolling back foundational safety-net programs like [MediCal] expansion.”
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After California Representatives Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, and Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, voted to repeal the ACA March 9, Health Access Executive Director Anthony Wright said in a press release:
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“It is stunning that Californians like Rep. Nunes and Rep. Walters voted for this bill, given the direct and disproportionate impacts on California and our health system.” New America Media interviewed LifeLong Executive Director Lynch about how his clinic would be impacted by going from ‘Obamacare’ to ‘Trumpcare.’
But our workforce is a big issue. We are experiencing a shortage of primary care doctors — like everywhere else in the nation — because more doctors are opting to become specialists.
FQHCs received a financial boost under President (George W.) Bush. The ACA expanded funding further. It definitely takes some pressure off to have more patients. With the extra income, we were able to open additional clinics in Pinole, Rodeo and downtown Oakland. We now have an urgent care facility in San Pablo. We have been able to hire more dentists and mental health care providers. LongLife has also benefited from the federal government’s pumping of more money into the so-called Section 330 grants. [The 330 grant money gives qualified clinics the option of offering services that aren’t billable to insurance plans.] But this grant has to be renewed annually, and with all that’s happening in Washington, the $4 million we should get under Section 330 is now not certain. We had planned to use that money to expand our Pinole center. Some of that money would have also been used to build a clinic in the City of Richmond which will have, among other things, a family care center, pediatric care, dental clinic and urgent care services. So have you put all your expansion plans on hold? We could be paralyzed by Trump fear, but we don’t want to let that happen. I am very disappointed with all the talk about repealing and replacing. Our community will be in a much worse place when it comes to accessing health care. They will be going back to the day when they resort to the Emergency Rooms to get their health care. How is LifeLong preparing for the financial cliff that is likely to happen?
Has the ACA been a game changer for LongLife [and other FQHCs like it]?
As a community clinic, we’ll adapt with whatever resources we have. But that won’t happen without patients getting hurt.
Oh yes, totally. Medi-Cal expansion and subsidized private insurance under the ACA have substantially increased our insured patient population. In 2013, [prior to the ACA] we had 25,000 insured patients. At the end of 2016, we had 59,000 patients. About 60 percent of our previously uninsured patients got coverage.
Note from the Editor: PQ’s page 3 story is normally an editorial piece, but in light of the recently released GOP health care bill, which will disproportionately affect the most marginalized and vulnerable, we decided to run a news story this month to keep our readers informed.
WHAT YOU’LL FIND INSIDE: Fighting for Your Life................................................... Page 4
GLAPN Celebrates Black History Month.............................. Page 8
Horoscope................................................................. Page 5
How Obamacare Improved the Nation’s Health............... Page 12
Political Morality.............................................................. Page 6
“Homosexual Agenda”........................................................ Page 14
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 • 3
VOICES
The Secret Life of Summer Seasons Fighting for Your Life By Summer Seasons
I’ll never forget the first time I experienced bullying in school. The kids always used to make fun of me because I was interested in fashion and they thought I talked like a girl. They’d go out of their way to follow me down the halls, trying to instill fear in me, and even physically pushing me into lockers or trash cans so that I’d trip or fall over. As a young boy I couldn’t really understand why anyone would do this. I was hated by these kids for no reason other than that I was different. I remember waiting until I got home to cry my eyes out because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they’d hurt me. Needless to say my life was miserable at that time. I started doing drag to learn how to find the confidence inside myself that I couldn’t find with my peers at school. What it ended up giving me was much more — it allowed me to live in a fantasy that I never could have imagined. I could literally be any person I wanted, and I finally felt like I could be free! However, being a drag queen came with its own unique set of challenges. A year or so into doing drag I was walking down Stark Street. I was on my way to a friend’s house in a skimpy army outfit. I remember feeling really beautiful. I had “borrowed” (taken without asking) my dad’s army issued ammunition box to use as my purse, and I loved my outfit. As walked I noticed the shadow of a long object behind me, and I immediately knew it was a baseball bat. I panicked and couldn’t decide what I was going to do. Everything inside me told me to run, but I was wearing very tall heels, so how could I outrun them? I could do what I always did, which was to just sit there and take whatever they were about to dish out to me, or I could stand and fight. I decided to fight; I was tired of being bullied, of not standing up for myself and allowing myself to be run over. I turned around with my purse in hand and aimed for the face. I connected with his face super hard and blood started pouring from his nose immediately. He began screaming in pain and dropped the bat. I kicked it away, and then turned around and ran at a full sprint to safety. I remember sitting at my friend’s house bawling my eyes out because I’ve always been anti-violence, but something inside me finally felt alive. I now knew that I could take care of myself, and I wasn’t going to be afraid and let others dictate my actions. I walked tall and proud in the halls the next day. I wasn’t going to stand by and let the kids bully me anymore. That very same day the kids cornered me in the hallway, and this time I started screaming at them. I told them that I wasn’t going to take their bullying anymore and that I was ready to stand and defend myself.
FEATURES
The next year, I was riding the bus and these guys started yelling obscenities at me, and no matter what I told the bus driver they kept allowing it to happen. Something told me that I was going to have to defend myself, so I reached inside my bag and grabbed my tweezers and stuck them in between my fingers. I got off the bus a stop early just to be sure I could remain safe, as there were three of them and one of me, but sure enough they followed me by getting out at the next stop and heading my way. This was before cell phones, so I had only one choice and that was to stand my ground. They started walking towards me saying ugly, vile things, but I was prepared to stand my ground. The first person came up to me and immediately started swinging, and I swung back. I hit him in the face with the tweezers hand. The next one came up behind me and I swung at him in the same manner, connecting with his arm. The third one jumped on my back and I bent over at the waist, making him fall off me. I swung right at his face as he hit the ground. Then I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. What I learned about myself in those few short years was that I no longer had to hide in the shadows. I was a strong enough person that I could now fight for myself. I was no longer afraid of anyone who might harm me, because I could take care of myself. I learned that you have to be aware of your surroundings and that there is no wrong way to react in that kind of situation. Sometimes I was going to stand and fight and sometimes I would run, but no matter what happens I am a strong individual. I don’t have to be afraid of what might happen. In light of what is currently happening with the presidential administration it is important for all of us to remember that we can fight. We don’t have to sit on the sidelines and take the punches like they want us to. We can stay strong, be diligent and remember that all of us are in this together. I am here to fight with you, and while I don’t encourage violence, you must do what it takes to make sure that you are safe, because we have a long road ahead of us.
MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 4 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY
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HOROSCOPE
LOCAL
STAR TRENDS By Robert McEwen
Moon Wobble & Evolution of Consciousness Moon Wobble is known by astronomers as lunar instability. It appears to wobble about every 89 and a half days. Its effect on your daily life is a feeling of emotional instability. The energy builds for a 3-week period before the peak. This winter the peak was Feb 20th through the 25th — people were peaking out and acting out. To better understand this energy it is important to recognize your consciousness. Humanity evolves or grows in its understanding of the nature of reality on global and universal levels. The Moon Wobble peaks and acts as an evolutionary driver and moves consciousness at an accelerated pace. This energy often appears to upset our everyday plans. Plans tend to fall through, get twisted and miscommunicated. There are more fires, deaths, and accidents during the peak times. Many countries put more EMTs on call. Some hospitals cut down on surgery unless it is an emergency. In spite of this appearance, something amazing is unfolding. The Moon Wobble energy sets the stage for consciousness, often helping to unblock energy that is needed for change and understanding. This energy may increase our ability to see a path to the future. The energy of Moon Wobble can be used to get a project going that has languished; creativity is often heightened, and many of us feel more plasticity in our energy causing us to feel as if the earth is dissolving beneath our feet. The collective consciousness does not single out any individual, but functions as one with infinite individuation. Energy flows from in to out, creating a constant outflow or unfolding of consciousness. It works like a large computer taking into consideration our own awareness of life and discovery of self. The more we are aware of these energies the more we can use them to achieve beauty and harmony in our lives and our communities. The universal consciousness is evolving, recognizing that the mother nurturance (archetype) is an important part of survival. The mother is balancing the strictness of the father archetype. Like all children we need parameters to better embrace the love and nurturing our universe can offer us. The harmony we seek is within our awareness as we learn to recognize and balance our energy. Out of this emerges absolute love of all life and from all life. Enjoy these peak times of instability and use them to help you achieve your goals and desires.
ROBERT MCEWEN, H.W., M AVAILABLE FOR ASTROLOGY READINGS AT ROBBYSTARMAN@AOL.COM PHONE: 503 706-0396 pqmonthly.com
JANUARY/FEBRUARY MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 • 5
Political Morality VOICES
By Suzanne Deakins
As a student of mind and consciousness, I have learned that 90% of all decisions are made from our unconscious mind based on our early years’ experiences. Morality and ethics are perceived through the lens of our belief structure; we make decisions based on what we were taught is a good person, idea, and thought. Now, perhaps more than ever, it is crucial that we recognize what we must do to protect our democracy, ethical actions, and moral core of existence. The day-to-day convictions of most of our fellow citizens can be divided into a moral division that we often see as the division between politically progressive (liberal) or conservative. This division is defined or depends on what you see as a good person and the right thing to do. Exploring deeper the concept of “good,” we can see this division as based on our understanding of family — what a good parent is to us. According to George Lakoff, the split of conservative and liberal can be compared to two kinds of parenting: strictness or nurturance. These qualities apply to morals and ethics in all facets of our life. This division pertains to our thinking and understanding of family, morality, religion, and to our politics. As a nation, we do not have discourse on this aspect of the political division simply because these concepts reside in our cognitive unconscious and we are often not aware of the part they play in our day-to-day decisions and actions. An example of this is how we see our parents. Parents are the first concept of God to a small child. A child cannot understand the abstraction of God, so in defining God they are told God gives all things. Everything a child receives comes from a parenting figure, thus if parenting figures are punitive and strict the child will grow into adulthood thinking that the source of life is punitive. Based on this understanding, political choices are made as well as religious ones. Political choices are made because a person chooses elected officials based on personal beliefs, rather than any abstract future presented by candidates during campaigns. If we are to remain a democracy as a country we must come to grips with the profound divisions we see in the function of government, social programs (entitlements), accessibility of education, environmental issues, gun control, the death penalty, abortion, energy, civil rights, taxation and not least religious freedoms. The essential division in our beliefs about these issues can be reduced to strictness and nurturance. The conservative leadership has spent quite a bit of time and money defining the meaning of family, morality, education, and other topics of political division. Conservative platforms, bills, executive orders, and press releases are all delivered in language that adheres to the concept of strictness; they are presented as ideas that conservatives can perceive as common sense, and lack any room for critical thinking. The conservative platforms strictly adhere to the definitions put forth, leaving little wiggle room in the enacting of rules set down MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 6 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY
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VOICES
by government officials. This kind of thinking is what I call black and white, either /or thinking, a school of thought based on excluding any outlying thoughts or circumstances. For instance, to allow Trans people to choose the restroom that fits their identity, one must recognize that people fall outside of the strict definition of male or female. To the black and white mind, the concept of a Trans person is not conceivable, so it must force anything that deals with possible sexuality variations (from the strict sense of gender definition) to move back into the either/or mode of male or female.
nurture our inclusion of the diversity of humanity. For those of us who are primarily liberals, the new administration feels abusive. The father sees its role as protection (for example, the travel ban and wall), but the attitude of exclusion feels abusive and non-nurturing to the liberal mind. Children need guidelines in which they can safely explore and learn (thus nurturing the soul of the child), but safe guidelines don’t need to be exclusive or abusive. To many of us, the soul of our country and democracy is immigration, that brings new ideas and diversity to our nation.
If we are to sustain our freedom and democracy as a progressive community we must quickly learn to define our concepts of morality and ethics in a way that presents them as common sense and as obtainable. We need parameters that keep us safe and yet allow us to grow and create in all our diversity. In many ways, it is a new way of thinking and educating our nemeses so they see the benefit and common sense of nurturing with parameters. Through community brainstorming, we must develop a vocabulary that expresses our ideals in a way that can be understood by the conservative mind. Discipline and parameters are a necessary part No division is ever black and white; there are nuances that lend shades of creative growth, but they must be malleable in such a manner that we of gray to our thinking. To understand our adversaries we must begin to are not thrown into either /or thinking. understand the subtleties of language and consciousness. As we speak of the unconscious mind we are speaking of those beliefs we are not aware It is my belief that we can make truth an effective force for all humanity. of playing a part in our life. Suzanne Deakins, Ph.D. is a publisher (One Spirit Press and The Q Press) In many ways, our country is in the middle of a parenting battle. and author. Her books may be found on amazon.com. She teaches seminars Conservative father (strictness) symbols outline how we are to live and on straight thinking and ontology, as well as Radical Forgiveness. She behave while the liberal mother (nurturance) symbols struggle to feed and maybe reached at suzannedeak@gmail.com We are a blend of many different ideas. We all are a blend of conservative and progressive thinking and beliefs. This is perhaps easier understood when we think of education. I am a progressive thinker and voter, but I still believe that education should air on a conservative side — teaching cursive handwriting skills and math without calculators. At the same time, I believe school-aged Trans children should choose which restrooms they want to use.
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY MARCH/APRIL 2017 • 7
LOCAL
GLAPN Celebrates Black History Month Exhibit at Q Center By George T. Nicola, GLAPN
The Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN), the LGBTQ history group, celebrated Black History Month with an exhibit at Portland’s Q Center. The display featured the many contributions of both LGBTQ and allied African Americans to Oregon’s LGBTQ movement and community. Read some highlights from the exhibit (names in bold are people who were featured in the exhibit): Black lesbian activist Kathleen Saadat was one of the six people that organized Portland’s first Gay Pride march in 1976. It was a courageous act and only drew a couple hundred people, but it was the start of an annual event which led to the huge LGBTQ Pride parades we have now. In 1991, Kathleen helped craft a Portland ordinance that banned sexual orientation discrimination, the first such law in Oregon that was not overturned by voters. (Gender identity was specified later in the decade.) Kathleen has been an important figure in intersectional advocacy, and has been awarded several lifetime achievement awards. Bill and Gladys McCoy were some of the Oregon LGBTQ community’s earliest straight cis allies, as well as being the first two African Americans voted to public office in the state. When Gladys first started supporting gay rights in 1972, other prominent Portlanders berated her for her advocacy. She responded that she could not ask for equality for herself as an African American if she did not support equality for gay people. The following year, Bill entered the Oregon House as the first Black Oregon legislator. There he cosponsored Oregon’s first bill attempting to ban sexual orientation discrimination. Audria M. Edwards, another straight cis ally, was the second president of PFLAG Portland and the first Black PFLAG president anywhere in the nation. She had four LGBTQ kids — a lesbian daughter, a gay son, a bisexual daughter, and a transgender daughter. When Audria passed away, two of her kids, Lady Elaine Peacock and Misty Waters, started the Audria M. Edwards Scholarship Fund. Upon their deaths, they entrusted the scholarship to Maria Council and Kimberlee Van Patten, who run it to this day through Peacock Productions, Inc. The organization is known for its iconic summer Peacock in the Park shows. The scholarships benefit LGBTQ students living in Oregon and Southwest Washington. In 2007, Kendall Clawson became the Q Center’s first executive director, growing the center to become the important LGBTQ community resource it is today. Three years later, she left to become Governor John Kitzhaber’s Director of Executive Appointments. In that role, she helped the governor make appointments to state’s 312 boards, commissions, task forces, and work groups. As an African American lesbian, Kendall called on her experiences to make these entities much more representative of women, LGBTQ people, and people of color. She has since left state government to become Executive Director of the American Leadership Forum of Oregon. MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 8 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY
Queer Heroes Margaret-Ann Jones and Rupert Kinnard at GLAPN’s 2017 Black History Month reception
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LOCAL NEWS
Also honored were many gay African Americans like Harold Strong, who has long been active in Portland’s Imperial Sovereign Rose Court, and who has been particularly effective in bringing court support to GLAPN and other segments of the community; and bisexual African Americans like Rev. Cecil Prescod, who, starting in 1992, pioneered organized support for LGBTQ equality from religious communities through his organization, People of Faith Against Bigotry. The exhibit recognized Black LGBTQ organizations over the years, including Brother to Brother, Black Lesbians and Gays United, and Portland Black Pride. In 2009, PFLAG Portland Khalil Edwards Black Chapter was established; it was the first African American PFLAG chapter in the nation. The founder, Antoinette Edwards, is a charismatic Black straight cis ally who wanted to support her gay son, Khalil Edwards. Khalil was coordinator of the group for many years. In August of 2013, he delivered an eloquent speech in Portland’s Waterfront Park at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington that helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In his speech, Khalil referenced Bayard Rustin, the gay Black 1963 march organizer. “Because he [Rustin] lived out and proud, inspiring others to live fully and work to change the world, I am able to stand here today: Black, gay, and proud.” Last year, PFLAG Portland Black Chapter was relaunched as the Sankofa Collective Northwest, which continues to promote the health and well-being of Black LGBTQ people and their families and friends.
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The Black History Month exhibit was highlighted with a February 23 reception and a showing of the movie Loving, a historical drama about the plaintiffs in Loving v. Virginia — the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. This year’s GLAPN Black History Month program was assembled by several members of GLAPN, including president Robin Will and Margaret-Ann Jones. Margaret-Ann is a major African American activist in the Portland LGBTQ movement. She has also been involved in Women of All Colors (WOAC) and Lesbians of a Certain Age (LOCA). The original artwork for the exhibit was created by renowned Portland gay African American graphic artist Rupert Kinnard. Much of the exhibit included posters from the annual Queer Heroes NW program that GLAPN launched in 2012, which honors a Queer Hero every day in June as part of Pride. To learn more about GLAPN’s Queer Heroes and check out the archives, visit glapn. org/9060QueerHeroesMain.html. Nominations for June 2017 Queer Heroes can be submitted at glapn.org/queer-heroes-nw.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY MARCH/APRIL 2017 • 9
CALENDAR NEWS
1 TOP PICKS
Legally Black starring Bob the Drag Queen
Qurb Magazine and Peaches Christ Productions invite you to get ready to bend and snap for “Legally Black” an all-new, all-drag theatrical parody of “Legally Blonde,” the film that proved once and for all that brunettes are simply inferior people (WRONG!). Remember, don’t judge a queen by her wig color! This starstudded cast includes Bob the Drag Queen, Winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8, and Peaches Christ, along with some of Seattle’s most talented Queens! There will also be a VIP meet and greet experience available, which includes a professional digital photograph with Bob the Drag Queen and Peaches Christ, a complimentary glass of champagne, and a goodie bag. Saturday, April 8, doors at 6
Blowpony 10 Year Anniversary
Don’t miss the 10 year celebration of Portland’s gayest party, Blowpony! Trixie Mattel, Double Duchess, Will Sheridan and Daniel Girón will perform throughout the night. DJs will include Airick X, Just Dave, Aurora, and Matt Consola. Gay Gogos Heatherette, Charley Sharp, Foxy, Johhnny Cakes, Nikki Bunz, and Lighthouse will be in the house. Guests will also enjoy photos courtesy of Jason DeSomer Photography. Saturday, March 25, 9 a.m. – 3 a.m. at Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E. Burnside St., Portland. 21+ only, $19 entry.
COMMUNITY EVENTS
Basic Rights Oregon Lobby Day
Rad Families Book Release and Social Hour
Join Basic Rights Oregon for their 2017 Lobby Day at the Oregon State Capitol. The group will offer transportation to the Capitol, followed by meet and greets and Lobby 101 training. Registration is $10 but scholarships are available. Email dominc@basicrights.org to attend. Monday, March 20, 9:30 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. at the Willamette Heritage Center, 1313 Mill St., Salem.
Join editor Tomas Moniz and local rad writers scott winn, Zach Ellis, Chelsea Bieker, Stephanie Wong Ken, and Joshua James Amberson for an engaging hour of storytelling.
3 GOOD TIMES
Strike a Pose
Burlesqcape
Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., Portland.
Saturday, March 18 and April 15, 9 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. $12 admission.
Boylesque and Burlesque wrapped in a taste of tease on the 3rd Saturday of every month.
Drag Dangerzone
Call for performers for the next edition of the Drag Dangerszone! Are you an established performer with something new, a burlesque performer looking like a hot slut, or a new drag queen ready to hit the stage. Friday, March
LGBTQ community member Ryan Wayman, the founder of Pride Financial and current West Region Vice President of AXA Advisors, will offer a talk and answer any questions attendees have about planning one’s estate. They will discuss how Basic Rights Oregon is defending and expanding LGBTQ rights during the Trump administration, and discuss their new Planned Giving program, which offers supporters a chance to leave a legacy for LGBTQ justice. Thursday, March 30, 6 – 9 p.m.
Sir Cupcake’s Queer Circus goes Inside the Body
Sir Cupcake was stranded in the future; his magic time traveling pocket-watch had been sabotaged, his internal organs were jumbled up and his heart had gone missing! Now the Queer Circus must travel inside Sir Cupcake’s body to put his organs back in place and find his missing heart. March 21, 25, and 31, and
April 1, 8 p.m. at the Echo Theatre Company PDX, 1515 SE 37th Ave., Portland. $22 advance, $25 at the door. Email thesircupcake@gmail. com for more information.
17, 9 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. $5 cover, or free if you perform. Contact Crush Bar in advance to sign up for a slot.
Queer Leather Dinner Gay Skate
Come join us for our monthly Gay Skate night. Gay skate happens the 3rd Monday of every month. Monday, March 20, 7 – 9 p.m. at Oaks Amusement Park, 7805 SE Oaks Pkwy, Portland. MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 10 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY
LGBTQ Estate Planning and Charitable Giving
at AXA Advisors Portland, 1 SW Columbia St. Ste.1550, Portland. Free and open to the public.
Thursday, March 16, 7 – 9 p.m. at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop.
Strike a Pose is a dramatic tale about overcoming shame and finding the courage to be who you are. March 17, 10 p.m., Clinton
Want more? We’ll give you everything. Head over to pqmonthly.com and check out our online calendar of events, submit your own events, and send photos for your event. Also, remember to carefully examine our weekly weekend forecast with the latest and greatest events each Wednesday (sometimes Thursday), online only. Have an event you want considered? Submit your events at calendar@pqmonthly.com. Events for the April/May issue must be submitted by April 1st. OLIVIA OLIVIA, CALENDAR@PQMONTHLY.COM
p.m., show at 7 p.m. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., Portland. Tickets range from $25 to $80.
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Join other queer leathers for an evening of food, drink, and awesome conversations. Mr. Nick Elliott, International Bootblack, will shine and condition your footwear at the bootblack stand. Wednesday, March 22, 7 – 9 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. Free, 21+ only. pqmonthly.com
CALENDAR
3
Ru Paul’s Drag Race Season 9 Premiere
Forget March Madness — place your bets on which Queen will win this season! Friday, March 24, 5 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland.
Amateur Night
Amateur Night in the main bar hosted by the gorgeous Godiva DeVyne. Interested dancers should arrive by 8:45 p.m. Wednesdays at
Stag PDX, 317 NW Broadway, Portland. Free, 21+ only.
Throwback Thursdays
GOOD TIMES CONTINUED
Throwback Thursday hosted by the always fashionable Drexler. The house DJ spins the best pop, hip hop, and R&B hits of the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Thursdays at Stag PDX, 317 NW
Hosted by Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi, the April edition opens with a pre-show twist on the 80s slash classic. Thursday, April 6, 9:30 p.m. – 11:15 p.m. at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland. $9.
Burlesque S’il Vous Plait
Enjoy a classic burlesque show with a contemporary variety twist every first Friday. Friday, April 7 at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. Doors at 8:30 p.m., Show at 9 p.m., $12 – $18.
Broadway, Portland. Free, 21+ only.
Testify Brunch March Dragness with Charlie Hides
Testify Brunch hosted by the fabulous Alexis Campbell Starr from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Show starts at 12:30 p.m. Sundays at Stag PDX, 317 NW Broadway, Portland. Free.
RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 star Charlie Hides comes to Stag after a collective watching. Friday, March 24, 7 p.m. – 2 a.m. at Stag PDX, 317 NW Broadway, Portland. $12 General Admission , $35 VIP Experience.
23 Hoyt Drag Brunch
Enjoy $2 mimosas while watching the amazing talents of the Superstar Divas of CC Slaughters and special guests. All ages are welcome, but reservations are encouraged. Secure your spot by calling (503) 445 - 7400. Sunday, March 26, 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. at 23 Hoyt, 529 NW 23rd Ave., Portland.
Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School
Live art drawing with posted models. Sunday, March 26, 7 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. $10 admission.
Last Wednesgays
Get through hump day with a bonus LGBTQ drink or two. This hip, rustic-industrial hangout offers a patio, fireplaces, and pingpong. Wednesday, March 29, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. at
Century, 930 SE Sandy Blvd, Portland. Free, 21+ only.
Shades Queer Prom Night Bronco Night at Stag
Every first Saturday is Bronco, a sexy new men’s night in Portland and across the U.S. at men’s clubs. Enjoy beefy bearded dancers, great tunes, photo booths, and sexy visuals!
Saturday, April 1, 9 p.m. – 2 a.m. at Stag PDX, 317 NW Broadway, Portland. $6 before 10 p.m., $10 after, doors at 9 p.m. 21+ only.
Pants Off Dance Off
Body positive, bare-as-you-dare dance party that happens every first Saturday of the month. Saturday, April 1, 9 p.m. at Crush
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Bi, pan, fluid, and queer folks are welcome to come to the monthly Bi Bar event every second Tuesday at Crush Bar. Tuesday, April 11, 8 –
11:30 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. No cover.
First card free, $3 cards after. Happens the first Tuesday every month. Tuesday, April 4, 6 – 8 p.m. at Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland.
Dan Savage’s Easter Extravaganza
– 2 a.m. at Swift Lounge, 1932 NE Broadway St. Portland. Free and open to the public, 21+ only
Mondays at Stag PDX, 317 NW Broadway, Portland. Free, 21+ only.
Bi Bar
Dykes on Bikes Bingo Fundraiser
Every Monday, Bart Fitzgerald curates one of the most refreshing events of the week. If you make it through a Monday, you deserve to attend. Music by Dubblife. Mondays, 9 p.m
Weekly karaoke night for the queer community.
April 8, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. at Dig A Pony, 736 SE Grand Ave., Portland.
Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., Portland. $7 cover, clothes check included.
Legendary Mondays
Stag Karaoke Mondays
This night is dedicated to those who never got a prom, want a prom do-over or just straight up party crash! Playing dress-up encouraged, but not mandatory. No cover, 21+ only. Saturday,
Queer Horror: Slumber Party Massacre
The Hollywood Theatre’s bimonthly Queer Horror continues its year of women-centric programming with Slumber Party Massacre.
The Savage Lovecast returns to Revolution Hall for a live taping of Dan Savage’s popular sex-and-relationship advice podcast. Join Dan, Nancy, the tech-savvy, at-risk youth for a very special sexy Easter extravaganza and get all your sex-and-relationship questions answered live. With special musical guests Rachel Lark and the Damaged Goods, Sexy Jesus, treats, bunnies, baskets, and more. Friday, April 14, 8 p.m. at Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St. #110, Portland. JANUARY/FEBRUARY MARCH/APRIL 2017 • 11 FEBRUARY/MARCH
How Obamacare Improved the Nation’s Health HEALTH
By Yanick Rice Lamb, AFRO/New America Media
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ashley Turner has experienced ups and downs with the Affordable Care Act, but says she and other Americans have benefited overall. She doesn’t believe that Republicans should try to dismantle the ACA, also known as Obamacare. “That would be a mistake on their end,” said Turner, who lives in Hyattsville, Maryland. “People who are currently insured with the different plans that fall under the Obamacare law, they will no longer be insured and there will be a ripple effect with debt with hospitals not being paid, the doctors not being paid, and with more and more people not being covered.”
32 Million Would Lose Care If the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is even partially dismantled, 18 million people could become uninsured within a year, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Protection and Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed in 2010 and was rolled out in late 2013: • The number of uninsured people declined. When open enrollment began for Obamacare in 2013, census figures indicated that 50 million people were uninsured in the United States, an increase of 5 million from 2007 to 2009, the height of the Great Recession. Since the rollout, about 20 million people ended up with health insurance, according to the White House. This includes 3 million African-American adults, whose uninsured rate dropped 53 percent since 2013. • Young people were able to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. This was one of the earlier provisions of ACA with 6.1 million young adults covered dating back before 2013. Since then, the uninsured rate for young people has dropped by 47 percent. • Women gained more comprehensive services for reproductive health care. This included well-woman visits, mammograms, contraceptive coverage, breast cancer tests for women at high risk, prenatal services and breastfeeding support. • People with pre-existing conditions were able to obtain coverage. Under ACA, coverage can’t be denied nor benefits reduced if someone has a history of heart disease, for example. • A wider pool of people saved on out-of-pocket costs for health care. This ranged from savings on immunizations to annual physicals for Medicare recipients.
That number could nearly double to 32 million by 2026, the CBO estimated, if the Medicaid expansion is rolled back and subsidies cut to those who paid for insurance through the marketplaces set up under the ACA.
• Medicaid was expanded to reach more low-income adults under the age of 65. Even though at least two dozen states opted out the Medicaid expansion, more than 4 million people with average individual incomes of roughly $16,000 gained coverage.
“I’m healthy, but I have glaucoma in one of my eyes,” Turner said. She was able to use Obamacare from 2015 to 2016 to cover treatments and visits to specialists.
Republicans have vowed to kill Obamacare. With control of the three branches of government,, including Donald Trump in the White House, they have the potential to do serious damage, ACA supporters claim.
Economist Julianne Malveaux and journalist Michael Days agreed that the ACA was President Obama’s signature achievement, during a recent signing and discussion of their books in Washington, D.C., assessing his legacy.
Newly elected U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, D-California, warned of hidden consequences during a recent rally in California.
“With the Affordable Care Act, he expanded the social contract for the first time in several decades,” said Malveaux, author of Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy (M Malveaux Enterprises, 2016), in her mixed assessment of the president’s overall track record during his eight years in the Oval Office. The lives saved under ACA are “incalculable,” said Days, author of Obama’s Legacy: What He Accomplished as President (Hachette Books, 2016) and Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Philadelphia News.
“If you’re a victim of domestic violence,” Harris said, “you can be denied access to health care because being a victim of domestic violence is considered a pre-existing condition. That ain’t right.” Linda Goler Blount, president and CEO of the National Black Women’s Health Imperative in Washington, D.C., has offered to work with the Trump administration to find ways to preserve health care gains. “We are extremely concerned that a Trump presidency and its resulting policies will mean increased mortality from avoidable chronic diseases, rising rates of poverty and, frankly, the weakening of black communities across the U.S.,” Blount said.
Here are a few ways that Americans have benefited under the Patient MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 12 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY
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HEALTH
Steven P. Wallace, Ph.D., director of the Coordinating Center for the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging Resource Centers on Minority Aging Research, has similar concerns. “Any social program that’s being looked at for modernization or change is going to have a disproportionate impact on communities of color,” Wallace warned during the Gerontological Society of America’s Annual Scientific Meeting. “Anything that reduces Medicaid is going to have a huge impact,” he added. Looking at out-of-pocket spending for health care as a percentage of personal income, Wallace said it would be 2.9 percent for poor people with Medicaid, but 20.7 percent without it. With the graying of America, the impact would be even greater, Wallace noted, if Republicans are successful in their promises to cut back on Medicaid as well as Medicare.
IN SOLIDARITY WITH PROTESTS, THERE WILL BE NO PRESS PARTY THIS MONTH.
VOICES FEATURES
“The number of older adults will double in 30 years,” he said. “The fastest growth in the aging population is communities of color.” The African-American elderly population is projected to grow from 3.8 million in 2012 to 10.3 million by 2050, according to Wallace.
The Individual Mandate A key and controversial component of the health plan is the “individual mandate,” requiring citizens who can afford insurance to maintain basic coverage or pay a penalty through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). People could keep or obtain insurance through their employers or go through state exchanges being set up to provide subsidized coverage. The mandate is also intended to reduce overall healthcare costs to taxpayers across the board. It provides an incentive for insurance companies to cover the sickest and poorest patients by gaining a wider pool of healthy people to offset the cost of chronic illness. In addition, the ACA offers tax credits to help small businesses provide health insurance for their employees. The downside of ACA for Ashley Turner is that she’s unexpectedly on the receiving end of the penalty after attempting to adjust her premiums and deductibles through a health exchange in Maryland. “Somebody messed up the policies,” Turner said. “I wasn’t insured between January and May, because of their miscommunications.” “My issue, for reasons that are not my fault, is that I’m going to be charged this tax fee, because I had a period of being uninsured,” said Turner, who now has coverage on her own. Nevertheless, Turner remains an Obamacare optimist. “From my experience, I think Obamacare is a good policy,” she said, “but it works better for people who are sick or people who are poor and can’t afford individual insurance outside an employer.”
Always have supported LGBT rights, Always will.
With the last day for open enrollment having passed on Jan. 31, for coverage under the hallmark of President Obama’s legacy, he too remains optimistic and throws down a challenge. “If anyone can put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we’ve made to our health-care system and that covers as many people at less cost,” President Obama said last week in his farewell address, “I will publicly support it.” Yanick Rice Lamb, co-founder of the health website FierceforBlackWomen.com, is chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film at Howard University. She wrote this article with support from the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program, a project of the Gerontological Society of America and New America Media, with funding from the Silver Century Foundation. pqmonthly.com
JANUARY/FEBRUARY MARCH/APRIL 2017 • 13
Claims of ‘Homosexual Agenda’ Help Kill Hate Crimes Laws in 5 States NATIONAL
By Thompson and Patrick G. Lee, Propublica, A.C.
Last year, lawmakers in South Carolina introduced legislation that would have increased the standard penalties for anyone who assaults, intimidates or threatens another individual if they did so because of the victim’s “race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, or sexual orientation.” Drafted by Democratic legislators after white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine African-American parishioners at a church in Charleston, the bill never even came up for a vote. It was a familiar fate. In recent years, at least a half-dozen other hate crimes proposals have died in the South Carolina statehouse. Much the same story played out in Indiana, where Republican state Sen. Susan Glick authored similar legislation in 2016; Glick’s bill would have increased time behind bars for those convicted of harming or intimidating someone if the assailant’s motivation was driven by the victim’s gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or immigration status The legislation passed in the Senate by a vote of 34-16 but died in the House without so much as a hearing. Since the 1980s, nearly every state in the union has enacted some sort of hate crimes law, as have Washington, D.C., and the federal government. While the laws vary from state to state, they generally bolster penalties for those who commit crimes — assault, vandalism, credible threats of physical violence, among others — because of some sort of bias against the victim. South Carolina and Indiana are among a small handful of states that have failed to pass such laws. Wyoming, Arkansas and Georgia are the other hold-outs. Much of the opposition to creating hate-crime legislation in these states has come from well-organized groups of Christian fundamentalists who on religious grounds disapprove of any sort of legal protections for gays, lesbians and transgender people. For these critics, the primary concern is legal language stepping up punishment for crimes motivated by contempt for the LGBT populace, measures they view as a small but dangerous part of a broader “homosexual agenda.” One of the Christian groups is the Family Research Council. Contacted by ProPublica, the FRC’s national office directed questions about hate crimes to Ryan McCann, an Indiana activist and lobbyist who works with the organization. McCann views hate crimes laws as a sort of Trojan Horse: If Indiana adopts such a law, McCann said, LGBT advocates will use the precedent to argue for further legal safeguards, including anti-discrimination statutes, which he opposes. Christian conservatives such as McCann have become potent activists against hate-crime legislation — lobbying, organizing their followers to petition statehouse lawmakers, and providing many of the key arguments against the laws. “Homophobia and resistance to providing protections for LGBT people obviously play a role in the push back,” said Robin Maril, associate legal director for Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT advocacy organization. South Carolina and Indiana are among a small handful of states that have failed to pass such laws. Wyoming, Arkansas and Georgia are the other hold-outs. MARCH/APRIL 2017 2017 14 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY
Much of the opposition to creating hate-crime legislation in these states has come from well-organized groups of Christian fundamentalists who on religious grounds disapprove of any sort of legal protections for gays, lesbians and transgender people. For these critics, the primary concern is legal language stepping up punishment for crimes motivated by contempt for the LGBT populace, measures they view as a small but dangerous part of a broader “homosexual agenda.” One of the Christian groups is the Family Research Council. Contacted by ProPublica, the FRC’s national office directed questions about hate crimes to Ryan McCann, an Indiana activist and lobbyist who works with the organization. McCann views hate crimes laws as a sort of Trojan Horse: If Indiana adopts such a law, McCann said, LGBT advocates will use the precedent to argue for further legal safeguards, including anti-discrimination statutes, which he opposes. Christian conservatives such as McCann have become potent activists against hate-crime legislation — lobbying, organizing their followers to petition statehouse lawmakers, and providing many of the key arguments against the laws. “Homophobia and resistance to providing protections for LGBT people obviously play a role in the push back,” said Robin Maril, associate legal director for Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT advocacy organization. Statehouse experts are quick to point out that Christian conservatives aren’t the only people who can be hostile to hate crimes laws. Jeannine Bell, a law professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law, said some legislators in that state believe the laws will create an inequitable justice system that “serves particular groups and not others.” (Bell, who has studied the laws, disagrees: “That is a misunderstanding. Everyone has a race.”) Lynne Bowman of Human Rights Campaign noted that, in general, Republicancontrolled legislatures have not been supportive of hate crimes bills regardless of the language. The range of concerns can include worries about limiting free speech or doubts that police and prosecutors can truly know a perpetrator’s state of mind or motivations at any given moment. There have even been some expressions of misgiving among civil rights advocates that the legal hurdles created by hatecrime laws — establishing with certainty, for instance, someone’s specific motivations — can be counter-productive. Decades ago, in a landmark 1993 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court examined the fundamental fairness of hate-crime legislation. The court held that carefully crafted hate crimes laws do not infringe on the free exercise of speech, a finding that resolved the major constitutional questions on the matter. The case centered on a racially motivated incident in Wisconsin in which an African-American man assaulted a white teen, leaving the victim in a coma. In the five states without hate-crime laws, however, there is little question that Christian activists have had an impact. pqmonthly.com
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Bowman, a senior field director with Human Rights Campaign, said “homophobia” gives lawmakers “an easy excuse to stand up against these bills.” For the past two decades, much of the resistance to hate crimes legislation has been orchestrated by a trio of intertwined conservative Christian groups. The oldest and most prominent is Focus on the Family, the Colorado-based ministry founded by James Dobson. The sprawling organization, which produces a vast array of media on biblical topics and funds anti-abortion counseling centers for pregnant women, operated on a budget of nearly $90 million in 2013, the last year for which full tax records are available. Focus on the Family portrays hate crimes laws as part of a plot to marginalize Christians and ban them “from the public arena.” Dobson’s ministry helped to spawn the Alliance Defending Freedom, a network of fundamentalist Christian lawyers who have argued that the laws infringe on religion while “creating additional legal protections for those engaged in homosexual behavior that are not available to everyone else.” But it is the FRC, a third offshoot based in Washington, D.C., that has emerged as perhaps the most effective foe of hate crimes legislation. When Congress took up the issue in 1999, an FRC leader told the Senate Judiciary Committee that revising the federal code to cover hate crimes could lead to the prosecution of “people who merely oppose homosexual activism.” Ten years later, as Congress debated the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the FRC decried the act as a “thought crimes” bill. Since then, the “thought crime” claim has become a common talking point in conservative Christian circles and the FRC’s regional chapters have sought to halt hate crimes legislation at the state level. In 2007, the FRC chapter in Arkansas urged lawmakers there to vote against hate crimes legislation authored by a veteran Democratic legislator. The bill failed. In a blog post, chapter leader Jerry Cox proudly touted the group’s accomplishments, saying it had spent years fighting “to make sure Arkansas’ civil rights and hatecrimes laws are not used to promote a homosexual agenda.” McCann of the FRC is straightforwardly explicit about the group’s thinking. “The gay-rights groups and the folks on the left only want to get the terms ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ into the law,” said McCann. “Unfortunately, that’s all they care about — their agenda.”
media coverage over homosexuality and samesex ‘marriage,’” the organization said in a 2010 statement. The FRC has cultivated powerful allies, some of them in the White House. As Wired recently reported, both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence appeared at the organization’s “Values Voter Summit,” while a range of current or pending administration officials — Reince Priebus, Mike Pompeo, Tom Price, Jeff Sessions — have all spoken at FRC events. Ed Prince, the father of Betsy DeVos, provided millions of dollars in funding to the FRC in the group’s early days. DeVos, a Michigan billionaire, has been tapped by the Trump administration to serve as U.S. secretary of education. While 45 states have enacted hate crimes laws, the statutes vary dramatically around the country. In 15 of those states, the laws do not cover gays and lesbians; in 28 they don’t cover gender identity or transgender individuals. In Georgia, state Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat, said he has sponsored at least five bills that have been defeated largely because they covered sexual orientation. “Some people have said, ‘If you don’t include gay people, it might pass,’” he recalled. Still, he insists he’ll never support “any bill that excludes gay people. I’m not going to have anything to do with a hate crimes law that, in effect, is discriminatory. Wouldn’t that be ironic?” Wendell Gilliard of South Carolina tells a similar tale. A Democrat from Charleston, Gilliard has introduced “four or five hate crimes bills” in the state House of Representatives — and all of them have come to nothing. The lawmaker, who is African-American, said he’s been barraged with angry emails and phone calls about his bills — not about race but from people “quoting biblical verses about homosexuality.” Opponents of the bills under consideration in Indiana claim the legislation, if passed, could be used to prosecute preachers who portray homosexuality as a sin. “Let’s pray that silencing speech is not the next step in the ‘gay’ agenda that the media embraces and pushes in the statehouse,” wrote Micah Clarke, an Indiana lobbyist and leader of an FRC chapter, in a newsletter sent to his group’s members. Clarke declined to be interviewed. “There are gay-rights activists all over the country who are trying to silence those who don’t agree with them,” said McCann, the Indiana lobbyist. As far as he’s concerned, the bills provide special treatment to members of “favored political classes” and are likely to muzzle fundamentalist Christians.
In Indiana, groups affiliated with the FRC have enjoyed great success in killing hate crimes bills over the past decade. The Republican Party currently enjoys a super-majority in the state, controlling both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. But “even under Democrat rule these hate crimes bills didn’t get a hearing,” said McCann, who helps to lead the Indiana Family Institute, a group associated with the FRC and Focus on the Family.
“Those are ‘alternative facts,’” said one clearly frustrated lawmaker, Greg Taylor, a Democrat from Indianapolis who has authored two hate crimes bills currently pending in the state Senate. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Currently McCann is pushing legislators to stop five different hate crimes bills pending in the statehouse.
“It’s absolutely not true. But it sounds scary and it plays into people’s fears,” Maril told us. “None of this legislation would ever impede an individual’s ability to speak out. ... We are not policing ministers’ ability to give sermons.”
Though the FRC describes its mission as the advancement of “faith, family and freedom in public policy,” critics take a very different view: The Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed it an anti-gay “hate group.” The FRC has vigorously denied the characterization. The allegations are “an attempt to discredit FRC’s work and cut us out of public policy debates and pqmonthly.com
Robin Maril of Human Rights Campaign describes the rhetoric coming from her political foes in Indiana as “irresponsible” fear-mongering.
A.C. Thompson covers criminal justice issues for ProPublica. He has been a reporter for 12 years, mostly in the San Francisco Bay area. Patrick Lee is a reporting fellow at ProPublica. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 • 15 MARCH/APRIL 2017
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In an Angry and Fearful Nation, an Outbreak of Anti-Semitism By A.C. Thompson and Ken Schwencke, ProPublica
In late November, Marna Street, a violist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was walking to her car after a rehearsal. Street was shocked by what she discovered: Someone had painted a swastika, about 14 inches across, on the trunk of her car. The vandals, Street said, had probably targeted her vehicle, which was parked in a garage not far from the University of Cincinnati, because she’d placed a magnet on it indicating that she is Jewish. Street eventually managed to scrub off the graffiti. She put the magnet in the glovebox of her car. “I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach, like somebody just punched me,” recalled Street, 68, speaking publicly for the first time. It was, she said, “a cross between fear and just plain hurt.” Working with a coalition of organizations, ProPublica late last year launched “Documenting Hate,” an attempt to gather evidence of hate crimes and episodes of bigotry from a divided America. The account from Cincinnati is one of the anti-Semitic incidents the project has chronicled. But there are scores more. Indeed, “Documenting Hate” recorded more than 330 reports of antiSemitic incidents during a three-month span from early November to early February. The accounts — our list is by no means comprehensive — come via personal submissions, police documents and news articles. The majority, though not all, have been authenticated through either news reports, interviews or other evidence, like photos. The incidents have taken place in big cities and small towns, along the country’s liberal coasts and in deep red states. Some of the episodes — swastikas and threatening messages spray-painted at schools and colleges around the nation — have been worrisome, though relatively minor. Others have been more serious, such as the 65 bomb threats targeting Jewish organizations across the country during the period we examined (there have been nearly 70 more since then). In many cases, the culprits singled out specific individuals for abuse, defacing their homes and autos with swastikas and menacing comments. In the first week of March President Trump, after weeks of criticism for being slow to condemn the incidents, called them “horrible” and “painful” and “a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” The remarks, however, came after a number of confounding comments about the issue. During a Feb. 16 news conference, Trump castigated Jake Turx, a reporter for Ami, a Jewish magazine, for asking what the government was doing to address the increase in anti-Semitic events. Trump accused Turx of lying about the question he wanted to ask, and instructed him to sit down. And without citing any evidence, Trump has wondered whether some of the recent anti-Semitic incidents were carried out by liberals, or Jews themselves, intent on discrediting him. “There’s a push on the left to conflate anti-Semitism with Trump, while at the same time criticizing him for having Jared Kushner, who wears his Jewishness as proudly as anyone, as his most trusted confidant and in the highest echelons of the White House staff,” said Joe Borelli, a Trump 2017 2017 16 • MARCH/APRIL JANUARY/FEBRUARY
supporter who represents Staten Island on the New York city council, according to Breitbart News. “It is mind-boggling.” The White House would not comment for the record when asked whether President Trump had in any way contributed to the threats and violence. On a national level, data on hate crimes and bias incidents is spotty at best. The FBI admits the information it collects is incomplete — many police departments don’t participate in the hate crimes tracking program — and the bureau has yet to release statistics on 2016 and 2017. As a result, determining with authority whether anti-Semitic events are rising or declining is difficult. There is little question, however, that the incidents have generated genuine concern. In a rare show of unity, all 100 U.S. senators this week issued a public letter urging the Department of Justice, FBI and Department of Homeland Security to protect Jewish institutions and prosecute those responsible for terrorizing them. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced a $25 million grant to better protect daycare and community centers from threats. The available data does support the idea of an uptick. After years of decline, anti-Semitic crimes began trending upward in 2015, according to FBI data. Experts say that increase seems to have accelerated in recent months, as Trump’s unique brand of nativist populism has helped to pull more extreme right-wing groups, some of them avowedly racist, closer to the political mainstream. On Twitter, openly anti-Semitic figures have built vast networks of supporters and cultivated large audiences, while the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website geared towards millennials, has seen its traffic grow to roughly a half a million unique visitors per month. In New York City, the police department said anti-Semitic hate crimes nearly doubled in the first two months of 2017 as compared to the same period last year. “One of the constituencies Trump mobilized was the KKK-style antiSemitic extreme right,” said Lawrence Rosenthal, a scholar of fascist history and director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. These groups “had been absolutely on the fringe of American politics for at least my lifetime — and I am getting old.” Oren Segal, who tracks anti-Semitic incidents in his role as director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, concurs. “The antiSemites think they have a champion in the highest office,” said Segal, who believes that “divisive rhetoric” aired during last fall’s presidential campaign has emboldened racists [and anti-Semites] and inspired them to strike out at their perceived enemies in the Jewish community. “We have seen a significant uptick in the reports we’ve received, certainly starting around the election in November and continuing through the first two months of 2017,” Segal told ProPublica. Amid the larger national debate about any responsibility Trump may bear for racist and anti-Semitic behavior, the accounts emerging from the “Documenting Hate” database offer a chance to appreciate the very personal experiences of violation and fear. pqmonthly.com
FEATURES NATIONAL
We identified: • Incidents at colleges and universities, like the man who wandered the University of Florida’s campus in Gainesville wearing a swastika armband. • Incidents at K-12 schools, including swastikas painted on almost any surface imaginable — including students’ hands. • Incidents at government buildings, most of which were libraries, though one involved the words “Heil Hitler” and “Trump” scrawled inside of a Brooklyn wastewater treatment plant. • Incidents at private homes and businesses, including swastika graffiti and propaganda on businesses in Eugene, Oregon. • Incidents at public parks — mostly graffiti, though one enterprising vandal dug a 20-foot by 20-foot swastika into the grass at a park in Levittown, New York.
Nazi imagery is Jewish — many LGBTQ people, African Americans and others have also been targeted.
ProPublica’s review, which did not involve incidents occurring online, where anti-Semitic trolling and abuse have become widespread, uncovered many episodes which had never before been reported by the media or investigated by police.
When the incident happened in early January, it was another psychic blow for Street. She worried about her friends who work at the college, and tried to understand the acts of ugliness taking place in her city. The crimes, she said, “are not huge, but compounded they are very frightening.”
Our tally is almost surely an undercount. It consists of incidents covered in media reports, as well as accounts gathered by the Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of news organizations including ProPublica, Univision News, Buzzfeed News and The New York Times Opinion section.
Across the nation, similar graffiti appeared on the campuses of more than 35 other colleges during the three months examined by ProPublica.
The reports we examined generally fall into two categories. Most appear to have been committed by angry individuals who aren’t affiliated with any organized group. They are often teens or adolescents who defame Jews — and other minority groups — through graffiti or verbal taunting. In some cases, the Nazi symbol was specifically aimed at non-Jewish minorities.
In Cincinnati, Street, who is the principal violist emeritus with the symphony and a music teacher, said the graffiti on her car left her “feeling very vulnerable.” Her father and grandmother fled Nazi Germany for the safety of the U.S. in the 1940s. Several weeks after Street’s car was defaced, schools in her city began getting hit with anti-Semitic graffiti. First, someone painted a large white swastika on a sign at Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the largest seminary for Reform Judaism in North America.
Late on the night of Jan. 21, a mask-wearing vandal equipped with a spray can defaced Withrow University High School, a public school on Cincinnati’s east side, painting “Trump” and swastikas all over the campus. The vandal, who tagged signs, sidewalks and buildings, also painted anti-gay and anti-black slurs. Dozens of other schools were also tagged with anti-Semitic graffiti during the same time period.
A smaller number were orchestrated by extremist political groups, such as the New Order, an outgrowth of the long-dormant American Nazi Party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell, and the Atomwaffen Division, a new, youthful fascist group. A handful of cases involved a saboteur who remotely hijacked computer printers at Stanford and other colleges, programming them to spit out page after page of neo-Nazi propaganda.
At a high school in Newton, Massachusetts, somebody wrote “Burn the Jews,” “white power,” and “Trump!!!” on a bathroom stall. At Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut, red swastikas were spraypainted all over the athletic complex. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, two teenage girls were expelled from Blackman High School for drawing a swastika in a bathroom stall.
Some experts tracking this wave of incidents said it was crucial to situate them within a wider historical context.
“Some people will say that the swastika vandalism is just being done by a bunch of kids and dismiss it as irrelevant. I think it’s the opposite. The fact that young kids are doing this is potentially the scariest part of it,” said Segal of the Anti-Defamation League.
“Generally, we’ve seen a remarkable decline in anti-Semitism over the past 40 years,” noted Jonathan Sarna, a history professor at Brandeis University and one of the foremost chroniclers of Jewish-American life. “In the 1950s, we didn’t just have bomb threats — we had bombings. Synagogues in the south were bombed.”
On college campuses, much of the new anti-Semitism has been coming from organized groups of extremists out to intimidate or recruit new members.
Sarna added, “It’s important to be vigilant and concerned. But it’s also important not to overreact.” Across the nation, Jews were directly harassed with hateful imagery and messages in dozens of instances we examined.
At the University of Washington, in Seattle, a pro-Trump student group calling itself the “UW Wall Building Association” flirted with Nazism in a public Facebook post suggesting that undocumented immigrants should be sent to “concentration camps.”
During Hanukkah last year, vandals desecrated a large home-made menorah that stood in the front yard of a home in Chandler, Arizona, twisting the sacred symbol into a swastika. Days after the presidential election, New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman found a swastika carved into the elevator door in his Manhattan apartment building and received a flyer in the mail saying that Jews would be “punished” for failing to convert to Christianity.
Neo-Nazis also crisscrossed the university campus at night, pasting up stark black-and-white posters threatening violence and uploading videos of their exploits to YouTube. One poster, featuring the death’s head, or Totenkopf insignia, used by the SS during World War II, promised to “drive out the sodomites and degenerates of Seattle.” Another poster encouraged students to “join your local Nazis” and visit the website IronMarch.com, a fascist web hang-out that encourages people to
Not everyone who has encountered pqmonthly.com
Map by Ken Schwencke and Al Shaw, ProPublica: Bomb Threats to Jewish Community Centers and Organizations in 2017.
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exterminate Jews and start a “race war.” “People are just shocked. We can’t believe this is happening,” said a graduate student who requested anonymity for fear of being harassed. When the student saw the posters, she said she felt physically ill. “I called my mom and was sobbing. I was so upset. My ancestors were slaughtered by the Nazis,” said the student, who is Jewish. The neo-fascist organization did not reply to a request for an interview about its activities. White nationalist groups including Identity Evropa, led by a California man convicted of attacking an Arab cab driver at gunpoint, and True Cascadia, which aims to promote “white ethnic consciousness in the Pacific Northwest,” are also propagandizing at the school. Segal has tracked 112 instances of white supremacist groups posting flyers on college campuses since September 2016.Over the past several months, synagogues and other Jewish institutions have come under sustained harassment. In December, somebody repeatedly hurled rocks through the windows of Temple Menorah-Keneseth Chai, a historic synagogue in Philadelphia. On the opposite side of the country, in Las Vegas, a young man in jeans and a pull-over sweatshirt scratched a swastika into a black marble column during Shabbat services at Chabad of Southern Nevada. In other states, Christian churches ministering to LGBTQ people or to Latinxs have also been tagged with swastikas. But it is the array of bomb threats directed at Jewish community centers that has captured the most media attention and generated the most concern.* Federal authorities on March 3 charged Juan Thompson,
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an erratic former journalist who once wrote for the Intercept website, with making threats to a small number of JCCs as well as other Jewish institutions. But the figures responsible for the scores of threats to other JCCs remain at large. On March 7, another 17 locations of Jewish institutions in the U.S. received bomb threats. Some faith leaders are urging President Trump to issue a stronger public condemnation of anti-Semitism before the problem worsens. “We need him to say very forcefully, ‘This is not acceptable’ — and to follow up with action,” said Rabbi Steven Fox, chief executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the nation’s most prominent rabbinical body. Fox said Jewish community leaders have requested a meeting with the White House to discuss the surge in anti-Semitic activity, but, so far, have not been granted an audience with Trump or his advisors. Within his denomination, Reform Judaism, “there is great concern about this uptick in hate crimes, this increase in hate speech,” Fox told ProPublica. “In the last two years we’ve seen this real hatred for anybody that’s different — hatred for Muslims, hatred for the LGBTQ community. We see it as a deeply troubling trend, not just in America, but in the world.” New America Media is partnering with the Documenting Hate Project, a collaborative of media outlets, civil rights groups and tech companies nationwide working to document the rise of hate crimes and incidents of bias or harassment in the United States since the 2016 election. *Note from the PQ Editor: This article does not discuss the significance of race in the disparity between media attention dedicated to threats against the Jewish community and media attention given to threats against the Black, Latinx, Muslim, and non-white immigrant and refugee communities. Information on hate crimes against minority communities can be found through the Southern Poverty Law Center at www.splcenter.org.
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