Unknown Speaker 00:02 To demonstrate and talk about it anyway, I want to be missing her choice because when I was a little girl I always wanted to be a mother and I really tried to follow those two paths Unknown Speaker 00:22 devotedly most of my teenage years and got into trouble and you know, I'm still sort of fighting with those two contradictions in my life I just was like my daughter who's now eight and all her friends to have a few more interested in choices right my god okay, so this demonstration is to give you a little flavor of particle knowledge, always approached reproductive rights and sexuality issues from a humorous and fun kind of standpoint. This is one of our Unknown Speaker 02:33 only buffers Unknown Speaker 02:37 we use the Saudis is out in the street affairs, Unknown Speaker 02:39 Spurgeon, promoting Unknown Speaker 02:46 access to or control available for all people. And so, I talked a little bit about that as a strategy where we chose Carnival was a medium format, as a way of trying to grow up people into and who might otherwise be turned off to issues like abortion. It was a way of trying to invite them in attract their attention, show them some other ways of looking at possibly Unknown Speaker 03:22 this kind of family entertainment is what articles in America I mean, there's a wonderful history of gypsy travelers all through Europe, but in America, it's been very much church bazaars and you know, out there on the street at community functions, and there's the the bake sale part of it raising money and carnal knowledge would sell duly boppers and hand painted diaphragm boxes. So, and here are a few slides of some of the events we did. Big big carnival was called bizarre conceptions. And it was at the new school social research and it came it was on the day of huge international women's here, March in the early 80s 81. I think. So the march sort of ended at the new school. So Unknown Speaker 04:21 that was part of our early success was joining up with organizations like the planning committee for them. Unknown Speaker 04:31 And this was there were it was really a real carnival for the family with games who bought tickets in play. This was the woodworking woman's wheel of misfortune, economic and justices on the job. This the Jerry Falwell kissing booth Unknown Speaker 04:51 this Jerry Falwell Unknown Speaker 04:53 back then, there is a senator Cesar that get to know your right to live legislature just squeezed it's hard to see but each of those the legislators have two blue balls and you would squeeze them and it will flow a New Years things that a woman named Susan Fraser kidding what stakes these people came from so you knew who your enemies are. And then there was a chance to write letters. This was feminist fashion. Explanations of them this was a performance with Sarah about called the Madison show about debate farms. demonstration about how to use different methods of birth control, and then involved a group of like 12 year olds or so. Did kind of go through doing workshops with them doing tap dancing, being able to talk about sex, or that fun way they use Nursery Rhymes and rewrote them and tap dance to talking about set misses out on the street. We set up the fact of life peep show, and there was a whole, you know, tourney cranky thing with all sorts of things about human life, a man that this was in 1984. And inside the peep show, you saw Ronald Reagan as a pregnant woman, frantic our major politicians Unknown Speaker 06:45 were women. Unknown Speaker 06:48 And then we went out to Coney Island, and we had people fill out questionnaires about reproductive rights issues and we drew their portraits were framed very popular. This is that this is at the Second Coming, which was the next big event it was a festival of about trying to define a feminist pornography is a month long festival to find a furnace. And there was a lot of different performance events, including work we Unknown Speaker 07:17 did with a group of Unknown Speaker 07:19 porn stars. This is a saxophone stripper. She had a beautiful saxophone painted on her naked body and glitter and she went through the audience and had them play her. And based on how people would touch her shoe and make the appropriate noises. fabulous piece. Very exciting. Grinds I skipped there was a hole I'm sorry, because this is a manual. This is not a living room and on the furniture was written a story about two women and a man who met at a house strangers, they came in from a rainstorm and at the beach and what they did in front of the fireplace. So sort of like as if furniture can talk and tell the stories of what events took place and inside this room and see I can't a TV set up and we shove pornographic videos that artists may feminist artist pornography. This is another piece of one of those plastic blow up dolls that you get on 42nd street with a mouth was cut up and made with a pink shower curtain. When she was lying on the couch. It looked like a plastic blow up doll sort of masturbating but there was a fan underneath that would blow her up in a giant penis when women taking over. So 42nd Street to train and this woman's fantasy, there's a woman in the back. And it's there's text talking about her sexual fantasies. So I think that's it for they will keep missing some of the slides. But there are many, many there are over 100 artists doing pieces in the second column. And quite a number of people around that much. The first birth control is our conception. When was the symbol when Unknown Speaker 09:21 that was a Unknown Speaker 09:22 very early one time though. Unknown Speaker 09:32 Artist participant well the Miss pro choice pageant really is, you know, we would like artists to participate. Participate. What sort of happened but I want to talk a little bit more about the history because the person that I said we were really working closely with these other reproductive rights to education To support a very broad involvement, we only like to help out. And then the street fairs also, there was still a lot of that energy. The Second Coming, we really did as an isolated organization, get some funding from Unknown Speaker 10:21 Grant star. But to do this one specific project, and as a group of 10, to 15, for message, we've worked for a year, Unknown Speaker 10:32 actually putting it together. But because we didn't have a larger support base, it was just a lot of work on people. And after that event, people were just completely burned out. And it was also a lot of dissent. Because the issue is very loaded. To felt like this was not politically correct, some of the stuff was not right. It wasn't family oriented. So that started, you know, a period where nothing happened for a few years. And we tried to sort of get back together on a smaller level, some of us, some of us got busy with work, people spread out and protect families. And we did a few Christmas fairs selling Christmas cards that were safe sex messages and AIDS. Still reproductive rights and just didn't get the same kind of energy going. So what we would miss pro choice, I think what we're trying to do is really get back to reaching out into other organizations and trying to get involved involvement from a rel parents parenthood. So far, Nothing's worse, except for anybody that can come up here. And Crystal copes at this point, you Unknown Speaker 12:02 know, concrete interest in this. You know, one of the things is, it's specifically with you up with rights and sexuality issues and how we haven't ever really branched out into Unknown Speaker 12:15 other areas. Maybe maybe at that point, Unknown Speaker 12:20 we should, we should move to Denise and come back to the larger issue that you've been talking about before we started about our tendency to talk only about the successes, but not about the difficulties and even some of the failures and the need that we have in this kind of relatively protected environment to talk about that. So we can figure out the knot to use for this talk. Today, Unknown Speaker 12:57 first, I want to start, I guess, by talking about a little bit of the history of work that I've done around the city. With relation to direct action campaigns and other issues, I was the staff person, I'm one of the co founders of the Reproductive Rights Coalition, which is very active in 1988 1989. In 1990, we came together particularly around a response in New York City to the pending Webster decision, the case before the Supreme Court, and did a number of a number of activities, some for some meet who met on an incredibly regular basis. And we did a number of large direct action activities. And as a matter of fact, the the committee we had almost had like 20 committees, because there were hundreds of women participating in the coalition and a direct action committee evolved into the women's health action and mobilization group. So we had a really strong component of folks who were clear and who were dedicated to issues of direct action as a component of any kind of organizing you would do around reproductive rights issues, my particular Unknown Speaker 14:15 task that I was charged with and the issues that I brought to the table with the fact that so many of the groups around the country and throughout the city who were working on reproductive rights issues were almost entirely white limit. And the people who were most impacted by what was happening at the Supreme Court on a local federal and state level were women of color, or working class white women, none of whom for some reason, seemed to be involved in the memberships of these organizations, even when they were you know, quote, unquote, really grassroots and not the name route or now, you know, kind of a memberships. And it was a really interesting time I met a lot of really wonderful women who I continue to work with on a lot of issues, but I would say that people still were not clear about issues of race color. As engender. And so after about a year and a half of struggle, it was really intense struggle, I just threw up my hand and said, Puckett, I'll go back to my own community and do what I know is really important, like trying to keep the St. Luke's Hospital open, and providing services to women of color in that community. So it was it was really interesting. But I also recognized that one thing that is different, I think that communities of color who utilize direct acting strategies and more mainstream groupings of white folks, whether it's men or women, is that oftentimes the strategies are not based and rooted in what a local community struggle it is. And it makes a lot of difference to people to the quality of their lives and the nature of the work they do if they can see a direct cause and effect relationship between the direct action campaign that you're engaged in, and the issues that they have to deal with on a day to day basis. And I found that, for instance, I mean, I organized to be huge demonstrations that we did around the Webster decision that, you know, even though I live and work on a daily basis in a community of color, I could not make the connections for folks as to why they needed to come from their community down to, you know, to Union Square Park or down to Foley Square, to participate in those actions when we had our own struggles going on in our own hospitals and our own community clinics here. And I tried to bridge those and have those discussions with folks and people were really caught up in the the euphoria of being involved in direct action. And when you're doing and when you're on a roll, and we were certainly on a roll in, in 89. And 90, people really get charged and electrified by participating in these mass actions. And somehow, they can still look around the room and see that that just about everyone in the room is white, and not have a problem with that. What just about everyone in the room somewhat gets paid to come and deal with some of these issues. And they don't have a problem with that. Although I did really, really enjoy the work that we did, but there was a really fundamental component of it that was missing. If the women really whose lives were hanging in the balance around Webster, if a fraction of them have participated, we would have had 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of women in history, as opposed to 10,000 10,000 was great. I'm not complaining 10,000 was great, but I just would have liked to have seen, it'd be a more ephemeral experience for a lot of women in the city, whose lives were really hanging in a balance. So part of it is how you make the connections to people's lives, in terms of what you decide what your actions are, why you decide to engage in these direct action strategies. on a on a more local level. I'm the co founder of a group called West Harlem environmental action. And West Harlem, for those of you who don't know, includes the neighborhood that we're sitting in right now. It is the western portion of Harlem that is everything from Morningside Avenue over to the Hudson River from 110 Street to 150/5 Street, and why Columbia likes to carve out this place called Morningside Heights. It is in fact, an anybody else's map, we sit in the middle of Harlem. Unknown Speaker 18:01 So we deal with issues, particularly issues of the siting of environmentally hazardous facilities in our community and the preponderance of the siting of those facilities in our community, predominantly because the community is majority people of color and majority poor and working class. This is a phenomena that's been identified and documented and analyzed and research all over the country. It is a phenomena that we define as environmental racism. And we began to do a lot of work around those issues. There's a North River sewage treatment plant, which I'm sure many of you have passed on. The West Side Highway didn't know what that big monstrosity is. It's a sewage treatment facility that treats 170 million to 200 million gallons of raw sewage every day from the entire West Side of Manhattan. And it comes through our community has created a tremendous air pollution problem for the people who live in West Harlem because it sits right across the street on the other side of Riverside Drive from where we live. We engage in a number of activities over the years, the struggle actually has been going on since 1968. And a very formidable way in the community. I became a part of kind of the second or third wave of activism in the community in 1986. We attended toasted meetings, we dealt with the various city agencies, the State agency, the federal agencies, trying to negotiate a relationship between these agencies in the community where there was a general level of mutual respect for the rights of the people who live in this community. We gained a lot in that direction. But in 9687, and 88, it was as if these people had no idea what they were talking about. We were community that for the most part did not exist as far as city government under Eckhart was concerned. And while we would be smelling the effects of 170 to 200 million gallons of raw sewage a day, every day, all day, 365 days a year, the city administration told us that effect there was no problem with the North River sewage treatment plant. And in fact, people were making it up. It was really a figment of our imagination. And if you've ever seen that facility, you know that it's kind of hard to imagine something that's half a mile long and the door is high. That that is one of several facilities that are in our community. So we went through the normal process that many communities go through, we engaged our community board, half of the members live in West Harlem and have been active around this issue for 25 years, we engage some local elected officials, we dealt with the various bureaucracies. And we engaged in about two and a half years worth of protracted deliberation, the end result of which was that we were making it up as what people told us. And then David Dinkins was elected mayor. And while the mayor certainly has a tremendous number of shortcomings, but one positive thing he had going for him is that he was a resident of West Harlem. And his political career started as a grassroots community activist in West Harlem, he was out in the streets and 68, protesting the signing of that facility in our community. So we knew we had at least one act advocate and all of city government, we had one. And he was, you know, he was very responsive and got the city administration to be very responsive, but they still wanted to talk you to death. And they wanted to talk about Let's analyze this, let's do research studies. Oh, but the city budget is in a such a period of retrenchment, that we don't really have the money to do the kind of quantitative research that we would need to do to find out what the impact of these facilities are on you, we acknowledge that it's a problem. But sorry, there's nothing we can do about it right now. So we decided after just tremendous number of years of struggle around this, that we needed to, to engage in some direct action strategies to broaden the discourse beyond City Hall and the West Hall community, but to make it really more of a citywide issue. And we did a demonstration in 19, Martin Luther King's birthday in 1988, where we blocked traffic on the West Side Highway, and stopped traffic from coming down or up the highway and stop people from getting long and coming down Riverside Drive to get downtown and I have never seen more angry white communities in my entire life. People, one woman actually tried to drive to knock me down and a jaguar, which would make for an interesting picture. But you know, there were a whole bunch of people out there. So she was really, she was in the wrong neighborhood, you know, to be acting arrogant. But um, you know, we try just to make the point to people that every day they drive through our community, for community purposes, they create more pollution that hangs over the community where I live. And they never even stopped to acknowledge that there are people who live in that community and that we're more than a transient thruway. And we got a tremendous amount of attention from that. And it happened to be on the same day that there were a couple of there was a day of outrage activity going on. There was a demonstration by live in 99. Downtown, I guess, in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday, for civil rights and social justice. And it just wound up being a day of mass activity among working class people and people of color in the city. And we our activity was from six to eight in the morning. So we were kinda like the first defendant to kick off and people heard about it on the news all day, it was real interesting, had some real interesting dynamics, one of which was, it was right. In the morning, it was it was an ice storm. And so the all the streets were covered with a sheet of ice, and we had all the senior citizens out there with us who lived in a community, we had to kind of like tiptoe by half a mile up to the point in Riverside Drive, to block the traffic and people got soaked and drenched. And then we came back in to the community center where we had been meeting by the time we got back, the folks who had been arrested had been released and given desk tickets. But Brian and Mason and a number of other people, all of a sudden had materialized and shown up at the point where we were coming back to wanting to know if we needed any help. And the amazing thing about this is that right and Mason lives on 140/5 Street and Broadway exactly 1000 feet from North River sewage treatment plant. And at no point did he ever think that it was perhaps necessary to give this community some support and be involved in the activities. Timothy Mitchell showed up. I mean, you know, Al Sharpton sent us a telegram. I mean, everybody in your mind all of a sudden was concerned about community. And it was really a very interesting dynamic. And I you know, and I started to think I said, this is why people get so caught up in direct action as a strategy because all of a sudden, you get all this media attention, all this media focus, and it's very easy for you to get sidetracked from the mission and the issues that you originally came together to address. So we at that point, it became really clear and I just have this thing about our shop and I really don't like it. So I wanted to make sure that that we would not get caught up in sidetracking issue an issue that had been going on for at that point 26 years with no resolution so that we would use direct action As a control strategy only at the point where there was absolutely no other way that we would be able to negotiate with the city, or the state or the federal government, some of the kind of mitigation measures that the community desired. The other interesting thing that happened when we decided to implement the right action strategies, all the white elected officials who had been actually quite supportive of the community decided that they no longer wanted to have anything to do with the community coalition and had come together, because it was obvious that we had decided that we weren't going to negotiate anymore, that we were going to take it to the streets, and we were going to negotiate from that point, and not from the position of weakness that we had been in prior. And when we decided to make those decision for those decisions for ourselves, a lot of people who had been supportive just kind of disappeared, or, you know, would say that, well, you know, these folks can't be controlled, we can't tell them what to do anymore. We can't, you know, direct their strategy. So we don't want to be a part of what they do, which you know, which kind of sharpen the the contradictions and the focus of what we needed to do. We did a number of other demonstrations over the over a period of time. But we also at the same time, really stepped up our focus on issues of public policy advocacy, and really getting the community involved in strategic places of who makes policy and who makes decisions in New York City, whether it's in the planning board, or the Planning Commission's or whether it's at different Commissioner levels, and city government. And it's amazing when I think about it now, but a lot of people who are founding members of that coalition now are actually Deputy Commissioners and commissioners of agencies and their political growth started in that community struggle. But we made a conscientious decision that we should be in positions where those decisions are being made about people's lives, that we should be in those positions. So we have done that. But we continue to do direct action when when we feel it is necessary. And it's probably going to become necessary, again, on the 27th of May, when the governor comes to our community to do the ribbon cutting to open the riverbank State Park, which is a state park on top of the North River sewage treatment plant. And, and you are probably I'm sure I don't have to describe to this group. What an absolutely insidious concept, a state park is on top of a sewage treatment plant that has never operated properly, that State Park is going to open on the 27th of May. And in my very not so subtle way, I keep telling every group and a committee that I talked to that we need to seriously focus on how we are going to be the governor on the 27th of May. And I'm not telling people what they should do, I'm just getting them prepared for the fact that we need to do something. And that something is not to stand up there and take pictures with Mario Cuomo, but to let him know that we are not happy about what has happened in our community. So what we have done in terms of direct action is made it an integral component of the community organizing that we do, but to use it sparingly at those strategic points where it really makes a difference of having the community out in the street, as opposed to have any community at the planning board. And you really have to be conscientious about when those places are. And strategically when those places are particularly when you don't have a whole lot of people, I think the difference between what happens in our community and perhaps all of us who work around reproductive rights issues is that it's easy. For some reason, you know, we have been struck by this blow of assault to our bodily integrity and our rights as women. And so we really come out and respond to issues of reproductive rights. But when they tried to close now St Luke's Hospital and remove all the neonatal and postnatal and women's obstetrics units in women and babies hospital, we could barely get 50 people out to talk about that we talked in a row, we made it an issue for the whole Reproductive Rights Coalition, that people could not see the relationship between an assault on reproductive rights at the federal level, and the taking away of women's basic rights to health care and health services on a most local level. And if we can't be clear about the assaults that women face every day, and that communities face every day, then we don't need to be out here organizing around the big picture because we're losing on the local level every day. And I think that was you know, one of the lessons that I learned from Webster is that the level of politicization that went on in this country around the Webster decision, it was kind of like this Bellwether experience for the somewhat dormant Reproductive Rights Coalition reproductive rights movement that you know, we're at the nth degree here, we have to do something but all along on a local level, that diminution of Rights was happening every day and continues to happen every day. And so we have to make sure that we stay focused on what's happening to people where they live in the communities where they live in the communities where they're based. If they go home, or they come to a demonstration in Foley Square and then they come back and need to go to the hospital the following few days and there's no longer a hospital there. You know, that has a lot more to do with their daily lives and whatever demonstration we did at Foley Square at Union Square. So I tried to make that connection for folks that there's got to be a real broad based concept of rights of social justice of human rights. And they really start from the most local level to the, to the international level. And we have to be clear about what all those levels are, and bring local communities into processes where they control what happens in their own communities, thereby they can control what happens in other venues in their life. So that that's in a nutshell, kind of the work that I'm doing. Okay, this is my T shirt that I have a box in my old office at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where I'm also has t shirts. Know the whole concept was, you know, Asian women, Latina women, English speaking women, you know that we were talking about the rights of all women, and that language should not be a barrier to how we communicate with each other. And I actually love love, love this t shirt. I really love the shirt. I believe they're more under my desk at what time on May 27. Do you know? When is the government coming? I don't know yet. We can reach you at 281071122810711. Okay. Unknown Speaker 31:36 Um, Unknown Speaker 31:37 I haven't really okay, but I'm gonna start from beginning a little bit of history of Kubernetes was saying, when evolved out of the Direct Action Committee for the reproductive rights coalition in 1989. With along with members of ACT UP, who were looking to get more involved in, in women from activists specifically who were looking to get more involved in reproductive rights, which was not activists focus at all. So they sort of drifted away from that and look to be activist oriented elsewhere. WAM is real initial theory. I mean, WIMS mission statement is very short. And all it says is that wham is a direct action group that's committed to demanding defending and securing absolute reproductive freedom and quality health care for all women. And women's base of operations is very much specific to health care issues, and reproductive rights issues which of course, fall under health. But we're the problem that we've been having, and you're talking about both successes and failures when first came on the map, so to speak, in 1989, was act up at the stop the church action, which garnered about 5000 people opposing the Catholic Church's approach to both aids and to reproductive rights. That particular event became rather infamous in terms of direct action history, to the point where it was discussed by George Bush in a presidential debate which nobody could possibly comprehend. Like it was beyond everyone's belief that that kind of far reaching element could happen. He was thoroughly outreach. He thought it was tremendous, but hey. But what Sam has also done is, is following stuff like that, and when began getting involved with clinics in New York City, rams main and continual source of sort of our action on a week to week basis is that every Saturday morning at five clinics in New York, two in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Queens, when escorts women into clinics, past anti choice demonstrators who are at clinics all over the city every Sunday morning. They're not clinic blockaders. I was explaining this to somebody earlier today and there seems to be some question What is the difference between clinic is wondering in clinic defense. clinic escorting is a week to week thing that you do that has nothing to do with the clinic being blockaded. The clinic is not under attack by blockaders. They are being picketed by people who yell things at the women who walk in there independence kept by the police, they're not in danger of closing the clinic down. And what wham does is it has fortified people, sometimes six, sometimes a little more, invests identifying themselves as clinic escorts and walking women into the clinic has the demonstrators to divert the attention of the demonstrators onto them. So the demonstrators would yell at me instead of the woman I'm walking into walking in with. Or I can divert her attention away from them and talk to her to keep her attention on me so she doesn't listen to her. That's one thing that wham has been involved with continually since then, and still does it today. Matter of fact, it's been going on Morning. clinic defense is much more along the lines of when you're dealing with a locking block situation and someone who Operation Rescue has locked themselves to the clinic door and you need to wrench them free from it. It's much more violent kind of difficult situation. Wham has had a problem. I'm I think, in being very aborto centric, which is, Unknown Speaker 35:06 which is a real it is a problem because we are definitely have far reaching interests and interests that reach far beyond that women's health as far as we're concerned, which surrounds not only the right to have an abortion but to have an access to an abortion when you want one at a hospital when you need one from your that your doctor can tell you, you can have one if you want to. It has to do also with breast cancer, with the fact that breast cancer is a growing huge epidemic continually a problem that gets almost no medical attention. Also, now as things move on, we've also started evolving. And this has been a slow process because we realized I think it was like a year ago, around the time of the first Chain of Fools action. Does anybody know the life chain? Which is this group of supposedly peaceful? Yes, they're peaceful, but they're annoying. Right to Life, people who stand lined up in a cross form down Fifth Avenue with signs and say abortion kills children and on the back of the side, and they have each get the signs for a buck and on the back it says what to do to deal with us. Have you ever seen this? says on the back, don't speak to them do not meet their eyes, like we're gonna hypnotize them. Very frightening. So wham, organised a large 5000 person counter demonstration in 91. And then I that was the first thing I ever went to. First one thing I'd ever gone to first activist oriented thing I'd ever done. And I was really shocked by how much fun I had. I was like, wow, this is great. I could do this every day. So I was like, Alright, I went to one meeting, we sat down, I listened. And I was like, I was like, amazed by the amount of information that's imparted in a direct action situation where you have people working on many, many different things. And when I was realizing at that time that we were aborto centric, and that we needed to get involved in things that had to do with other women's health issues, because we were a women's health organization. And it was a problem. And in 92, when live chain came back to New York again, this past October, I organized the Chain of Fools demonstration. Sort of really, personally because it made me feel really good about having become heavily involved with lamb over the course of that year in hunting, it really mean something to me to go back to where it started with it to see how far I had come personally in terms of my own activism. And I realized that it was a great thing and it is still a great thing. But it is also it. People love to go out and demonstrate and very few people love to come and really sit down and do the necessary work that's involved in getting people rights, getting people access, getting people interested, and getting and getting people what they deserve and what they need. So when I'm now sort of branching, we have a we have a thing called the Early aroused gynecological squad, the hands. The hands put out a zine called the urban herbalist. The hags are very concentrate specifically on keeping women out of the gynecologic gynecologists office, I can never say it correctly. Self Help. They are very involved in or biology involved in self cervical exams. They're involved in teaching women how to use a speculum so they can look at their own cervix so you can tell where you are in your own cycle where you are and what's wrong with your body. What's what a yeast infection looks like? What signs are for early signs of signifiers of AIDS signs or if you're pregnant, everything like that up through, but not including always things like mental extraction, which really aren't legal, but can be taught through self help groups and self help groups form through them all the time. And the hags are very involved in making sure that women can get this information urban herbalist can be gotten by calling the landline which is 7135966. And somebody will get that message and send you a copy. Also, another thing that the hags do is they do weed walks several times a year, and they pick weeds. They teach you we do teach in several times a year on the floor at WAM meetings about what herbs are best for what where you can get them what they're good for, what they're not good for. And we also do a lot of work on present legislation, which is threatening to make our biology illegal, including vitamins. Go figure. So another thing that wham is also working towards now two new working groups that we're working on, specifically, because when it's a very young group, the age range for my average is between 16 and 24. I'm 24 years old, and I'm one of the oldest members of the group. And it's true and it's it's very much people, a lot of women who are involved with wham, are directly affected by things that women who are, you know, a little older than us are not necessarily affected by. Specifically, we're starting now to move very heavily into body image and eating disorders. Because that's women's health, obviously, because men don't really get them must be but we're working right now on a Are we pasting in stickering campaign, although we don't we paste it's illegal we don't like that's Unknown Speaker 40:08 never. Unknown Speaker 40:10 So what we're actually it's really never been taken on by a direct action group before we're very excited because nobody's paying any attention to it. And we're trying to garner support for that right now. Also lupus, which is high, which high incidence in women is something else that women are spending time on now, in addition to things like environmental issues that have become a very big central part of WAM in terms of what kind of what the different things that go on in our environment, everything from EMFs, to sewage plants, and everything involved in that, that affect how your body works, and what happens to your body also demanding women be used in clinical trials for breast cancer, medications, does everybody know that breast cancer medication test groups are all male? It's like that's another thing that we get involved in direct action. Another thing that is it is a thing wham does every sort of facet of direct action, as wide reaching as the direct action definition can be? I think, I think a lot of times we argue over what the definition is, you know, get a whole bunch of us in the room, we're gonna argue, if we not. And you when you have specifically 18 to 24 year old women who have never done stuff like this before, you're dealing with a situation where they're like, well, writing letters to your Senator, that is not direct action. Well, it gets there, you send a lot of them, you get a lot of them out, it makes a difference. People make laws, you have to talk to the people who make the laws if a direct action group directly affects someone who makes the law that's direct action. Calling your senator fax apps, great fax apps fax absolute fabulous one 800 numbers, calling them and leaving the phone off the hook. Also fabulous you can do I mean, that's all direct action, so is getting out on the street with 5000 people, so is doing clinic defense, so is dropping a banner from a statue of liberty, which Wim did in 1991. there that said abortion is healthcare, healthcare is a right drape the whole bottom of the Statue of Liberty and we rented helicopter. So we can take pictures over a banner, of course disappear. We have no idea what it is. But you know, and it's things that are involved in that we do a great lot of work with act up with the women who are in wham, mostly in both active and WAM a lot of women and AIDS research is starting now it has been so ignored even by us that it needs as much attention as we can possibly give it over the course of the next couple of years, as the balance is shifting, so that the majority of people who will be HIV infected in the next 10 years will be more women than men. And to try and get the CDC to change the definition. It's all stuff like this WAM does, I would assume, or I would guess, wham does three or four small actions a month, and maybe a huge large action to every two or three months. And we just did the universal health care action for Pfizer with a whole bunch of other people and universal health care coalition. We just zapped Iranian palace area at the border that we're about to hit Mary Cummings and infested areas getting married in case anybody's wondering what she's up to lately, and we're going to give her wedding presents, of course, because we love her so much. And we're also doing a lot of work right now around the school board elections. And which is of course, you know, important lamb is a very wham also is I would say 70% gay in terms of its population, women who are just coming out women who have come to whim to come out women who are looking for a safe space to be both lesbian and oriented to be feminist and to be gay to be feminist and to be straight. It's a very gay oriented group that is constantly I think, in a struggle with its own definition in terms of well, do we organize something around the march tomorrow? Because are we We're not a gay group. We don't want to meet at the center. We're not a gay group. Well, okay, we're not a gay group. But we're a Women's Health Group. And there's, you know, that's one thing that has, from time to time been a point of real contention. Because the question is, some people will raise their hand and go, How does? How does pro choice rallies connect to gay rights? And when they don't know that you go, Oh, my God, we have to stop right now. And we have to talk about this because it's all interconnected. And I think that is the main point of all of this stuff that wham does together is that these rights are interconnected. You take away rights from women, you take away rights from all women, gay women and straight women. You threaten the rights of women under any banner, you are threatening the rights of gay women as well as straight women, fighting for gay rights is fighting for a right of choice just as much as fighting for reproductive rights is fighting for the right of choice and that is something that you is a constant struggle. And that one goes through also. So that's basically it for this so Unknown Speaker 45:18 Women's Action Coalition started, actually a year ago in January, the newest, actually of the groups, and it's achieved extraordinary heights, and not to be the bearer of bad times. But it certainly has a lot of trouble now in terms of not having chosen as an issue to focus on, in terms of having become so obsessed with direct action, and not having a sense of its own community basis or fluids. Who is who was attempting to represent his attention to the speed it's become, it has actually created some extraordinary insights and maybe a skill to begin management, I used to talk about it, we use it to represent things a lot last year that it was a kind of voluntary cooperation. In house graphics Committee, and the holding has video committee, in house, legal committee, and all of these sort of different sites and information and professional expertise that can be used to mobilize for different transaction issue. At this point in time, it's it's continuing to do very extraordinary actions, it's continuing to be a direct action focused, continuing to work on a diversity, wide number of issues. And that's also very difficult conditions in a political climate change. And so the sense of enemy is different. And the sense of urgency is very different. And I was actually I had to prepare something that was more about some of the issues that I particularly feel are facing whack, but I don't know to what extent we won't, we will go back and that was the past. Unknown Speaker 47:25 I want to do, I just want to a definition that we that now, but the mission in the overall mission, because I was really confused. Having kind of stepped back from, you know, from the Battlefront, I was kind of confused as to, I was glad to see you out there. But I just was confused as to what the mission was. Unknown Speaker 47:46 And it now shows Unknown Speaker 47:52 up here, what's the mission statement, it's Unknown Speaker 47:55 true, but it also if you read, it includes sort of everything. And I'd say sort of to really call attention to it appears to be very inclusive. And I think in that very nature, lots of things have managed to slip through the cracks are just made online. So broad and so, so enormous. Do want to do a little capsule history. In essence, what happened was following a number of sort of art related events, conferences, we do arts conferences that took place a year ago, last September, in lower Manhattan rules for the arts community a lot. And most of the questions and most of the questions are period, most of the topics ended up focusing on the Anita Hill. The outrage with the failure of the not bring combs comes into power, the inability to get mass media to see what was going on in the issues regarding them like well, Tyson Smith tries, that there was just all of this energy, all of this outrage on the part of the CIO group of women who apparently knew each other, decided to call a meeting and that meeting was loosely titled gaming strategizing. And that took place on January 28th. Last year, and that it was to actually post titled, artists coalition, because in fact, it had come from our community. And at that first meeting, we are number of violent women showed up and some of the women who had originally known each other and called the meeting had come forward with some ideas that different actions that could be taken In different ideas that we might go out. And the one that was elected was to call attention to the trial of the last one, St. John's. And literally that evening, we had to give an open discussion about what we wanted to do. What, what we could possibly do. And by the end of the evening, we had subdivided in different parts of the room into a legal action committee, a logistics committee, a creative committee and Media Committee. And those are sacred. First Four committee set the methodology. The legal committee went through figuring out what it was, we need to be careful about logistics committee figured out where the means courthouse was, and exactly what was taking place and how to get there and the times against Mills, the creative committee actually came up with the symbol of the blue dot, which was pulled from Patricia Bowman being covered by the blue dot during the trial. The statement that was attached to that was innocent, no longer fear recognition. And that was actually later used for 15 seconds motional spot that we produced in video production. We actually were at the Kings County Courthouse within less than a week on that first meeting. So the Monday, Tuesday night was the first meeting the following them in the Kings County Courthouse trying to provide some kind of sense of outrage about the fact that the fellows who had gang rapists in Jamaica, would three of them have been let off. Despite the corroborating testimony, two guys have felt guilty to try to bargain actually, and that this was the remaining person the meaning of accountability had been in fact, the one that word her into this fraternity house of sorts, Trump Tower, where she was apparently it's not new to St. John's actually got to cover up a lot of what might have been good evidence. She was either drugged or giving something to drink and getting rid himself used by at least four members of the St. John's across the globe. And she was then transported to another fraternity house and equally discussed the the scene like further abused and victimized and eventually some say enough, that took us back to the first house, Liberal National vote or someone in their place of residence. Unknown Speaker 52:53 She went to none and the mentors. And the school proceeded to come up. At any table taking place when a title police actually gotten involved, almost everything they needed. Evidence was exploding, she threw it out because she was so ashamed. There was no way to follow up on the charges. excetera. So it's not unlike, in which case, has been the attention on following the same things. But in essence, that was our first action. We arrived there, there was a possible chemical miracle first action, myself and another man. So Peter wanted to be the Media Committee in sort of state of the art press releases and public relations, skills and strategies and effects that logo actually. So we had meetings on Monday morning 100 banners, posters, the blue dot, and someone who had drums in this they don't actually need to be following that. It just became literally escalated within three weeks for that suddenly went into over 300 300 attendees for everything right up until approximately October. And sometimes we would so it was a huge call. And then also the other community started voluntary so we activate the poetry and get in contact with the new flower period that poetry now was 3000. But the number of attending meetings have dropped. So there's been, you know, some very analysis a case study things that work and don't work. And you know, I don't want to deliver a eulogy but there's some disciplinary aspects to risings. The heart so high so fast. And in the face of being so direct action food, you're having some sort of very naive notions about what really is good, you see me put the notion of descent while appearing theoretical as in very practical application and talking about representation of dissenting opinions and negotiating different perspectives within groups that have such a huge, you know, and vagueness. So, we were so tireless and so eager. And actually, in fact, in the beginning, the election, the crisis in hand, had so much to do, a lot of things that should have been addressed incrementally, along with that will not hurt along the way, there's been a lot of insult to injury, the difficult moments for the group as a whole, and certainly for all of those of us individually. Again, I think the case study in extraordinary capability, but also some setbacks. And certainly not, it's not new to feminism, to be able to sit in groups come and go and see different issues that must be addressed. And, from my personal opinion, you should undermine the neglect of those issues, the logical responses, deserves to be underneath, because that failed in its own state admission to address the issues that we are claiming to hold others accountable. I really think of direct action action, state of social shaming, that it's an opportunity to shame larger social group into recognizing or to come in through face to face with very real injustices and lack of access, lack of privilege, lack of resources. And not just lack of Russian announced constraints against that access and against personal is safe. And so direct action, I think it being that kind of social shaming, does become this kind of social shaming, that's kind of social education, it's also in its best moments, it's an opportunity to use creativity in certain things that may lack good. Unknown Speaker 57:51 legitimate in the eyes of media, and in the eyes of those who are perhaps more conservative in that case, and their notions of what direct action was in what was not appropriate about the attraction was if we showed up with the drum on the dome, for our slab, interesting chance, and we had the wonderful banners, and we always had an educational leaflet. And the educational leaflet was always done with so America of like serious information, we will eventually created a research committee so that every week that that is created, had been researched to those statistics, and perhaps other groups and coalition of groups would be contacting forehand. And we would tell them that, you know, we would ask them if they wanted to be on this banner as a possible resource and the mothers they actually took away their central station. There were a number of groups that were helpful in providing a basic information to particular and so that education was very well received because instead of feeling seen as singularly oppositional, loudmouth pitchy Dyk, you know, the terms know what the gender compromises really are here. That by producing this very creative action, and I don't mean to demean it, saying that it's actually it not only shows the willingness on our part as direct action takers that were willing to go the extra mile. So when you're saying, you know, you as our representatives, he was elected public officials, we are demanding social accountability. We're demanding that you go the extra mile. We're putting my best foot forward by saying we've done our homework, we have these statistics here is what we're doing. So that was sort of the things that actually worked very, very closely and allowed black to make moves and reach into places or otherwise will be very, very hostile. And in fact, one of the more positive things has come out of that is that the media regularly calls on our media community to provide them spokespersons on everything from Madonna's book on sex, to feminist violence, fashion, to some more real things like the rape case, pictures of stable gentlemen, David Robocop and do it sponsors billion dollar movies, well, hacking fist, you know, he can use this as a defense for his behavior. And we will use that defense overview and immediately real tell us there's no logic in that. But in his case, it's actually being entertained as possibly logical. And in our case, it's absolutely alive. So let's see if Glenridge. So, what we've learned more recently, and then I'd really like to actually go back and pop more problems, because that means success leaves you very vulnerable, becomes like, problems. Unknown Speaker 1:01:19 No company Unknown Speaker 1:01:20 can figure out the After After we. Unknown Speaker 1:01:26 Yeah, I think so. I think when we were talking about before, we said, what is wax mission. And we have this very closely working with homophobia, racism, we're for healthcare with reproductive freedom, we're, we're for the whole PC agenda, which in one sense, because it's tremendous lack of focus, which in another sense, is a tremendous sense of empowerment, because any woman who come to that fork, create a committee on any issue she chooses to address, and join me then use the resources that were provided and talked about in terms of the legal team and the params committee and use those resources to create an action about that. And that's been very empowering. And to show two very different ends of the spectrum is one of the things for the new ladies working on the Glenridge case, we had an open demonstration on the opening day of trial, we had a court present there almost every day, we had a demonstration about the Nickelback the rape shield was done the demonstration of closing during administration. Heavy screws, and that's why that child is like so many rate traps that just disappear and go away. His family screws got out there and demanded that we be heard. Then the other end of the spectrum. We've been working on women's rights as human rights example of a leaflet that the web has developed, clearly about our leaflets. And some of you may have seen the women's lack adequate lunch wackos visual outside the UN every Wednesday from five o'clock to six o'clock, protesting the human rights abuses in the war in Yugoslavia, and also letting people know what they as individuals can do, where they can send humanitarian aid. Specifically, we meet with women, what they can do about legislation breaker for crime and human rights. That's two of the issues that that lacks the real diversity and lack of focus. Sure, Unknown Speaker 1:03:26 this is the blue shirt. This Unknown Speaker 1:03:28 is also a committee get together called Black stats, because it grew out of the research community in order to know what we were doing was calling for more. This was created. There was so many statistics actually collected, but we decided we put this together and make this available as much as possible. So $5, which is reasonable, distributed media sources. So and we've done very well, we've sold like 3000 copies, and it's now back in print. We're actually producing I think 10,000 is possible. This is actually an old Prescott but I'll show it I'll send it around because this particular brochure during the Republican Convention, which was definitely not easy on any of us. There was a specific mandate within the Astrodome to stop anything that looked like it was Xeroxed for obvious reasons, y'all know breakfast this is what our Mother's Day actually this was also on the Republican convention. And this is very funny, this Operation Desert Storm and it's actually 12 by It was an ice cream and you just have to chocolate. I mean, this was great. You could I could actually hand this to harassing policemen and say with a complete straight face, even though Republicans got a chuckle, when they would go like holistic, but they couldn't really, it's really fun. But we took this tool that's just applied very nice girls and use press passes to sneak into the Astrodome. And there's to distribute these all over the Astrodome, and he actually stood outside of public Political Caucus, and I think you, please. And it was, in fact, translated in Spanish with almost the entire janitorial staff of yesterday was Spanish speaking. And they were mostly afraid to take this and what we will do is recorded so that you can see that disease and hand it to them and actually move on. To like two hours earlier in the day, I was walking around into the garbage cans, and I realized that she had there's completely water left in their hand, and she was missing all the back entire two hours. It was like the colors were deleting. So that was real movies were in Houston actually last provided the only event that was free and open to the public. And you rent an ice cream truck, and you got ice cream, and we gave ice cream to all the children rang, the bell works. They all came out and we gave ice cream to children. And we gave them brochures to the candidates and nine of them to come down to eBay Saturday night show which we raise the money which whack graphics together is a huge 40 by 50 or 40 by 60 foot image that we are our legal committee spent almost $10,000 Just getting this permits because one of the reasons that Republicans went to Houston was because they had so many prohibitions against personal liberty. So we had to have permits with Quicken to sticks together. And we got so when we arrived, they couldn't touch us because we had weakened Xerox multiples of every private you can imagine. And we didn't back get a permit to take over part. Scouts go down to Houston, find the part that was next to a parking lot. And we rented a projector this special project produces takes a blank slide and produces 40 by 60. Image by Andersen he's been in and out of building music. And people who work on an audio track in between Spanish and English. In this room engineers are ranging in age from four years to eight years speaking like the issues of your life. And that was the seventh change that took place on reset. God has passed this stuff. Unknown Speaker 1:08:14 And then maybe now's a good time to open up for general discussion. Certainly one of the things that that each person has come back to is a question of what Unknown Speaker 1:08:27 what are the pitfalls in doing direct action. Unknown Speaker 1:08:32 And one of the things that seems to be pretty clear is a question of how you recognize who you're speaking to with before we can start with that. That seems to be something that's Unknown Speaker 1:08:47 either been dealt with adequately, Unknown Speaker 1:08:48 we're not adequately knowing who your constituency is. Unknown Speaker 1:08:54 Maybe I can talk about some of the experience with the Reproductive Rights Coalition, because I see that both wack and wham, you know, have run smack up against issues that we've tried to deal with. And one of the reasons quite honestly, why I left the reproductive rights coalition is because I couldn't get the people in wham who formed when to deal with the fact that there's a problem with the fact that we have no women of color in this organization. We have no community base. And we're talking about issues that are affecting other people's lives. And none of those people are in the room to talk about it. And no one had a problem with that. And I had a problem with that because it was counter to all the other political work that I have done in my life it was continuing to do as a community activist that I'm from now it just it is it is inherently undemocratic, and a political to talk about issues that have broad ranging impacts such as reproductive rights and women's health and not deal with issues of race and class at the front end, and then if you get down the line, like a year or two later, you look around and you say, Well, you know, was there Great work, we've raised lots of money. There are no women of color here. But that's okay. That's not okay. It's just not okay. And too many organizations have been willing to let that slide and say that it is okay. And, you know, or say in a nominal way, we don't like it, but what can we do about it, and just keep keep on going on without, you know, listening to working with or in any fundamental way, trying to alter that paradigm, that that, you know, it makes us no different than any other segment of society, because all the things that we claim to be so fundamentally against, we replicate every day in the work that we do. And so, you know, I, I had a real problem with that. But fortunately, I had a community base from which I was working, from which I simply, you know, went back to, and I also was working at the Center for Constitutional Rights at the time. So my life didn't change fundamentally, because I was no longer working with the Reproductive Rights Coalition. But I did feel it was a tremendous moment in history that had been allowed to pass because what we were able to do with the Reproductive Rights Coalition, the way it came together, was to bring together this divergent interest of women's rights groups, whether you worked on abortion rights, you worked on health care, or you were in labor, you were women in labor, all these people were sitting around a table together, which was a fairly phenomenal thing to do. Because we're so segmented, you know, even as women were so segmented, in terms of what we do, and how we intersect that to have everybody around the table, dealing with one common agenda was pretty phenomenal. But then we got into attacking, you know, what other individual organizations are doing. And I was like, you know, what, as a woman of color, if I started here and attack the lack of attention to issues for poor women and women of color for every group, in I just spend the whole day castigating everybody, you know, they all have basically, no women of color members now doesn't seem to think it's a problem. 23 years later, they have they have a mailing list, I remember when we did one of the demonstrations. In 89, we asked for their mailing list, they asked me for a mailing list. And I said, Well, you're the oldest chapter of now in the country, don't you have an adequate mailing list? But we don't have any women of color groups on our mailing list. But why is that? Well, I've never come up. Well, I'll be damned, you know, and it was just really interesting to me, because it was things that I had just assumed, but when those opportunities come up, and we have to realize that, you know, we've had a lot of crisis in terms of attacks on women that have brought us together, but we can't piss away the opportunities to make fundamental change. And really Brill build a broad based movement of women in this country and make space for everybody at the table, we can attack each other, you know, we can try and persuade each other to come, you know, to come around and be more open about, you know, what one's agenda is, or at least to support the agenda of other organizations. But, you know, there was some blistering ly at foreign meetings, where, you know, people were just, you know, trying to tear. Now, when they route apart limb by limb, but the fact is, is that they paid for this t shirt, they paid for the graphics, you know, they got the permits, they got the banners, it was the organizational support of those two organizations that were the engines of that coalition of hundreds of women. So everybody has something to bring to the table. But if we don't deal with this race and class concept, you know, we're we're going to continue to look a lot like the Republican convention. Unknown Speaker 1:13:28 I actually wanted to speak to that for a second, because you are totally right about that for the longest time. And when I first came into him from right before I was coming into him, and up until a couple of months that I had been there. I was sort of shocked by the unbelievably small, actually, one face of color in that room. Actually, at the time, there were two I'm sorry, there were two. And it upset me a lot, especially in terms of dealing with things because people would start get up and talk about access to health care, they were talking about Medicaid funded abortions. And I say, I would say Who are we representing? Like I would like get in trouble at meetings all the time. Because I raise my hand I go who are represented? Why are we talking about this, there was nobody in this room, more than I would say there are six or seven, six or 7% of the women in this room, even vaguely know what it means to be in a position to not be able to afford health care. And that's it. You know, you're dealing with mostly upper middle class white women. And that was a big problem. So what has been happening, and it in no way solves the problem. I'm not even going to hint or begin to say that this problem is anywhere near being solved. But what we have done, what wham has been doing has become a really big issue over the course of the last eight months. When we were trying to move away from being so a border centric, we're moving away from being so race centric as well. And we organized a bunch of women, Sandi Schneider, who I don't know if you know, and a number of other women got together and formed a thing and sponsor workshops that go on for unwanted workshops that happen typically on workshop called the resisting racism workshop. And it's a 10 week long workshop that's done intensively with members of wham, you sign up for it, commit to it for 10 weeks, and it literally sits down and you try and figure out how your racism works into what you do, because everybody's got some. And it goes into what you do and what you don't do, and how that's affecting your activism and how you can go back to the group and try and literally make the necessary links, to get the group to have a more far reaching sort of a base and far reaching sort of people who come to the meetings, you organize that, that we get involved with communities, the communities become involved with us, because yes, we represent a community. But it is not a very big community. And it is not a community that is affected by 90% of the legislation that we're against. And also, I think, what's also going on now is that there has been a slow growth, and it is slow growth in women of color women of different racial backgrounds, and monetary backgrounds, financial backgrounds who have come into whim and become involved with land. And it is very slow process because people sit around and they say for days and days. Oh, you know, we need to get more racially diverse. We need to become more culturally diverse. We need to reach out more, and then nothing happens. Unknown Speaker 1:16:18 And it's very, Unknown Speaker 1:16:20 it's like a frustrating issue. There's no way that it's not a frustrating issue. I think that I don't know how it happened that it got this bad. Frankly, I'm a little confused. I know Nirala is bad like that. I know that now is terrible like that. I'm not sure how WAM quite managed to do that. But it did. And I think that there has to be more involvement of the more. And this is sort of, I don't know how well this channel global media savvy, direct action groups in communities that reach out beyond the communities that they sit in. And that's been a big problem. It's definitely been a football Unknown Speaker 1:17:00 I think it's interesting to see that whack and where I tend to similar play. Uh, yeah, for being so new and dealing with intuitive it's very frustrating to hear Bernice say that she threw up her hands and walked out today I've seen way too many women walk out of whack in the exact same way. Where is everyone? Every almost every I would say almost every woman of color is blocked out at this point. And I Unknown Speaker 1:17:27 can't blame them ordinarily good reasons to absolutely reasons to. Unknown Speaker 1:17:32 And it's a credibly frustrating situation. It's incredibly difficult situation. And we have found ourselves in the point in Web, where we're doing by like, when we're doing bias workshops with ourselves. And we're talking about our own internal case, which is all very necessary work. And I don't want to say that it's not because we have to find out where's obviously the reason why we're here now. Because we got it. I think and until we find out what that thing isn't tied up, that God is to that point, we can't solve it. But I was really interested here with me saying that talking about looking at the community level. And I think that's something we all need to look further into. Because I think it's where weapons really missed the boat. We don't go to the communities, I think we need to start trying to approach going through face to coalition with other people who are already there and can tell us how to do it. Unknown Speaker 1:18:29 When Carnal Knowledge went to, we went to Coney Island to do these actions on the beach. And we went with all these all sorts of performance things, which was kind of a template condom that we pulled out of the water and talked about. But we were also there for very specific literature about various legislation, things that were happening about choice and Brexit. And we were talking to a 15 year old girls who had two children who had never been to a gynecologist. I mean, what do they need to know about Unknown Speaker 1:19:13 human life? Unknown Speaker 1:19:14 Where the legislature what's what state the legislative letter to but they needed to know, here are different kinds of Unknown Speaker 1:19:25 ways to do some clinics that are caused by using health care. Very good. I Unknown Speaker 1:19:30 think. Sometimes you don't know we get in these little groups and we come up with very high food ideas. See Unknown Speaker 1:19:40 what that Unknown Speaker 1:19:42 right will be really helpful. And in a way it's Unknown Speaker 1:19:45 a lot of time stepping away from maybe our major goal, the great world but right now let's get the address Unknown Speaker 1:20:00 Yeah, public transportation. So, Unknown Speaker 1:20:04 you know, that's, I think it's, you know, almost all should stop and do some direct action in the street just as a way to listen to where I am and then see what people say and Unknown Speaker 1:20:18 realize what, what they Unknown Speaker 1:20:21 step down? Unknown Speaker 1:20:25 Well, I think one way to get involved with women of color is to go in, through the schools, through community school board meetings through parent needs. A lot of school boards now have like parent, teacher, parent, teacher workshop, parent workshops. Unknown Speaker 1:20:42 I don't go to many, because I think they have a tendency to talk down to parents that it's a way to get your foot in the door, because this is what a lot of you know, teenage parents and young mothers, fathers and families are dealing with the dealing with basic survival. You know, and unfortunately, a lot of people come in and talk down to them, you know, but they're getting their children to school, and they're feeding them Nicodemus. And that's a lot to do. One of the reasons I came to this particular workshop, except the fact that was because we have a situation at my daughter's junior high, where we have a principal who's an African American woman, who is under a lot of fire now, she's been there for 14 years. And they want to downsize the school. Now, the whole thing started. I guess, like in February, when she wanted to do a publicity campaign and produced a flyer to send up promote promoting school. What came back in the mail with no return address was school for niggers school to speak, she was several times sent back to school. So now what has happened is when it was presented to the community school board, they were like, well, who sent the flyer? Or, you know that the response was just so ridiculous. Besides the fact that, well, there's some people who doesn't like the fact that this school is mostly black and Latino, and wants these children with neighborhood. Okay. So when I looked into that, when I looked for something to business, meaning that the community school board meeting, and I found that the school board was very antagonistic towards the principal, and to the parents, some of the parents were there. And other parents, who was saying that the school is doing well, they had discipline problems the year before, because the district had forced the school to accept ninth graders from another school, which put even more children into school principal told me herself, she had to do that to Ghana, she couldn't get any help from the district. As far as getting these kids out of here. Well, anyway, this year. They create middle schools throughout the whole district. So there's no ninth grade here. And the principal and her staff decided to do away with many schools, how much education but they have too many schools, we have arts and then you have a math and science, many school, different forms of school. And it had created a situation before where there was a lot of infighting for supplies, you know, things just through the whole building. So the first one our staff decided to do away with that. Well, at the school board meeting in March, the members were very antagonistic. How dare you do that, you know, without telling us, Donna about all that, in addition to the flyers, you know, and all that dish, in addition to the rumor, which was that they were going to close the schools and they decided, you know, everybody's mad at them at the moment. They're going to downsize school. But why are you going to downsize school? Where are you going to put these African American Latino students you know, no answer. Okay. Now, there are so many parts to this puzzle. Okay. One of the one of the concerns is that they're also going to be opening what? Okay, and so, does the district want to get rid of all the African American and Latino students south of 96th street? You know, they say they're not racially motivated, but there's a lot of racial issues going on. And at this point, everybody is we can't get any politicians or anybody to do anything. This woman is standing out in the wind having you know, A community school board members calling her incompetent on national television. And it's very frustrating. And I feel that the other issue is another issue. There's a teacher there. Who calls the Tino students illegal aliens. Okay? He is he's just belligerent. Okay, as far as you know, just just terrible. He has the backing of Unknown Speaker 1:25:32 a few teachers have quit, she can't hire new teachers, because there's this whole union thing, you know. So me wash schedule substitutes, which doesn't help, you know, the education process for the children. So it's getting to a point where I feel something big has to happen. You know, and we've done our petitions, we've gotten NAACP access to act as an advocate for us. They're helping us but at this point, I feel there is some kind of Conservative Political Caucus happening in that area that really does not want those children in that neighborhood. Unknown Speaker 1:26:15 Not only that with those children, but they also don't want a progressive agenda period, you know, that talks about opening up the minds of young people to be able to deal with diversity, whether it's gender, or sexual orientation, or race diversity, and it's an, you can't imagine how big an issue this is in communities of color. And so for those of us who work on reproductive rights issues, and, and sexual health and sexual education issues, it's kind of all subsumed in, you know, in that same debate and discussion, and probably when, you know, we all sit down and think about the issues that we work on, I was really glad to hear you talk about taking a school board elections as a campaign, because I myself as a progressive person, it's like, you know, well, I'm not a parent, all of the kids in my family are either in high school or college or graduate school, so I don't have to deal with the local school issues. And I'll just work on these other issues in the community. And I'll let you know the people who, who have kids in the school system deal with the school system. And so we've allowed that to go on. And now you have this absolute and complete and total mess with the New York City public education system could seriously be tipped in into a completely right wing place. And it's, you know, it has a lot of health issues. I mean, like, you know, the largest growing group of people who were contracting, sexually transmitted diseases and aids are young teenagers of color, who are school age, and we can't get condoms into the school system, we can't talk about, you know, while kids are dying, that's an issue for us to work on. And, you know, and now those, it's those kind of issues that I would try and bring to the fore to the, to the Reproductive Rights Coalition. And people, you know, they wanted to work on these issues that they wanted to work on. And I'd say, you know, we have whole, like worlds out here of people who live next door to you who ride the subway with you every day, whose lives are in utter turmoil, and you want to work on these issues, but they have no connection with our lives. Absolutely no connection. So when you have a demonstration, do you wonder why we don't focus the mission. That's, you know, and you know, it's wonderful. If you get all this press, that's really great. But it doesn't change the material conditions of our lives. And until we see you come to the table, to work around those issues. And this school board stuff is, you know, it's kind of it really is a Pandora's box, but it's a Pandora's Box, for everybody who works on progressive issues in the UFC. Because if we can't, if we can't control, the breadth of information, our young people have access and availability to the we're not going to be able to control anything else. I mean, you know, controlling the minds of children is is, you know, I mean, it's definitely Orwellian. But it's real, you know, it's really happening. And I don't understand this that in school boards, especially in my district, they're made up of people that German loop there. I don't know, because there's a lot of great things are black and Latino children. It's got to be a black and Latino neighborhood, not necessarily Unknown Speaker 1:29:13 diversity, because Unknown Speaker 1:29:15 Can I just say switchboards are not necessarily not the people who are on school boards are not necessarily the people who have children in addition, or who worked in industry, they may live in a district for instance, school board 24 out of Queens where that woman Cummings comes from the point of you know, vitriolic, right wing nonsense, that that district is 70%, Latino, a 20%, African American meaning and it's 10%. Other and since it's a queen, as a part of that others probably Asian, not necessarily white, every member of their school board is white, every member so it is not reflective of the people who live in a district or who have children in the district. And that is simply a byproduct of electoral politics in New York State in New York City election, Unknown Speaker 1:30:04 there's been almost no broader base Unknown Speaker 1:30:07 interest. That's right. And I Unknown Speaker 1:30:10 was very interested, they were very smart, and he got there ahead of anybody else. And they really use the 7% turnout at school, I'm not new, more, they're not coming Unknown Speaker 1:30:19 back. Everybody in the mother's Unknown Speaker 1:30:24 wanting to last for years to progress, if you have not gotten out and voted, of course, we would love that to progress to children, rather than not having children. So they're not working on the issue. We've left school Unknown Speaker 1:30:35 boards, and they don't vote. I mean, you know, plain simple, you know, the politically correct attitude. And I remember the Center for Constitutional Rights, it was amazing. We had they have a voting rights program that's been in existence since the founding of that organization. And it's based in Mississippi, and it's still doing serious, hardcore, grassroots work around getting local people elected to local political office 95% of the people who work in the national office in New York, were not registered to vote or had not voted in a decade, you know, we were so socialist, that we just couldn't participate in the electoral process, you know, which is just utter bullshit. It should, it's a complete and total contradiction that we will fight for people all over the world. I mean, you know, we had cases going on, and just about every hemisphere, but we would not vote in New York City and local electoral politics, which just, and a lot of the progressive community is like that, and we don't connect these local issues. You know, we talk about these mass campaigns, but we don't follow what's going on in our local communities. And that's why so much of what we do is relevant to so many people. I got Unknown Speaker 1:31:39 a lot of hands up here, and I don't want to skip people over. I saw Joe, Joanna, first and LMI. And when I saw your hand, did I miss Tracy? Can you remember that? Unknown Speaker 1:31:58 Actually, what I wanted to say was more about what you're talking about when I first painted the title you were just talking about? I think that what I'm seeing after this, right now, is that Unknown Speaker 1:32:12 after this, Unknown Speaker 1:32:14 well, it's almost become like a new hierarchy in activism. And that really concerns me, because I mean, and I'm not sure if it's the hierarchy that everyone thinks it is, either. I mean, I think that there's hierarchy, that to me, almost is based in people not listening to each other, no matter who those people are, who are not doing the listening or doing the talking, people not having respect for each other, and people not being nice to each other. And I know that those things are sometimes hard to politicize, and to put into terms that people who are political people can really appreciate. There's something that I see lack in wintertime lotion that really disturbs me is the lack of respect that we women feminists treat each other with. And I know that a lot of women of color have left whack. But I also know that a lot of women of all races and black, black, and it's so concerning to me, for us to be forging our revolution. And in a lot of ways, not treating each other any differently from the way we're treated outside of that activist situation. And I really want to create a sort of a break in our conversation. But it's so important for me to say that because I feel so Unknown Speaker 1:33:25 just so pained Unknown Speaker 1:33:26 by what's going on every activist group I've ever been in Florida. And I just wonder if maybe we can look at what written down patriarchal structures really looks like, instead of just taking theory that might actually sometimes exclude people, and might actually make people feel like, why do I need to come here after working 10 hours a day, and get totally badgered for having a different from someone else's. And I just wondering if people need to look at what real accessibility is all about and an activist level. And I don't think that we'll even have to think about whether or not we want to have a coalition for this school board. Of course, we want to have a coalition for the school board election. I mean, they need people need to frame their feelings about activities and meeting in a way that they're not always used to doing. Unknown Speaker 1:34:21 Yeah, sort of following that. I was wondering about sort of the issues of ownership as they come up, and I hate to use that term, but they do come up within all these direct action groups and also harking back to the question of really talking about theory and purpose before going out there and doing an action. How does that work when you're trying to form a coalition of different groups, focusing on some kind of direct action and you know, when if The two groups have two different theories of purposes and philosophies. You know, how can that conversation take place? And how can you not have these questions? possessiveness when, when action does go on? I mean, I know, a lot of the stuff that I was talking about around this table are reactions that now all these groups have been involved in St. John's, you know, working with Fourier, for instance, and what about that, and the St. Luke's Women's Hospital was saying, what what, what kind of work do you do with federal debt, which I know is organizing, you know, legally around that, for instance, and what Unknown Speaker 1:35:41 kind of work they were are they were part of our legal counsel, and then they decided that they couldn't file a lawsuit at the 11th hour, and that great friends. But having been in a legal organization for five years, we really ought to be clear on the low level of impact and what can happen to litigation. Although even right now, we're suing the city, as long as it doesn't subsume, you know, what it is you're trying to do. It's just one strategy. You know, and, unfortunately, a whole lot of people who work in that field, but it is one strategy, and it's not the overarching strategy, particularly if your politics and Unknown Speaker 1:36:18 I want to go back a little bit to the replay about working with the schools and your whole idea of reaching out and involving more women of color. And one of the issues that we haven't talked about is that there's no Latina women here, we haven't talked about religion, and one of the problems I've had in going into schools, is that when you're talking about sexuality, reproductive rights, there's a huge organized by the parents that doesn't want to let you in. And most of you know, minority women like to wear glasses in our church going people that as far as I know, I've worked with, and that always, you know, I'm not sure how to deal with that. I don't know where to go with that. That's always been a real. Unknown Speaker 1:37:03 One, one aspect, essentially, for what I do as a teacher with Craig, varsity, we go into schools throughout the city. And usually we do conflict resolution. And what we do is we ask the schools, what, what issues do you feel like students need to eat to really look at and understand, and what we've gotten gender prejudice, racism, we only got one school that wanted to deal with the homophobia as as an issue. And it was the first time that that our program, I was one of the team that went in, and they dealt with it. Well, you know, I mean, maybe if you can't get the response from the, from the parents, if you can talk to get to call the school and talk to some of the teachers and see if, you know if that's an issue they feel that students can do, because, you know, you may have to bypass them in that instance, you know, but, but we only got one school that wanted to deal with, with the homophobia issue. And as far as the sexism issue, all the schools deal with that. And as far as sexuality, showed the students, the teenagers are, like, really quiet on the issue. We have the ED ace education component, which deals with sexuality and safe sex, which does great. I mean, that's the program and schools by it, and the children in the opening up, you know, the teenagers, you know, maybe deal a lot with in drama. And then, you know, once they're distance from it, since you do that type of thing, once they're distanced from it, like, Unknown Speaker 1:38:53 I'm not talking about myself, but you Unknown Speaker 1:38:56 know, they, they can talk about it, you know, that that helps. Unknown Speaker 1:39:01 I know, that's kind of an educational level, it's, I've had a lot of success working with schools, but in terms of organizing a direct reaction, school systems. I mean, when we come back around, Tracy and see who's next. Ladies, Unknown Speaker 1:39:20 one of the things that really concerns me precisely about the education issues is that a lot of what is taking place and calling an employee box is really some of the most right wing tendencies towards cultural religious are now certainly language of the modern culture and curriculum. And traveling a lot and I think that that's available to them COVID Because for people who are real working tired, exhausted parents, etc, etc, etc, trying to sort out with distinction between protecting one's own community, which in many cases have been under siege for time immemorial, and differentiated in that in the kind of right religious strategies where you isolate groups of people who get the Unknown Speaker 1:40:18 kids out of 75 clusters Unknown Speaker 1:40:21 of various grandparents. All of us be strong moves and more people who are very rightly confused, I haven't made the rank, literally is coming, did get them before me, and generally uses our language in order to focus. And think the other thing is, one of the issues for a lot of collaborative work is trying to do that honest assessment of referrals. And I have seen that we have become incredibly slippery, not thinking about what privilege looks like, and what it is, where it sits and what it means. And so, I have sat for a year and a half in a group of gullible white women, who every time issue comes up with class kids live for one of the things to do. And it's fairly unpopular for say, what, even to the extent to which there are many, who as artists have chosen substantially more difficult income relationships, it's chosen, it's chosen, and it's in relationship to usual, we, in most cases, substantial educational Unknown Speaker 1:41:58 opportunities, Unknown Speaker 1:41:59 and a whole different set of cultural choices, and to try and do an honest assessment of what privilege sits in the middle. And when you're trying to talk about any kind of coalition and to try and think of what are the ways where those privileges can be mobilized as resources, and not resources that you can necessarily control. And one of the things that are Unknown Speaker 1:42:24 weightless Unknown Speaker 1:42:28 is an accurate understanding that resources is in fact saying, we have these resources. And we will actually, like make them available without sweeping tax, what's happening continuously, is like, you give money, when you get an idea, or you have this group name up front, and you want me to go this way. The idea is to go that way. And one of the things that I think is really critical in direct action. Thinking is understand that collab Unknown Speaker 1:43:00 collaboration coalition, Unknown Speaker 1:43:04 there's there's necessarily a confrontation with a sense of one's own loss, the process of compromise, which is not to say that the process of arriving and understanding of perspective that is wildly different than your own, or only slightly different human beings like to blast the bat. And there's got to be a way where I think continuously, Unknown Speaker 1:43:31 astoundingly enough in the name of Unknown Speaker 1:43:33 personal is political, we have a very difficult time differentiating personal hurt from vertical Unknown Speaker 1:43:42 transgression, Unknown Speaker 1:43:43 differences, etc. And that is Unknown Speaker 1:43:45 a very real scenario, any Unknown Speaker 1:43:49 kind of organizing, and any kind of organizing of people without power relative to whatever this is how, because it's immediately replaced with a divided Congress. I mean, I've also been tourists for saying I don't leave me is the first language I think, the second and second language in the sense that we've come to it with different motivations for learning and different attitudes and different reasons for us, and different arenas for us and and so that is why we really allow ourselves to get away from essentialism to be critical of us theoretically, practically, participatory, democratic, doing economically. Unknown Speaker 1:44:34 And all these different manifestations when Unknown Speaker 1:44:37 buying not suffering. Unknown Speaker 1:44:40 Those relationships we just have such a bond that induce direct action. Unknown Speaker 1:44:52 I'm gonna, before I go into talking more about stuff, I'm feeling that stuff. There are things I want to sort of announce that maybe use in some the stuff we've been talking about first is a phone number and the phone numbers for school PAC, which is the school political action committee, which is right now tracking progressive candidates for school board all over the city. And that number is 97983201 of the you can speak to anybody who answers the phone, they would just ask for stuff to do a school pack they've got five offices running out of there right now just ask for school pack stuff and when they can give you is a list of progressive candidates and each and every district that's one thing and they can also give you help if you're interested in organizing around your district or districts that that have less have less progressive candidates than others and we're stuck candidates are a real problem and there are a lot of them they also know who self candidates are so they're very useful in that regard. Another thing for in terms of right wing the problem with the with the fundamentalist right to tap on women in terms of reproductive rights in terms of economic rights in terms of Medicaid in terms of sexual orientation act up and wham together have are now working in collaboration on a group called Apocalypse Now which is a right wing tracking working group specifically involved in tracking a stealth candidates and every kind of election that's happening and be in terms of finding out exactly what the fundamentalist right is presently doing. And with what money and where and when, and they know where they are all the time to get in touch with apocalypse. Now you can call them on the landline or on through act up which is 564 AIDS. And also if wack was interested in getting involved in Apocalypse Now, if you talk to any of the people involved with it. It's a very collaborative effort. It's not a very large effort. It has I think it tops 10 people in it, who are at the core of it, who do tons of work who have like stacks of information specifically on the fundamentals right. Another thing that has to do with specifically with right now, we were just talking about crossing over privilege, and about problems right now, there's a real big debate going on in Soho, which I've been involved with very heavily in terms of trying to get WAM involved with trying to get active involved with there's a group that is an actually started in act up called Housing Works. I don't know if anybody knows about it, who knows what it is. It is a facility that does adult day care and treatment for homeless people with AIDS, most of whom are substance abusers, drug abusers that everyone calls substance abusers. I never I'm never sure what the correct terminals, but I think that's what it is. And we've been working with Housing Works because Housing Works is located in Soho, because Soho is very accessible to trains and nowhere else that they could locate themselves was accessible to trains. They're trying to build an adult treatment center on Green Street. And they are getting the most unbelievable backlash from the Soho community that I've ever seen in my life. I work in a political office, and we get 100 letters a week from angry people who don't want that in their neighborhood and don't think it's indigenous to the neighborhood and don't think it's something they have in their neighborhood. And they are fighting him to the point where he's about to lose his ability to cite their weather Department of Buildings because of political pressure. Right now, Housing Works has begun reaching out to activist groups for help. So they have contacted when they have contacted Marielle. They have contacted act up. And if you would like to call Housing Works, the gentleman who runs it, his name is Charles Kent. I don't have his phone number here. But it is definitely something that deals directly with issues of privilege, and of racism and bigotry. It's awful. So that's my informational stuff. Sorry, I brought that into a lot is in terms of discussion. But in terms of what was being said, I basically think that there's a big problem and getting involved with the school board elections. I believe very strongly in it. I think it is unbelievably necessary. But I think that the big fault in it is that it's crisis intervention. We didn't give a shit about school board elections before this. Everybody who's involved in school board elections are looking at us going like this. Because who the fuck are we? Where were we, when they were trying to put together an education for their children? It's ridiculous. Like people are going oh, yeah, we can mobilize and I was like you have to, you have to first of all, yes, it's necessary to mobilize, but stop what you're doing for a minute and think, because the fact of the matter is by simply going in there and going high. Everybody's like, Who the hell are you? And what are you doing here? Unknown Speaker 1:49:38 Where were you before? Unknown Speaker 1:49:40 And that's a problem across and where will you be when it's gone? Exactly. And it's like, you know, we it becomes a thing that I went to performing arts college and this there became this term and an acting school that I heard about. That's the difference between a change for crisis and a thing called a change in kind that you Engine time is not just a change in your behavior, it is a change in your being it is a change in how you think it is a change in how you operate. And it is a necessary change in every single political activist group in this city. Because that is what is what is integral to making sure that things that we remain involved in school board education, we remain involved in our community boards, which are also have a tremendous amount of power in each and every community. And people have a tendency to ignore until there's a time of crisis, that we remain involved in the constituency of the communities in which we live, work and operate. And that is something that is a problem with the school board mobilization because we are walking in and sort of just saying, well, we can handle this. This is a crisis, we'll step in, and we'll deal with this. And that's not fair. It needs to be done considering the situation. But it's still not right. And not fair. Unknown Speaker 1:50:50 I don't want to I know we have to go some always seems incredibly important, but I don't want to lose sight of the urgency. I think a lot of activists are feeling right now I'm here in this room to discuss theory as well, because otherwise, we just seem to go from crisis to crisis. I mean, Clinton hasn't solved anything, right? We still on the offensive. You know, the mass rapes in Bosnia maybe takes longer to cope with and everything's getting worse and worse. So do we have to the problem with direct action is very grateful, focusing attention for having people come to consciousness about what they're against. But it's not enough, because then we have to come together to try to work out what we're for. Right? I mean, it's no accident that that there are these huge divisions of race and class in the woman's room, because they exist in society, and like that much worse over the last 12 years, with Reagan bush. So what was great about the women's movement, you know, since it started 25 years ago, is that anti hierarchical, that we really sit and really believe that we do want to hear from every woman, and we do want to have every woman develop herself and all the capabilities. But that doesn't mean we know how to do it, you know, more utilizations. Right, that requires, I think, a much much more profound change in society than we've had yet. And, you know, I, I'm a revolutionary I disagree with the panel this morning thinking that getting more women in elected offices to do it, like it's going to do it, I have to think we need to tear up the society, branches establish women's FaceTime. But it's very important that we that we have some theoretical discussions I'm speaking to Wagner emphasizes attending the meetings, you know, it can get really boring was just one action or another I know in Chicago, where they decided to have one meeting a month discussion on one issue with the contract. So it gives yourself some, some focus and direction. Unknown Speaker 1:52:54 I think that's a good idea. And the other thing Unknown Speaker 1:52:57 is, is to get in those communities and talk to people and work on things with them, and not just so that then they'll work with you on your issues. You know, it can't just be a let's trade action. It's got to be again, listening to people and hearing what they're interested in. It may be that they're interested in global issues that you're interested also, you know, but but but there has to be a discussion and I have to be a seriousness about what they listen to their ideas. Don't assume you know that they're only interested in an issue in the community, you don't even know until you listen. I mentioned the Webster demonstration. What was great about that demonstration, started in Foley Square, which you know, nobody goes there. But then we watched through Chinatown on the lower side. And that was intentional. And the women were hanging out of the windows way in the living rooms, Chinese sweatshops and everything. And she I just I wanted to go back there and talk to those women again, you know, or set up our, our workshops, there are meetings there and you really have to have to reach out but we have to begin to break down that division between classes and races and that division of between action and theory. Keep running into the same brick walls. Unknown Speaker 1:54:17 I have to say that the time that is ours is now officially up and Clemens talk is at 430. I have the feeling that there are a lot of people that a lot of stuff left to say. And so I'm certainly not going to drive anybody out of this room, but it hereby becomes an informal discussion instead of a panel. I want to thank the participants Unknown Speaker 1:54:42 every what we have actually succeeded to do though, whack does have over 20 sister organizations now All calling themselves across the country, Canada. And there's a lot I have a lot of contacts in Mexico. In the comments if you come up with an issue or you want to hear me to contact us, we have a network now where we can get activities cross referenced. And what would ideally like to see happen is do a national action, even mobilize as many groups using that infrastructure to do a direct action on a single day. Unknown Speaker 1:55:41 I just want to say about twice that our ideas are so many but Michael, we have your contests that are organizing the soul and a community to create a more positive Unknown Speaker 1:55:59 Can I also ask that like if you're if you're anyone who's seen this, that says, tear this poster down, do it and because this campus where we're where we're at right now has no policy or procedure for shooting, adjudicating sexual assault and rape on this campus and they asked us why do we would not come forward and report rare sexual assault on campus? And it's like we the students on this campus have been asking for this for the last two and a half years and it's gone through two committees now and it's being tied up at by the Provost Office and so please take that down there's a letter on it and he was rip off sign consent to campus Unknown Speaker 1:56:40 mail I'm in my own personal sexual harassment slash assault case with the New School for Social Research and they are so serious. Saw one that. I never did tell us how we're going to work like your help on other districts. Because I never write a letter someone being told there's a man Unknown Speaker 1:57:40 who's writing for the school board. Unknown Speaker 1:57:42 I don't want to get into that. Unknown Speaker 1:57:48 I just got that name, unfortunately, but I'm sure if he called after that. We'll give it to you. Yeah, she's right. I said yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:58:08 They're in office and you just call in the one Unknown Speaker 1:58:25 touch with Unknown Speaker 1:58:29 the word. Get a word