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People dance during the Jan. 20 opening of the World Social Forum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The first U.S. Social Forum, an outgrowth of the WSF, will be held in Atlanta June 27-July 1. (Photo by Karel Prinsloo/AP)
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QUEERING THE USSF
U.S. Social Forum
June 27-July 1
Atlanta Civic Center and other
Atlanta venues
www.ussf2007.org/en
www.myspace.com/ussf2007
Building A Queer Left: Pre-Conference Convening
with Queers for Economic Justice, Southerners On New Ground
June 26, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Georgia Tech
E-mail Susan Raffo at raffo95@gmail.com
Opening March
Georgia State Capitol
June 27, 1 p.m.
Queer Progressive Agenda plans a Stonewall reenactment, one of multiple rallies at different points of the march
“Liberating Gender and Sexuality: Integrating Gender and Sexual Justice Across Our Movements”
June 30, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Atlanta Civic Center
95 Piedmont Ave. NE
ZAMI House Party
To welcome queer women of color
June 30, 9 p.m.
535 Auburn Ave.
404-444-2273, www.zami.org
Queer Progressive Agenda
qpa@mindspring.com
404-822-5090
www.intersexion.org/TPOCWorkersProject |
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HOME > SOVO SCENE > ON THE TOWN
By: DYANA BAGBY
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Three days after Atlanta Pride ends, thousands of community organizers and activists arrive in the city for the first U.S. Social Forum that will tackle social and economic justice issues including rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Organizers of the USSF are expecting at least 10,000 people from as far away as Alaska and Guam to converge in Atlanta June 27-July 1. With the theme “Another World is Possible, Another U.S. is Necessary,” those attending the forum represent community, national and international organizations, and plan to speak out on issues they say politicians and the government often ignore.
“We will be discussing every conceivable topic — the environment, housing, the war in Iraq, Katrina, education, healthcare, workers’ rights,” says Alice Lovelace, USSF national lead organizer.
“You look at the course of the world and we’re heading toward an oligarchy. The primary reason to have this forum is to return society back to the people.”
The USSF is an outgrowth of the World Social Forum, a gathering of activists that has grown from 15,000 to more than 150,000 people since the first meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001.
The WSF was formed for individuals and organizations to find ways together to achieve social, peace and economic justice, Lovelace says.
The last World Social Forum was held in January and attracted 75,000 participants to Nairobi, Kenya, under the theme, “People’s Struggles, People’s Alternatives.”
Numerous regional social forums across the U.S. have been held leading up to the USSF in Atlanta, Lovelace says. Atlanta was selected to host the first USSF because of its long history in the civil rights movement.
“The South has seen lots of repression and lots of resistance,” says National Planning Committee member Jerome Scott.
The U.S. Social Forum will focus on six key struggles, Lovelace says. They are: Gulf Coast Reconstruction in the Post-Katrina Era; War, Militarism and the Prison Industrial Complex; Indigenous Voices: From the Heart of Mother Earth; Immigrant and Migrant Rights in a Global Society; Liberating Gender and Sexuality: Integrating Gender and Sexual Justice Across Our Movements; and Workers' Rights in the Global Economy.
About 900 workshops are planned, with expectations for 25 to 30 workshops to be organized “on the spot” each day, Lovelace says.
According to Lovelace, it was important to include gender and sexuality, including gay rights, because these human issues are often used as wedge issues to drive communities apart.
“[GLBT] issues will be discussed at this forum more than any other social forum,” Lovelace adds.
“We want to speak what we are in favor of, not what we oppose,” she says. “And when we gather in groups, we show we are mightier than politics and politicians.”
Taking part in the USSF will be Atlanta’s own Queer Progressive Agenda, founded by Deepali Gokhale, with the mission of broadening what she said is the mainstream gay rights movement that primarily focuses on issues such as marriage, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
“The U.S. Social Forum is in line with QPA’s mission,” she says. “We want to look at things through an intersectional lens and move beyond the gay rights agenda.”
And while QPA is inclusive of marriage equality, eliminating DADT and implementing ENDA, the organization wants to take a more holistic approach.
“We don’t want to look at everything from just the gay rights point of view,” Gokhale says. “Most of us have more than a gay agenda — we are women, people of color, working class and poor. We are interested in how all forms of oppression are connected, not just a single issue.”
Joining QPA in “queering the forum” will be Southerners on New Ground and ZAMI, Atlanta’s group for lesbians of African descent. As part of QPA’s presence at the USSF, the group plans to stage a reenactment of the Stonewall Riots during USSF’s Opening March on June 27.
A dress rehearsal of the reenactment will take place during the Atlanta Pride parade on June 24 and a USSF contingent will march in the Pride parade.
QPA will also host a workshop at the USSF on its Transgender People of Color Workers Project that was formed to help trans sex workers find legal, sustainable employment, Gokhale says.
“I really hope that people who come to Pride will then come to the ...
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