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high school, a group of students targeted my friend and i in a hate crime. the cops were called in, and-you guessed it- a social worker was there (cue the violins). its just a role ive always seen myself in, so i went for it. the thing that i didnt quite take into consideration is how much the pedagogy, at least at my school, not only caters to, but is built on a colonial mentality: the pretense that you, the social worker, are inevitably an outsider, who is penetrating communities in need to offer a helping hand. social work is rife with contra- dictions. state social workers largely work with com- munities of color, but the degree attracts a lot of white savior-minded folks. it began as women organizing independently, and has become a institution in itself.
i think the biggest take-away for me, is the first thing we all learn in SW school: “start where the client is.” listen, empathize, and act according to that individual’s needs- above all other variables, this should come first. trauma occurs when anything exhausts all of your internal and external resources. It also results from chronic invalidation- or, people just not seeing, ac- knowledging, or holding your pain. there’s a lot of pain in our music that, when we perform, onlookers cannot ignore. so I guess, in a weird way, SISSYFIT is a form of social work.
7. Do you have any ties or involvement in political activism in the USA, or outside?
KC: right now im working as a community
organizer for the new york civil liberties union
(the new york affiliate aclu). its a nonprofit
civil rights law firm, often credited as a
cop-hating watch dog establishment, which i
ll neither confirm nor deny. but most of the organizing work i’ve done is for advancing
police reform and accountability in new york
city and state. we’ve pushed policy that i ncreases transparency in NYPD’s data reporting so we have more info on who is getting arrested for low level offenses (race, class, geography, etc), as well as bill portfolios that extensively protect your fourth amendment rights (the right to know act = forcing cops to state why you are being stopped, and notifying you of your right to refuse a search if there is no justifiable cause). im passionate about the work because racial justice is my shit. its just kind of harrowing because when
you actually get into the work, you realize how bla- tantly racist the system, and all of the figureheads within it, are. i mean, i know that’s sounds like kind of a no-brainer, but i feel like there’s a palpable difference between seeing officers not get indicted for killing young unarmed black men on tv, and being somewhat disconnected to what’s going on behind closed doors, and ALSO seeing firsthand police chiefs literally tell their officers to “do more stop & frisks” and say “you’re not bringing in the right kinds of frisks” when officers frisk white civilians. or promoting lower-rated white officers to sergeant positions (including the dude who shot amadou diallo) instead of higher-qualified black officers, or literally saying “we need the numbers to justify the use of federal money” in regard to arrest quotas. this shit is an uphill battle. like that shit is sad as FUCK!
And to bring it back to LGBTQ “community” shit, there was an NYC-based coalition called ESPA (Empire State Pride Agenda), which was all about marriage equality, among other LGBTQ issues- but after gay marriage became a thing, they literally threw their arms up and was like “our work here is done,” AND DISSOLVED. even though trans shit is blowing up, queer black/brown folks are being fucked with by law enforcement/the school to prison pipeline, and home- lessness is rampant. its like, could you be more blatant about your only accounting for upper middle class white interests? sad state of affairs.