Friday, August 24, 2012
Re "Pussy Riot"
If only people would talk about the thousands
of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, or Black American prisoners, or
Muslims in US’s Communication Management Units, even half as much as
Pussy Riot. There’s the assumption that because someone is a ‘political
prisoner’ (if they happen to be Arab or Black or Muslim they’re called a
terrorist or illegal, not a political prisoner) who talks about
rejecting religion and the state/writes
songs about it, they’re more worthy of attention than a Muslim woman or
man who is in prison because she/he was racially profiled. The men and
women whose letters I get at Barrios Unidos from prison don’t get the
same support from activists because they stole something or were
'violent' or did drugs or happened to be ‘illegal’ or Black or poor, you
know they didn’t dress up in bright tights and talk about feminism,
they’re actual ‘criminals,' not 'political prisoners.' They’re in for
life because of three strikes or are getting deported to Mexico after
having lived in the US for most of their life—maybe it’s not as romantic
a story as twentysomething white Russian girls breaking into song and
getting sentenced for possibly two years, but these are much graver
injustices and forms of oppression and racism happening all the time and
people aren't concerned. Also, if women in hijab came in and started
chanting, “Free Palestine! Stop drones on Pakistan!” in the Russian
Orthodox church, I think most people wouldn’t care/people would say that
they were terrorists or oppressed women or some other nonsense, and I
don't hear anybody talking about how Muslims are systemically mistreated
in Russia's, U.S.'s, etc prisons.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment