- 7 weeks ago
Building an intersectional justice movement in the United States: How does a grassroots movement led by people of color confront oppression and patriarchy day by day?
In an increasingly polarized and racially segregated United States, white supremacy and patriarchy are thriving. Conservative and liberal leaders alike refuse to address the outsized impact of institutional and systemic violence on people of color, women, and queer and gender nonconforming people.
In Fundamental US Episode, “Rising Power,”brings us to Madison, Wisconsin, where we meet community organizers Kabzuag and M, co-directors of Freedom Inc. What began as a sexual assault support group has grown into an organization at the forefront of battles over education reform, police brutality, land access and ownership, women’s safety and security, and mental health. Driven by their own intimate experiences of violence and poverty, M and Kabzuag have carved out a spacefor multiracial, multilingual, and multigenerational community members to disrupt a broken system, equipping Black, Hmong, and Khmer, women, queer, and gender nonconforming folks with the tools they need to confront oppression in all facets of their lives and ultimately build a roadmap toward shared liberation.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Feminist movements have the power to disrupt the status quo and radically alter the course of history for women and girls—and ALL historically marginalized people and communities globally. But what does it really look like to be a feminist leader today?
At a time of unprecedented political uprisings around the globe, from Haiti to Chile to Hong Kong to Sudan to Lebanon and beyond, Fundamental invites global audiences to engage directly with grassroots movements and community leaders who are standing up for our fundamental human rights. The series profiles a distinct set of remarkable grassroots leaders working on issues from ending child marriage in Pakistan to pursuing LGBTQI liberation in Georgia. These incredible leaders are at the front lines of fighting for gender justice, and mobilizing to write new futures for themselves, their societies, and the world.
ABOUT GLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN:
Global Fund for Women envisions a world in which movements for gender justice have transformed power and privilege for a few into equity and equality for all. As a feminist fund, we offer flexible support to a diverse group of partners—more than 5,000 groups across 175 countries so far—to create meaningful change that will last beyond our lifetimes. To learn more about our work, visit www.globalfundforwomen.org or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
Follow Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
Follow Unbothered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29unbothe
In an increasingly polarized and racially segregated United States, white supremacy and patriarchy are thriving. Conservative and liberal leaders alike refuse to address the outsized impact of institutional and systemic violence on people of color, women, and queer and gender nonconforming people.
In Fundamental US Episode, “Rising Power,”brings us to Madison, Wisconsin, where we meet community organizers Kabzuag and M, co-directors of Freedom Inc. What began as a sexual assault support group has grown into an organization at the forefront of battles over education reform, police brutality, land access and ownership, women’s safety and security, and mental health. Driven by their own intimate experiences of violence and poverty, M and Kabzuag have carved out a spacefor multiracial, multilingual, and multigenerational community members to disrupt a broken system, equipping Black, Hmong, and Khmer, women, queer, and gender nonconforming folks with the tools they need to confront oppression in all facets of their lives and ultimately build a roadmap toward shared liberation.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Feminist movements have the power to disrupt the status quo and radically alter the course of history for women and girls—and ALL historically marginalized people and communities globally. But what does it really look like to be a feminist leader today?
At a time of unprecedented political uprisings around the globe, from Haiti to Chile to Hong Kong to Sudan to Lebanon and beyond, Fundamental invites global audiences to engage directly with grassroots movements and community leaders who are standing up for our fundamental human rights. The series profiles a distinct set of remarkable grassroots leaders working on issues from ending child marriage in Pakistan to pursuing LGBTQI liberation in Georgia. These incredible leaders are at the front lines of fighting for gender justice, and mobilizing to write new futures for themselves, their societies, and the world.
ABOUT GLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN:
Global Fund for Women envisions a world in which movements for gender justice have transformed power and privilege for a few into equity and equality for all. As a feminist fund, we offer flexible support to a diverse group of partners—more than 5,000 groups across 175 countries so far—to create meaningful change that will last beyond our lifetimes. To learn more about our work, visit www.globalfundforwomen.org or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
Follow Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
Follow Unbothered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29unbothe
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LifestyleTranscript
00:04people expect me to stay at home to be nice and give up my space freedom is a sense of
00:11autonomy
00:11but i do come from a very patriarchal world they see my differences first
00:17it was difficult to not have to be seen as a man or a woman i don't want to apologize
00:23for being angry anymore does that make sense i'm not afraid to say that i do believe in
00:29something great and i'm not going to give up fundamental and their justice no exceptions
01:21look whether or not you agree with freedom inc's tactics are you are you in agreement with what
01:28they're saying they're for one thing that they're saying they're for is cops without schools
01:33i grew up in milwaukee and the place that i grew up is they recently did a film about a
01:45documentary
01:45called 53206 because it talks about it as the worst zip code in america in terms of crime rates
01:52unemployment rates
01:57i identify as black being black is important to me it's a big part of me and how i move
02:04through
02:04the world and interact with the world
02:09being black and not african-american is political right it's about identifying with other people
02:20of african descent all over the world i feel greater kinship with greater identity with
02:26a black person in jamaica than i do a white person at the capital
02:36i also in terms of my gender i identify as gender non-conforming
02:45i don't conform to what society says a person with my body should be like and also for me i
02:54see
02:54myself as having identifying with people who are masculine identifying with people who are feminine
03:01and feeling identity and sameness with both so for me i really feel like a blend
03:08um of those things
03:17oh look this when i was in a pageant
03:23oh mama got first thing i think
03:26yep they're all older now
03:29oh here are their plane tickets
03:32oh you guys want to touch it
03:34wow these are plane tickets
03:36right here look yeah these are the plane tickets
03:42look the actual receipt
03:46February 27th 1980
03:51i was born in laos
03:53right at the end of the vietnam war
03:55or as we know it um the american war or the secret war in laos
04:00and um at that time it was at the end of the war so my mother was very malnutritioned she
04:06was very sick
04:07and when she had me i was very sick
04:11after that war we had to leave because many of us fought um against the government um along the side
04:18of the u.s
04:21and so um that's kind of the beginning of my life um fleeing before we came to the u.s
04:28to resettle in the u.s
04:40growing up in a very traditional mong household
04:43there are very specific gender roles
04:46but earlier in my teen years i think that's when i was awakened and i i tell this story a
04:53lot
04:54but it was this particular moment where we were having a family ceremony a family gathering and all the women
05:00would cook
05:01and and then prepare the food and all the men would eat first and then the women would eat second
05:07and i just remember as a young teen like oh let me just go into this tiny kitchen and let
05:12me start
05:12and i started eating and as i was eating i'm like i'm gonna eat for my sister i'm eating for
05:17my mom
05:18i'm eating for my aunties i'm eating for everybody right and i felt that sense of justice like this was
05:24what justice must look like and i've always felt that that that was something that i fought for
05:29and that i think that's been my life learning in creating like a freedom inc
05:39hey everyone
05:43creating an organization or a space or a place where i felt like i didn't belong anywhere else
05:47i'm gonna instead of trying to fit into something that wasn't meant for me i'm just gonna create it
05:52and see what happens yeah freedom inc our motto is our community is our campaign
05:59because we're not issue based we are people based we're community based
06:04so we are fighting every issue that's impacting our communities
06:23if you were to ask 20 different people what we did they would say all probably 20 different things
06:33we've become a political home for many people we've become a resource for people when they're
06:37trying to figure things out around queer issues gender issues
06:44and how do we support each other across racial intergenerational
06:49and multi-gendered spaces or communities
06:55i think we're a lot to many people in many different spaces freedom inc is
07:03i think people are unclear about that
07:05okay because they're all over kids
07:06so gender identity is how you see yourself on the inside right
07:13so we talk about gender expression is how you express yourself on the outside
07:16gender identity is how you feel on the inside like what how you think of yourself
07:22and that affects how you move through the world
07:25my gender and identity i'm gender non-conforming
07:28i will think of myself as masculine or feminine i'm whatever i want
07:31and that's how i feel about myself on the inside
07:33so gender non-conforming and gender expression is almost the same then
07:39they all relate
07:40okay
07:41they're not necessarily the same
07:42it's because how a person expresses themselves is not the same thing as how a person identifies
07:47so for example if i wear this today and who wears the same thing it does not mean we have
07:54the same gender identity
07:55it meant that who was wearing my shit
07:57you understand what i'm saying
08:00but do you see but do you see the difference
08:02i think the the most important part for you all to understand like you can't just work for gender and
08:09women and and straight folks justice
08:12without like equating how like the oppression of queer people is actually an oppression of you
08:22why is it important that we fight for queer justice gender justice and against racism because you cannot fight for
08:30one without fighting for the other and at the core of like how i've built my movement or how i've
08:36built my understanding of social justice and fighting for human rights is that when you fight for those most
08:42you're so oppressed you're sure to win
08:51madison is a white liberal city which means that on the surface it looks as though they have progressive values
08:59so it looks like they support lgbtq rights racial justice ending poverty quite the opposite quite the contrary
09:11black people are arrested at 11 to 1 that means there are 11 arrests of black people for every arrest
09:19of one white person
09:24and the reason why that is so alarming is the population is almost the reverse
09:33madison is only six percent black only six percent black so we know there's racism in the system
09:42a week ago there was an 11 year old black boy who was tackled and arrested inside of one of
09:49madison's public library
10:00there's a hyper criminalization of black youth and so over the last year and a half our young folks have
10:05been showing up at the school board meetings to show and demonstrate that they do not want police in schools
10:27what's up y'all my name is i'm tired of the school board shit i still am
10:32all right in this movement for black lives we continue to have police and policing in schools
10:37that strive to destroy black youth communities in our fight for liberation
10:41as many times as we come here to tell you that our children are being hurt by your decision making
10:46you all still don't listen before our young people intervening removing police from schools wasn't even a conversation
10:53and in fact we were heading toward the trend of including or increasing police officers presence
11:00cops increase unwellness cops increase harassment for black youth we have demonstrated that time over and time again
11:06we no longer want people who do not represent who do know who are not black leadership to make decisions
11:11on behalf of black students
11:13and so i'm here to assert and demand community control
11:23if at the root of patriarchy is devaluing of women and girls at the root of racism
11:31is devaluing black bodies and people you cannot fight as a southeast asian person or as an asian person
11:37against racism without also being pro-black and supporting black movements
11:44as somebody who works with victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault
11:48i can tell you that many of our families do not use the police as a as a solution
11:54like if we don't use the police in our own like daily lives to keep us protected why do you
12:00think
12:00that we would feel safe with them in schools with our kids we don't i don't have a lot of
12:05time but this
12:06kid wants to say something so i'm gonna let him say first no cops in schools all power to the
12:11people
12:20i believe that we will win
12:24i believe that we will win
12:26i believe that we will win
12:34If we don't get it shut down!
12:38If we don't get it shut down!
12:40If we don't get it shut down!
12:42If we don't get it shut down!
12:44If we don't get it shut down!
12:46If we don't get it shut down!
12:48If we don't get it shut down!
13:15Oftentimes, people look at Freedom Inc. as solely a political organization, meaning
13:20all we do is resist the state, or all we do is go out and rah-rah-rah and rally.
13:28It is true that we do that, but we're proud to be women, queer and trans people who can
13:33stand up to authority.
13:35But we do that in service to our actual lives being better.
13:46So one of the programs, one of the projects of Freedom Inc. is this community garden.
13:52We got that garden because we were thinking about health, healing and holiness and wellness.
13:57And we asked the elders, the Southeast Asian elders, hey, what does health, healing and
14:04wholeness look like for you?
14:06And they answered, they said, we actually are master gardeners.
14:12We want to be able to grow our own food.
14:14That's what exercise is to me.
14:17So he said, absolutely.
14:19And then there was a community organizing campaign.
14:23Diddy didn't just give that to us.
14:25The alder was racist and said, you know, we ought to bust you out of here.
14:30That didn't turn us away.
14:31We fought hard and we won.
14:33So now in the middle of the city, what they say is the most beautiful park, there's the
14:38most beautiful garden in the city.
14:47When we were fighting for this garden space, when we had to be more active and more proactive
14:52and more out there and resistant, we were able to use young, queer, black folks who said,
14:58we are comfortable with that.
14:59We can help with that.
15:00And that was how we started like really building solidarity with each other.
15:04Like, how can we show up in places where Hmong folks or Southeast Asian folks were afraid?
15:09We were able to take your strength and all of the history of you all, like the black resistance
15:14in this country and really say, okay, this is how we can do civil disobedience.
15:18And these are the young folks or these are the folks who are unafraid to do that.
15:23And so I find it hopeful that whatever our people needed and stick to that and really fought
15:29for that together, that's a fight worth fighting for in the city.
15:34For me, I really think it feels a lot of times too big or so big to fight capitalism, colonialism,
15:45patriarchy.
15:45I mean, it feels overwhelming on where to start or where to peel back.
15:50And so a lot of the times, even though you have this big vision, you still feel lost.
15:55And what this garden feels like to me is you can win.
16:01We really can make a difference in our everyday life.
16:04And that's legitimate and that's feminist and that's queer justice and that's black liberation
16:09and that is wholeness and that's healing.
16:12So that's what it means to me.
16:13So I dig it.
16:15Yeah.
16:16Yeah.
16:17Yeah.
16:26Yeah.
16:27Yeah.
16:28Yeah.
16:32Yeah.
16:33Yeah.
16:35Yeah.
16:35Yeah.
16:36Yeah.
16:36Yeah.
16:38Yeah.
16:38Yeah.
16:39Yeah.
16:39Yeah.
16:39Yeah.
16:40Yeah.
16:40Yeah.
16:41Yeah.
16:42Yeah.
16:42Yeah.
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