Notes on Feednet ed 7.5: a story about DC that's also about Lori Lightfoot

Feednet Vol 7.5: Chicago Politics Edition

"and that's why you always send a press release"

The last time I went into a Senate Building is the day I stopped believing in visibility politics.   There are very few times where I've had, like, a clear ideological breakthrough in a single moment.  And let's be real, I was tweeting things like "visibility is a trap" way before that day.   But the day I walked into the Russell building with 15 GetEQUAL members is the day I felt the limits of visibility in a real life way.   We were going to see a sympathetic Senator about federal workplace, healthcare, and housing protections for LGBTQ people.   It was hot and humid (but also somehow raining. Thanks DC).  The group was classically "nobody passes" queer: visibly trans, POC, fat, with physical disabilities, and either much younger or older than the typical Senate staff employee.  Before this meeting we had been at a four day retreat (I was on my last leg of clean clothes). A lot of us had tattoos, septum piercings, or dyed hair. A lot of us were wearing shorts.  No one was wearing a suit.   You can see where this is going, right?  It was only about a hallway to the elevator, but we stood out.   There was a lot of staring and a lot of whispering. I lagged behind the group to take pictures and heard old time-y trans slurs (some I had only ever seen on the Westburo Baptist Church's website**) from a group of old white dudes with lapel pins, who dispersed to various offices. A couple of women in power suits with tasteful short hairstyles and comfortable looking shoes walked by very quickly and did not make eye contact. One guy in a suit on his way upstairs pointed and laughed, twerp on the playground style.   None of this is news.  BREAKING: Imperial Nation's Most Inaccessible Governing Body Is Racist, Homophobic, Doesn't Like Shorts.  But last night, as the results of Chicago's runoff came in, I couldn't stop thinking about that moment.  Candidates that will govern differently, like Jeanette Taylor, Andre Vasquez, and Maria Hadden, won. They pushed out long time machine aldermen like O'Connor and Moore who, for decades, controlled housing, education, and transparency in Chicago.   Incumbents with heinous track records but quality social justice messaging, like Deb Mell and James Cappleman, either won or lost by tens of votes. (Maybe you'll know which by the time you read this).  And maybe most infuriatingly, Lori Lightfoot and her messaging, co-opted from organizers and refined with money, swept the Mayoral election. (Nothing beats this tweet in summarizing that win).   So last night, I kept thinking about the guy who pointed and laughed in the Russell Building.  It wasn't like he was famous, or I could pin his power to a particular Senator (and believe me, I tried. But as Ernestina said looking at this picture, "Chad? Robert? Michael? How can you tell them apart?")  If I couldn't stop thinking about the gay lookin' staffers that walked by us quickly, it would probably would have made for a better email -- one all about Lori, James, and Deb.   But I was thinking about the guy who laughed.  One of the most incredible things to me about narrative shift is the power to create change: to replace the oppressive norms, ideology, and perspectives that are "standard" with something new.   Most people on this list are pretty familiar with the limits of "something new," and how easy it is to change the buzzwords in power without changing the people.   The narrative shift work done by organizers and movements over the last 4 years means I feel confident that Pointing Dude would never laugh like that today (and if he did, someone would record it).  It means I also feel confident he has at some point had to use the acronym "LGBTQ" in a professional context while keeping a straight face.  But I do not feel confident that Pointing Dude no longer works in the Russell Building.  I do not feel confident that, if he does still work there, if he were to see a group of mostly QTPOC, trans, working class people in shorts, he wouldn't still feel like pointing and laughing.  I feel like he might tweet something like "Incredible people power on the Hill today! thanks to all of our LGBTQ heroes, Harvey Milk, Moonlight, #Equality!" -- but he still wants to point and laugh.   The wins that were exciting in Chicago last night were the ones that were really about people power, not the buzzword "people power".  If movement/organizer frames gets co-opted or used as buzzwords -- it's not good. It's very bad.   But something's working.   Narrative shift can shift power and change minds.  There is so much more to learn and do.   Thank you for everything you do everyday, in Chicago or not, to fix this whole messed up planet.   - H     * GetEQUAL's website is gone now so I linked to the first thing that comes up when you search GetEQUAL.   ** Because they were old time-y. The Westburo Baptist Church is very corny.