ZINE SPOTLIGHT: The Adventures of a Mis/identified Queer Crip
AUTHOR: Ashley Volion
RELEASE DATE: October 3, 3015
DESCRIPTION:
In disability activist Ashley Volion’s debut zine, she comes to terms with her disability and sexuality as it intertwines with her identity and need for intimacy. Ashley is many things, including a queer filipina with cerebral palsy.
This zine was made in collaboration with POC Zine Project founder Daniela Capistrano. The print version of this zine is in an experimental “accessible” format.
The Adventures of a Mis/identified Queer Crip will be available for the first time at Zine Fest Houston on October 17, 2015, where Ashley will be tabling and presenting as part of POC Zine Project.
PURCHASE INFO: To access a print version of this zine, email poczineproject@gmail.com. $5/per copy plus shipping helps to offset the cost of materials and labor, which is provided by POC Zine Project. $2.50 goes to Ashley and $2.50 goes to the POCZP fund.
READ FOR FREE (ONLINE VERSION):
With permission from Ashley, POC Zine Project made this zine available as an online version. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to read Ashley’s full piece within her zine on Access Intimacy (only a preview is shown on this post), a critical concept to understand if you’re interested in being an ally/further developing your ally and advocacy knowledge:
“Harsh Tokes is a personal zine created and curated by Layla Brown. Beginning with a tone deaf statement about the decision to book controversial band Black Pussy, it centers around the weeks-long efforts of WOC/POC (of all backgrounds, ages and shades) and few white allies in a fruitless attempt to educate Yogi/Paul, the slow-learning proprietor of The House of Targ (a punk rock bar located in Ottawa, Canada), as well as various members of staff.”
DESCRIPTION FROM LAYLA:
It centers around the weeks-long efforts of both women and men (of all backgrounds, ages and shades) in a fruitless attempt to educate Yogi/Paul, the slow-learning proprietor of The House of Targ, located in Ottawa, Canada. Oh and it’s got punk art and a solid interview with the Centretown Bandit aka the Paper Caperer aka the woman responsible for daring to opine while using shitty tape.
I put a lot of work into it and feel free and heard for the first time in a couple of decades now.
MORE INFO
Tumblr: BrandonWalshsblackgirlfriend
Site: http://standardcriteria.ca/
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SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT
All funds go to offset the cost of advocacy work and cultural production. DONATE link via PayPal: http://bit.ly/SHdmyh
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Editor’s Note: A Community Submission OR Call for Submissions post is usually from POC folk submitting their own zine or zine call to be featured by POCZP. If you would like to share your zine with the POC Zine Project community, here’s how to do it.
Please make sure to include pertinent info for CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: deadline, submission info/email/tumblr, related links, your own bio, etc.
As long as the zine was created/co-created by a person of color, we will always share Community Submissions. Enjoy!
POCZP also accepts anonymous submissions and zine donations from POC. Click here for submission guidelines.
The Truth Tour consists of folks from the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota and allies, traveling to different cities in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic to tell their stories, advocating for a return to matriarchal leadership and raising awareness of the ongoing genocide of their people. The event I attended was a film screening of the documentary “Red Cry,” held in Washington, DC, on April 16th.
Below is an entry point into a continuous conversation, not a rule book.
A big question that surrounds POC (people of color) events from those outside of the community holding the event is “how can I be an ally?”
A simple answer to these questions is to put your self in service to the community and don’t take up space.
April 16 – Washington, DC – Metropolitan Community Church of DC – 6:30pm
When the Lakota Grandmothers came to DC in April, my partner and I cooked a meal for an event as an act of support/solidarity. What follows here are my reflections as an audience member/participant in the film screening event.
I write with a strong desire to contribute to a (hopefully) ongoing conversation of allyship. The night of the event in DC there were many important voices and stories shared. The group had come a long way to spread their voices. I am thankful for their journey. I felt blessed to be among these strong travelers and hope to meet them again one day.
However, among the powerful stories offered there were important voices and stories that were missed. Here are some things I observed as I watched the evening pass with a complex interplay of isms and unchecked privileges.
For days afterward I couldn’t get out of my head the Q&A session after the “Red Cry” screening.
The white anarchist/activist who stood up and said “I don’t know about the rest of the room, but me and my house mates on THIS side of the room- we’re REALLY in SOLIDARITY with you all! REALLY!”
This wasn’t a question; it was a comment offered perhaps to receive an ego stroke from the audience/caravaners and it was distracting.
Then, there was an African-American woman who stood up asking to be part of the Lakota people, referencing her own Native heritage. It was refreshing to see a person of color seeking to honor their indigenous heritage– but the word use: “Can I be a part of you?” made my face scrunch.
Again, this was not a question pertaining to their journey or to the film.
Then, three or four folks raised their hands… again without questions… but instead with gifts. Literally folks were walking up to an elder with shells, books and bags of what? I don’t know.
Weird? Yes. Distracting? Yes. Ego strokes? Yes and yes.
Three-quarters of the way through the event, the main Native male speaker who had been speaking the most and facilitating, acknowledged that the others on his caravan, including most of the women, had not spoken. He suggested that they go down the line and share something.
“Yes, finally!” I thought, time to hear everyones voice. But, wait. One more person in the audience needs the spot light and asks a question/comment…then POOF! Our time is done.
A song is sung and things are wrapped up. There is never time to hear the voices of the other Native folks, most of them women, from the caravan.
NEXT STEPS
As POC organizers we need to reflect:
On this Truth Tour designed to advocate a return to matriarchy, how did the Native man facilitating (and the crew as a whole) not realize that his voice was filling the time available at the expense of other (female) voices from the caravan?
How do we as POC organizers/activists let inter-communities privileges distract or disappear an important layer in our events or projects?
How did the audience continue on unaware of their distracting behavior?
Why did certain audience members(and why do some folks) think it was/is ok to deconstruct their internal conflicts on some one else's time?
This brings me back to allyship. Here are some ways to be an ally:
1) Be aware of your layers (gender, colourism, class, race, orientation, shyness etc).
2) Take your OWN time to process privilege, settlers guilt etc.
3) Do your service, go home and process in your journal or with other allies about your experience and how to be a better ally next time.
It’s all good. We are all learning here, but to distract from someone else’s event/or project with your own internal conflicts is unchecked privilege. To disappear someone else’s voice or story with your own, no matter if you’re an ally or a member of the community is rude. These patterns disrupt progress.
Privileges unchecked and unprocessed hurt ourselves and our communities. Until we learn as how to beware of our layers and hold one another accountable the biggest thing that will come of our events and projects in the eyes of others (and maybe ourselves) is debriefing the distractions.
Distractions are annoying. And, distractions are NOT solidarity. Lets move the focus back.
NYC ‘TRUTH TOUR’ EVENT RECAP
April 8, 2013 – New York City, NY, Judson Memorial Church- 239 Thompson St. (Solidarity/Decolonization Training) – 7:00pm
By Anonymous contributor to POCZP
I attended the Indigenous Solidarity and Decolonizing Training at Judson Memorial Church in hopes of learning more about the Lakota people, their struggles, and what it means to be in solidarity with indigenous communities. I was looking forward to participating in conversations about the meaning of decolonization and how one develops and sustains a political praxis around decolonizing the self in relation to community.
These days I have been thinking a lot about what it means for me, a women of color to challenge the mindset of settler colonialism that is part of my privilege and my immigrant histories. I believe that the complexities of communities of color engaging with native and indigenous communities should not be limited to understand through reading books and watching documentaries, so I went to this event to listen, to learn, to say hello.
I have deep respect the leaders of this training, for their histories and communities, and for the ways in which they walk through this world. However what I experienced last night was triggering, frustrating, and very confusing.
All but one of the Lakota grandmothers was present and the reason for this was never clearly explained or discussed. We began by asking those in the room who have any European ancestry, to stand up. As expected nearly eighty plus percent of the room were of European descent; I was one of few women of color, and perhaps South Asian in the room who did not stand up.
I have a vague understand of the purpose of this exercise, to call attention to the active realities of colonization as part of people’s being, and that as privilege that you cannot erase. However the presenters did not once ask any questions or specifically engage with the people of color in the room to ask why there were present, what it means for people of color to experience colonialism, and how the displacement of communities of color can reinforce colonial oppressions that native peoples face.
Once again white people became the center focus of the discussion, a conversation that I am sick in tired of having.
How can we destroy the constructs of whiteness if we continually reify them in our political spaces through reliving trauma and shaming one another?
There were several instances where the main “teacher” of this “training” used disparaging language against biracial and multiracial people. They outlined the role of elderly women, or the grandmothers in the struggle without giving the elderly women in the room a chance to speak out on their own and share their stories.
There was a moment where a white man was being disruptive and the presenter challenged him on his behavior, but did not ask him to leave the room. Of course this man continued to be disruptive and my friend, a women of color, had to ask him to leave.
I could give further specifics and in detail but I am not interested in calling out the presenter or the organizers of this event. Rather, I write this to raise the question of how can we build solidarity and decolonize together when so many of our political spaces are dominated by the politics of whiteness and by those whom I gender as being male-identified and male-bodied?
What is it going to take for men to recognize their male-privilege and to step down, work together on building true allyship with women in the struggle, and to call each other out?
There is a lot to say about this training. I am vested in having these conversations in person, and with people I hope to build my politics and community with.
However, in sharing this, I hope we can have a more open and honest dialogue about how to challenge spaces that are political defunct in the moment, and how to create something new that has a liberating direction.
Editor’s Note: POCZP founder Daniela Capistrano attended the NYC Truth Tour date and put a call for feedback on the POCZP Facebook page. Subsequently, Daniela spoke with this anonymous contributor, who gave POCZP permission to publish their thoughts under the condition that they remain anonymous. POCZP respects their choice to remain anonymous, as often it can be very difficult and triggering as a POC to question POC-led movements/actions.
MORE ON THE APRIL 8 NYC TRUTH TOUR EVENT
Below are POCZP founder Daniela Capistrano’s thoughts on the NYC Truth Tour event, originally published on the POCZP Facebook page. She also recorded this positive moment at the end of the evening:
[DESCRIPTION: The event leaders asked attendees to participate in a round dance at the end of the event. Couples were placed in the middle circle, while the elders were in another circle around it. After a while, others who weren’t necessarily elders were encouraged to join the outer circle. Native and non-native folks participated in the dance. This video captures about 80% of the round dance duration.]
By Daniela Capistrano, POCZP founder
The event overall was (for folks we spoke to) very triggering and complex. I wish that more female elders spoke, since that is what the tour is about. However, I also understand that there is another related event where female elders will be speaking.
This event wasn’t an “easy” experience. Some folks said there wasn’t enough actual training and that it was more of a blame game. Others did not agree with this assessment at all and said they got a lot out of it.
The event leaders asked everyone at the start of the experience “to listen with your heart.” Some people in attendance had a very had time just listening and there were many privilege issues at play. One white male would not stop interjecting and made it all about him until he was asked to stop. He could not handle that feedback and left.
Another white male took up way too much time singing a “spiritual” song, making the focus about him instead of the elders. A white female spoke on behalf of a black male in attendance without his consent. Many interesting and triggering actions went down last night at this event, a microcosm of bigger issues at play …
Some participants had issues with being put on the spot based on race, class and gender. Another controversial facet of the training was when attendees were challenged to cut up their government IDs as a symbol of their commitment to decolonize. Clearly there are many factors that would inform someone’s decision to participate or not, such as citizenship status in the U.S. and the dangerous ramifications of not having ID while experiencing racial profiling or worse. Race, class and gender were also factors.
One could argue that this act of cutting up an ID meant nothing and was in fact hurtful to undocumented folks in attendance or others in tenuous circumstances. Lots to think about. But I aired on the side of listening with an open mind and staying until the end. I chose to cut up my ID to confront my privileges; to know what it felt like to destroy government issued materiality; and to think about all the privileges that made it so “easy” for me to cut up my ID without any real consequences. I did it for myself, didn’t judge those who didn’t and also doesn’t think that cutting an ID automatically “decolonized” my existence and mental state. For me, it was an act of undoing mental damage tied to identity politics.
I am glad that I did stay until the end of the event, because I was able to meet one of the female elders, who I hope will collaborate with POCZP on the Race Riot tour this fall, as #IdleNoMore is our core focus.
Because I stayed until the end, I was able to capture the round dance on video, which had a very peaceful and healing affect for many who participated.
In closing, it’s 100% OK to not agree with all facets of a decolonizing event. It’s OK to not agree with the leaders and to walk out when you feel triggered. Several people did walk out. But I am glad that I stayed.
NOTICE: POCZP founder Daniela Capistrano reached out to Truth Tour organizers in April to share feedback and to discuss a possible collaboration for the Race Riot! tour. She also reached out again upon publishing this piece. We are patiently awaiting a response.
COMMUNITY: Help make this a productive conversation by adding your thoughts in your reblog.
RESOURCES
Educate yourself on what the Truth Tour is all about:
“Red Cry” premiered on April 1, 2013, at the Mother Butler Center in Rapid City, SD in Lakota Territory. It was shown on consecutive nights in other cities as part of the Lakota Truth Tour.
Limited quantities of the Red Cry DVD are available for free. If you would like a DVD sent to you, Truth Tour organizers request that you give a donation of $5 or more to cover the costs of shipping and materials.
Please mail your address and a check made payable to “Lakota Solidarity Project” to:
Lakota Solidarity Project PO Box 881 Asheville, NC 28801
If you would like to show the film in your area, they ask that you download the Organizer Toolkit and use this as a model for how to organize the screening. Contact them if you are interested in screening “Red Cry.”
“Let’s Talk About…”is an experimental series by POCZP created to share communal knowledge, resources and reflections on a wide range of topics affecting communities of color.
If you are a person of color—or a white person with a history of supporting POC Zine Project— who wants to contribute to “Let’s Talk About…” submit to poczineproject@gmail.com with “Let’s Talk About” in the subject line.
All submissions to “Let’s Talk About…” will be compiled into a zine (print & digital) that will be released by POCZP in December of 2013.
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SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT
If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.
Part of POC Zine Project’s advocacy is empowering new and seasoned zinesters of color in the U.S. (and soon worldwide) to share their stories while supporting other POC. Liz is the second official regional coordinator for POCZP (meet Joyce, our Midwest Coordinator, here). We are excited to share developments as this part of our experiment in activism and community through materiality unfolds.
LIZ, IN HER OWN WORDS
Liz was born in Los Angeles, California, but moved back and forth between Mexico and LA throughout her childhood. She is the youngest of three and the only female in a traditional, Catholic, Mexican-American family.
Though her brothers taught her how to throw a good punch, she was often confused by the strict gender roles in rural Mexican society, which told her to be passive and meek. Luckily, Los Angeles was a place where contradiction could exist, a place where you could an aggressive girl, and a Mexican Punk. LA and the influence of popular culture gave Liz an identity she could be proud of.
She moved to the Bay Area for school, but ended up falling in love with SF Zine Fest, and community of artists. They pushed her to pursue her passion for Art and Literature.
Liz now writes fiction and non-fiction, makes comics (check out Inked), and is a working illustrator. Her inspiration comes from her crazy family and Chican@ Pop Culture. She is the Co-Director of San Francisco Zine Fest (SFZF) and is now happy to be a part of the POC Zine Project.
See Liz in action at a recent POCZP Youth Zine workshop in San Francisco, where she led activities with assistance from POCZP intern Itoro Udofia.
Liz hopes to expand and connect the DIY West Coast community and serve as a resource. She wants DIY projects (and zines) by people of color to be especially accessible to youth, because she needed community this open and empowering as a teenager.
It is also a goal of hers to promote multi-media as a part of zine/DIY culture and expand the limits of what a zine could be, because artists, especially artists with a story to tell, need to be more visible.
COMMUNITY: Join us in welcoming Liz. We are excited to support zine culture and POC storytelling on the West Coast! We will have several events in this region during the 2013 Race Riot! tour. Stay tuned for details …
DO YOU WANT TO BE A COORDINATOR LIKE LIZ?
If you want to support POCZP with Liz, other coordinators, interns and our touring members, let us know!
We are also looking for representatives in every state, as well as regional support, as we build toward the National POC Zinester & Ally Conference/Convergence. Ideally you have some experience with organizing events and building community, but experience is not required. All are welcome. Priority will be given to people of color who apply but allies are definitely welcome.
Contact poczineproject@gmail.com for more details with “regional coordinator” as the subject line.
If you are outside the U.S. and want to be a part of our emerging POCZP Global Ambassadors program, email poczineproject@gmail.com as well to stay informed as opportunities arise.
SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT
If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.
Last year’s inaugural tour was amazing but that was just the beginning. 14 cities last year = 12 more cities this year <3
Dates may shift slightly before October and we are still accepting invites from academic and community spaces, collectives, orgs and individuals. If you haven’t contacted us already, please do: poczineproject@gmail.com.
If you look at this list and think “Why the heck do they keep missing the full Midwest?” Don’t trip, chocolate chip. The 2015 NATIONAL Zinester Conference is going down in YOUR house! Yeah! Midwest all the way! And we’ll be bringing in FIVE international zinesters/activists to share their work! Yeah, buddy! If you want to help, reach out!
Thoughts become things. Be intentional with your thoughts.
2013 TOUR DETAILS: What we know so far
Native/Indigenous solidarity will be a core component of this tour. If you’re actively involved in local efforts in your city, please reach out. We want you to speak at our events & help you distribute your printed zines/materials nationwide. We hope our small platform helps to make a difference.
We will be doing TWO events in each city, just like last year’s tour. There will be an academic event at a participating university in the daytime and one DIY/community show in the evening. The academic events will be free and open to the public, while the evening DIY shows will be a sliding scale cover. NO ONE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS <3
The DIY show covers pay for our gas and food, so give what you can.
We will be able to share accessibility/child care details for each city once we have more information.
The Race Riot! touring member lineup will be revealed in the coming weeks. HINT: Think more people, rotating members and lots of guest readers in each city.
Self-care and caregiving resources will be a significant aspect of this tour for participating readers/performers.
OK, enough context. Here are the dates & cities (all subject to change)!
All details subject to change. We will share specifics about each city as we finalize tour logistics.
MICHIGAN FOLKS: Wow, such love! We’ve received a few requests from y'all to come out this year. We did two events there in 2012 and cannot return in 2013 (we are not a funded entity - we rely on donations and have day jobs/other obligations <3). If you’re in Michigan and want to support this tour in other ways, contact us, thanks.
We can only do so much, and we do a lot with very little. Richmond, VA and other cities: We wish we could be everywhere for this tour, but we can’t. Let’s figure out ways to partner that will yield long term outcomes for local POC orgs and collectives. Thanks for understanding.
OTHER WAYS TO PARTICIPATE
We are looking for the following:
Guest readers in every city (you must be a person of color)
Rotating tour buddies: Join us on the road and participate in 1-3 tour events as a panelist/reader/tabler
POC (or POC fronted) bands to perform at each #raceriottour event!
We’re also looking for folks to help us produce #raceriottour fundraiser events between now and September. This might be a good solution for you if you are unable to travel.
Contact poczineproject@gmail.com for more details. Make sure to use “2013 RACE RIOT TOUR” as the email subject.
ABOUT THE RACE RIOT! TOUR
POC Zine Project held its first Race Riot! Tour in 2012, producing 20 events in 14 U.S. cities, which included speaking engagements at six universities. Click here to view photos from the POC Zine Project: 2012 Race Riot! Tour tour finale at Death By Audio in Brooklyn and access all the tour stop recaps.
We will be taking the Race Riot! Tour through 12 more U.S. cities in 2013. Stay tuned for updates as we work on partnering with POC-affirming orgs overseas. If you are outside the U.S. and want to be a part of our emerging POCZP Global Ambassadors program, email poczineproject@gmail.com.
SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT
If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.
We’re also looking for folks to help us produce #raceriottour fundraiser events between now and September. This might be a good solution for you if you are unable to travel.
Contact poczineproject@gmail.com for more details. Make sure to use “2013 RACE RIOT TOUR” as the email subject.
COMMUNITY QUESTIONS
We’re connecting with people and holding events through the Southwest and West Coast, including (but not limited to) Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Seattle.
If we were to come to your town, what are the POC run/led spaces that have a history of serving communities of color? We are committed to to holding every event on this tour in a POC-affirming space. Tell us in the reblog note or send us a message.
If you’re down to help us organize an event as part of our second Race Riot! tour in YOUR city, let us know!
<3
POC Zine Project
*We will announce the full list of confirmed 2013 #raceriottour cities on February 14 15, 2013.
ABOUT THE RACE RIOT! TOUR
POC Zine Project held its first Race Riot! Tour in 2012, producing 20 events in 14 U.S. cities, which included speaking engagements at six universities. Click here to view photos from the POC Zine Project: 2012 Race Riot! Tour tour finale at Death By Audio in Brooklyn and access all the tour stop recaps.
We will be taking the Race Riot! Tour through 12 more U.S. cities in 2013. Stay tuned for updates as we work on partnering with POC-affirming orgs overseas. If you are outside the U.S. and want to be a part of our emerging POCZP Global Ambassadors program, email poczineproject@gmail.com.
SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT
If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.
After three years, we’ve finally set up a dedicated @POCZineProject IG account. It will be connected to our existing Twitter with the same handle.
Here are some helpful ways to engage with POC Zine Project on IG and Twitter:
* Use the hashtag #poczines when you share information/photos/links about zines by people of color (or featuring work by POC).
* Give our photos “<3” on IG to help surface POCZP news and resources to more people.
* RT and reply to our tweets on Twitter so that more people find out about our upcoming events and services.
Some of the benefits of following @POCZineProject on IG and Twitter:
* Get photo and text updates in real-time during our live events. This will be especially useful when we are on tour.
* Get behind the scenes images from our advocacy work.
* See photos of the latest zine donations for our archive, images of poc zinesters and allies, and more!
Thanks y'all <3
- POC Zine Project
Editor’s Note: If you use #poczines as a hashtag on your Flickr uploads, or any content that has a tag field (YouTube videos, blog posts, Tumblr posts, etc.), that will help us find your content and incorporate it into our research, advocacy and outreach. We will always credit sources. Thanks!
We know some of you are bummed that this rad event is 1) far away from you and 2) 21+. We hear ya. Sometimes it seems like all the cool shit is in NYC, right? But that’s just not the case. We know from our travels that people are doing amazing things all over the world, including in small towns.
But this amazing thing is actually going down in NYC tonight, so if you can make it, show some love and stop by our table and For The Birds Collective’s! POCZP founder Daniela Capistrano will be there in solidarity with Mimi and the other readers, along with our Chief Fanalyst Julia B. and Race Riot! tour vet Cristy C. Road.
We’ve been thinking about all the people who can’t afford to purchase Women & Performance’s “Punk Anteriors” special double issue (it’s $85) or attend tonight’s event, so we’ve snagged a copy and made it available to read online, zine-style. <3
We’re also going to live-tweet when we can from @poczineproject using the hashtag #PunkAnteriors. Look for our tweets! <3
“Punk Anteriors: Theory, Genealogy, Performance” is issue 22.2-3 of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory and was co-edited by Beth Stinson and Fiona I.B. Ngô.
The issue emphasizes punk feminist spaces and times by bringing them to the forefront to forge and generate “punk anteriors.” We use the word “anteriors” in the title of this issue to think through the included articles that specifically address punk spaces and remnants—plotting what might come before, or anterior to, the telling of punk’s stories in two senses. First, punk anteriors point to the temporal, interrogating punk’s (always seemingly) resistant genealogy and questioning the source of politics and performances for punk. Second, we mobilize punk anteriors in the material and spatial sense of place, bodies, and archives. That is to say, we re-consider the context for the everyday performances of punk as occurring within atmospheres of imperial design; racial, feminist, and anarchist social movements; and immigration, poverty, and dislocation.
Along with the hope of re-centering people of color in punk’s narratives, part of the goal with this issue has been to expand the places where we find valuable knowledge and aesthetics, to re-imagine who counts as an intellectual producer in punk’s history, and to work across genres. Though the process was not always perfect, we have found this track productive and insightful, and hope that this model might inspire others to explore these topics and others in similar and even more brilliant ways.
COMMUNITY: After reading “Punk Anteriors,” let us know what you think! Click here to submit your review of excerpts of the journal or the entire publication.
EVENT DETAILS
Big thanks to tonight’s organizers for creating punkanteriors.tumblr.com/ and making this roundtable discussion as accessible as possible to the general public.
We also want to give an especially BIG thank you to this issue’s co-editors Beth Stinson and Fiona I.B. Ngô <3 Thank you for disrupting problematic facets of academia in your own ways.
Muñoz is Professor of Performance Studies at New York University, where he writes, researches and teaches Comparative Ethnic Studies, Queer Theory, Marxism, and Performance Art. His books include Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (Minnesota, 1999) and Cruising Utopia: the Then and There of Queer Futurity (NYU Press, 2009). Muñoz has published articles on punk, art, queer theory, critical ethnic studies, poetry, and performance art in venues such as Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, GLQ, Social Text, Theatre Journal, The South Atlantic Quarterly, American Quarterly, and Criticism.
Mimi Nguyen
Nguyen is Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her first book, called The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages, focuses on the promise of “giving” freedom concurrent and contingent with waging war and its afterlife (Duke, 2012). She is also co-editor with Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu of Alien Encounters: Popular Culture in Asian America (Duke, 2007), and co-editor with Fiona I.B. Ngo and Mariam Lam of a special issue of positions on Southeast Asians in diaspora (Winter 2012). She publishes also on queer subcultures, the politics of fashion, and punk feminisms. She is the author of Slander and Evolution of a Race Riot zines and has contributed her writing to Punk Planet and Maximum Rocknroll. In 2012, she went on a couple POC Zine Project/Race Riot! Tours to discuss and read from zines by people of color.
G. S. Nikpour served as co-coordinator of Maximum Rocknroll — the longest running DIY punk fanzine in the world — from 2004-2007. She is also a founding editor ofB|ta’arof, a magazine featuring art, historiography, and cultural critique related to Iran and its diaspora. She was born in Tehran, Iran and lives in NYC where she still writes for MRR, plays drums in a hardcore band called In School, and is a PhD candidate researching Iranian political modernity at Columbia University.
Nyong’o is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at New York University, where he writes, researches and teaches critical black studies, queer studies, cultural theory, and cultural history. His first book, The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (Minnesota, 2009), won the Errol Hill Award for best book in African American theatre and performance studies. Nyong’o has published articles on punk, disco, viral media, the African diaspora, film, and performance art in venues such as Radical History Review, Criticism, TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory,Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Nation, and n+1. He is co-editor of the journal Social Text.
Former co-producer/songwriter/front woman for The Slack Republic. A visionary extraordinaire she launched her own boutique music label, wynott records (former Rxlngr) in 2007 and has since managed artists such as Muhsinah, Jneiro Jarel & 00Genesis and consulted other acts like J*Davey, Viktor Duplaix & Dante Fried Chicken. While she continues to expand her brand designing YNA, her product line which debuted at the 2012 Afro-Punk festival, M.J. is quietly writing, producing and recording the debut solo release of her new indie-rock outfit, “Mon Mecs” with plans to also release a several rap songs early this year under the moniker “Mec Jagger.”
ROLE: Chief Fanalyst for POC Zine Project’s Legacy Series
REGION: East Coast (Brooklyn), USA
COMMUNITY: Ju has been a POCZP member since the beginning. You’ll be seeing more of their contributions manifest on this Tumblr and in other digital and physical spaces very soon …. <3
IN JU’S OWN WORDS
Hi there. I’m Julia B., or Ju (if we’re being informal, which suits me fine), and I’m the first Official (and Chief) Fanalyst to participate in the POC Zine Project’s Legacy Series!
I’m very excited to be part of this series, and I’m looking forward to sharing more about the first Legacy Series selection: Fire!!: A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists, published in 1926. I should probably begin by explaining what my role will be.
fan: As in, amateur. I’m not a professional historian, just an enthusiastic history lover with library access. Whether it’s sci-fi fans swapping self-written stories through the mail, or specialized distros offering up all manner of self-published work at concerts, zine readings and the like, zine culture has consistently been defined by its place outside of the traditional publishing world. Keeping that in mind, the folks writing this series are taking part because we genuinely love the works we’re talking about, and want to share those works as laypeople in an accessible way.
analyst: I’ll be doing a close read and giving background details about the magazine, page by page. Sort of like “Pop-Up Video” but in written form.
In lieu of elaborate on-location choreography, I’ll be taking you further into not only the text of Fire!!, but also the world in which it was published–from the author’s contemporaries to the neighborhood in which their office was situated, and more. Ideally, by the time you’re done checking out what I’ve got for you, you’ll have music to listen to, visual artists to check out, books you’ll want to look for. Like I said, I’m enthusiastic about history, and my goal is to make sure that you’re just as thrilled about learning more as I was doing the research.
So why exactly am I so thrilled to be working on Fire!! in particular? Well, as a literature fan, I’ve loved Zora Neale Hurston’s, Langston Hughes’, and Countee Cullen’s writing for years. For many, those names might be the most familiar in the list of contributors to Fire!!, and I’m sure a lot of you out there are already fans of their work. But what of the other contributors alluded to in the “younger negro artists” of the magazine’s title? I see this as a chance for those who are more familiar with the writers in this publication to learn more about the visual artists who contributed, and vice versa, while I take a look at the perspectives that link them all together.
I’m also excited because Fire!! was controversial in its time. The contributors were not interested in perpetuating the politics of respectability. They did not create the magazine to keep in step with the artists of generations before them. In short, they were uncomfortable because they refused to conform to more (Black middle-class) palatable sensibilities.
I mean, check out some of the stuff people were saying when this little magazine out of Harlem made its way into print:
Rean Graves of the Baltimore Afro-American [newspaper] was incensed by the magazine and wrote in his review, “I have just tossed the first issue of Fire!! into the fire.” Benjamin Brawley went so far as to say that if the U.S. Post Office found out about Thurman’s “Cordelia the Crude,” the magazine might be barred from the mail.[1]
Pretty strong reactions to a fledgling publication! The contributors wrote about touchy subjects such as colorism among Black Americans and prostitution. They made deliberate use of Black American vernacular, in an effort to make the voices of their works ring true to the people they represented. And pissed off a bunch of uptight people in the process, even though only one issue of Fire!! was ever published. It’s easy to think of “cutting edge” in the present tense, but in exploring the magazine, we get the chance to check out what the Black American nonconformists of 1926 had to say, and what value those messages hold for us in the present day.
Anyway, enough out of me! I’m looking forward to talking with you further… hopefully we can start a cool conversation (or several) about this classic work. Stay tuned!
DO YOU WANT TO BE A FANALYST FOR THE LEGACY SERIES?
The only criteria is that you have to be a person of color! Submit here and tell us a little about yourself. Please include links to some writing samples. Good luck!
White allies: There are other ways for you to support the Legacy Series. Please email daniela@dcapmedia.com for details.
ABOUT THE LEGACY SERIES
Kicking off with FIRE!!, POC Zine Project will make zines by people of color created from the 1700s-1990s available to read and share.
Every Friday (Editor’s note: date pushed to February), you will find a legacy zine by a person of color on poczineproject.tumblr.com. We will share more details in 2013.
These zines were new maps to our liberation, countering the negative propaganda of what people of color looked like, thought and were capable of achieving.
We want the world to know about these legacy zines, so we are going to archive and share them to the best of our ability.
We look forward to partnering with distros, academic spaces, libraries, anti-authoritarian collectives, literary journals, bloggers and more to share the Legacy Series.
“NEW” ZINESTERS: We will still share information about new and upcoming zines by people of color :) Please continue to submit your zines to the archive.
ABOUT THE RACE RIOT! TOUR
POC Zine Project held its first Race Riot! Tour in 2012, producing 20 events in 14 cities, which included speaking engagements at six universities. Click here to view photos from the POC Zine Project: 2012 Race Riot! Tour tour finale at Death By Audio in Brooklyn and access all the tour stop recaps.
We will be taking the Race Riot! Tour through 14 more cities in 2013. Stay tuned!
SUPPORT POC ZINE PROJECT
If everyone in our community gave $1, we would more than meet our fundraising goal for 2013. If you have it to spare, we appreciate your support. All funds go to our 2013 tour, the Legacy Series and the poverty zine series.
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Mission: To make all zines by people of color easy to find, distribute and share. POCZP is an experiment in activism and community through materiality.
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