Protest8SF: Prop. 8 Protest 11/15, 10:30 A.M. City Hall
JoinTheImpact (their servers have been overloaded, so the site might be down) is organizing a national day of GLBTQI rights protests: Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30 A.M. Pacific / 1:30 P.M. Eastern at your city hall. There’s quite a long list of protests at the site and lots of people are stepping up to organize protests in various cities and states across the nation. Check it out – there might already be a protest in your city and if there’s not, you can start one! I think this could be really powerful. The anger and energy coming out of the GLBTQI + allies community is astounding and although it’s in immediate reaction to the anti-marriage equality bans, we can make it much bigger than that: marriage equality, a fully inclusive ENDA, a GLBTQI hate crimes act (that absolutely must include transpeople, since they are so often the victims of vicious violence that is ignored or turned into joke fodder), the repeal of DADT, insert your hopes and dreams here. This movement is our movement: yours and mine and everyone else’s. This is a big grassroots movement and grassroots movements are led by ordinary citizens-turned-activists that grab megaphones and take a step forward, leading everyone else with them.
As Redstar points out, one of the side effects of the Obama campaign and, indeed, the many political campaigns that just concluded is that there are now thousands, if not millions of people that are trained in grassroots organizing. There are people that know what a campaign needs, people that know how to organize people, people that know how to organize events, people that know how to organize publicity, people that know how to phonebank and distribute fliers and spread publicity online and go door to door and fundraise. All of these people can take their skills and turn them to social justice and civil rights causes. I got my training from recruiting volunteers in person and phonebanking for the No on 4 and No on 8 campaigns and seeing how they organized their statewide and local strategy. The Yes on K campaign did an amazing job of building coalitions with local political parties, clubs, social justice causes, reaching out to minority communities, and getting their message out in local, national, and alternative media. Years ago, I managed online and offline publicity for a nonprofit cause. I can use these tools and experiences and so can the many people that got their first tastes of activism in this election cycle. The question is how to harness their energy, knowledge, and experience for social justice causes? Personally, I’d like to get more involved in the immigrant rights movement and I’ll have to look into that. But I digress.
In my own fabulous city of SF, on Friday night there was a great, spontaneous, grassroots & netroots march from Hallidie Plaza through the Castro to Dolores Park and then back to the steps of City Hall, where drag queen Pollo Del Mar spoke and charged everyone present to go back into their communities and spread the word. I have lots of great pictures from the march and I’ll put them up sooner or later. Probably later and probably on Picasa or flickr – uploading a lot of photos to WordPress is both timeconsuming and annoying.
Upcoming protests: I mentioned JoinTheImpact at the beginning of this post, and I’ll end with them. There is a JTI protest scheduled for 11/15, 10:30 A.M. at San Francisco City Hall (google map address). The folks at Protest8SF.wordpress.com are working on organizing it: they have a preliminary to do list, fliers for publicity, and a googlegroups list serv that anyone can join to help with the organizing. If you’re in SF, check out the website to see if you can help and definitely come to the rally! If you’re not in SF, please pass the links along and spread the word.
Web organizing techniques + community organizing techniques + campaign techniques = much easier to organize social justice movements? Y/N? I’ll have to think about this.
ETA: thatonegaykid says that there is a JoinTheImpact protest 11/15 in Orange County, 1 P.M. at Irvine City Hall. Please get in touch with her (thatonegaykid.wordpress.com)to find out more!
When You Have Something To Lose / The Fragility of Hope
I’m nervous, excited, and sick to my stomach. I want to campaign all day and watch the results come in once the polls close. I want to go to sleep or hide under my desk until November 5, when the city and state results will have been confirmed. I’m afraid that we’ll lose on 4, 8, and K. I’m excited that we might, we just might win.
I was at Election Day training for No on Prop. 8 last night and the room was packed. There were easily over 100 volunteers there, many of them first time volunteers ready to learn how they could reach out to voters on Tuesday and get every vote possible. The organizers said that they had Election Day volunteers in every county in California and they were trying to fill 7,500 shifts. Each volunteer is expected to reach 100 voters per shift. 7,500 shifts x 100 voters/shift = 750,000 voters reached = “The biggest LGBT election event in history.” The energy and excitement in that room was palpable. Hundreds of people came together to learn what they could do to raise their voices and hands on Tuesday and take part in our participatory democracy.
Later
No on Prop. 4 had its biggest phonebank yet tonight, with 150 volunteers making calls statewide and 82 of us at the SF site. The goal was to reach 24,000 voters identified as No voters during previous phonebanks, and we did that by 8:15.
Tomorrow, I’m doing voter outreach with No on Prop. 4 and No on Prop. 8 and either squishing in Yes on K outreach during the afternoon or doing more phonebanking with No on 4.
This election is the first time I’ve been heavily involved, both as an observer and as a volunteer. It’s been an education and I finally hammered out a liberal, progressive, activist personal philosophy that’s been a year in developing. The influences of writers, bloggers, campaigns, my personal liberalism, and historical examples built on each other to bring me to who I am now.
The knowledge that poll lines close at 8 P.M. tomorrow looms as a relief and a deadline; I want it to come and yet, I dread it. Every moment between 7 A.M. and 8 P.M. tomorrow is a chance to talk to voters and persuade them and make a difference. It’s a chance to live my liberal ideals and my belief in the democratic process, and do what’s right. For everything comes down to those three words. Do what’s right. Why? Because I can. I have the ability to stand on a sidewalk and wear my No on Prop. 4 tshirt and hand out fliers and talk to voters during rush hour, and so I must. I have the opportunity to vote and convince other voters and so I must.
I have the chance to make a difference and make a better world and so I must.
There’s no other reason, in the end.
Prop. 8 and Prop. 4 are tight races; depending on which polls you look at, Prop. 8 and Prop. 4 are winning by small margins or losing by small margins. Every vote absolutely matters in the down ticket races, so if you can spare a few minutes for phonebanking, talking to anyone that hasn’t voted, or wearing your No on 4 and No on 8 paraphernalia, please, please, for the love of god and my civil rights and the health and safety of teenage girls, please do it.
I’m not aware of any objective, statistically valid polls for Prop. K, but the campaign made the New York Times in a favorable article! (It also made The Economist, but in an anti-slanted article.) Vote YES on Prop. K to support sex workers’ rights!
All these races are uncertain. They might lose. They might win. The fragile, timorous feeling beating away in my chest must be hope. We might win, but the margin is so thin going into Election Day that I’m scared that we’ll lose. I will do everything I can to make sure we win, but until the votes are counted and the results are certified, I won’t know if we succeeded. I have so much more to lose when I have hope. It’s a delicate, frail thing and it only sprouted because we’ve come so close to the end: tomorrow, we will know if we succeeded or failed.
The feeling of panic fluttering in the back of my mind urges me to do everything I can. I have hope and so now I have so much more to lose–and so much to win.
No on 4. No on 8. Yes on K.
Yes on Prop. K Town Hall!
Yes on Prop. K is holding an historic town hall and discussion panel today, 7 P.M. – 9 P.M., at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin St. (Franklin between Geary & O’Farrell).
Already support Prop. K? Come out and show your support! Meet the organizers and learn about easy ways to volunteer during the days of the campaign. Undecided about Prop. K? Come out and listen to sex worker activists, criminal attorneys, public health experts, local politicians, labor activists, and members of church, LGBTQI, and neighborhood communities speak for themselves about Prop. K. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions and get answers straight from the source, unfiltered by journalists (and bloggers, heh!).
For the last century, year after year, sex workers in SF have been hounded, arrested and jailed, evicted, raped and even murdered, their children taken away. Those of us who have least – often women of color – have received the brunt of this persecution. Why has our city famed for being open minded allowed this injustice to continue? Now we can make a change and win greater protection, well-being and safety for all. Join a cross section of communities who want to make this happen!
Speakers include: sex workers and sex worker organizations, criminal attorneys Nedra Ruiz, Stephanie Adraktas, Stuart Hanlon and David Bigeleisen, Conference of Delegates of California Bar Association, Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, SF Green Party, neighborhood residents, church representatives, candidates for board of supervisor and other politicians, the LGBT community, labor representatives, and others.
- Prop K was put on the ballot by more than 12,000 San Franciscans to ensure that basic human and civil rights are extended to sex workers. It follows the recommendations of the path breaking SF Task Force on Prostitution.
- Prop K calls on the police to prioritize sex workers’ safety by vigorously enforcing coercion, extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes.
- Prop K will end the criminalization of sex workers, many of whom are mothers trying to support their families in increasingly hard times. Criminalization traps sex workers in prostitution, increases vulnerability to violence and sets sex workers apart from the rest of the community.
- Prop K is an anti-racist initiative. Women of color are disproportionately arrested under the prostitution laws and make up the majority of women in prison.
- Prop K will not stop the prosecution of traffickers but will protect immigrant women from being targeted for arrest. According to the Public Defender, not one trafficker has been prosecuted in SF. However, many sex workers of color have been rounded up and deported.
Hope to see you there!
“I Want You To Be Nice To Sex Workers”
Last September, sex worker, pleasure activist, and artist Sadie Lune (NSFW) took first place at Tony Labat’s I Want You project at SFMOMA. As part of the contest, the five winners had their images and slogans turned into posters. I’d actually forgotten about that, but I can’t wait to see them go up all over the city. For one thing, it’s great, free publicity for Yes on Prop. K. For another, Sadie Lune’s poster looks fabulous and combines the personal, the political, and the artistic into a provocative political request:
I love that line, “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me.” I think a lot of the prejudice in society comes from a lack of imagination and an inability or an unwillingness to empathize with other people. That ignorance and lack of understanding results in fear of the unknown and then hostility, trying to keep the unknown as far away as possible. When it comes to sex work, that hostility manifests as criminalization, which drives sex workers underground and tries to lock them into jails, where they’re kept out of sight and thus out of mind. It’s the attitude of, “I can’t imagine being a sex worker and so I’ll punish them for making me think about it and feel uncomfortable–I’ll push them away so I don’t have to think about them–I don’t want to think about the issues and so I’ll just vote no on K to preserve the status quo.” “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me” looks that attitude of hostility, fear, ignorance, or just plain apathy in the face and says, “Stop. Think.” The combination of the image and the slogan says, “Stop. Think. I’m a real person, and your decisions affect me.”
“I want you to be nice to sex workers” is another powerful line, because it raises the question of what exactly it means to be nice to sex workers. How does one go about it? Does it mean being a good customer, respecting a sex worker’s rules and paying them well? Does it mean not harassing them? Does it mean not making dead hooker jokes? Does it mean supporting programs that help sex workers transition out, if they want to? Does it mean giving a damn when someone murders, rapes, or robs a sex worker and gets off with a slap on the wrist? Does it mean advocating for sex workers’ rights? Does it mean realizing that sex workers are no more a monolith than any other group of people? Does it mean not privileging the voices of non-sex workers over the voices of sex workers?
Does it mean listening to sex workers when they say what they want?
Questions, questions. The poster challenges the viewer and raises lots of questions. I love that.
Sadie Lune’s “I Want You,” video by activist, artist, and sex worker Scarlot Harlot (video NSFW):
Transcript:
[Organ grinder music]
[Applause]
I want you. I want you to listen to me, even if you think you’ve heard it before or don’t think I know how to speak for myself. I want you so bad, so bad right now–to respect me, and pay me, and understand that I do not sell myself, because I’m still here, and I’ve always been here.
I want you to know that I have your money. And your coworker’s money, and your father’s money has fed my family, and my rent, and my studies, and my habit, and my poverty, and my extravagance. And you might think that you don’t know me, but it’s more likely you just don’t know that you do.
I might want this job or hate it, but your condemnation and your ignorance and your accusations and your locking me down for my living, and your turning your back on my rape, and your knocking me off because you think no one cares, and your using me as the inhuman butt of your jokes–I want you to stop.
I want you to stop punishing me just because you may not be able to imagine being me.
I want you to be nice to sex workers. I want you, I really do. Please vote yes on Prop. K.
[applause]
———————————
I’m not a sex worker, and so although I can write about Prop. K, I’m trying to navigate the boundaries of privilege such that I don’t appropriate the sex worker activist movement or claim to speak for it. On the one hand, I’m writing about Prop. K the way I would write about any other ballot initiative–opining, navel-gazing, and analyzing–but I realize that in our anti-sex work society, my voice is privileged over the voices of actual sex workers. That’s wrong and I’m trying not to replicate that same power structure when I write, so if I fuck up and put my foot in it, please call me on it and I’ll fix it (I realize that asking for that guidance is in itself an act of privilege, but I’m not sure how else to say that I will inevitably fuck up, despite trying not to, and I welcome being told how I’ve fucked up. Perhaps the writer’s tag, “constructive criticism always welcome” would work?)
Out and About: Political Signs
A cafe window at Market and Castro.
Yes on Prop. K fliers on a pole on Market, near Embarcadero
Ferry Building Farmers Market: complete with McCain and Palin cutouts!
Ferry Building Farmers Market: opposite the McCain-Palin table, Obama-Biden (sadly, no cutouts).
Cindy Sheehan for Congress sign in an apartment window on Carl and Hilway.
I wanted photos of signs and political materials from around the city, but since I haven’t seen any No on Prop. 4 signage anywhere, here’s my window.
Schedule: T-19 Days
Week of Oct. 12
Monday: precinct dropping with Yes on Prop. K (dropping fliers at all the residential buildings in a precinct)
Tuesday: phonebanking with No on Prop. 8
Wednesday: Idomeneo at SF Opera!
Thursday: phonebanking with No on Prop. 4
Friday: precinct dropping
Saturday: pick up fliers for precinct dropping, pick up MUNI greeter stuff for No on Prop. 8
Weekdays mornings, M-F, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Week of Oct. 19
Sunday: precinct dropping, Whores Against Wars: March 4 Sweeping Change
March 4 Sweeping Change
Sunday, October 19th
Gather at SF Ferry Building at 12:45pm
Community stroll will end by 3:00pm @ SF City HallBreak out your comfortable walking shoes and join sister maeJoy B. withU, Whores against Wars, sex workers for Prop. K, and other allies at the SF Ferry Building this Sunday, October 19th for a community stroll/penny drive in support of San Francisco’s Proposition K. The informal walk will begin at 1pm, travel down market street, and conclude by 3pm at SF City Hall. Bring drinking water and friends.
Monday: Phonebanking for Prop. 4
Tuesday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Wednesday: Boris Godunov at SF Opera
Thursday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Friday: Night off?!?!
Saturday: pick up fliers for precinct dropping
Weekdays mornings, M-F, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Week of Oct. 26
Sunday: precinct dropping for Prop. K
Monday: Phonebanking for Prop. 4
Tuesday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Wednesday: L’Elisir d’Amore at SF Opera
Thursday: Phonebanking for Prop. 8
Friday: Night off?!?!
Saturday: pick up fliers for precinct dropping, Joshua Bell at SF Symphony
Weekdays mornings, M-F, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Week of Nov. 2
Sunday: precinct dropping for Prop. K
Monday: Phonebanking for Prop. 4
Tuesday: ELECTION / visibility for Prop. 4
M-T, 7-9: MUNI greeter for Prop. 8
Among all that, there’s work, blogging, and apps. -headdesk-
Why do I care so much? Phonebanking is actually fun, but precinct dropping is exhausting and it’s easily two solid hours of walking and climbing stairs while lugging pounds of fliers. The idea of waking up in time to get to a MUNI station for rush hour at 7 A.M. so that I can stand and hold signs for two hours before going in to a full day at work, followed by more volunteer work, makes me cringe.
I care because I can’t not. No on Prop. 8 – this is my life. No on Prop. 4, Yes on Prop. K – they’re the right thing to do. This election matters; I won’t repeat the tripe that it’s the most important election of our lifetime because every single election is hyped as “the most important election of our lifetime.” That begs the question, anyway; the election is important because it matters, so why does it matter to me?
Equality. Justice. I learned when I was little that no one would recognize my rights if it was to their advantage not to. I learned the outlines of sexism and I didn’t see how much progress feminists had made; I saw how the same things that Laura Ingalls Wilder fought against were still present in the thoughts and actions of the society around me. I learned to be stubborn and to work; I learned that I could seethe and cry against injustice or I could fight back against it and change things for me and for every person to come after me.
The only reasons that I can even think about legalizing same-sex marriage and post No on 8 signs in my windows and announce that I’m queer on Facebook for everyone to see and talk about opposing Prop. 8 over coffee at work are the tireless work, the dedication, and the courage of the GLBTQI activists and allies that came before me. Their work, their resistance, their persistence are why I can stand in a MUNI station holding a No on Prop. 8 sign without even considering that I might be harassed when only four years ago, I most certainly would have been.
The only reason that I can argue for protecting a girl’s right to choose and argue that she has the right not to be considered the property of her parents, and that she especially deserves to protect herself from abusive parents, is the determination of the feminists, pro-choice activists, supporters, and doctors that refused to back down in the face of violent opposition. Their work, their resistance, their persistence are why I can call Republican voters for No on Prop. 4 and speak with women that say, “What’s Planned Parenthood saying? No? Planned Parenthood tells me to vote no on Prop. 4, that’s good enough for me.”
I honor my radical ancestors and the legacy they left to every person, which was to carry on their work and shape a fair, equal world. I volunteer for them, to change the world for myself, and to build up the foundations of justice and equality so that the people that come after me will start from a better place than I did.
There is injustice everywhere and it’s tiring to look at it day after day and run into obstacles, such as the man that told me, “I don’t think my wife needs to speak to anyone from Planned Parenthood! -click-” and the ex-friends that earnestly believe that Prop. 8 doesn’t take any rights away, it’s about protecting the children of heterosexual marriages! I get that. It’s tiring as fuck and you’d better believe I know it and that sometimes I see the allure of stepping back and not caring. I’m single. I’m over 18. I’m able-bodied, I’m not a sex worker, and I have a high-paying job. I’m a Korean-American, queer woman, but I have money and that gives me enough privilege that I could afford not to give a shit about anything if I didn’t want to. I don’t have to care about Prop. 4, Prop. 8, Prop. K, or anything else on the goddamned ballot if I don’t want to.
But I can’t not care. I can’t sit by and do nothing. The sacrifices of my predecessors, the hard work of my parents, and my work and class privilege put me in the comfortable position that I’m in now, and I have to use that to shape a world where everyone can have the option of that comfortable safety and freedom.
I know that the majority will never recognize the rights of a minority of their own volition, whether that minority is GLBTQI people, teenage girls, women, sex workers, or the people that exist at the intersections of those identities. The march of time is not inherently politically progressive and it only looks so in retrospect because of the people that pushed for progress every step of the way. The suffragettes thought that equality was around the corner any day now and that after the 19th amendment, the ERA would of course pass and shortly there would be no need for feminism. Yet earlier this year, the Senate blocked the Ledbetter Act, which would have required equal pay for equal work.
Time is not inherently progressive. The majority is not inherently progressive. And so I work.
MIA from Social Life
Yeah. The election’s Nov. 4 and I have quite a few ponies in the race. So, I’m just going to be upfront and say that I’m going to be bad at keeping in touch, phone calls, emails, IMs, and hanging out until Nov. 4, because not only is politics taking over my brain, it’s taking over my planner. I keep thinking that there’s not enough time to do everything I need to do and want to do, and all of it has to be done before Nov. 4., all of it has to be done asap for maximum exposure before the elections, it’s all time-intensive, blah blah blah raaghhh: that’s what the inside of my head looks like right now.
If you’d like to hang out, I’m phonebanking with No on Prop. 8 every Tuesday and No on Prop. 4 every Thursday, and I’m doing precinct walks (dropping off fliers) for Yes on Prop. K on various days/nights every week. I would love some company. Anyone up for precinct drops? It would be good hanging out time, and it’d go much faster with another person. -watches friends flee- Also, I forgot that October was the Month Of Music, so if anyone’s interested in coming along to Idomeneo, Boris Godunov, L’Elisir d’Amore, or Joshua Bell, let me know. -watches people run away even more quickly-
Kickass voter registration status tool for San Francisco-registered voters. It lets you check your registration status online.
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(my windows look something like that, minus the No on 8 sign, which I haven’t picked up yet)
No on Prop. 8: The Greatest Of These Is Love
Via Sarah in Chicago:
The election is in 26 days. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME ARGH -RUNS AROUND IN CIRCLES-
Okay, first things first. California voters: you have until Oct. 20 to register to vote. You have until seven (7) days before the election request a vote by mail/absentee ballot. If you vote absentee, you can return your ballot to any polling site or you can return your ballot by mail. If you mail your ballot, do so before Nov. 4, because it has to arrive by the end of the day, Nov. 4, in order to be counted.
Everyone else (sorry, I’m not looking up voting requirements for the other 49 states): you can find your state’s voting deadlines, forms, and contact information at Project Vote Smart’s state voter registration information page.
Read the rest of this entry »
Historic Sex Worker Campaign Event Lit Launch Party: Yes on K
Prop. K kickoff event this weekend in SF! Show up to show your support for sex workers’ rights! Info below:
Dear Friends,
This is not JUST a party or campaign lit launch. This is a crucial media event where we very much need your presence so that the public understands that we are a truly strong movement in San Francisco! Please attend if you are able.
Sincerely,
Carol LeighHistoric Sex Worker Campaign Event Lit Launch Party
Sex workers and their friends and allies will soon bring our message to the people of San Francisco. After a kick-off event featuring speeches and performances by sex workers and our allies, the Yes on Prop K campaign will hit the streets on October 4th to distribute our new literature.
This is an historic launch and a very important event. After seeing us turn out at Democratic County Central Committee and hearing from us through the campaign, many people are beginning to see that we are a thriving community and we are getting more and more organized as we join together for this historic campaign. Your support is most important for this event, to help us show our strength and passion as we work for the end the criminalization of prostitution in San Francisco.
If you want to volunteer to get the word out to invite others, please email us at propkvolunteers@gmail.com. We need help sending emails around and posting our notice around the web. But if you can’t volunteer in advance, just come down for the lit drop and we will plug you in!
DECRIM SEX WORKERS IN SF!
Saturday, October 4, 2008 1:00-2:00 (Please come close to 1:00, as many will be leaving en masse)
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St., San Francisco
(between 11th St. & S. Van Ness)Join us for the kick-off of our flyering campaign for a party in support of Proposition K! Enjoy tasty treats and good company before heading off to spread the word on sex worker safety, public safety, and public health! Join our great supporters, folks from Center for Sex & Culture, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, SWOP, US PROS, BAYSWAN, IWW, The Harvey Milk Democratic Club and many, many more.
You can RSVP or get info: propkvolunteers@gmail.com
RECENT MEDIA ABOUT PROP K
SF Chronicle’s Violet Blue praises Prop K (SF Chron)
Ballot measure to decriminalize prostitution divides liberal San Franciscoo (LAT)
KFOG Interviews (.mp3; right-click to save or click through)
The Bay Guardian is very excited abut Prop K. Listen to our discussion with the SFBG on their website. (Bay Guardian)
Yes on Prop K, Sadie Lune, Artist and Sex Worker wins 1st place at the Museum of Modern Art! (Youtube)
I Want You…to Vote Yes On K
At Tony Labat’s I Want You project, sex worker, activist, and artist Sadie Lune (NSFW) took first place with her performance “I Want You”! Congrats!
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is pleased to present Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU, the latest installment in the newly launched program series Live Art at SFMOMA. Beginning on September 4, 2008, artist Tony Labat invites denizens of the Bay Area to make their own demands of the public. Riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns of World Wars I and II, he asks what you would do if you had only one minute to seize the voice of authority, to be the finger-pointing Uncle Sam. How would you fill in the rest? I Want You . . . to do what? And what if your demands were performed before and voted on by a live audience? – SFMOMA
The video of Ms. Lune’s winning performance is by activist, artist, and sex worker Scarlot Harlot. (Video is NSFW, and I’ll put up a transcript later.)
I thought it was a great performance. It touched on the reasons why people should vote yes on K in a direct and simple manner, and I think the simplicity of it provokes deeper thought. “I want you to be nice to sex workers” sounds simple on face, but it challenges the assumptions that many people have about sex workers as inferior, disposable human beings (how many dead hooker jokes have you heard?) or as people that don’t deserve the same justice and presumption of basic humanity and equality as non-sex workers. Why aren’t people nice to sex workers? Why shouldn’t they be? What does it mean to be nice to sex workers? By phrasing her desires in the language of ordinary concerns and leaving “Vote yes on Prop. K!” until the end, Lune made suggestions that seem like common sense (oh, being nice to sex workers – well, sure, why not?) and then tied them to political action. Ding ding ding, the light bulb goes off: Oh! That’s why Bayswan is pushing to pass K! She emphasized that politics is about real people and real concerns. How can you be nice to sex workers? Vote yes on K. Every measure and every law affects real people.
More on the I WANT YOU project and the other winners here. SFMOMA will print and put up posters of Lune’s slogan and those of the other winners all around the city prior to the elections. An awesome performance and awesome, free (well, paid for by SFMOMA) campaign advertising all at once!
The I WANT YOU project is interesting in that it repurposes an iconic piece of WWI- and WWII- era advertising to encourage people to speak up and insert their own voices into the public sphere. Rather than being on the receiving end of Uncle Sam’s demands and pointing finger, they get to speak back to him and say what they want. I like that and I like that the project responds to current political issues with art, then takes the results and puts them up around the city, injecting peoples’ voices into the public realm. Politics meets arts meets individuals speaking up and reclaiming politics through art.
Yes on K: “Sex Work Is Not A Crime”
For SF residents, Measure K is on the city ballot this November (one of 22 SF measures): “Changing the Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers.” Simply put, Measure K would decriminalize prostitution:
Proposition K would prohibit the Police Department from providing resources to investigate and prosecute prostitution. It would also prohibit the Police Department from applying for federal or state funds that involve racial profiling to target alleged trafficking victims and would require any existing funds to implement the Task Force’s recommendations.
Proposition K would require the Police Department and the District Attorney to enforce existing criminal laws that prohibit coercion, extortion, battery, rape, sexual assault and other violent crimes, regardless of the victim’s status as a sex worker. It also requires these agencies to fully disclose the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against sex workers.
Proposition K would prohibit the City from funding or supporting the First Offender Prostitution Program or any similar anti-prostitution program.
The Board of Supervisors would be able to amend this measure by a two-thirds vote if it found the amendments would reduce criminalization of prostitution and violence against sex workers. [emphasis mine]
Ultimately, K would increase the safety of sex workers by enabling them to access health care, report crimes (whether as witnesses or victims, and sex workers are disproportionately likely to be victims of assault, rape, and other violent crime), and work without fear of being jailed. Whether you support, oppose, or don’t have an opinion on sex work, K would lead to a better, safer situation all around.
In today’s SFGate, Violetblue gives some background on the history of sex work in SF and interviews Patricia West, activist and sex worker. It’s a good read that clarifies some of the arguments for K while addressing the opposition arguments: Sex Work Is Not A Crime
VB: Anti-K pundits seem to think that all sex workers are victims, and seem to be muddying the issues by saying that Prop K would make human sex trafficking harder to stop. What’s the difference between sex work and human trafficking, and why can’t anti-K people seem to be able to tell the difference?
PW: Sex work is consensual adult sex for pay. Human trafficking is done by force and coercion. Proposition K will not prevent law enforcement from investigating and prosecuting human traffickers. Additionally, when Proposition K passes, workers and clients will then feel free and safe to report abuses in our own industry without fear of prosecution. The opposition is using the term as a scare tactic; their hope is to associate Proposition K with this reprehensible practice. This is their dishonest campaign strategy and it does a disservice to the voters of San Francisco.
VB: So, will there be legal brothels in SF if it passes?
PW: No, there will not be legal brothels in San Francisco when Proposition K passes. Proposition K is about the decriminalization of prostitution, not legalization. Decriminalization is a reasonable balance between legalization and criminalization. Proposition K will stop the city’s prosecution of prostitutes. It requires that the Police Department and District Attorney’s office vigorously enforce laws against extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes; regardless of the victim’s status as a sex worker.
VB So, if a sex worker is raped or beaten, as it stands now she/he/they are afraid to report the crime and seek help. San Francisco’s past showed that decriminalized access to health care for sex workers over 100 years ago had an enormously positive impact. Does Prop K have anything to do with sexual health in the city like that?
PW Proposition K will improve public health by lessening the stigma that prevents many workers from seeking basic health-care services. Also, possession of condoms is currently used as criminal evidence against workers. In my experience as a Street Outreach volunteer, I have had some workers refuse condoms for fear of arrest.
Between Spitzer and David Vitter, sex work and sex workers are much in the media this year. Hopefully, Yes on K will be able to capitalize on that attention and pass in SF. For more information on the proposition, see the Yes on K website. To volunteer, email info@yesonpropk.org.
