Top Posts
A letter to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, after...
Gun Violence is Our Responsibility
Domestic Violence Survivors Deserve a Better Court Model
Freezing: The Unspoken — Yet Common — Response...
  • New Hampshire Women’s Foundation
  • Projects
  • Services
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
Crystal Paradis
Strategic Communications and Community Engagement
Tag:

Op-Ed

FeaturedLGBTQ+ EqualityWriting

Queer Liberation and Black Liberation are Inseperable

by Crystal Paradis June 18, 2021
written by Crystal Paradis

Originally published at: https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2021/06/18/paradis-queer-liberation-and-black-liberation-inseparable/7734383002/

This week, Somersworth became the first city in New Hampshire to raise the Juneteenth flag. Juneteenth, also called Liberation Day or the Day of Jubilee, marks the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation — two and a half years after it became law — in the final state of the union. Since it is also Pride month, and there are two flagpoles at Somersworth’s Citizen’s Place, the Juneteenth flag now waves next to the rainbow Pride flag, where they will wave together for a week (the Pride flag stays up all June long here in the Rainbow City).

This visual symbolism of intersectionality — the flag of Black liberation flying next to the flag of Queer liberation — is not lost on me. It brings to mind so many justice seekers throughout our history who knew that the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation and Black liberation were joint struggles.

Bayard Rustin was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisers, and a major historic figure in nonviolent protest. Rustin was a gay Black man who often spoke of his joint identity as a gay man and a Black man — and as a Quaker, which informed his peaceful values.

Pauli Murray was a trailblazing Black and queer woman lawyer who also influenced Dr. King. Murray was the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, and was one of the first lawyers to argue that the Equal Protection Clause (which was written to address racial discrimination) should apply equally to gender-based discrimination.

Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson were trans women of color who were leaders at Stonewall, two women who many credit with throwing those first bricks that brought the movement for queer liberation to the forefront in 1969.

Intersectionality is a framework or lens that we can apply to understand how various forms of oppression, when combined, result in not just an increased, but a fundamentally different experience for the people who hold those multiple marginalized identities. In short, it’s a recognition of humans as complex, whole people. Aspects of our identity cannot be separated from each other. And our fight for liberation should not be separated, either.

Audre Lorde, a self-described “Black lesbian feminist warrior poet,” in her essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” said, “To survive in the mouth of this dragon we call America, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson — that we were never meant to survive. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute, forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid.”

I’m proud that we are not afraid to speak, that we are not afraid to raise these flags — that visibility which is the source of our greatest strength.

This month, we also mark two historic anniversaries of marriage equality: the passing of LGBTQ+ marriage equality on June 26, 2015; and Loving Day, celebrating the Supreme Court decision on June 12, 1967, that ended the unconstitutional prohibition of interracial marriages. Our struggle has always been a collective struggle.

It took two and a half years for the Emancipation Proclamation to be enforced in the final Southern state. This year, 156 years later, our governor is poised to sign into law a budget containing language that would prevent teaching our collective history. Attacks on trans students are unrelenting in our state legislature and across the country. Our Senate passed recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday, but has yet to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

As we celebrate both Pride month and Juneteenth, let’s recommit ourselves to the work of ongoing emancipation — our collective liberation.

Crystal Paradis is a city councilor at-large in Somersworth, secretary of the New Hampshire Stonewall Democrats, and director of strategic communications and community engagement for the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation. The views expressed are those of the writer. She can be reached at cfparadis@gmail.com.

June 18, 2021
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
FeaturedFeminismSocial Justice

Feminism is empty without intersectionality and action

by Crystal Paradis July 29, 2018
written by Crystal Paradis

The word “feminist” is on my business card. Not as a title I’m using to define myself, but because it’s in the name of my business. Even with its recent rise to acceptance in mainstream popular culture, the word “feminist” still prompts startled reactions most times I hand someone my card. Since I’m so frequently reminded of the baggage of this word, I’m also increasingly aware of my responsibility to define, and demonstrate by my actions, what I mean when I use the word “feminist.”

Feminist theorist bell hooks (no, the lowercase of her name isn’t a typo – she consciously declines to capitalize her name in favor of putting the emphasis on her ideas) defines feminism as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression.” Defining feminism as a commitment to end oppression is notable in that it is not (as it is sometimes misperceived to be) seeking to reverse it. Taking power from one group and giving it to another doesn’t solve the problem – it simply perpetuates domination and systemic injustice.

Feminist poet Audre Lorde wrote, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” The goal of a hooks and Lorde kind of feminist movement is to dismantle systemic power structures altogether in favor of equity for everyone – all genders, all identities.

Continue Reading
July 29, 2018
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Gun ViolenceSocial Justice

Will One Less Gun Make a Difference? On Overcoming “Activism Overwhelm.”

by Crystal Paradis March 5, 2018
written by Crystal Paradis

In her TED Talk, “The danger of the single story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns that knowing only one story about people different from you can result in a vast misunderstanding. A single story can never be representative of the entire group that the subject of the story represents. The power of stories is that they show one possibility. That possibility, if it resonates with beliefs we already have, is very motivating – for better or worse.

“Single stories create stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” Allowing single stories to speak for the identity of a vast group of people is, to say the least, problematic. But that doesn’t mean stories themselves are the culprit.

Adichie goes on to say, “Stories matter. And many stories matter.” Our job is not to stop telling stories, it’s to stop repeating the same tired stories, listen to new stories from others and start telling our own.

What does all this talk of stories have to do with guns?

Continue Reading
March 5, 2018
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Social Justice

The Trouble with Tipping (hint: it’s inequality)

by Crystal Paradis July 24, 2017
written by Crystal Paradis

Tipping promotes inequality, and fosters discrimination and sexual harassment. The roots of tipping in the US can be traced back to the freeing of slaves, when change-resistant employers could avoid paying freed slaves an actual wage by making them work for tips. People who work for tips are twice as likely to live in poverty, and can be paid far below minimum wage. People of color are tipped at lower rates than their white colleagues. Workers who rely on tips to make a living experience twice as much sexual harassment. Is this what we meant when we used to say, “Here — for your trouble”?

Continue Reading
July 24, 2017
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
PoliticsReproductive JusticeSocial JusticeWomen's Health

Sununu’s Legacy of Using Women’s Bodies for Political Gain

by Crystal Paradis June 7, 2017
written by Crystal Paradis

New Hampshire’s fetal personhood bill is expected to become the latest example of what those who have been following New Hampshire’s reproductive rights policies already know: Governor Sununu consistently steps on women’s bodies to rise in his own political career.

Continue Reading
June 7, 2017
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
LGBTQ+ Equality

Let’s Paint the Town Rainbow for Portsmouth PRIDE

by Crystal Paradis May 28, 2017
written by Crystal Paradis

We’re fast approaching Seacoast Outright’s third annual Portsmouth Pride event — and this year our notoriously fun crew is on a serious mission: Paint the Town Rainbow! Hopefully you have already seen the rainbow save the date posters for our Saturday, June 24 event popping up all over town — and that’s just the beginning. The closer we get to the fourth Saturday in June, the more rainbow we hope our city will become.

Continue Reading
May 28, 2017
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Domestic & Sexual ViolenceFeaturedGun ViolencePoliticsSocial Justice

Gun Violence is Our Responsibility

by Crystal Paradis July 12, 2016
written by Crystal Paradis

It was easy to tell myself I wasn’t doing work that supported the NRA. Until a man walked into a club in Orlando and killed 49 people, injuring over 50 others. Once again, dozens of innocent people were dead. Our nation mourned. Vigils were held. Arguments raged. Who is culpable for letting this happen again?

I was. And I didn’t act alone.

Continue Reading
July 12, 2016
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Social JusticeWomen's Health

Rising Maternal Death Rate in the US: C-sections, VBACs and evidence-based care

by Crystal Paradis June 20, 2016
written by Crystal Paradis

“A lot of people think that the United States is the best place in the world to have a baby, and that’s just not true. It’s the most dangerous place in the developed world to have a baby.” This statement by artist and birth justice advocate Michelle Hartney may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s hard to argue with the statistics. Hartney is part of a growing movement fighting for women’s right to choose when it comes to their maternal health care.

Continue Reading

June 20, 2016
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
PoliticsSocial Justice

New Hampshire Women Deserve Equal Political Representation

by Crystal Paradis May 22, 2016
written by Crystal Paradis

Political power is everything. But nearly 25 years after “The Year of the Woman,” U.S. women have just 20 percent representation in the Senate and 19.3 percent in the House.

Here in New Hampshire, we gained headlines in 2013 with phrases like “… In New Hampshire, Women Rule!” when we became the first state in history to send an all-female delegation to Washington. But here at home, New Hampshire women make up just about a third of our state’s legislative representatives (33 percent in the House and 37.5 percent in the Senate). When we look at mayors, an even smaller percentage, just 16.7 percent, are women. Nationally, New Hampshire ranks fifth out of 50 states in political gender equality. So relatively speaking, New Hampshire women aren’t nearly as underrepresented as women are in the rest of the country. But is that really the best we can do?

Continue Reading
May 22, 2016
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Domestic & Sexual ViolencePoliticsSocial Justice

Domestic Violence Survivors Deserve a Better Court Model

by Crystal Paradis April 27, 2016
written by Crystal Paradis

“My sister was lucky when her husband tried to kill her 18 months ago. As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. That attack against her life gave her the courage to finally call for help and escape nearly two decades of abuse. Hearing this story devastated us, her loving family who had suspected for decades but hoped it was just our imagination, but it also made us whole again by allowing us back into her life.

Before escaping through a window, she tried to calm her kids, my 11-year-old niece and screaming, crying 6-year-old nephew, who had just witnessed his father strangling his mother. “Who knew your own dad could turn out to be a bad guy?” he asked. As she waited outside in the freezing cold Grafton, NH night, hiding in the dark in her pajamas, for the one and half hours it took the police to arrive after she called for help, safety seemed so far away.

Continue Reading
April 27, 2016
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts

About Crystal

As a writer and organizer with a background in digital marketing, event organizing and community engagement, I help values-aligned individuals and organizations improve their message, online presence and reach.

More about Crystal

Search 🔍

Popular Articles

  • Gun Violence is Our Responsibility

    July 12, 2016
  • Equal Access to Abortion Matters — Repeal the Hyde Amendment

    March 15, 2016
  • Domestic Violence Survivors Deserve a Better Court Model

    April 27, 2016
  • The Global Refugee Crisis — And What You Can Do About It

    December 31, 2015
  • Freezing: The Unspoken — Yet Common — Response to Trauma & Sexual Assualt

    March 30, 2016

Get Updates ✉️

Twitter Instagram Pinterest Linkedin

Values-Centric Work

https://youtu.be/pflxpCI9pm8

More from Crystal Paradis:

  • Feminist Oasis
  • Social Justice
  • Copywriting
  • Marketing
  • Tech & Productivity
  • Women’s Health
  • Writing
  • #PortsmouthLOVE

New Post Alerts

Featured Services

  • New Hampshire Women’s Foundation

Search

Crystal on Instagram

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin

@2016 - PenciDesign. All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign
Featured homepage image credits: Latest Projects by Raya on Assignment; Services & Feminist Oasis by Kate & Keith Photography.


Back To Top
Crystal Paradis
  • Projects
  • Services
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact