Feministing at USSF 2010

Rose and I are hanging out at the USSF and having an amazing time. Check out our video below talking about gender justice, media and activism at the USSF.

We are having a great time running around meeting some of the most amazing activists in the country and seeing old friends. Thanks to everyone that came out to our panel yesterday and stuck through the room changes and lack of air conditioning. You rock!
Also, RE: Progressive Media, I just want to note that a lot of progressive media is here, along with independent and alternative media and we are holding it down in the People’s Media Center. Big shout out to Free Speech TV (where I did a segment last night), The Mark Steiner Show, Colorlines and Grit TV.
Transcript after the jump thanks to Adam!

Text: Feministing at USSF 2010: Gender, Media, and Activism
Samhita: Hi, I’m here live in Detroit with Rose.
Rose: Rose [???]. Hey, how’s everybody doing?
Samhita: And this is Samhita from Feministing. And we are here to talk about the Detroit Social Forum, the US Social Forum where we are having a really good time. It’s been an amazing couple of days. I had a panel yesterday about new media and how organizers can use new media to win racial and gender justice goals with the fantastic Jorge Rivas from RaceWire. If you haven’t checked out RaceWire, please check it out. So, we’re having a really good time! What do you think of Social Forum so far?
Rose: I think Social Forum has been such a great experience. It’s so cool to be in a space with 20,000 progressive activists. I mean, the feminists, the left wing–everything–it’s just been awesome.
Samhita: Yep. It’s been really exciting. It’s been an unbelievable number of panels. And there’s a really, you know, strong current of young people, of organizers. And, you know, for a lot of our readers, they don’t really know the background of Social Forum, right? So it’s, you know, this attempt and kind of this collection of people that are doing grassroots, people of color–led, youth-led organizing. So there’s a really high number of young people of color, very engaged, very political. And that part has been really exciting.
Rose: Yeah. I think another great part of the Social Forum this year is that they’ve really chosen to make sure Detroit has been at the forefront of the agenda, by making sure they brought in many community leaders. So, instead of maybe other conferences that might just move to any city at random, or through their processing selection, to just sort of flop down and have a conference, the Social Forum is really instrumental in making sure that they assess the needs of the local community and really lift up local leadership to be able to talk about the issues that they’re confronting and, frankly, advancing policy in.
Samhita: Yep. Agreed.
So, what do you think is missing, Rose, from the Social Forum? What has kind of–so, and also to add to the history, I think one of the things that’s missing, for me, is a lot of mainstream and progressive media are not here at all. So there’s no representation from any mainstream media, and there’s 20,000 people here. That’s a lot of people, and everybody knows about it. And I’m a little disappointed at the lack of mainstream media coverage, and then even progressive media. So, like, all the big progressive magazines aren’t here either. And, you know, I know there’s more folks coming over the weekend, but, like, you know, part of the problem is that the left is fractured, right? And so there’s this difficulty of really incorporating these people of color–, grassroots-led movements into the mainstream, liberal movement, right? So, using a similar analogy, how would you say, kind of, gender justice has been incorporated in the agenda here?
Rose: I think gender justice, in many ways, has been incorporated by making sure that you do have representation of numerous different issues where women are at the forefront fighting. For example, I blogged recently about the Detroit police brutality coalition–lots of women involved. Also food justice, a lot of women are involved in that. But when it comes to, I guess, the traditional track of issues, if you will, that allow for women to really stand up about their condition of oppression that is something they experience because of their gender, I haven’t seen a lot of that really show up in the agenda. Or, you know, I think this is just the thing that is, you know, the nature of the [???] of the Social Forum, is that there’s so, so many workshops, some of them really great, and it’s really difficult to really pinpoint and track, if you will. If you were someone who’s interested about violence against women, someone who’s interested about–
Samhita: Sexuality.
Rose: …Sexuality issues. Oh goodness, you know my feminism lives in sexuality issues. It’s been hard to get that. So…
Samhita: Yeah, so I think, similarly, you know, there’s different perspectives, right? On the way that feminism plays into organizing into movement work. And I think the fact that so many of the leaders here are women, that do identify as feminism, but their work is not explicitly feminist organizing. I do think that’s really exciting, because it shows that feminism exists in all these diverse and, you know, fractured and, you know, creative spaces. The challenge is that when you’re not explicitly focused on gender, sometimes it does get folded into a deep–you know, a bigger, a kind of progressive agenda, right? And so, you know, we’re definitely trying to figure that out, and be as articulate about, and specific about, women or feminist agenda while [often?] incorporating all these other kind of justice tracks. So, I think that’s all we have to say, pretty much. Is there anything else you want to say about…?
Rose: I did want to make a quick mention about mainstream news and just their role. The only sighting I had of actually mainstream news was, like, before the conference had started, Fox News was around really trying to capture what I guess can be categorized as most militant, if you will, of progressives. And I haven’t actually followed up on that to see what has shown up on The O’Reilly Factor. But I, you know, I know we’ve been around in media circles, and I haven’t really seen any Fox News representatives actually really here, in panels, doing that work. So, I mean, if you’re paying attention or tuning in, and you’ve seen maybe this one-sided viewpoint of what exactly is going on at the Social Forum, please know that, yes, the left is comprised of so many different strands of activism, but that there are so many people here that, yes, are advancing a lot of radical policy, but also are thinking of short-term policy goals as well. So I think just to make sure that that’s represented.
Samhita: Yes. Absolutely.
Thanks! If you’re here, say hello. Come up and say hello. We’re both here for–I’m here for another day. And thank you to everyone that came to our panel yesterday, even after three room changes. And we’re signing out!