Sofia's blog

This speech was given by Paul McLennan from Atlanta Public Sector Alliance (APSA) at Living Walls: The City Speaks.

LIVING WALLS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR

I want to first thank Living Walls for the opportunity to engage in this dialogue. There needs to be more conversation taking place in Atlanta between artists and political activists, especially about this topic of what is happening to our public space and our public institutions. We will need to continue to have these discussions in order to reclaim and expand our public good so it is used in the interests of people not profit.

No one asks whether the fire department made money last year or whether the sales have gone up at the local branch library. This is the public sector. It provides many of the services all residents have a right to receive because they live in a community and pay taxes.

International human rights standards require governments to take the appropriate measures toward the full realization of our human rights to education, health care, housing, and other rights such as transit access. Even during an economic crisis, our local, state, and federal governments and public institutions are obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill these fundamental rights.

I ignored the Slutwalk in Toronto. It only caught my attention when my friends and fellow activists started debating the nature of the walk. The critiques began immediately - that this was yet another white feminist project excluding women of color. There were articles written about the leadership's colorblindness and charges that the only reason the media was reporting it was because scantly-clad white women were involved. My initial thoughts were to sympathize with demonstrators while questioning the leadership and the tactic of reclaiming of the word “slut.” In the back of my mind, I considered how the word "slut" elicits natural solidarity among women.  Every woman knows the intention of being called a “whore” and a “slut,” and many experience it one time or another. 

After hearing the debates for days, I checked my Facebook and saw that there was a La Marcha de las Putas (“March of the whores”) in Mexico against sexual harassment that was inspired by the Slutwalk in Toronto. The rally-goers protested how the term “whore” is used against women when they are assertive and challenge male authority. The message of the march confronts the double-edged sword used against women (sometimes called the Madonna/whore complex, or Marianismo): women are thought to be morally superior to men and at the same time considered over-sexed and untrustworthy. It was La Marcha de las Putas that really pierced me and made me pay attention.

Georgia Students for Public Higher Education (GSPHE) was a bit late in starting to mobilize against cuts to the state's HOPE scholarship, which helped nearly one million students attend college since its creation in 1993. The state House had already passed SB326 when we arrived on the scene. Activists were completely surprised by the sudden emergence of this bill, and how fast it was flying through the Georgia Assembly. Most elected Democrats voted in favor of the cuts. Only 22 out of 63 voted against it. Nathan Deal, the Republican governor of Georgia, came to GSU to announce the new HOPE bill with no notice to the public or the students on February 22, 2011. The House passed the bill on March 1 and the Senate passed it on March 8. There was every intention of passing this bill quietly and without much resistance from students during the spring break period for Georgia State, which has its main campus blocks from the state capitol building.

Clayton County, a working-class, mainly immigrant and African-American suburb just south of Atlanta, is the latest victim of neoliberalism. Last year, the Clayton County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to shut down C-TRAN, the county's bus service, which had been around for almost a decade. In response, Atlanta Jobs with Justice started mobilizing riders last October, but there was not enough time to develop a large and strong enough movement to push back the cuts.

Besides the lack of time, most people simply were not able to believe that the county would actually cut their buses, their only means of transportation to work, school, and grocery stores. Many who were able to do so sought individual responses to the cuts, like getting a car or simply moving somewhere else. With more time to organize riders, these initial responses could have been minimized.

Activists are still in the midst of unraveling the damages that this has done to the Clayton community. We have some reports, but much more is yet to be discovered:

A week after the buses stopped running, people still showed up to some bus stops, which might have been a combination of language barriers and not understanding that the County could and did take away their buses.

Clayton county has very few sidewalks. There are many people with children who have to walk for extended amounts of time. There are people with disabilities who will not be able to leave their homes anymore. Others report that crime has gone up tremendously.

Last weekend thousands gathered in Fort Benning to protest the School of the Americas.