—G. Ham, semi-pro headline writer

Feminist Perspective on Mardi Gras

Seattle’s Mardi Gras was created solely to make a buck. It was initiated by Pioneer Square bar owners to sell bucket-loads of beer. So instead of a kaleidoscope of parades and street performers as in New Orleans and Rio, our event is characterized by mass drunkenness and ogling of women’s breasts.

But the scene changed quickly to a nightmare in which a large number of women were groped, had their clothes stripped off, and were sexually violated by groups of up to two dozen men.

Yet no one has filed a complaint. Sexual assault victims have no faith they will be treated with respect. They fear public humiliation and worry about retaliation. They expect their stories to be discounted because they were part of the ruckus. Why should women come forward to the same police force which abandoned them that night? Where were the police on Fat Tuesday? They were on the perimeters, playing it safe.

By Tuesday, the cops had turned the festival into a showdown, making Pioneer Square the place to be for thrill-seekers looking for a rumble. The city added to the errors by canceling an outdoor radio stage which might have focused the crowd’s energy. Instead, there was nothing to do but mill around while alcohol levels rose and the pressure built for something, anything, to happen. When it did, the cops stood back and let it fly.

The violence was ugly, brutal and multi-racial. Women threw punches as well as took them. Kris Kime was fatally attacked. People, cars, and shops were smashed up. In a context of unrestrained belligerence, ordinary people can be overwhelmed by a rage they suppress every other day.

And youth are angry at a system that promises much but delivers little Seattle has to provide a better deal for all young people and must alleviate the grinding racism experienced by youth of color. The fact that some, not all, of the attacks were of the “take that, whitey” kind, shows how much discrimination African Americans endure in Seattle. They are routinely stopped for the “crimes” of Driving While Black and Shopping While Black.

—Helen Gilbert, Seattle Radical Women

Biblical Cruelty

In response to Wes Howard-Brook’s article “Living Outside Empire” [Mar/Apr 2001]:

You advocate reading the bible as a source of subversive power. Perhaps this would be possible if you can read it in the original Aramaic, or perhaps in Greek. In English translations, the biblical god orders mass killings, sometimes even entire towns or peoples, including babies, animals and crops. This is subversive power? The biblical god orders and condones the rape of believers’ daughters and the murder of their sons, orders death to anyone who doesn’t believe in him, to anyone who curses, who “suffers a witch to live” (doesn’t kill her for being a pantheist), who worships another god, who commits adultery, to girls who are not virgin when they marry (even if they have been raped), and for disobedient children.

The biblical god advocates slavery, considers women “unclean” for their abilities to bear children, and believes pleasure in one’s sexuality is a sin punishable by eternal torment. Is this a source of subversive power?

There are hundreds of examples of the bible’s cruelty and insanity. How about these lines from Psalm 137: “O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou has served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” Call that subversive? It sounds to me more like the ethic that is now fostering war all over the planet.

For those of you seriously contemplating the bible as a source of truth or wisdom, I recommend The Born Again Skeptic’s Guide to the Bible by Ruth Hurmence Green, published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. When I obtained the book years ago, their address was PO Box 750, Madison WI 53711.

—Rev. Barbara Clearbridge, Port Hadlock, WA

Emergency Grief Kits, Only $19.99

Since the oil corporations, the National Rifle Association and the Christian Fascists have taken control of the American government, and since nobody seems interested in controlling access to guns or controlling corporate greed, we feel there is a pressing need for Emergency Grief Kits.

The kits should include a counselor, balloons, flowers, yellow ribbons, dark glasses, handkerchiefs, white pigeons (to be freed tune of taps or Koombaya), cards, ready-made speech and prayer manuscripts, parade manuals, candles for vigils and white teddybears for the youngest victims of our lunatic way of life—all the ghastly, asinine rituals for the television camera we Americans employ to avoid doing anything useful.

Or we could cut short the hugs and special get-togethers and find out why the disaster happened, then make sure it doesn’t happen again.

You can cry; can you act?