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NEWS & LETTERS, July 2002
Confronting sexism in Memphis
by Jen Ainbinder A few weeks ago, I went to Memphis to give a
presentation. In planning the trip, my comrade and I didn’t realize that the
weekend we chose was also the weekend of the Tyson-Lewis fight. I don’t pay a
lot of attention to professional boxing, but the last that I had heard, Mike
Tyson was not allowed to fight in Las Vegas, and the fight was going to be moved
to Washington, D.C. Apparently, the powers-that-be in Memphis lobbied hard
to get Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis to fight in their city, citing the goodies
that the publicity would bring to Memphis. And it worked—sort of. On Saturday,
June 8, movie stars and B-list celebrities rented out most of the clubs and bars
on Beale Street. People dressed up in their best party clothes and paid
hundreds of dollars to watch a convicted rapist try one more time to become the
“heavyweight champion of the world.” And Memphis got more publicity in one
weekend than it had cumulatively for the last ten years. More accurately, parts of Memphis got publicity. The
Pyramid, where the event was held, the ugliest building that I have ever seen
with my own two eyes, received more than its share of publicity. The Gay Pride
parade and celebration held the same day of the fight got very little attention,
and the Women’s Action Coalition of Memphis was invisible to all media. While
the local media did note (very briefly and inaccurately) that some “Gay
Rights” organization was protesting Tyson for his homophobia, they left out
crucial points of the protest. The fact is that Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender
groups, WAC, and News & Letters were protesting not just Tyson’s
homophobia and the fact that he is a convicted rapist. They were protesting
boxing as a blood sport, but they were also protesting the way that the mayor
and the city of Memphis spent a great deal of public resources for one fight
which contributed very little to the long-term well-being of the city. What could not be televised was the quality of human
interactions. I was privileged to give a presentation, sponsored jointly by
N&L and WAC on “Sexism, The Youth Movement, and Women’s Liberation” to
a group of intelligent, thoughtful, committed young people. Clearly, in any group there will be points of
disagreement, but the way that this group handled the discussion was wonderful.
The goal seemed to be a common understanding of the points of discussion, not
absolute agreement. A sizable percentage of the people came to the Left out of
the anarchist tradition. Consequently, an underlying thread in the conversation
was the individual vs. collective responsibility question. It is people like these who reaffirm my hope that the youth movement has much to contribute to the Left and to the larger political debate. Youth issues encompass all of the forces of revolution. Youth issues are women’s liberation issues; youth issues are labor issues, and the youth that I met in Memphis were asking important questions about the kind of work that people should be doing. |
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