Polypore, a Corvallis-based queercore/art punk/emo band comprised of trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming artists and community activists, released a new zine – physical copies and posters of which have been circulating around town and at recent shows in the Corvallis DIY/punk scene. The title of the zine is “Bystander Intervention: Interrupting Sexual Assault and Interpersonal Violence in DIY”, a helpful resource created in collaboration with other community members providing a variety of tactics that anyone – particularly performers, show and venue organizers, and folks attending DIY spaces and events – can use to intervene and/or prevent abuse, harassment, and violence.
Briefly including a list of some common reasons why people don’t intervene when they see harassment or abuse, and noting that staying silent or wanting to “keep the peace” and not cause a scene only perpetuates violence, the zine lays out the following methods – “the four D’s” – and a list of examples of actions people can take:
- Direct: Respond directly to the aggressor/harasser or physically intervene if necessary.
- Distract: Derail and de-escalate the situation by distracting either the aggressor or the target.
- Delegate: Bring in a third party to intervene if you are unable to distract or direct.
- Delay: If you can’t intervene in the moment, check in with the person being harassed or abused afterwards.
For venue and show organizers, the zine recommends tactics like displaying posters/flyers in show spaces that disseminate bystander intervention techniques people can reference, as well as art that discourages abusive and harmful behavior. Another necessary tactic to ensure safer show spaces that the zine points out is having trusted, easily identifiable and accessible individuals at shows who will facilitate care and prevention of harm, who are prepared to intervene whenever necessary, and whom folks can turn to for help and/or support. These are individuals who are prepared to remove perpetrators from a space and maintain the “necessary paradox” of fostering inclusive environments by excluding people whose harmful behaviors and beliefs would render events inaccessible and unsafe to those they target, who “are most often folks with marginalized identities.”
A couple of folks exemplifying these practices in Corvallis are the queer, punk Bitter Half Booking show organizers Caitlin Garets and Indiana Laub, who remain committed to helping create safer show spaces locally by making themselves visible and approachable at every show they book, posting their phone numbers in the restrooms at venues and on a banner listing their Safer Space Policies – which they also ensure is available at every show – so people can call or text them for help, and ensuring that one of them is at the door while another is always keeping an eye on the crowd so they are aware of what goes on in the space, among other strategies.
All in all, the zine emphasizes the importance of focusing on bystander intervention as a means of strengthening community knowledge and resources without relying on calling in law enforcement, which, the authors note, can potentially escalate these kinds of situations and reproduce cycles of violence. They expand on this towards the end of the zine in a brief discussion of Transformative Justice, a historically community-based and -centered framework for responding to violence, harm, and abuse.
“Transformative justice frameworks were developed by Black and Indigenous women, not for the abusers, but for themselves and their communities,” the zine reads. “TJ arose in response to the lack of accountability for abusers and the nature of the state to retraumatize and incarcerate survivors more often than their assailants.”
The authors then dive into how centering survivors and ensuring their rights to feel safe in their communities is foundational to TJ, which includes creating accountability and action steps for the people who have caused harm.
“We say ‘kick people out’ because rehabilitation and reforming abusive behavior requires the initial removal of an abuser from the space/relationship within which they’ve caused harm. It does not mean that any individual should be devoid of community; healing and rehabilitation does not happen in a vacuum. It takes a recognition that abusers are often victims themselves, but in any given situation, the survivor should be centered in the community’s development of the next steps in the effort of providing healing to all members of the community and victims in every form.”
To ensure people can continue to access the zine, Polypore saved screenshots of each page on an Instagram story highlight. They also encourage folks to feel free to reach out to them about the zine, or any other issue or concern.
Solidarity From Corvallis to Atlanta: Stop the Sweeps Corvallis, a local mutual aid group committed to providing community care, direct support, and advocacy for unhoused neighbors who are impacted and displaced by camp sweeps across the city, are putting on a fundraiser this Sunday, March 5, to support on-the-ground protestors who continue defending the South River/Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta, Georgia.
This is one of many actions that activist and mutual aid groups, environmental and racial justice organizations, etc., throughout the U.S. are taking in solidarity with the Defend The Atlanta Forest movement, which actively opposes the Atlanta Police Foundation’s city-approved proposal to tear down over 350 acres of the forest to build a $90 million military-style police training facility, colloquially known as “Cop City”.
“Building ‘Cop-City’ will further militarize the Atlanta police and add to more violence being perpetrated against Black and Brown communities. The site will also be used for tactical training to disrupt movements and protests against police violence,” reads a statement from Color of Change, an online racial justice organization that leads campaigns to build power for Black communities across the U.S. and end the practices and systems that harm them. “Clearcutting these wetlands will also have devastating effects on Atlanta’s environment, including worsened air quality and flooding in the predominantly Black neighborhoods in Southeast Atlanta. APD’s current and future use of chemical weapons testing and its broader militarized training program will poison the soil and further endanger Atlantans’ safety.”
Taking place from 12 – 4 p.m., Stop the Sweeps’ event will be a “day of revelry and action” where folks can come discuss what is occurring in the Weelaunee Forest, speak on the impacts of militarized police forces, and more. There will be food, music, community, and even trash puppetry!
A $5 – 10 donation is suggested, though it is a NOTAFLOF (No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds) event. All proceeds will go towards the Forest Justice Defense Fund, which you can also donate to here. For details on the location of the event, you can send a DM (Direct Message) to Stop the Sweeps’ Instagram or Twitter to learn more.
Lorenzo Triburgo Exhibit: Lorenzo Triburgo is a Brooklyn-based transqueer artist and full-time online College of Liberal Arts instructor for Oregon State University Ecampus who teaches gender studies, photography, and critical theory. As an artist, they employ their art – encompassing video, photography, performance, and audio – as a tool for liberation, amplifying transqueer experiences, strengthening their queer community, and elevating abolitionist politics. And at the OSU Memorial Union’s (MU) Art Gallery, the exhibit currently on display includes samples from three of Triburgo’s past projects: Transportraits, Policing Gender, and Monumental Resistance: Stonewall.
For Policing Gender, Triburgo worked with Black & Pink, a grassroots prison abolitionist organization dedicated to liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS harmed by the criminal punishment system, and became pen pals with 35 LGBTQ+ individuals who were incarcerated in Pacific Northwest prisons. Though Triburgo initially had access and permission to photograph their pen pals within the prisons and considered making a series of portraits, they became concerned that this series would “make their pen pals vulnerable to outside perceptions” and “reinforce associations between queerness and criminality by producing visuals of queers behind bars.” So instead, Triburgo photographed backdrops they created for their pen pals, using this visual absence as a statement on “the invisibility of incarcerated LGBTQ+ individuals from popular consciousness”, a reminder of “the increasing presence of surveillance as a tool for criminalizing marginalized people”, and as a challenge for viewers to “consider their privilege of looking and objectifying individuals on society’s margins.”
Monumental Resistance: Stonewall is a time-lapse video piece that was created in collaboration with Triburgo’s partner, Sarah Van Dyck, during the 2018 NYC Pride Celebration. In 15-second increments, both created over 3,500 images of Triburgo standing in place at the Stonewall National Monument, the first LGBTQ+ monument dedicated to the “birthplace” of the modern queer liberation movement, for 24 hours.
“With my visibly genderqueer body exposed to the waist, I stood as a tribute to the transgender women of color who catalyzed the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, yet have largely been excluded from the ensuing civil rights advances,” they wrote in an artist statement. “This durational piece represents standing for something that has been hard won, fought for, died for, cherished.”
Triburgo will host two special events related to the exhibit next week: an Artist Talk on Tuesday, March 7, at 4:30 p.m. in the MU Main Lounge, and an “Abolition Now!” Art as Activism workshop on Wednesday, March 8, at 4:30 p.m. in the Student Experience Center (SEC) Lobby.
The exhibit will remain up in the MU Art Gallery until March 24. The MU is located on 2501 SW Jefferson Way, and is open from 7:30 a.m. – 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and from 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
By Emilie Ratcliff
Do you have a story for The Advocate? Email editor@corvallisadvocate.com