Marsha P. Johnson, born on this day in 1945, was a civil rights activist, founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), and participant in the Stonewall Uprising of 1969.
Johnson was one of the first drag queens to go to the Stonewall Inn after they began allowing women and drag queens inside; it was previously a bar for only gay men.
On the early morning hours of June 28th, 1969, the Stonewall uprising occurred. While the first two nights of rioting were the most intense, the clashes with police would result in a series of spontaneous demonstrations and marches through the gay neighborhoods of Greenwich Village for roughly a week afterwards.
According to the New-York Historical Society, “While there are many conflicting stories about the uprising’s start, it is clear that Marsha was on the front lines. In one account, she started the uprising by throwing a shot glass at a mirror. In another, she climbed a lamppost and dropped a heavy purse onto a police car, shattering the windshield.” After Stonewall, Johnson became more involved in activism, helping found the Gay Liberation Front.
To help provide a home for vulnerable trans youth, Marsha and her friend Sylvia Rivera together formed the Street Transvestite Activist Revolutionaries (STAR). The first STAR House was in the back of a seemingly abandoned truck in Greenwich Village, housing nearly 24 people.
One morning, they returned to the truck just as its driver was pulling away with STAR residents sleeping inside, who were then forced to jump from a moving vehicle. Marsha and Sylvia then rented and fixed up a dilapidated building to house STAR residents for eight months before being evicted.
Shortly after a pride parade in 1992, Johnson’s body was discovered floating in the Hudson River. Police ruled the death a suicide, but Johnson’s friends and other members of the local community insisted Johnson was not suicidal and noted that the back of Johnson’s head had a massive wound.
Johnson was cremated and, following a funeral at a local church, friends released her ashes over the river.
The 2012 documentary “Pay It No Mind – The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson” heavily features segments from a 1992 interview with Johnson, filmed shortly before her death.
“Darling, I want my gay rights now”
- Marsha P. Johnson
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sometimes I ask a question and people just say “the material conditions arent right” like that tells me nothing! which material conditions, how are they influencing things exactly? you cant just wave your hand around and say “material conditions” like its a magic spell. this is about an irl person.
🧙✨✨✨materialis conditionus✨✨✨
They mean it’s a little chilly today. I don’t want to wear a sweater to the revolution.
I’ve been consulting with an old sage who meditates at the precipice of an ocean-facing cliff. Every evening he makes me take up two large buckets of water up a dangerous, winding path. He drinks from one bucket. The other is dumped into the ocean. And I ask him “are the material conditions finally here for a revolution?” And each time he has said no.
One day, in a rainy sad day, he told me, when the ocean is filled up to the cliff, the time will be right.
as a Marxist: this and other cliches are like, technically correct, but a solid chunk of the time it’s meant as “I really don’t know but there’s a reason for it or things would be different.” which is true but unhelpful.
it’s like when people say “oh, I have materialist analysis while this other guy has idealist analysis, no I will not explain why” when a lot of the time you’re just using a different word for “right” and “wrong”. only real reddit-brained liberals tend to have actual idealist analysis (“Oh, this leader ordered this because he was feeling evil that day, that leader there signed this bill because he’s a good person who believes in democracy”)
I am trying to get away from the imprecise use of those words and only use them when it’s actually applicable, and also listening to other strands of communism when they have complaints about their overuse as thought-terminating cliches
I think a lot of people need to work on this. thanks for explanation, sometimes i feel kinda dumb when people say things like its obvious and im just a bad communist.
It’s the Marxist way of deflecting uncomfortable criticism of socialist government. Thats all it is.
I think your right, I wish more people were comfortable just saying “I dont know”. You dont need an answer to every question to be a good leftist.
what was the question
why doesnt china have a less convoluted healthcare system, why not be more like cuba. Im sure its a dumb question i just wish someone would explain more in depth. it just feels like something people say when they they dont have an exact answer. like obviously the material conditions are different I KNOW THAT, thats the beginning of the explanation not the end.
It’s because the government is filled w a few different ideological factions that have been sewn together to keep the Chinese project running like Frankensteins monster. There are multiple strains of liberals including neolibs in high positions of the government although there are also a few factions of socialists as well. Privatized healthcare makes the GDP go up which increases GDP related performance indexes which government workers are evaluated by so probably it’s because of the metrics of the way the government currently measures success.
There’s also tiers of healthcare for certain cases so most everybody can get it, it’s just way more convoluted than Cuba because of the privatization.
thanks for the explanation comrade. I didnt even consider the part about gdp as a performance index for government workers.
They are working on it. China is about a lifetime old. They are going from the century of humiliation to the century of general prosperity. They aren’t done yet. When you look at other sectors you see every few years they have fixed the talking points and the media has to find new ones to complain about. Remember ghost houses? No, we don’t. That is a problem that was fixed and now we don’t hear about the success.
For healthcare specifically using thr dentist theory, having a sector open to the market means they can take money from the west to improve the material conditions. If they closed it off they wouldn’t be getting easy black rock money to upgrade MRI machines.
No, they’re not. They have much less of an excuse than the US does, because they can’t hide behind bullshit excuses of legislative capture. They also ALREADY HAD SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and then they got rid of it.
How do you know? The last party platform talked about general improvements across the board.
So does the democratic party platform.
The difference is that China has a proven reccord of improving things and taking care of people so they are trustworthy.
Meanwhile the DNC has never made anything better or even really tried to stop things getting worse. Absolutely untrustworthy