Category: 2023

DEARBORN, Michigan — Reparations of the Heart, Chicago-based artist Kristin Anahit Cass’s exhibition at the Stamelos Gallery Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, features more than 100 photographs that prompt the question: Where would diaspora Armenians and other Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) communities be if the Armenian Genocide had never happened? Cass’s images, which position people in both traditional and futuristic environments, build an imagined world of inclusivity through self-determined and alternative narratives. These narratives re-present ancient indigenous lands and their people — whose ancestors endured the trauma of genocide and displacement — as healed bodies and spaces. 

Cass’s work depicts the story of Armenian families who, in the late 19th and early 20th century, were systematically massacred and deported from their ancient lands of Armenian Cilicia, and forced to migrate and settle across a number of Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) lands and communities. A descendant of genocide survivors, the artist’s work collectively acknowledges the generational trauma living in the bodies of the descendant generations, but also sees this generation as the conduit through which the reparations of both heart and body can become actualized. 

For example, in one photograph, two women sit across from each other drinking coffee, a backgammon board set on the table between them. They seem to be outside a village home, under the shade of a tree — the highlands in the backdrop. Both wear black and white, but a striking royal blue dominates one of the women’s traditional garments. These two women symbolize a hopeful present and future in a place they can no longer claim as their own. At the same time, the scene paints a picture of synergy between one woman in traditional dress who has stayed on that land, and the other, who seems to be imported from the present day. The indigenous land is untouched by war and genocide. One woman remained, and the other returned. They both embrace their culture, merging the past, present, and future into a new moment captured by the light of this photograph. 

In these ways, Cass’s work collectively functions like a reparation — each photograph, set side by side, reaffirms the desire for amends of the past and draws from indigenous geography to project a healed global community. People are aligned and within a SWANA futurity. Some images are set in space, on the moon, or on mythical mountaintops. What becomes apparent in the work is also the artist’s critique of the exclusion of SWANA communities in science fiction, technology, and mainstream media as she forges images that move away from Western European conventions and toward a range of scenarios and phenomena where cultural traditions are celebrated across their own space and time. Through these interjections, this exhibition is in dialogue with the lived experiences of other Indigenous communities around the world, who have faced similar experiences of genocide, colonialism, and displacement. 

In Cass’s world, peace and harmony dominate. Women and members of the LGBTQ+ community are active contributors. As one of the photographs inscribes, “Our space is destroyed but we are not.” Each photograph recognizes the lived experience of trauma, yet owns the ability of humans to individually and collectively reframe that experience in their hearts to make way for reparations.

"IT'S OK TO BE QUEER" was carved into the paint of the car.

An Armenian American was the victim of "hateful vandalism" on Friday in Glendale, California. The man's car was keyed with pro-LGBTQ sentiments and a derogatory phrase against people of Armenian descent.  

According to a news release, The man parked his car at 9:00 pm Wednesday, and when he returned Friday morning the words "IT'S OK TO BE QUEER," "PRIDE," STOP HATING," and "LGBTQ" were carved into the paint of the car. 

"The Glendale Police Department stands with our community against all hate," the release said. "We are committed to protecting those who live, work, or visit Glendale and maintaining a safe and inclusive community."

Investigation into the incident is ongoing and the Glendale Police Department is asking anyone with information to contact them by calling 818-548-4911.  

The vandalism took place less than a mile away from the site of the Glendale Unified School District school board meeting where violent clashes that broke out earlier this week Armenian American parents and Antifa militants. 

The parents were there to protest the Glendale school board meeting, voicing their opposition to their Pride celebrations and the indoctrination of their kids. They demanded transparency in what their children are being taught, which the school board has refused to provide. 

Things turned violent when "some so-called Antifa, or hoodlums, anti-social folks who were here, 20-30 folks, who segregated themselves with LGBTQ protesters, then they moved away and went to a parking lot, they met a group of Armenian men. One of the Antifa attacked an Armenian man and the men fought back," one father on the scene said. 

This was the second clash between Antifa and the parents. The first incident took place on June 3, when parents were protesting a "PRIDE assembly" outside of Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood, California. 

The parents who are part of the Glendale Unified School District Parents' Voices went to protest the assembly that was aimed at kindergarten to fifth-grade students. They held signs that said "Stop grooming our kids" and Parental choice matters." 

Reports note that a fight broke out after a far-left agitator in support of children's pride events allegedly assaulted one of the parents. 

EDUCATIONNEWS

Tony Kinnett 

Several fights broke out between Antifa and parental rights activists Tuesday night outside the Glendale Unified School District’s administration building in Glendale, California, during a school board meeting discussing LGBTQ+ curriculum.

Law enforcement arrested three individuals amid the mayhem after the protest “exceeded the bounds of peaceful assembly,” the Glendale Police Department announced Tuesday night.

Following the Glendale school board’s decision to incorporate LGBTQ+ “Pride” festivals and celebrations into June school days, dozens of parents pulled students from classrooms—with some elementary schools seeing only 40% of students show up for class on June 2.

Additional documents revealed that Glendale staff have attempted to incorporate LGBTQ+ materials and ideology into other curriculum. One assistant principal even told staff to teach children that every person is, by default, “queer” and “socialist.”

Parents from the traditionally conservative Armenian and Hispanic communities in Glendale planned to protest the board’s decisions at an upcoming school board meeting. Antifa Southern California called for activists to counter protest against these parents, whom they labeled “hate groups.”

Several parents told Glendale’s board that they were concerned with Glendale’s transgender policies, such as allowing students of the opposite sex to use the same bathrooms and locker rooms, putting their children at risk.

One father told the board:

I graduated from Glendale in ‘96, and I have two daughters. My daughter is afraid to change in the locker room because she knows another guy could come into the room. When I asked the principal, he told me there were no cross-gender bathroom policies.

Other parents previously told The Daily Signal that their children changed in locker rooms with students of the opposite sex multiple times, and that this is standard practice in Glendale.

The father finished by telling the Glendale board: “All of these fake people [pointing to several masked crowd members] are going to go away, and we’re going to vote every one of you [pointing to the school board] out.”

About 42 minutes into the meeting, Board President Nayiri Nahabedian stopped the public comment session as law enforcement locked down the building due to disturbances outside. The board meeting went into recess for almost 20 minutes while police attempted to manage the situation. 

According to footage from Los Angeles news networks and on-site independent journalists, masked progressive protesters in pink bandanas and progress flags traded blows with Armenian and Hispanic parents.

Glendale police then announced over loudspeakers that the assembly was now considered “unlawful” and ordered the crowds of protesters to disperse. They then arrested at least three members of the crowd on “various charges.” The department did not specify either the affiliations of the suspects or the charges involved.

Many of the speakers claim it is essential to teach children about LGBTQ+ topics, even though critics claim some of the materials are sexually explicit, even pornographic.

“Schools should teach kids to grow up in a diverse world, with different colors, religions, and sexualities,” one woman shouted at the board. Most of the pro-LGBTQ+ speakers shouted into the microphone, causing it to short out momentarily.

Several of the speakers turned their attention towards the parents protesting Glendale’s LGBTQ+ policies.

A man in a skirt, high-heel boots, and a women’s leather jacket who claimed to have three daughters told the board: “Their ideology is the same as the Proud Boys. Hiding their hate behind their kids just as Proud Boys hide behind their masks.”

A speaker claiming to be a representative from the “Revolutionary Communists” told the board that all socialists had a duty to protect LGBTQ+ students from “Christofascism.”

One Glendale teacher used her time to lecture white and Armenian Americans:

[I volunteer] extensively in South LA and work with the children’s hospital of Los Angeles with queer/trans youth in large groups, and so I deal with a lot of their trauma related to the hetero-normative, Judeo-Christian, patriarchal, imperialist, capitalist system that oppresses them. 

And so, I’m not just here in support of our LGBTQ youths, it’s all connected. I’m here in support of Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training because white people participate, for example, in the largest social welfare program in the history of the United States, and yet—now they put their hands up in the air and look at our housing crisis.

Armenians talk about the genocide that they received SSI, but they don’t want to talk about the indigenous genocide in 1850, and the lack of reparations for indigenous and black people in this country.

They don’t want to talk about—how dare you talk about how marginalized people come here…and you don’t want to talk about the oppressed trans youth who… you know those kids aren’t even learning to learn in this.

[At this point a bell sounded as her time speaking was up]

One in two will commit—attempt suicide and 95% know that they are “trans” when they are three, four, and five.

While the teacher didn’t explain what genocide occurred in 1850, what “SSI” was, or from what social welfare program “white” people supposedly benefit, progressive members of the crowd cheered as she sat down.

As of 9 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, crowds outside had not yet dispersed, though Glendale police were ordering all to leave or face arrest for unlawful assembly. 

The Glendale Unified School District did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the events of June 6 or the district’s LGBTQ+ policies.

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https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/06/06/antifa-armenian-parents-clash-california-school-board-meeting-required-lgbtq-activities/