One of the most curious phrases in the history of protest language is the word redneck, it at times has meant a racist, a union-man, a communist, and a far right nationalist. What is not misunderstood about the phrase is its association with rural, white, workers. It was initially used as a pejorative for southern field workers who got the name for the distinctive red burns across the back of their necks from the sun, however if that meaning is the only origin of the word, it does not track how both coal miners in the rural south and rural Colorado were labeled with this slur by the private detective agencies that were placed in charge of controlling and stifling union activity among the workers. Instead it is more commonly known that the phrase redneck got its association with the mining community because of the use of red handkerchiefs to signify union allegiance among the coal miners that fought against the brutal working conditions miners faced. This was important because the handkerchief stood as a way to overcome the deliberately implemented racial tensions that many mining companies forced into their towns by placing immigrant communities in towns with each other. This incentivized the individual communities to remain isolated and to refrain from collaborating with other minority groups. This exploitation of any political divide that the miners could come up with was also used against the unionists as well, they were portrayed as “reds” or communists who sought to divide America.

However, this forced isolation and divisions enforced by the mining companies also served to foster resentment against the companies, which in turn stoked the flames of unionization as they embraced the red handkerchief as a symbol of union pride. This is not a unique tactic as across the world, the main tactic of workers parties is to reduce the divisions across race or gender and to instead heighten the awareness of the divides of class. Through the framing of all union workers as the same by them all holding the same red handkerchief, the NMU or National Miners Union were able to create communities that were solid enough to fight against the violence of the mining companies. This is where the importance of the specific color of red becomes important, as it grew to stand for the blood spilt by the union workers who were killed for sympathizing with the union. By associating the union solidarity specifically with the violence of the mining company, further indoctrination of the miners into the union became easier and easier as the proliferation of the red handkerchief started to stand for a group designed for protection against the aggression of the police and national guardsmen that were displaced in larger and larger numbers on behalf of the mining companies. The red handkerchief had become more like the uniform of an army at a certain point, and by providing the union members with a common rallying cry that disregarded the racial attitudes of previous attempts to collectively bargain, the NMU was able to successfully form a union that could fight the callous aggression of the mining communities around the US.

The history of queer liberation through the understanding of gay rights and advocacy is vital to understanding the current state of LGBTQ rights across the spectrum. The primary method and construction of queer rights is through the lens of the legalization of gay marriage, however the common history lacks a large amount of  context that reveals the truth of the legalization of gay marriage. The common history goes like this, gay people always existed, but they stayed silent and were not seen until 1969 when police raided a gay bar called Stonewall. From there the stonewall riots made people aware of gay people for the first time, where the conservative and progressive ideals battled it out through the next 40 years including several supreme court cases and a brief encounter with AIDS that resulted in the legalization of gay marriage for all gay people, and now it’s more acceptable to be gay. While this story contains many elements of the truth, the reality of the story of gay marriage is much more based in the history of community organizing than any one individuals contribution to the progress of a case. The story of gay marriage is the story of thousands of unrecognized and unnamed queer people who spent their entire lives making small advances that gradually changed the social language around gay rights.

It is first vital to acknowledge the impact of historical revisionism in the language of gay history, gay and lesbian relationships have been documented in almost every culture and time period across all of mankind. From the documentation of queer behaviors of the Song, Ming, and Quing dynasties, to the written descriptions of homosexual activity among the ancient Greek and Roman empires, gay love is as old as humanity itself. Instead when Gay history is referred to it is more often meant to refer to the modern American history of political organization and advocacy.

In the United States, starting from the very founding of the nation, Victorian ideals of romance meant that lesbian relationships were much more acceptable, falling more under the label of intense friendship. Additionally in the rural communities that dominated early US organization gay or queer romance was mostly written and described using the general label of sodomy, which also included cheating and other condemned forms of relationships. It was not until the early 1800’s where two major social developments paved the way for the original formations of Gay and Lesbian organizations. Firstly the coining of the phrase homosexual, and the beginnings of the first large city, New York City. This larger grouping of people created an opportunity for large gatherings of “friends” to occur, as documented by Walt Whitman in his early work. This grouping and community then produced an intellectual movement along with it that for the first time began printing books and pamphlets defending homosexual love. This movement, along with the concurring general reduction of proper Victorian social norms led to a large wave of initial support for gay romance in the 1920’s and 1930’s that was not seen again until the 1970’s. This included a few films that documented gay relationships and music such as the song “Masculine Women, Feminine Men” which documented the rise in more flexible gender norms in that period of time. However, gay and lesbian behaviors were not without their critics, as the following wave of cultural repression caused the  first genuine sense of codified and supported homophobia throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s. This included the first documentation of homosexuality as a mental illness and the first anti gay legislation. The combination of the first real support for gay identities followed by the subsequent rise in hate showed the queer community the need for underground communities and as such the gay and lesbian communities moved mostly underground, but not without some political demonstrations at times.

Although Stonewall is cited as the first incident of gay resistance to the codified state violence against queer identities, there were documented acts of political resistance as early as 1955, a good 14 years before Stonewall. As earlier queer resistance had shown, these political organizations were mainly concentrated in large cities, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. The large population allowed the smaller number of gay people to still have enough people to form meaningful connections and relationships with those who were also queer. The development of these communities resulted in intentional political organizations that when coupled with a slight decrease in cultural support of traditional institutions like the church or government in the 1970’s thanks to the wars in Vietnam and Korea allowed for queer communities to couple with other political organizations such as the Black Panthers who were fighting for political freedom at the same time. This intersectional unity was the major force for change as police and other forces of the traditional political state were unable to cope with the restriction of all different movements for freedom at the same time.

This political pressure resulted in a prime opportunity for the gay community as the rise in political acceptability of queer rights and rights based speech allowed for them to press for social advancements through the supreme court. The basic strategy for the queer community was the same used by the lawyers who fought for Brown V. Board, namely defining a certain group as a protected inherent identity. This basis for identity as a means to advance rights resulted in the emergence of famous queer slogans such as “born this way.” These slogans re-framed the common identification of Gay and Lesbian folks as people who were choosing to be defiant, to instead be people who were repressed based on who they inherently were, an idea that generated much more success than any other had before. Through this legal and social strategy, gay and lesbian communities were able to carve out a place for queer children in the future, not by individual accomplishments, but rather through dedicated and persistent movements of entire communities over the course of multiple centuries.

https://www.ted.com/talks/mia_birdsong_the_story_we_tell_about_poverty_isn_t_true

I chose this speech, it addresses the ideological shift she is arguing for: reframing the power of those who are in poverty. She begins by framing the ideology she is arguing against by referencing the audience in the TED talk. She then begins by personalizing her arguments to frame the argument in terms of people. These are the people she argues has changed her mind, which I like as a tool because it draws the audience into the argument. She uses the power-point to give faces to the names and stories that she draws upon, I like this but I feel like it could have used a bit more dynamic framing. She then goes on to assert her ability to argue this topic, she does this by framing her personal relationships in contexts that are not familiar to the reader. She also plays on wordplay often that I enjoy as well, such as “they are broke but not broken.” This argument then blossoms into a argument for the humanization of marginalized people. That lands effectively and evokes effective ethos and pathos to claim a moral perspective.

The topic I have chosen for the essay and speech is the evolution in perspective that Denver policing underwent that resulted in the creation of the STAR or Support Team Assisted Response program. I want to argue that the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the specific death of Elijah Miclane resulted in the shift of opinion in Denver city council to create this change. I think this topic could work because it is specific enough to be a manageable argument and publicized and old enough to have created large amounts of data that can be analyzed. I also want to be able to talk about the specific types of nature that Colorado experiences which create an exaggerated need for a response within the Colorado community. I think this idea will be really successful.