Hey y’all, it’s Neil again! Though it’s not directly related to childcare collective work, I did want to share what I got from one of my favorite sessions at the Allied Media Conference. I attended “Bring the Peace, Fight the Police: LGBTQ Youth “Know Your Rights” Media,” a session organized by youth in Streetwise and Safe, a group for queer and trans youth of color structured to resist police violence and the prison industrial complex. This session was largely a skillshare, where they discussed the creation of their excellent guide that takes you through the process of an arrest in New York City.
Each section of the website takes you through different choices that you have when encountering the police. Because LGBTQ youth of color are so often targeted by police for sex-work related offences, “lewd” or “sexual” conduct or the like, the guide is specifically geared to inform their audience of ways the police might be operating in that framework. We learned one really chilling example of this: in NYC, having three or more condoms on your person at any given time can be used as evidence that you engage in sex work–something that very distinctly could be used to target queer and trans folks. Their website incorporates audio and video along with text to walk you though each step of the criminal [in]justice system in New York City. While a lot of the information is local, many of the tactics of working with the police presented on their site could be used anywhere.
There are a lot of “know your rights” resources out there, but it’s great to see one geared specifically towards trans and queer youth of color. Definitely check it out!
