Mortville : The Queer Encampment at Occupy Baltimore

This article has come in multiple drafts and stages. As the #occupy movement quickly jumps tracks, escalates, evolves/devolves, and potentially transforms itself, so have viewpoints. This story began as a basic overview of a Queer Camp entitled “Mortville”, shifting to a transcription of an interview with the camp inhabitants, then turning into a postmodern ramble seeped in metaphor, and preceding this version, it had been an attempt at “objective journalistic” critique. Such has been a minuscule glance at the rollercoaster-ride my brain has been on. Now, I write and aim to shed the auspices of “objective camouflage” and pretense. By the time this is printed and in your hands, it is impossible to determine where the #occupy movement will be; consider this a lens towards historical understanding.

...A call for inclusiveness. A call for everyone, but especially a call for the average gay person. The call, “It's okay to be political. To come here and talk about your ideas. These issues affect you, too.'  -Ryan

On September 17th, #ows (Occupy Wall Street) began. Initially, sent as a call for protest, by the Canadian organization Adbusters, the idea caught hold and spread like wildfire. The goal: Occupy Wall Street. Literally. Set-up camp. Refuse to move. Take space on a 24/7 basis until issues are recognized and demands met. The demands? Hard to say. Fluidity and inclusivity were the names of the game. Yet, the basic cry is in recognition of : rampant economic inequality, corporate greed, and corporate control over government.

While there was a pronounced discussion, within activist circles, about the #ows movement, it arguably wasn't at the forefront of public awareness until after several incidents involving police violence and mass arrests. Quickly, #occupyeverywhere jumped from a social-media-site phenomenon into actualization in cities and towns across the globe. #occupyeverywhere is meant both to be a stance in solidarity with #ows, for those who may not be able to attend the original site, as well as a way for discussing and organizing around the local; bringing the movement home and deciding to take public space where you live- where you create reality.

“Shamed, dishonoured, wading in blood and dripping in filfth, thus capitalist society stands.” -Rosa Luxemburg; Embedded on the proud-bannered-declaration of Mortville, at #occupybaltimore

If movements begin with thought put into action, #occupybaltimore began well before masses gathered at McKeldin Square, on Tuesday, October 4th. It began well before the first planning assembly, on October 2nd. It began with the last movement and the movement before that; and with the organizing in-between the rise and fall of social movement tides. In Peter Gelderloss piece “From Barcelona's Neighborhood Assemblies: Reflections for the US Occupy Movement”, Gelderloos discusses how collective memory is movement's wisdom to build upon. Yet, how it is hardest for activists, in the States, because we have a pungent case of social amnesia. Perhaps, we suffer from this due to our false sense of security and gentle lulling into apathy/numbness enacted by our country's hierarchical mock democracy. Perhaps, the State's super capitalism continuously triumphs, in such a manner that allows pools of white-out to drown out our struggles/our histories. I don't have the answers. My collective memory has been, after all, annulled.

In some ways, this erasure is done at more extreme levels within my historical memory. For not only am I queer, and the accounts of my historical struggle are few and far between, furthermore I am also a woman- a gay woman – and that identity has forever been invisibilized.

Yet, however contradictory, it's here. I stood with radical queers, inside a vacant Inner Harbor fountain, and felt it. Our history. Our struggle. In each others' presence, we recognized our collective fight . Mortville stands not just to recognize the human body as it struggles under interwoven systems of oppression. But, we also stood, immersed in the knowledge that the legacy we inherit, as radical queers, is rooted in the fight for liberation. The legacy: Stonewall veterans, ACT UP! Fighters, Lesbian Avengers, and others, fought for us to inherit. It's all a mess of a paradox. Nevertheless, while dually we have our identities marginalized and invisibilized; on the very same token, our queer/gay identities are co-opted for capitalist rewards.

We're not here to just sit down and behave and just do whatever such and such authority tells us to. Part of the spectacle is that we're here to be outrageous. We're here to be noticed. We're here because we want to deviate from this oppressed path that the corporate is leading us down. We're going to deviate in ways that make us feel happy-- sexually and generally. I'm not looking for tolerance.” - Kory

Anti-assimilation.

I'm here to be free. Look around, this world we live in, it's not free. - Anne Marie

The rallying cry at #occupybaltimore 's planning meeting was, “We are the 99% !”

We march, the refrain echoes in trembling unison. Signs amass around McKeldin, bearing the same phrase.

There's so much potential in those words. Meant to be a cry, that we're all suffering under the forces of super capitalism. A recognition, that wealth is merely in the hands of the one-percent of the population. It brings us together, under the broad banner of recognizing the ills, under systems of oppression, perpetuated on our collective human body. However, as a mantra alone, it invalidates our differences and how capitalism/oppression, attack differently, with different approaches, to different bodies. I am not you. You are not me. Under domination we're both oppressed. Yet, we are oppressed differently. In order to create systemic change, we should not get caught up in what separates us. We're human. It's true. We should fight together as human. Yet, it is crucial that we recognize our differences and act accordingly.

It crucial for queers to discuss how systems of oppression act on the queer body.

“Mortville is a nod to desperate living, where everyone must live in constant mortification because they’re so shamed by capitalism. It’s also the queer camp. Because it is important to have a discourse about identity issues in places like this. It’s our “culture remix zone”. It’s our “identity remix zone”.  It’s our “Queer Slumber Party” , in some ways a parody, and in other ways the anti-Tea Party.” -Michael

Mortville. This is a story about Mortville. #occupybaltimore 's Queer Camp. Occupying space within the occupation, waving two large banners, declaring it's proud existence. As Queer/Trans caucuses spring-up in few other occupations, Baltimore's Mortville goes a step further. Applying the #occupy rhetoric to themselves, they refuse to merely coalesce under the idea of identity. But, rather, to take public space and organize with that reality in mind and practice. To go forth from that place of identity and ACT.

And act Mortville has. With open arms, queer camp founders: Mike, Ryan, Joy, and Kory – welcome me, and then later Steve, Anne Marie, and others. They care little if you identify as queer (though the majority does identify that way); rather, that you embrace the Mortville motif. Organize with spectacle tactics and the belief that glamor is for everyone, not just the one-percent. They've done actions as varying as a 'Military Industrial Complex S&M Pageant Protest' to mark the Ten Year Anniversary of the Invasion of Afghanistan – to a Susan Sarandon Costume Appreciation Party/Rocky Horror Picture Show screening – an immensely clever “coupon” action: where they passed out coupons to two local big businesses, that said phrases like “80% off!” and then in small print things like “Human Dignity” ...”LATEST FASHIONS: Direct from Third World Countries”. Mortville inserts the art of spectacle as protest directly into the #occupy movement. A movement that sorely needs to remember some sort of collective past, Mortville remembers the art of spectacle as protest.

“We're not just about gay issues. We're about issues that affect everyone here. We're just framing it through our perspective.” - Ryan

“Point of the manifesto is to say, we're frustrated with capitalism. What capitalism sells now are not the necessities of your life. Identity branding. Which is marketed toward people based on race/class/gender/etc., and I think, by fighting that system, in a way, you liberate people to be their own person devoid of capitalism, and to have their own identity that is not dependent on whatever marketing group they fit into... We are fighting spectacle with spectacle... and we are unstoppable.” - Michael

#occupybaltimore’s first planning meeting was on Sunday, October 3rd. Over 200 people piled into The 2640 Space to discuss building a movement here in Charm City. Operating under the utopian dream of consensus, but at times defaulting to super majority vote, together the crowd agreed to begin the occupation on Tuesday, October 4th. Both to maintain the  built momentum and in attempt to stand in solidarity with the already planned demonstration “The Stop the Youth Jail March”.

McKeldin Square was largely chosen for the legal implications of the park and as a symbol for taking back space, that has been stolen from us in the name of corporate greed, super capitalism, big business, and gentrification. The establishment of the Inner Harbor, as we now know it, was executed under the auspices that it would bring economic prosperity into the city-- instead it has funnelled money into corporations and preceded to conduct multiple human rights violations onto the Baltimore body. (For more information, check out: The United Workers and their Human Rights Campaign.)

Hundreds have now made the square their home, in an effort to take back the city from the theft of capitalism. Reclaiming space that once was the people’s -- turned to the hands of the corporate -- and is now being peacefully wrenched back into the public grasp.

“Capitalism has the tendency to exploit and perpetuate images of what gay men should be or should not be. Look, you don't have to go to the gym. You don't have to wax your body. You don't have to frost your tips. On one hand, it's laughable. And on the other it's scary.” -Steve

Last week a local university LGBTQ Studies professor approached me. He asked if I was a part of Mortville. (How did he know? I guess I just look that gay...) It turns out, he wanted to not only teach the Mortville Manifesto (yes, they have an amazing manifesto, which discusses the #occupy movement, through a very queer, very a la The Society of the Spectacle regard. And for those who criticize the movement, for not having demands, Mortville's Manifesto waits no minute, to proclaim its demands in true cascade fashion.) as modern queer theory. The professor wanted his LGBTQ students to know that they have a space at #occupy, too.

I don't know what's going to become of #occupy. The cold weather is coming. Fights are breaking out left and right. However, as I pass an audio recorder around the Mortville crew, to discuss a variance of topics from: accessibility - to remembering historical struggle - to spectacle, I know... there's something here. There's mobilization.

I don't have any answer as to what the #occupy movement will become. Updates are second-by-second. The task is impossible to understand the full force and dynamics of the system. NYC floods with protesters, making headlines with speeches and stand-offs. But Baltimore is not New York. I want to believe #occupybaltimore will be the awakening and the galvanization that this city (and my generation) needs. Critics and supporters, attack the movement for being without goals. It does feel like a privileged conversation, the ability to participate in a movement without demands. Yet, I see people take root in the square, queers/nonqueers. Maybe we don't have specific goals, but we're deciding to take public space, that is rightfully ours, without permission. We're setting aside the space, purposefully, and deciding to learn how to organize with one another. Perhaps, collectively, we don't know the world we want. Yet, we know it isn't this one. We're deciding to figure it out.

Maybe #occupy is formulated around a privileged conversation. Maybe. In a city like Baltimore, it is absolutely essential that we don't discount the fact that #occupy's central viiewpoints originally grow from a space of privilege.

That being said, this is the first time, I've ever seen so many people, with such varying ways of living and thinking, come together and organize. There's potential. There's potential to mobilize people's energy. So that inside and outside #occupybaltimore, we can create something that is truly revolution.

There is so much potential, for success and for failure; and both equate what is terrifying in regards to trying.

I read something once, that said, as queer activists, everything we do must be through a queer lens.

I don't think I really understood that until #occupybaltimore. For our realities and identities are manifested with more than merely one slice. I now realize what the author meant. Mortville comes and sets up tents. They put on silver leashes, crawl around on the ground, and discuss the violence of the military industrial complex. They do not limit themselves to acting on what is traditionally defined as queer subject matter. They decide that everything is worth acting on that is relevant to the human condition-- and as they are queer – they will approach it from a queer lens, because they are effected as queers, and their response will inherently be queer.

We need to use super capitalism's tactics against it. We need to use cultures, not for fads but rather for communication. - Joy

The other day, I heard a member of the LGBTQ community decrying fellow folks for not joining #occupybaltimore, she cried that #occupy was the only movement that mattered. Simplisitc reasoning. We need to be using a diversity of tactics. Attacking oppression from multiple vantage points enables revolution. I also cannot agree with my fellow queers, when they say the movement isn't valid for queer people because it isn't centered around solely specific queer issues. It is about human issues. If you want to make it accessible, come in, and influence via your perspective.

In some ways, Mortville is the fire under the ass, or rather the glitter under the ass of the whole #occupybaltimore movement. - Joy

The city is an abstraction. We organize here because we live here. Together our realities define our identities. The flip is true for queerness. Together our identities define our realities.

I wish I knew what is going to happen with #occupybaltimore. I worry about it and I care about it. It's the first time that I've truly seen people out on the streets deciding to create a better reality rather than waiting for it.

Mortville's Michael says that he believes #occupybaltimore is functioning as a training ground. That Spring 2012 could be our Arab Spring. That all the ingredients are ripe for it. Right now, we're learning the ropes.

This movement, building a revolution is dually about destruction. We need to destroy what has worked to annihilate our humanity. Then we need to construct. For queers, this is particularly important. What world do we wish to envision and then build?

As I watch my fellow Mortvillians. The utopia is one of anti-assimilation. Where we do not dream of being the next gay male co-opted image or the next erased dyke image. We do not seek our acceptance through systems of domination or hierarchy. We will use our historical memory given by those who fought before us. We will create new collective memory and refuse to let it be eradicated. We will dance, as it is our legacy. We will use spectacle to attack spectacle – to garner your attention and make you act. We will live without shame and disregarding mere tolerance.

You, readers, I don't know what will become of #occupybaltimore. Mortville will mobilize, and work to get you on the streets. We will destroy, build, and create. And, you know what, your history is political. Don’t sacrifice the radical legacy you’ve inherited for a comfortable seat at the table of hierarchy.

Gay Baltimore, get crazy! Get out of the Hippo and into the streets! - Michael