A call for Foreign Human Rights Observers
Members of embassies and consulates show up to stand for LGBT rights in other nations, maybe other nations will stand with us. Also, my curriculum vitae.
I do need some people who will be there and willing to hold signs. My curriculum vitae at the end of this post.
I am going to be mailing the following document, my curriculum vitae, as well as the Korean Times article to the above consular officials. When their are aggressions against the LGBT overseas consular and embassy officials show up at Pride events as observers or participants. There is no reason not to ask for the same when our community is under attack.
I am dropping off these letters first thing Monday morning.
Will it work. I don’t know, but in the 21st Century we need to try new things. Also, even if no one shows up on Jan. 14th, it very well might get these governments to think about what their human rights responsibilities are in regards to these assaults or attempt assaults on human rights.
For doubters, I would say, it may only seem doubtful because we are not used to having expectations for ourselves.
This is the document mailed to the consular officials.
A Call for Foreign
Human Rights Observers
The protests against the LGBT+ in Texas have gotten progressively worse. The latest one involved neo-Nazi groups and the ultra-reactionary Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.
A protest against the LGBT+ is planned on Jan. 14, 2023, Sat. 1-4 pm, 5815 Live Oak St., Unit 102, Dallas, Texas, (In the letter it was a link, but Substack is opening it up.)
There has been incendiary rhetoric by both elected officials and radical right groups.
It is not impossible that the attacks will soon expand in their intensity and scope to be like what is happening currently in Poland, Georgia, Serbia and elsewhere, where LGBT+ individuals are beaten and physically assaulted.
However, the international community’s response to the violence in Incheon, South Korea in 2018 where the Pride march was subject to violent attacks provides an example how foreign human rights observers can act to prevent these violent responses. In 2019 nine foreign embassies participated in Pride events in South Korea and as a result effective measures were then taken to prevent violent attacks upon the LGBT+. This is detailed in an article in the Korean Times, a copy enclosed and also available online.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2019/09/715_274898.html
A more detailed review of the violence in 2018 and the response in 2019 is online at:
Proactively the presence of foreign human rights observers at the next Christian nationalist protests in the heart of Dallas would have a powerful positive impact. State and local business leaders, who are ever concerned with the image of Dallas and Texas, would realize that the international community was watching. They would realize that the activities of extremist groups and inflammatory rhetoric by elected officials that encourages them is bad for business.
The United States government which is frequently giving direction on human rights to the nations of the world should have no objection to human rights observers here.
There will be counter protestors protecting this upcoming LGBT+ event. We hope to see your government have a representative there as a human rights observer.
Contact Information: Edward H. Sebesta, edwardsebessta@gmail.com.
The flip side had my curriculum vitae.
My curriculum vitae
2023010 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Ed Sebesta is an independent researcher awarded the Spirit of Freedom Medal by the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and an activist cultural geographer developing methods to fight for landscape reparations.
University Press Books
He is co-editor of “Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction,” Univ. of Texas Press, 2008; “The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader,” Univ. Press of Miss. 2010; and is the author of chapter about the Civil War and Reconstruction in the notorious Texas teaching standards in “Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle over Standards in Texas and the Nation,” published by Palgrave Macmillan.
He is the co-author of, “Dallas’ Confederate memorials scream ‘white supremacy’,” Dallas Morning News, 8/4/2017, launching a campaign which brought them down.
Currently he is working on the issue of landscape reparations and deracializing the landscape and was part of the successful campaign to rename part of Lamar St. to Botham Jean Blvd. as reported in the Dallas Observer.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-botham-jean-boulevard-lamar-street-11922314
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/should-a-dallas-street-be-named-after-santos-rodriguez-12090562
Current academic project is working on a book chapter on the Dallas 1936 Texas Centennial which has been accepted by the editor for an academic book.
His activism for the LGBT has been on and off again starting in the 1970s when he was a leader in an activist group which integrated the Gay bars in San Francisco which were discriminating against Asians. “A look back at S.F.’s ’80s-era gay Asian activism,” Nichi Bei Weekly, June 20, 2019, No. 340, page 6.
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