06/26/2024
tânisi • Xin chào • Hello Saskatoon Community,
We write to you in response to recent events where the Kinship Market: “Cheers for Qu**rs” Pop Up had changed venues and why we made this decision.
Kinship Market is a collaboration of artists and makers living in Treaty Six Territory. We host pop-up markets that enable economic resilience for historically under-represented peoples. We are intentionally anti-oppressive and showcase marginalized artists, promote mutual aid, and foster community care through meaningful actions. This includes wearing masks to protect vulnerable community members and their families, and prioritizing IBPOC, q***r vendors, and vendors with disabilities.
Our previous venue, managed by Saskatoon Open Door Society (SODS), insisted we retract our pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide stance to keep our event in their space. SODS staff asked us to remove an Instagram post dated April 25th, 2024, which states, “NOT GAY AS IN HAPPY, BUT Q***R AS IN FREE PALESTINE,” and create a new post stating “the event is open to all and everyone is welcome,” including “community members who identify with Zionism,” as our initial post may “potentially cause discomfort.” These statements were made to us by the SODS Director and frontline worker we were in contact with.
Kinship Market disagrees with the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Judaism (as do many scholars, activists, and members of Jewish communities worldwide), and we have always emphasized both publicly and privately that Jewish people are wholeheartedly welcome at all our events. Israel is not representative of all Jewish people, just as Zionism is not representative of all Jewish people.
As Two Spirit Plains Cree and Q***r Vietnamese members of this community, we chose the name “Kinship Market” to reflect our belief that we are all part of a larger kinship network, which includes both Palestinian and Jewish peoples. In that spirit, oppressive ideologies and genocidal rhetoric associated with zionism are not welcome. It is disheartening that the SODS Board of Directors and CEO do not agree with these values, despite referencing them in their own policies and value statements.
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