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S O U T H E R N March 14-27,1991 Vol.4,No.2
Sex
Sabrina Sojourner
tells us how she feels
about the language of
lesbian sexuality. And
more. 9
Sweat
Working out
and pumping up mean
more than muscles.
Here’s why. 11
Atlanta Lesbian Nominated for an Oscar
Building Bomb's co-producer
is hard at work on another
fdm documenting the
dangers of radioactivity
by Debbie Fraker
Atlantan Susan Robinson and her lover
Judy Stribling will be sitting in the audi
ence biting their nails when the Academy
Awards are presented on March 25.
Robinson's fdm Building Bombs, co-pro
duced by local fdmmaker Mark Mori, has
been nominated for an Oscar for Best
Feature Documentary.
"Judy and I are going to parade our
selves into the Awards arm in arm," said
Robinson, "and then we’re going to the
Governor’s Ball and dance 'til dawn."
Susan's first reaction to being nominat
ed for an Academy Award? "What am I
going to wear?" Still light-hearted, but on
a more serious note she acknowledged that
"An Academy Award nomination doth a
day make, but not a living. The nomination
opens doors, but you still have to depend
on what you take through those doors with
you."
The nomination took Robinson com
pletely by surprise. She first heard about it
from a neighbor. "We got home from an
awful trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras,"
she related, "and my neighbor called to
ask, 'Is it true you got an Academy Award
nomination?"' After verifying the rumor,
"Judy and I ran around the apartment
screaming like we'd won the Publishers
Clearing House." Incidentally, word about
the nomination came to the couple on
Valentine's Day.
The Otherside hosted a reception for
Susan on February 28 just before she left
town for a New York screening of Bombs
at the Museum of Modem Art. A reception
at Mariel Hemingway's Symphony Cafe
hosted by the film's narrator Jane
Alexander and actor Tim Robbins fol
lowed the screening. Penelope Williams, a
friend of Susan's and performer at the
Otherside, organized the Atlanta reception
and seemed concerned that her party might
pale in comparison to its more glamorous
Gotham counterpart. But Susan was
delighted to be able to spend a comfortable
evening celebrating with friends before she
left.
Five years in the making, Building
Bombs —which examines the horrific con
ditions inside the Savannah River nuclear
plant, where plutonium and tritium for
nuclear warheads were produced—was a
labor of love and principle. And Robinson,
29 and an environmental activist since age
13, was a natural for the project. She took
part in her first protest of the plant at age
sixteen. She served as co-producer, direc
tor, and writer for the film.
The film’s primary impact comes from
interviews with two scientists previously
employed by the plant. One, Bill Lawless,
discusses a report he submitted on the con
tamination of the area surrounding the
plant. Due to the proximity to the
Savannah River, he determined that the
contamination could pose a serious threat
to an underground water source serving
four states. Lawless's report was buried by
See Building Bombs, page 17
War Ends, But Plans for Protests Continue
by John Zeh
Washington—Activists in major coali
tions opposing America's ongoing involve
ment in the Middle East say they will con
tinue their anti-war campaigns to assure a
lasting peace despite the Persian Gulf bat
tles' "apparent" end.
"The war isn't over in the larger sense,"
said Bonnie Garvin, Campaign for Peace
in the Middle East media coordinator.
"Yes, it's true there's no more bombing,
and there's no ground war anymore," she
said. "But we still have troops there for
the foreseeable future, and we haven't
begun to talk about redirecting (military)
money into (Americans') social needs.
"Those issues need to be addressed
now."
Asked if she believes President George
Bush will honor his pledge to end contin
ued U.S. presence in the Middle East,
Garvin said, "Only time will tell. Things
change. A year ago, none of us would have
assumed we would have been in a war
against our 'friend,' Iraq."
She acknowledged that because people
perceive the war is over and "are glad to be
rid of it" organizing activists is difficult.
"Everyone is happy and wants to go back
and pull the wool over their eyes," Garvin
said.
At a Campaign strategy session here
Feb. 23 when Bush's ultimatum against
Iraq's occupation of Kuwait took effect,
veteran lesbian organizer and Campaigner
Leslie Cagan said the anti-war movement
would survive the war's conclusion.
"The day-to-day work will go on
because our demands transcend the imme
diate end to the war," she said. "We want
all our troops brought home, no permanent
bases in the Middle East. We thinx part of
Bush’s strategy is...to end up with a per
manent military presence in the Middle
East. We don't think that should happen.”
"Central to the (February) decision,"
added Cagan, "is that we are joining with
the Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in
the Middle East, the African-American
Religious Summit, and the National
African-American Network to work joint
ly-"
Originally, the Coalition and the
Campaign had trouble hooking up, partly
because the Coalition had refused to
denounce Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and
approve U.S. economic sanctions. Cagan's
Campaign condemned the takeover, and
okayed sanctions except for bans on food
and medical supplies.
"Once war was a reality," Cagan said of
Bush's January 16 declaration, "it influ
Leslie Cagan concedes that the move
ment's multifaceted post-war struggle is
"going to take a little while to win."
enced everybody's willingness to work
together."
At the Campaign's caucus here, 250+
people overwhelmingly okayed local or
regional actions on March 16 and a mas
sive international mobilization here April
6.
Cagan, full-time coordinator of the
Campaign and long-time peace-and-justice
activist, facilitated the huge rally here Jan.
26 attended by over 75,000 people a week
after the separate Coalition drew more than
25,000.
"Politics is always difficult," she said.
Gulf-war opposition is "still very much in
a growing stage, and growth is always dif
ficult and painful. Everybody realized we
could not have two marches again and that
a call for a major mobilization had to be
done jointly."
Attending the planning session were
representatives of groups from California,
Indiana, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago,
Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, and Iowa.
Gay and lesbian support for the reborn
peace movement is growing, New York
City’s Cagan stressed, "A lot of activists,
especially those around the AIDS crisis,
are more and more angry that our
government seems to have endless
amounts of money for war, but not for
fighting AIDS."
The lively meeting underscored Cagan's
feeling that the Campaign has tapped a
deeply-rooted pacifist struggle. "There
was a sense that we have identified a real
base, that there really is an anti-war move
ment in this country, and that we're able to
put people on the streets in January. What
we're faced with now is keeping that base
active and expanding it, identifying how
we reach out to other people."
Cagan praised the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force for its anti-war stand.
"I would hope that people in leadership
positions in different (groups) can under
War Tax
Resistance Workshop
The Atlanta Greens are sponsoring a
War Tax Resistance Workshop that will
introduce participants to questions regard
ing how our federal tax dollars are spent.
Sixty-one percent of our federal tax dollars
pay for past and present wars. “As the
shooting war ends in the Persian Gulf, now
is the time for all people of conscience to
consider our own complicity in this vio
lence,” said Hugh Esco, a member of the
work group planning the workshop. “We
should ask ourselves, 'Can we end sexism,
homophobia, child abuse and relationship
violence when the federal government sets
the example of diverting our tax dollars
from pressing community needs like child
care and housing to fund American mili
tarism abroad?’”
A range of options and their associated
risks for people considering resisting war
taxes will be discussed. The workshop will
be a kickoff of a month long campaign by
the Atlanta Greens to challenge people
throughout the metro Atlanta area to con
sider diverting $1.00 or more from their
war taxes to life affirming programs.
The workshop will be held Saturday,
March 16, from 9a.m. until 4p.m.at the
First Iconium Baptist Church, 524
Moreland /We., just south of 1-20. Lunch
will be served. Registration is $5.
Financial assistance available for those
of little means. For more information or
to preregister, call the Atlanta Greens at
753-3025.
X
stand how this war half a world away
relates to the concerns of their own con
stituents here at home. We think it does,
right? What's happening in the Gulf does
relate to the reality that there's neither
money for AIDS housing, nor education
here in this country, but there's money for
war."