Florynce Kennedy, lawyer, activist, and political maverick, visited Portland recently to address a feminist conference, and to teach a two-week course inThe Politics of Oppressionat Portland State University. The following remarks were excerpted from a tape-transcript of a conversation with her one evening. I’m best known as a feminist because the first work I did nationally that came to a lot of people’s attention was for the feminist movement. But I would call myself a general practitioner rather than a specialist. Most people in politics specialize, like in homosexual rights because they’re homosexual. Naturally, I would be more interested in racism because I’m black, and feminism because I’m a woman. But if a new disease developed, I would be interested in it. Recently I’ve been traveling to nuclear rallies and more black studies groups. I went to Black Power conferences in the past, but because of media whiteout it was rarely given national attention. I’m older so I’ve been into more things. And I didn’t get involved only because of things that happened to me personally. I think there are several kinds of people who get involved in these kinds of things. One is the kind who is uncomfortable with the world—personally uncomfortable. They get involved usually on the basis of their personal discomfiture. At this point, I’m not personally discomforted. In fact, I would tend to avoid getting involved where I’m personally discomforted, if possible. I fight with my landlord only when I’m outraged by something he does. But I do not, as a matter of course, get involved in tenant affairs because my landlord is giving me a problem. I think that splinters people too much. I prefer to move from one area to another, depending on what seems to be the hottest and the most appropriate. As a person who opposed the war in Vietnam, I oppose nuclear proliferation and the Trident missile submarine, which is nuclear powered, I believe. The cost of nuclear proliferation has always been one unfavorable aspect. And then anything that causes women to give birth to 12-toed babies is something you couldn’t very well overlook. I naturally believe that there should be consumer action against the oil companies, on grounds of violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and other trade regulations. This is clearly evidence of runaway corporate anarchy. The tendency is to try to make it look like the OPEC countries are responsible. But the oil companies, the Seven Sisters—Exxon, Mobil, Gulf, Texaco, Royal Dutch, Shell, and Standard of Ohio—are far more responsible and corrupt and greedy. They thought they could steal oil from foreign governments, but the governments are refusing to let them do that. Chase Manhattan and other banks lent millions of dollars to the oil companies, and perhaps the Shah, to hold and control oil. When the Shah lost power, they’re sitting, waiting for their money back. Khomeini is not necessarily going to even recognize the Shah’s debts. So they’re trying to get their money back out of us. Third Party Politics I’m pretty interested in the Freedom Democratic Party. I think that’s pretty important. A lot of people are nervous to work outside the so-called two parties. I like a statement that Dr. George Wald made recently when asked if he thought we -weeded a third party. He said, "I think we could use a second party.” The Freedom Democratic Party is more a caucus within the party. It started with the 1964 challenge to the Mississippi delegation by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party led by Fannie Lou Hamer, who has since died. The idea of the people who are working on the Freedom Democratic Party project is to revive Fannie Lou Hamer in terms of gathering black votes to pressure for issues more than to pressure for candidates, although there may come a time when we would conceivably back somebody like Dick Gregory. In other words, the idea is to garner votes, garner support, and garner voter registration projects within the black community and the gay community. Niggerization of Homosexuals The Harvey Milk situation, I think, is clearest evidence of the niggerization of the homosexual community. It is clear evidence that the community is' held in the lowest possible regard. I mean, there is no lower regard than anyone can be held in than to be killed. If a board of supervisors’ member and a mayor are killed and you give the person who kills them a sevenyear sentence, that’s just like saying they’ve got a hunting license. So that requires coalition. The gay issue is no longer an issue of sexual preference, as 1 see it. Because niggerization is political murder, and the killing of Harvey Milk was a political murder. But the main reason a coalition with the gay community is important is because they are the only ones that seem to have sufficient pride to be enraged and to make an appropriate response to niggerization. Their expression of indignant rage was something that deserves our respect. They may not have a socialist perspective. but 1 haven’t seen any socialists break windows on appropriate occasions lately. 1 happen to think violence is most appropriate and most necessary in a country which devotes as much of its gross national product and national budget to violence. One part of the budget a city almost never cuts is the police budget. I mean violence is what keeps the whole establishment going. One difference between me and a lot of people is that I don’t expect people to do what I do. I don’t expect people to approve of what I do. I don’t wait until everybody decides that this is the thing to do. I rarely quarrel with people over priorities. Because one thing about coalition, as I view it, you accept people where they are, and you proceed from that acceptance to get whatever you want done. 1don’t try to persuade anybody that I’m right nor that they’re wrong. I'm not inclined to tell people how they should express themselves. But I am prepared to show admiration for those people who do what I think ought to be done. So my admiration for the homosexual would not necessarily be shared by everybody. In Defense of Ray I represented Jerry Ray, James Earl Ray’s brother, in front of the subcommittee of the House inquiring into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I was only there one time. They were attempting to cover up the conspiracy in the Martin Luther King case. They were accusing Jerry Ray of having robbed a bank, along with his brother James, in order to account for the money that the FBI or CIA or police or Ku Klux Klan or whoever really was in on it had given him. It was obvious. You know, smalltime criminals do not have their nose fixed and get passports and go to' London. That’s strictly the CIA’s modus operandi. They had decided to try to tie the brothers into a bank robbery. The bank had already indicated earlier this year that they knew there was no involvement by the brothers because they had film of the robbery. But the subcommittee was going to use that bank robbery story as a cover-up even though they knew that the brothers were not guilty. So we went down there and pointed out that the bank had already indicated they weren’t guilty and that was not the way they would be able to cover up the money. Even though these people all were racists, they just didn’t happen to have killed the guy. At least, if James Earl Ray killed King, he did not do it alone. And Jerry did not collaborate on a bank robbery to get him the money for a nose job. Even if he had been able to get his nose fixed, he couldn’t have gotten a passport unless he had certain help from the government because he got it almost instantly. The real point of it was not to permit them to cover up the story. It was very confusing for a lot of people because they couldn’t see me representing this redneck murderer. But I don’t expect to be popularly supported. I just do what I think ought to be done. And I hope that most people don’t totally reject it. For example, I would like to have seen the Oglala Sioux take the money that they were offered for their land. In that sense, 1 would be against the general feeling. I’d like to see them take the money and buy guns and then take the land. But it’s highly unlikely that they would do that. Pathology of the Oppressed It’s the pathology of oppressed people not to be angry enough to fight their oppressors. The average kid with parents who abuse him doesn’t usually grow up and kill them. The average woman whose husband beats her does not usually kill him. It is not in the nature of the oppressed mentality to respond appropriately to oppression. But I never would have predicted that the Iranians would have blasted forth the way they did. Of course, they got rid of the Shah for Khomeini. But you can’t predict when people's cups will be full enough. That's why it's worthwhile to push. Because the grass is very dry and you just keep dropping sparks, hoping it might catch on. 9
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