Queer social media apps
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Mama Cass tribute
ARTS
Castro flag hearing
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'Disco' documentary
The
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Vol. 54 • No. 30 • July 25-31, 2024
Harris clears field for presidential bid
Gooch
A huge crowd enjoyed last year’s Up Your Alley street fair.
Sunscreen advised for Up Your Alley fair
Then-U.S. senator Kamala Harris kicked off her 2020 presidential race in downtown Oakland in January 2019.
by John Ferrannini
T
he Up Your Alley Street Fair is returning to San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood Sunday, July 28. The fair that caters to the leather and kink communities is run by the Folsom Street nonprofit, which also produces the much larger Folsom Street Fair slated for September 29 this year. Folsom Street Executive Director Angel Adeyoha, who is queer and nonbinary, said this year’s goal is to “build a safe and beautifully-raucous container so people can kick off their leather season with us.” Up Your Alley will be from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., bound between Howard Street on the north, Harrison Street on the south, Ninth Street on the west and 11th Street on the east. There have been a few changes from prior years, Adeyoha said. “Our clothing stuff [coat check] on 10th [Street] is moving to Dore [Alley], below Powerhouse, to give them a little more breathing room and safety,” Adeyoha said. “Also the bicycle parking has moved to the top of Dore.” The fair originally started on Ringold Street in 1985 and moved to being centered at Dore in 1987, which had led to the small alleyway being used as the event’s colloquial nickname by kinksters and BDSM enthusiasts the world over. Three bars will be serving alcohol outside during the event – Powerhouse, the Eagle and the Foundry. Allowing the local businesses to make the alcohol profits is part of the event’s neighborhood focus. “We changed our model in 2021 to do a hybrid event permit with ABC [the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control] so we could hold some of the larger pieces like security, sobering, and medical, and the bars can serve under a catering license to give them a crucial boost that, especially post-COVID, has been the thing that has kept their doors open,” they said. Adeyoha suggested people wear sunscreen. The forecast shows a partly sunny day. “It’s probably going to be pretty warm – make sure you hydrate. If you didn’t put on sunscreen, a cute member of the Full Queer wrestling team or Fog Rugby can apply it,” Adeyoha said, referring to the San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club. Robert Goldfarb, a gay man who is executive director of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, will be staffing a booth at the fair. Last week, See page 9 >>
by Cynthia Laird
W
ithin hours of President Joe Biden announcing he was bowing out of the 2024 race and backing Vice President Kamala Harris, the floodgates opened as Democratic officials across the country lined up to endorse her. Harris raised more than $81 million within 24 hours after Biden’s exit from the race.
Biden, who’s in isolation at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, was unable to attend a White House event honoring the 2023-24 NCAA championship teams Monday. Harris appeared instead and, in her first remarks since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her, praised his “unmatched legacy.” “In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who served two terms in office,” Harris said.
Later, Harris visited the former Biden-Harris campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. Signs reading “Harris for President” had replaced most of the “Biden-Harris” signs, according to a pool reporter. The staff have Harris a boisterous reception and also heard from Biden, who phoned in with a message of support for the staff and Harris. See page 8 >> Jane Philomen Cleland
Palestinians seek accountability, statehood by John Ferrannini
reporters on the press trip, “Wartime in Israel,” with its counterpart, the Europe Israel Press Association, which itself brought 22 journalists from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Neither organization is funded by the Israeli government, nor was there any preapproval of interview questions, article topics, or requests to view articles before publication.
W
hen asked what he remembers about growing up in Gaza City, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib said that “there was so much beauty amid the death and destruction.” “It was an incredibly complex place in terms of ideology, political violence, the rise of Hamas, but there was hope with the withdrawal of Israeli settlements,” Alkhatib, 34, told the Bay Area Reporter in a phone interview. “There were sprawling communities, parks and spaces. ... There were so many fond memories and so many awful memories.” After an Israeli bombing led to deafness in his left ear when he was 11 years old – an attack in which two of his friends were killed – Alkhatib came to the U.S., which he eventually made his home. If that wasn’t enough, just about a week after the onset of fighting of the Israel-Hamas war last year, half his family was killed in an Israeli airstrike, he said. “I struggle with the trauma of losing family members in this fucking war, yet this is bigger than myself and my family,” he said. “I want to use the trauma of my family members being killed in this war to break away from the cycle of violence, rinse, and repeat.” Alkhatib was one of several Palestinians the B.A.R. spoke with after a recent press trip to Israel to gauge their thoughts on the war and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All agreed that they want
Gaza war ‘inhumane,’ human rights lawyer says
Courtesy Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib grew up in Gaza City.
to see an independent future for their people – and accountability for the Israeli government. The June 23-27 trip in which the B.A.R. participated was paid for by the American Middle East Press Association, a nonprofit that states it seeks to serve as “a trusted resource for journalists looking for experts and spokespeople on the current conflict and beyond.” AMEPA brought two American
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Rauda Morcos, a lesbian Palestinian citizen of Israel, was one of the founders of Aswat, a group for Palestinian lesbians. She’s now a human rights lawyer. “Since this war started our work has been, of course, increased due to the increased violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank and also inside Israel,” she said in a Signal interview. Morcos added violence in the West Bank had been escalating before October 7. Indeed, the United Nations reported that over 500 people had been killed in the West Bank since October 7 by Israeli security forces and settlers. In February, President Joe Biden imposed sanctions on “persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank.” See page 6 >>