On February 14th (two days before the Sweet Home Ala-BENT party), someone pointed out to us that our country theme for this month’s BENT was problematic (their friendster comment is attached below). We interpreted this as an expression of concern that this theme celebrates a culture that gains and has gained privilege through historical and present day oppressions of first nations peoples. Having less than 2 days to absorb and respond to this information we decided that posting this message on the internet and at the party itself in order to draw attention to the issue and open up dialogue about it was the best option for us. We are doing this because the BENT collective is committed to providing as safe a space as we possibly can, and doing that involves being constructively critical about ourselves and caring about the people who come to our parties.

Our critics are right. European settlers of the west committed acts of genocide. In present-day country’n’western culture there is ample amounts of racism, sexism and homophobia. In all honesty, these facts didn’t occur to us when we chose a country theme. We were thinking of banjos, square-dancing and line-dancing. We were thinking of Bluegrass music, we were thinking Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash. We were thinking of EastVan kids in gingham shirts. Just because we had the privilege of having positive cultural associations with this theme doesn’t excuse our ignorance of the fact that others do not. We should have taken more time to consider the wider, historical picture. We understand now that our lack of awareness is part of the problem and we thank our critics for giving us the opportunity to learn from this. We sincerely apologize if our mistake has caused anyone who wanted to come out to the party to feel unsafe or upset. We hope that this acknowledgement of our ignorance will act as a catalyst for discussion during the party and afterward. We will do our best to be more careful about our thematics in the future.

We put this party together with good intentions and we hope that you all will come to this party with the same good intentions. We invite you to party creatively and critically. Let this party be about survival, resistance and understanding. Let this party be a chance for our community to have fun together and celebrate each other, not necessarily our (perhaps badly chosen) theme. Let this party be about dancing.

We have posted this to our blog and we welcome your feedback and responses through the embedded comment feature (that way the dialogue will be open and public). Otherwise please direct feedback directly to a BENT collective member at the party.

Thanks for your time,
The BENT collective.



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friendster testimonial
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Original comment posted by: Louis esme | Tuesday, February 14, 2006

In honour of Bent's Cowboy Themed Party, I challenge all the PROUD, GAY, SASSY NDNs to come out with our Wagon-Burning torches this thursday and show these settlers what real Flamin' is, redskin style!

And to all you cowboys who think you could mosey your boot-lickin ways past the historical big picture, better keep your fire retardant handy. HO!