Written by:
Gina DeVries
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this Issue of Curve:
12.1
Bunny G., 19, founded the Hampshire College chapter of Radical Cheerleaders, the Hampshire Hep Cats. She lives in Amherst, Mass.
What is Radical Cheerleaders? How did the group get started?
Radical Cheerleading is performance art plus activism — it’s a direct-action kick in the ass. We like to take the idea of the cheerleader, which is a very gender-specific construction with all kinds of associations, and turn it on its head. We are specifically radical feminists cheering for a variety of causes, and we’re open to all genders. We do direct action by cheering at rallies and protests. … Radical Cheerleaders was started by two girls named Aimee and Cara in 1996. … Radical cheerleading gets more attention than a lot of other activism, and it has a sense of humor about itself. A year ago, I heard about the group from a friend of mine. I decided to start one at Hampshire because there’s a lot of activism here, but people also get frustrated with traditional approaches to activism.
How is this different from other kinds of activism?
It’s important to remember that Radical Cheerleaders are activists, not just performance artists or people who are being silly. We are inherently a radical group and we support radical leftist causes. For some people this is an introduction to activism, and a lot of us have been activists before Radical Cheerleading, too. Even if we stop being Radical Cheerleaders, we’re still activists.
How do you write the cheers?
Each squad doesn’t write all its own cheers all the time. There’s a cheer book that was written by Aimee and Cara that’s full of a lot of awesome cheers. When the Hampshire squad does write its own cheers, it’s usually for a specific event, like a peace rally or pro-choice demonstration or anti-racism march. Three or four people will get together and come up with ideas, and we’ll try to write something funny that still gets the message across.
Since the war has started, many radical left-wing activists are afraid of being labeled “terrorist sympathizers” because they don’t support the war. How do you feel the war has affected activists in this country?
The mainstream media says that 90 percent of the American people support the war, but I just don’t think that’s true. … We went to a rally in Boston and there were 500 people there chanting for peace and justice. … Recently we were cheering at a rally in Amherst, and a guy in a car pulled up and started yelling at us, “What would you do? Five thousand innocent people died! What would you do?” It’s really hard to respond to something like that, but I asked him: “Why do more people have to die?”
For more info, see http://bounce.to/radicalcheers
— Gina DeVries
baby dyke-in-residence, age 17
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