Twice today I’ve gotten emails about the editorial posted on Proud Parenting, and I’ve seen it posted in one other place. It’s something of a wake-up call to gay & lesbian organizations, and says a lot of things that need saying.
I don’t ever want to see a white gay man stand before a camera again and equate his struggle to the Black civil rights movement. It doesn’t help the thousands of Black gays who are also trying to message to the African-American community around this issue and only further divides our community with Blacks seeing gay as a white issue. When you talk about messaging to communities of color, in particular the Black community, that message would be better received coming from an African-American same- gender loving person to the Black community.
As for organizations, I think the writer of the editorial is right, but I don’t think the folks at the top of the organizations in question “get it” yet.
The executive leaders of our LGBT organizations need to take a closer look at the diversity within their own organizations for 2005. It’s not enough to have programs headed by people of color for people of color. People of color need to be on the communications team and the development team as well. The reason that most gay organizations can’t penetrate the Black press is because you don’t have a Black person on your communications team pitching the Black press. Why don’t African-Americans donate to your organization? Well, part of the reason is that you don’t have African-Americans on your development team. The other reason is that Blacks don’t typically feel that these national gay organizations have their community’s best interest at heart. This all goes to say that there is work that needs to be done.
The writer has, as I have, worked for one of the largest, most well-funded gay & lesbian organizations in the country, so I think she probaby knows whereof she speaks on this one.
On the civil rights issue, I’ve finished two books—Evan Wolfson’s Why Marriage Matters and Jonathan Rauch’s Gay Marriage: Why it’s Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America—and both of the writers touch on the issue of civil rights, taking great pains not to comapre the situation of gay & lesbian Americans with that of African Americans, acknowledging the differences in history, etc. I think it’s a bit of a sticky wicket. On the one hand it seems like an comparison that shouldn’t need to be made. The case for same sex marriage ought to be able to stand on it’s own, on principle. On the other hand, it’s an argument that has to be made in an appropriate way because, as the author points out, African American voters played a significant role this year on gay & lesbian issues. It’s hard to deny that some outreach and dialogue needs to take place with African American communities, when you look at the degree of success the Republican religious right has had in using gay & lesbian issues as a wedge to get their message out to those communities. (As I recall, one reverend said that it didn’t matter to him if the Klan that was riding against gay marriage, he’d ride with them.)
America’s gay leadership is going to have to develop a whole new approach to addressing marriage equality. What I learned as well as many other Black same-gender loving persons is that we cannot even begin to address marriage equality until we first address Black sexuality and homophobia. I think a lot of Black gays jumped aboard the marriage train because our voices were excluded from the conversation in the beginning, Black pastors were being used by right wing conservatives to message to the Black community and because we do want the right to marry. In the end, a couple of things happened in 2004. First, Black gays were represented more in the media this year, including Black media than ever before in history. What that means is that we were visible in our own community which is a huge accomplishment.
I’m not sure, really, how successful the National Black Justice Coalition was in 2004 as far as influencing African American voters, but it was a start. It marked the first time since the demise of the National Black Lesbian & Gay Leadership Forum that there’s been a national black gay & lesbian media persence or organization of any sort. That alone is an accomplishment, but the work of talking to African Americans about same sex marriage is going to be long and hard if my experience and those of others is any indication. Still, it’s clearly work that’s going to have to be done.
And it’s already underway. I was thinking today about my own family and how things have changed with them over the years. I’m out to them, they’ve met my partner and our son. My brother and sister are very supportive, but my parents are “old school.” It’s a difficult thing for them to deal with, and sometimes I forget that. (Only today I realized how my parents must feel, sitting with the belief that they “will not see me in heaven” because I’m gay, partnered, and unrepentant. That’s something I just don’t know how to fix for them.) My parents send cards and gifts to our son. They tell me to “say hello” to my partner when I talk to them on the phone. Steps, however small, are being taken, and the lines of communication remain open.
And it’s trickling down to the younger generation. My sister’s oldest children are 8 and 10 years old. To date, I don’t know what my sister has told them about my relationship, but I’ve left it to her to explain to them as she sees fit. However, my 10 year old niece has begun to put two and two together since our last visit down south. When I called over the holiday and spoke with the entire family she told me to “say hello to Parker and ‘your friend.’” Granted it wasn’t exactly a revelation, but it showed that she was thinking about it, and that she was willing to talk about it even if she didn’t quite have the right language yet. What’s more, she and my nephew have now seen what two men married to each other in all but the legal sense, and raising a son, looks like. They know it’s possible, and that the sky doesn’t fall. It’s part of their reality.
Another small step, I guess. And maybe small steps eventually lead to the same destination as big steps. It’s just a longer journey.
So do we take small steps and get there eventually, bringing everyone else along with us? Or do we take big steps, get there sooner, and wait for everyone else to catch up? Can we?
I’m a big believer in the “small steps” methods. 50 years ago, post-war or so, it was improbable to think of mothers working outside the home and being treated as equals, or at least a lot closer to it. It’s not the Equal Rights Amendment and the Gloria Steinem set that won this, I argue, it’s a societal change that happened one family at a time. Steinem et al. may have been the trailblazers, but it took millions of women to make the change.
I hesitate to make the comparison, but what do you see as the differences between the struggles of African Americans and Asian Americans when it comes to gaining equality? It can be argued that the Asian Americans have taken “smaller steps”, as you put it, and with different results.
I’d have to be honest, and say I’m torn. I undersatnd the benefits of “small steps.” At the same time, I realize that a slower approach means that our families go with out needed rights and protections longer. Essentially, people will have to suffer injustice without remedy or recourse for longer than they otherwise might. We can complain about it, but other than that we’ll keep waiting. I’ve been thinking about this alot as I’ve been reading, and I’ll have more to post on it later, once I get through a couple more books and have more time to think.
On the Asian American vs. African American style of progress, I’d say the difference is that for the msot part Asian Americans have not sought legislative or judicial remedies to problems with discrimination and other injustice, but have largely focsed on self improvement and achievment. I’d say African Americans have done both to some degree.
It’s hard to compare the two because it also means deciding whether the progress that African Americans have made because of legislative and judicial action has been worth the cost. Sure, American society might have desegregated eventually, without a court decision, but how long would it have taken? How much longer would blacks have had to deal with substandard educational opportunities? How many missed opportunities might there have been? Sure, Americans might have eventually allowed blacks to vote, but how much longer would African Americans have waited for the right to participate in a government that affects their future.
On a more personal level, I have to wonder whether I’d be where I am today or have the life I have today if progress had been slower.
Without dishonoring good fortune and hard work by the Asian American community, Dunner, I would argue that there’s a wide variation in outcomes within the group. I would look to the data in this month’s U.S. Census report “We the People: Asians in the United States,” as mentioned in Teresa Watanabe and Sally Wride’s Los Angeles Times article “Stark Contrasts Found Among Asian Americans”