Archive for July, 2009

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” — Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

When MLK wrote those words, he was talking to white clergy who had repeatedly told him to take a chill pill. To hold up, wait a minute, don’t go there because they weren’t with it. Jesus teaches us to be patient, they told him. And MLK called them on their crap. He told them Blacks had waited long enough. He told them why we couldn’t wait anymore: because, as he quotes late UK Prime Minister William Gladstone, “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

46 years later, and we have a Black president. President Obama has Arrived. On the coat tails of the people who sat down at lunch counters and marched in the streets and walked during bus boycotts. And also on the coat tails of people who risked their lives “illegally” crossing borders. And others who fought in the streets, most visibly beginning 40 years ago at the Stonewall Bar in New York City, for the right to love.

President Obama, the product of an interracial marriage that was illegal in some states at the time of his birth, should be particularly sensitive to this matter. Without laws on their side, his parents might never have produced the first Black President of the United States of America. Thankfully, MLK and millions of others said, “We can’t wait!” And they didn’t. They marched on until victory was won.

Moreover, in 2008, Senator Barack Obama became President-elect because a coalition of Blacks, whites, Latinos, Hispanics, East and South Asians and yes, gays of all of those shades, came out of the woodwork for him. President Obama, gays stood up for you. And in exchange, you promised to stand up for us.

So, I have to know. Why did your Department of Justice, the national civil rights enforcers, file a brief in in the case Smelt v. United States defending the extraordinarily homophobic Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)? As the President of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solmonese wrote to President Obama:

DOMA is not “neutral” to a federal employee serving in your administration who is denied equal compensation because she cannot cover her same-sex spouse in her health plan. When a woman must choose between her job and caring for her spouse because they are not covered by the FMLA, DOMA is not “neutral.” DOMA is not a “neutral” policy to the thousands of bi-national same-sex couples who have to choose between family and country because they are considered strangers under our immigration laws. It is not a “neutral” policy toward the minor child of a same-sex couple, who is denied thousands of dollars of surviving mother’s or father’s benefits because his parents are not “spouses” under Social Security law.

Exclusion is not neutrality.

A coalition of queer rights groups released a statement containing the following request:

When President Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he believed that DOMA should be repealed. We ask him to live up to his emphatic campaign promises, to stop making false and damaging legal arguments, and immediately to introduce a bill to repeal DOMA and ensure that every married couple in America has the same access to federal protections.

But in the end, what I write here is not for the President. He will not be reading this. This note is for the rest of us, on the ground. And more specifically, for the activists who think that it is okay to let this one slide. For the people who come up with excuses for why the need for equality for gays isn’t URGENT. For why we should wait. For why you don’t have to bother reading the brief or learning anything about it.

To the grassroots activists who think it’s okay to let queers sit in the back of the bus: Your hypocrisy is shocking. It is shocking for your queer children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, parents, and friends. You are the same people who go out and work daily for racial justice. I must ask you, why do Black gays deserve a quieter defense than straight Blacks? Do you also believe that Black women should wait while white women get their rights? I believe Sojourner Truth had a few words for you, and they were, “Ain’t I a woman?”

So, let me ask you, aren’t we human too?

As long as you stay quiet, President Barack Obama doesn’t have to worry that his homophobic Department of Justice is threatening the broad coalition that raised him up. Indeed, the divisions you promote by leaving us behind are exactly what he needs to continue to use his office to protect institutionalized hatred.

People of color in America may have waited centuries for the right to vote. Queer people of color (and queer whites) have waited millennia for the right to participate in families just like their straight brethren.

And let me respond to those who think the gay marriage movement is simply a middle class movement seeking privilege: it is working class queers who have the most to gain. The people who need to pool resources the most. The people who need to be able to inherit Social Security benefits. The people who can’t hire fancy lawyers to help them with partner adoptions or to help them gain access to their hospitalized loved one during critical final moments. It is working class queers who can’t afford to simply move to a state or country where their rights are respected.

To the movement that taught me the importance of solidarity, I beg you to give solidarity substantive meaning: show us the same solidarity you have demanded from others.

A tiny (I hope) note about how much work it is to be a member of a minority group. Especially if it’s a group that it is popular to bash somehow. Or whatever. If I have to explain what that means, then this whole note is going to be lost on you.

We have to do a lot of fucking work. Because yes, while I want to be empathetic and sympathetic to the feelings of the person who has just decided to slug their douche baggery at me, I’m also not a fucking genius. This means that I don’t have a properly prepared Canadian-polite statement for you that simultaneously tells you to check yourself but does in a way where you don’t feel stung by the fact that you FUCKED UP.

And everyone who expects us to be polite EVERY FUCKING TIME: GET A FUCKING GRIP. Let me see you react perfectly every time someone unexpectedly decides to trash the place where you grew up or the community you come from. Let me see you get bombarded on a regular basis with feedback from society, from the media, from your professors, from your colleagues, from your friends that something is wrong with some part of your identity, and then you can get back to me about how dealing with these things is not a big deal. And how we should all just stay calm and you know, say the right thing.

Maybe I’m not the one who should worry about saying the right thing in these situations. It’s the people around me that I have to react to. I’m tired of the table being turned, like these situations are our responsibility. It’s not my responsibility to help the racist feel better about being racist or to help my friends feel better about the classism and racism that they allow to go unchallenged.

On a vaguely related note: fuck nationalism. Nationalism causes wars.