Join the Impact:
BART Killing = Gay Issue
I don't read the Join the Impact too often, which is how I managed to miss the controversy last week over this nascent gay group's call to action over the killing by a BART transit police officer of a young black man, Oscar Grant. Commentator Willow wrote:
Given the recent bruises our community and our movement has taken from the allegations of non-support by fellow communities working for civil rights, this seems like the right time to stand united against hate crime in any and every form ...Stand in solidarity with concerned citizens of Oakland, youth, clergy and elected officials who want Justice for Oscar Grant. Not one more life.
For those outside the Oakland area I strongly encourage you to contact local community leaders to find out if there are vigils in your city being held in Oscar Grant’s name. Go! Spread the word! Get people there! We must stand together against violence and hate crimes. If there is nothing organized in your city, then please make it happen ...
Over at SFist.com, the only site I'm aware of to question Join the Impact's decision to endorse and promote recent demonstrations in Oakland, writer Brock Keeling weighed in on the matter:
In an effort to dilute itself into irrelevance, Join the Impact, a grassroots No On 8 site, has now taken on Our Patron Saint of BART Police Oppression, Oscar Grant ...Just what the nature of Oscar's relationship with the LGBTQ community was is beyond us. If you know, let us in on it.
Anyway, this is exactly what SFist Mattymatt predicted the day after the protest. Fizzle fizzle fizzle. But the one bright side to crazy super-left-wing mouth-foaming like this? It keeps the idiots busy, so they don't bother the grownups as they go about doing serious work to overturn prop 8.
Gosh, Stonewall 2.0 lasted even less time than Web 2.0. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Ouch, it stings to read Keeling's belief that Join the Impact is watering itself down into irrelevance, so soon after it formed with great hopes from thousands of gays, myself included. I'm not sure that Join the Impact is going down the path Keeling thinks it is, but I'd like to see the group stay gay-focused, achieve some tangible results, and when straying from a gay-specific agenda, to clearly and forcefully argue why issues such as the BART killing are of concern to gays.
4 comments:
Wasn't it the "grown ups" who misspent $45,000,000.00 losing the Prop 8 campaign?
When asked how he organized the UFW, Cesar Chavez used to respond, one person at a time.
If you buy the notion that there is not support for LGBT civil rights amongst communities of color, then one way to put a down payment on solidarity for future LGBT civil rights campaigns is to stand in solidarity with people of color against police brutality.
If the cops can get away with murdering a black man, then they have license to kill LGBT as well. When we all stand together against civil rights violations, then we create the basis to stand together for civil rights expansions.
-marc
The killing of Oscar Grant is a matter of concern to ALL citizens regardless of race or sexual orientation.
Wasn't it Franklin who said "Either we hang together, or we hang separately?"
-marc
Having read the essay, I think he makes a clear, if un-detailed statement why the killing of Oscar Grant is relevant to GLBTQ people - if Oscar died because of his race, and not through a horrible mistake on the part of the cop.
With that in mind, there is some reasonable likelihood that excessive force was involved as an expression of encultured assumptions about black men, and GLBTQ people routinely experience acts of oppression as expressions of encultured assumptions about gays and lesbians. Cops have used excessive force on us, we can and should stand in solidarity with others when cops use excessive force on them.
Prejudice against a group of people intrinsically nurtures prejudice against any group of people, and therefore GLBTQ people can and should voice condemnation of racism, and anti-semitism, sexism, and so on.
However, we have been vocal in this manner for decades, hoping it would generate support for us from other minorities, with little in return. Our condemnation of other prejudices gives us the right, the moral high ground, from which to demand support from others who are discriminated against.
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