Wow -- this memo thing is really a crazy time drain. I am finally sitting down to write it, but this blog was calling me. I've had such an exciting week. I went to panel last night entitled Is Gay Really the New Black? We had had a huge debate raging on the BLSA mail list all day about the title. Personally, I found it mega offensive. To conflate the two movements together trivializes the efforts of those in the Civil Rights Movement. As Dan Savage said (I'll get back to him in a minute) the gay marriage movement is a small c, small r civil rights movement.

Why am I making this distinction? Well slavery, lynching, being 3/4 ths of a person, something like that.

Any how, I have a memo to write. I was very happy to attend a talk in which the objective was to talk about people of color, gay people and gay people of color (who sometimes get lost in the mix/intersection). Lots of good panelists. I took some notes and I will paste them here. It's just a record of some of the issues that were touched on. That's all that Ihave time for.

Oh, and that I hope Prop 8 will be a catalyst for change in the LGBTQ community as well as in communities of color. I think that there are lots of LGBTQ people of color who are still looking for ways to get necessities like food, health care, drug treatment, and shelter -- the same issuse facing many communities of color. I we didn't manage to come together on the marriage issue, too bad, but I see lots of other areas that we can address together for the benefit of us all.

Jennifer Pizer – lambda
Kim Pearson –UCLA
Melissa Murray – UCBerkeley recent cal review article on gay marriage
Cleo Manago
Ryan Dunn- UCLA Outlaw leadership
Javier Angelo
Saul Sarabia and Russell Robinson


What do the exit polls really mean? What is the true percentage of voters who responded to the polls?


What really cost no on 8 the election?
• Other demographic groups – older voters, protestants, catholics

Why do we accept homophobia in other groups but call out Blacks as portraying gays
- 50% white vote is ok as homophobia base line, since blacks were above that they are to blame?
- Must revisit this flawed equation

What does black as the new gay mean for people who are in the intersection of black and gay?
• It assumes that gay does not equal black?



Unconscious racism in gay community -- things like “we let you have a black president”
 Manago – I voted, I don’t remember you letting me have anything
 Black president releasing racist tensions in queer and rest of world

Black people are monolithic

What has actually been done in communities of color?
Was there outreach, was it effective?
• It’s a movement that just happens to have a campaign
• Movement has not been incorporating people of color in main infrastructure
• Exclusion by mostly white leaders
• When latinos have approached LGBT community on issues affecting them (education, immigration) they hear that “It’s not our priority”
• No cross collaboration
• Where is this expectation that blacks and latinos will support gay rights coming from?


Hesitation to use words discrimination and civil rights in beginning of movement
• Didn’t want to offend black people
• Hesitant to use sexual orientation aspect and label it as discrimination when talking about prop 8

LAMBDA legal – campaign steering committee
• Difference b/c trying to reach voters in the middle and not necessarily groups of color
• Can’t change hearts and mind with a 20 second tv spot


Yes on 8 ads
• Fed parental fear that state will impose values on children
• Tapped into thread of anxiety that is seen in family law al the time


Betrayal
• Assumption that there has been solidarity and now there is discord
• Has such solidarity actually existed between black and gay (again erasing black gay people)
• R. Dunn – how is gay identity seen as white?
o Dan Savage --- homophobic blacks bigger problem than racist white gays
o The gay identity is a white identity
o Some of those people are racist
o Is there any surprise the people of color are not behind the movement?

West Hollywood is more white than Beverly hills (86% white, LA county 48% white)

White gay identity – examples
• Circuit parties – influenced queer as folk
• Gay cruises – white white white
• Affluence as gayness – doesn't resonate with lots of black and brown people
• Gay websites – connexion white – tracks most popular profiles white
• HRC – supported al D’amato despite his racist remarks
• Racial preferences on dating websites
• Discrimination in the castro
• Shirley Q Liquor – played by Chuck Nip gay white man – performs in blackface as a woman-- Performing at circuit parties Oh my fucking word
• Dan Savage, which problem is bigger???


Manago –There are blacks who resent racism in gay community and don’t even want to hear from them
 Attempts to compare homophobia with racism from white gay community with no discussion
 Same with gay is the new Black
 Protesting against prop 8 but not protesting against prop white
 Blacks often discouraged from affirming ourselves culturally
 Same gender loving not gay b/c there is racism in that framework and is not just accepting a label
 Critics of gay marriage say it is mimicking the oppressor


Is marriage the last frontier? Maybe for affluent, white gays

Blacks and mormons demonized by marriage
• Mormon polygamists are not the same ones as the ones with the money
• Polygamists no longer recognized as part of the church
• Black history of marriage – used after civil war to discipline and control former slaves
• Has been used to push people in traditional ways of being a family


LGBT community trying to validate family diversity – neither govnt nor majority should tell people how to structure families

Language of marriage connotes respect for family -- sought by those who have been denied respect

Many different groups filing lawsuits against prop 8 – those against sex or race discrimination , religious groups


Language – often white by default
Coalitions are temporary b/c there are parallel universes – one that cares about the issue and that includes racism because of language

Language can cause a lack of solidarity

What about co-opting the Civil Rights movement?
 Campaign discouraged using civil rights movements words
 Samuel L. Jackson ad -- toward end of campaign
 Hard to maintain clear distinction between constitutional principle and social history -- Pizer
 Trouble of boiling down an entire movement to one case, soundbite, people fail to realize the magnitude of social organizing that went into the changes
 Trivializes black history/struggle
 Black Civil Rights movements began in churches!


Why aren’t we upset about the 50% of white people who voted yes?

Is it ok because it is the norm? That’s what we accept

Is the black community more homophobic than other communities?
Few hate crimes against gays by black people, mostly by white people
 Issues in black communities about manhood and masculinity and some of that anxiety looks like homophobia

Racial battle fatigue for gay people of color
Cannot forget that same sex marriage mvt is a white middle class movement
UCLA black student told not longer welcome in west Hollywood

White lesbian – look at how intense racist backlash has been
 white racism has had a devastating impact on it’s passage, leaving LGBT of color to swamped to respond
 What about gender politics of this movement?



Too many assumptions made in this campaign -- Angelo
 heard that Blacks and latinos cannot be moved
 state of Mexico was one of the first in the world to recognize gay marriage
 so why were latinos considered nonmoveable?
 People of color must work on own leadership
 Latinos had to open own east la office to fight 8
 Must find opportunities to merge latino and gay agendas
 Recognition that straight allies must build bridges as well


Sarabia – it’s how we think about every issue
 the same govt that denies a gay marriage license is denying immigrant licenses – build coalitions
 same people who walked out after 187 know how to mobilize are young and can build bridges with