(Props to Audre Lorde for the title)
Alternatively titled "Comparing" black and gay civil rights struggles?
There's been some discussion here, most heatedly in Kos' post regarding recent developments in the same-sex marriage battles, about gay claims to the civil rights mantle. I know these ideas are common to a vast majority of people here, but I thought I'd also try to hash out some of the issues involved. I'm particularly interested in the arguments over "comparing" gay rights movements to the struggle for black liberation in the 1940s-60s.
Several people here, and elsewhere, have complained about gay folks trying to appropriate the mantle of civil rights struggles. For instance, in an article in this
Sunday's New York Times we find this:
"There has always been this undercurrent, from the women's movement through other movements, that the history of black people and their struggle was being opportunistically appropriated by an assortment of groups when it was convenient," said the Rev. Gene Rivers, president of the National Ten-Point Leadership Foundation, a church-based violence-prevention program. "This movement is particularly offensive because it hits at the Book, the Bible, and the painful history of black people all at once."
(Unfortunately, Rivers and the Black Ministerial Alliance are opposing same-sex marriage here in Boston.)
There are a couple of problematic issues worth addressing here.
Drawing parallels is not saying things are the same
Discrimination and oppression take different forms depending upon the group being targeted. The racial terrorism faced by African Americans is not the same as the oppression of gay folks. However, that does not mean there are no parallels. For instance, advocates for marriage equality have often pointed to the utility of Loving v. Virginia in arguing for granting civil marriage to same-sex couples. There are very similar processes at work. In both instances, people were/are restricted from marrying the person of their choice because of certain characteristics. In Loving, it was race; in the contemporary debates, it's sex. In both instances, supporters of the restriction argued that the distinction was necessary and based in nature. We cannot forget that anti-miscegination advocates understood race to be fundamental--the different races were different kinds of people--in the same ways that advocates of gender-exclusive marriage argue that sex is fundamental. Both race and gender, however, are social categories. Marriage as a gendered institution has been used to keep women out of the public realm. These "traditional" understandings make gender roles fundamental to the institution. They neglect that these roles are constructed by societies--men are equally capable of doing domestic work and women are equally capable of engaging in wage labor as the bread winner. Essentialized gender roles are socially created. As was racial difference. To say these things is not to say they are the same. It is to draw parallels.
No one group has exclusive claim to civil rights or the language thereof
Some here have gotten fussy over the SJC's invokation of "separate but equal" in saying that Civil Unions would not be adequate. Well, it's an apt parallel. Must we come up with different language to describe the situtation? How about "Distinct and inequitable" instead of "separate and unequal"? The language surrounding such struggles does not belong to any one group. The principles set forth in Brown v. Board of Education are rightly seen as universal--the state should not treat its citizens differently, it should not segregate them into different institutions. The same principle applies.
Civil rights are those rights shared by all citizens. The black freedom struggle was aimed at ensuring that such rights were/are not denied to people on the basis of race. The LGBT liberation movement is aimed at making sure queer folks are not denied such rights. Both movements are civil rights movements. The marriage struggle is one chapter in the struggle for gay equality, just as school desegregation was but one chapter in the struggle for black equality. Both movements were/are struggling for civic equality, for civil rights.
Systems of oppression intersect with each other
One of the problems with the LGBT movement is that our public face traditionally been almost exclusively white and middle-upper class. This clouds the fact that our communities are also composed of people of color and working class people. These systems of race, class, sexuality and gender intersect with each other...and with other systems (age, ability, etc.). Each of these intersections creates different conditions for individual people.
Someone yesterday made the comment that "gay people can hide" while people of color cannot. I find this statement highly troubling for a number of reasons. First, some of us can't hide. I've been called a "faggot" while walking down the street or working. Nothing I've done in those situations called attention to my sexuality. I wasn't "flaunting" it, nor was I hiding it. I was simply restocking shelves or walking to a movie. Likewise, when I talk, people pretty instantly peg me as gay. To say I can "hide it" neglects the fact that I can't really, at least not without changing almost everyone of my mannerisms, the way I talk, etc. These aren't affectations, they're me.
Beyond that, though, this statement neglects the way that the closet is itself an oppressive institution. Hiding is not a privilege. It may be a survival technique (in the same way that some blacks have been able historically to "pass"), but it's not a positive thing. I don't want to go too deeply into this, but the closet is one of those tools of oppression that is unique. While African Americans face discrimination based on visible cues, asking us to hide any visible cues is to further homo-oppression. It works differently for people in different social locations. I currently work in academia. I can be fairly open in my work life. People in other social locations cannot. It's not a privilege for them to hide, it's a necessity--it's for survival.
Additionally, to separate civil rights based on these categories neglects how the different categories intersect. African American gays and lesbians benefit from black civil rights, but their lives are negatively impacted by anti-gay oppression.
Suffering is not redemptive
It does not provide special insight either. African-Americans who oppose gay equality, gay men who act misogynistically, white women who further racism, all of these people take action that imposes suffering on other groups of people. Their own suffering does not provide them with specific insights. Reflection upon that suffering can, though. That's one of the things we saw in the debates at the MA ConCon. Those folks who had suffered from oppression--and who had reflected on it--were opposed to imposing it on others. Legislators like Marie St. Claire, Byron Rushing, Diane Wilkerson and others reflected on the experiences of their communities, and decided they could not do those things to other groups. That's what this is about. It's why I, as a white person, have engaged in anti-racist work (particularly education). It's why I, as a man, worked in the battered women's movement. My experience has provided me no special insights, but me reflections on it and how it is related to others' suffering have led me to do this work.
In the same article linked above, we find this statement:
"If the K.K.K. opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them," said the Rev. Gregory Daniels, organizer of the Chicago event, taking a far more provocative stance than the vast majority of black -- or white -- clergy members speaking out on the issue.
I would argue that this is a man who has not reflected on the nature of suffering. He's more than willing to impose it on others. His history of facing it has provided no special insights. No members of any group have a particular moral authority because of their own history. That moral authority comes from their reflection and further action.
OK, probably enough for now.
