A response to the last three weeks of letters. Go to www.windycitymediagroup.com .
An Open Letter to the LCCP Board:
I am writing to ask you to reconsider your stance towards the e-mail exchanges and letters published in the Sept. 28 and Oct. 5 issues of Windy City Times.
Categorizing what has occurred as 'a personal matter between individuals that does not involve the organization' is at best a regrettable choice and at worst thoroughly bullshit.
Of course it's personal, we're Dykes. And yes, individuals were involved. Organizations generally are made up of individuals, I get that. So? And? What does that reality have to do with addressing the actions and words of a board member and the executive director of an organization? Oh, I get it. It's about dismissal. Deniability. 'It's not company policy to denigrate or sexually harass women. Joe, Tom, Harry, Dick, Peter, & Paul are just individual guys who like to flirt.' That kind of dismissive move is a corporate move, not one likely to contribute to the furthering of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project.
So a woman breaches confidentiality and engages in trashing. Not good, but not an unsurvivable disaster either. Actually, it's a mess that anyone who hangs out in the community is pretty familiar with. And with that familiarity comes the knowledge that sticking your head in the sand don't work.
An LCCP board member violated the confidentiality of another organization. That breach was deliberately shared with the executive director of LCCP and intended for the President of the LCCP board. But you all don't think this involves you? Frankly that frightens me more than the initial breach.
The fact that LCCP strategy and practice were being discussed ( i.e., future meetings, the anniversary dinner, COAC ) doesn't strike the Board as having relevance to the organization?
Folks, you're scaring me. Practices of confidentiality, not an issue for the organization? Event and policy decisions being formulated on the basis of bogus stereotypes and innuendo, not an issue for the organization?
What exactly would be an issue worthy of the Board's attention? And if you reply 'financial matters,' I really think you need to remove the 'community' and the 'lesbian' part from your name.
Which part of the familiarity and ease that both Meyers and Halem display with their notions of a frightening 'triumvirate' that just happens to consist, coincidently I'm sure, of older African American lesbians does the board believe not to be an issue for the organization? Is it LCCP policy not to address racism?
Folks intimately connected with LCCP messed up. Confront it and grow. Deal with it through the stance of corporate deniability and you further alienate LCCP from the various communities it purports to serve. Don't choose this path. Please.
Anne Leighton, Chicago
