Where's the color?
Dear Editor of Windy City Times:
In light of the recent online controversy over Roland Emmerich's trailer for Stonewallsparked in part because of the film's apparent lack of racial and gender diversityit was surprising to read your glowing review of Lillian Faderman's new book, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle.
This whitewashing of LGBT politics and culture is far more insulting, and saddening. How could a 700-page book purporting to tell the story of our movement leave out so much about race, specifically African-Americans? Where did gay leadership find the idea to mobilize for a 1979 March on Washington? From Black politicsespecially Bayard Rustin, the Black gay architect of modern activism and lead organizer for the 1963 March on Washington, who is barely mentioned.
Who was the most prominent gay figure in the 1960s? Frank Kameny, who is extensively treated by Faderman? No, the very out novelist James Baldwin, who is not even mentioned. What about the 1980s activist group Black and White Men Together ( BWMT ), which was formed to battle racism in the gay community? In the 1980s, dozens of of BWMT chapters opened up across the nation, and not even a mention in The Gay Revolution.
Oh, and gay-rights ordinances? Where did these statutes come from? Post-war Black activists fighting Jim Crow segregation and second-class citizenship wrote anti-discrimination clauses into city and state laws; many years later, gays and lesbians petitioned to be added on.
The Gay Revolution is an imposing volume, projecting the image of authoritativeness and definitiveness. That is why it is so dangerous: Queer people of color could come to believe we have no past and are not worth learning about. This book is not about our revolution, but rather enacts a counterrevolution of whiteness.
Sincerely,
Kevin J. Mumford
Professor of History,
University of Illinois
at Champaign-Urbana
Don't be deceived
To the Editor:
Now that Pope Francis is back home in Rome, it has been revealed that he met privately with the poster child of anti-gay bigotry and discrimination, Kim Davis.
Then, facing a backlash to his well-honed liberal image, the Vatican spin doctors are now saying that "the meeting should not be seen as support." But precisely by feeding Davis' self-promotion media machine, he did just that, granting her belligerent anti-LGBT bigotry a dignity it doesn't deserve.
Will LGBTs who, during his visit, fawned over Francis finally accept that this guy is a bait-and-switch artist?
One may safely conclude that when the cardinals chose Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina to lead the church, they wanted somebody who could reach out to the millions of lay members appalled by the criminal sex abuse scandals involving priests and bishops; they also wanted someone who could appeal to women and LGBTs tired of the stentorian anti-woman, anti-gay rhetoric of his predecessors.
Francis has a great smile and makes the right welcoming gestures. He's a public-relations manager's dreameverybody's sweet granddaddy. Adept at reading his audience, he never mentioned marriage equality in his speech to Congress. But in Philadelphia, Francis affirmed the "traditional family" ( as we all know, an anti-gay code phrase ) while his attack dog, Archbishop Charles Chaput, ejected a transgender workshop from a supposedly LGBT-friendly parish church and approved the termination of a teacher in a same-sex marriage. The approved panel on homosexuality, featuring a man said to be celibate and his mother, became the official face of LGBT "family" in the U. S. Catholic Church.
So, despite the hype, let's not forget that Francis fought marriage equality to the bitter end in Argentina. He lost that battle but is continuing the war against LGBT equality by raising the banner of "religious freedom" ( to discriminate ), and legitimizing the odious, publicity-seeking Kim Davis. He also is opposed to contraceptive birth control even in AIDs-ravaged Africa and stands implacably against a woman's right to abortion on demand.
Pope Francis is old wine in a new bottle. Don't be deceived.
Roger Fraser
Bob Schwartz
Andy Thayer