An Open Letter to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community:
We are writing to register our outrage with the process by which a so—called Millennium March on Washington ( MMOW ) is being organized, and to explain why we think participation in this march is actually detrimental to our community. Many of us have participated in past Washington marches. We are dismayed to see how a small group of people with corporate financial backing have appropriated this historically important means for mobilizing people at key political moments for their own purposes.
From the beginning, the process used to call, organize and conduct this march has been corrupt and exclusionary. Despite sentiments against a national march at a 1997 Creating Change Conference ( a gathering of activists who work at the state and local levels of the political process around the country ) top leaders of the Human Rights Campaign ( HRC ) and the Universal fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches ( MCC ) unilaterally decided to hold and name the march without consulting other national, state, or local LGBT organizations.,
Faced with mounting criticisms regarding a lack of accountability and community input, march organizers announced that they would hold "town hall" meetings across the country to solicit grassroots input. But these meetings were not publicized and few were actually held. Only 25 showed up at the first meeting in Minneapolis, home to one of the march co—chairs. The second meeting was scheduled for Chicago. There were no announcements in the local LGBT press about the event, but approximately 75 people showed up ( most learning about the event through e—mail posts ) , almost all voicing opposition to holding a march.
[ Editor: Outlines, Nightlines, Blacklines and En La Vida all did carry calendar listings about the Chicago town hall meetingbut information about the meeting was not provided by MMOW, but rather by an Outlines reporter working in D.C. Organizers never returned Outlines' calls trying to confirm the event. ]
Simultaneously, MMOW organizers said that folks could use the internet to cast ballots for issues the march should take up. As Outlines reported recently, MMOW organizers have subsequently disregarded these votes. Large numbers of people suggested that AIDS and reproductive rights be part of the march platform, but these issues are, incredibly, not part of what is now being called the "working vision" for the march. A final political agenda has yet to be set, and the march is less than two months away. Why even begin planning a march before having an agenda? Why expect folks to make plans to attend the march now when they don't even know what they are to be marching for?
There has also been no financial accountability. Despite suspicions that some people would be inappropriately profiting from this march, the MMOW board refuses to release financial information. Moreover, the MMOW board has held no open bids for any contracts.
Given the lack of accountability and democratic input regarding any element of this event, it is not surprising that no Chicago or statewide Illinois LGBT groups have signed on as sponsors of this march. On a national level, the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, Pride at Work, BiNET USA, It's Time America, the National Stonewall Democratic Federation, and the National Association of Black and White Men Together have refused to support the march. Welcomed to the MMOW board in the face of criticism that the march was being organized by a narrow elite, the executive directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Youth Advocacy Coalition ultimately ended up resigning because of the board's inability to address meaningfully its credibility problems regarding democratic input and fiscal accountability to LGBT communities.
Since the substantive issues to be taken up by this march have never been made clear, and the process so exclusionary, it is hard to imagine what the purpose of this event is other than to advance the power of march organizers, with a substantial turnout being used to parlay themselves into the role of the principal, if not exclusive, voice for the LGBT community. But we are a diverse community, and no one or two organizations can ever pretend to speak for all of us. It is particularly unconscionable to us that a national march allegedly representing the aspirations of all LGBT people can proceed without the leadership and support of a single national organization of African—American, bisexual or transgendered folkspeople who have traditionally faced exclusion in heterosexual and LGBT communities.
Participation in this march uncritically replicates and propagates the racism, elitism, and consumerism that need to be confronted if we are to achieve the justice our movement seeks. We urge our fellow LGBT brothers and sisters to sit this march out, and to instead hook up with one of the many local and state LGBT organizations that are already doing important work in our communities.
Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, Queer Commission; Chicago Metro Area Gay Youth Coalition; Coalition for Positive Sexuality; Equality Illinois; Homocore Chicago; Hysterical Women; Queer to the Left; Transexual Menace of Chicago; Women in the Director's Chair