Dear Editor:
After reviewing numerous recent articles concentrated on many ongoing controversies concerning purported LGBTQ issues, I thought I'd seek clarity on several unsettling observations and questions concerning what constitutes an importance to broader LGBTQ organizations.
Firstly, I continue to wonder in utter amazement at the deafening silence among organizational leadership within the broader LGBTQ organizations, especially the LGBT organizations with mission statements that purport to advance "equal treatment and social justice through education, advocacy and protection of the rights of the LGBT community?"
Where are the public outcry and the numerous protests that should be taking place concerning advancing equal treatment and social justice, advocacy and protection of the rights of the LGBTQ youth of colormostly African-American individuals who are routinely stopped and frisked by Chicago police any time more than two of them are gathered anywhere on Halsted or Broadway or Belmont avenue, from the lake to the Belmont Red Line "L" train stop! Where are the broader LGBTQ organizational visibility and support around the civil-rights violations that adversely affect these LGBTQ Chicagoans?
Where are the legions of self—appointed and sometimes anointed ( but usually selected ) LGBTQ organizational leaders who once gathered busloads of queens from bars in Boystown to demand marriage equality for all Illinoisans! They screamed and shouted in front of any television camera, newspaper reporter, television or radio personality that would give them on-air or print visibility! Why isn't there more public outrage by the broader LGBTQ organizations that aim to protect LGBTQs?
Why is it that, 30 years ago, my friends and I couldn't gather on a public sidewalk, either, on what was known commonly known as the gay strip? On the Broadway strip, Black gay men couldn't gain entrance into a gay bar unless they presented every kind of I.D., including their "grandmother's footprint" as evidence of their age. Now, 30 years later, the same kind of discrimination exists! It's an interesting old adage that the way many things change, they actually stay the samethis problem still exists, this time on Halsted Street!
Oh, by the way, am I expected to believe that it's still a coincidence, 30 years later, that LGBTQ youth of color aren't being targeted by Chicago police? Where's the LGBTQ organizational outcry from LGBTQ organizational leadership that screamed and jumped up and down in front of cameras concerning marriage equality?
Where's the public outrage and public protest from most of the broader LGBTQ leadership? Why is there the deafening silence?
Sincerely
Michael O'Connor