There ain't no sin, there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.
I'm still kind of amazed that anyone is even remotely surprised that Prop 8 passed in California. I'm not dismissing the hurt and harm that it puts out to people in California, hell to queer folk and allies all over the U.S.
But, c'mon. Every time. Every time something comes up to deny queer people basic rights, especially when those rights have to do with our relationships, they pass. They always pass and it doesn't matter if it's in blue California or red Montana, they always pass.
And instead of looking at a lot of problems that could be connected to that truth - that maybe queer organizing is particularly organized or maybe that we do live in a country where queer people Yes We Can't or even looking deeply into the LGBTQ "community"'s activism as overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly middle-class, and overwhelmingly politically middle-of-the-road (especially when it comes to marriage rights), people like Dan Savage are going to step down to actually blaming it on the brown people?
REALLY?
Wait, why am I surprised?
Black and African-American people are, after all, the queer community's favorite correlation in the U.S., throwing Civil Rights rhetoric all over the place, singing "We Shall Overcome" at the drop of a hat, comparing things to lynching and school integration like it's nothing.
But the minute we feel threatened? That legislation doesn't go our way, that we are again denied human rights? All black people, all people of color in general (and lets talk later about how not all POC are black, queerfolk, okay?), are conservative, their churches made them do it, they're not our allies.
Wrong.
We have no RIGHT to expect allies where we have rarely reached out, when the number of queer people deeply involved in prison reform or immigration issues is negligible. We have even less right to hope for support from those activists whose work you are dismissing, whose identities collide (because, believe it or not, THERE ARE QUEER BLACK FOLK), who we leave out in the cold all the time.
But more than everything?
PROP 8 DIDN'T PASS BECAUSE OF BLACK PEOPLE. 7 white people voted for it for every 1 black person that did.
So, shut up, Dan Savage. I never did like your sexist, fat-phobic ass. And now you've turned on this racist dime with your hatemongering? No. I'm done with you. Get off my side, I don't want you here.
In other post news: Read slit's brilliant open letter to white activists. It's much smarter than mine.
But, c'mon. Every time. Every time something comes up to deny queer people basic rights, especially when those rights have to do with our relationships, they pass. They always pass and it doesn't matter if it's in blue California or red Montana, they always pass.
And instead of looking at a lot of problems that could be connected to that truth - that maybe queer organizing is particularly organized or maybe that we do live in a country where queer people Yes We Can't or even looking deeply into the LGBTQ "community"'s activism as overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly middle-class, and overwhelmingly politically middle-of-the-road (especially when it comes to marriage rights), people like Dan Savage are going to step down to actually blaming it on the brown people?
REALLY?
Wait, why am I surprised?
Black and African-American people are, after all, the queer community's favorite correlation in the U.S., throwing Civil Rights rhetoric all over the place, singing "We Shall Overcome" at the drop of a hat, comparing things to lynching and school integration like it's nothing.
But the minute we feel threatened? That legislation doesn't go our way, that we are again denied human rights? All black people, all people of color in general (and lets talk later about how not all POC are black, queerfolk, okay?), are conservative, their churches made them do it, they're not our allies.
Wrong.
We have no RIGHT to expect allies where we have rarely reached out, when the number of queer people deeply involved in prison reform or immigration issues is negligible. We have even less right to hope for support from those activists whose work you are dismissing, whose identities collide (because, believe it or not, THERE ARE QUEER BLACK FOLK), who we leave out in the cold all the time.
But more than everything?
PROP 8 DIDN'T PASS BECAUSE OF BLACK PEOPLE. 7 white people voted for it for every 1 black person that did.
So, shut up, Dan Savage. I never did like your sexist, fat-phobic ass. And now you've turned on this racist dime with your hatemongering? No. I'm done with you. Get off my side, I don't want you here.
In other post news: Read slit's brilliant open letter to white activists. It's much smarter than mine.