Bending Over Backwards in No Time Flat

"The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

These words are often attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was paraphrasing 19th-century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker when he spoke them.  Whoever first came up with the concept, it has given comfort to many activists and freedom fighters over the years.  Be patient, it says. This will be a long fight, but we will win; not just because we're right and they're wrong, but because this is the way the world works.

The good news is that the arc of the moral universe still seems to be bending in the right direction, and the better news is is that it doesn't seem to take as long as it used to.  Or at least that's what everyone's saying about the most recent battle for equal treatment under the law: the gay rights movement.

Specifically, when it comes to attitudes about the right of same-sex couples to marry, the change seems to be fairly rapid, especially when you compare this right to the right of women to vote, or the right of people of color to learn and work and live alongside their more traditionally privileged -- white -- fellow citizens.

It's happened so fast, in fact, that many wonder if the shift is reversible -- more of a whim than an actual sea change. Of course, none of us can predict the future, but I'll put my money on the table with Theodore Parker.  Things will go our way, mostly because we have the truth on our side.  But even I've been surprised - albeit pleasantly - at how quickly this is all happening.

While there have been a number of social movements for equal treatment under the law on behalf of disenfranchised groups of people, the three that stand out the most in my mind are the suffrage movement which aimed to get women the vote, the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 60's, which led to such victories as the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (among others), and the LGBT rights movement of today, which has yet to result in a nationwide ENDA or full marriage equality for all Americans - but it will, I'm confident.

And sooner than we thought. And I think there might be a couple of reasons for that.

1) Civil Rights for White Guys

The most obvious difference between the three movements is, of course, visual.  When we think of the most prominent leaders in the quest for equality under the law for LGBT persons, the images that most of us conjure up are of white gay men like Harvey Milk, Larry Kramer, or Dan Savage.  Sure, there were others - Bayard Rustin was a gay rights activist before anyone knew what that meant, and I dare say that Ellen DeGeneres has done as much for the LGBT community as anyone in our history.

And yet, the picture that most people have in their minds when they think of the "gay community" is a group of well-groomed, manicured, athletic white men with perfect hair and shiny teeth.  And whoever is responsible for that image is certainly up for debate; many within the LGBT activist community point the finger squarely at each other for sidelining the contributions of women and people of color in our struggle, while others blame the media, and still others say that society at large still allows white men to be more visible than anyone else.  And there's probably some truth in all three of those scenarios; they're not mutually exclusive, and in fact, probably symbiotic.

But it helps when those who are being treated differently look the same as those who have traditionally held all of the power.  The "look, we're just like you" tactic goes a long way when we do actually look just like you, and you just happens to be the group with the most power.  Also, having a lot of white guys in our movement allows us to be angrier.  One need only look so far as how Rosie O'Donnell was perceived once she came out as a lesbian and dropped the "Queen of Nice" persona to see how difficult it is to be a) pissed off, b) anything other than white or male, and c) listened to and taken seriously.  And we need to be angry if we're going to get anything done.  White guys can get angry and still be listened to. Shouldn't be that way, but there it is.

2) Will Portman

If you don't know who Will Portman is, it's okay; he's not exactly a household name.  He is the son of Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who recently became the first sitting US Senator from the Republican Party to endorse the right of gay people to marry each other.  And he did it, he said, largely in part because his beloved son, Will, is gay.

Will Portman (l), Sen. Rob Portman (r)

A lot of my lesbian, gay, bi, and trans friends were actually rather put off by this, noting (correctly) that he has and has had many, many constituents who are LGBT, or parents, siblings, children, and friends of LGBT citizens, and therefore plenty of reason to adopt a pro-gay stance in the past.  Why now, they wondered, should I treat Sen. Portman like a hero when he seems to be only interested in the well-being of his own family?

And I get it, I really do.  But I also believe that this is how change happens.  Harvey Milk once urged all LGBT people to come out of the closet, to their parents, to their friends, and co-workers, and neighbors.  He stopped short of asking people to come out to total strangers (it was the 1970's, after all), but he knew intrinsically that it was much more difficult to hate gay people if you know gay people.  And that everyone knows gay people; sometimes, they just don't know they know them.

So is Senator Portman a hero?  Maybe, maybe not. But Will Portman is a superhero in my book. It was tough enough for me to come out to my father, and my father was not a Republican Senator who had publicly opposed gay marriage in the past. Will is the personification of Harvey Milk's words, and one of the reasons why we'll eventually win this thing. Because not only does everyone know us, everyone's related to at least one of us.  And it's hard to hate your flesh and blood. It's not impossible (I'm looking at you, Newt & Phyllis), but a little more difficult than hating someone you'd never met and would cross the street to avoid.

But, I hear you say, what about women's rights? All men have mothers, and many have daughters and sisters. And it took a freakishly long time for women to secure the vote, and they still make 78 cents to the dollar. And you're right.  And even though I've singled out Will Portman to make my point about all of us in our (mostly) straight families, I did so on purpose.  Because until Will came out to his dad, he was a young, white man, raised in economic privilege and headed to Yale University, of all places.  It's likely that our friend the Senator had a very clear picture of who Will was and what he was going to become, and was therefore shocked to learn that, in the eyes of the law, he is not an equal citizen of this country he serves. Will wasn't minimized from birth the way so many women have been (and yes, continue to be), and the injustice was therefore a little more galling. Shouldn't be that way, but there it is.

3) The Twitter Machine

And this, I think, is the biggest differentiator yet. Imagine what might have happened if Susan B. Anthony had a Twitter account.  Or if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a blog.

Dr. King spoke some of the most inspirational words we Americans have been lucky enough to hear from one of our fellow citizens, and yet - unless you were lucky enough to attend one of his speeches in person - every word we heard was filtered through our media.  A white man somewhere - or, more likely, a room full of white men - decided that his words were newsworthy, or decided that we didn't need to hear them.  In contrast, the struggle for LGBT civil rights is being fought in the age of the internet, and the differences are startling.

If you want information these days, you can get it yourself. There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In the age of radio, it took 38 years for a single piece of information to reach a market of 50 million people. The invention of the television reduced that time frame to 13 years. The internet allowed this to happen in 4 years, and the introduction of Facebook reduced time to market to 2 years.

Facebook is totally gay.

Like I said, our team has the truth on its side, and the truth just travels faster than it used to.  Admittedly, lies also travel quickly, as evidenced by Tony Perkins' Twitter account, but so does the repudiation of those lies. When hate groups like the National Organization for Marriage peddle junk science purporting that children are highly advantaged by heterosexual parents, we can hammer that down like a Whack-a-Mole in no time flat.

And that, I believe - more than any other reason - is why the LGBT rights movement has moved faster than anyone ever thought it would. It's not a whim, and it's not entirely because we're still a bunch of racists and sexists (except that we kinda are, still).  It's mostly because the whole world just moves a lot faster than it used to, and the struggle for equality under the law, regardless of sexual orientation, just happens to be a beneficiary of that.  And funny cat videos.  But that's another topic for another day.

It's (Not Just) the Economy, Stupid

So it's been over a week, since Rep. Todd Akin made his incredibly stupid remarks about "legitimate rape" that appalled Democrats as a rule and even sent Republicans scrambling to denounce him and urge him to step out of his bid for the U.S. Senate.

And it's been twenty years since James Carville and the rest of Bill Clinton's election team used the phrase, "The economy, stupid," to mobilize voters and keep their candidate on message.

Since that time, it's become a staple of political wisdom, almost silly in its obviousness, that when the economy is in the shitter, it's a dumb idea to dwell on what we call "social issues" - things like women's health, immigration reform, gay marriage, reproductive rights, voter suppression, stuff like that.  When politicians talk about jobs and money, they're on point, but when they talk about social issues, they're clearly distracted - and it's boneheads like Todd Akin that are doing the distracting.

And it's almost taken for granted that voters who care deeply about these distractions, these "social issues," are flimsy thinkers, easily distracted, the kind of people who would buy a car because it's a pretty color with no knowledge of important things like, say, fuel efficiency, or torque.

And yet, it seems that everyone is just this distractable, as Todd Akin and his belief that magical vaginas can tell the difference between self-actualized, feminist-friendly sperm and bad, evil, rapey sperm, and will secrete spermicidal fluids when under stress shows.  That little bit of ridiculous twaddle has been distracting the entire nation for over a week now, so clearly we're all susceptible.

I personally have no problem with this.  My problem, and it's a minor one, has to do with this notion that jobs and the economy are the only issues worth discussing.  And they're important, don't get me wrong.  I'm lucky enough to have kept a job throughout the recession we've been experiencing for the past four years, but I do know how lucky I am.  Friends of mine - talented, imminently employable friends (and members of my family) - have not been so lucky, and I've seen first-hand how painful a bad economy can be.  Jobs and the economy should absolutely be on the table.

But it's a big table, and governing our country is a big job.  It seems to me that there ought to be room in the national discourse for lots of legislative issues that affect our lives.  And therein lies the problem.

Because, you see, the country is run - by and large - by straight white men.  If you have any position of power in our government or our society, you're probably at least two-out-of-three (straight, white, or male) - or you're Oprah.  And if you're a straight white man, then a lot of "social issues" - things like women's health, immigration reform, gay marriage, reproductive rights, voter suppression, stuff like that - can easily be seen as someone else's problem.  It's not easy for a lot of straight folks to truly feel the pain of gay couples who can't get married, difficult for a lot of men to empathize with women who are being threatened with less than full control over their own bodies, and hard for white people who are largely blind to their own whiteness to get too awfully excited about voter-ID laws that don't make it any harder for them to vote, or immigration "reforms" that don't require them to carry proof of citizenship at all times.

Not that all straight white men are bad.  There are a few who are downright awesome.  But most straight people, white people, and male people simply don't know what they don't know about what it is to be not straight, not white, or not male in America in 2012.  It sometimes seems that the only straight white men in this country who are truly invested in the silly superficial "social issues" are the assholes who believe that equity for non-straight, non-white, non-male people will somehow result in some sort of hostile takeover where only one kind of person has dignity, social standing, and the freedom to make their own choices - without realizing that this is exactly the world we live in and that one kind of person is them.

So here's the takeaway: social issues are not going anywhere.  They will continue to distract us for a long, long time.  Because for women, issues of women's health are life-or-death issues.  For gay people, the ability to get married means that you can visit your partner's deathbed, inherit his/her legacy without being taxed to death, or not be deported.  For people of color, Arizona's SB-1070 or Pennsylvania's new requirements for voter identification make you less valid, less human, less American in the eyes of the law.  This is really important stuff for a lot of people, even a few of the downright awesome straight white guys.

I don't feel stupid when I talk about social issues.  I don't feel like I'm being distracted from the really important stuff.  For me, it's all really important stuff.  And maybe when our politicians, our legislators, our media, and our citizenry starts treating it all like really important stuff, we can actually take a step forward as a nation.

We Are All Transgender

When I was a much younger gay activist, just out of the closet as a matter of fact, I was asked if I would join the Employee Resource Group at my company for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Employees. My head still spinning with the new identity I had just adopted, I was nonetheless eager to jump right in and start making a difference, and I enthusiastically signed up.

At my very first meeting, I asked what I honestly thought was an innocent question: why weren’t we including transgender people in our name and mission? The looks on the faces around the room immediately told a story: this group had been down this road before, and wasn’t eager to repeat the journey.

“We don’t have any transgender employees at this company,” I was told.

“That we know of,” I responded.

And then the conversation continued, with neither side saying anything that hadn’t been said before. “Sexual orientation and gender identity are two totally separate things,” one person said. Another chimed in with, “people already think that we’re gender-confused. I don’t think we should add to that perception.”

But, a number in my group – a smaller number – agreed with my stance, and so the debate was reborn, for an hour or so. The leader of the group eventually shut the conversation down, then gazed at me with a withering look, clearly wishing she could rescind her invitation. Sadly, the things I heard in that hour have become all too familiar to me over the years.

This is an open letter to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, particularly those who wish that the “LGBT” acronym could be forever abbreviated to “LG,” full stop. I have something to say to you.

You might think that the reason you’re hated by the haters is because deep in your hearts, you harbor a physical desire for persons of the same sex. You are wrong. They couldn’t care less about what you’re feeling. They hate you because you act upon those feelings. If you are true to yourself, you date, flirt with, sleep with, and often settle down and buy property with persons of the same sex. Some gay men walk with a supermodel’s swagger, and use words like “fierce” and “fabulous.” Some lesbians cut their hair short, and haven’t worn a skirt since high school. And this is why they hate you. They hate you because you break their rules of what a man or a woman is supposed to be. You violate gender norms they hold dear, you cross a line they don’t ever want crossed. They hate you because you’re transgender.

Maybe you don’t want to change your anatomy; most of us don’t. But in the minds of those who hate us, you have betrayed your anatomy as surely as those who do. In this way, “queer” might as well be a synonym for “transgender.” Brothers and sisters, we are all transgender. Deal with it.

And if those who hate us make up stories about us, such as we all wish we could undergo Sex Reassignment Surgery, let them. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve told lies about us. They lie about us all the time – and I know it hurts to hear those lies. But we can’t let their lies dictate our battle for civil rights, or how we plan to fight. We can’t allow their bigotry to draw boundaries around our humanity. Supporting those in our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our schools who are transgender is the right thing to do – not just because we’re gay or lesbian, but because we’re human. And if we limit our capacity for compassion and kindness because of what Pat Robertson or Tony Perkins might say about us on the television, then we don’t deserve to be free. I, for one, refuse to take marching orders from those who want me dead.

When you were born, it’s likely that the first words spoken were either “it’s a girl” or “it’s a boy!” And with those simple words, a limitless number of expectations were piled upon you, when you were only minutes old. Whoever spoke those words could only see what was between your legs; they had no way of knowing what was inside your heart. And if you’re a lesbian or a gay man, it’s likely that you disappointed someone along the way, someone who expected you to be someone that you’re not. In that way, our lives aren’t always easy. In that way, we are all transgender. In that way, we owe it to ourselves to look out for our own.

Good Bi (Yellow Brick Road)

Don’t know if you’ve heard about this or not, but just yesterday, the New York Times broke a groundbreaking story about bisexual men. They exist. And also unicorns.

Okay, I’m joking about the unicorns, but apparently bisexual men are real. Which will come as a shock to a lot of my friends – and when I say “a lot of my friends,” I pretty much mean the gay guys.

For some reason, gay men don’t want to believe in bi guys. We all seem to understand that female sexuality can be fluid, but the idea of a dude who gets turned on by chicks and dudes is anathema to us. I can understand this, to a degree. For many of us, the journey to GayVille included a pit stop in BiTown. Of course, the gentlemen who briefly disembarked from the Rainbow Train and donned a bisexual identity weren’t really bi – they just weren’t ready to make the whole trip in one fell swoop. And because of this, many of us are doubtful when a man takes the trip to BiTown and stays there.

The usual criticism of bi guys – beyond the fact that they’re fooling themselves and attempting to fool everyone else – is that they’re cowards. If so-called bisexual men were only brave enough to stand up to the scorn that heterosexuals dish out to the full-on gays, a certain segment of gay guys proclaim, they wouldn’t have to pretend that they get excited at the thought of a naked woman. And the proclamation usually ends there, because these are the gay guys who get nauseous whenever the notion of a naked woman enters their brains.

When the vapors recede, another criticism of bisexual men emerges: they’re just greedy. In fact, this kind of insatiable lust, one that includes both kitties and roosters, is so out of control, so ravenous, that it’s really more of a fetish than an actual sexual orientation. Of course, this is just a slight variation on the things that Tony Perkins and Pat Robertson say about us, but that’s completely and utterly beside the point … right?

The truth that is revealed by these blatantly false stereotypes is that many gay men (and by “many gay men,” I mean a completely unscientific sampling of my own friends) don’t really know any bisexual men. Or at least they don’t knowingly know them. And let’s face it – why would a bisexual man want to come out as such to a community of Kinsey Sixes? We haven’t exactly been all that welcoming.

The truth is that bisexuality is a sexual orientation, just like homosexuality and heterosexuality. Bisexual men (and women) did not choose to be bi. Like the rest of us, they were born that way. The truth is that bisexual men (and women) don’t lust after every person on the planet, in the same way that straight guys don’t find every woman attractive, and gay men can be very particular about the men that fall into the narrow category that is their “type.” The truth is that many bisexual men (and women) find a partner and settle down in monogamous or “monogam-ish” relationships. And the fact that this makes it harder for you to tell who’s bi and who’s not is your problem, not theirs. The truth is that it takes a lot of courage, not cowardice, to openly identify as a bisexual man these days.

And that, as they say ... is that.

Book Report: "The Help"

About a year ago, a bunch of my friends started talking about a book they had just read.  The book was called The Help.  They told me it was funny, and touching, and a real page-turner.  Then they put a button on the conversation: “You would love it,” they said – with the emphasis on the “you” and not the “love.”

The Help is a book about many things, but mostly it’s a book about race.  It’s the story of black domestic workers in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s, and an ambitious young (white) writer who wants to write a book about them.  It sounded interesting, and the recommendations came from friends whose opinions I trusted.

And yet … I was scared of The Help.  Because just as soon as I started hearing the accolades from my friends, I started reading about the controversies surrounding the book in the press.  If there was a lot to potentially enjoy about this book, there was also plenty to be scared of.

Most of the controversy has to do with the fact that the book is written by a white woman.  Now, there’s no rule – written or unwritten – that says that white people can’t write about race; hell, I’m doing it right now.  The stickiness of this particular situation comes from the fact that Kathryn Stockett, a white author, writes in the first person for over 90% of the book, using three narrators – two of whom are black women.  It’s one thing, Stockett’s critics would say, to write about black women – but quite another to assume that you "get" a black woman’s identity so much as to write from her perspective.  And compounding this was Stockett’s choice to write these chapters in a form of dialect – “Law have mercy” or “I sho nuff gone do it,” and the like.

I decided it was probably best for me to avoid The Help altogether.  I didn’t have strong opinions about the book; after all I hadn’t read it.  When friends would continue to ask, “Have you read The Help?” – I would say no, and when they pressed me, I would tell them why.  When they would counter with arguments of their own, I wouldn’t argue back – again, we were talking about a book they had read but I had not.  And still, I was not moved to pick up the book and read it.

Then … I saw the preview for the upcoming film.

It’s no secret that while I’m a fairly avid reader, I’m a huge movie buff.  The trailer looked funny and touching, and everything my friends told me the book was.  While the book was something I could ignore or put off, I knew I was going to see this movie at some point.  And this presented a problem for me.  If I saw the film version of The Help, I was going to have opinions about The Help, and if I was going to have opinions about The Help, I needed to know exactly what my opinions were based on.  I was going to have to read this book.

And so, I read the book.

I can confidently say that reading The Help nearly destroyed my relationship.  During the three days (yes, only three days) it took me to devour Stockett’s novel, I barely looked up from my Kindle.  Dishes went unwashed, laundry went unlaundered, and all conversation in the house ceased.  “Sssh,” I’d say. “I’m reading.”

The book was everything my friends told me it would be and nothing like I’d hoped it wasn’t.  Well … almost nothing.  While I loved the plot twists, characterizations, wry observations, and overall humanity of the story, I will confess right away that “Law have mercy” never stopped being annoying.  Every time I read Stockett’s dainty Ebonics, I wondered – what would have been missed if she had instead written “Lord have mercy,” or “sure enough” instead of “sho nuff”?  I’m fairly sure that I would have been able to detect three distinct voices even so.  I don’t have much else to say on this topic, other than I really wish that Stockett had made a different choice.

And, as annoyed as I was, I wasn’t so annoyed that I didn’t devour the book over the course of three evenings, much to Shorebird’s dismay.  Honestly, I don’t know how well Stockett captured the interior landscape of a black domestic in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s, but I cannot deny that the characters leapt off the page. They reacted to their situations in complex ways that nonetheless made psychological sense.

I think what I was really afraid of was that The Help would join other works of literary or cinematic art, such as Dangerous Minds or The Blind Side, in a category of books, films, and stories that I call the Tale of the Nice White Lady.  The Tale of the Nice White Lady centers on a white woman who was born without the ability to form biases against people who are different from herself.  Unlike you or I (or the inevitable awful, horrible, evil white people who surround her), she knows in her soul that all human beings are equally human, but that some people require saving, and that she’s just the Nice White Lady to do it.  Nice White Ladies in books or movies make white people who read those books and watch those movies feel a whole lot better about themselves, mostly because they’re encouraged to identify with those Nice White Ladies, rather than examining their own privileges and prejudices.  White people who enjoy the Tale of the Nice White Lady leave the theatre (or put down the book) feeling good about themselves, but not necessarily motivated to do anything to make a difference in the world.  Nice White Ladies piss me off.

Skeeter, one of the narrators of The Help, is indeed a nice, white girl.  But unlike the Nice White Ladies described above, she’s not immune to having some blind spots around race and her own privileged position in society.  Stockett doesn’t do much to hide the fact that – at her core – Skeeter is an ambitious young writer – much more interested in publishing her first book than empowering a group of black domestics.  When she asks the maids she knows to tell her their stories so that she can compile them into a controversial book that she hopes will launch her career, she is initially surprised when they refuse.  They live in a world that she doesn’t understand and can't relate to.  When the maids finally agree to tell their stories, they don’t do it because Skeeter has persuaded them; rather, it is presented as an act of personal courage.  Yes, it helps the privileged white girl write her book – but they’re more concerned with, at long last, telling the truth.  And yes, Skeeter risks a little – her standing among her white neighbors in the Junior League – but this is nothing compared to what the black women of the novel are willing to risk.  Stockett knows this, and so do her readers.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t things about Skeeter to admire.  She is the only white woman in the entire story who seems to have ambitions beyond marrying a nice white (rich) boy.  Initially, she feels very sorry for herself, mostly because she’s a woman in a man’s world.  As the story progresses, she learns that she has privileges she had never considered, and that while her oppression based on gender doesn’t make up for her privilege based on skin color, neither does her privilege make up for her oppression.  The two simply co-exist, neither one being cancelled out by the other.  Of course, the black women she aligns herself with have privilege with regard to neither race nor gender – something the reader is free (if not deliberately encouraged) to ponder while reading.

The film version of The Help was released earlier this month.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m considering going tonight.  Shorebird is even planning to join me, which is awfully big of him, considering our rocky history with this particular story.

Of course, with the film opening up, many of the controversies that were reported on when the book was initially published are being revisited.  There’s a lot of anger I’m reading about, much of it focused on the Tale of the Nice White Lady, and whether or not this story fits that model.  A lot of other folks are upset by what’s not in this story – both the book and the movie (based on what I’ve read) focus almost exclusively on a cast of female characters, which doesn’t leave room to focus on the constant threat of rape and other forms of sexual assault visited on black domestic workers from the men who employed them.  Others take exception to the notion that the central character of the film (Aibeleen, played the by the extraordinary Viola Davis) feels actual love – real, maternal, all-consuming love – for the white child left in her care. These critics note that this is a white woman’s fantasy – a white woman who wants to believe that her black caregiver loved her heart and soul, with no trace of resentment or frustration.  There’s also a sense of exasperation focused on the lack of black authors and filmmakers who get the kind of exposure that The Help has received.  In truth, there is no lack of black storytellers who wish to tell their stories, but rarely do their efforts top the New York Times Bestseller Lists or get made into Hollywood films with Hollywood budgets.

I can’t really argue with any of these points.  The story Stockett tells is likely flawed, but I truly believe that there’s a lot of artistry at work there as well.  All of these arguments together seem to wonder, “does this story tell the truth?” – which to me, is a flawed question.  There is no single truth. I think the book tells the truth as Kathryn Stockett sees it, and there are other stories, other truths we probably need to hear as well.  That most of us will never hear those stories is a fault that belongs to all of us, and shouldn’t be placed solely at the feet of Kathryn Stockett.

I won’t lie– I’m really excited to see this movie tonight, and also a little nervous.  What if it’s offensive?  What’s worse, what if it should be offensive but I’m too coddled by the film’s insidious message and my own white privilege to realize it?  Am I asking enough from society? Am I asking too much from myself? Can both be true at the same time?

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

My parents have no idea what I do for a living.  I've told them numerous times that I work in the field of Diversity & Inclusion, and my mother just shakes her head and says, "Yes, but I don't know what that means."  And the more I've tried to explain it to them, the more mysterious my career becomes.

Basically, I help organizations to become more diverse and inclusive.  "Diverse" means (yes) more people of color and more women.  But it also means, more gay people, more people with disabilities, more people from different faith communities, more transgender people, and more military veterans.  More of what you don't already have, basically.  And "Inclusive" means that you treat people well.  There are other definitions, but that's pretty much the crux of it.  Everyone might not have the same experience at work, but everyone has an equal shot.

I don't believe it's a terribly difficult concept to grasp.  Admittedly, I've been thinking about it every day for the past thirteen years, and maybe that's why - but doesn't everybody know that we live in a society wherein people who are Black, Latino, Asian, female, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, athiest, Sikh, Hindu, or possessed of a disability have to take a lot of shit that other people don't have to deal with?

Honestly, I think that most people "get" that there are those in this world who are unjustly disenfranchised.  What they don't get, or don't want to get, is the flip side of the coin - that people who are white, straight, Christian, or temporarily able-bodied have this thing called "privilege."

Privilege is like the untouchable third rail of the Diversity & Inclusion conversation.  Nobody wants to admit that it's there - and yet, if you think about it, it must be there.  If someone is "less than," it begs the question: less than who?  If someone is down, then by definition someone else is up.  Simple, right?  Not for some people - and by "some people," I'm usually talking about some white people.

For those who are new to the concept of white privilege, the best resource I could possibly point you to is a classic essay by Peggy McIntosh called "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."  It's a really short read, and it spells out the issue plainly and concisely.  In it, McIntosh reflects on why it was so difficult for her to get the men around her to admit that their penises entitled them to all kinds of free stuff that society made women work really hard for - and how she started to wonder if she got any free stuff that other people had to work really hard for.  And she started to make a list.  And it turned into a pretty long list.  It included things like, "I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented," and "Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of my financial reliability," and "I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race." And as the list got longer and longer (she stopped at 26 items, but could have clearly gone on and on and on), she realized she was onto something.

For me, the most powerful thing about McIntosh's essay isn't the laundry list of free stuff that society gives to white people, it's that she (like most white people) was completely blind to her own privilege before she made a conscious decision to focus on it.  That's the tricky thing about privilege: not only are we unaware of it, but we're encouraged to be oblivious.  And ignorance is often just as difficult to confront than out-and-out hatefulness.  Because like the proud bigot, the ignorant are fiercely protective of their ignorance.  They don't know and they don't want to know, because knowing makes a person accountable, and it's a whole lot easier to live in this world if racism (and sexism, and ableism, and heterosexism, and all the rest) is somebody else's problem.

Privilege is why we have stupid-ass words like "reverse racism."  Terms like "reverse racism" are, to put it simply, complete and utter bullshit.  It's like saying, "I can totally understand racism against them, but racism against me is totally fucked up; like, it doesn't even make any sense."  When people talk about "reverse racism," here's what usually happened: 1) members of an oppressed community have expressed resentment toward those more powerful than they, and 2) a white person within earshot gets his or her feelings hurt because after all, they never individually owned slaves (never mind that they reap the benefits of their skin privilege each and every day, as I do, often without even realizing it).

Privilege is why no one on Fox News can admit that some members of the Tea Party are clearly and abjectly racist (see this and this and this and this and this), but can freely and easily use the racist tag to describe Barack Obama.

Not only is this accusation profoundly unfair and untrue, but it illustrates the key point about privilege.  When Glenn Beck thinks that he's the victim of racism, he feels it.  But when the world conspires to make him feel more intelligent, more patriotic, more moral, and just plain better than anyone who's a shade darker than he is, he can't feel that at all.

And I get why white people cling to the belief that they are more victimized by racism than anyone else; I do.  Owning your privilege is tough.  It requires you to reflect on your entire life, and realize that you've been the beneficiary of a lot of free stuff over the years.  And we Americans would like to believe that earned all that stuff.  And you might have earned some of it; I won't take that away from you.  But I guaran-damn-tee you that if you grew up white in America, you got some of that shit for free.  You didn't earn it all.  And once you get it through your thick head that your skin color (or your penis, or your heterosexuality, or your Christianity, or your temporary status as an able-bodied person, or the HIV-negative blood coarsing through your veins, or whatever else) has given you a place of unearned privilege, it's sort of incumbent upon you to level the playing field a little, in whatever way you can, even if that's just educating yourself whenever the opportunity arises.

When I started doing diversity and social justice work, I was motivated by the oppression I felt as a gay person, and I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't really prepared to deal with my skin privilege.  And yeah, at the beginning, I did take the weight of the world onto my shoulders, and I felt a lot of guilt.  And getting through the guilt (but remaining knowledgeable and accountable) wasn't easy. You know what's easy? Playing the victim.  Playing the victim is easy, and it's actually a lot of fun, especially when you get to keep all the free stuff.

Blind

Another blast from the past (Summer, 2007).  Enjoy.

In many of the diversity classes that I teach, I often begin the day by asking people why they registered for the class and what they hope to learn. A fairly common response (always from a white person, and usually from a white man) is that they want to learn to be "color blind."

And I'm always a little stumped by this response.

First of all, I'm not sure it's possible. When I meet someone with dark skin, African features, and kinky hair, I tend to notice that he or she is black. I can't imagine anyone meeting my office mate, for example, and saying the next day, "Was she African-American? Huh. I didn't notice." And if anyone did say such a thing, I don't think I'd respect them for it; I might actually wonder if their low levels of observation border on mental deficiency.

But of course, this isn't really what people mean when they say "color blind." They mean that they want to evolve to a point where race doesn't matter -- where they see people as people, not making assumptions about anyone based on their race. And that's a lovely thought, truly. Except that it usually doesn't work that way either.

If and when a white person (and I feel okay about picking on white people, because I am one and because it's always a white person who makes this statement in my class) acheives this type of color-blindness, he or she might believe that they're just seeing people as people -- but in my experience, they're really seeing everyone as a white person, whether the person is white or not.

The thing is, race isn't just skin deep, and underneath, we're not all the same. Growing up in a black family isn't the same is growing up in an Asian family, which isn't the same as growing up in a Latin family or a white family. These differences are compounded when you grow up in a predominantly homogenous community (Ever been to a black church? ... I've been only a few times, but the experience is 180 degrees from going to a staid, solemn mass with my folks). And even if we were all the same on the inside (which we're not), the external experience of being a person of color is different than growing up as a white person. People of color experience institutional racism nearly every day -- they learned how to survive in a racist world since they could walk and talk -- and a lot of well-meaning white people have no idea what life as an oppressed minority is like.

So -- when these well-meaning white people see everyone as "just people," they often do not have the skills or knowledge to see anyone -- white, black, Latin, or Asian -- as anything other than "just like me." They convince themselves that race is a purely cosmetic condition with no deeper cultural implications, and begin to expect everyone around them to see the world the way they see it, to value the same things that they value, and to behave the same way that they behave. And to a person of color, that looks and feels a whole lot like racism.

As a gay person, I deal with some of that frustration when interacting with lots of well-meaning straight people who want to believe that I'm just like they are, only I'm attracted to guys. The truth is, being gay provides an interesting lens through which to see the world. My thoughts, feelings, and perspectives on a myriad of topics, not just love and dating, are affected by my identity as a gay man. Off the top of my head, living the big gay life has significantly changed the way I view the role of women in society and the dynamic that exists between science and religion, and my feelings about going to five weddings each summer, where I plan to go on vacation (or dinner, for that matter), the G.I. Bill, and how long I'll stay at the office happy hour at the T.G.I.Friday's down the street (not very, in case you were wondering).

And if I ever heard a straight person say, "I keep forgetting that he's gay; it's just not an issue for me," they'd likely be giving themselves points for open-mindedness, while I'd likely think to myself, wow ... you really don't know this person very well.

So I'd like to do what little I can to help people realize that metaphorical blindness is not a virtue; rather, it's just ignorance - except that it's worse, because it's willful ignorance.  And it doesn't help society as a whole; the irony is that it only helps the ignorant, ever more comfortable, not having to think about things which otherwise might give them pause.  Because, y'know ... thinking is hard.

A Closet with a View

“I just don’t understand why anyone has to talk about their sex lives at work,” she said. “I don’t talk about my sex life at work.”

She was a participant in a diversity class, and the topic of sexual orientation in the workplace had just been raised. As a workplace diversity educator, her statement was one that I’d heard many times before. She didn’t have anything against gay people, she said, but why did they have to bring such a private thing into the workspace? Isn’t it possible, she wondered, to show up, do the job, and wait until quitting time to be gay?

It was tempting for me, someone who has been openly gay in the workplace for over a decade now, to respond with, “well, I don’t know … couldn’t you just show up, do your job, and wait until quitting time to be straight?” But she wouldn’t have understood. To her, and to most of America, being straight isn’t sexual; it’s normal. Being gay, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. And it is different, I suppose. But not entirely.

And so, in situations like this, I tend to take a couple of steps back and approach the situation with perhaps more gentleness than necessary. While it might be oddly comforting and infinitely more satisfying to simply tell this woman how ignorant she is and how bigoted she sounds, my goal in teaching these courses is not to emerge victorious, but to create change.

“Let’s say that it’s your first day on the job,” I propose. “And let’s say that it’s very important to you that no one at your new workplace knows for a fact that you are heterosexual.”

And she looks a little confused. Why on earth, she must be wondering, would she want to do that? And her reaction is telling. Some of the more progressive thinkers in the class give her a knowing smile – pointed, but not condescending.

“Just play along,” I say. “You don’t want anyone at your new office to know, for a fact, that you’re straight.” There’s a slight pause, to let the concept sink in. “What do you have to do differently?” I ask. “What steps must you take to ensure that your secret is safe?” And now, she suspects where I’m headed with this, but is still silent. So I make a gesture, opening the question to the entire class.

And the answers come quickly. “You couldn’t discuss your husband or wife,” one participant offers. “If anyone asks what you did over the weekend,” another replies, you’d have to talk around the fact that your spouse even exists.”

“You couldn’t even talk about your kids,” a young woman in front offers. There’s actually some resistance to this point, as many in the class correctly point out that lots of people, straight and gay, are raising children these days. “Yes,” she offers, “but as soon as you open that door and start talking about your family, it would be really hard not to acknowledge your co-parent at some point. I think it would be better to just leave all that stuff at the door, so you’re a professional and nothing more.”

“What else,” I ask. You couldn’t take personal calls at work. You’d have to take your wedding ring off. (“And how does your spouse feel about that?” I ask. And the class acknowledges that, even knowing the reasons why, that would be a particularly painful negotiation to conduct.)

One gentleman in the back of the class offers, “you’d have to ‘gay it up’ a little.” People laugh, but I pursue the comment. I ask the man what he means. “Well,” he says, “if I didn’t want people to know I was straight, I’d want to throw them off track a little, you know … act sort of gay.” Even if that’s not who you really are, I ask. Yes, he replies, even then.

Finally, the young woman in front speaks up again. “You’d have to find one or two people at work that you really trust,” she says. “That way, you could tell them and at least feel like someone at work has your back.”

“But this is a big secret,” I note, “and once it’s out, it’s out. I mean, that’s some pretty good gossip right there. So first of all, how could you be sure that these one or two people are absolutely trustworthy? And even if they are, is it really fair to them, burdening them with this secret of yours?”

“Well,” she says, “I mean … well … it wouldn’t be easy, I guess.”

“So,” I say, “this is now your life at work; this is your reality. Are you happy? Do you like your job?” There are no words, but several people are shaking their heads from side to side. “Do you like the people you work with?” Again, no one speaks, but there are more than one shrugging of the shoulders, as if to say that there’s no liking or disliking anyone that you never really get to know. “Now let’s say you’ve been at this job for a year, and your first performance review is happening. Your boss likes your work, but tells you that you’re going to need to do a better job of networking. ‘Building relationships,’ she’ll say, ‘is really important at this company, and people don’t really feel like they know you. Just open up a little,’ she says. What do you say?” And again, there is silence.

“I quit,” says the gentleman in the back. And people laugh. But my attention has now turned back to the woman who raised this issue to begin with. She’s not laughing. And I think, maybe, that now she gets it.


This essay also appears at Pam's House Blend and the blog The Human Race Horses.

An Open Letter to Bancroft, PLLC

To: bancroft@bancroftpllc.com

Date: April 25, 2011

Subject: DOMA

To Whom It May Concern:

I'm writing not as a stakeholder of your firm, but simply as a citizen of the United States, to express my disappointment at the news that your firm will be defending the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.

Dr. Martin Luther King, borrowing from Rev. Theodore Parker, said that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."  In the specific case of justice for lesbian and gay Americans, this arc isn't nearly as long as we thought it would be.  The rate at which Americans are rejecting the discrimination and hatred foisted at their lesbian and gay neighbors is astonishingly quick, and the direction of the debate is unmistakable.  That DOMA is unconstitutional (and it is) is almost beside the point; in less than a generation's time, the law (if it survives the courts) will simply be overturned by the nation's legislature out of sheer public pressure - and if your firm continues in its current direction, it will be recorded in the nation's history as a key player on the wrong side of the fight.

Truth be told, I never heard of your firm until this morning; now, you are likely forever linked in my mind (and the minds of millions of Americans for whom the equal rights of lesbian and gay Americans are of interest) with a law that the President of the United States and the nation's Attorney General have rightly deemed unconstitutional and therefore indefensible.

And forever is a long time.

Sincerely,

Red Seven
Washington, DC

An Answer in the Affirmative

This essay was originally written in 2007, but my opinion - like so many of my opinions - remains relatively unchanged.

When I was in college, our school newspaper featured an editorial page. Each week, two columnists would present opposite points of view on the issues of the day. It was a Jesuit school - Catholic, yes, but a very liberal brand of Catholic - and there weren't too many topics that were taboo. As I recall, abortion and gay rights were both discussed and debated, from both sides, numerous times.

One week, the topic was "Affirmative Action."

The young woman who favored affirmative action used a lot of the concepts we still hear today -- that women and people of color have been historically disenfranchised and underrepresented, and that affirmative action, while not perfect, is a tool that society can use so long as it is still necessary, and went on to argue that it was still necessary, and she then laid out some statistics to bolster her case.

The young man who opposed affirmative action told one simple story. It was the story of another young man, who happened to be white. This young, innocent white man earned a grade point average of 4.0 while in high school, and was in fact the valedictorian of his graduating class. In addition, he was the president of the student council and the star of the football team. He was universally loved by his teachers and fellow students. All agreed that he was destined for great things.

But ... (cue the threatening music) ... he was denied access to our school to make room for ... (gasp!) ... black people.

Well, right away, I knew something was fishy about this story. I was not the valedictorian of my class (and it was a small class), nor did I receive a 4.0 grade point average. I was not the president of my student council, and I never set foot on the football field unless it was to sneak a cigarette during lunch. Most of my teachers liked me, but I'm sure there were one or two who thought that I was only "okay" -- more than a few times I was told that I wasn't living up to my academic potential. What the hell, I thought ... I'm having fun, and a 3.7 grade point average doesn't exactly suck.

This was my story ... and I got into this school. And if I could get into this school, then the perfect boy who was sculpted out of cream cheese certainly should have been able to survive the admissions process. And if anyone should have been denied access to our particular institution of higher learning to make room for a disenfranchised other, it should have been me.

This mythic kid was just that, I figured -- a myth. Upon reading both essays twice, I determined that the young woman had several valid points and that the young man who couldn't stop praising this imaginary victim of "reverse racism" (I hate that term, and only use it in a mocking tone) had just made the whole thing up. I made a mental note in that moment, that people who argue against equality and fair treatment for everyone are very often full of crap.

But something just occurred to me a couple of days ago. And now, I don't think that the mythic boy, the stuff of legends, the epitome of everything that's right with America was made up at all. I think he was completely real. And I believe that everything that our young anti-affirmative action activist wrote about him was absolutely true. Except that he left out one crucial detail.

The kid was home-schooled. C'mon, think about it.