When SF Pride's electoral college of former grand marshalls selected Private Manning last week, it was time for these Professional Homosexuals to step in. Lisa Williams, SF Pride Board President, wrote that "even the hint of support" for Bradley Manning "will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride." Get it? Don’t even hint about it!
The Professional Homosexual went on, completely without irony, to denounce her own organization's electoral college as "a system whereby a less-than-handful of people may decide who represents the LGBT community's highest aspirations as grand marshals for SF Pride," completely ignoring that she was one of a different handful vetoing their choice. According to her SF Pride bio, Williams is president of "One Source Public Affairs, a boutique consulting firm that specializes in the management of state, local and national political campaigns and strategic programs for non-profit organizations"...As Jack Nicholson once said after doing a take with Brando on The Missouri Breaks: scorches the earth, doesn't he?
UPDATE. Some lively discussion of and dissension on Steven's story in comments. The main rap seems to be that he's just naively disappointed by the transformation of what used to be called the gay liberation movement into a political power brokerage that sometimes makes regrettable choices. (Longtime commenter Halloween Jack even calls the story "revisionist bullshit.") We can argue over what tradeoffs are worth making, certainly. I'd say the important thing is that Steven noticed the phenomenon at all -- especially the flow of military contractor money into big gay orgs. Too many people seem to miss that, in politics as in life, a lot of what looks like moral imperative is just arbitrage.
A shonda for the gayim.
ReplyDeleteAs A Gay, I'm conflicted about this whole thing.
ReplyDeleteIf you had told your average lgbt person in 1990 that within 25 years, marriage equality would be quickly becoming the law of the land, open gays are accepted in big-4 professional sports and the military, AIDS is generally manageable, and domestic gay life is becoming the stuff of sitcoms, they'd never believe you. I sure wouldn't have.
I have to hand it to the HRCs and the A-Gays of the world for helping with progress that I never expected to see in my lifetime. It was rioting drag queens that started our journey to equality but not solely them. When I am in a more cynical mood I know it's because our money is plenty green and it's mostly because we are useful to corporations that we have made the progress we have. As the article points out there's no gay politics, there's just money politics. On the other hand I'd rather be sold to than tied to a fence and beaten to death.
I remember the Socialist Worker being handed out at pride marches. As gays have gotten steadily integrated into american life, we have moved in from the fringes. There's gay conservatives and gay liberals, gay reactionaries and gay radicals, and that's okay. That's what it means to really be part of the fabric of american life.
that said, free bradley manning, but for reasons entirely apart from his LGBT status.
What? Gay liberation wasn't about the right to join the ranks of the smug, hypocritical and self-serving? Then what was it for, sir? What, I ask you?
ReplyDeletesorry, cargo, but that down vote is me.
ReplyDelete"that said, free bradley manning, but for reasons entirely apart from his LGBT status."
ReplyDeleteYou're right to dissociate yourself mate. Manning is about the disempowered and the oppressed, and you've come a long way, baby.
I had some problems with the article: it had that feel I often get when liberals talk about right-wing members of minority groups, like 'what's wrong with them? Don't they know they should be on our side?' Don't get me wrong, I think more people in general should be anti-militarist, and more people in general should read the Socialist Worker and all that. I agree with your last sentence. Thrasher's thesis seemed to be more 'Man, I remember when gay people were all hip and radical but now they're corporate and mainstream and they suck.' All well and good when you're talking about punk rock, but these are, you know, people. It's like the writer had some idealized version of gay activists in his head and it's their fault for letting him down. As if LGBT people have a special obligation to be anti-militarist.
ReplyDeleteEveryone on that list does know that. Groups that depended on the solidarity and support of other oppressed groups that then decided to enjoy the executive washroom and fuck those peons anyway are quite well aware of their sold-out status; that's one reason they hate being reminded of it. The really neat thing is when a member of such a group--a Latino conservative, for example--runs up against good old-fashioned white supremacy, like a bullshit bust from an LA cop, and then runs around demanding that the old networks of support--that the now-elite out-group member wanted no part of a short while ago--support him/her in the Hour of Oppression.
ReplyDeleteIt's not dissociating to say we should support his cause because he deserves to be free, regardless of his sexuality.
ReplyDeleteBradley Manning and his actions have fuck-all to do with gay rights, gay history or gay culture. As a San Francisco gay man, I'm relieved I won't have to skip the parade because it's been turned into Bradley Manning day. I found the linked piece tendentious and am quite surprised to see the usually reliable Roy plugging it.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone think for one minute that we would get full on lgbtq equality and not see the majority of white males in the movement JOHN the Republican Party and fight for low taxes? A privilige regains is all the sweeter.
ReplyDeleteBreaks my heart that Thrasher has talked about not writing any more. The man needs a grant, or a miniseries, or something.
ReplyDelete"Usually Reliable Roy", that's what they used to call him around the tannery
ReplyDeleteI remember when Gojira stomped Tokyo when he got mad.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to you, man???
~
Yeah, free Manning. As for the rest of the piece, please. Who cares? There's disagreement within an organization about a very public statement? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. I'd also like to add that thrasher is "essentialising" gayness in a really weird way. Speaking as a member of two formerly despised minority groups it is not only expected but natural for there to be a vanguard of contrarians and revolutionaries for whom the very act of coming out and forcing mainstream acceptance is meant to destabilize and alter the very idea of the normal and a whole lotta people who come along after and say "thanks for helping me get the key to the executive washroom, now can I please just live my life?"
ReplyDeleteAs for bradly manning himself he isn't a martyr to gayness and nothing that happened to him happened because he was gay. How on earth does having him as a notional grand martial not kick up a huge political dust up in a community that is, ultimately, no more left than the rest of American society. Even the focus on him reeks of masculine privilige, frankly. Why aren't gay people fighting to honor female reproductive rights and the aca and pushing back against right wing attacks on female sexuality?
It's hardly news that there's a conflict between radical gays who want to bind the drive for LGBT equality into a big pan-progressive movement and assimilationists who want that middle-class privilege. (Alison Bechdel was regularly doing comic strips about this very subject a quarter of a century ago.) Thrasher's piece reads less like a hell-raising call to arms and more like the lancing of a long-festering boil regarding the focus on DADT and DOMA repeal. And it's telling that he tries to pin Manning's de-nomination entirely on Lisa Williams, and leaves out the bit where Williams claims that it wasn't the "electoral college" but a single staff member who nominated Manning; maybe true, maybe not, but Thrasher leaves the impression that he had this rant cued up and waiting for an excuse to drop the needle.
ReplyDeleteAlso telling is his contempt of "Professional Homosexuals", or, as cargo noted, the people who get things done. I've had my own issues with organizations like HRC, particularly under former director Joe Solmonese's leadership, and, yes, the letter that GLAAD wrote in support of AT&T was a really, really stupid idea. But, hey, some people have this crazy idea that you can hold organizations accountable without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Thrasher seems to have bought wholesale into the mythology that the LGBT rights movement started with Stonewall and/or that that event is the epitome of the struggle. This is pure revisionist bullshit.
Bradley Manning Day, no relation to Rex Manning Day?
ReplyDeleteI respect you and your POV, Jack, but that thing about the "single member" looks awful fishy to me.
ReplyDeleteYour nice colleague Mr. Steven Thrasher seems to be suffering from historical delusion. Just as Right-wingists harbor a whitewashed fantasy of 50's America, Thrasher is nursing an absurd fantasy* of stonewall-era America, in which every gay person was an angry, brick-hurling socialist.
ReplyDeleteThere have always been politically right-leaning or even deeply conservative homosexuals. Always.
What we've learned, and shouldn't be in the least bit surprised about, is that these particular people don't magically turn into radical leftists when they come out.
Maybe if we cram all the gay republicans and gay libertarians** back into the closet, Steve won't feel so betrayed anymore?
* "rightwashing?"
** "glibertarians" is already taken no?
It's remarkable in favor of me to have a web site, which is valuable in favor of my experience. thanks admin
ReplyDeleteMy web blog :: read this
I'll agree with you to a point, Jack, but "the people who get things done" doesn't work. People got things done before mostly white and mostly male professionals took over the movement, often more with an eye to building their CVs than doing anybody else any good. They work at marginalizing those who don't share their class status, often people who 'got things done' when the pros were in diapers or the closet. Money either mysteriously disappears (remember the financial woes of HRC's Millennium March?) or gets spent on perks for the upper ranks instead of services. As I recall, that sort of thing did a lot of harm to AIDS organizations like GMHC. Generally the pros are ignorant about gay history, or gay life, or about anything except what they learned in Business School. There's no inherent reason why the GLBT movement should be exempt from the ongoing corporatization and militarization of American life, but that doesn't mean those are positive trends.
ReplyDeleteI doubt Thrasher is old enough to remember when the movement was radical. I am, and I always knew that would change as more people came out and got involved. It doesn't really help to remind us of the movement before Stonewall, because as you no doubt know, the radicals who started Mattachine were kicked out during the Cold War by people who weren't assimilationists but quietists. The movement was already getting radicalized again in the years just before Stonewall by people who were tired of the leaders' inaction: Lesbians were inspired by Second Wave feminism, and politicized the Daughters of Bilitis. The East Coast saw the rise of activists like Frank Kameny, who was a Civil Service professional, fired for being queer, and who was angry about it and got some things done. There's room for the skills that professionals can bring to the movement, of course, but they can't be allowed to set its goals.
etting radicalized again by the time of the Stonewall Riots because so many gay people were sick of the leadership's
The reality of "politically right-leaning or even deeply conservative homosexuals" certainly seemed to fuel the gay-baiting flava Oliver Stone's JFK.
ReplyDeleteOne of the snarkiest debunkings I've heard of JFK conspiracy theories was that Garrison's fact-finding was going to lead to the outing of a number of prominent members of the business community in New Orleans, so he was fed tidbits regarding the assassination as a smoke screen or red herring. It seems that back then being accused of complicity in the president's death was more socially survivable than being exposed as homosexual. As to the truth of that: quien sabe?
That last part was a joke, actually, a reference to the concern trolling that feminists undergo when the raise issues associated for (some) readers with the problems faced by specific, identifiable, women who can be dismissed as "toor lots" or "too white" to matter.
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest that what this shows is that LGBT people really are just like straight people. Although I would think that a little disappointment isn't completely uncalled for.
ReplyDelete"I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused." Elvis Costello.
No more than if we get racial equality, we won't see a lot of rich, black assholes doing so. We're fighting for say, Harold Ford, to be a Republican and not feel any particular discomfort about that.
ReplyDelete"The people who get things done"? Who got the (any really) movement to the point where the closet cases feel free to come out and "get things done?" I'd be almost willing to suggest that the "People who get things done" are jumping on the wagon of history just before it passes them by so that they can more safely control its direction.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem with turning everything into digitally stored data-nothing to stomp on.
ReplyDeleteI'd put the likes of GOProud and the latter-day Ken Mehlman (not too long after he helped GWB get re-elected by working up anti-SSM amendments as a wedge issue) in the bandwagon-jumping category, and no, that's not who I meant.
ReplyDeleteI know plenty of gay dudes for whom the GOP's overt homophobia is literally the only thing keeping them voting D. Sooner or later the repubs will figure that out, but it doesn't look likely anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, there's nothing I'd like more than LGBTs to be mostly leftists like me. The whole situation is complex and awkward. Kind of like life.
ReplyDeleteI knew a turning point had been reached when the dominant image of gays in the media went from "shirtless hunks dancing on a rainbow float" to "75 year old gay/lesbian couples in suits/dresses smooching on courthouse steps". I cannot deny those 75 year old couples' their life fulfillment in the name of ideological purity. I know some punk rockers can.
There's room for the skills that professionals can bring to the movement, of course, but they can't be allowed to set its goals.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that we're in disagreement on this; as I noted above, I certainly don't think that giving succor to AT&T should be a goal, and really shouldn't be in the acceptable arsenal of tactical moves. Nor, for that matter, are some of the stunts pulled by Joe Solmonese, who, and I really, really have to wonder about this, completely escaped a call-out by Thrasher, both in this piece and in his longer, earlier article in the Veev about "Gay, Inc."
Also, I didn't know about the "quietists"; I'd be interested in any resources online that you could point me to.
Yeah, looks like the story is changing more than a bit.
ReplyDeleteI like Toor Lots Syndrome.
ReplyDelete"A shonda for the gayim"
ReplyDeleteWell, it's pretty obvious nobody needs me around here. The work's getting well done without any help from me.
It does sound suitably moomintrolly.
ReplyDelete"I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused." Elvis Costello.
ReplyDelete"I hate myself, but not because I am Jewish" I forget who said that. Might have been Max Blumenthal? Does it matter?
"especially the flow of military contractor money into big gay orgs."
ReplyDeleteDidn't there used to be a quote on the masthead here about what kind of occupations are 'stereo-typically gay'? Perhaps the list will be added to.
Maybe digital Gojira could delete a whole of of Tokyo jpegs.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to date up the update.
ReplyDeleteI only regret that I have but one like to give.
ReplyDeleteToor Lots Syndrome
ReplyDeleteUnexplained outbursts of Finnish curse words
I'm out in public, for one, and this made me laugh so hard I'm going to need to go back into seclusion.
ReplyDeleteYeah, where do those people get off shoving Bradley Manning in your face?
ReplyDelete"We shouldn't be surprised by their behavior" is not a reason to avoid calling out that behavior when it seems less than above board.
ReplyDeleteComing from a jokewright as talented as yourself, that means a lot.
ReplyDeleteAnd then Andrew Sullivan will laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
ReplyDeleteThat's still a great article at the VV, and I thank you for linking to it.
ReplyDeleteEh, they can try. Looks like they failed this time.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP welcoming the coloureds _and_ the gays at the same time? Hell, why not consider building bridges with the Muslim and Arabic constituencies too? Maybe one group, if only to make them seem warm and cuddly and inclusive.
ReplyDeleteI can see the endless focus groups and strategy meetings, trying to work out which disgusting minority they should pretend to really like for the upcoming election cycle.
Aw shucks, so where's that coconut oil again?
ReplyDeleteWell, the minorities *are *revolting.
ReplyDeleteyes, a punk rocker with a graduate degree in history, with a focus on social movements of the 20th century. slow your roll, kitten; theory happens to carry a little more weight than your journaling.
ReplyDeletethat said, i understand the "nuanced" perspective you're claiming - good historians do, but they don't cop out with cheap moralism, they call these "tensions." at any rate, flogging the happy image of elder couples getting married does not erase the potential for radical change gay liberation had (and continues to have), nor does it make the sight of capitalist queers selling out someone who deserves the nobel peace prize any less disquieting.
you get a like for using the adjective "moomintrolly".
ReplyDeletemaybe two likes for using it to describe the phrase "Toor Lots Syndrome"
In fact, likes all round for everyone on this mini-thread!
:)