ETA: Speaking of math, holy god do I love every bit of this. Thank you, Elle, for the link.
How do people get from nooses, and veiled and/or overt threats, and “cartoons” of Michelle Obama half naked and attacked at a Klan shindig – with attendant defensiveness around said “cartoon” – and every bit of ugly that showed its face in these last 21 months… to “First black man elected president = racism extinct!”?
If anything, the formula was/is: shit got uglier and more pronounced in the last couple of years than I remember it being before then. Not: more racist, as in my view it’s not that racism got worse or more prevalent, it’s that it stopped feeling ashamed of itself and started holding fucking parades. If anything, the depth and tenacity and fervor of white supremacy in this country became more and more public in the last 21 months. If anything, this black man looking like he had a real shot at becoming president stirred white supremacy to stop even the pretense of having withered or quieted or in the least bit softened. The outcome on November 4th is inseparable from the road to that outcome. This and this are inseparable from that outcome.
And how do people get from “I’m gay and white and I voted for Obama” to “black people owe me because of what I did for them?”
I didn’t vote for Obama as a show of solidarity towards black people, and it’s not because I lack the desire to show solidarity with black people. Still, I voted for him – with all his known and possibly unknown flaws – if anything, as a show of solidarity towards my own humanness and every other person’s on the planet. I voted for him because I like him. There, I said it. I live in California and could have voted for McKinney/Clemente without worrying that it’d fuck up the outcome, but I didn’t. I wanted to vote for Obama. As much as I started to have the underdog-compassion towards both McCain and Palin in the final couple of weeks of the campaign, I was out of my mind fucking terrified of what would happen if they won. I voted for Obama as a way to say no to that; that’s what I felt like doing in this election, that’s the way I felt like saying no.
So for people who voted for Obama as a way to make evident their belief that a) black people are a monolith and b) homophobic black people did us dirtier somehow than homophobic white people in California *because* we voted for a black man for president, I would like to ask – why stop there? Isn’t it also super dickish then for the monolith-that-is-teenage-girls when any number of them roll their eyes at my 40 year old ass? Or when one of them said something rude to me a couple of months ago on the street near where I live? How terrible of the borg that is teenage girls that any of them continue to be flawed and/or cruel and/or unfair after I helped defeat that profoundly-anti-teenage-girl Proposition 4 in California! I want my hollow gesture of alliance back!
Okay I will try to calm down with the snark. I insist, however, that if my willingness to take action that I believe is right is contingent on whether and to what extent I judge anyone else to be doing the same, we’re headed for much worse than what we’ve got now. Please stop acting foolish. Please stop acting like an Obama presidency means that “black people’s problems are solved and now it’s MY turn to be considered the most oppressed!” It never stopped being anyone’s turn to be respected and loved in the first place. Can we get on with both of those things now please?
November 7, 2008 at 12:02 am |
I object on one point: no calming down with the snark. Everything else is made of fucking win.
November 7, 2008 at 1:08 am |
This… this is why I adore you. Yes, yes and amen and a terrorist fist bump to boot.
November 7, 2008 at 1:11 am |
Everything Kevin said.
I found exactly one good mainstream-source article about this–it was in the San Jose Mercury News, but I can’t find the link just now. Anyway, it did the craziest thing: Talked to queer activists of color about this. And what do you know?–Turns out they didn’t get the best support from white folks. One woman had to pay to get the No-on-8 signs translated into Spanish and Vietnamese herself, because the organization she was working with had not seen fit to bother, even though she was working in neighborhoods where the signs being available in languages other than English was definitely going to matter.
She also said that to her knowledge, there were no African-Americans on any of the steering committees, nor were people of color depicted in any of the ads (I don’t live in CA, so obviously cannot verify this, but it seems sadly easy to believe).
But I’m not hearing about how white churches funded much of this, or how white activists dropped the ball by forgetting that queer comes in all colors and income brackets, or any of that. Every headline has “Blacks” or “Latinos” or “Blacks/Latinos” in it, as though white people had nothing to do with any of this. It’s enraging and wholly justifies a little snark on your part.
November 7, 2008 at 2:35 am |
[...] to Vivirlatino, and what do I see but a post entitled, More Prop 8 Black and Latin@ Blaming. Then Joan posts this question: “And how do people get from ‘I’m gay and white and I voted for Obama’ to [...]
November 7, 2008 at 3:26 am |
I really have nothing to say except: I LOVE THIS POST. And I hate when people expect cookies for doing the right thing. Or expect anything for doing the right thing. Like, yeah, it’s nice when people get your back too, or when you do get a cookie for doing the right thing (I do love cookies) but I really don’t know how to deal with people who would actually consider not doing the right thing over something like that. It’s the RIGHT THING, do it regardless of whether or not anyone’s going to be grateful.
November 7, 2008 at 3:39 am |
*wild applause*
It’s amazing how quickly people want to equate coloring in dots (or marking a screen, depending on how you vote) or, even, putting out a
-gasp- sign, with permission to get out the giant eraser and apply it to history while at the same time submitting paperwork for personal sainthood.
Please don’t lose the snark. I like the snark. Snark makes me happy.
November 7, 2008 at 4:16 am |
<3 <3 <3
November 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm |
[...] California’s Proposition 8: Necessary Links November 7, 2008 — ilyka I recommend this: So for people who voted for Obama as a way to make evident their belief that a) black people are a [...]
November 7, 2008 at 1:43 pm |
Thanks, Kevin, for both the comment and the link.
Harrietsdaughter, I know it’s cheesy but I can’t help it, I am swooning in your direction. Thanks for the kind words and for the bump.
Ilyka, thank you also for the comment and the link. And yeah, I have to go back and look for the thread and comment that sparked me to write this post (definitely did not come up with these thoughts in some personal good-thought-having vacuum, ahem), because someone had mentioned how a lady at the rally in West Hollywood the other night had said, basically, hold the fucking phone, people – it was the Mormon church that largely funded this measure. And then I read the post at your place, too, with the clip about the lady you mention here.
And my thoughts are – ideologically, I personally could not be more against marriage. And it’s not just because I hate attending weddings. I just don’t like marriage, period, and will bore people later perhaps with the details. However, I would no more wish to enforce that dislike on everyone else than I would want them forcing me TO get married. So it does break my heart that Prop 8 passed – that enough people were willing to write “ew, that’s wrong!” about *any* people’s union into law. It’s hurtful and angering.
There are a lot of homophobic people, period, in California. And elsewhere. And I am for people talking about that, directly and clearly. I just do not accept that it’s okay to a) make this election about something nice white people of any orientation did “for black people” or b) pit homophobia in any black or latino person(s) against whether white people should re-think simply *not withholding their vote from the best candidate out of white supremacist fears and angers*.
Because we’re not even talking about white people going out into the world and doing any sliver of work whatsoever, with that vote. We’re talking about just not-doing the wrong thing! Literally the absence of a wrong-action is now “effort” that is being resented by some people. I just…my eyes, they bug out.
Isabel, thanks for stopping by and for the kind words and the rest of your comment.
Genni – thank you also for visiting and for the great comment.
Mags, I purr at you.
And now I get in shower as prelude to job-attendance. Anyone from any other thread who reads this comment – yes I am going to respond to other comments as well.