GAYLETTER

Gay civil rights and Black civil rights are not the same. Attempts to equate these struggles in a 1 to 1 ratio are naive, disingenuous, or self-serving, and are usually articulated by white people. That being said, pretty much every practical strategy ever used to further the cause of LGBT rights came from the Black civil rights struggle. LGBT people watched the Black civil rights struggle in America, listened to its rhetoric, learned from its leaders’ strategies, and then adopted and adapted it to their own situation, often to profound effect. This process of learning and borrowing has been, in and of itself, a really good thing.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington DC hears oral arguments in legal proceedings that many predict will result in the freedom to marry for gay people across the country, hastening broad social acceptability and equality under the law. At the exact same moment, forty miles to the north, the smoke rising in Baltimore bears the latest testament to the growing massacre of black bodies by white police officers who are held to no account in a criminal justice system that dismisses charges against white police and has more black males incarcerated now than were ever enslaved during the highest tide of American slavery. The LGBT struggle marches forward victoriously, while the struggle for the value of black lives — that struggle to which LGBT people owe so much — is under fiercer attack than it has faced in decades, and people continue to die.

The upshot? Let’s get our queer asses down to Union Square tonight, April 29th at 6:00PM to stand in solidarity with Baltimore, with the black community, and with all the people around the country who know that the status quo is wrong, and must not be tolerated. If you’re a queer person of color, no one has to tell you about the struggle, you live it (Trans women of color were at the absolute forefront of the Stonewall riots, and today they are still murdered or swept aside by fucking everyone). But if, like me, you’re a queer white person, consider this an opportunity to bear witness to righteous anger against violent oppression, a righteous anger born from the movement that taught us how to fight back when we were still terrified to speak our names. Our current and future gay civil rights victories will ring all too hollow unless we recommit ourselves and our community to the vision of an America wherein ALL people, queer or straight, are free to walk down the street without fear, not just the white ones.

For a brilliant 15-minute history lesson on what the LGBT Rights movement learned from the Black Civil Rights movement, and the story of how gay forces like the Mattachine Society were involved with and inspired by landmark Civil Rights moments, watch queer black filmmaker Yoruba Richen‘s TEDtalk here.