If Not Now, When? October 12, 2009
Posted by Kate Ryan in Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, National Politics, Politics, Racism.Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, Don't Ask - Don't Tell, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gays in the Military, National Politics, Politics, Racism
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Sometimes life imitates art, and sometimes art imitates life. This weekend, as thousands of gay rights advocates marched in Washington to push the administration and the Congress to get started on their promises toward gay civil rights, I caught two things on television that got me thinking again about all this.
On Saturday, I watched comedian Wanda Sykes perform her stand-up special, “I’m A Be Me” for HBO. Wanda’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love her. She’s sharp, sarcastic, and a keen observer of life. Sykes is also a gay woman. She came out last November after marrying her partner of a few years in October 2008. Sykes, in her public coming-out, stated that she never felt that she was in the closet – she was just living her life. In her comedy special Saturday, however, she spoke about how liberating her public coming-out was.
“Being gay,” Sykes said, “is harder than being black. You don’t have to come out as black.” She then did an extremely funny bit about sitting her parents down to tell them that she was black – along with a hysterical imitation of her mother hearing the news.
Though the bit was very funny, it made me think about the mere fact of being gay in America. Sykes is 45 years old. She has been with her wife since 2006; she had been married to a man for 7 years, divorcing in 1998. So sometime between her divorce and remarriage she had to have come out privately to her family and friends. So, until this woman was thirty-five or maybe older, she was living as a heterosexual – denying her basic human nature.
Then, last night’s episode of “Mad Men” on AMC, wove together the struggle for civil rights in the black community with character Sal Romano’s closeted homosexuality. Set in 1963, “Mad Men” is often looked upon with a nostalgic fondness for when “men were men”. Last night’s episode was a reminder that the good old days were not so good for some people. After Sal rebuffs an amorous male client’s advances – protesting that he is a married man – the client goes ballistic and requests he be fired. And of course, Sal is fired, with his boss Don Draper making a sneering reference to “you people”. At the same time, Betty Draper encounters her African-American housekeeper – her “girl” – listening to the funeral for the four girls who died in the Birmingham church bombing. She sympathetically asks her housekeeper if she needs a day off because of the tragedy, then continues to tell her that things like this make her think that the time isn’t right for civil rights.
Is the time right for gay civil rights? Many would say “no”. While our gay brothers and sisters marched for marriage equality and the right to serve their country openly, there were people – including openly gay Congressman Barney Frank – who advised them to slow down, to “work through the system”. They caution that the President has too many other important items on his agenda to rush into a gay mine field.
What is more important than the right to live as any other human being has the right to live?
President Obama can change “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with a stroke of a pen – by Executive Order. It might not be politically popular – but it is the right thing to do. And let’s face it – the people who would be craziest about that action are people who wouldn’t vote for or with him anyway.
Sixty-five years after those little girls were murdered in Birmingham, we still have not overcome the spectre of racism. Indeed, since the election of Barack Obama, it seems as though a lot of overt racism has been crawling out of the grave we assigned it to. We should absolutely reject the idea that our gay community needs to wait half a century or more to achieve equality.
An Uncivil War June 12, 2009
Posted by Kate Ryan in Barack Obama, Democrats, Domestic Terrorism, National Politics, Politics, Republicans, Right-Wing Extremism.Tags: Anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Conservatism, Democrats, Domestic Terrorism, Fox News, National Politics, Politics, Racism, Republicans, Right-Wing Extremism, Rush Limbaugh
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Historians that have examined the American Civil War inevitably place the issue of slavery at the center of the conflict. Indeed, since the Missouri Compromise of 1820-1821, the issue of slavery and its expansion into U.S. Territories simmered underneath all political debate. In 1858, upon accepting the nomination of the Republican party for Senator from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln delivered his “House Divided” speech wherein he maintained that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln said that he believed that the United States could not endure half slave and half free – that it must become all one thing or another.
Though slavery as an issue was the catalyst for secession and ultimately, war, the real driving principal was States Rights vs. Federalism. The slave-owning states had an economic and social interest in preserving the system of slavery. As westward expansion began and gained momentum, migrants to the new territories also had an economic interest in expanding slave ownership to the newest areas of the United States. Obviously, the ability to hold slaves would be an economic boon to an emigrant class that required cheap (or free) labor to build new communities and industry. The federalists in the northern states, however, saw slavery as an affront to the power of the national government and its ability to regulate trade, commerce, and the national economy.
Upon Abraham Lincoln’s election to the Presidency in 1860, several states immediately seceded from the Union. The Civil War began when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter, SC, in an effort to wrest control of the military installation from the Union.
Why is this history lesson important today? Because, basically, a segment of the population did not agree with the results of an election and caused the deadliest war in American history.
Since the election of Barack Obama as president there has been a well-documented rise in the activities of right-wing extremist groups, white supremacist groups, and Neo-Nazi fascist groups. This follows on the heels of last fall’s resurgence of right-wing populism; the war against the “cultural elites” and liberal-socialist non-Americans living in cities. This has been, of course, well fed and flames fanned by Fox News, Sarah Palin, and right-wing commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck – the culmination of which has been the assassination of an abortion provider in Kansas and the murder of a Security Officer at the U.S. Holocaust Museum this week.
The right-wingers are frantically trying to run away from their culpability in all of this hate and violence. Indeed, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show yesterday that white supremacists are really leftists – their ideas are spawned by the “Israel-hating”, 9-11 conspiracy theorist left wing.
What the ……? Can Limbaugh really be serious when he sits bouncing in his chair behind the mike telling white America that he hopes – for the sake of the country – that the President fails? Can they be serious when Bill O’Reilly is painting a physician performing a LEGAL procedure as “Tiller the Baby-Killer” who will “execute your child” for five thousand bucks? Can they really step back from their words when crazy Glenn Beck is telling them to stock up on guns and ammo because the president is coming to take your guns?
This type of speech is hate speech and its sole purpose is to inflame action on the parts of the people who hate. Now, Limbaugh and others can say that they want these loons to express their hate in the voting booth, but even they must acknowledge that they have no control. They are holding the wolf by the ears and are unable to let it go for fear it will tear them apart.
Limbaugh said that white supremacist and Neo-Nazi James Von Brun was obviously “mentally disturbed” when he committed his act of terror in the Holocaust Museum. Isn’t any terrorist – domestic or otherwise – somehow “mentally disturbed”? And suppose you had a neighbor who was schizophrenic and heard voices telling him to kill? If you went to his house on a daily basis and talked to him about how the neighbors on the other side were evil and not worthy, shouldn’t you be held culpable if he took an ax and killed them all? Would you be able to defend yourself by saying that you really didn’t think he would kill anyone?
That’s the point. These right-wing hate mongers know the crazies are out there. They call their talk shows every day. Rush and Sean and Glen are fully aware that they’re fanning the passions of these people – that’s called RATINGS, people.
We are on the brink of another war in this country – but this time, it is entirely un-civil. If you don’t believe it, look at some of these comments from a legal encyclopedia site on white supremacist groups:
“I am a white man and proud of it. N*ggers are one of the big things that makes this Country and world worse. They should be put away along with rapists, pedophiles, and mexicans. White is the superior race and all should do as we instruct. You have a negro college fun, african beauty pageant and all of this bull sh*t. If the white man or woman had this it would be racist. N*ggers have BET(black entertainment channel). If we had WET(white entertainment)we’d be racist. From an early age we our taught we are bad for having slaves. This country would be better if niggers were slaves. Put away n*ggers and let the south rise again”
“I am a white woman who believes in the constitution of the United States and that the president has to be a united state citizen and if he is not he cannot be president of the United States, period!! The white race better wake up or you’ll find yourself a slave of the Jews!! Read and learn white people! quit trying to be whiggers!! thats just retarded. We should be white and proud and keep America like it was built on a christian nation under God!”
Read more: http://law.jrank.org/pages/11302/White-Supremacy-Groups.html#ixzz0IEXeoOGl&C
