HRC Back Story

Equality Forward: Highlights

August 14, 2009 1:31PM
Michael Cole

As we wrap up our series of Equality Forward essays, I wanted to take a look back at the powerful voices we’ve featured over the past two weeks.  The report and this conversation is not an end but a beginning of the larger discussions that we need to continue having about race, sexuality and gender. Read more about Equality Forward.

Cuc Vu:
The most important thing that the LGBT movement can do is to practice inclusion. Our challenge isn’t diversity; it’s inclusion. Diversity is our reality, but we don’t always recognize it because most of our circles of friends look like us and most of our organizations are staffed by people who also look like us. Practicing inclusion means that instead of trying to figure out how LGBT people of color “fit” into our LGBT movement and organizations, we have to create a culture that welcomes all people.

Diego Sanchez:
I realize that I am generally seen as transgender or transsexual only because I often disclose my gender identity. But I am always seen as “not white” and perhaps specifically Latino.

Bishop Tonyia Rawls:
When hearing that God could not use me as a woman even though I felt the call to preach and lead, and when hearing that I and others like me were abominations because of our orientation, it was difficult to see how my gifts and voice could ever be used.

Howard Ross:
It is time to question our unexamined and unquestioned narratives, the very stories we tell ourselves about who we are and who we aspire to be. It is time to question the paradigm itself by looking at where our beliefs and our reactions come from, inquiring deeply into how we unconsciously think, feel, and act, and studying the way we interact with each other, rather than only debating the issues themselves.

Rev. Darlene Garner:
As a lesbian woman of African descent nearing retirement with four children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, I am one who lives at the intersection of race, class, gender and sexual orientation. I experienced the “stuff” (oppression) sometimes coming at me from all sides at once. The responses around how African Americans experience violence and hurt from their family strikes my concerns the most because I lived it!

Lisbeth Melendez Rivera:
Addressing homophobia in the Latina/o community, racism and xenophobia in the queer movement, and sexism everywhere are an everyday part of my life. My actions are centered and sprouted from the days, at 17, when I had to confront oppression, from an entire country, and made a choice to flee. No more, no longer.

Doug Spearman:
It’s a different world for white Americans than it is for black, brown, and yellow Americans. Especially if you have education, income, and available resources. And we’re finally beginning to openly talk about the differences. Until we do, until we acknowledge the realities of all the -isms that exist within the LGBT community, we will never be able to face the discrimination and hatred that is aimed at us. 

Henry Robin:
As a white, gay male I applaud the work HRC has done and hope that it helps to open up hearts and minds a little further. Not “other” people’s hearts and minds, but rather, my very own. Let’s not just hope – but work through awareness – to make the findings of this survey move us in the right direction so that some day our differences are truly celebrated not only in society as a whole, but especially among ALL our LGBT brothers and sisters. 

Faith Cheltenham:
My friend saw the ridiculous reverberations of race and spoke up, even if it didn’t directly affect him. If we do this enough for one another, soon we will exist without “others.” For as we cross the streets that intersect our lives, we lean around bends catching glimpses of people and pains we never knew existed.

Eric Peterson:
And, of course, the biggest privilege that comes with privilege is the ability to remain clueless about one’s own privilege. Prior to coming out, I lived in a fantasy world wherein oppression and discrimination were remnants of the bad old days, before everyone learned to get along. And not only was I raised to believe that racism, sexism, classism, etc. no longer existed in society; I was raised to believe that these “isms” did not exist within myself.

Parag Mehta:
The internal struggle we face as a community is the same one that led Dr. King and Rev. Akaka to march to Montgomery more than 44 years ago. The issue of racial equality, inclusion and acceptance must be part of the modern LGBT rights movement.

Thanks to HRC Diversity Department Intern Joshua Lieberman for compiling these posts.

• Categories:
• People of Color
• Permalink

• Bookmark:
• Delicious
• Digg
• Yahoo
• Google
• Facebook
• Twitter