watch your TONE when your civil rights have been taken away! don't get ANGRY!

[cimorene]

A lot of times when people link to stupid essays that piss them off, I don't read them because I don't like being pissed off. But gay marriage is an issue where I still often click the link, and today I found out that people who actually purport to be activists can still claim that protest is a counterproductive measure for winning civil rights!

Wow, who knew? Maybe she should call herself an inactivist, since she apparently thinks that marches, pickets and public demonstrations are too hostile and will just get people's backs up.

Don't act combative, but instead show them that you're just like them! Once they understand that you, too, talk about prudery, prim-mouthed platitudes, and middle class social conservatism at the dinner table, they will like you! I assume that those of us who do talk about sex, radical politics, and slash at the dinner table are supposed to lie?

Fuck that, and fuck their Thanksgiving. I'm not going to zip my lips and pretend to be mainstream to gain acceptance. I'd rather spend Thanksgiving with people who like who I am. (Which is maybe a cultural difference, because Wax's response to her homophobic grandmother was "I don't want to talk about this" whereas my response to my homophobic grandfather was "If you think that I don't deserve the same rights as other people deserve, then you're saying that I'm worth less than other people. That is wrong and it's despicable that you would say it. PS: you were a terrible father to my mom.")

Comments

[creativepseudo.livejournal.com]

It really irks me too when people say that protests are counterproductive. This is a VERY BIG DEAL and people need to understand that.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Okay, she lost me when she compared it to being on a Klan march. FAIL.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I think she lost most of us on that count...

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna keep on being counterproductive then - obviously as a straight married woman it is my duty to sabotage the gay marriage deal by turning up to marches and demonstrations. ;)

PS you could come to my house for Thanksgiving. I mean, OK, it'd be quite a distance, and I still haven't gotten the hang of the holiday yet, but still...

[ciderpress.livejournal.com]

*throws up hands*

While I understand that there are many different avenues that can and should be followed in the course of activism and social justice, the idea that one way is harmful to another way belies how social justice movements have grown and achieved goals in any and every part of the world. There is no one true way; people are never what you expect or propose they should be and think as you think they should; you cannot reach all or even most people with the same voice or the same action. Change rarely comes from activism or movements alone -- mostly economic or socio-political factor predicates social change. But, but, without the voices that were pushing for change, without the voices and protests of hurt and anger and yes, even understanding and love, no society would be aware or move along far enough for those social changes to come into effect.

The OP talks about how the Obama campaign was "inclusive" and not exclusive like she intimates that a lot of previous race-related activism has been and that was the reason for its success. That's terrible logic and it's a terrible analysis of how activism actually works. To say that different avenues of activism, be they protests, rallies, dialogue, loveins etcs are competing actions is to set up a false dichtomy. The inclusiveness of Obama's campagn was part of the reason for the success, yes, but the other parts have to do with economic climate, with the progress that angry black men and women have made in the last 40 years by not backing off, by inching forward until they have recovered rights and chip away at white privilege. Without anger, there can be no calls for understanding. Without protests, there can be no gestures to bring the community together. The rallies and protests are not what has split the community apart and made people afraid. It's not just ignorance either or the inability to emotionally connect that drives people to oppress others. It's a wide range of factors and there is no single way to fix a million different ills, similarly, there is no single way to voice millions of different kinds of voices that represent in millions of different povs why Prop 8 is harmful.

I respect that it's the way the OP chooses to go about her own activism but to say that other ways other than hers are harmful comes across as a narrow world view and indicates access to privilege that not everyone who is for gay marriage actually has.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I assume that those of us who do talk about sex, radical politics, and slash at the dinner table are supposed to lie? Fuck that, and fuck their Thanksgiving.

That's the good thing about life since I moved to the UK: Thanksgiving is no longer mandatory! Nor, indeed, existent. My blood pressure is the better for it.

[dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com]

I love thanksg, and those we celebr with, but I understand now that when, eg, Gandhi & King protested, they were only hurting the movements. How did I miss that?