Talk About It
On Aug. 13, 2009, HRC held a national conversation about about race, sexuality and gender. The transcript of the chat is below.
Featuring some of today’s most distinct voices in the LGBT movement:
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Bishop Rainey Cheeks His life is a demonstration of dedication to spiritual study and mastery. He was initiated in Krya Yoga by Swami Hariharananda Giri and ordained as a minister of spiritual science at the National Spiritual Science Center in Washington, D.C., received a Doctor of Divinity from the St. Andrews Theological Seminary of London and is an elder in the Akan Religion. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice for the National Black Religious Summit. His work as an organizer, facilitator and trainer for HIV/AIDS has provided him with opportunities to present papers on holistic health at the World Health Conference in Amsterdam, Berlin and Japan. |
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LZ Granderson |
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Ché Ruddell-Tabisola |
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Rinku Sen |
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Joshua Ulibarri |
Transcript:
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Hi everybody! Welcome to today’s national conversation about race, sexuality and gender. We’ll be getting started in five minutes. We’ve already received a lot of great questions for today’s guests. Send us your question right now by entering it in the comment box at the bottom of the screen and hitting return.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Hello again, and welcome to today’s national conversation about race, sexuality and gender. Today’s discussion is part of HRC’s ongoing Equality Forward initiative, which seeks to foster a greater sense of connection among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: We’re joined today by some wonderful guests. Let me start by saying hello and welcoming Bishop Rainey Cheeks, founder and pastor of Inner Light Ministries in Washington, D.C. Bishop, so wonderful to have you with us.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: Thank you, I’m glad to be here.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Next I’d like to welcome senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com, LZ Granderson. Welcome, LZ.
LZ Granderson: Thank you very much, I’m excited!
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: We’re fortunate to also be joined by Rinku Sen, president and executive director of the Applied Research Center and publisher of ColorLines magazine. Rinku, thank you for being here.
Rinku Sen: Thank you for inviting me, and thanks to HRC for taking this important step in bringing all of our communities together.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Also joining us is one of the lead researchers of “At the Intersection,” Josh Ulibarri, partner at Lake Research Partners. Hi Josh.
Joshua Ulibarri: Hi Che, thanks very much for the invite and congratulations on a really great roll-out of the “At the Intersection” report.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: And of course, I’d like to welcome all of YOU participating in this dialogue: Thank you for being here today. Right now we’re receiving questions from people all over the country. Send us your question by typing in the comment box at the bottom of your screen and hitting return. Let’s get started!
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Our first question comes from taddr:
taddr: For many in this chat who may not know you and would like to know more, please share with us who you are and how race, sexuality and gender have woven themselves throughout your life.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: Wow. OK, an opening question. Well, I’m pastor of Inner Light Ministries here in Washington, D.C., and you can’t separate one from the other. I’m a whole person. I always say that when I walk in the room, all of me walks in the room. I’m clear about my sexuality as a gift and I use it that way. It’s the lens through which I see my world, and it’s the same thing with my race. So my sexuality, my race and my gender explain all of who I am as a living being.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Rinku, how would you answer that question?
Rinku Sen: Certainly all three identities, race, gender and sexuality, are a part of me and a part of my life. I am an immigrant as well — my family immigrated to the U.S. from India
Rinku Sen: In my work, I have seen the issues be separated in the way communities are organized around a particular identity and around policy change. Quite often, I see that the public articulation of policy work will focus on one aspect of the work and not the others. I try to help those who are working on policy change see the other dimensions of these issues.
Rinku Sen: All issues have a race dimension, a gender dimension, and a sexuality dimension, but we choose not to see these issues as multifaceted. If we want to be one community working for justice, we have to work harder to bring these communities together and stand on a unified platform.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you Rinku. LZ, how would you answer this question?
LZ Granderson: In agreement with everyone else. I do not live my life or perceive the world around me in fragmented pieces. I see it from my entire experience, which comes from me being male, African-American and openly gay. So, you can’t see the world as this kaleidoscope in pieces and segments. But, I am quickly reminded of who I am in certain situations I find myself in. For me, in my life, I tend to deal with — as a columnist and because of who I am — I find myself dealing with the issue of race more so than anything else. I cover the NFL and NBA, which is made mostly of black men. So I do spend a lot of time thinking about race more than anything else, but I do not believe I see the world as fragmented.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you, LZ. Our next question is from caitsand:
caitsand: Question for LZ: In response to your CNN opinion piece, “Gay Is Not the New Black,” what do you think of the quote below in a related CNN opinion piece by William Jelani Cobb?
caitsand: “It's hard to miss the way [Obama's] administration [has] begun to echo that of John F. Kennedy. And not in a good way. During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy ran as a forward-looking Democrat who understood the necessity of civil rights ... But once in office, Kennedy made civil rights a low priority.”
LZ Granderson: I think one of the things that is a disservice to civil rights in general today is that we spend a lot of time talking about the 60s and early 70s without giving respect to the political and cultural climate of the decade. There were a lot of things going on, and those changes were happening in a very radical, in-your-face, cultural fashion. The way that change is happening today is different than the 60s or 70s. The situations surrounding Vietnam are different than Iraq, as well as the way we approach these situations.
LZ Granderson: In regard to the comparison of the administrations, if you have someone who has been in office for 7 months compared to Kennedy, I don’t think that’s necessarily comparing apples to apples. I don’t think I am an apologist for President Obama, but I look at it this way: If you’re stuck in traffic and the lights turn green, you don’t instantly start to go. You still have to wait for the progression to happen even though change has begun.
LZ Granderson: When it comes to the discussion of issues other than LGBT issues, there are a lot of things that are disturbing to me now. We haven’t seen true movement yet, and sometimes we see that as not caring about the problems. But I don’t think that is necessarily the case.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you LZ, can I invite the others to chime in on that question?
Rinku Sen: I really have to agree with LZ that this is a really different moment than the moment we were in 40 years ago, and that our organizing models and political approaches haven’t quite caught up.
Rinku Sen: One of the things that is really different is that many, many people in the country experience less interpersonal racism, or homophobia or sexism in their day-to-day lives, but the structures, laws and institutional structures that shape our communities haven’t really changed enough to make us all equal in the way we actually experience life.
Rinku Sen: I think it has been a challenge for progressive movements and movements of liberation to recognize the progress that has been made while focusing on the progress that still needs to be made. That requires a very specific tone.
Rinku Sen: In a country where we have a president of color and two Supreme Court justices of color, it’s not really intuitive for people to see that even though Obama was elected, not every minority in the United States is able to live equally.
Rinku Sen: We assume that everyone can see the structural problems, but really they are pretty well hidden. It’s not apparent to everyone why LGBT people need various rights, and why people of color need specific protective rights.
Joshua Ulibarri: I think the data from the research tells two stories. One is that the LGBT people of color in the study had the same concerns as everyone else, such as the economy, healthcare and the war in Iraq. When the president passes the Recovery Act, everyone benefits. However, the other story is that there may be some frustration with the president among LGBT people of color because he is not being progressive enough on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or on marriage equality or other relationship rights. He has a tough balancing act, but the data shows that he’s acting on some of the other priorities first.
LZ Granderson: And just to piggyback on that, I do myself sort of scratch my head when I hear some of the criticism phrased in the fashion that Obama hasn’t done enough for the gay community. Addressing issues such as healthcare in this nation is an issue that affects the gay community – as well as the war and economy issues. They all do affect the community because we don’t live in a vacuum.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: This next question comes from Jlieb89.
Jlieb89: Bishop Cheeks, I first read about you in the Washington Post. Your story about taking your HIV medication in front of your congregation was very powerful.
Jlieb89: How were you and your family impacted by the onslaught of the AIDS crisis? And how do you think the public dialogue and perception of people with HIV/AIDS has changed since then?
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: It is interesting to me that people found that taking my meds in front of the congregation was a big deal. I just reached in my pocket and realized I hadn’t taken it and took my meds. Because I’ve been very open about my status from day one — I’ve never hidden it. There’s a saying, “You’re only as sick as your secrets,” so I’ve never had a secret that I’m HIV-positive and that I’m taking meds.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: People today are probably more educated or aware or know somebody who is infected. In Washington, D.C., that’s one in 20, and the number is probably higher than that.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: My issue is that today, the feeling of emergency is gone. There’s a sense of urgency, of protecting yourself or educating people, that seems to be gone, and that’s probably why our numbers are still so crazy. People aren’t dying as fast as they used to die, and you can’t tell who is HIV-positive. It angers me today — I’ve been positive since ‘84 and I tell people this is not a club you’re trying to join. In the early days, maybe you had an excuse that you didn’t know, but it’s impossible not to know.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: So it has changed that now there is better education and information out there, but I don’t know how well people are using it. I had someone come up to me the other day and he said, “Yeah, well, I’m positive.” And to me I couldn’t believe that he was taking it like “so what.” This is not a club you’re trying to join.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Wow. Thank you, Bishop. The next question is about the research:
prich: How did you find the LGBT people of color who participated in the study?
Joshua Ulibarri: It was a good challenge finding participants for this study, but an important challenge. We employed standard practices such as recruiting from "lists," but we also employed other tactics such as sending recruiters to "gay-friendly" book stores, coffee shops, hangouts, etc. We also did what we call "rolling recruiting," where once we have a recruit we then ask them if they know someone else who would like to participate, we then ask that second person for another friend so that we never have two really good friends in any one group. These were more expensive groups, took more hours to recruit, but in the end it was clearly worth it.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Our next question is from sheller.
sheller: Rinku, you’ve said that “None of us gets to choose where we’re born, and often we don’t really get to choose where we end up. We move around and migrate based on need for work, based on need for education, based on falling in love.”
sheller: How can we encourage broader support for sponsorship of same-sex couples as part of comprehensive immigration reform? Who are the people we need to talk to?
Rinku Sen: The first thing that we need to do is disrupt the conservative narrative on immigration, which has far-reaching layers, and we need to get people to think about it. They say “it’s all a matter of law and order,” or “what part of illegal don’t you understand,” and the part we don’t understand is when illegal is applied in a racist way. It’s not the illegal Irish immigrants anymore that are being arrested in the middle of the night or separated from their U.S. citizen children.
Rinku Sen: We need to be able to acknowledge that immigrants are also human beings; they aren’t just a pair of hands for hard labor and economic growth. They have contributions to make to the communities they live in and they are making those contributions.
Rinku Sen: When we are speaking of a new immigration policy, we focus on our economic need to have them, and that’s a pretty narrow way of framing immigrant rights. Being able to talk to people about all of the different ways immigrants make the U.S. a better place is important.
Rinku Sen: There are immigration rights coalitions and organizations people can get involved in. Writing to their senators and congress people, these direct actions are all very important. But for the average person who is talking about immigration with their families and co-workers, the most important thing is for people to take words like “illegal alien” out of our vocabularies.
Rinku Sen: The illegal alien image of the brown skin immigrant is a conservative construction and has racist effects. It only draws up the image of a brown skinned Mexican, really. We need to stop using those words and describe to people why they are wrong: They are dehumanizing and they deny people the opportunity to make good on a mistake. If we believe that everyone deserves to have a second chance, then casting people as “illegal” insures that they will never get that opportunity to make right on those mistakes.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you, Rinku. Our next question is from Joseph:
Joseph: Do you feel that the uncovering of the "DL movement" of the 1990s has had a negative effect on the way gay black men are viewed by other gay men?
LZ Granderson: That whole DL thing — that to me is something that was created for two purposes. There are a lot of white folks who are DL. It simply means you are living a double life and haven’t accepted that you may be a gay male. The idea of being in the closet isn’t specific to black men because you call it something cool or hip. When I talk to men of color who are still in the closet, I don’t talk to them any different than I would talk to a white male in the closet.
LZ Granderson: Just because you call it something different doesn’t mean that the realities and perceptions about being in or out of the closet aren’t different. White men fear losing things and don’t want to be ostracized or called things. Those fears are the same for men of color. The quicker we can cut through all of that B.S., the better the overall conversation will be in dealing with some of these men who are having a difficult time and will attach themselves to women to “normalize themselves.” We can’t get past that this way. It is what it is.
Joshua Ulibarri: I think that was a dead-on right statement. I appreciate the beginning of that conversation – how we label the DL for black men and don’t have that same stigma on any other men who are not living the way they really are. The data show that black men felt a little more culture pressure to be a “strong black man” and to be masculine. Whoever places that pressure on them is a matter of discussion, but there was definitely more pressure on them and more stress in their life. There was also pressure to be true to your culture. This is a pressure that is put on people of color but not on Anglos.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: I agree with both of you, and also this whole deal – I call it a syndrome – simply begins to become a game, and more people begin to play the game of being on the DL. I always ask people – How is it that last week you were out running around, and you’re now on the DL? Or if you post your picture on the Internet, how DL can that be?
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: It’s kind of crazy watching people play this game like nobody knows that they are gay. I am also going to speak to the black community for all of this madness. I saw someone get married, and I knew he was gay, and he said, “No, I’m not gay anymore.” So he finally got married to a woman, and I asked him if he was happy. He said, “My wife is happy, my mother is happy, my pastor is happy, everybody is happy.” And I looked at him and said, “Everybody except you. Why are you doing this?”
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: He justified it, of course, with trying to please his mother, trying to please his pastor, and at the same time he began to talk about still wanting to meet men. I said, “Stop, you’re playing this game again.” Finally, after a year or two, he ended up getting divorced. And his wife knew, and she was saying, “I thought I could change you.” So it just continues to create the craziness instead of people being as honest and truthful as they can.
LZ Granderson: I think some of the things we need to do to address this are within the gay community itself as well. I have a lot of black male friends who are gay and have no problem being gay, but they don’t like to call themselves gay because of the images that represent gay men that they don’t relate to. When the “Wire” came out and I saw Omar, that was the first time I saw a black man I knew who was gay. Until then, every image I saw I was aware of but weren’t in my inner circle.
LZ Granderson: For a long time, I never saw a representation of any friend or man that I dated on TV. I don’t have internalized homophobia. It’s just a fact that there was nobody in the media that reminded me of anyone in my life. And if it wasn’t for Harris, there were very few representations in the literary world. Part of the way to address this is by opening up and letting the world see the true diversity of the LGBT community.
Rinku Sen: Some communities of color, and certainly in many immigrant communities, haven’t had the history of a sexual liberation struggle that brings us to a different place. As LGBT people of color begin organizing around those issues — as well as the racial, economic, and other issues — that will begin to happen.
LZ Granderson: I found it very interesting that when we talk about homophobia and race, it seems as if the black or African-American community is dubbed as more homophobic. But with Prop. 8 and the millions of dollars that came from mostly white organizations, I wonder why it isn’t framed that the white community is more homophobic.
LZ Granderson: I didn’t hear of any black churches sending in millions of dollars against marriage in California. When we have those discussions and talk about race, you will always catch my attention when you ignore the real connectors which are the roles of religion, education and geographic location in the community. I believe those are more so indicators of homophobia in the community than race.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: If you’re just joining us, welcome! We’re having a great conversation about race, sexuality and gender with Bishop Rainey Cheeks, LZ Granderson, Rinku Sen and Josh Ulibarri. Please send us your question right now by entering it in the comment box at the bottom of your screen, then hitting return.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: And after today’s conversation, please share your own story about race, sexuality and gender at http://www.hrc.org/issues/equalityforward.asp#feedback. Our next question comes from Kelly in Cleveland.
Kelly in Cleveland: How can we enlighten people about diversity issues when we hear that "there is no problem anymore.”
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: The question I usually ask people is: First, just look in your own circle — how diverse is your own circle? Even with Obama being president, I have to remind people all the time that people who were racist before he became president didn’t wake up and say, “OK, I guess I’ll stop doing this.” They’re racist now. They’re homophobic now. Has it improved? Yes. Has it been eliminated? No.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: So you have to first look at your own circle. You don’t have to speak up on a national level. Locally, in your own home, in your own job, you have to speak up around you. So anyone who says it’s not a problem anymore must live in a very small circle.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: But I would also throw in there culture, because I was in a group recently and they said to me, “I don’t see you as black man, I just see you as a man.” And I said to them, “I’m insulted. I’m 6 feet tall, I have dark skin, I have locks and you don’t see that? I must be doing something wrong. I’m insulted.” A rose never tried to be a lily; a lily never tried to be a carnation. They all exist together and it’s okay to be different.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: Matter of fact, I hope you’re not trying to look like me. We have 9 billion people on the planet. I’m unique in being me.
LZ Granderson: We have such a difficult time accepting things that are different without ranking them or putting a value system on it. When we say things like “I don’t see color, I see shades of grey,” it’s to make things the same so we are not tempted to judge.
LZ Granderson: I guess that’s the normal reaction here in the country where everything is ranked. I think we all try to strive not to judge or rank something better than the other, and I think the best way for some people to do that is to see grey, and it’s unfortunate because God went to a lot of trouble to make all these colors.
Rinku Sen: There are two things that strike me, reading through the report and looking at the data. One thing that stood out to me is that LGBT people of color are extremely attached to their racial and ethnic communities, even though they experience homophobia in their communities. We accept the homophobia within our community but we still want to be a part of that community, and see that community do well. People are grounded in their communities.
Rinku Sen: The mainstream LGBT movement was very, very white for decades and therefore limited its capacity to reach communities of color. You have to take that into account, there has been a lot more LGBT organizing in white communities than there has in communities of color. I’m really wary of a frame that brings us to the conclusion that communities of color are more homophobic than white communities, because I don’t think they are. When you see concerted organizing around these issues, you see progress over time just as we have with the mainstream LGBT movement.
Rinku Sen: I think that it is important to frame the issues not as diversity issues, but as issues of inequality and injustice. Diversity is kind of the way we have blended out the power differences between organizations and communities. Many groups talking about diversity haven’t been able to do much to close the gaps. Diversity doesn’t allow us to understand the sources of inequality.
Rinku Sen: When people see a problem they need to not just throw a bunch of data at that problem. For example, if someone has a dominant idea that merit runs everything. “You get what you deserve,” if you will, and you can’t change that dominant frame by throwing a bunch of data at someone. If someone hears a fact, they just dismiss it — they don’t change their frame. We need to pull up a different story and a different image for that person. It’s the stories of people and the images of struggle and inequality that tend to get people active and change the way they view the world.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Our next question is from Travis Ballie.
Travis Ballie: The Human Rights Campaign has often been accused of having another meaning for its acronym (Helping Rich Caucasians). How has HRC sought to diversify both its image and its outreach, and what roadblocks have you all had and are working on?
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: I’ll answer that one. The first thing I’d say is that this issue of diversity and inclusion is widespread across the human rights movement — it is not just a question to ask HRC. There are LGBT-rights organizations all over this country that need to improve their engagement with communities of color. And there are organizations dedicated to working to end racial discrimination that exclude LGBT people. I think we need to ask all these organizations, “Why are you excluding?”
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: To address your point directly, Travis, I’d say there are two programs in particular I would like to mention. Since 2002, HRC has had a Historically Black Colleges and Universities program, which was started in response to violence against LGBT students on these campuses. The program intends to create safe and welcoming campuses for black LGBT students.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: The second program started this year, and one that I was fortunate enough in which to participate in Los Angeles, called Ya Es Hora!
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Ya Es Hora! is a group of faith, religious, labor and community-based organizations that hold workshops to help legal residents complete the citizenship process. There are some folks who have lived in this country for 20 or 30 years, and they haven’t yet become citizens because the process can be overwhelming and very intimidating. I and HRC are very lucky to be part of this program.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Rinku, LZ, Bishop Cheeks and Josh: This is such a great and important discussion, and we’ve received an overwhelming number of questions. Could you please stay another 15 minutes to answer a couple more?
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: Yes.
Rinku Sen: Certainly!
Joshua Ulibarri: Yes.
LZ Granderson: Yes.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you so much. And for everyone participating in today’s discussion, we invite you to share your own story about race, sexuality and gender at http://www.hrc.org/issues/equalityforward.asp#feedback.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Our next question is for Rinku and comes from Andrea Shorter, EQCA deputy director of marriage and coalitions.
Andrea Shorter, EQCA Deputy Director of Marriage and Coalitions: I like the idea of "tone." Rinku, would you say that part of the challenge for progressive movements is to better define a clearer narrative for sexual liberation that clearly benefits from the African-American civil rights movement, but should not be entirely framed as an extension of that movement?
Rinku Sen: Yes! I really do. I think that’s a really smart way of thinking about the relationship between the traditional black civil rights movement and more recent movements. All of us owe enormous debt to the civil rights movement. All of us owe enormous debt to it, all people of color do.
Rinku Sen: I think it’s important to remember that all these systems — racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia — all have something in common but operate a little differently. For example, racism is something we don’t usually experience inside our families. Not that it doesn’t play a role in multiracial families, but it’s mostly experienced through external institutions. Homophobia, on the other hand, has the dimension of having this deep internal family dynamic as well as the external discrimination. That makes it a slightly different system, which means you have to work on breaking it down in a different way.
Rinku Sen: I also can understand, not to speak for black people, but having done so much work in multiracial alliances, I can also understand a community of people that is seen as having made so much political progress but is still so left behind. It would be upsetting to be held up as the political model for civil rights but have your current situation relatively ignored by the public while other organizations and groups ride off your success. Yes, that definitely would be upsetting.
Rinku Sen: We have to be better at articulating these modern civil rights movements and not just saying we are the same, because we aren’t the same. The struggles are similar but not the same. Andrea’s articulation of these movements as an extension of the civil rights movement, but not exactly the same as the civil rights movement, is quite good.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Our next question is from Shiva.
Shiva: I want to know where you see religion and faith intersecting in our critical analyses of race, gender and sexuality, particularly in the context of the civil rights movement.
LZ Granderson: When I wrote the CNN commentary, “Gay Is Not the New Black,” I did it not because I hate white people (laughs). That’s not true at all, but I thought it was important that an aspect of this discussion was illuminated because it created a jam in the overall progression of the LGBT movement. At the NABJ conference, a discussion was held about whether the African-American community was more homophobic than others. And there were many prominent gay blacks that took great offense at this comparison of the two movements. And we — the movement — can’t dismiss these sentiments as people who don’t get it. We have to be able to listen to each other and honor and respect where aspects of our community are in that conversation.
LZ Granderson: You didn’t have a civil rights movement in the 60s without religion. And you don’t have one of the most significant individuals to be in the country, Dr. King, without religion. You can’t have a discussion about civil rights and gay rights without religion and how it’s being taught. You can’t just dismiss all of that and say — Well, people don’t get it. You have to honor and respect the role of religion, particularly in the black community. If you have a better understanding of that then we can start talking more about what we need as LGBT people of color and LGBT people in general.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: I agree with you, and then I have to throw a little wrench into the mix because I sit in those meetings with pastors. It is interesting to sit there as an openly gay man. I have to remind them that I was involved in the civil rights work and that there were LGBT people involved in the civil rights work and that I will not allow them to discount me or anyone else who is involved. So it is having to walk two lines.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: I can say some things that maybe some other folks in the room can’t say. I challenge them all the time that my civil rights and gay rights are connected. As a minister sitting there, I make them wrestle with a perspective that they don’t want to look at, especially those in the room with me who are on the DL ministers who have to struggle with that same thing — not acknowledging the contributions of those that they know who are LGBT and that are involved in civil rights. So it is a balancing act when I’m in the room or having to speak to that issue because sometimes it is saying to some of the white ministers, “No, I can say some things that maybe you can’t.”
Rinku Sen: That’s a good insight, I think. Maybe there is something we can do with the “lifestyle” word that can get people to change that contradiction.
LZ Granderson: It’s so ironic to me to listen to religious conservatives talk about the homosexual lifestyle, when in reality, how you worship is the lifestyle. You know, your sexual orientation is how you were born, but how you worship God, if you believe, is your lifestyle and that’s actually the thing that can be changed. So, it’s funny that some don’t see that as a lifestyle, but will persecute people who can’t change their existence. It’s another piece of fabric woven into this discussion that I found interesting.
Joshua Ulibarri: We found that LGBT people of color are a very religious group of people — often at a price. They are often connected to the church they grew up in, their parents’ churches, often churches that are more conservative with regard to LGBT issues. They hear discrimination from the pulpit, and that is very hard for them, because they want to maintain that commitment to their church and their families. It is an important part of their lives. There is no separation of their religious selves and their LGBT selves. Religion and the church reaching out to LGBT people are really important. We need to use religion as a unifying factor to bridge gaps between African-American, Latino, and Asian-Pacific cultures. Some people need a hand out and a hand up instead of staying apart from the culture of their religious communities.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you, Josh. We'll take one last question. This is from Teresa in the Midwest.
Teresa in the Midwest: One of the continuous problems minority communities seem to face is inter-community competition for who has it worse. I am a member of an online community and forum for people who identify as asexual and there have been questions repeatedly about whether it's socially “easier” to be gay or to be asexual. And in other forums I've heard people belittle the difficulties of one identity, insisting that "_____ has/have it worse." Besides pointing out that, say, people of color and people of queer identities aren't mutually exclusive groups, do you have ideas for constructively dealing with such questions?
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: Yeah, stop working out of woundedness. First, work at healing yourself and being a whole person. When you work out of woundedness, you’re always trying to prove that your wound is bigger and deeper than the next person’s wound.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: So if you stop working out of woundedness and work out of a place of wholeness, then you will see your community as a whole community and worthy and not a community that’s taking the way of being a victim. When you stop pitting one group against the other, you start realizing that you’re both fighting the same enemy. It doesn’t serve anyone, especially your group, to compare your woundedness against someone else’s.
Rinku Sen: One of the ways that I hear this happening a lot is when there are incidents in the popular culture that are directed toward a particular group of people. I’m thinking in particular of the Don Imus problem of last year and some things that happened in N.Y., where I’m from, some radio DJs making jokes about tsunami victims.
Rinku Sen: Almost every time something like that happens, one of the frames and messages that comes out is, “If this had happened to another set of people, there would have been terrible outrage” or, “they wouldn’t have allowed it” — that statement ignores all of the struggles that those other groups of people face.
LZ Granderson: I wrote a piece after the Don Imus situation that was based upon Dr. King’s quote “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.” My take on the Imus situation had little to do with him and more with who responded. I also refer to people like Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich, who I believe called Spanish “the language of the ghetto.”
LZ Granderson: My point being, we are at the point now where we can’t have any organization stand alone. When the Imus situation happened, to hear HRC say that’s unacceptable, it begins to target the real enemy, which is intolerance and ignorance. It doesn’t matter how it manifests itself. So the next time a coach in Hawaii says faggot, it would be nice if the NAACP stepped in and says its wrong and not just the LGBT organizations. Other groups need to go out and speak against the injustice that is everywhere and not just about the injustices against their own group. That would help us move away from the victimhood which is crippling us.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you, LZ. Unfortunately we’ve run over time and have to end. I have to thank our guests one more time: LZ Granderson of ESPN, Rinku Sen of Applied Research Center and Color Lines magazine, Bishop Rainey Cheeks of Inner Light Ministries, and Josh Ulibarri of Lake Research Partners. Could I ask each of you for some closing words?
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: I think we need to have more open discussion and dialogues like this — nationally, locally and just in your own communities, just with your friends. LZ, what you just said about if we speak for each other and not just when something’s happening in our groups, it goes a long way.
Bishop Rainey Cheeks: I remember one day, somebody said something stupid about AIDS when I was coming out of a Metro station, and this guy and I just jumped in and we began to take down the myths right there at the Metro station. At the end, we just shook each other’s hands and laughed and thanked each other. I’ve never seen him again, and I don’t know who he was, but I was impressed that he wasn’t willing to let it go by. The more we can do that — speak up and live in truth — the better it is going to be. So I thank HRC for letting me have a voice in this and letting me be a part of this discussion.
Rinku Sen: I think that the key, really, is that we have to build a collective analysis across our communities and across our minority groups. I am a brown-skinned, Indian immigrant, I was able to immigrate legally and my father was an electrical engineer. Thus, I was afforded certain opportunities, and I have a certain place in the racial hierarchy. We do have a racial hierarchy based on race, sex, class, etc. We have to understand that hierarchy. If we don’t have an analysis of that, then we cannot have an effective strategy to break it down.
Rinku Sen: We can’t use the “we’re all in the same boat” argument, because we aren’t. We are all in different boats and some of our boats have holes in them, some are small, some are large. We need to realize that we are all in similar situations, but not the same situation, and the recognition of these differences will allow us to come together instead of continuing these comparisons.
Rinku Sen: In closing, I want to say it’s important that we don’t see these issues as just a matter of diversity. That is kind of an internal, organizational matter with white organizations trying to be more diverse. The way to be more diverse is to work on the political issues. It is hard for white organizations to bring people of color in as the only representatives for those issues. It’s important for organizations to bring diversity issues into their political agendas, and figure out how they are going to change and reshape their goals to include diversity.
LZ Granderson: I guess for me, it’s about understanding the difference between racism and culturalism. When you, as a white person, hear discussions about race and injustice, it isn’t an indictment that you or your organization is a racist one. It just means that you may not be aware of everything that separates us culturally.
LZ Granderson: You can have a lot of people of color in an organization, but whether or not they are thinking similarly says a lot about the diversity of thought within the group. Those issues aren’t an attack on your personal belief system on the issues of race, but it will help you relate to and serve people you may not completely understand culturally. So I think this HRC report helps with that, and hopefully we can move forward and deal with these issues in a timely fashion.
Joshua Ulibarri: I’d like to say thank you to HRC for the invite and for starting this conversation and continuing this research. I would also like to thank Che and Cuc Vu for pushing this issue. We know from the report that what brings us together is much longer and stronger than what keeps us apart. I am reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King when he spoke of being dangerously unselfish. The point of this research is to show that we all have the same struggles around equality, justice and safety. These are things that everyone worries about. I hope that this dialogue will continue.
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: Thank you, and thanks to all of YOU who joined us today. We couldn’t have had today’s dialogue without your participation. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to everyone’s questions. Please take a minute to share with us your own story at http://www.hrc.org/issues/equalityforward.asp#feedback
Che Ruddell-Tabisola: And check back at http://www.hrc.org/equalityforward for updates and other ways you can participate in the ongoing Equality Forward initiative at HRC. Have a wonderful afternoon!
