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You Can't Build a Movement on Angsjr
Feeling our way toward failure; thinking our way toward success
At the "War Conference" that was held last February near Washington, D.C., 200 lesbian
and gay leaders from around the country put our heads together to assess the state of our
movement and look to the future. The conference has been criticized, and rightly so, for its
inadequate outreach to people of color and to women. Still, whenever that many shaip,
experienced, and committed activists get together, good things are bound to happen. The
energy level was high, the tone was by and large cooperative and optimistic, and lots of fine
thinking was done.
Over the weekend, I noticed a recurring motif, one that's stayed with me since then. The
motif wasn't new or startling but I heard it in a new way. Again and again, in the midst of
working groups or strategy sessions, someone would say, "But where's our anger? They're out
there killing us-through disease, violence or neglect-and we're sitting here talking politely
about strategy and thinking of 'nice' things to do. Where's our anger? Where's our rage?" As I
said, it's not a brand new idea. It's been said many times before, including by me. But this time
when I heard it, I realized that I couldn't disagree more. I'm convinced that political strategies
based on anger-or any other kind of emotion-arc recipes for failure.
My reasons for saying this may become clearer if we think for a minute about some of the
feelings other than rage that are common to our lives. Take grief and sadness for instance. For
the last few years, tidal waves of grief have swept over our communities as lovers, friends,
neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances have died of AIDS. Grief has become a pervasive
part of our lives. We are learning all sorts of creative ways to acknowledge and express it, from
bereavement groups and community memorial services to the NAMES Project, and we need to
keep doing this in order not to sink under the weight of our own sadness. But do we want to
base our movement on it? Do we want to develop a political strategy for liberation that is based
on grief? Of what use would a strategy, distorted by the overwhelming despair that death
engenders, be? Not very useful, I suspect.
What about fear and terror? Terror entered my life the moment I became aware that I was
gay, and it has remained a more or less prominent feature of my consciousness ever since.
Fear, as a teenager, that I'd be arrested, blackmailed, or in some way publicly humiliated or
exposed. Fear, in college and right after, that somehow my life would be ruined if word got
out Despite the fact that I have been publicly visible for the last 15 years, I still experience fear
when I come out in new situations, or when I take the time to notice just how visible I am.
Where would I be if I let gay terror serve as my guide for action? How much progress would
the movement have made if we let it be shaped by the numbing fear that life in a violently
oppressive society generates?
At first glance, anger appears different. It's healthy. It's not an emotion based on
victimization, but a sign of life, strength, and a determination to fight backlight? I'm not so
sure. I think rage is as much a sign of how much we've been hurt as is grief and terror. Were
there not wrongs done to us and those we love, we'd have nothing to be angry about. And just
as sadness and fear are not reliable guides to political strategizing, neither is anger.
The experiences of the Black movement in the 1960s and the feminist movement in the
1970s have a lot to tell us about the political dangers of mobilizing around rage. In the early
1960s, Blacks built an extraordinarily broad-based movement Sit-ins, freedom rides, mass
marches, community-wide mobilizations, national boycotts, court litigation, and legislative
lobbying made racial justice, for a time, the central issue in American life. Careful, thoughtful,
reasoned strategizing lay behind it all.
The resistance was intense. Especially in the deep South, Blacks faced police brutality, Klan
nightriders, beatings, bombings, and shootings. Eventually, the violence reshaped the
movement as some Black activists began to mobilize on the basis of rage.
That may have been emotionally satisfying for some, but it was also politically suicidal.
Militants in SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and the Black Panthers
found themselves cut off from the rest of the movement The rhetoric of rage alienated many
former supporters and immobilized others. Angry, impassioned calls to pick up the gun in self
defense lost for the cause the mantle of moral superiority that had been so potent a force in the
early 1960s. Violence directed at Black activists mounted, but now, instead of provoking
public outrage, the violence could be justified as necessary for restoring order. Strategies and
tactics that evolved out of unthinking rage badly weakened a movement that only a few years
before had been on the offensive.
Rage also reshaped the women's movement in the late 1970s. After the initial upsurge of
feminism, many women took on issues of sexual violence-rape, battering, abuse, incest Laws
were changed, public consciousness raised, and institutions such as shelters were created. But
daily immersion in the issue of sexual violence took its toll. Many feminists active in the anti
violence movement were living in a stage of constant rage, and it began to affect their thinking
about issues and strategy. From a campaign against violence came the feminist campaigns
against pornography, with an overarching and simplistic analysis that defined pom as the source
of the problem. The pornography wars gave sustenance to the Christian New Right, spawned
internecine warfare among feminists and created their own kind of political casualties.
To me the lessons seem clear. A politics of rage weakens and destroys its proponents and
their cause more effectively than it weakens and destroys an oppressive system. Movements
for social justice cannot be based on painful emotion, whether it be grief, terror or rage. Yes,
we have to feel these things. The feelings have real causes. And, yes, we need to find ways to
support one another through it all. But a movement that mobilizes a constituency on the basis
of pain will end up feeling its way to despair, disillusionment and, ultimately, failure. I would
much prefer that we think our way to success.
- John D'Emilio
JohnD'Emilio is the author of Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a
Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970, and co-author of Intimate Matters: A
History of Sexuality in America.
This editorial first appeared in Gay Community News, vol. 15, no. 47.
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Atlanta's
Lesbian/Gay
Community
Commended for
Commitment to
Progress
To the Editor:
I want to thank you, the Atlanta gay and
lesbian community, for welcoming us
delegates of like orientation to your city.
More important than the many wonderful
social events, you showed us how committed
you are to progress.
Unlike California, the women's bars I saw
were fully lighted and in decent areas of the
city. I am quite sure I never before went to a
dyke bar in a strip mall with picture windows!
You are right; the only road out is out
Unlike California, you had only a couple
thousand participate in your gay pride parade.
It's true, we had many more but you folks
raised $100,000 for the Human Rights
Campaign Fund in 24 hours in May-three
times what experts expected. We have
become blase about our fundraising prowess
and have let it slack off.
Unlike California, Southern Voice puts out
the news without ads for puttin' out You dare
to portray our community's focus as broader
than just our shorts.
The gay men and lesbians I met in Atlanta
are alive and vibrant with an energetic
commitment to progress-a commitment to
coming out.
The Experience Weekend and National
Gay Rights Advocates are the two national
sponsors of National Coming Out Day. Tens
of thousands of us, representing scores of
organizations and philosophies, look forward
to the second weekend in October as a time
to celebrate our historic 1987 March on
Washington and to honor those who have
perished from AIDS and ARC by viewing
"the quilt" at it's First Anniversary exhibit in
Washington.
The world needs to know we are coming
out and staying out, expecting and creating
equality as we progress. The gay and
lesbian community created America's
response to AIDS, no one else. Never again
will we allow bigotry to darken our country's
name and claim our very lives. We have
every reason to be proud of who we are.
Atlanta, you are doing an extraordinary
job. Thanks for re-energizing me. Y'allare
an inspiration.
Sincerely,
Lynn Shcpodd
Co-Chair Lesbian/Gay Caucus
California Democratic Party;
Dukakis Alternate;
Former Co-Chair, MECLA;
Executive Committee Member,
Stonewall
Viewpoints is part of a continuing effort to provide a forum for our community.
We invite your ideas, comments and feelings and your responses to ideas expressed
in this space.
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily
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