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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. 1HnIm..'/>?SAy^AyTLESiiSMaj*' HZ UlOAJ'i ME A)Y caAToTS, £uT IF /-COAJ'r sAy AHYTHlkXo You s UJyj'T <£/!/£! M£ ANy CAkRoTS f 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 represent the views of Southern Voice. Submissions should be typed, double spaced and no longer than four pages. Mail to: Southern Voice/Viewpoints PO Box 54719 Atlanta, Georgia 30308 Page 5