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Southern Voice/October 11,1990
VIEWPOINTS
EDITORIAL
AID Atlanta Draws the Line
A letter addressed to us begins, "This
letter is to inform you of a controversy
involving [the] Atlanta Gay Center and
AID Atlanta." It continues to detail "the
[Gay Center's] self-serving and one-sided
efforts to create negative publicity for the
agency [AID Atlanta]."
Signed by AID Atlanta's Executive
Director, Sandy Thurman, the letter is in
response to what AID Atlanta staffers feel
is "unfairly abusive" treatment by the
AGC's Michael Wilson, head of the edito
rial policy committee of the Center's
biweekly publication, The News and a fre
quent contributor to that publication.
Thurman and her staff are not the first
folks in town to be on the short end of
Wilson's bullying behavior.
Wilson had asked Thurman for the fol
lowing documents: AID Atlanta's fiscal
year 1990 budget; a list of current board
members (including officers); the most
recent site visit reports from the Health
Resources Services Administration and the
Robert Wood lohnson Foundation; and the
agency's 1989 Annual report.
Thurman says she originally intended to
provide the information, but that Wilson's
behavior convinced her that he would use it
"in such a way as to paint the agency in a
bad light to our constituencies." Thus
Thurman decided that she would not give
the aforementioned documents to The
News, but has provided them to Southern
Voice, Etcetera and The Midtown Times.
In addition Thurman wrote to Wilson
"...AID Atlanta will not be available to
you for information regarding the work or
mission of your agency."
A cursory examination of the docu
ments indicates that the agency is in satis
factory condition given the size of its task,
the scarcity of its resources and the tremen
dous negative energy it has had to over
come in the past year. A letter from
Mervyn Silverman and Cliff Morrison
(Directors of the AIDS Health Services
Program which administers the RWI grant)
paints a picture of Thurman that suggests
she might just be a candidate for AIDS
Agency Management Sainthood.
All this suggests two possibilities: That
something is bad wrong at AID Atlanta,
that the agency is covering it up, and that
Wilson knows it. If this is the case, Mr.
Wilson needs to get in touch with us, Etc,
and The Midtown Times and share his
knowledge so that we can investigate the
matter. Even during the waning days of
Buren Batson's term as executive director
when the agency was operating with a dis
tinct siege mentality our experience was
that AID Atlanta remained open to dia
logue. We trust that relationship would
remain through future hard times if they
were indeed afoot.
The second possibility is that Mr.
Wilson really is trying to do damage to
AID Atlanta's image/reputation. It's hard to
imagine why anyone would want to do
that, but stranger things have happened,
right here in Atlanta.
Neither of these possibilities is very
attractive.
In her letter to Mr. Wilson, Ms.
Thurman allows that with "a sincere effort
to repair the damage you have done" the
rift might be healed. We encourage Mr.
Wilson to comply with Ms. Thurman's
request and begin repairs immediately.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
No Thanks
From the Publisher
Last week I received a post card which
shows a six-week old unborn embryo
being held in what appear to be a man's
hands. The message on the card read: "I
don't mean this unkindly, but I think you
might change your mind on abortion if
you had accurate information on what it is
really like." It was signed by Pete Harich.
My reply to Mr. Harich: You have no
idea how I feel about abortion and I can
assure you that your postcard will not
change how I feel. And, I am quite sure
you have no idea what abortion “is really
like”.
Christina Cash
He’s Angry
The Editor:
I can hardly tell you how distressed I
was when I picked up your Aug. 13 issue
and saw obituaries of Joey Hartley and
Michael Wolff...in an issue devoted to
whether we should call ourselves queer.
I'm angry. I'll own that up front.
Allow me to cite the obvious: It is so
much a tradition of oppressed groups to
turn their oppressors' language back on
them that I question whether anyone actu
ally researched the topic’s historical con
text. "Black," for one example, was not
(contrary to your writer's belief) a benign
word when it was adopted by African
Americans. Once upon a time, the lighter
your skin, meaning the more Caucasian
you looked, the better class of "colored"
person you were. When angry African
Americans chose the word "black" to
describe themselves, they turned a dis
paraging term into a statement of their
autonomy and separation from the values
of racist Americans. (Many, many less
radical blacks objected to the word, want
ing to be called "Negro.")
Language has no more power than we
give it. I remind you, after all, that the
word "queer" has not gone out of pejora
tive usage because anyone objected to it.
The alternative is to defuse it by adopting
it as a weapon Why do you think the very
expression "black power," illustrated with
a clenched fist, scared so many people in
the '60s? We in the majority knew that we
were dealing with the ANGER of a people
disenfranchised by our own bigotry.
And that brings up the real issue, the
one you have so neatly bypassed once
again. The real issue in using an emotive
word like "queer" is not linguistic. It's
whether we have the right to get angry
and whether we should express anger. As
far as I'm concerned there's no question.
When I see pictures like Joey's and
Michael's, I am reminded that we live not
merely in an age of homophobia and gay
bashing. We live in an era of genocide.
George Bush, a monster in the Reagan
mold, continues a policy that seeks to
manage rather than end the AIDS pan
demic. Experimental therapies, drugs and
benefits remain mired in a bureaucracy
that is murderously petty. The AIDS pan
demic is about to turn 10 years old and we
know very little more of practical value
than we did at the outset. This is in large
part the result of willful disregard by a
government that didn't even begin to take
serious action until white heterosexuals
felt threatened. All of this is well docu-
mented-yes, even in the Congressional
Records. So don't go calling me some
kind of paranoid.
I read your paper every issue. I have to
come to yearn for passion and exhorta
tion. You never take a clear stand. I feel
that you routinely reduce revolutionary
tactics to colloquies. The practice of "out
ing," for example, has in a very real sense
forever kicked open the closet door and
yet you branded even that—begun by
another gay publication for God's sake—
an issue of "privacy, personal morality,
ethics, individual growth, and the right to
choose how one operates in the world."
Whew. Don't you really just mean to say
that some people, outed against their wills,
may be hurt? Try this response: "Too
damn bad." Can you live with it?
We live amid a holocaust. Anger
accorded constructive use, not paralytic
ruminations about "individual growth" nor
part-time Guppie politicians begging for
bones, will make the difference in our sur
vival as a group. ACT UP and now Queer
Nation have proven that in their short his
tory. How I wish you, Southern Voice,
could chronicle the revolution instead of
psychologizing the obvious shame-based
agonies of the closeted. Will you lead or
follow?
In every other respect, I love you guys.
Cliff Bostock
Delta Do-Do,
Round 2
Dear Editor:
As a recent applicant for a Flight
Attendant position with several major air
lines and as a gay person, I am most dis
mayed at the hiring practices of Delta
Airlines.
I have been informed by friends and
relatives who have interviewed with Delta
that the following questions were asked
under the guise of a psychological profile:
Are you sexually satisfied? Do you prefer
men or women Have you ever wanted to
be a woman? Given that this question
naire is given to men and women alike,
one might assume that this is a misguided
screening process. If one answers "no" to
being sexually satisfied and being mar
ried, does this raise suspicion that one
could not be sexually satisfied because
one is homosexual? And the even more
telling questions: "Do you prefer men or
women?" and "Have you ever wanted to
be a woman?"
What I find infuriating is that compe
tency is based on sexual orientation. I
know of two gay individuals who work
for Delta. Their continual pay raises
would indicate that they perform their job
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