June 1986

GUEST EDITORIAL

Gay Peoples Chronicles

page 13

HANDS ACROSS AMERICA

By SHANA R. BLESSING

As s long-time activist, I was skeptical of Hands Across America since the insidious spread of hype began. Not a great proponent of the imperialistic egocentrism of the mass mind of today's United States citizens, I have found that trampling flags is a more effective political strategy for me than rallying behind them. Patriotism is not what gets me off my ass and into the streets.

The media blitz grew increasingly incessant and I could not come to terms with my discomfort. Rather than being able to slough off the idea of my personal participation in the event, its gross nature started becoming apparent.

In an age when commercial media dominates an amalgamated American culture (read: United States. Certainly the other countries which comprise the continent of America are rarely given credence

ethnocentric U.S. citizens mistakenly call themselves "Americans"...), organizers of HAA promoted their event as a hassle-free opportunity for everyone across this great country of ours to become "activists."

Has the general public become so reduced that it can be resold (for a donation of $10, $25, $35, or more) an eighties version of integrity which encompasses the "isms" we all hope we are constantly challenging?

The message: Come and demonstrate for fifteen minutes on Sunday! In support of classism, sexism, hetero-

sexism, racism, etc. Oh. Yes. And feed the hungry with blood money.

Throughout history we have seen throngs jump on bellringing, flag-waving band wagons with nary a second thought. Right wagers send large sums of money to television preachers in hopes of spiritual absolution. Liberals buy T-shirts imprinted with slogans of various causes and wear them to professionally-produced rallies where "leaders" pay lip service to global support of humanity.

How many of the hundreds of thousands of people who stood in line on May 25 realized that the rallies were underwritten by corporations and that funds donated to feed the hungry and house the homeless were used to purchse balloons and banners and to pay salaries?

You don't have to think, let alone try to live more responsibly. Just stand

there and sing.

In Cleveland, as elsewhere across the country, Hands Across America was organized by a rich, straight, white boy. (Isn't everything?) And this rich, straight white boy and his personal friends and political cohorts were paid to let loose the battle cry and recruit standees.

Two weeks before the event I got a call at the office of the Lesbian/Gay Community Service Center. It occurred to someone in the HAA office that the line was extending through Lakewood--down Clifton, no less--and isn't that where all the gays

live?

Couldn't I help get them involved?

If I had been antgonistic prior, this direct contact totally alienated me. This telephone call occurred after Cleveland's organizer had flown to another state to drum up more recruits. The irony of THEM turning to US in their time of "need."

Demonstations used to be politicizing, empowering experiences for people with gripes against the status quo. Civil rights marches. Women's rights marches. Gay and lesbian rights marches. Marches against nuclear proliferation and against apartheid.

On May 25, television coverage of Hands Across America showed yuppie, t-shirted families walking right past homeless folks sleeping in city parks in order to race to their assigned spaces in line. Reagan stood in front of his palace, unwittingly protesting his own domestic policies. In the eighties the status quo buys up the rights to the concept of mass demonstration, regurgitates it, and feeds it back to a consumer public.

We, as lesbians and gays, were invisible even as a consumer public. Should we be insulted or thankful? I asked the woman I spoke with why they had taken so long to contact the gay community if they were wont to approach us as a buying public. No answer. Had they contacted the Women's Build ing Project? The gay bars? The gay media? Um, no. Do they have gay people on

their staff or among their volunteers? Not that she knows of. Having little desire to help, I expressed my belief that it was a bit late to start a blitz directed toward the gay community. We hung up.

Hands Across America, the self-proclaimed bastion of contemporary liberal activism, didn't reach out to us as lesbians and gays. In today's sociopolitical climate, that's frightening. What is even more frightening is how this country swallowed the media hype without qustion. If we aren't the only minority unacknowledged, unsupported, and untouched, who truly is going to be helped by money raised at our expense?

Flag-waving, warmongering patriots got their egos boosted singing, "See that man over there, he's my brother." No one even confronted the fact that women are the poverty-stricken majority in the United States-there was no room even for sisters in the theme song.

I couldn't stand in that line wearing any of my hats. Not as an activist, a woman, or a lesbian. I was offended to the core. To me, linking hands just wasn't enough. If we can ever link hearts, intellects, and consciousness, not only will I stand in the line, I'll help organize it.

Shana Blessing, Executive Director of the Lesbian/Gay Community Service Center, is a contributor to the Chronicle.

BLACKS AND HOMOPHOBIA

By JOHN BUSH

There is an assumption promulgated by the media that blacks are of a common mind on most issues. That assumption is also prevalent when one speaks of women's concerns or gay issues. Minority groups are generally perceived as collections of individuls, who because they share similar traits, therefore look, act and think

ed by family and friends to suffer and die alone.

I have heard this "black homophobia" line several times during recent conferences I've visited as cochair of NA/BWMT. My review of written material on this subject hasn't permitted me to conclude that the notion of excessive homophobia among blacks can be substan-

alike. Even though ispute tiated. In fact, there is

body of literature

these stereotypical views, they are still widely believed.

Now it seems, especially since the onset of AIDS, à new stereotype has been created relative to blacks. The portrait now painted is of black people being more homophobic than whites and other racial groups. In many instances, no proof is of fered. But this supposed homophobia is portrayed in the usual manner--one or two instances constitute the basis on which to characerize an entire group of people. are told that black people with AIDS are often abandon-

support that view.

Blacks are socially stratified like all other aroups in the society, and like other groups, tend to hold some common values within these strata. For example, the middle class devoutly believes that hard work and honest effort yield success. Consequently they drive themselves and their children to make every effort to realize their goals. These individuals like their counterparts in other groups try to prevent any obstacles from standing in their way. If homosexuality (a lesbian daughter or gay son) poses a

threat to the advancement of family goals, it must be tactfully ignored or quietly dealth with. It might be argued that these people are not primarily homophobic because they don't like what homosexuals do, but they are essentially more concerned with what homosexuality may do to the family's life.

Those who argue that the black middle class is more homophobic than other middle class groups may be ignoring that blacks, like other minorities, have to work even harder than the so-called majority group for acceptance in our society. The very group into which they are attempting to assimilate is predisposed to think they are working too hard for acceptance. Unfortunatey, most minority grops are predisposed to feel they must be more circumspect than those they are attempting to emulate.

Black men who are members of organizations such as the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, Black and

White Men Together, and Black Mens Association of Boston tend to be middle class, although not exclusively so. Conversations with these men suggest that most of them have shared their homosexuality with one or both parents and survived quite well.

In the black working class and even more so in what is called the "under class" by economists and sociologists, it appears that homosexuality and other different lifestyles are more readily accepted. There are probably many reasons for this, among them must be apathy in the under class" and preoccupation with making à living in the working class.

but

One could also suggest that the value system is different, resulting in more of a defacto acceptance of diffeent lifestyles. In the "under class" particularly, gay men are commonly referred to as sissies or by less flattering names, but they have not been driven from