GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE MAY 1, 1998

COMMUNITY FORUM

Use the momentum

To the Editors:

I endorse the letter sent by the past planners [of lesbian and gay marches on Washington, April 3 issue]. The reason for going to Washington D.C. is a political one. Otherwise, we can party anywhere.

Let's use the millennium momentum to further our causes. After all, what is the mainstream without its backwaters and eddies?

Ellie Strong

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

We stand by Tyler

To the Editors:

I am writing as on of the co-founders of Camp Sister Spirit, a feminist educational and cultural retreat center and folk school in Ovett, Mississippi.

I would like to address the issues that are being raised regarding state marches, (as endorsed by Rep. Barney Frank and Democratic clubs) vs. a national march (as endorsed by the Human Rights campaign and the United Federation of Metropolitan Community Churches) from a rural organizer's perspective.

[Potential Millennium March organizer] Robin Tyler has endured endless public character assassination attempts, including accusations of racism. Tyler bravely dared to organize in the rural South and it is her shoulders, not throat, that we here in Mississippi stand upon.

Have any of the other [past march organizers] never made any mistakes? Sure they have. Just like all the rest of us, Robin has worked to heal racism. But every time she risks offering to organize, people begin to cut her down. Why? I believe it is because she is so successful at organizing and the only way to hinder her work is to make the mistakes

WINNER

1998 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Print Media "Why did Robbie Kirkland have to die"-February 21, 1997

WINNER

Lesbian, Gay Community Service Center of Cleveland 1997 Community Award For responsible and professional journalism

WINNER

1st Place Vice Versa Award Best Editorial

“Ohio's anti-marriage bill is a call to arms"-February 7, 1997

she made way back in the past visible again. This kind of hate-filled behavior is dehumanizing, and it is meant to force her out of what she does. I want to tell our communities this: If you can't be a cheerleader and a doer without stomping someone else into the ground, then shut up-it doesn't help. Because we [as GLBT people] have no civil rights. Many of us are being killed each year and we have no legal recourse. We must learn to work as if our lives matter, really matter!

In my opinion, the letter written by Nadine Smith [April 17 issue] was a thinly disguised piece of back-biting B.S. Horizontal hostility has no place in our movement and that is what all this crap is about. Let me repeat: Besides being hateful, it doesn't help.

It is time people learn that we can do so much more when we rally each other to organize. Take all the ideas and go with them. Don't waste time trying to figure out whose idea will work ahead of time. And don't wander off into this hateful oneupmanship that pits us against one another. Each one of the ideas will work. The people who will attend will decide what works best for them. Having choices and opportunity is democracy.

Robin Tyler is a personal friend of mine. I am a small time rural organizer, and she has helped me over and over again and gone out of her way to teach me when she could have let me down.

When our lives here at Camp Sister Spirit were threatened, Robin raised money to put a remote control security gate at our land's front entrance. Bear in mind I had already asked many organizations and was turned down by all of them, despite our desperate need.

She also flew six of our Land Caretakers to her festival and put us up free of charge, because we were exhausted from the struggle, and had a physician treat me for an ulcer that had developed. Her actions and organizing gave us the strength and security that we needed so we could continue our fight. Ask

WINNER

2nd Place Vice Versa Award Best Health Article "From booze and drugs to a coast-tocoast triathlon"-1997 Pride Guide

HONORABLE MENTION

Vice Versa Awards Best Comprehensive or Investigative Report "Why did Robbie Kirkland have to die"-February 21, 1997

HONORABLE MENTION

Vice Versa Awards-Best Illustration 1997 Pride Guide cover

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around the community. Robin's generosity is far more widespread than her mistakes. It just doesn't make as good an opportunity for dissension.

To the people who keep dredging up Robin's mistakes: Robin is now sober and her life is much better. She has grown strong. And in my opinion she is the only organizer that can produce a national march with integrity.

There won't be bills left to pay (the National Lesbian Conference); there won't be anyone filing bankruptcy because of committee promises that fell through (the last March on Washington); there won't be a lack of wheelchairs for the march, and the people under gunfire and whose lives were in danger won't get bumped from the stage as the volunteers at Camp Sister Spirit were at Stonewall 25.

Things will be different with Robin Tyler producing. Yes, mistakes will be made, I'm sure. But just maybe if everyone decided to be cheerleaders and truth-tellers rather than stirring this endless stew of dissension and jealousy, Robin will not be condemned forever. And everyone else's mistakes will not go without notice. Hell, I've made my share, too, and I have learned and grown.

From my work in El Salvador during the war I learned: "Do not denounce unless you can announce." In other words, don't tear something down just for the sake of destruction. The state marches serve a purpose as does the national march. But as a rural organizer who has seen the power of the right wing in rural areas, I am concerned that in some of the rural states a march will provoke death: Remember what happened in Greensboro, N.C.: The organizers were all murdered-with the help of the police—just as the marchers were lining up.

Many rural people prefer the national march because of the anonymity one can have away from home. In Mississippi the press will not even cover a small march. At the last March on Washington, my hometown press was there and they ran a decent front page story, finally. From that story, Brenda and I were asked to be on a local 30minute talk show about gay and lesbian people.

My point: National marches are important. So are state marches, but they are far more dangerous to the marchers.

Here's what I think could make the national march more powerful: Make it political. Downplay the party atmosphere; let everyone show up ahead of time at the Rayburn Building, the offices of the Congresspeople, and let's have people lining up, endless lines, at every office to demand our rights. What other ideas can we come up with? Let's take all the input. Be cheerleaders with each other.

I wrote Robin and told her that if her adversaries intended to cut her down again, they would have to cut my heart out first. This endless abuse of Robin and all our leaders must stop. We have too much work to do, and it is the work that is important.

Wanda Henson Ovett, Mississippi

Continued on facing page

GAK PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Volume 13, Issue 22

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