Dissident Veteran For Peace

My primary source of daily news is National Public Radio, which, in my experience, was never a fountain of unadulterated truth. In the Trump era, although they profess otherwise, NPR has pretty much abandoned any vestige of a commitment to non-partisan truth-telling. Trump Derangement Syndrome has done that to a lot of people.

That said, I have always been keenly aware that NPR and other Left-liberal-Democratic outlets hold no monopoly on biased, dishonest journalism. The story and image below from Breitbart is a case in point.

I think the issue of transgender athletes, especially primary school and college amateurs, competing against cisgender athletes of the gender to which the transgender athletes have transitioned is not amenable to an obvious, straightforward solution. However, publishers, editors, and journalists with integrity will strive not to mislead their audience or play to their emotions. They will present them with all relevant facts about an issue. Sadly, such integrity is largely missing from outlets such as NPR and Breitbart.

Notice that the photo Breitbart used for their article (really a rehashed press release) is credited but un-captioned. I can only assume this is because Breitbart does not wish to trouble their readers with some facts that don't fit their agenda.

First, the short-haired wrestler dominating the other wrestler with a neck hold is Mack Beggs of Texas. Second, in that 2018 photo Beggs is a transgender boy competing against girls because he was prohibited from competing against boys. Beggs is not a "biological male" identifying as a girl/woman.

There are other facts the average reader would be unlikely to discern from the article alone. The press release Penny Starr all but plagiarized is from WOLF, a radical feminist organization. Here are a few things they believe:

•     That female humans, the class of people called women, are oppressed by men under a male-supremacist system called patriarchy.
•     That patriarchy is organized around the extraction of resources from female bodies and minds in the service of men, including reproductive, sexual, emotional, and labor resources.
•     That gender is a hierarchical caste system that organizes male supremacy. Gender cannot be reformed – it must be abolished.
•     That we are enmeshed in overlapping systems of sadistic power built on misogyny, white privilege, stolen wealth, and human supremacism, and all of those must be dismantled.

Breitbart and its readers are not known for their opposition to "patriarchy" and the other issues WOLF decries. But, tellingly, they'll climb into bed with WOLF to unite against transgender athletes.

Another undisclosed and ironic fact is that the Idaho law touted in the Breitbart article—even if it survives judicial scrutiny—would not prevent another transgender boy such as Mack Beggs from wrestling girls. You see the "Fairness in Women's Sports Act" only requires that "Athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex." Under the Idaho law a transgender boy is a girl and permitted to compete against cisgender girls. So, all in all, the photo selected for the article could hardly be more misleading.

Labels: gender, law, LGBT, media, National Public Radio, politics, Trump

I finally got around to reading Starship Troopers (1959, 2006) by Robert A. Heinlein and The Forever War (1974, 2009) by Joe Haldeman this summer. Over the years I've heard and read a lot about the books.

I also watched Paul Verhoeven's film treatment of Starship Troopers (ST) not long after its 1997 theatrical debut. Regarding the film, I am in general agreement with Joseph Sale's take (which I've edited slightly below):

Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film, while a masterpiece in its own right, misses much of the nuance of the original novel. He makes Starship Troopers into a satire of fascist states, casting Aryan, white, blonde, beautiful people in the lead roles to further his point, and it works brilliantly, but the novel itself is not an advocate of fascism to begin with. Johnnie is not an Aryan, he is Filipino (Juan Rico is his real name), and the [Mobile Infantry] is made up of people from all over the world. In fact, Heinlein bizarrely presents us with one of the most utopian and unified visions of future human society I have ever read. The film also makes use of over-the-top violence to contrast with its propaganda-interludes, no doubt highlighting how the lies of the state juxtapose with the realities of war. This is intriguing, almost a reverse of the novel which flits between Johnnie’s excruciating mental and physical training, which make explicit the gravity of war on every level of understanding, and the action sequences, which it's undeniable Johnnie seems to enjoy. In the novel, the state is far more responsible than Johnnie is.

It's interesting that at least one key didactic point that Heinlein wrote into ST was more or less faithfully preserved in Verhoeven's film. In the book, Major Reid, an Officer Candidate School instructor in History and Moral Philosophy asserts:

To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives—such as mine to make your lives miserable once a day. Force, if you will!—the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is exerted by ten men or by ten billion, political authority is force.¹

Why did Verhoeven leave this (without the reference to the fasces) in the film? I suspect it is because he believed it furthered his case concerning the alleged fascism of Heinlein and/or ST. In fact, it is a profound truth that force and violence underlie voting and political power. Yes, even in representative democracies.

Why is it acceptable to coerce people simply because 51% of the voting population agrees that people should be punished for doing or not doing x, y, or z? In nearly all cases, criminal laws are never even put to voters, they are enacted by politicians viewed unfavorably by large segments of the population.

The case that is made in ST is that the truth about voting logically leads to the following solution:

Since sovereign franchise is the ultimate in human authority, we insure that all who wield it accept the ultimate in social responsibility—we require each person who wishes to exert control over the state to wager his own life—and lose it, if need be—to save the life of the state. The maximum responsibility a human can accept is thus equated to the ultimate authority a human can exert. Yin and yang, perfect and equal.²

Approached from a slightly different angle it seems to me quite reasonable to expect from those who would wield the coercive power of the state against others to demonstrate some tangible civic virtue, to have some literal skin in the game.

However, there is an unspoken corollary that I find even more appealing. That is, by reducing the coercive power of the state—if you're going to have a state at all—one can expand the franchise and lower the bar to participation. That is, a widespread franchise would be appropriate only where the state has little or no coercive power. Steps in this direction might be to abolish capital punishment and military conscription and then to progressively redistribute centralized authority downward.

(The most interesting take I've read of 'the voting problem' in ST is in Dan Thompson's account of a discussion he was involved in at a WorldCon in Baltimore. I've included a link to it below in the See also section.)

Recurrent accusations of Heinlein's alleged personal and literary fascism are well known. Despite the many problems I have with some of Heinlein's later political positions, I think the charge of fascism is an unfounded example of the scurrilous name-calling too common among political ideologues.

It's interesting that Haldeman and Heinlein were friends. Moreover, in 1999, Haldeman was asked "about the whole 'fascist' argument, that ST is a novel about fascism, etc.?" He responded: " 'Fascist' is too easy an epithet. My problem with ST is more complex than that." Haldeman also penned the introduction to the 2018 Folio Society edition of ST (I have not read it yet though I would like to).

It is almost a commonplace that ST is an inadvertently dystopian novel meant to present a (fascistic) utopian vision. By contrast, The Forever War (TFW) is often taken as "an anti-war classic" and a refutation of ST. However, Haldeman himself has said that although he did not pen a reply to it, he was influenced by Heinlein's book.

In any case, of the two books I find TFW to be markedly more dystopian than ST. If forced to choose between living in the sci-fi future world of ST or TFW I would unhesitatingly choose ST.

I do not subscribe to the view that every act or idea in a work of fiction is endorsed by the author. Yet, authors generally do not let acts and ideas to which they object go unchallenged. Moreover, Haldeman has stated the TFW is based on his own experiences in the Vietnam War and, as others have pointed out the main character's name (Mandella) is a near anagram of the author's surname. Haldeman earned a degree in physics before he was drafted as did Mandella.³ Mandella's lover and companion is Marygay Potter while Haldeman's wife's maiden name is Mary Gay Potter.

So, I think it's fair, in this case, to assume that TFW reflects, in no small part, the author's personal views at the time he wrote the book. And Haldeman leaves a number of objectionable things in TFW unchallenged. For instance, in Haldeman's fictional world women are integrated into the military by requiring them to be sexually "compliant and promiscuous by military custom (and law)".⁴

In TFW, several dubious ideas about war are also left unchallenged: War is good for the general economy, the war in TFW is mainly the fault of bellicose veterans, and once begun, "only continued because the two races were unable to communicate".⁵

In fact, economists have shown that wars and unnecessarily large peacetime military establishments are macroeconomically detrimental. Arguably, wars may sometimes be necessary but as the authors of Economic Consequences of War on the U.S. Economy concluded, "Regardless of the way a war is financed, the overall macroeconomic effect on the economy tends to be negative." Wars benefit those who supply the weapons, munitions, and other material used to wage war but everyone else loses, especially the human casualties which seldom, if ever, include war profiteers.

As for bellicose veterans starting wars, it is perhaps just as likely that veterans will oppose offensive wars. For instance, in the aftermath of WW I, the American Legion was founded in 1919 proclaiming that a "large standing army is uneconomic and un-American" and pursuing "National safety with freedom from militarism ..."

In its early years the Legion was a major actor on the international stage in a citizen-led peace movement. Among other things, it actively supported and endorsed the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact "condemn[ing] recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounc[ing] it, as an instrument of national policy". Though largely ignored this treaty remains in force. While it has arguably drifted far away from it roots, the Legion, to this day, exists, in part, "to promote peace and good will on earth".

In any case, modern large scale wars are not initiated by a single individual or small group of people. One could argue that a veteran named Hitler started World War II but that war was set in motion by the outcome of World War I and Hitler could not have initiated it without the support of the German establishment and a large segment of the German population. Likewise, I am aware of no war in history that continued (or began) simply because of a miscommunication.

Sexual orientation in TFW is also problematic. Haldeman seems to see it as strongly dichotomous, culturally determined, and easily changed.⁶ In TFW, human sexual orientation collectively swings between extremes. Without going into further detail I am a bit troubled that Haldeman did not imagine a future where society was not so polarized in terms of sexuality.

Finally, Haldeman also tacitly endorse eugenics.⁷ His solution to ending war is to erase nearly all human diversity and individuality. At the end of TFW, most of "humanity" is comprised mainly of "clones of a single individual."⁸ In TFW, humanity's fate is to become something resembling the Bugs—with their "total communism"—in Heinlein's ST. ⁹

I'd like to hope that humanity will one day abandon war and I disagree with some of Heinlein's ideas. However, if the price of peace is a future like Haldeman imagines in TFW (and I don't think it is) then I would choose war in the ST-like world.

Notes:
1. ST, p. 193. Emphasis is in the original. All ST page references in this post are from the 2006 Ace trade paperback edition.
2. ST, p. 194. It is often asserted, mostly by those critical of Heinlein, that in the ST's Terran Federation the only way to earn the franchise is to serve in the military. Although Heinlein could have been clearer in ST on this subject there are several passages suggesting what is required is not necessarily military service (see pp. 32-33, 190-194). For an in-depth and fair discussion of this perennial controversy see "The Nature of "Federal Service" in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers" by James Gifford.
3. TFW, p. 7. All TFW page references in this post are from the 2009 Thomas Dunne Books paperback edition.
4. TFW, p. 45.
5. TFW, pp. 139, 261, 281.
6. TFW, pp. 118, 129, 189, 197, 260.
7. TFW, pp. 197, 260.
8. TFW, pp. 260-262.
9. TFW, p. 261; ST p. 194.

See also:

• "Who Deserves To Be A Citizen? A Reflection On Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers" by Farzan Sabet
• "Starship Troopers and the Right to Vote" by Dan Thompson
• "Over the hump: Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers" by Jo Walton
• "Blasting bugs is more complicated than you think" by Sam Jordison
• "Fascism and Starship Troopers, Once More" by hyperpat
• "Heinlein's Female Troubles" by M. G. Lord

Labels: anarchism, art and literature, communism, culture, eugenics, gender, Heinlein, human reproduction, LGBT, military, politics, quotations, voting, War

Labels: film & television, gender, LGBT, video

Based in part upon his campaign remarks, several weeks ago I began telling friends that Donald Trump's presidency may represent an opportunity to finally get a federal LGBT Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) through Congress. His selection of Jackie Evancho to sing the national anthem at his inauguration was a hopeful sign in this vein.

An even more positive action came yesterday when the White House issued a statement that: "The executive order [by Barack Obama] signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump." This was not a universally popular move with Trump's base. Just as only Nixon could go to China, it may be that the Left's bête noir Trump is the president who can get ENDA passed.

Assuming Trump has any interest in doing this, one pitfall would be bringing Republicans on board. That might be accomplished if Democrats would compromise and agree to a religious exemption for people who have religious scruples against participating in same-sex marriage. There is no principled reason why a florist in Washington or a baker in Oregon, for example, should have their livelihoods ruined or jeopardized merely because they don't want to participate in a same-sex wedding.

While I disagree with their theology, some folks consider marriage to be a holy sacrament ordained exclusively for the joining of a man and a woman. I don't think the government should compel them to violate their conscience in this regard. I voted for same-sex marriage when it appeared on the ballot in my state and I think Obergefell v. Hodges was properly decided but liberty means that we can't always turn to the government to impose our values on others.

If Trump did signal his willingness to support passage of ENDA, I regard it as more likely that Democrats and LGBT activists (rather than Republicans) would belligerently torpedo any possible deal by refusing to compromise on religious accommodations. In fact, given the current overheated, often dishonest anti-Trump rhetoric, "progressives" would probably try to block an ENDA deal on partisan grounds alone. I hope I'm wrong.

Donald Trump at a 2016 campaign rally at the University of Northern Colorado.

Labels: civil liberties, LGBT, politics, Trump, United States

Many transgender Americans are concerned about how the Trump administration may impact their lives and with good cause. However, a week ago at Donald Trump's inauguration something occurred that may be a harbinger of good (or at least indifference). I'm referring to Trump's choice of singers for the national anthem, that choice was Jackie Evancho.

Jackie has been very publicly supportive of her transgender sister Juliet since at least 2015. So, people in the incoming Trump administration undoubtedly knew what they were doing when they selected an inaugural singer who has a transgender sister involved in a bathroom access lawsuit. And on this choice it seems that the Left has been more intolerant* and dished out more grief to Jackie for agreeing to singing at the event than the Right has. Juliet has been supportive of her sister's decision.

Below is a 2015 "All of the Stars" cover video Jackie made in support of her sister and transgender people, in general. Below that is the explanatory text that appeared on Jackie's web site.

The video is very close to Jackie’s heart as it was inspired by her own personal experience of someone close to her who is going through transitioning and are transgender. It’s a tribute to the bravery and personal journey that people go through as transitioning transgender teens. The video features a girl and a boy, looking into the mirror and confronting images of themselves that are very different from reality. When Jackie looks in the mirror, staring back at her is a beautiful and glamorous version of herself. When the boy gazes into the mirror, a girl stares back…the girl he has always felt like on the inside. “I was inspired to make this video after witnessing personally the struggle that people go through as young transitioning teens. The person they see in the mirror doesn’t match the person they feel inside. And while our struggles are different, I could relate to their insecurities as I have my own issues with self-image…as I think most teens do at one point or another. This video is about empathy, communication and self-appreciation. For me, it has been learning to love myself, flaws and all. For others, it is about being true to the person that they always wanted to be. Everyone wants to feel accepted but I think that starts from within, even if people don’t always agree with your choices. We are all unique stars in the sky and what makes us unique makes us beautiful,” says Jackie.

* "Intolerant" is one of those terms I think functions mainly as an epithet. It is overused and usually inappropriately so. I use it here hesitantly but I think it is apt for a situation such as this where people are telling a 16-year-old entertainer that: "those who aid and abet transphobia like Trump have the blood of our wounded and murdered sisters, brothers and kindred on their hands ... For that reason, there's no way for someone to sing for Trump, stand with him or otherwise support him without some of that blood sticking to them."

Labels: gender, LGBT, music, politics, Trump, video

Labels: guns, LGBT

Pink Pistols Saddened by Attack on Orlando Club

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Philadelphia, PA) June 12, 2016: Early Sunday, around 2AM Eastern Time, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was attacked by an armed individual. Approximately 20 persons were killed and over double that wounded when the attacker, whom police have identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old from Fort Pierce, FL, pushed his way into the club and opened fire on patrons. Weapons carried by Mateen are reported as an "assault-type" rifle, a handgun, and a suspected explosive device. UPDATE: Reports are that the death toll is around 50, with over 50 more wounded.

"It appears he was organized and well-prepared," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina at a news conference on Sunday. Additionally, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said "This is an incident … that we certainly classify as a domestic terror incident." Authorities say the FBI is involved. Preliminary information reveals that Omar Mateen's family is from Afghanistan, though Omar may have been born in the United States. His family is reported to be distraught at the actions and loss of their son.

Gwendolyn Patton, First Speaker of the Pink Pistols, an international GLBT self-defense organization, warns people not to jump immediately to the assailant’s guns as the object of blame, but to concentrate instead on Mateen's violent acts. "The Pink Pistols gives condolences to all family and friends of those killed and injured at Pulse," began Patton. "This is exactly the kind of heinous act that justifies our existence. At such a time of tragedy, let us not reach for the low-hanging fruit of blaming the killer's guns. Let us stay focused on the fact that someone hated gay people so much they were ready to kill or injure so many. A human being did this. The human being's tools are unimportant when compared to the bleakness of that person's soul. I say again, GUNS did not do this. A human being did this, a dead human being. Our job now is not to demonize the man's tools, but to condemn his acts and work to prevent such acts in the future."

Patton's concerns are that knee-jerk gun-control efforts may make preventing future events harder rather than easier, as only the law-abiding potential victims will be affected by such laws. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee such an event,” continues Patton, "But if they cannot be prevented, then they must be stopped as fast as someone tries to start them."

Some bars and other establishments that serve alcohol are difficult to protect because many states forbid the carrying of weapons where alcohol is served, but that just as one might have a designated driver who stays sober, one might have a designated carrier with a concealed-carry permit who goes armed and does not drink. "It's sad that we must consider such things, but when there are persons out there who mean us harm, we must find ways to protect ourselves within the law." Patton concludes.

The Pink Pistols is an international organization dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community. Chapters may be found across the United States and Canada. Though the Pink Pistols is for the GLBTQ community, it is not solely composed of the GLBTQ community, and all are welcome to join.

Contact:
Gwendolyn S. Patton
First Speaker, Pink Pistols International
firstspeaker@pinkpistols.org
http://www.pinkpistols.org
Ph: (610) 879-2364

See also:

• "LGBT Gun Rights Group Speaks Out After Orlando Shooting" by KTXL
• "In wake of Orlando, gays should arm themselves: Otherwise, in gun-free zones like the Pulse nightclub, we're sitting ducks to maniacs and terrorists" on NYDailyNews.com

Labels: crime, guns, LGBT, violence

Labels: critical thinking, gender, identity, LGBT, video

The ABC News video below tells the story of Bianca and Nick, the transgender parents of two young children. As an article in the Mirror Online explains: " 'We have the parts so we will use them,' she says. 'If we could change them we would, and they would be the other way around – but we cannot afford it and the children come first.' "

Labels: gender, human reproduction, identity, LGBT, video

Right: Rachel Dolezal poses in front of a mural she painted at the Human Rights Education Institute offices in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Nicholas K. Geranios/AP 

On June 11, 2015, the Coeur d' Alene Press broke the story that the head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, Rachel Dolezal, had woven a web of lies in order to falsely present herself as a Black woman. In a testament to the highly charged and contested nature of modern racial discourse the story has since "Gone viral" and international.

The phenomenon of so-called light-skinned Black people "passing as White" has long been a source of curiosity to me. If someone has so much non-African ancestry that they appear to the casual observer as White and they have/have adopted "White" cultural values and behaviors—whatever those may be—then who is to say they are not White? Do we take the White racist's and/or the Black racist's word for this?

Of course, it is true that the "one-drop rule" was a creation of White people made for enforcing slavery and later Jim Crow but now it seems just as many, if not more, Black people accept it (see, e.g. a recent Atlanta Blackstar photo gallery with the contradictory title "9 Black Celebrities Who Rejected The One Drop Rule" and especially the photo captions for Devyn (#2) and Zoe Saldana (#5)). It is in no small part because many Black people embrace the one-drop rule or some version of it that Rachel Dolezal was able to "pass as Black," apparently, for years.

This Black and White madness over racial identity leads to other bizarre outcomes. So, on The Atlantic we have Baz Dreisinger, author of Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture, telling an interviewer: "The earliest cases [of Whites passing for Black] that I look at are from the slave era. There are cases of white people who are kidnapped and sold into slavery, and which therefore are cases of involuntary passing." While on Slate, Jamelle Bouie writes:

Of course there were also black Americans who could pass but chose to stay in the black community. Walter Francis White led the national staff of the NAACP for nearly a quarter-century, from 1931 to 1955. The child of formerly enslaved people, White looked, well, white. And yet he chose blackness. "I am a Negro," he wrote in his autobiography A Man Called White. "My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me."

White is Bouie's example of a Black American who stayed Black. Bouie nowhere admits the possibility, if not fact, that the obviously European traits of White's race were quite visible upon him. Instead, implicitly, slavery is equated with Blackness (because there was no such thing as White slaves in the antebellum South, right?) and the one-drop rule is affirmed.

So why did Rachel Dolezal decide to deceive people about her identity? If anyone knows for sure, and that's not clear, it would be Rachel Dolezal herself. However, there are some interesting possibilities to consider. First, as Baz Dreisinger claims: "Anytime you're talking about the cultural domain, it certainly can be advantageous to pass as black." Dolezal is a talented artist whose work seemingly has mostly African-American themes. So there's that.

Second, and this is the one I find more compelling, there's the possibility that Dolezal is a victim of self-hatred for being White. As David Smedley, a Howard University associate professor, who was Dolezal's Master of Fine Arts thesis adviser told the Washington Post:

" 'White' people who have inherited a privileged place in society seemingly have just two choices: stay ignorant, accept and continue to justify the delusion that America is and always has been great and democratic; or do some research and then feel the heavy guilt and shame upon discovering the ugly truth about the systemic unfairnesses that their ancestors perpetuated.

"Neither of these are healthy, and I suspect that this isn't the last time we will see another white person chose to switch sides."

One need not accept Prof. Smedley's beliefs lock, stock, and barrel to see that there's more than a grain of truth to what he says about the choices White people are presented with in terms of how they see themselves. More evidence for this perspective comes from Dolezal's adopted Black brother, Ezra Dolezal. According to CNN:

Dolezal's time at predominantly black Howard University may have been a major turning point in her transformation, her adopted brother said.

"When she applied they thought she was a black student," he said. "When she came there, they saw she was white and she wasn't treated that well, especially by people that worked there. She probably started developing this kind of dislike for being white and dislike for white people. She used to tell [her Black adopted brother] Izaiah ... that all white people are racists. She might have developed some self-hatred."

Rachel Dolezal unsuccessfully "sued Howard for discrimination in 2002, the year she graduated from the historically black college with a Master of Fine Arts degree." If her brother is correct, then Rachel Dolezal would not be the first person to internalize perceived and/or actual discrimination and bias as self-hatred. In the case of White people like Dolezal there is also the poisonous concept of trans-generational collective guilt for the past sins—real or imagined—of others.

If the story of Rachel Dolezal is a case of self-hatred then one can hope that she will examine the lies and distortions that led her to this point and reject and combat them. She doesn't need the people who she may have thought needed or wanted her to be Black and there are probably far more Black and other people than she imagined who would have embraced her openly as an artist and humans rights activist who is White.

I want to shift now to the comparisons of Rachel Dolezal to Caitlyn Jenner. As Nick Gillespie writes: "... what conservatives dig most about Dolezal is that she is a punchline regarding not racial misrepresentation but gender identity. Hence, conservative folks are using Dolezal's unmasking to yet again mock Caitlyn Jenner, the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion and reality TV star formerly known as Bruce." I agree but I also think it overstates the case to say that "There is no comparison between transgender people and Rachel Dolezal", as does the title to a Guardian article by Meredith Talusan.

Talusan, who is transgender, claims:

The fundamental difference between Dolezal's actions and trans people's is that her decision to identify as black was an active choice, whereas transgender people's decision to transition is almost always involuntary. Transitioning is the product of a fundamental aspect of our humanity – gender – being foisted upon us over and over again from the time of our birth in a manner inconsistent with our own experience of our genders. Doctors don't announce our race or color when we are born; they announce our gender. People who are alienated from their presumed gender and define themselves according to another gender have existed since earliest recorded history; race is a medieval European invention. Thus, Dolezal identified as black, but I am a woman, and other trans people are the gender they feel themselves to be.

I wonder how fully Dolezal experiences/ed her decision to pass as Black as voluntary. And "our race or color" is frequently determined when we are born by our parents or a bureaucrat via a birth certificate. Talusan's insistence that she is different from Dolezal because "I am a woman" strikes me as a case of protesting too much. Mind you, I'm not disputing her claim to being a woman, it's her vehemence in the service of criticizing another that I find troubling.

I suppose I am more, though not fully, in agreement with Camille Gear Rich, who, in "Rachel Dolezal has a right to be black", writes: "The central issue that separates Jenner's and Dolezal's choices is deception. Jenner chose carefully how and when she would disclose herself as actually female." In Dolezal's case I think the problem with the deception is that it was active rather than passive and she hitched that deception to her status as a Black community leader.

If Bruce Jenner had long ago ceased to have been a recognizable celebrity would Caitlyn Jenner then have any blanket obligation to out herself as transgender to anyone? No, but I think she would have an ethical obligation not to deliberately mislead people into thinking she'd had a girlhood or the lived social and biological experience of a typical natal female, except when her safety or well-being was at stake. To be clear, in light of the violence and discrimination faced by transgender people when I speak of deliberate deception I'm talking about steps akin to what Dolezal did—inventing a fake father, presenting her adopted siblings as her own children, and, possibly, falsifying hate crimes.

Camille Gear Rich writes: "People allow Caitlyn Jenner to change because she has some biological basis for believing she is female. But is this all identity is? Are we prepared to accept the implications of this view?" She raises a good point but I would go further, I've never been fully convinced by the science suggesting that biology is behind transgender (or LGB) identity.

Mostly, the studies I've read (admittedly quite a few years ago now) fail to address the question of causality: Are you transgender because your biology is different from a non-trans person's or is your biology different because you're transgender? Often, due to small sample sizes and ambiguous findings, they also fail to convincingly show that there actually is a biological difference. In any case, while I'm willing to go wherever the evidence leads, I also think it should be kept in mind that biological explanations are potentially dangerous.

See also:

• "Adolph Reed, Jr. on the Dolezal Affair" on the Dissident Veteran For Peace blog
• "Pike County, OH: As Black as We Wish to Be" by State of the Re:Union
• Gulliver as Slave Trader: Racism Reviled by Jonathan Swift
• Quotable: Fraud, Gunpowder, A Soldier on the Dissident Veteran For Peace blog
• "The Bad-White Body" in Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions in the Cinema

Labels: Black America, gender, identity, LGBT, race, Rachel Dolezal, science, slavery, White folks

My "Green Berets: Who's the Coward?" post of last year has attracted a steady trickle of comments from anonymous militaristic my-government-right-or-wrong types. A macho bent to the comments--from "You could not and will not every [sic] hold these mens jock straps" (true enough, I hope and pray) to "you're unmanly" (flattery will get you nowhere)--brought to mind an Arizona Daily Star article from last February. That article suggested that the ranks of the US military may be disproportionately filled with people whose military service/masculinity is an act to cover or compensate for decidedly un-masculine feelings. A "classic" study cited in the article calls such military service a "flight into hypermasculinity." In this light, I see the remarks of the anonymous commenters as somewhat ironic and their own macho militaristic posing strikes me as a kind of imposture or performance to cover up something else.

In any case, I provide forthwith some anecdotal evidence that the special operations forces may have an even higher proportion of closeted transwomen in their ranks than the rest of the military. First up: The obituary of Rebecca Lynn Cross, "A former Special Forces medic and combat veteran, Cross underwent sexual reassignment surgery in Thailand last year." Next is the video clip below about a former US Army Special Forces Colonel who also transitioned to living as a woman. I can't end without saying that the ALCU's exploitation of Diane Schroer's case strikes me as a sort of imposture, too. They are cloaking the struggle for transgender rights in the garb of patriotism and the dishonorable, mythical 'war on terrorism.' It's really kind of disgusting.

Labels: gender, identity, LGBT, militarism, video

Fall From Grace is truly an inside look at Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). Filmmaker K. Ryan Jones went inside the church and the Phelps family homes over an extended period to make the documentary. In closing scenes, or maybe it's in the extras, the Phelps family watches and approves of an early cut of the film. That's because not only does Jones showcase the church's repressive, legalistic Old Testament views on human sexuality and their protests against gays, America, and, generally, anyone who doesn't embrace their theology but he also respectfully shows the Phelps clan as real human beings in family settings.

Moreover, Jones also documents how WBC members have been attacked by the many self-righteous liberal and conservative hypocrites whose tolerance of freedom of speech extends only to those with whom they agree. On more than one occasion this has involved actual physical violence against the family or the threat thereof. The Showtime trailer does a good job showcasing how Jones has chosen to represent the family.

The music video below demonstrates that this band of happy haters (and that's a word I am generally loathe to apply because it is so often misused but it is a word the WBC embraces) also has a certain perverse sense of humor. Here is the Westboro Baptist Church (featuring Jonny B) singing "God Hates the World".

See also: "God Bless Fred Phelps"

Labels: Christianity, civil liberties, Fred Phelps, LGBT, video

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? -Matthew 5:44-46

I've been to two counterprotests against Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in the last few years. And he once protested outside my church, calling it a "fag church," but I say God bless him and his family. Lord knows they sure need some divine intervention but, moreover, when it comes to exercising or defending freedom of expression Fred Phelps and his family walk the walk whereas most Americans are clueless, gutless, or outright opponents. Usually their opposition is cloaked in the pious garb of propriety. These slavish fools don't understand or don't care that freedom of expression means nothing if it is only accorded to those who don't rock the boat or offend the delicate sensibilities of the 'patriotically correct,' etc. masses.

When the government permits a private action and enforces a judgment against Phelps for invasion of privacy and emotional distress as they did this year in Snyder v. Phelps then everyone who is not a sheep needs to look out. Testimony at trial revealed that Phelps and his crew were on public property 1000 feet from the funeral service and plaintiff Albert Snyder, father of a dead Marine, never saw or heard the protest. Yet, the jury ruled in his favor and assessed $11 million in fines against Phelps, his family, and his church. It's time for everyone who values freedom to step up and support Fred Phelps in his appeal.

As an aside, there are probably millions of self-styled Christians in this country who say they oppose the illegal US war in Iraq. If they demonstrated one-tenth the commitment and courage of convictions of Fred Phelps and his flock then the war would likely be over.

The video below is courtesy of the "In Defense of Westboro Baptist Church Pickets" web site and it points out the hypocrisy of many Phelps critics. It's funny how so many of them seemed comparatively quiet when he mostly stuck to the funerals of AIDS victims but when he began to show up at the funerals of dead GIs--well, "there ought to be a law!" And, in short order, there were more than a dozen state laws and a federal law aimed at Phelps.

See also:

• "America's most hated family" by the BBC
• "Fred Phelps Docu: Fall From Grace"

Update: "1st Amendment Vindicated in Phelps Case"

Labels: Christianity, civil liberties, Fred Phelps, LGBT, video

Last March, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism! and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) initiated a campaign to pressure Frameline, the organizer of the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, to cut its ties with the Israeli government. In an open letter signed by more than 100 artists, musicians, and writers, including Sophie Fiennes, Elia Suleiman, Ken Loach, Haim Bresheeth, Jenny Morgan, John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Ahdaf Soueif, Eduardo Galeano, Brian Eno, and Leon Rosselson, Frameline was asked "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate." The festival starts June 14, so it's not too late to add your name to the letter (see info at bottom here) or ...

Please write, call or email Michael Lumpkin and Matt Westendorf and let them know you disagree with their decision. Michael Lumpkin & Matt Westendorf, Frameline, 145 Ninth Street, #300, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415-703-8650, email info@frameline.org .

See also: "San Francisco Queers Say No Pride in Apartheid" in Electronic Intifada (May 29, 2007)

Labels: apartheid, bds, boycott, Israel, LGBT, Zionism

This story comes from the Sunday Times (UK) via Thirza Cuthand who blogs at Fit of Pique via brownfemipower. Before I quote the Times article, here's an excerpt from "Love's Last Farewell" by Richard A. Bamberg in Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction, edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel. (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1998):

"I'm speaking with Citizen Gerald Vanderlink. Record present date and time. Citizen Vanderlink and his life partner Citizen Dean Honeywell are considered to be the last two homosexuals in the North American federation and possibly the last two in the solar system. As we speak, Citizen Honeywell is comatose and not expected to regain consciousness."

I forced myself to remain calm. It wasn't easy.

"Citizen Vanderlink is faced with the imminent possibility of becoming the one and only homosexual in human existence. I'm here to learn a little of what it has meant for him. He has watched his subspecies go from a political force to an obscure minority. From what may have once been ten percent of the population to a single individual. One person, alone, among the seven billion inhabitants of the solar system.

"Few today remember the great controversy that raged throughout the early decades of the last century. The Morley process was developed to reverse the genetic flaw that caused homosexuality in humans. Now it has achieved 100 percent success. Tell me, Citizen Vanderlink, what was it like to live through that troubled time?"

I hadn't really expected that question, although I suppose I should have. It'd been eight, no, nearly ten years since I'd last heard the name of Morley and his damnable process. "What was it like?"

"Yes, Citizen. I can retrieve historical accounts, but I want to know what it felt like to one who was actually there and refused the process."

My voice was soft when I answered.

"Genocide."

Okay, now, here are several excerpts from "Science told: hands off gay sheep" by Isabel Oakeshott and Chris Gourlay (my comments appear in bold):

SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the "straightening" procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.

It seems that Navratilova and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) blew the whistle on these experiments back in early November when Navratilova wrote letters to the Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University. In neither of the letters does she refer to any " 'right' of sheep to be gay."

But the researchers argue that the work is valid, shedding light on the “broad question” of what determines sexual orientation. They insist the work is not aimed at “curing” homosexuality.

One wonders if "the researchers" are being disingenuous here. Any light shed on 'causality' clearly has 'treatment' implications. Notice that "the researchers" have now also shifted from discussing sheep mating to human sexual orientation.

Approximately one ram in 10 prefers to mount other rams rather than mate with ewes, reducing its value to a farmer. Initially, the publicly funded project aimed to improve the productivity of herds.

The scientists have been able to pinpoint the mechanisms influencing the desires of “male-oriented” rams by studying their brains. The animals’ skulls are cut open and electronic sensors are attached to their brains.

By varying the hormone levels, mainly by injecting hormones into the brain, they have had “considerable success” in altering the rams’ sexuality, with some previously gay animals becoming attracted to ewes.

Professor Charles Roselli, the Health and Science University biologist leading the research, defended the project.

He said: “In general, sexuality has been under-studied because of political concerns. People don’t want science looking into what determines sexuality.

“It’s a touchy issue. In fact, several studies have shown that people who believe homosexuality is biologically based are less homophobic than people who think that this orientation is acquired.”

Yes, and for some of these people the belief that "homosexuality is biologically based" is a crutch that allows them to safely place LGBT people in a biodeterministic pigeonhole and evade granting them real freedom or agency in sexuality and/or gender identity.

Potentially, the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents pre-natal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of a child.

Roselli has said he would be “uncomfortable” about parents choosing sexuality, but argues that it is up to policy makers to legislate on questions of ethics.

Yes, and the bought-and paid-for "policy makers" will pass the buck to 'the market' and the exigencies of 'scientific progress' and the market moguls will ostensibly leave it up to the 'consumer' and so it goes. This is clearly an ethical dodge by Roselli, who refuses to take any responsibility for his own choices.

Michael Bailey, a neurology professor at Northwestern University near Chicago, said: “Allowing parents to select their children’s sexual orientation would further a parent’s freedom to raise the sort of children they want to raise.”

Hmmm, "freedom to raise the sort of children they want," eh? For background on Bailey see "J. Michael Bailey and neo-eugenics" or "J. Michael Bailey Investigation"--both by transgender women.

Critics fear the findings could be abused.

Udo Schuklenk, Professor of Bioethics at Glasgow Caledonian University, who has written to the researchers pressing them to stop, said: “I don’t believe the motives of the study are homophobic, but their work brings the terrible possibility of exploitation by homophobic societies. Imagine this technology in the hands of Iran, for example.

“It is typical of the US to ignore the global context in which this is taking place.”

Why is it that so many Western academics never miss a chance to bash Iran? Perhaps Schuklenk had in mind the "the public hanging of two gay teenage lovers." Critical thinkers know that this charge was discredited or at least seriously undermined back in 2005. Citing Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission stated, "there is no conclusive information which suggests that the two young men were put to death based on consensual homosexual sex." As Richard Kim documents in The Nation this accusation is just another episode in a politically-driven campaign against Iran. See also "Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map - Does He Deny The Holocaust?"

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said: “These experiments echo Nazi research in the early 1940s which aimed at eradicating homosexuality. They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people.”

Peter Tatchell mentions Nazis and eugenics but neglects to mention that eugenics laws and forced eugenic sterilizations were pioneered in the United States. Incidentally, eugenics also had deep roots in animal breeding.

Tatchell also campaigns for the apartheid state of Israel or, maybe, just gay rights above all else. In 2005, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!) called for a boycott of World Pride Jerusalem. The boycott was in response to the July, 2005, call of 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations "... for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights."

But "gay rights campaigners" like Tatchell had other ideas. Tatchell argued: "While a boycott would not advance the Palestinian cause one iota, it would give comfort to the oppressors of lesbians and gays and undermine a genuine attempt at global solidarity against homophobia." However, Palestinians have spoken clearly about what they think will advance their cause and last year with virtually one voice they called for broad boycotts and divestment. The boycott of this particular event was unfortunate but World Pride organizers should never have agreed to hold the event in Jerusalem while Israel maintains its illegal annexation of part of the city, an illegal and brutal occupation in Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan, and second-class citizenship for non-Jews living in Israel--all while more than 6.5 million Palestinian refugees languish in exile because Israel will not allow them to return home.

He said that the techniques being developed in sheep could in future allow parents to “play God”.

Is deciding to prevent or terminate a pregnancy for financial or other personal reasons "play[ing] God," too? I wouldn't say so and I wouldn't object to sexual orientation selection in birth control/abortion on the grounds of playing God alone but different practical and ethical questions are involved when deciding to exercise "a parent’s freedom [sic] to raise the sort of children they want to raise." For instance, in China and India where abortion is legal and even encouraged gender selection abortions are illegal (although these legal proscriptions have not proven very effective).

To see what a couple of right-wing bloggers have to say on the subject go here and here.

Labels: abortion, eugenics, freedom, human reproduction, Iran, Israel, LGBT, science

Below is a slightly altered version of an article I wrote almost three years for the Michigan Indymedia Center under a pseudonym.

A November 27, 2003, Salvation Army (SA) press release notes, "In a dazzling nationally televised half-time performance during today's Dallas Cowboys' annual Thanksgiving Day game, country music superstar Toby Keith helped kick-off The Salvation Army's 2003 Red Kettle Campaign." That same week I kicked off my second annual seasonal boycott of businesses that host the SA's Red Kettles.

You see, what the press release doesn't tell you and you wouldn't learn from the half-time show is that the Salvation Army (SA) is a conservative church organized in a military structure and operating on "war" footing. Among other things, its official doctrine states:

Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same-sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.

If you do not "accept and abide by" these and other doctrines--for example, total abstinence from the use of alcohol and tobacco--then you cannot be a member of the SA "church body." By contrast, Jesus maintained a fellowship that welcomed the socio-religious outcasts of his day; some of these persons were deemed impure in their very being. Yet, Jesus violated the purity codes and communed fully and openly with them. The Gospels record that when Jesus sat down at the Last Supper, he ate and drank with Judas, knowing that he had already agreed to, and would, betray him; with Peter, knowing that very soon he would deny him thrice; and, with his other disciples, knowing that while still at the table some would quarrel over 'which of them should be accounted greatest.' Jesus did not eschew communion with the betrayer, the denier, or the self-aggrandizing quarrelers. Would God that the SA and other 'traditionalists' and 'revisionists' should follow Jesus' example of, yes, the inclusive table.

The SA doesn't depend solely upon their faith in God; they are also active in politics. SA leaders saw George Bush's "Faith-Based and Community Initiative" as an opportunity for increased funding and to "allow us to integrate social services and spiritual services more." So, in 2001, according to a SA memo obtained by the Washington Post, the SA offered the administration its financial and other support for lobbying efforts to increase the flow of federal taxpayer money to religious organizations. In return, the SA asked for a pass from the White House to permit them violate local and state employment non-discrimination laws that protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

The SA eventually got much of what they wanted in December 2002--just in time for Christmas--George Bush signed Executive Order 13279. According to the official press release, it "amends a previous Executive Order to ensure that religious organizations receiving Federal contracts are able to take their faith into account in making employment decisions." Since LGBT people do not have any federal protections against discrimination, they are the people most adversely affected by this change.

In November 2001, the Western US territory of the SA decided--at least partially in response to local and state nondiscrimination laws--to start providing health benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of its employees. In explaining the decision Col. Phil Needham wrote:

I cannot conceive of the God of agape love saying to us: "Yes, provide needed health care access to these sinners, but not to those." Do I support the gay lifestyle? No. Do I think that refusing to provide access to benefits to a gay partner of an employee will serve to alienate us further from gays in general and confirm further the perception by probably most gays that Christianity is not for them? Yes.

After a weeklong onslaught of anti-LGBT criticism from the so-called Religious Right, including a funding boycott led by the American Family Association, the national headquarters reversed the policy.

While I support the rights of the Salvation Army and its members to freedom of religion and expression, until they change their policies, I will not knowingly support them or any business that supports them; I am also opposed to them (or any other religious organizations) receiving public funds. Charity is important but the good that the Salvation Army does must be balanced against the harm they do to LGBT people by their promotion of baneful "religious" doctrines. More importantly, in most places there are nondiscriminatory alternative organizations to which people who normally give to the Salvation Army can divert their money.

If you are offended by the presence of the SA's Red Kettle at a business you support then I encourage you to explain your concerns to the management. You can let the SA know by dropping an $3 bill or a Soulforce voucher (PDF) in the Red Kettle. Finally, don't forget to express your gratitude to businesses that don't permit the SA to solicit funds on their property.

Note: Col. Phil Needham's statement quoted above no longer appears on the Salvation Army web site. You can read excerpts of it here on the web site of the right wing Concerned Women for America.

See also:

• Gay activists blamed for Salvation Army ban
• Salvation Army "Kettle Protest"
• Another March to the Right for the Salvation Army

Labels: Christianity, Christmas, Jesus, LGBT, religion

Recently, I was doing some research for a friend on Bayard Rustin. Rustin was a multi-talented man and one of the greatest grassroots organizers and advocates of nonviolent direct action in this country's history but he was a giant with feet of clay.

It seems to me that too often people are disheartened when they learn about the flaws of a personal hero but I think such knowledge should be reassuring. We don't have to be perfect to work in important struggles or try to do great things. Imperfect people can work for justice, too; indeed, we're the only ones who can.

So, I'm going to dish some dirt on Bayard Rustin because I think we can learn from both the powerful positive example of Rustin's life and from his negative example, too. Rustin was in the thick of many important social movement in the US in the last century and what he did or did not do tells us a lot not just about Rustin but about those movements. A final lesson is that we must be on guard for our own blind spots.

This isn't going to be an exhaustive list and it won't include some of the faults others find with him. To me, the three most outstanding flaws in Rustin were his sexism, his support for Zionism, and his internalized homophobia. He can hardly be faulted for the latter, except that it lasted so long—after Stonewall, even—and it was, in at least one instance, weaponized against someone else.

Rustin was the main organizer for the August 28, 1963, March on Washington but he sidelined women. The meeting mentioned below was the first major planning meeting after all the mainline civil rights organization had signed on. Daniel Levine writes:

[O]n July 2, at a luncheon at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, the "Big Six"—Randolph, King, John Lewis from SNCC, Whitney Young from the National Urban League, James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins—met. Dorothy Height of the National Council of Negro Women was not at that meeting. The NCNW was listed in the New York Times article as one of the original sponsoring organizations. The stationery of the march, however, did not list it. The addition of the National Council of Negro Women, as an afterthought, was typical of the whole march effort. It was as though the organizers came to the thought "Oh, we mustn't neglect the women." But they were not included as fellow planners or, as it turned out, as speakers at the march itself. ...[1]

A dozen days before the march, Randolph received letters from Anna Arnold Hedgeman, on the board of the SCLC and a member of the administrative committee of the March on Washington, pointing out that women were not being recognized. In response, Randolph, or maybe Bayard, suggested to the ten speakers that since they "were all men and since it is imperative that the role of women in the struggle be made clear, " important women should be invited to participate. Randolph suggested Rosa Parks, Mrs. Medgar Evers, Mrs. Daisy Bates, Mrs. Gloria Richardson, Mrs. Diane Nash Bevel. "The difficulty of finding a single woman to speak without causing serious problems vis-a-vis other women and woman's groups suggests ... that the chairman should introduce these women and tell of their role in the struggle and tracing their spiritual ancestry back to Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman," that they should be applauded, not speak, and then sit down. The male speakers and Rustin all agreed, and that is in fact what happened. Not one woman spoke from the platform.[emphasis added][2]

At that same meeting the men agreed "to add four white cochairmen to the march leadership" but black women were sent to the back of the bus.[3] Jervis Anderson writes:

The program at the Lincoln Memorial was not as smooth in conception and execution as it seemed to the tens of thousands who applauded it. There had been, and probably still was, a brooding feminist rebellion behind the scenes. ... Only Daisy Bates (who had led the struggle to desegregate Little Rock's Central High School in 1957) was allowed a brief ceremonial turn on the platform, to introduce five "Negro Women Fighters for Freedom."

Imperatively, those five included Rosa Parks, heroine of the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott. It was that event which not only produced the celebrated leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., but also inaugurated the modern phase of black protest activism—a phase that had now reached its moral and popular zenith in the March on Washington. In fact, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, one of the newly disgruntled black women—she had been a passionate supporter of every mass initiative A. Philip Randolph had launched since 1941—now declared that the March on Washington would have been rightly called "Rosa Park's Day."

Perhaps, the strongest voice of feminist complaint was Pauli Murray's. Then studying at the Yale School of Divinity, she was among the black civil rights activists who had admired Randolph since the early 1940s. Seethingly displeased with particular arrangements for March on Washington, Pauli Murray wrote to Randolph a week before the event:

I have been increasingly perturbed over the blatant disparity between the major role which Negro women have played and are playing in the crucial grass-roots levels of our struggle and the minor role of leadership they have been assigned in the national policy-making decisions. ... It is indefensible to call a national March on Washington and send out a Call which contains the name of not a single woman leader. Nor can this glaring omission be glossed over by inviting several Negro women to appear on the August 28 program.

The time has come to say to you quite candidly, Mr. Randolph, that "tokenism" is as offensive when applied to women as when applied to Negroes, and that I have not devoted the greater part of my adult life to the implementation of human rights to [now] condone any policy which is not inclusive.

Perhaps such a letter would have been more appropriately addressed to Bayard Rustin; for it was he who organized the program and procedures of the March on Washington. [Murray's decision to write to Randolph is understandable since women were excluded from the March leadership and, thus, not privy to the behind-the-scenes decision to make Randolph the titular director while Rustin did the real organizing—VFPD] ... [Pauli Murray's] letter to Randolph echoed the earlier view of the feminist Ella Baker that black men did not want women to share the highest level of civil rights leadership.[4]

Obviously, Rustin was not the only black male civil rights leader with a sexism problem but is it too much to ask a man who had repeatedly been pushed out of the limelight because of his sexual orientation to be more sensitive to issues of sexism? In the case of Rustin the answer may be yes.

As Randall Kennedy notes in his review, "From Protest to Patronage:"

Before the late 1970s, Rustin spent little if any energy advancing the cause of equal treatment for lesbians and gays. ... [Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin author John] D'Emilio notes, however, that even with Rustin's forays into gay politics, he was never quite of it. The year before Rustin died in 1987, gay activist Joseph Beam invited Rustin to contribute to an anthology of writings by black gay men. "After much thought," Rustin responded, "I have decided that I must decline. ... I did not 'come out of the closet' voluntarily—circumstances forced me out. While I have no problem with being publicly identified as homosexual, it would be dishonest of me to present myself as one who was in the forefront of the struggle for gay rights. The credit for that belongs to others. ... While I support full equality, under law, for homosexuals, I fundamentally consider sexual orientation to be a private matter."

This last remark by Rustin is an understatement. In fact, it seems that for most of his life Rustin accepted his own marginalization as a gay man as reasonable or even justified. Moreover, in 1971, when War Resisters League staffer David McReynolds " 'came out of the closet,' Bayard wanted him fired," according to McReynolds.[5] Levine writes that Rustin's "judgment was purely tactical" and Rustin wanted to protect the organization from the fallout over McReynold's admission. Ironically, after Rustin was sentenced to sixty days in jail in 1953 on a "morals charge"—he was arrested while having sex with two men in a car—McReynolds had been supportive and even visited him in jail. Rustin's internalization of homophobia may have led him to turn a blind eye to the marginalization of women, too.

In 1948, Jewish violence in Palestine killed thousands of Arabs. The creation of Israel also created 750,000 Palestinian refugees, driven from their homeland by Jewish terrorism and ethnic cleansing. Although Rustin was keenly sensitive, even self-conscious, about Jewish suffering in World War II he was callous about the suffering of Arabs at the hands of Jews just three years after the end of the WWII.[6] At one point, he even referred to Israel as "the opiate of the Arabs."[7]

In 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive war on neighboring countries, killing thousands more, seizing additional Arab land and creating tens of thousands of additional Palestinian refugees. Although Rustin visited refugee camps in Thailand, Somalia, Pakistan and Puerto Rico as a representative of the International Rescue Committee, he pointedly refused to visit Palestinian refugees in the West Bank.[8] Just three years later, in 1970, Bayard Rustin betrayed his pacifist values and history and publicly lobbied for the United States to provide Israel with all the jet fighters and bombers it had requested.[9] Many of Rustin's old friends and colleagues were appalled.

After the United Nations General Assembly declared "zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" in 1975, Rustin started the Black Americans to Support Israel Committee.[10] He recruited an impressive list of national Black leaders but also attracted a number of Black critics, including one who wrote to a Jewish publication to say: "It is an insult to the collective intelligence of thirty-five million blacks that one hundred 'leaders' use their good name to support Zionism."[11] Psychologist Kenneth B. Clark was among those who refused to join BASIC. " 'I felt,' he explained later, 'that the Palestinians were human beings too; and that we could not have peace in the Middle East until the Palestinian problem was solved.' "[12]

In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon killing nearly 20,000 Arabs, mostly civilians. Rustin helped whitewash Israel's atrocity as "an act of legitimate self-defense" and "not terribly destructive."[13]

Notes:

1. Daniel Levine. Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Pr, 2000) pp. 134.
2. Levine, pp. 140-1.
3. Jervis Anderson. Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen. (New York: HarperCollins, 1997) p. 248.
4. Anderson, pp. 258-9.
5. Levine, p. 72.
6. Anderson, p. 339.
7. John D'Emilio. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. (New York: Free Pr., 2003) p. 483.
8. Levine, p. 230.
9. Anderson, p. 339; Levine, pp. 224-6.
10. Levine, p. 226.
11. Anderson, pp. 339-40.
12. Anderson, p. 340.
13. Levine, p. 231.

Additional Links on Pauli Murray:

• http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lp-2001/murray.html
• http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/whm2001/p_murray.html

See also:

• More on Bayard Rustin
• Black American Anti-Zionism: From Boggs to Badu
• Black American Anti-Zionism II

Revised: 10/30/2006, 2/6/2008

Labels: Bayard Rustin, Black America, gender, history, Israel, LGBT, nonviolence, race, resistance, United States, Zionism