I was born in Winston-Salem… just 30 minutes from Greensboro, where the famed 1960 Woolworth sit-ins began. I also went to school at UNC-Greensboro. As a youth, I was greatly, greatly inspired by the Civil Rights Movement being so steeped in it in my childhood surroundings. I think it harms all people who are oppressed when these oppressed groups start fighting with each other. Our movements for equality and civil rights, while different in many respects, are also the same in many respects. Taken in the perspective of history, we are each fighting for what we rightly deserve and what the constitution guarantees us.

oooh chile, way to stir the damn pot. btw-can we make that top image into a t-shirt & sell it to raise funds for the revolution? i want one in small. black, of course.

Homo-toms! hahahahaha..you KNOW i'll be using that real soon..xxx

W

dm

"Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the lunch-counter sit-in's. It is time to RISE UP and demonstrate the injustice we suffer because of the lack of liberty and justice for ALL. Organizing now to add those images, for Dan Choi, Anthony Dietrich, Peter Yacobellis, Layne Soares Layne Soares and the tens of thousands… who have been discharged or would like to serve, so hopefully one day they will not continue to be further evidence of the clear discrimination we face."

I thought her using the photo with those words was highly appropriate in acknowledging a movement prior to the LGBT movement and the actions they took in terms of risk in the battle for their civil rights—as example for similar actions that can be taken in the LGBT rights battle. There's absolutely nothing wrong in acknowledging the black civil rights movement, it just gets a problematic when one is voicing them as the same or identical. When LGBTs experience the risk, loss, bloodshed and untold violence that these people during the black civil rights movements experienced and walked then a legitimate comparison is appropriate.

The wrong way to do it is the Michael Signorile way in calling up black civil rights saying, "well blacks got their civil rights and blah blah."

That's a lot of nerve for someone making demands who has yet to demonstrate what he'd be willing to put on the line for his own civil rights. Signorile can talk about blacks and civil rights when he has authentically fought for his own—not just as an indignant mouthpiece making comparisons that really don't measure up in terms of what it took blacks to get their civil rights.

I hope this helps.

The LGBT civil rights movement is structured like everything else in mainstream America – it is centered around white people. This is what makes the Black Civil Rights movement and ours extremely different. The only thing the media pays attention to are people in positions of power, and historically, white people have held those keys for a long, long time. So yes, the rhetoric and the agenda that the LGBT Bloggers and other prominent LGBT Leaders are putting forth seems quite ridiculous when we take a look back and see what our brothers and sisters of color went through, what they fought for, and accomplished.

It becomes problematic when we associate those leaders and bloggers with LGBT people and issues as a whole. I know you make it quite clear that you're talking about the "influential white gay leaders" but in your critique, why not give voice to the rest of the LGBT community/activists/leaders who fight their whole lives against prejudice, who show tremendous courage in being who they are and face death, beatings, abuse, and discrimination in ways that bring back images of half a century ago.

I'm talking about trans women of color who experience hate crimes in disproportionate numbers, murdered in some of the most gruesome ways known to mankind; lgbtq youth who get kicked out of their homes by the people who brought them into this world, pushed to the brink of suicide; people who are forced into gay conversion therapy causing them tremendous amounts of psychological and emotional harm.

Listen, I know it's important to critique what's going on, I'm right there with you in everything you said, but I also think it's important to keep these other issues in mind as well, as a corollary to the critique and argument. Otherwise we just sound like all those other people who hate us but don't know about these things or don't think they're pressing issues. We know better. And we should be better. If every blogger who was out there critiquing the white LGBT leadership's critique/agenda was ALSO spending more time talking about this discourse and these stories, then maybe we'd ALL be able to move past the whining.

Queer people HAVE had people rise, we’ve had sit-ins and riots, we’ve had a lot of that sort of thing…

…unfortunately, the modern movement has been trying to make it seem as though those things never happened. They have been coopting more than just the black civil rights movement. They have been coopting the Stonewall riots, the ACT-UP demonstrations in the ’80s, and all the queer uprisings that WEREN’T petty crap in order to gain access to a few equally petty privileges.

We've talked about this before, so I shan't (such a wonderful pseudo-word!) continue further, but I'm so glad you: a) recognized the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in today and b) brought us together to talk about this yet again.