OnLine With Zoe

The MOVEMENT needs us to prioritize and study leadership.

My plan was to avoid the conversation all together but my plan has evaporated.  About a week ago I saw, on facebook around 9 PM,  a picture of Hugo Schwyzer with a red circle and strike on it.  I opened the page, “Feminists Against Hugo Schwyzer“ and watched the “like” tally roar.  I think I went to bed when it was at about 160.  Now it is at 566 and the debate has bled all over the pond, small pond but one of the ponds I frequent.  I am not certain I want to get in the fracas but my thinking is mine, I own it and offer it. 

It seems that there are a lot of very strong opinions, strong like coffee or a scent is strong.  There is little that is subtle or mindful or aware or refined or worthy of many of the writers.  I am choosing to believe that many of the voices around this pond are gifted thinkers; by that I mean I would like to hear from them on the actual subjects of privilege, gender, leadership; the entire oppressed/oppressor paradigm.  I am sincerely flummoxed that the conversation always includes names and never takes a leap to arching lessons, tenets, ideas, general social conclusions, etc.

My unfolding in activism has always been parallel with expanding my understanding of humans, of organic physics, of the science of leadership.  I have to admit, this keeps me sane in the face of Roe eroding, Prop 8, unforgivable suicides and so much more.  I do not use it as an excuse but as a shoring up of my heart in terrible bloody waters. 

I want to talk about the role of a white person in racial civil rights.  I want to talk about a rich person’s responsibility to the economically depressed.  I want to talk about the best place for a senior when surrounded with young people, young legs, young minds and new ideas.  I want to talk about straight allies and their fundamental necessity in the LGBT movement. 

Most of what I have learned on this subject is from Robert Greenleaf and Margaret Wheatley.  The finest leader I have read about is Leo in Hesse’s Journey to the East.  He meets a group of western pilgrims and builds them a fire, cooks their food, arranges their passage through the Himalayas while never mentioning that he is the Abbott they are searching for at the monastery which is their final destination on their treacherous trip.  They think he is their servant, their Sherpa, their inferior and all the while they are traveling; warm and safe.  They are becoming independent and Leo knows that his invisibility is integral to their mutual success.

I think Malcolm X is another powerful example.  He did not want privileged white people anywhere near his movement until he circumambulated the Great Mosque seven times, found his own higher self and, then, considered the place of blue-eyed people.  And we have to see that Branch Rickey brought up Jackie Robinson but Robinson ran the bases.  I believe that HRC should have a straight ally on their Board of Directors because there is no movement without expansion out of our queer ghetto but the majority, the leaders must be queer.

All of this seems to me to be a worthy conversation.  It would be a worthy conversation for anyone who is interested in the matrix of domination, who cares about the empowerment of the disenfranchised, certainly anyone who has studied The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  Not only is this a conversation that the current circumstances could benefit from but our intersected futures as well.  Instead of keeping the conversation so puny as to be about one human this could have been about the physics of change. 

 Oh I have opinions about Hugo’s past, his teaching, his writing, his devotees.  As a member of Alanon for almost 40 years, I have opinions about addiction.  I have a boatload of opinions about rape culture, violence against women and men, about the mis/use of the word feminism.  However, what I really care about is the rising of the oppressed which will release the oppressor from our shared cycle ~ advancing all of society.  Hugo and you and I are just a few players who have a lot to do that is way beyond personal, beyond name-calling, beyond defenders v. attackers.

The MOVEMENT needs us to prioritize and study leadership.  Settle for nothing less.  Learn to build your own fire, to travel your road and pave it wide enough for all of us.  These two pictures are all I have to say about this individual controversy ~ now I gotta get back to work.

Occupy Generation ~ Occupy Heart

While Berkeley is being occupied, visited by Daniel Ellsberg, tents on the Mario Savio Square, I feel so much more than nostalgia.  I am rifling through my mind to figure how on earth I found out about the Free Speech Movement.  It was not on the Nightly News with Huntley Brinkley, it was not in the local papers (Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel), it was not dinner conversation in my home or any home I visited.  You can know it was not in my Catholic Church; they were not pro-Kennedy.  It was not the lunch talk over tuna noodles or sloppy joes. 

To say there was no internet, there were no PC’s but, moreover, there was no lateral communication that had a secret factor as there is today.  Many adults have not kept up with electronic news possibilities; they merely read CNN on their ipad rather than fish for the Guardian or Al Jezeera.  Though I carry my own biases, it appears to me that many people my age who are devotees of Amy Goodman and foreign press are child-free or involved in learning professions. 

Somehow I knew, I knew about Birmingham, I knew about Martin Luther King, I knew about the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act.  Somehow it found me.   My compass was set on autopilot to point 180 degrees from anything my mother supported; Wisconsinite, Joseph McCarthy; the Committee on Un-American Activities; the John Birth Society; crazy messages about communism including people building air raid shelters in their basements. 

Mind you this is all before Betty Friedan, before PC’s, before Stonewall, before HIV/AIDS, before home pregnancy tests, before thousands of things that are now simply, “in the water.”  As best I can measure how it got to me at 15, it was books, music and a genuine taste for fundamental resistance to the same ole, same ole.  Anything that had been tested, tried and true was toxic and antiquated.  Change was being born, born in me; where else could it be?  Yes, I was a genuine card-carrying anti-war hippie by the time I was 19.  I wore overalls with an American Flag sewn upside down on the bib. 

Today as I watch the news, comb through facebook, watch youtube videos and search on #OWS I see the outcome of a sliver of that investment.  And there are Joan Baez and Crosby & Nash singing right on queue.  I see 19 year olds and 25 year olds who are moving the world one change at a time.  The human mic, refusing dogma, demanding equality, valuing books, standing in unison. It isn’t déjà vu all over again, it is burgeoning brilliance roaring across the earth on the finest brand of courageous NEW.  From Marines to medics, from seniors to daycare, from a few to a thousand, change is being born in each and every one. 

But here is what you may not know, what you may not have realized.  Today there is a kid, 12 or 13, who is lost in a sea of toxic traditions of bigotry and fear, who is taking it all in.  They are writing it all on the walls of their heart.  They will continue on a lifetime trajectory, now plugged in, and, whoa, change is gonna come, born at the speed of light, fueled by today’s resistance, informed on a scale I can not even dream of.  Oh, lucky kid.  Oh, better world.

A Big Fat Thank you

Today, as I was sitting at the Hollywood NOW table at the Love Your Body Day celebration, a woman stopped and asked me if it would be okay to ask me a question.  Of course, I said.  She covered her mouth with her hand for a moment and then removed it to say, “Do you mind being overweight?”  I laughed and said no, not at all; certainly not in the ways she wanted me to mind. 

As we talked for a long time, she told me that she is 68.  She had once been overweight but worked really hard on it and continues.  She was so small, maybe 5’2’ and 115 lbs.  Then she got to the important point, she is terribly worried about her daughter.  She said when they take her grandchildren to MacDonald’s she finds it impossible to watch her daughter eat french fries.  I laughed again and said, well I won’t be eating with you either.  You mean to say that if we go out and I order an hot fudge sundae and you order what ever you want, you will be disturbed that I am eating ice cream?  Yes, she said.

She inquired further, aren’t you worried about your health?  I told her that it seems to me that 1) worry is unhealthy & 2) it is no ones business but my own.  I told her that each of us has a 3x5 card entitled, MY BUSINESS; that no ones body should be on that card but our own.  Her daughter’s body should not be on her card at all. 

She just said it was too hard.  I asked her how she felt about all the fabulous fat women at the event today, high heels, sexy, all glammed up for the fashion show.  She was really uncomfortable with it.  I told her that the judge inside her head, sitting high up in her perfect black robe needed to be fired.  She was not popular, making any friends and doing a lot of harm.  Finally I told her to go to the most expensive bakery in her neighborhood, buy their very best cake, take it to her daughter and tell her that she was sorry.  Tell her that she could not change all at once but she would keep working on telling that judge, YOU’RE FIRED.

I suppose that was my mom.  She was so ashamed of me, taking me to the chubby department, putting gussets in my girl scout uniform, telling me often how terrible things fit.  My First Communion dress has to be made as I did not fit in the ones in the store. 

Mom’s who cannot love their daughters, big or small, pierced or inked, dressed in ways that confound, suffer a torture of their own design.  I hope daughters find themselves and end this terrible legacy.  Lane Bryant, Torrid, INC; Love Your Body Day and Chenese Lewis you are healing a generation.    

Who is our Harijan?

Happy Birthday, Gandhiji

October 2, 1869 our lives were changed forever.  Not that Mohandas arrived fully enlisted in the liberation movement.  He was privileged, wore western clothes, studied in London.  He wandered British society looking for non-meat eaters and found a group of Russian mystics and self-proclaimed magicians.  He was in training to be a barrister and his interest in women’s rights brought him to Royal Albert Hall to hear Mrs. Pankhurst talk about suffrage and direct action.  He sat in the same audience as Alice Paul and, even then, his sensibility was to leave when violence was promoted.  Breaking windows was going too far for Mohan.

It was the famous train ride through South Africa when M.K. Gandhi, graduated attorney, refused to move to second class and was thrown off, that his world shattered.  He had always traveled first class, we know that included the liner to Britain and getting around London.  Makes one wonder if he had no real consciousness of class before going to London.  Much like Siddhartha who knew he had to escape the palace wall to see true life in his country.  It was a real world encounter that created change.  But once realized, both these men were called to tell the world.

Looking around their worlds, the Lord Buddha, Jesus Christ and M.K. Gandhi all came to the same conclusion; that a person of conscience relates to the most oppressed.  Siddhartha encountered a sick man, an old man and a dead man; something he had never seen inside his father’s palace.  His response was to sit in silence until he could solve these newly discovered puzzles.  Once solved, he entered the working class.  Upon his death, he asked his students to destroy all likenesses of him; so much for obedient students.  None the less the inference was and remains, that Buddhists relate to and concern themselves with, the oppressed. 

Jewish fisherman, Joshua ben David was not born a wealthy man however he came to a similar conclusion.  To earn eternal peace, one would have to care for the poorest of the poor and when the middle class made inquiry, he said that when you see such a poor person, you would be seeing him, in fact.  As you do for the least, you do for him.

The complexity of Gandhi is so varied and rich, maybe even out of reach to the Western mind.  Raised as both a Hindu and Muslim in an upper caste, he was able to get a very wide view of his Mother India, eventually the world.  No only did he respond to the poverty imposed by British occupation but he also combined his response with his spiritual practice.  Refusing to wear western clothes, he put on the clothes of the poorest of India; the untouchables.  It was simultaneously a political and spiritual response for Gandhi.

Just as Gandhi was taught direct action by a woman, Emmeline Pankhurst, he adopted a term used centuries before him by another woman, Gangasati.  She was a Bhakti Yogini and writer in the 13th Century.  To counter the terrible oppression and status of women, Gangasati called them Harijan which means Children of God.  Gandhi renamed the untouchables Harijan, He even went on to name one of his newspapers, The Harijan.  He believed we are all, “Children of God.”

Today who is our Harijan?  In the Queer Movement is it transgendered people?  In the Women’s Movement is it those seeking safety from violence?  In the Immigration Movement is it the children of parents split through deportation?  In the Reproductive Movement is it the poor?  Regardless of who it may be, it is you and it is me as we are all Children of God.

Get me a Piece of Vanilla, Milquetoast, BS Pie

Imagine if the film industry took every meaningful, inspiring, insightful and incite-ful story and made it G-rated, a box office success and shaved off every bit of thorny truth or multi-layered complexity.  Imagine if a writer misrepresented a real person and retold a historic event to suit themselves.  Maybe it is their right to do that, to show one side of a life, but a tragic loss occurs when a generation believes that the sanitized version, the mischaracterization, the fantasy re-telling is the actual reality.

Every year around Women’s Equality Day, the best of people advise us to watch Iron Jawed Angels.  Every year I comment that Alice was so much more.  Not only was she more than the movie character but the striking inaccuracies reveal a warped bias on the part of the movie makers.  They made up a male interest.  They made up a Congress member’s wife.  They imply that Alice had some kind of melancholy about not having children (the fictional boyfriend is a widower with a son who charms Alice).  But, more importantly, what is lost in this fantasy?  What is the viewer robbed of?  That is the real tragedy.  Who was this strong, mouthy, brave, relentless, sometimes divisive woman?  It is my position that the fluffy interpretation negatively impacts every American woman who would have found camaraderie in the true fire and soul of Alice Paul.  I would go so far as to say that the pink hat wearing, gum chewing, bumbling character is held up to be an example as to how far an acceptable woman can veer from lady-like behavior.  Read a book and you will see what it actually took for her to accomplish the 19^th Amendment, how she stood trial in 1917, her demanding leadership style, she did not suffer fools, she was not anything near the Hillary Swank edition.

Now the identical thing will be happening around May 22, Harvey Milk Day.  Oh yes, the movie Milk won an Oscar, starred Sean Penn, was truly moving.  I have watched it 6 times, at least.  But if you watch The Times of Harvey Milk and then watch Milk - ask two questions: What is the difference in these two representations of Harvey and what is the impact to future generations if they believe the man portrayed in Milk is the whole picture.  The fictionalized Milk epitomizes the very thing that is a terrible problem in the LGBT movement; it shows a single issue man on a single issue mission.  The Times of Harvey Milk shows Harvey working with labor, with women, with seniors, with people of color and imparts to the viewer that being gay was one facet of Harvey - he was the Mayor of Castro before it was a mecca for gays.  He was inclusive and open; something the LGBT movement could surely use today.  My hope is that high schools that do celebrate Harvey Milk Day will watch BOTH movies and have a real lesson plan that identifies the differences in these movies.   

Most recently I sat in a theater and watched, The Help.  Loved it.  Loved the casting.  Loved the poster.  Loved the sets, the clothes, the chotchkies, the music.  But I am 63 and lived through that period and I know that the entire movie from start to end was one vanilla, milquetoast, BS pie.  It has nothing to do with the facts of prejudice, poverty, politics of that time.  Madger Evers murder was some little wispy mention, a black woman leaving her abusive husband was a flick solved with some deep fry and what’s more fun than not allowing a woman to use the loo – a knee slapping good laugh; pass the popcorn.  Hollywood will surely have a 5 minute reprieve from sexism during Oscar season, as The Help gets a dozen nominations.  Can’t you just picture all of the bigotry and anti-woman business of the industry being whitewashed on the red carpet.  And what of this movie being used as a teaching tool?  Gee, wasn’t the 60’s just a lot of good music and silly women acting all clique-ky.

Notable exceptions validate a wish that non-documentary films can tell the truth.  Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi was meticulously scripted and shot.   In fact, the book, Gandhi, A Pictorial Biography shows the shots side by side; Patel, Nehru, Kasturba, Jinnah, the ashrams, the courtrooms, the jails – all painstakingly accurate.  Certainly Gandhi the man was infinitely more complex than this movie but it is not dishonest, sanitized, fictionalized and offers the viewer genuine inspiration. 

Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, portrays the life of the 14^th Dalai Lama from ages 2- 24 with astounding accuracy.  Particularly significant is that many of the actors are direct blood relatives of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.  You can be sure that the ceremonies and traditions are accurately portrayed.  

I love movies.  I love social justice.  I worry that cute is painting over pure.  I worry that polite is being advanced as possible.  I worry that women, in particular, are being corralled by darling little shots of Ben teaching Alice to drive.  I worry when Hollywood makes a movie that implies that the Civil Rights Movement was a wonderful success and, golly, wasn’t it just a lot of fun.    

ERA ~ We Can Do It Better This Time

Recently there have been two posts on HuffPo by pro-ERA writer, Barbara Grufferman. 

There have been dozens of anti-ERA comments and I want to make a lot of noise about how that is happening so that maybe now in 2011, as opposed to 1982, we can identify these gnats; their mission, their methods and their insignificance.  It is my opinion that they are meaningless with only one exception; their free time to buzz about spinning the illusion that they have something to say.  They are doing it as a matter of mission; church mission.  And the service they provide is purely diversionary.  They have no power in this issue whatsoever.  I think even they don't realize it.  

Back in 1982, on the days when IL was going to discuss the ERA, there would be dozens of ladies dressed in red that matched the red carnations on the desks of anti-ERA legislators.  There was some fantasy that they were in partnership.  The only thing they had in common was the color red.  The legislators had gotten elected with massive campaign donations from the insurance industry and corporations that were making money paying women less than men; both in money and benefits.  But there they were, the ladies dressed in red, thinking they were swaying the country on issues like the draft and same-sex bathrooms.    

To get this done, THIS time, we have to be strategic about where the opposition gets their MONEY.  We have to know that it is not eagle forum, it is not Phyllis Schlafly, it is not about toilets.  It is about WalMart, the Fair Paycheck Act and Health Insurance.  It is about making money paying women less, charging women more and sqeezing all the work out of women as their backs can bear. It is time to trivialize the ladies in red and their corny, idiotic, childish arguments. 

To get this done THIS time, we need to get both strategies rolling through the pipeline with committee hearings, congressional voting and presidential support.  The fact that our constitution is less inclusive than the ones in countries where we have killed thousands for women to be included is beyond the realm of understanding. 

HERE IS MY RESPONSE ON HUFFPO.  I encourage you to leave a civil and insightful comment there too. 

As a lifelong ERA Activist and staunch supporter of both strategies, I am so glad to see posts on the ERA, particularly by even handed, balanced writers like Ms Grufferman.  I would caution some readers that the overwhelming majority of Americans not only are in favor of the ERA but believe it passed. 

Secondly, it has always been introduced into Congress, always.  Is lands in the Sub-committee on Constitutional amendments and is not being given hearings.  A few years ago there was a lot of excitement that it was going to be heard and, the then, President Bush called Pretraus to the to hill for emergency hearings and the ERA was bumped. 

If we want to see it come out to the states it has to move through the subcommittee, the committee, Congress and the President.  Then it is voted on the state chambers, subject to the various state rules, such as requiring a super-majority,  Had it been a simple majority, it would have passed in 1982.

The 1982 deadline was both sinister and unprecedented.  The actually 27th amendment was passed with no deadline and took over 203 years.  The deadline is very dubious and the passage of HJ Res 47, rescinding the deadline, is one very effective and hopeful possibility.  However it would be a first and we are not certain the outcome.  Frankly, I have deeply considered both strategies and arrived at the same position of both bills authors; to support both.  There is no reason to pick one over the other until one really picks up stream, pulls out of the pack and, then, ALL HANDS ON DECK.

Finally, we need to see clearly that the pro-traditional family people who are still harping about gender neutral restrooms, the draft and other such applications that scare people, have absolutely nothing to do with this; nothing.  They were flitting about state capitols in 1982 and they have a search engine find pro-ERA articles so they can write their little trivia. 

To win, we must understand what the fight is about - MONEY.  It is all about corporate money.  We need campaign finance rules, universal health care and the fair paycheck act.  We need to stop the practice of corporations making more money hiring women and insurance companies making up to 48% more money insuring women.

Carolyn Maloney, Bob Menendez & Tammy Baldwin and most Americans want the US Constitution include equality of rights.  We have work to do - fine work, good work, smart work. 

Walkers Honor Us

I have spent 40 years studying Mahatma Gandhi.  He was not the insane man that the most recent piece of fiction suggested but a very complex man, a man of India, a man of Hinduism+Islam, a father and a spinner. He studied with Emmeline Pankhurst, a student with Alice Paul.  He entertained royalty and sat with Margaret Sanger.  You would be mistaken if you thought that the Quit India Campaign was his project most dear.  He was obsessed with digestion and nutrition.  And, spiritual seekers know what happens when you sit in silence everyday, spinning or doing anything redundant while holding a high intention. 

 The fact that Gandhi walked great distances was not so odd, for the poor.  He was born very privileged and could have traveled first class but, in doing so, would have missed the poetry and poets that a walk calls near.  And it would not have collected the attention of the on-lookers, the readers, the curious, even the naysayers.  In his last years he simply stood up and began to walk to Pakistan, to see if he could garner attention about  the tragic segregation that was tearing apart Mother India. 

 Last summer, a New York Blogger wrote a disparaging piece about me and, in it, called me a Gandhian.  I don't think I have ever heard anything so wonderful in all my life.  Of course you know I care very little about nutrition or spinning; I care about experimenting with truth.  I am devoted to all who use their lives to test and adopt the truth, their truth. 

  Some of the heat I took was because I had mentioned Dan Choi's fast in the context of Gandhi's fasts.  Last week we all saw that Dan and others' took a beating by anti-gay people while in Moscow; never hitting back.  And, again, I have no hesitation to say that this is in the direct lineage of Pankhurst - Gandhi - Paul - Kramer - and now maybe you.  I have no second thoughts about separating the activist from the action - as I would the painter from the painting (yo - Caravaggio).  It is these actions of independent bravery - performed for a collective outcome - rising from the heart and soul that defines this lineage. 

Walks have a long tradition.  Have you ever walked the perimeter of Walden?  Or read about Malcolm X's walk on his pilgrimage to Mecca?  And today there are two men walking across American on behalf of Equality.  Alan Bounville, (http://www.intothelightwalk.com/) is just beginning today in Seattle and Richard Noble (http://walk.usfreedomring.com/) began on March 12, from the Golden Gate Bridge.  These are the standard bearers  for the Equality Movement.  From The Equality Bill to Immigration, every American seeking equality is being both carried and lifted by these two men.

They are taking on the weather, the road, the accolades and the possibility of disapproval manifest.  How effective they are as our representatives is entirely up to us.  The news circling out like a rock in a pond, the importance will be realized as much as we make their story our story.  They are offering their feet, their focus, their very life for the American Equality Movement.  We have a responsibility in this.  To shine our light, donate a few dollars as the weeks peel by, to tell others in the tribe that this is happening for them but, more over, tell a wider circle that our movement has come this far, become this NOBLE and hopeful. 

Indians and the British made Gandhi's walks important.  Now it is our turn. 

Happy PRIDE, Richard & Alan. 

We are so proud of you.

The Tragedy of Lost History

This last weekend I went to the San Francisco premiere of March On which was shown at the LGBT Community Center.  It was a fantastic time with the convergence of friends; old and new.  We went to many places in the Castro, from Dolma to the Sausage Factory, a Ken display in a residential window to the erased Castro Camera shop which is now HRC.  My friends told me that the change was made over night; presumably to avoid pushback and/or media attention.

  Of course you and I know the address 575 Castro Street.  You can see the cardboard figure of Harvey in the second floor window and the plaque in the sidewalk.  But I hope the next generation tells their AI kids that it was once the magnetic, radiant  meeting place for women, labor, queers; all disenfranchised people who made plans for a brighter tomorrow.

I suppose tourists can walk down to the next corner, turn left to 4127 18^th Street find the LGBT History Museum.  There they can see Harvey’s bullhorn, Mary Ann Singleton’s dress from Tales of the City and the NOW program from 1976, when dykes were only welcome if they did not mention their orientation.  

I went to the History Museum with a gaggle of young people who stood in awe; pointing and conferring with one another, respectfully chatting about those who went before them.  It felt so peculiar to me because what they see as history, I think of as current.

 

But when I saw the pastel suits of Martin and Lyon, I almost got light headed.  I glanced around for a bench with none to be found.  (I guess old people are to be honored but not seated).  I made it through walking around the room and asked the cashier if I could sit in an empty chair behind the table.  I mourn the terrible loss of Harvey’s true legacy of inclusion of all people as falsely portrayed in the Oscar winning movie.  I am sick to my stomach that there is news TODAY of the possible closing of the Martin-Lyon Clinic.

I am not ready to step away, to become an empty black suit with a scarf or round black glasses in a box somewhere.  No, you may not have my torch, get your own torch.  You can light yours from mine.  BUT do know this, nothing is ever accomplished without a lot of energy, confrontation, midnight meetings and sacrifice.  The true stores, the real story is never as sanitized as dry cleaned suits in a museum or movies with big name stars. Change the awning, rewrite history, misrepresent sexual orientation; it seems so tragic to those who know the truth of it.  Make the queers appear straight, make the edgy people seem easy going, make it all cute as a bug.

Let me state clearly ~ the truth will set you free ~ not a sanitized history.

Change is Entering the Fast Lane

Political fasting has a long and international history.  It is different from spiritual fasting which is far more famous.  It has no relationship to cosmetic / weight loss diets or “cleansing.”  Today, it is generally misunderstood and somewhat bound up in celebrity; famous people stop eating to draw attention to an issue they have embraced, for example Mia Farrow and her true calling about Darfur.  Ms. Farrow posted from her home on youtube and, because of her fame, was able to cast a bright light on the tragedies in Dafur.  Upon her break-fast, Sir Richard Branson took over and continued several days. 

People fasted at the G8 and the G20 and the WTO Trade Conference.  They have blogged, posted video and gotten the attention of the media.  Recently, here in the US, Lt. Dan Choi and Captain Jim Pietrangelo  fasted, stating their demands to end the military firings on the grounds of homosexual conduct, stop the Pentagon study and repeal DADT.  Another type of fast, 90 solid meals over 30 days, was held by Gloria Allred in regards to the Equal Rights Amendment culminating on August 26, 2010, Women’s Equality Day. 

Generally, political fasting does not result in death, with the notable exception of the Irish men who fasted in 1981.  They were actually unknowingly harming themselves with prison toxic tap water and salt pills; neither advisable.  In 1982, I sat next to Dick Gregory for 5 days in the Illinois State House.  He explained that wherever fasters fast, he offers support and he was very well versed on the circumstances of Bobby Sands, et. al.  Mr. Sands fasted to death in 66 days while in a Belfast prison.  It was a terrible tragedy, mismanaged with many warning signs along the way; including blindness. 

Why do people hold political fasts?  It is not emotional blackmail, as Speaker Ryan of Illinois accused in 1982.  It is not a “hunger strike,” which sounds a lot like, “I am not eating until you buy me a dirt bike.”  Who can really say what is in the heart of a political faster, most likely they have reached a point in their journey where fasting simply arises as their organic choice.  Interestingly it is often the most radical, outspoken activists who take it on and quickly find themselves wanting to be extra quiet both in sound and movement. 

Generally there is an issue that has not gotten traction and is approaching resolution, maybe even defeat.  A champion surfaces who wants to influence the outcome, change the trajectory, convert the opposition and fasting, as an option, seems not just reasonable but inevitable.  Let there be no doubt that there will be many conversions along the way.  People may begin with scoffing and unfold in loyalty.  People may roll their eyes at first but shortly become promoters of the cause.  Opponents may feel singled out and, in fact, they may be right.  But the point, at the intersection of issue, faster, opponents and supporters, is always conversion.   From Chavez to Gandhi, from unions to Great Britain, fasting creates change.  It is as if the stasis melts and things move.  As Gandhi put it, the hearts of the onlookers melt. 

At first people panic and react.  That is natural, eating is the most fundamental human activity and who would willingly deny it.  Everybody can feel it.  That initial reaction demonstrates exactly why fasting is so effective.  Everyone reacts.  The hope is, the plan is, that those who are in agreement with the political position of the faster will aim their reaction to those who can deliver the demanded outcome.   Gandhi’s last fast was his appeal for peace in Delhi.  It would have been a waste of time to simply implore him to stop, the only effective thing people could do was to work to end the violence.  When the last knife was dropped, Gandhi broke his fast. 

This week another fast will begin in America.  As I am apt to say, Angels will bend low from the clouds to get a better look.  Or as Apache Chief Magnus Colorado said, “Only people with empty heads feast while their hearts are heavy with grief.”  When I fasted, supporters would either eat everything in sight or not be able to out of guilt.  Mr. Gregory told me that only the correct side can fast, as it is a prayerful thing, a holy thing, a moral thing.  I am not so sure of that but in any event, when people fast change escalates.  Humanity is the better for it.

Is there Really a Movement?

I keep feeling something is stalled, not working, terribly wrong and I want to name it, claim it, fix it.  There is something happening in the LGBTQAI movement that is like a popsicle stick in the spokes and I am convinced that it is holding up progress.   Yes, I do know that almost no one will agree but that has never stopped me before.
 
QUEER ON QUEER
If we just keep talking to ourselves, there will be no movement.  If we keep disapproving of one another, suggesting we should all agree; there will be no movement.  If we do not honor that queers are as varied as all humanity, there will be no movement.  There are Muslim, Catholic, Republican, Green, soldiers, pacifist, fat, thin, tall, young, old queers – everywhere there are queers.  Some make a statement with an HRC decal and some lie down in Grand Central Station, some want to send in a check and some want to stand with a candle or a sign.  Snark, snippy, laugh at, diminish anyone’s choice stops progress dead in its tracks.  Everyone has their personal expression and celebrating that diversity will release the energy of EQUALITY like nothing else. 

ALLIES
What is this contempt towards allies?  It shows its face whenever there is a preponderance of queers.  And then the terrible question, “Are you gay?”  Imagine that once asked, we all know there will be a thud on the other side of the answer, “Oh.”  At that moment an ally is judged and thrown out of Queer Park, as if they are too short for the ride.  This segregation is elitism, arrogance, painful and utterly counterproductive.  Since the end is the means and the means is the end; the merging of the Gay Pride Parade with the Straight Pride Parade is the only road to equality. 

BRAVE EXPERIMENT
The 2010 Sentries for Change have stood on a street, across from Gillibrand’s NYC office with banners for LGBTQ rights.  They left the comfort of community, the tiny limits of agreement and power arguments over nuance and met the public.  They stepped out of Queer Park and discovered that there is an entire universe of supporters and inquirers and curious.  They met straights who could be allies with just the slightest nudge and a sliver of information.  They met people who had no idea what are DADT, DOMA, ENDA and just because they did not know, they were not mocked which created the chance of movement.  

GANDHI’S MESSAGE
After studying Gandhi for 40 years, I am convinced that he believed that a person cannot demonstrate anything beyond their interior architecture.  If you are not peaceful, you cannot manifest peace.  If you are a bigot, you will manifest bigotry.  All the talk in the world cannot, will not cover or eliminate judgment and entitlement.  The outcome one gets is part and parcel of their thoughts and actions.  “And in the end love you take is equal to the love you make.”

URGENCY
I feel this terrible sense of urgency as everything appears to be in play.  Sure Obama is stalled, and what a effing heartbreak that is, but Americans are on the move, opinions and behaviors about equality are on the move.  There is movement.  Hate, judgment, apartheid, bullying, slurs on any side contribute to the outcome on both sides.  Now, I am NOT saying that this is easy or an overnight change but I am saying that recognition, desire to change it, starting with ones self is the only sure fire chance for MOVEMENT.