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While
sitting in a restaurant waiting for a friend recently,
I overheard an animated conversation about racism and
homophobia between two middle-aged white men sitting
at the table next to me. I almost snorted when one of
them declared that he didn't think about the issue of
race when his daughter became involved in an interracial
relationship, and how shocked he was by the racist remarks
made by some of his friends and acquaintances. "After
all," he said, "these are educated, refined
people, not trailer park trash."
Then
they talked about several heinous hate crimes: the black
man who was murdered by being dragged behind a truck;
the college student who was beaten to a pulp and left
to die on a fence and the young soldier who was bludgeoned
with a baseball bat, both murdered because they were
perceived to be gay. They focused on the class and education
of the men who committed these crimes, obviously taking
comfort that they were not members of the middle class.
By the time my dinner date arrived the men were declaring
that it was "those people" who were to blame
for racism and homophobia.
Later
I thought about how often folks pass the buck and how
frequently the class card gets played. Back in the day
when the Ku Klux Klan routinely sheeted up and things
got ugly, middle-class and affluent southerners distanced
themselves by blaming "rednecks," and white
northerners pointed their fingers south. These days
everybody has someone else to label as racist or homophobic,
sexist, or anti-Semitic--the cops, fringe groups like
the Aryans, or the militia movement, men, anti-choicers,
the Christian right, gangs, the ignorant, the uneducated,
the folks who live in trailer parks. It's never us,
or our crowd.
Maybe
we aren't the folks who scream the epithets, do the
violence. But can we assume that because we are feminists,
or because we are black, Latina, Korean or Jewish, lesbians
or bisexuals, or have crossed the color line in our
personal relationships, or have friends or family who
are lesbian or gay, that the finger doesn't point our
way? Since that night I've been doing a lot of soul
searching. Thought about the times when someone has
hinted at the "lesbian conspiracy," or vented
on Jews or Arabs, and I let it pass because I didn't
feel like getting into an argument. I have taken pride
in the diversity of the Ms. staff and contributors,
and in the mix of articles we publish. But we have only
scratched the surface. Recently, a letter to the editor
chastised us for failing to include lesbian relationships
in our issue on sex. My initial response was defensive,
but the fact is, we blew an opportunity to be proactive.
No matter that the staff includes lesbians if we fail
to make lesbians visible in our pages. The same is true
with race and culture. In this issue Barbara Renaud
Gonzalez argues that the progressive press, Ms. included,
has failed to acknowledge Latina activists and not given
voice to the opinions and experiences of her sisters.
The shoe fits and it hurts. We've been guilty of the
same sins of omission about other communities.
No,
much as I'd like to think that I am not a part of the
problem, I'm not always walking the talk. I needed to
overhear that conversation, read that letter and that
essay. The last thing I can afford to be is smug. So
please keep pinching and pushing me and all of us at
Ms.
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