Five Interesting Things About Equality California’s Brand New Just-Announced Executive Director
Equality California’s press release about Roland Palencia announces in its first sentence that he has “extensive experience in leading and managing multimillion-dollar non-profit organizations”- He was Community Benefits Director for the $1.2 billion L.A. Care Health Plan; Regional Director for the California Endowment, a private foundation that annually grants more than $170 million; and and an advisor to the multi-billion dollar Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
- His Facebook interests include “Prosecute Sarah Palin for Incitement!”
- He was the chief of operations and vice president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has a budget of over $100 million; and Executive Director at Clinica Monseñor Oscar A. Romero, which primarily serves Central American and Mexican immigrants.
- His father, a small business owner and a revolutionary, was assassinated by paramilitary forces in Guatemala in the mid-70s. Palencia was forced to leave the country.
- His first day at Equality California is July 5.
He has “extensive experience in leading and managing multimillion-dollar non-profit organizations”, but no experience winning civil rights or participating in civil rights struggles?
Equality California = FAIL. They should change their name to “Anything but Equality California”.
When oh when will queer people learn that corporations lobbying for tax cuts and that oppressed people don’t “manage non-profits to advocate for civil equality.” We fight for our rights. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it always will be. The Democrats want us to lobby because it does three things: 1) it keeps us unruly queers under their watchful eye and drags us into their machine; 2) it distracts us from how rights are really won (and if we don’t fight back, we don’t win, if we don’t win, other groups don’t see us win, if other groups don’t see us win, they don’t learn how we did it and win themselves, etc.), and 3) it creates a complex bureaucracy of leeches who begin to make money off of our “struggle” for equality (polling, elaborate fundraising, etc).
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That’s six things. Unless you’re saying that one of them isn’t interesting.