Journalist Sara Whitman lays the smack down this morning. Whitman’s absolutely beside herself over gay leaders like Joe Solmonese, Matt Foreman and even Melissa Etheridge’s respective silences on 15-year Lawrence King’s murder:
Who represents the LGBT community on a national and international stage?
Is there anyone?
…
Who was at Lawrence King’s funeral? Where were our leaders?In this star struck culture, the way to draw attention to an issue is to put a recognizable face out front to draw the press out. Where were Joe Solmonese of HRC, Matt Foreman of NGLTF, Kevin Cathcart of Lambda, Kate Kendall of NCLR, Neil Giuliano of GLAAD? Ellen DeGeneres did her part, but what about the newly out Cheyenne Jackson? Cynthia Nixon? Melissa Etheridge? Where’s the song from Elton John? It takes leadership to bring make the kind of public statement that surrounded the Jena 6.
But we don’t have that.
That’s kind of real – except for the Elton John request. That’s just ridiculous.
Paul Raposo
Hmm…Could it be an issue of racism? Could the fact that he was an inner-city kid cause them to stay away in droves? Could it be because Mr. King was flamboyant and not a “straight-acting” male? Could it be that all those people mentioned have fallen for the blame the victim and coddle the killer attitude that has tainted this entire tragedy?
beefy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-whitman/just-one-more-dead-faggot_b_87280.html
sara is always right on the mark!!
Rick
It’ll be a cold day in hell before there’s anything worthwhile for GLBTs with that bunch of assimilationist whores taking our money and our faith and doing fuck-all with it – apart from the odd back-stab here and there.
The bleating assholes probably didn’t want to offend anybody by showing up at a murdered fem kid’s funeral – it’s so much more “beneficial to our community” to network at a cocktail party or knit booties for a bourgeois gay adoption.
abracadaver
Wow. Lots of strong emotion here. Let me start by saying that I agree with Sara completely. Where are our leaders? Why are they almost always silent? Who is going to finally step up and say, “Enough is enough?”
But to Rick…geez, man, is all that vitriol causing you to choke? No one from HRC or NGLTF is “taking” your money. If you don’t like their agenda, don’t donate. And please don’t discount any contribution to our community by any person. Gallery crawls and cocktail parties raise a lot of money for worthy causes. What was the last thing you did to benefit our community, besides vent your spleen?
Shabaka
So so true! This tragedy shoulda drawn as much attention and participation from civil rights activists much like Jena 6 did!!
emb
Shabaka, interesting you should bring up the Jena 6. Back in Sept last year, Joe Solmonese attended a pro-Jena 6 rally on behalf of HRC saying “We are here because we know about bigotry. We know about hate. We know the pain in high school of standing apart. Of being taunted. Of standing up, only too often, to be shut down. I am here — we are here — because you have stood with us. Because all of us know that one injustice against any of us is an injustice against all of us.”
So where were those stirring words at the funeral of an innocent little boy who was shot dead in as hateful a hate crime as one could find?
I’m not an HRC-basher as a rule. I contribute to them, warts and all, because I tend to feel that SOME action, even if it’s assimilationist, insider-politics lobbying, is better than none. But this whole silence from HRC and our higher-profile co-homos is, well, disappointing is hardly the word for it.
Whites Against Racism
“Vigils in memory of Lawrence King together with the National Day of Silence, calling for an end to violence and harassment directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in schools, are being organized in communities across the country.”
http://www.rememberinglawrence.org/
I am ashamed to say that NOT ENOUGH is being done on the Day of Silence in the so-called “Gay Mecca” of San Francisco.
Rest in Peace sweet Lawrence….
fanboi
don’t just bitch about it do something.
I just sent a bunch of relevant links (that I found at http://www.rememberinglawrence.org/ – thanks for posting that) to a friend who works at a San Francisco elementary school. He unfortunately hadn’t heard much about the story but was saddened and touched by the tragedy once informed and is sending the links to all the teachers at the school.
If you know anyone who works in education, please do the same.
rigo
i went to the funeral. The three hour drive was worth me missing work to show support to Lawrence. I was expecting the Phelps clan to be there, and they were not there. Most of all, i was sadden that there were only a handful of GLBTQ folks. For the first time, i felt ashamed of myself and the “community” i belong to.
REBELComx
Sara is absolutely right. Where is our Martin Luther King, Jr? Where is our Malcom X? Without these types of powerful voices and figures at the front of our cause, we have no champion.
I wish we had the whole Day of Silence thing while I was still in highschool back in 99. But in these days, with such virulent opposition to equality, Silence is really the last thing we need. We shouldn’t be silencing ourselves to make our point…we should be screaming.
FreeMe
As a person of color who grew up in the old south, when I look into the eyes of Lawrence King I see a side of me that I wish I could have found. I remained in the closet until I was in my 40s, but here is a young boy who had the courage to be himself and it is hard to escape his captivating smile and not to believe that he loved his life. The world lost a King and a Prince.
I am sitting here at work crying for his tragic loss, but I will never remain silent. There are some nice memorative videos on youtube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Gelu-Y6yug&feature=related
Leland Frances
Sara makes some excellent points. But here is something YOU can do to help change things while we still wait for the gay Martin Luther King who will probably never come.
It’s called the Gay American Heroes Foundation though its goal is to create a permanent national traveling education exhibit on hate crimes involving anyone LGBT. It is not meant to be yet another preaching to the choir project that only appears at gay events, but to travel to college campuses and anywhere that the general public can learn that the inevitable harvest of planting and nourishing seeds of hatred is violence.
One of its cofounders was Chip Arndt, the OTHER out winner of “The Amazing Race 4†who has continued to be active in a variety of community activities from raising money to fight AIDS to heading the LGBT Democratic caucus in Miami [he’s an out delegate to the next Democratic National Convention] to GAHF. Advisory/Honorary board members include Chad Allen, Barney Frank, Billy Bean, Robert Gant, Cyndi Lauper, Frank Kameny, Andy Towle, Christopher Rice, and Sgt. Eric Alva.
John Amaechi hosted a fundraiser in LA and actor Alan Cumming hosted a NYC fundraiser with another one being planned for the fall.
It has been TEN YEARS since Matthew Shepard was murdered and the world stood up and said NO MORE. Remember the candlelight vigils, the rallies [Ellen led one of those, too], the mainstream magazine cover stories, night after night of televised tears and outrage and mourning and the trial and people dressed as angels to block out the sickening signs of the Phelps clan? Remember the play, the network movie, the MTV PSAs? All of that happened—people around the world were finally paying attention to gay hater crime… and here we are again and again and again. And it will go on happening until the faces of the victims, their various stories, and society’s collective responsibility for their deaths is rubbed into America’s permanent consciousness with something like the planned GAHF exhibit.
Please tell others about the foundation’s goals, and give whatever you can, however little, at:
http://www.gayamericanheroes.net/index.html
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.†– E.E. Cummings
michael
I stopped giving my money to HRC ages ago. In the city I lived in at the time it just seemed like an exclusive club for pretentious gays who made over 100k a year. But how do we find that person is the question. Who amongst us has the passion, the intelligence, and the love to do this for our community. Thats what we need, someone who truly loves our community just as Martin Luther King loved his. When that happens, we will have found our leader.
Mr C
Joe Salmonese did not go to Jena Louisiana with all the others he did send one his Managers who is a Black Lesbian. And she went to report back to HRC on it for a story. Not as a person who was actually participating in the March.
But personally I do question HRC motives because they are more concerned about Gay Marriage than racism in the LGBTQ Community… STRANGE isn’t it??
How can we come together and fight for protection for what has happen to this precious child. And we adults can’t get along for stupid and idiotic reasons mainly because of race. And before anyone says it’s not true BITE YOUR TONGUE! It is! This presidential election is bringing out some true feelings!
Just like it was said amongst Christians that Sunday is the most segregated day in America.
Well Friday, Sat and Sun (Tea Dance) is the most segregated weekends in America for LGBTQ and that’s SAD. We really need to value diversity in our community and if we do. Could you only imagine HOW POWERFUL the LGBTQ community would be to fight and combat these issues and others?
I don’t believe we need a GAY MLK. We just to be strong as a community and make it work for all LGBTQ! So when anyone gets discriminated, attacked, or murdered. It needs to be front page news. Not just when WHITE LGBTQ’s are killed for there are many others that have fallen and only make the local news in small print!
If we all can make noise over Matthew Shepard, Then we can make noise over
Simmie Williams Fort Lauderdale
Sean Kennedy Colombia SC
Michael J Sandy Brooklyn NY
And many others
We have to UNIFY for in Unity there is strength. However if we divide and conquer WE FAIL!
FAILURE for the LGBTQ community isn’t an option!