Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Stop looking for a gay MLK
When I was young the adults had the yearly table conversation about the dearth of black leadership. No one ever matched Martin Luther King, Jr. and they would ask when a king would return.When I got colleged the old ones still wondered where the black leaders were and when would there be the return of the one to lead us like MLK. When I suggested the whole leadership question was removed from actual history (King was one among many) and waiting for King 2.0 was at best a pipe dream, the adults paused, looked at me, and continued their lamentation.
Leadership conversations, especially in minority communities, are always suspect because they are more wish fulfillment than dialogues about the actual meaning of freedom. The very idea that one person can lead a diverse minority group is the sort of thinking that makes good TV but is removed from the actual record.
And when MLK is added into the mix everything turns all hushed as if he were a mythical god too good for this evil world. His humanity, which was messy, complex, and never simple, is drained out. Don’t believe? Then start reading Taylor Branch’s America in the King Years.
Over at Huffington Post, Max Mutchnick, goes for the simple history tale in his “Where is My Martin Luther Queen” essay. I’ll leave alone how Mutchhnick lobs the tired chestnut of being embarrassed by loud queens who get TV time during Gay Pride parades (yes, the guy who created the character Jack is ashamed of loud skinny queens with moxie). Well wait a minute. Let’s not glide over that too quickly. Here is Mutchnick showing way too much moxie his own darn self:
“Dykes on bikes, Tarzana Trannies, Jewish Leather Daddies and Kathy Griffin’s mom. Don’t get me wrong. I love these people. Let’s call them the ‘Usual Suspects.’ They fought for my rights and taught me how to dance. But they should no longer be representing “the pride.”
Not much to add to that is there? If Mutchnick thinks you will make it difficult for him to live a respectable gay life, silence is required; however, please be there when his rights need to be fought for. That’s only fair of course.
Aside from this unabashed disaster of upper middle class privilege run amok, Mutchnick then wonders where is his gay MLK–the guy who makes a speech everyone will steal from but few will understand. But to be a little fair here, Mutchnick gets rightfully greedy. He asks why the President of the United States isn’t making a Kingian argument for gay rights.
A fair question of course, and one that everyone is asking; however, once again Mutchnick is writing in a history vacuum. No president of this country enters the Oval Office willing to fight for the rights of minorities. Some come to it of course but they are always pushed. From Lincoln to Johnson, the White House only becomes a beacon of freedom when it becomes politically expedient to do so. If Mutchnick is looking for President Obama to become a “fierce advocate”, he better team up with those “freaks” he is so willing to dismiss.
Very nice essay! (Looking for gay leadership at Gay Pride is like looking for spiritual advice at a party. Some people may be capable of that, but…wrong place, wrong time!)
I was nine years-old in 1970, so I grew up hearing about what a god JFK was. The more I learned, the more I realized that JFK was a moderate and not a risk taker on civil rights; Robert Kennedy was actually a lot more impressive, in terms of cutting edge issues. This is just to back up your point that the president is usually not the one leading on cutting edge issues; she or he has to lead from the middle.
Two recent events colored my ideas of leadership: the marriage equality win in Massachusetts and the Obama campaign victory. In both cases, there were very good leaders at the top, but both of those efforts did an *amazing* job of activating lots of local leaders, giving them tools to get things done locally, and then staying out of the way and not making the mistake of micromanaging them. Take the marriage equality effort: we had Mary B leading the way in the courts, Arlene Isaacson doing the main lobbying effort, newly formed MASSEquality and their website providing an online forum (with tools and announcements), you had the guys who came up with the idea to post the names of referendum signers on a website, you had local committees working the local legislators, you had street theater outside of the state house on days of the votes, you had letters to the editor, and you had people volunteering for new candidates to over throw the anti-marriage equality candidates.
So, it wasn’t so much “one leader.” It was a *bunch* of leaders on various levels all “playing nicely together.” The secret was in the coordination and the synergy.
Randy and TigerTzu
I agree we need a gay Malcolm X!
I agree I don’t understand why people dislike the ‘queens’ they are a part of our gay culture. One of my good friends is about as gay as you can get, and I am anything but. I would hope that someday we will have the equivalent of MLK, although I think Milk was our MLK. Now though we have a lot of well spoken supporters Newsom and Joe Solmonese to name a couple.
A gay MLK? Never going to happen. Why? Because the gay community is too diverse. Find a gay man, and the lesbians will say they don’t want a man speaking for them. Find a white gay, and the black gays will say they don’t want a white person speaking for them. Find an atheist gay, and the religious gays will say they don’t want a non-believer speaking for them. Find someone who embodies all of our ideals, and there will be a thousand bitchy queens waiting in the wings to tear strips off him/her.
The gay community doesn’t need a leader. It doesn’t need a single voice to speak for everyone. It needs each and every gay man and woman to stand up and speak for themselves, to stand up for their rights, to demand to be treated fairly. You only have to read through the comments here to see how genuinely diverse this community is. We all view the world differently and we all want different things from it. Rather than seeking to abdicate responsibility for our own happiness by placing it on the shoulders of a single individual, we each need to fight for the right to live our lives the way we choose. If we do so, we will each become our own gay MLK.
All due respect, but MLK was not a stereotype of black men, even in the 60s. Yes, I agree that all people (stereotypes or otherwise) deserve to have their voices heard, but I, for one, have no interest in being represented or led by such a stereotype, especially on a national level. Most gay/trans people are not Ru Paul, Ellen Degeneres, or Boy George, and by having such personalities as our primary representatives, we are losing a battle of image. And, yes, as sad as it is, all fights for equality are somehow based in image. In the 50s and 60s, there was an image of angry black folk that MLK and other leaders had to transcend in order to be heard, in order to be understood, in order to be quoted. In this day and age, we as gay people have to transcend the image thrust upon us by both the flaming queens and anti-gay straight crowd if we want to be heard, understood, or quoted. I’m not willing to dismiss these “freaks,” but I am willing to ask them to tone down the flame so that we can ALL be treated with some modicum of seriousness and respect.
What I think people mean when they say that they’re looking for a gay MLK is that they want a representative who is well-spoken, well-read, diplomatic, and politically savvy. These things are all positives, and we really do need such a representative. Additionally, MLK was an advocate of non-violence, he was not an angry man (even if he managed to channel the anger of so many people in a rather constructive manner), and he called upon his community to step up to the plate, he didn’t expect that his words or authority would be enough on their own to make the grand changes in society that he was looking to be made.
What gay people need isn’t another representative, we need a leader. MLK wasn’t just a representative of black people or equality for black people, he was a leader of all people who believed in racial equality. We need a leader who believes in sexual equality, someone who supports the rights of straight people as much as the rights of gay people. We need a leader who is willing to rely on pragmatism and utility instead of mere emotionalism (Joe Solomonese, et al) to prove why civil rights are necessary. We need a leader who is willing to acknowledge both the positive AND negative facets of our collective history so that we can learn from both. We need a leader who is not angry but who is persistent, who is vehement but not pushy, who is empathetic but not weak-willed. Yeah. We really do need an MLK.
ARE YOU NOT AWARE THAT BAYARD RUSTIN UTILIZED MLK TO ACHIEVE HIS PLANS?….STOP LOOKING FOR A GAY MLK?…BAYARD WAS GAY…WITHOUT HIM..MLK WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN WHAT TO SAY OR DO…JUST ASK MLKS WIFE….
Why should we look for a hero to guide us out of this mess instead of taking the reigns of destiny for ourselves, as a group. Together we are our own hero.
I suppose Milk really is the closest we’ve seen to MLK as a dedicated gay rights activist and I agree with Johnathan that it isn’t another person’s place to dictate how another being should express his own pride.
Randy Said: “I’m not looking for an MLK. I’m looking for our Malcolm X. Who’s that going to be?”
Amen!
I’m not looking for an MLK. I’m looking for our Malcolm X. Who’s that going to be?
if you wanted to look for a way to demean denigrate and dehumanize all gay people, i guess this was the way to do it. Martin Luther King jr was a unique special person, and so was Eleanor Roosevelt. And so was Harry Truman. and so were a lot of people, and Harvey Milk was a unique and special person as well.
I remember dogs attacking women in the south on TV when I was in grade school, and young men burned and beaten and lynched in Mississippi trying to register voters, and a lily white republican Supreme Court Chief Justice and his lily white supreme court unanimously changing the meaning of equal for eternity.
Gay families earn 20% less than straight ones, despite which children of gay couples do as well or better in school and score better on psychological tests for adjustment and social skills etc. Gay families are ten times more likely not to have health insurance. Pay more in taxes. Assassinations of gay people are rising. Children harrassed for being gay are killed and committing suicide[even if they are not "gay"] and and radio personalities openly call for violence against children who are transgendered.
It’s not time to be snide about our rights as humans. It’s not time for a heterosexist president to tell us to go to the back of the bus and be patient. It’s time we work for and demand our place as humans.
P.S.
Those who expect Gay folks to conform to what Straight people expect are just as bad as those Straight people they condemn. Not everyone is going to show their Gay pride in the way you want them to.
Sadly, many of those calling for an MLK-style leader would call him a traitor because he’d probably be trying to work from inside the system, peacefully.
Also, while the to civil rights struggles have similarities, they too different to be compared in my opinion.
I agree with Island Boy I thought Harvey Milk was our “MLK”. No disrespect. We do not need a martyr we just need to come together as a whole and put our differences aside.
Pick up where Harvey Milk, Audre Lorde, Pat Parker, Bayard Rustin, etc. left off and forelong the movement towards equality.
I’ve always thought that Milk is somewhat our gay MLK. Well, Milk does have an extra I to his M, L and K. Bet you didn’t notice that, did you?
But of course, I do wish there will be no need for another martyr to do die for us to mobilize as an unstoppable whole and fight for what is right!