Just a shout-out to our dear friend Mark Snyder who is today celebrating his 10th anniversary of blogavism over at QueerToday.com.

I met Mark in Boston the summer of 2003 when I was interning for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. We worked together on several activisty projects that summer, and somehow I knew I'd know this faggot for a long time! Let's also not forget this gem of a song -- "Femme Top" -- he wrote and performed for Trevorade drinkers a few months back that changed my life!

Here's a letter from Mark about the anniversary, and about the work he's been up to for the past 10 years:

Dear Activists & Allies,

QueerToday.com has entered our 10th year of activism, organizing, blogging, news breaking, and revolution!

Please invite ten of your friends to join QueerToday.com!

I really can't believe it's been ten years since I first threw up a little website on geocities and called it "Queer Today." Since then, it's been a whirlwind of activity.

I'll never forget when twelve of us created a huge scene in the Arch Diocese of Boston and garnered headlines worldwide. It was likely one of the first times the word Queer was plastered on newspapers and tv channels, reclaimed by our own community, since Queer Nation.

I'm proud of the many activists who helped organize a huge coalition in protest of Boston Pride when they chose a militaristic theme. We formed the largest contingent in the parade that year.

And then there was that time we teamed up with Boston's anti-war movement to create the largest ever protest of James Dobson's Love Won Out Conference. In the rain, sleet, and snow we were able to bring 1000 people to the doors of their little hatefest. Even though the mainstream gay rights organizations like Mass Equality were hoping we wouldn't launch a direct action, we did it anyway - and we scared the shit out of everyone.

We accomplished all of this and more without donations or corporate funding.

Now, QueerToday.com is an online hub for radical queer activists and our allies. We've only just begun. Please invite 10 of your friends to join QueerToday.com in celebration of our anniversary.

This week on QueerToday.com there have been several contributions to our blog worth noting. JAC posted their documentary about being genderqueer in the Midwest - take a look! I am asking the question "Does the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association Betray their Membership?" And Alex asks that we "Let ENDA be a lesson for all of us!"

In solidarity with all of you rock stars,

Mark D. Snyder
QueerToday.com

Congrats, dear! xoxo

So let me try to contextualize the comments that Dan Savage has just made about the data suggesting that Prop 8's success was cemented by a whopping 70% of African-Americans voting for Proposition 8 in California. Generally, I disagree with Davage on just about everything. He's incredibly conservative when it comes to sex, despite penning a nationally syndicated column on the topic, and generally his analysis sucks.

But I have to give some credit here for Savage daring to attack the way that "white gay men" categorically have been framed as racist sexist assholes by a reactionary feminist/queer/anti-racist movement that has spent a great deal of time attacking LGBT organizations for their lack of diversity and/or racist/sexist policy positions (see Judith Halberstam's essay, "Shame and White Gay Masculinity," for a perfect example of this). Now, I want to be clear: These folks often have a point. Our LGBT organizations often do lack diversity, and at times some may in fact be contributing to racist/sexist policy efforts. But to blame that lack of diversity simply on racist individuals within the organization, I think, is misguided and misses the important historical ways that sexual identity constructions have varied for white folks and non-white folks (that is to say, white folks may be much more ready to join a self-titled "Gay" organization than others). I get especially upset when I'm sitting in a room full of folks of color and this argument get's lazily brought up. Seriously I've been in meetings with over 50% folks of color and someone (usually white) will angrily complain that "There are no people of color here!" Um... right. Even in a room with 1/3 folks of color, I think that's a disingenuous accusation; it outright erases the importance of those folks' presence.

But I digress. So Dan Savage wants to say -- based on this Prop 8 data -- essentially, "eff you" for spending so much time blaming "white gay men" for their racism and sexism, while being wholly uncritical of the homophobia that exists within African-American communities. And I think he's exactly right. I think that some critical self-reflection on race and racial diversity in our movements is a worthwhile effort. But unfortunately I see that too often as spiraling into a cycle of white guilt that paralyzes organizations and movements. That should not be the goal, yet I've seen it happen time and time again. Because it requires such politically charged and emotional discussions, moving past an accusation of racism or sexism (founded or not) can be incredibly difficult.

But while self-reflection is key, working with other communities of color that have homophobic views has got to be on our agenda. I think we've often resorted to a kind of "moral relativism" argument in regards to this -- along with a kind of discomfort with missionary-style norm-reshaping efforts. But c'mon. That's what LGBT activism has always been about. Going into communities you aren't a part of and asking for change.

I understand Savage's pent-up frustration over often what seem like lazy and/or mean-spirited attacks on "white gay men" uniformly. How many stigmatized minorities exist for which it's seen as perfectly acceptable to rub their reputations through the mud? Imagine substituting "Jewish" for all the claims that are made in these circles about "white gay men!" (in fact, this idea comes from a friend of mine, who suggested doing just that with every reference to "white gay man" in the Halberstam article previously mentioned -- try it and you'll see the point).

Anywho, I'm wandering. These are thoughts I've been brooding over for many years now. I expect that not everyone agrees with me here -- and I encourage you to respond critically. I used to be one of those feminist/queer/anti-racist angry activists, so I'm certainly open to the lines of criticism that get made there. Without further ado, here's Savage's comments:

African American voters in California voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, writing anti-gay discrimination into California’s constitution and banning same-sex marriage in that state. Seventy percent of African American voters approved Prop 8, according to exit polls, compared to 53% of Latino voters, 49% of white voters, 49% of Asian voters.

I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color.

This will get my name scratched of the invite list of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is famous for its anti-racist-training seminars, but whatever. Finally, I’m searching for some exit poll data from California. I’ll eat my shorts if gay and lesbian voters went for McCain at anything approaching the rate that black voters went for Prop 8.

UPDATE: Angie has just posted in the comments this very helpful analysis (from DailyKos user shanikka) of the Prop 8 data and California census data to argue that there is just no way that Blacks' 70% support for Prop 8 was a deciding factor in the measure passing. They equate it to scapegoating, which indeed it very may well be. Tony in the comments also points out that it eclipses the vast financial support given by Mormons and other predominantly white religious organizations. So it sounds like we can put this to rest for good.

Rick Weiland (pictured, left, with Bill Gates, right, in 1976), one of the five first people to work for Microsoft, died of a self-inflected gun shot a year and a half ago. But it wasn't until just this weekend that his estate announced his massive bequest to LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention organizations. $65 Million! The Seattle Times writes:

For the Pride Foundation, which has an annual budget of $2.5 million and endowment of $3 million, Weiland's gift of more than $19 million will significantly expand its efforts throughout the Northwest...

Weiland gave another $46 million to the Pride Foundation to distribute to 10 national organizations over eight years.

Recipients will include the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Network, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. For most of them, the bequest is the largest gift in their history.

Holy canoli!

P.S. How nelly does Bill Gates look in that photo? Don't you just wanna fist him? Loves it!

Now that I've had a few days to clear my head, post-Creating Change, I wanted to share a bit about my experiences presenting with fellow UM-er Paul Farber at the conference. We presented a workshop titled, "Making it Work: Mobilizing Lesbian & Gay Identities in the 21st Century" on Sunday morning - bright and early!

I came to Paul last fall to propose that we coordinate something for Creating Change, and in particular to consider facilitating a workshop that examined the difficulties identity-based movements will face in the coming years. But this is not news, of course. Lefties -- who often cut their teeth in identity-based movements and thus owe much to their existence -- take pleasure in casting stones at the thoroughly dead horse, "identity politics." I wanted to work with Paul to create a dialogue that avoided lamenting the pitfalls of identity-based organizing, because we are by now all too aware of these critiques.

Let's face it: "gay" and "lesbian" have dried up in some major urban centers as motiviating factors for organizing. Getting a thousand San Francisco gay men out to anything to advocate based on their sexual identity is laughable. It just isn't going to happen. That said, there are other places where there is still rich possibility for using these categories as starting place. There is diversity. And I wanted this workshop to recognize that.

And recognize it, we did. Though we faced stiff competition in our workshop block, we managed to get about 10 lively participants into the room who came from very different backgrounds. We had a member of the Task Force Board of Directors; Robyn Ochs, a bisexuality advocate who travels the nation speaking primarily on college campuses; a Midwesterner who worked primarily with the MCC (Metropolitan Community Church); two Michigan undergrads; an older lesbian who came out of the feminist movements of the 70s and 80s; and more! It was a great group of people.

Of course, the workshop was intended to raise questions, rather than answer them. Several key questions emerged out of our discussion:

1. Is it possible to flip issues to the front of our organizing, and identity to the back, and still wind up building communities of primarily LGBT people?
2. How do we deal with increasing institutionalization of our movements?
3. How can we use an asset-based model to improve and reframe our organizing efforts?
4. How do we define success in regards to political organizing?
5. What are the ingredients for that success - and how might we expect them to vary from place to place, and cultural context to cultural context?

I was particularly interested in that third question. We began the session with this quote from Ritch Savin-William's recent book, The New Gay Teenager:

In some respects, these teenagers might relate better to their pre-labeled, pre-identified grandparents than they do with their gay-liberated parents or their gay-resigned older cousins... For them 'gay' carries too much baggage."

We spent a good amount of time trying to digest what the "baggage" might look like. But I was struck at the end of the session by one of the participants who noted that baggage isn't just a ball and chain, but is also necessarily a set of resources. Your clothes and shaving kit, for example. Reframing in this way seems to me to be potentially very useful.

This made me think that perhaps what is needed is some resistance to the postmodern critique of "gay" and "lesbian," which to me seems to be implicitly a neoliberal project. What I mean by that is that these critiques have often demanded that categories reflect every tiny detail imaginable about an individual's existence. To that end, they have promoted the proliferation of increasingly particular sexual identities, like, for instance, "homoflexible" or even just the now hugely popular,"queer" (queer of course was never meant to be an identity, and was rather meant as a resistance to sexual identity itself - but nevermind that).

Along the way the old feminist addage, "the personal is political," has been perverted from its original meaning (a statement about the need for an analysis of the domestic sphere as a realm of politics) to how I have heard many use it today as a way to locate the starting point for politics at the level of individual experience. This last part is critical -- we have moved to a place where we expect and encourage our politics to flow from our own narrow experiences. This is dangerous, and to me, is why the postmodern / queer identity proliferation has had unintended neoliberal consequences.

Alas, it's 1:30 AM, and I am exhausted. I'll hopefully keep thinking about these issues, and churn something out more substantial in the coming months.

Another year, another Creating Change. I've been to four of these things before, but I have to say - this year was moving in a way that I haven't felt since the first year I attended back in '02 in Portland. Portland was overwhelming in a different way. I was 18 and completely new to LGBT activism - just managing to comprehend the program book was a feat back then. I spent much of my time this year helping out in the Youth Hospitality Suite, and I've just been overwhelmed by how beautiful, dedicated, and enthusiastic the young people I interacted with this year have been. It sounds all very cliche I know, but really - the people who flock to Creating Change are my people. I feel it in my bones. They're the salt of the earth. They're the reason I do all the work that I do.

After a semester and a half of my PhD professionalization machine, it was so fucking amazing to be around so many passionate, caring, and welcoming LGBT people -- people who believe deeply in building community and welcoming their brothers and sisters. They ask you how you are doing, and how they can help you in the work that you do. They tell you how proud they are, and thank you for continuing to work tirelessly in fighting the good fight.

This all may sound a bit exaggerated - but if it is, it is only because my experiences working with activists are so qualitatively different than my experiences with academics. While good activists are committed to making their work accessible and reflective of the communities they are a part of, academics enjoy standing around jerking each other off with fancy 4-syllable words, making devastating critiques of things with no relevance to 99.9% of the world. Okay, so maybe I'm guilty of exaggerating a bit. Not all activists are as fantastic as I make them sound, just as not all academics are as pretentious as I've just described. But really, standing in the middle of the lobby of the Creating Change hotel, I felt an energy and a sense of belonging that I hadn't felt in years.

It shook me to my core. Now back in my apartment in Ann Arbor, I feel a deep sense of mourning for my activist roots. I drove back from the hotel Thursday night after a four-hour blissful shift volunteering in the Youth Suite with tears rolling down my face. One difficult and painful question pulsed through my veins: Was academia the right choice for me?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing my work here at Michigan. And I believe it has direct activist implications. But I miss the on-the-ground work -- and, most of all, I miss working with people who have dedicated their lives to advancing social justice. Those are my people. They make my heart swell. Oy - and boys with radical politics make my knees weak (seriously, though - what would activism be without a few good make-out sessions?).

My heart aches. It's just the truth. I'm afraid that academia will turn me into a cold, uncaring journal-writing robot who puts advancing his career ahead of my community. My people.

Have I turned my back on them?

I spoke too soon! In my Thanksgiving post, I mentioned that I was *hopefully* presenting two workshops at Creating Change in Detroit. Sadly, I just received word that both my proposals were rejected! I am reminded of Eric Rofes' constant struggle with Conference Director Sue Hyde (who I interned with in Boston in the summer of 2003) over his many workshop proposals that were generally rejected. I worry that, now that I'm labeled an "academic," perhaps I'm no longer welcome at Creating Change as I'm no longer a full time organizer / activist (whatever that means!).

I submitted two proposals, both of which I think were timely and reasonably compelling. I wasn't surprised that they rejected my proposal on the ethics social marketing as a tool for HIV prevention (although this was submitted as part of a larger "LGBT Health" mini-track, which I thought Sue had agreed to prioritize), but I was surprised that they rejected the proposal I submitted with fellow UM'er Paul Farber titled "Making it Work!: Mobilizing Gay and Lesbian Identities in the 21st Century" - the premise of which was that, while gay and lesbian were still useful sites of resistance in certain places (small towns, rural areas, etc), their utility in major metropolitan areas was on the rapid decline (San Francisco, for instance, where politically mobilizing gays "as gays" around anything is just about impossible).

If the movement is to sustain itself over the coming years, conversations like this are (in my opinion) *critical*. Too often we simply take for granted that our current modes of organizing are the best or most effective - but this to me is clearly not the case in many places (particularly on the national level, with organizations like HRC existing solely for the purpose of raising money to pay its staff).

Oh well. I'm still going to keep my commitment as a member of the host committee and in particular as a member of the "Youth Engagement" subcommittee (this'll be the last year I'll be a youth at Creating Change!). But, yea, I'm pretty bummed.