Next Steps

Two weeks ago, TNG featured the "Where is Our Anger?" post, reporting on a specific hate crime in Adams Morgan; asking why we - as a gay community - are not outraged; and calling for more action against this kind of hatred. A week ago, two gay men were attacked on their way to Be Bar. Now, this week, one of those men, Tony Hunter, is no longer alive. Where is our anger? I think we have found it. I think many of us feel it boiling inside of us either in the form of disgust, vengeance or sadness.

On the metro last night, as I thought about what had happened, I remembered when I came out to my mom and she started crying. When she later talked to me about why she was so upset, she said, "I am just so worried about you; I hear people talking in the lunchroom at work, I see the stuff on TV - people are mean." Like many gays, I assured my mom that I don't care what people say, and that the things she saw on TV would not happen to me because I am careful. This week, however, like many DC gays, I wondered if they might.

Instead of writing about it or worrying about it, however, I want to do something about it. One thing I can't stand is a person who wants change, but refuses to make an action plan to go about making that change. However, when I tried to brainstorm ideas for some sort of action plan, I couldn't help but think : What the fuck are we supposed to do?

First off, I wonder what we even want our goal to be - Are we seeking more protection from the government? Do we want more support from the communities we live in? Are we looking to create a new social mindset in terms of what it means to be gay? Sure, ideally, we are seeking all of the above, but I believe that for the sake of successful coordinated action, we need some sort of particular goal.

Unlike other social movements, the battle against homophobia is tricky in that while homophobia is definitely institutionalized in things like marriage and a broad lack of protections against being discriminated against, we don't have things like Jim Crow laws or other actively prejudiced laws that flat out tell us we can't do fundamental social actions like vote or run for office.

Basically, I wonder - Who should we be mad at? If we're angry, to whom or to what do we channel that anger?

It's useless to get angry at whole communities, because loosely defined geographical borders don't mean that everyone within those borders thinks the same way. If we get mad at the police, why are we mad at them? The Metro DC police might not be completely supportive in responding to likely hate crimes, but I don't believe they are out on the street preaching homophobia, either. Police condone homophobia in the same way that they condone racism or misogyny or any other prejudice that ultimately comes down to the person who harbors it. If we're going to take action, whom do we take it against, other than the obviously crazy assholes who commit the violence themselves?

All of this makes me think, though, that maybe it's time to step it up and really push to convince the government (read: the Republican Party) that all their public moral touting is actually trickling out of Congress and MSNBC and onto the streets of society. By acting like we are people whose morality is to be debated, politicians and right-wing religious whacks who receive airtime are not only focusing the spotlight on themselves, but they're also focusing it on the real lives of the millions of gays around the world. Do we sit here getting mad at different classes, races, and police departments, or is it time we step it up and put greater effort into convincing people that gays are not people whose lives are to be debated, and that aside from sexual preference, we are no different than straight people?

Again, though, I come back to the big question - How do we do this?

This post is not meant to tell people that their gripes with the DC police are useless or uncalled for, or that the battle against hate crimes is a futile one. Instead, I am simply looking for real, concrete next steps that we can take. Instead of just blogging and discussing, what real-life actions can we take to decrease hateful, and sometimes deadly, acts against gay people?