It seems the more I hear about civility and bipartisanship in American politics, the more contrarian I get.
For example. This weekend Michelle Bachmann became the latest target of “glittering” by LGBT activists as she left the stage at the RightOnline conference in Minneapolis. A member of a gay-rights group tried to dump glitter over the congresswoman’s head in protest of her anti-gay rhetoric. Bachmann managed to get away unsparkly, but Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty have been less fortunate.
One of the left-leaning political bloggers on my Twitter feed hates this kind of thing. “I’ll say it: this is dumb,” he wrote sternly. “Stop.”
I understand what he’s trying to say. It’s frustrating when everyone is yelling and pulling pranks instead of listening to each other. Jon Stewart pushes a similar point on The Daily Show - he’s always having friendly jokey debates with conservatives like Mike Huckabee, and scolding liberal activists for being noisy and rude.
“Come on,” the argument goes, “let’s all calm down and have civil discussions over coffee or something. Maybe then we’ll actually get something done.”
Here’s my problem. This blogger friend of mine is a straight, married, middle-to-upper-class man. So is Jon Stewart. So are 95% of the friendly jokey conservatives Stewart invites to his show. And when men like these want to join a political discussion, all they have to do is start talking.
None of these men truly understand what happens when, say, a young lesbian tries to speak up. They have no idea what it’s like to be ignored, or shrugged off as “emotional”, or scolded for distracting people from “the important issues” the way the LGBT community is on a nearly constant basis – and not just by anti-gay people like Huckabee and Bachmann but by liberals as well. The fact is, some people cause a scene in politics because they feel it’s the only way anyone will pay attention.
Now is there a debate to be had about whether “glitter bombing” is an effective tactic for the LGBT community? Of course. But here’s the thing, straight dudes: this is not your debate. If you've never had to walk the fine line between being shut out by the media and being vilified by it, then you really have no business demanding that LGBT activists justify their behaviour to you.
Seriously. It’s obnoxious.
I enjoy friendly political discussions on blogs - or in coffee shops - as much as the next person. But we need to make sure that our calls for civility don’t dismiss people who have every reason to yell.
Confession - I'm the dude. And she's right about me, totally. Well, I wouldn't call myself upper class, but you get what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm asking anyone to justify their behavior toward me, and while I know this isn't "my debate," my feelings toward marriage equality and other LGBT issues seem to be the same as yours. At least, let's say that you and I hope we end up in the same place, ragardless of how we get there.
That being said, my concern about "glittering" is that it's easy to dismiss. Yeah, sometimes there's just no other way to get out what you're dealing with than yelling. I get that. But if anti-gay activists started... I dunno, throwing water balloons at pro-gay politicians: would that make me stop and think "gee, maybe they have a point there?" No. I'd think "there they go again".
Look, I don't pretend to know what it's like in your shoes. I'm not gay. I'm not a woman. I'm not a political minority. But the pendulum is swinging our collective way on this. More and more people are coming out (pun intended) in favor of civil unions, in favor of gay marriage, to the point where it now enjoys majority approval, at least in some polls.
We aren't moving that direction fast enough, I get that. But the momentum isn't on our side because of glittering. It's because we're right. I just don't want to throw people who call us wrong a life preserver. I don't want to give them something to demagogue, because really, that's all they have left.
I'm also not a lesbian (middle class white female), but I think the glitter stuff is harmful to the movement too. It just looks silly and trivializes an important issue. In fact I think it marginalizes you further. Spend any time on twitter and you'll see MSM journalists openly mock Code Pink for their antics. It's not about making people "shut up" or "be civil," it's about strategy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the minute someone gets glitter in their eyes it moves a prank up to assault.
Anon:
ReplyDeleteI get your point about strategy - but look at it another way.
MSM journalists have latched onto the narrative that Michele Bachmann is a serious candidate despite her bizarre, extremist views on religion and homosexuality. They can get away with it because Bachmann is an entertaining character and she sells papers. Plus LGBT people are a small minority and their human rights still aren't considered important - or even human rights - by much of the country.
The LGBT community wants to draw attention to her extremist views and shatter the myth that she would be a good president. If the MSM is largely ignoring them, how do they change the narrative? As a marginalised group with a tiny fraction of the PR power that Bachmann has, how can they disrupt the news cycle and get people talking about something else?
If being polite and reasonable doesn't work - and trust me, they try - then what? Do they just give up? Maybe a bit of mockery over a glitter stunt is worth it, if it gets LGBT issues into the headlines for a few days.
As I said, this point is highly debatable. You just need to remember that for straight people this is a theoretical conversation, but LGBT people grapple with this problem every day. They understand marginalisation in a way that you never can.