The Martin Duberman Reader (53 page)

Why? Because we're deeply concerned that the gay movement in its current incarnation is essentially devoted to winning inclusion into an unequal, greed-haunted, oppressive society.

There are currently 46 million Americans who subsist on food stamps, an increase of more than 14 million over the past four years. More than a quarter of blacks and Latinos in this country—compared to 10 percent of whites—live
below
the government-defined poverty line of $11,000 a year for an individual and roughly $22,000 a year for a family of four.

One in every five children lives in a family below the poverty line, and they often go to bed at night hungry; again, if you doubt me, have a look at the recent
Frontline
television program “Poor Kids.” One in every four adult black men are either in jail or have recently been released from it, often for minor drug charges. Again, don't take my word for it: read Michelle Alexander's recent book,
The New Jim Crow.
In sum, for 46 million Americans—
which includes many gay people
—basic human needs and minimal levels of security are going unmet.

Surely, it's long past time for the gay movement, and for the country as a whole, to refocus its agenda. What is needed is nothing less than a massive antiracist, pro-feminist, economic justice movement. I know—easier said than done. But easiest of all is to continue to do nothing about the country's gross inequities.

Do we see any signs in the national LGBT movement that it seeks coalition with others suffering oppression, that it must cease to be a one-issue movement and instead must stand with those suffering from assorted forms of racial, class, and gender discrimination? Yes, on the local level there
are
a few struggling LGBT organizations centered on dealing with the plight of its own poor people, and also on creating bridges to others. Here in New York City, there's Queers for Economic Justice. How many of you have even
heard
of QEJ? It attempts, with a small budget and staff, to deal with the multiple issues of the gay poor, including those living in shelters.

In closing, I have to tell you that I think it's a disgrace that our country as a whole is far more entranced with improving the technology of drone strikes, those anonymous killers in the sky, than with the plight of the poor. And I'm afraid I have to add that I also consider it a disgrace that our assimilationist-minded national gay movement does a far better job at representing the white middle- and upper-class elements in our community than it does representing those of
our own people
who suffer from a variety of deprivations—to say nothing of the nongay multitude who are also afflicted.

It is time, in my view, to reassess and revise our goals as a movement. To do otherwise is to implicate us in the national disgrace of caring much more about the welfare of the privileged few than the deprived many. We are in danger of becoming part of the problem. My hope is that we may yet become part of the solution.

The publisher is grateful for permission to reprint the following previously published material. Every effort has been made to contact all rights holders of reprinted material in
The Martin Duberman Reader.
If notified, the publisher of the book will be pleased to rectify any omissions or errors in future editions.

“The Northern Response to Slavery” is reprinted from
The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965). Copyright © 1965 Princeton University Press. Permission courtesy of Princeton University Press.

“Black Power and the American Radical Tradition” first appeared in
Partisan Review,
Winter 1968. Copyright © 1968 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Martin Duberman.

“Black Mountain College and Community” is adapted from
Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2009). Copyright © 1972 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Northwestern University Press.

“On Misunderstanding Student Rebels” first appeared in the
Atlantic Monthly,
November 1968. Copyright © 1968 Martin Duberman.

“The Stonewall Riots” is adapted from
Stonewall
(New York: Dutton, 1994). Copyright © 1993 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Dutton, a division of Penguin.

“Feminism, Homosexuality, and Androgyny” is adapted from
A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds
(New York: The New Press, 2011). Copyright © 2011 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of The New Press.

“Paul Robeson” is adapted from
Paul Robeson
(New York: Knopf, 1988). Copyright © 1989 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Martin Duberman.

“Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine” is adapted from
The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein
(New York: Knopf, 2007). Copyright © 2007 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House.

“Howard Zinn” is adapted from
Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left
(New York: The New Press, 2012). Copyright © 2012 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of The New Press.

“Donald Webster Cory: Father of the Homophile Movement” first appeared in the
Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review,
Fall 1997. Copyright © 1997 Martin Duberman.

“Kinsey's Urethra” first appeared in
The Nation,
November 1997. Copyright © 1997 Martin Duberman.

“Masters and Johnson” first appeared the
New Republic,
June 16, 1979. Copyright © 1979 Martin Duberman.

“Calgary” and “Education” are adapted from
Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey
(New York: Basic Books, 1991). Copyright © 1991 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Book Group.

“Life in the Theater” is compiled from the
Partisan Review
no. 3, 1968, and no. 3, 1969;
SHOW,
January 1969; and
Harper's,
May 1978 and December 1978. Permission courtesy of Martin Duberman.

“Bioenergetics,” “Feminism and the Gay Academic Union (GAU),” “The National Gay Task Force,” and “AIDS” are adapted from
Midlife Queer: Autobiography of a Decade, 1971–1981
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996) Copyright © 1998 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Permission courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Press.

“AIDS,” “On the Death of Ronald Reagan,” “Pleasuring the Body: Reflections on Gay Male Culture,” “The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies,” and “Queers for Economic Justice” are adapted from
Waiting to Land: A (Mostly) Political Memoir, 1985-2008
(New York: The New Press, 2009). Copyright © 2009 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of The New Press.

“Racism in the Gay Male World” first appeared in the
New York Native,
June 20 and July 3, 1983. Copyright © 1983 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Martin Duberman.

“Cuba” is adapted from
The Havana Inquiry
(New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1974). Copyright © 1974 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

“Class Is a Queer Issue” first appeared in
The Progressive,
August 2001. Copyright © 2001 Martin Duberman. Permission courtesy of
The Progressive.