Monday morning you sure look fine
Presumably for National Coming Out Day, the Washington Blade ran two editorials last week (at least on-line) about coming out–one by Log Cabin Republicans’ Patrick Guerriero, and one by the National Black Justice Coalition’s Keith Boykin.
Boykin’s criticisms, especially, are aimed at people who remain closeted in order to play both ends against the middle:
If you don’t come out, then you can’t complain. You can’t complain about homophobic politicians who want to take away your rights. You can’t complain about bigoted ministers in church. And you absolutely cannot complain about the direction of the gay and lesbian movement.
…
Too many of us are good at offering critiques without offering help. “Why are there so many ‘queens’ in the movement? Why aren’t there any people of color? Why are they talking about marriage, the military, hate crimes, AIDS, or fill-in-the-blank issue that ‘real people’ think activists shouldn’t be talking about?”
Well here’s another question: Why aren’t you doing something about it? Posting an anonymous comment on someone’s blog is not enough.
I’m not saying the activists shouldn’t be criticized when they do something wrong. But I am saying we need to be participants instead of observers in our own liberation. If you don’t like the way things are going, then come out and be visible so you can be the change you hope to see in the world.
Yes, yes, yes–with a side of sauteed morning glory greens. (One qualification: I don’t see anything wrong with commenting anonymously on blogs. A person who’s out in real life could still have legitimate fears about identity theft, for example, or be interested in protecting her relatives’ privacy rather than her own.) But I can think of few more annoying gay personality types than the ones who piss and moan about how poorly our public advocates are handling things…and then expect sympathy because they “can’t” come out at work or to the ‘rents or to their friends from college. I think Boykin strikes exactly the right balance. Honorable people who are really willing to make the trade-offs that going along to get along requires recognize that they’ve disqualified themselves from bitching that our activists aren’t doing enough to make the world safe for them. Honorable people who want to bitch that our activists aren’t doing enough recognize that the way they live shouldn’t offer cravenness as an alternative course of action.