我田引水
Posted by Sean at 08:06, September 9th, 2005Exactly what are you on about, honey?
The LGBT liaison for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is sharply critical of the American Red Cross’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Larry Bagneris is encouraging the LGBT community to donate money to a newly established fund directed to the needs of LGBT people. “I’m not willing to stick GLBT money where we’re not getting any benefits from,” said Bagneris, who is also the executive director of the New Orleans Human Relations Commission. “The needs of the community should be recognized.”
Bagneris charges that his request for assistance for the LGBT community was met with indifference from Red Cross officials. He said that the Red Cross – which stands to gain $2 million thanks to the Gay and Lesbian Fund of Colorado which announced that because of a $1 million pledge by philanthropist Tim Gill, it will match donations to the Red Cross by Coloradoans up to $250 – was also not helpful in his appeal to raise money within the gay community and seemed to be more concerned about keeping its logo from being used for the effort than it was about helping people within the community. “Specifically, we said we need cash money. But we were shuffled from one room to the next. I said, ‘The hell with it, let’s take care of our own people,'” he said.
Notice that “let’s take care of our own people” is seen as the last resort. [Sigh.]
You know, I’ve actually kind of been looking for something like this to funnel part of my donation money into. Obviously, general relief for whoever needs it is the highest priority, but let’s face it: prejudice exists. Gays may, in fact, have a harder time finding people to take them in. Community centers that were assisting addicts or runaways might have little access to resources at this point. I don’t see why I shouldn’t earmark some of my donation money for taking care of my own.
But I have to say I’m pretty disinclined to hand it off to a drive led by someone like Bagneris. I know that not everyone who lives paycheck to paycheck does so because of devotion to the party mentality. Sometimes you need major car repairs and a root canal and new shingles over the garage during the same three-month period, and there goes the nest egg. I don’t know that that would explain why most gays in New Orleans would be in such straits–assuming Bagneris knows what he’s talking about–but we can introduce people to the wonderful concept of the savings account after the emergency has passed.
Be that as it may, I’m still not clear what the Red Cross was supposed to do better. Three incidents of harassment out of the thousands of gays that had to leave the city don’t sound like an epidemic of homophobia to me. Could the Red Cross have done anything to prevent them? Did they involve serious physical threats? The other charges are even more nebulous. Was Bagneris trying to get Red Cross money for gays because they were somehow at a disadvantage when seeking relief? I can think of all kinds of reasons that unmarried, able-bodied men might be expected to yield in these circumstances that have nothing to do with homosexuality. And as for the unheeded requests for money, it’s not clear whether the Red Cross was giving out funds to any specific population groups at the time he was dunning it.
Maybe it’s not nice of me to harp on this. As I say, I’ve been looking for a good place to send gay-directed aid. I just wish people like Bagneris didn’t take every conceivable opportunity to carp that people are being mean to the queers when there are a gajillion other things to manage. It would be nice to hear about gay guys’ saying, “Look, I don’t have children to worry about. I go to the gym and am in good shape. And I had a job that honed my CONTROL FREA…uh, organizational skills. How can I help?” I’m sure that’s happening a lot in reality; it’s just that well-connected complainers such as Bagneris are the ones who get quoted as representative of What Gays Are Thinking.
(Via Gay News)