LET AMERICA BE
There have been so many letters
to the DTK lately about the funding
of the CGLA. No other group's
funding is being questioned.
Therefore, the peitition that is
being circulated will have no
compamtive value. Why is the CGLA
being singled out? Is it because
of hatred?
I find myself wanting to write
something important that has been
suppressed in me for a long time.
I have grown so sick and tired of
all of the hatred. I look back to
my childhood and see all of the
hate that surrounded the adults
around me. It is still alive today
but in new ways. Maybe we should
take a closer look at the hard-
fought rights that blacks won in
the 1960's and the 1970's and are
still fighting for. It was not so
long ago. I remember it well.
I remember growing up in an all
white trailer park. Blacks were
not allowed to walk the streets or
visit their white frinds. I
remember being in the park office
and seeing the manager pick up his
shotgun and load it. He received a
telephone call that a "nigger" was
in the park. He was going hunting
for the man and said he was going
"to kill himself a nigger."
I'll never forget that day or
the fear I had for that black man.
I wanted to run out and try to find
the man to warn him, but my mother
had a firm grasp on me. She
wouldn't let me go and she said the
man deserved to get what was coming
to him. I ask, what does a man
deserve for walking on a street in
our "free" America? Death? What
do two gay men or two lesbians
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deserve for holding hands or
kissing on a street corner in free
America? Are we not all cteated
equal? Do we not all have the same
rights to life, liberty, and to the
pursuit of happiness?
I was one of the 500,000 people
who marched on Washington last
October 11th. The crowd was so
large that I had to wait four hours
after the march began before our
contingency even began to move. I
missed the entire rally at the end
of the march, but that was okay. I
had come to our nation's capital to
march for my freedom, to say, "I am
a gay person and I will not be
silenced."
On that day in Washington, while
waiting to march, I turned on my
radio to try to listen to the
rally. It was not broadcast. No
one even mentioned that the rally
was going on. Why would a city
ignore some 500,000 people? Is it
fear? I do not know.
I heard no mention of the rally,
but I heard something else that
stirred me very much. A public
station was broadcasting some of
Martin Luther King's speeches that
he gave before and at the 1963
march on Washington for Civil
Rights. Dr. King said that the
march was to bring about "social
change." The March was to bring
about "the advancement of justice,
freedom, and human dignity."
He said that America had
defaulted on its promissory note to
guarantee all men the inalienable
right to life, liberty, and the
prusuit of happiness. It is ironic
that 24 years later, the fight is
still raging on. These rights are
inalienable he said. They may not
be taken away. The only thing
lesbians, gay men and all other
minorities ask for is that their
rights not be taken away.
I remember a Langston Hughes
poem I love dearly. It is titled
"Let America Be America Again." I
hope everyone will read this poem
in its entirety. Hughes speaks for
all minorities:
Let it be the dream it used
to be...
It never was America to me...
There's never been equality
for me.
Nor freedom in this "homeland
of the free"
I am the poor white, fooled and
pushed apart,
I am the redman driven from
the land.
I am the refugee clutching to
the hope I seek...
I am the Negro, "problem" to
you all...
(see AMERICA page 6)
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