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By Bob Minor
Minor Details LGBT people often find it hard to understand why others who have suffered discrimination don't just get the point and stand up for the rights of sexual minorities. In some cases victims of racism, sexism, and classism even function as the point people for maintaining discrimination against LGBT people.
It was convenient for the predominantly right-wing Republicans who opposed adding sexual orientation to one city's anti-discrimination ordinance to have an African American minister as the spokesperson for their cause. Didn't he see, I tried to explain to him, that those white people would never even invite him to their homes for dinner, or that he was a member of a racial minority being used once again by white people? For him, instead, being against LGBT equality was more important than recognizing his usefulness to white conservatives. Actually, though, it is understandable. Why would people who have fought against continual discrimination want to take on additionally the discrimination faced by LGBT people? And the fear that there are not enough resources and attention to go around (an assumption basic to our Capitalism which gets applied to human relations) means that devoting resources and attention to ending LGBT discrimination might take both from them and their own fight to end discrimination.
Frankly, it's hard to get people to see that all of the discriminations go together and that freedom comes to everyone when all inequality ends. Maybe we don't want to see this because the task seems too daunting. Maybe we don't want to face it because even we who have been in minorities might have to face our own fears and prejudices. Maybe we just don't want to admit that we have prejudices, even if many around us can see them. As members of one of those victimized groups, this means that we LGBT people must face the prejudice and discrimination that we carry individually and often maintain institutionally. And just as it does for others, this may feel very difficult when we're just trying to deal with what may be coming at us. One of the things I've noticed though is that those of us who are able to live outside the most blatant examples of LGBT oppression -- maybe because we have enough funds to buy our way out of it or to create a more well-appointed closet -- are no less prejudiced. It's not the level of our victimization that seems to make the difference. Certainly the gay slur has been used to keep minorities in their place. Calling the African American boy a "fag" or "queer" because he is uninterested in sports and would rather read, write, and study, has helped keep many brilliant men from contributing to changing racism.
Using machismo to keep Hispanic boys in a hyper-masculinity has often
kept them from being effective agents of change. And treating any women
as weak, lacking power, and dependent has at times functioned to keep
them from changing the multiple oppressions played out on women of
color.
But, let's face it, LGBT people are filled with the prejudices of our culture as well. Notice how we buy into the stereotypes that keep some allies far from us. Thinking of Jews as all (or mostly) rich and in control of world financial resources is not only inaccurate but also anti-Semitic. Buying into any of the stereotypes of people of color, keeps potential allies at bay and promotes racism. Accepting the AM talk radio driven scapegoating of others for white male distress, is to promote the lifestyle of discrimination that ultimately comes down on us. Believing without question mainstream media stories about other discriminated people is to forget how media stories about our pride parades and the hate crimes directed against us are presented as sensationalized, distorted, or lacking in enough depth to explain what really happened and why. The triumph of TV "newsac" and the ^USA Today~ style newspaper with its abbreviated stories, splashy color, diversionary emphasis upon sports and business, and treatment of issues as personal problems not societal ones, is the victory of popular misunderstanding. When white LGBT people do not listen carefully to, seek to understand, and believe the complaints of people of color, or when gay men do not listen carefully to, seek to understand, and believe the accusations and complaints of women, we are doing exactly what we hate when straight people do it to us. Don't^ we~dislike how straight people tell us we've not really been discriminated against and that what we call discrimination isn't really that? Don't ^we~ get angry when ^we~ are portrayed as whiners? Or when they say ^we're~ just too sensitive? Don't ^we ~hate it when straight people go into denial about their issues with ^us~? And can't we see the similarities? If we are going to expect understanding from others who have been victims of our system of multiple discriminations, it seems to me that we are going to have to be better allies for them. We've got to be convinced that all oppressions are connected. We're going to have to face our part in this even if it's mostly been unintentional and unconscious. It means we have to learn that we are a part of the problem when we maintain the societal structures that need to keep people apart so that we all don't rise up together and make it better for all of us. To start, we've got to see the connections. 
Robert N. Minor, Ph.D. is the author of Scared Straight: Why It's So Hard
to Accept Gay People and Why It's So Hard to Be Human (HumanityWorks!,
2001) and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. He
was a member of the Values Panel for the Kansas City Star's nationally
award winning "Raising Kansas City Project" which was concerned with the
values we teach the next generation. He may be reached at Minor@libertypress.net.
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