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NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2005Queer youth eyes movement’s limitsMemphis, Tenn.--The Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) gathered human rights activists across the “Global South.” Class solidarity, when recognized, was often articulated as a second thought to struggles against oppression of groups along racial, ethnic, gender, or national identities. Even when working class organizing was expressed, mainly through labor representation, Marxism was rarely mentioned. The representation from the Memphis News and Letters Committees added to the event that I felt lacked any consistent theoretical foundation to either shape their analysis and action or inform their reflection. There was one LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender) workshop, and many in attendance, including myself, who work for Queer liberation. Some others felt insulted that LGBT liberation was equated with their own struggles. While SHROC participants recognized many bourgeois people of color as adversaries, many were unable to identify Queer organizers as their allies in creating a more fair society, one that will deepen our ideal of equality and negate disruptive schisms in working class consciousness. We were told by some that we did not belong; that our parents must have been deficient; that being heterosexual was our “duty to society.” The organizers publicly rebuked such divisive ideas and asked me to speak on the issue. QUEER AND MARXIST Being both Queer and Marxist, I believe that, while various subdivisions in our struggle for human liberation are not identical, our adversaries spring from the same reactionary factions for the same purpose. The reproduction of the class relationship within our interpersonal and group interactions obscures the true basis of worldwide oppression, and the most significant power relationship on the macro-social level: the dynamics of class under capitalism. Right-wing political Christianity is fueling social and political homophobia as Queers have become a convenient enemy of mythological proportions for reactionary groups. Adding prophecy to their analysis (many think we are in the “end times”) and fueled by religious news, publications and broadcasts, the more extreme feel that Queer liberation is aligned with the end time persecution of Christians. As one self-described Christian recently said, “You think we can have both, but we can’t. You can’t have your rights while I have mine. It is an ‘either/or’ relationship” between the two. Anti-Marxism has been a guiding force in our government for decades. When local, state, and federal governments tried to destroy the civil rights movement, it was often done in the name of containing the communist threat. IDENTIFYING WITH CHRISTIAN RIGHT This succeeded in justifying repressive actions in the minds of Americans and pushing the civil rights movement more solidly into the church. The ruling factions recognized Marxism as the true threat to their power and channeled the discontent of the Black community into more “safe” means of Christianity. If the business classes now, as many feel, influence the norms of most Christian organizing, this filters into the Black community through the institutions many equate with their struggle for liberation. Deficiencies in mainstream LGBT organizing are also responsible for the ease with which we have been targeted in communities of color and the working class. Urban Queer organizing has been largely a middle class, white phenomenon. Racially segregated groups have arisen as those activists with the most access to physical and institutional resources have excluded others. Class struggle is the universal element in the struggle for human liberation. As long as working class people focus on the Queer threat, they will never organize effectively against their class enemies. As long as Queer people align themselves with the bourgeoisie for their short-term goals, we will never understand the nature of our own oppression or how closely tied it is with the oppression of the working class. Only by seeing our struggles within a broad human rights framework will we achieve the social change we seek. Marxism is our greatest tool within this framework. --Michael C. Ide, Student human rights activist |
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