I think that you ignore the tireless work of some generations of gay people who advocated for themselves and collaborated with straight people to fight this oppression. You also ignore the collaboration of African Americans slaves and former slaves an free born in the struggle to end slavery. And of course you have nothing to say of the black troops who fought in the Civil War. with only a few exceptions oppressed people are not freed by submitting themselves to the direction of rescuers.
14
Viva la institutions and norms!
4
There is a good reason Yad Vashem in Israel devotes a hall to those called “Righteous Among the Nations”: lives that otherwise would have been lost were saved by non-Jews. No one says that this compensates for genocide. But goodness was not the exclusive province of the powerless and oppressed during the Holocaust.
It is good to recall acts of moral bravery whatever the source, not only in recognition of the truth but also to give us hope that actions based on moral good are not disregarded in the name of ideological purity.
23
What about Canada and how does that fit into these comments, eh? The life imprisonment sentence of George Klippert led directly to the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969. But Mr. Klippert wasn't released until 1971... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Klippert
3
Yes. Well said.
8
Fascinating piece. Especially resonant was this gem: '"allyship;" by which they typically mean an arrangement where prospective allies submit to the direction of the marginalized group..."
An ally is someone who is ready to fight for you, *with the understanding that you are also willing to fight for them,* even if you aren't on remotely equal terms to begin with. Think UK and Lichtenstein. Today's progressive allies are expected to be little more than thralls who listen, work, and shut up.
The implicit belief driving this behavior: the experience of a marginalized group grants insights and wisdom that are inaccessible to anyone on the outside. It's a lovely idea, but it's just not true. Insight has surprisingly little to do with experience. We all know the person with 5 kids who still has no idea how to speak to a child, while the bachelor uncle just 'gets it.' We all know people from a mistreated minority who turn around and mistreat people from another minority instead of having the wisdom to reject bigotry. And there are plenty of LGBT people who claim special knowledge on how a cause can be won who are just dead wrong (but never in doubt).
Our 'allies' are often mistreated by us, simply because they are not gay and available to mistreat and scold. It's humiliating when someone understands your problems better than you, but it happens. I'll take an opinionated supporter over a passive ally anytime.
38
Change as deep as the legal and social acceptance of LGBTQI rights has to include institutions of power in many arenas. One of the lost proponents of LGBTQI dignity are progressive Protestant mainline churches. Glide Methodist Church coordinated an ecumenical demand to end police brutality toward gays. They forged an alliance including members of Mattachine and Daughters of Bilitis to hold an openly gay New Year's Eve Ball. Ministers counted on their moral authority within the larger society to "protect" gays attending the ball. It didn't work; police came and arrested gay and straight attendees on frivolous charges. Ministers took to the airwaves in protest, sparking wide national exposure of systematic police brutality toward gays. See the online exhibit on Council on Religion and the Homosexual:
https://lgbtqreligiousarchives.org/exhibits/crh/
10
Such an important piece!
8
So it takes a village. Is what you're saying.
3
Why must it be either/or? Activists, allies, and all three branches of government are important aspects of social justice.
9
Thanks for the great piece. in my mind this gets at the very heart if why the US has such conservative laws and so much polarization, despite a large liberal/progressive population. Violence is sexier than compromise and the perfect is the enemy of the good.
8
Having been involved in political organizing for many years and also protest demonstrations since the late 60s, I cannot understate how this rings true. We see people marching in the street chanting "this is what democracy looks like." No it is not. That is begging power for change. Organizing, running for office, going down the street talking to neighbors getting them to vote for you or your cause, that is what democracy looks like. In the end, if you do not seek and hold power, you cannot make change. Abolitionists in the slave states prior to the Civil War were powerless to make change because the political power they faced was intransigent. Only war waged by those states where abolitionists took power could make those changes. MP Abse held power because he ran for office, exactly like Andrew Cuomo, and not incidentally, Harvey Milk, who came to realize elections and building coalitions were the only solution. After having gone to demonstrations for most of my life, I am now convinced of their ultimate futility. Elections do matter -- just check the recent article here in the Times as to what happened when the Democrats took control of the New York State Senate: GENDA got passed right away. BANG Politics, messy as it may be, is the only road to progress.
24
I disagree, respectfully. Dr, Appiah’s over-arching point is well taken. That is, the Stonewall resistance was a launching point for so many people, but those who were there didn’t act in a vacuum. Resistance was happening all over the place, including two years previously in my home town of Los Angeles (see Black Cat tavern riots). Stonewall happened in the center of the biggest city in the world at that time. Media coverage was global and therefore, pivotal. It was important, and historical, but not a beginning. Is it worth celebrating? Absolutely! Let’s just celebrate it for what it was and pay due respect to those who came before and lent a helping hand. And yes, many of those people were not members of our tribe.
9
Any person who is gay * (or lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex) self-delivers by coming out.
Countless millions of people everyday, everywhere, push social progress forward. These personal acts of freedom from fear and continued intimidation, make the acts of any mob - in the street or in a legislative body - pale by comparison.
Here's to all the brave and heroic, unsung acts of individuals changing society, writing history, by standing and stating they will not hide or deny who they are anymore.
* I've paid too dearly to be reduced a single letter in a string that render me invisible again.
17
A much-needed discussion of the role of allies. As Giyartri Spivak said, "the subaltern cannot speak." Often, the power structures in existence create terrible odds for an oppressed group achieving self-deliverance. Look at the case of undocumented people, including children, being held at the border. What is making a difference are the multitude of protesters, observers and volunteers who have made it their mission to make these people visible, to document the horrors of children not getting basic health and cleanliness needs met. Those advocating are not only Latinos, but people of every race, and walk of life. Pride is important for self-actualization, but brave people who have privileges denied the oppressed can often put those privileges to use to save lives and liberate the oppressed.
32
Beautifully written, well argued, illuminating , and brave. “These days gratitude grates, and benevolence is viewed with beady eyes.” You can say that again. The tendency toward group mythmaking is perhaps universal, but it’s so belittling to refer to the contributions of white people who put themselves in harm’s way and frequently gave their lives to fight for civil rights—as white savior syndrome.
39
It's all well and good for Dr. Appiah to lead the academic charge here and pump up the historical record. But how did that record get laid down in the first place?
It got there because on those particular nights in 1969, in and outside that particular bar, the Stonewall Inn, individuals long frightened and harassed by cops, many of whose faces they may well have recognized, had the *COURAGE* to stand firm, refuse to "move along" and instead declare: "No More!" For four long nights. With *NO* quarter of the society in support of what they were doing, namely, affirming the worth of their lives and their right to live them openly.
History -- change -- begins by insisting on it, and, as others commenting have pointed out, that's how it continues to be made.
Dr. Appiah documents achievements while leaving out the terror that made them necessary. And it's a terror that some today are ready to re-impose. The past isn't past, as Faulkner has reminded us. Progress is made, never guaranteed, and not for many decades can it be conclusively documented, as Dr. Appiah attempts to begin to do here.
Put yourself in the shoes of the members of the Mattachine Society, then put yourself in the shoes of those frightened gay men on those hot summer nights 50 years ago, facing a brutal, corrupt legion of uniformed (and under cover) police officers. In his account Dr. Appiah omits making that imaginative leap. He'd be a more useful historian if he'd tried.
12
@creepingdoubt Thank you!
1
All tribes need their myths, both those of the tribe's heroism (Stonewall, in the case of the gay tribe)) and those of their victimization. It's interesting, though, that it just seems too difficult to bring the same unfiltered lens to victimization myths as t his one brings to the heroism myth. After all, I guess, the tribe clinging to any particular victimization myth was almost certainly victimized.
There are plenty of examples of victimization myths out there which are untouchably sacred. But since this column deals with the heroic myth of the gay activists of Stonewall and since I myself am gay, I'd like to raise here the victimization myth that Matthew Shepard was killed because he was gay. Diligent reporting by a very brave reporter disputes that myth, pointing to drug deals gone bad as the real reason for the murder.
And I say, it was a "very brave" reporter because, again, if one challenges a myth confirming another's deep sense of being a victim ... well, you're likely to become a victim yourself.
9
I'm going to put forward a thought that might help.
A full on total acceptance of the LBGT community will be of great importance and help to the 'straight' community. The 'straight' community suffers from homophobia, whereby getting too close to a person of the same sex or of arbitrary sex is riddled with accusations of homosexuality and the like.
In a plea to the 'normal' community, I ask that we (as one of them) be brave. We accept this as a normal and important part of the human experience. We must allow freely the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexueal and transexual people, if for no other reason than to free ourselves.
We must free ourselves from our socially acceptable personas. We must make it ok to explore and find our true selves. This among all god-provided challenges is the one that we are most equipped to slay. We must not judge in this respect.
I say this as one who seems to be about as 'normal' as our species is. But I have always wondered about the idea of 'normal', because those who didn't conform were subjected to awful things.
People need to put themselves in the position of those they most worry about, or most despise, or most admire.
Empathy was Obamas main theme. We haven't forgotten that, at least some of us have not forgotten!
Dare to empathize. Can we make it a theme, a meme or more?
2
Professor Appiah is quoting from the 4th grade "New York State Regents" standard (4.5) for teaching about slavery which focuses on individuals from New York and includes Samuel Cornish, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman. It also introduces students to William Lloyd Garrison. It may be simplistic, it is fourth grade, and it definitely does not support his point. Bad research Professor Appiah.
4
Did Stonewall participants claim to be “the first?” I don’t know that that’s true. For them was it a first? Was it the first time the crowd at Stonewall rebelled against weekly harassment and beatings? Were there others? Perhaps we are simply remembering this outcropping of a fierce struggle because it made the NYtimes. Like Appiah, I have been thinking a lot of what really makes the difference in sucessful resistance. I’m beginning to suspect that we cannot really know this. If we resist, it probably won’t make a difference... until it does. So I, personally, have to look harder for a way to resist, without deciding whether it will “make a difference.”
3
I often walk by the joint. Always a disconnect between the sanctity of its place in gay-rights history - comparable to other civil rights cornerstones - and the endless stream of party-animal antics spilling out into the street from within. Like seeing a rave at Little Rock High. Still - glad it's still there.
3
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
from, Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
3
Why no mention of Pierre Trudeau and Canada. As Justice minister, in 1967, he introduced changes in the Criminal Code legalizing abortion and removing sodomy. "There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." This fed into other reforms going on in Canada and into his promoting them such as bilingualism and constitutional reform. All this he packaged into the Just Society which fed into Trudeaumania and him into leadership of the Liberal Party and the prime ministership the following April. That June's general election was a huge victory for the Liberal Party. Let me add that the events of 1968 in Canada were shadowed by the LBJ's withdrawal, Dr King's and Senator Kennedy's assassination, and the police riot during the Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Mr. Appiah is right about the myth of self-deliverance; he is incorrect to focus on the US and Britain.
4
Lovely piece. It seems to me that this is the kind of interesting and semi-uncomfortable conversation we as Queer people need to be having with one another - it may seem eminently more validating to focus solely on the accomplishments of other Queer people, but the fact is that we have always depended on the participation of straight cisgender people in the struggle for equality.
Whether it is time to actively start reflecting on our history, (and on the people we've been erasing from our stories, the same way straight people so often erase us), I cannot say for sure. I know that it makes me uncomfortable to talk about opening a door to retroactively canonizing straight people, (active and incidental allies alike), as central figures in Queer history. Living in a world where Queer-exclusive spaces are going extinct (yet "straight pride" movements still gain traction) has left me skittish.
Straight people still feel entitled to our spaces, and until that changes, I am deeply afraid that they will gentrify our history, and mutate it into a story about how they "rescued us" from the big bad bigots, (i.e. other straight people).
I know that allies like Mr. Abse certainly deserve the credit they've been deprived of, but let's be mindful not to rush to praise them at the expense of people like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera; both of whom risked more leaving their homes on any given morning than even a Grade A ally like Leo Abse ever did.
8
" [the bill] survived a fierce gantlet of opposition with a one-vote margin of support."
gauntlet?
1
Better story? Perhaps. But two things here. 1) Yes, there were riots in other cities (Los Angeles and San Francisco, specifically), but in 1967, none of them happened in the media capital of the country. 2) In his 2012 Inaugural address, President Obama offered the phrase "Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall."
You are of course correct, Professor Appiah, but after Obama's speech, none of that matters any more in public memory.
Leo Abse indeed deserves to be remembered for undoing a great wrong. Consider that two of England's brightest lights -- the author and playwright Oscar Wilde and the great mathematical and computer genius Alan Turing -- both had their lives destroyed for running afoul of the law criminalizing homosexual behavior. I applaud Mr. Appiah for bringing Mr. Abse better notoriety -- and for pointing out that it was the Union Army and northern politicians, not Nat Turner's rebellion, that freed the slaves . . . or that it was the Soviet and Allied armies, and not an internal insurrection, that liberated the people in European concentration camps.
31
When we learn to say, “Yes, and...” rather than either/or and the egotistical and hierarchical tribalism that implies, it will be a day of political and social maturity.
Professor Appiah has opened a door to benevolent comradeship, and to soul force. This is the force that changes lives; rage can be useful, but after the storm, a hard-won solidarity.
6
As a historian and a high-school history teacher (old, white, cisgender straight male, and social democrat), I am enormously grateful for this piece of history. It will help me explain to young people why elders like me thought we were progressive when we marched with Martin Luther King, and wept with joy when the Civil Rights Act passed.
And it also provides the right rule for progressives in our proudly multicultural nation going forward: "true coalition building, from a partnership of mutual respect, from a politics grounded in overlapping moral perceptions," instead of "an arrangement where prospective allies submit to the direction of the marginalized group, like deferential guests in someone else’s home."
15
A really excellent piece. Beautifully written and thoughtful. Thanks.
15
Second-wave abolition *was* a movement led chiefly by African-Americans, and one that advanced the arguments over slavery to the point where the immediate destruction of slavery could be taken seriously, north and south. In the 1820s, anti-slavery to many whites meant ending slavery in 100 years, paying slaveowners and deporting the newly-freed blacks. The abolitionists forced the country to grapple with the American part of African-American, and demanded citizenship, not passage to Liberia.
It is true slavery was ultimately destroyed by armies. It is also true those armies marched because slaveholders feared a comparatively moderate President, elevated to the White House in large part because abolitionists shifted the conversation over the previous three decades. Officials don’t pay attention unless activists make noise.
12
People in power or with privilege can be essential allies and movers and shakers. They are the ones who understand the moral and ethical imperative of fairness and shared power.
Margaret Marshall was a fairly "conservative" Justice in Massachusetts; however, she grew up in South Africa as a white child under the system of apartheid, and she always took the principle that there should be no second-class citizenship with her throughout her career. Believing in and practicing equal rights is not radical.
I teach and train staff at hospitals and long-term care facilities to support and affirm LGBT older adults. I teach the importance of anti-racist action at the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership. In one case, I am a member of the tribe. In the other case, I am an active ally.
Both are essential for movement. Anyone who practices empathy and compassion can be so moved to put into action principles of fairness and kindness.
7
What is the point here? Of course allies are necessary, but if the assertion here is that allies are solely responsible for the LGBTQ community's gains then that ignores the community's history.
Self-reliance and community building have been common practices in movements, particularly those that were under attack by a broader society, for centuries. This occurred in the LGBTQ movement.
What is now called the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center was founded as the Gay Men's Health Project in 1971 by three members of the Gay Liberation Front. Lambda Legal, The Center on West 13th Street, and many other community organizations were created by the activists who joined the movement post-Stonewall. These gains were not handed to us by allies.
And allies don't grow on trees. These allies were identified and nurtured by the institutions that the community created and by the activists who came out of the closet and introduced themselves to these prospective allies.
Margaret Marshall and Andrew Cuomo did not come riding to our rescue. They were turned into allies by sustained community building and political organizing over time. But for that work, they never would have taken the actions that they took.
26
Appiah by limiting his analysis to the Anglo-Saxon world, he ignores that fact that this country and the UK were relatively late in decriminalizing homosexuality. France legalized private sexual acts in 1795, Italy in the 19th Century, and others well before the 1960’s and certainly in the case of the US, the early 21st century. Beyond the discussion of whether emancipation is dependent upon the oppressed community members or allies on the outside, perhaps the discussion include how the reverence for privacy, or lack thereof, contributed to the long suffering of the LGBT community here as opposed to other countries. One thought: in that the US and Britain share a history of Puritanism, and an obsession with other people’s lives had, and still has at lot to do with the backward attitudes that prevailed here as opposed to other Western countries.
14
@LAGeoff Yours is a well-informed view of the sex laws of Europe, but I would question your old-fashioned, H.L. Mencken view of Puritanism. "Obsession with other people's lives" is not a bad definition of most forms of activism, in both secular and religious communities, especially in a democratic republic. I'd argue that it's not especially Puritan, or even Calvinist Protestant, except in the sense that most "Puritans" in the 17th century were English republican activists who would come to win a civil war and execute their king.
2
This was among the more informative and thoughtful editorials I have read. After reading the comments, though, it seems that some readers seem to miss the point. They are focusing more on the issue of same sex rights and the specifics of that specific movement. I read the same sex rights issue to be more of an example of a more important subtext, which is simply that social progress requires skilled members of the political class to legislate. Progress, in a functioning democracy anyway, requires a legislative foundation from which to build I.e., some elected officials have to write and pass legislation. Recognizing that contribution is as important as recognizing anyone else’s. That’s the point; social progress requires people of various skill sets working together.
29
Thank goodness someone is finally saying it, not just about gay rights but the extension of human rights in all spheres. I have always resented the discourse of "ally-ship." I am not the ally of LGBTQ activists, African American activists, and so on. I believe in universal human rights; if they do, too, then we're on the same side in this respect. As for the historical point Prof. Appiah makes, he is so right. In the academy and popular culture as well, some people have a huge investment pumping up their precious identities. Group narcissism.
24
Great essay!
"...the archives of the past give way to the anthems of the present"
Why historians will always have a job to do and dogmaticians will also be more popular.
9
This column misses the main difference between when and how Britain got rid of its ancient and absurd “sodomy laws” versus the US. It’s called legislative change.
Look at how slavery was made illegal in the British empire versus the US where a civil war was required.
Look at how the British (well, the civilized world anyway) implemented single payer through legislation, while in the US people still have no coverage and the threat of financial disaster when one becomes ill.
Americans turn to violence because your political system is largely unresponsive and slow to change. I find it paradoxical that the US claims to be all about fighting for freedom where other countries use the law and regulations to deliver real freedom, not out of the barrel of a gun freedom.
20
@D Priest the Americans you appear to sneer at from North of the border took the lead for gay rights on the world stage when MA Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage protected by the MA state constitution followed by a string of judicial decisions and legislative votes. In short, they used "legislative change" through a variety of mechanisms and came out about ten years ahead of nearly every other country, and undoubtedly made change in those countries possible.
The reasons why the British could abolish slavery sitting around drinking tea at Parliament while Americans had to engage in wholesale slaughter are complex, but one could argue that slavery in the British economic system was out of sight, while in the US, they were absolutely essential to the Southern economy, so nothing short of violent change was going to lead to change. So those 20 additional years are much more likely to do with the thorniness of the problem instead of the higher degree of civility found in London--or, for that matter, Toronto.
Universal health care would have happened under the Truman administration--same time as it happened in the UK, more or less--but that required integration of hospitals in the South, which was a nonstarter, and Southern Democrats were key to Truman's coalition. Again, a thorny problem--all descended from the slave trade begun by the *British* colonial system.
Could be me, D Priest, but maybe it's time to step away from some oversimplified narratives.
13
Oversimplified? Well, 1500 characters is not much expository room compared to the volumes written on these subjects. But I will observe that your objections proved my simplistic point... repression of minorities for economic exploitation is not a bug, but rather is a feature of your system.
4
@D Priest,
Repression of minorities for economic exploitation - by that you mean the primary economic and political structure underlying British colonialism?
4
Mr. Appiah to too polite I'm afraid. I've often felt that the anti war demonstrations of the '60's and '70's (which I participated in, including being arrested), as right and morally correct as they were, led directly to the election of Nixon in the short run and the reactionary period in which we still dwell in the long run. Politics is the art of the achievable, and that's not always as noble as we wish.
14
I am a gay activist pediatrician who spent the better part of 20 years working to fend off horrendous anti-gay legislation in Oregon, educating people about gay youth, getting religious communities to be more accepting and working for marriage equality. I would be the first to say that capable, open-minded, well-placed, intelligent and -- yes -- brave heterosexual allies played a huge role in our successes.
That being said, as the young Philadelphia trans activist Hazel Edwards says: "nothing about us without us is for us." Perhaps the right balance is that, all along the way, marginated groups must have a "privileged voice" in outlining the stories, experience, goals and methods that are joined by "liberators" and "allies."
15
@Douglas
Victims first, "allies" second. No other way.
1
Some commenters here seem to have trouble holding two truths at once. One - that marginalized people can and have done heroic things on their own behalf. And Two - powerful, influential and concerned outsiders have acted in important ways to help lift up marginalized groups. Just because there are some distasteful elements to the "savior" narrative doesn't mean that there haven't been critical contributions by outsiders. To say otherwise is to suggest that with a little heroism, marginalized people can and should pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
59
Mr. Appiah debunks some of the myth, but replaces it with a mythology of his own. It is true that there had been gay riots before. They led nowhere, because they weren't followed by organizing.
Where he goes wrong, for example, is when he writes "the old-guard gay advocacy groups organized an annual Stonewall demonstration." That is simply not the case. The first post-Stonewall protest march occurred exactly one month after the riot, on July 27, 1969. I know because I was part of the organizing committee (along with Marty Robinston, who appears in the first photo here), and our little committee became the Gay Liberation Front--not exactly an "old guard advocacy group."
We were also part of a coalition that organized the 1970 march. What made us effective was that we formed alliances with other groups and that we demanded change--both from the media that had disrespected us in the past, from politicians, from the American Psychiatric Association, etc. We picketed, demonstrated, and crashed conferences. "Unblinkered journalists" became that way because we tore their blinkers off.
Change always starts from the bottom, Mr. Appiah. It is not granted by the benevolence of enlightened rulers.
63
@Martha Shelley For those of us who came after your generation, you *are* the "old guard." That's a badge of honor, in my eyes.
7
There is no lack of historical celebration of saviors, and it feels like you're confusing political process with the entirety of social change. Of course the work of powerful people is important here, but oppressed peoples are often the best ones to explain their own oppression, and develop the cultural changes that are necessary for liberation. Maybe we need to celebrate the allies who help out with this process--simply in order to provide role models for the well-meaning, but policymakers are not the ones who create social change.
You can't seriously be suggesting that Andrew Cuomo thought of gay marriage on his own?
9
There's a lot in this view of history. This bit shocked me:
"Leo Abse had a great deal of interest in getting things done; he had zero interest in allyship. “A member of Parliament must never become the marionette of any lobby,” he insisted. He knew that his sense of political possibility was more finely honed than that of most outside advocates."
One might take this to mean that democracy is a front for getting power and using it as the elected see fit.
3
Serious errors fill this heavily male-focused piece.
Abse's measure only decriminalized sex between men--and gay men are only one letter in the "LGBT" acronym used throughout.
Also, by the time decriminalization occurred in the UK--and definitely by the time it was decriminalized here--it was a largely symbolic event with little effect even on gay men's lives. Decriminalization was never a major focus of LGBT activism in the US, which focused on other targets even in the legal realm (notably non-discrimination and marriage equality).
Appiah also betrays serious ignorance of LGBT activism and LGBT personal lives in failing to understand that Stonewall was important precisely as self-deliverance: it emboldened many to feel greater personal pride and, even more significant, to come out. It has never been contended that Stonewall had a direct legal effect: instead, it encouraged LGBT people to seek not only civil rights but also respectful, unbiased treatment in everyday life (a far more fundamental change). LGBT life has improved to a far greater degree from widespread coming out than from the lawsuits, organizations, marches, and legislation that followed.
Appiah also repeats the frequent mistaken assumption that Stonewall was equally significant--or, indeed, significant--for all LGBT people. In fact, lesbians of the time were little affected by it, then or later. Other events in feminist and lesbian history/culture were distinctly more influential and inspiring for them.
28
Fascinating piece. Should remedies come from within or be handed down by the government. As much as I respect Mr, Abse, I prefer the former.
1
Where's the Leo Abse of our Congress?
McConnell? Graham? Pelosi? Seriously?
Likely LBJ (but that was a long while ago). The utter lack of current Senators or Congressmen/women who can wheel and deal and make progress on thorny issues, is disastrously sad.
Iran, illegal immigrants, an equitable tax structure for all Americans, are among the major issues that will get none of the care they deserve in our Congress.
6
I think the author is creating a false dichotomy between historical accuracy and myth-making. Our collective psyche need myths - this one is the archetype of hero's journey. This is especially important for marginalized, oppressed groups whose history is undocumented.
7
Well said, Professor Appiah.
I am a very progressive liberal, but I too have been annoyed by the insistence that people like me (white, cis-gendered hetero men) "stay in our line." My lane is Truth. Is there another?
65
@D.A.
Yes. In front of oncoming traffic.
@D.A. Yes, there's the lane where you hold your tongue and listen to others because you recognise that you do not have the monopoly on truth; all you have is a partial perspective and good intentions.
1
There are useful principles and practices for building effective, shared power alliances. Three are based in mutual respect, mutual learning, and mutual accountability for results. Four derive from sharing risks, responsibilities, resources, and rewards. Three factors, time, trust, and turf, restrict or facilitate the efficacy of four working together strategies, networking, coordinating, cooperating, and collaborating. All are best utilized when power is viewed as the capacity to produce intended results rather than for dominating and controlling others. Leadership in alliances involves the ability to move a mass of critics into a critical mass.
8
Dear Prof. Appiah,
It's Lawrence v. Texas, not Lawrence v. Kansas.
It's also worth noting that gay rights organizations that were more than ephemeral started being formed in 1950 (Mattachine in Los Angeles), long before Stonewall. But Stonewall lit an important fire that transformed what was a tiny movement that had difficulty attracting mainstream media attention to a more overtly activist movement - and eventually a mass movement, as evidence by the first National March on Washington in the late 1970s and a much bigger one in the late 1980s. It was the aftermath of Stonewall that led to the formation of gay lobbying and litigation groups that played the major role in such Supreme Court victories as Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, and U.S. v. Windsor. But they were certainly building on the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code and law reform efforts that involved many non-gay people. In some ways, one of the most important propellants for LGBT rights was the AIDS epidemic and the pressure within the community, especially among those having and raising children, for marriage equality. LGBT people have been important actors in winning the current level of legal and social equality.
21
@Art Leonard I'm glad I am not the only one that caught the Lawerence v Texas issue. I think the author is mistakenly combining the Lawerence v Texas and Limon v Kansas cases.
2
While I respect Mr. Appiah's work and accomplishments, I have to disagree with many of the points he makes in this article, especially his derision of "allyship." Marginalized groups know their problems better than anyone else: they live them every day. Allies are expected to respect that knowledge and experience and not speak or act from a place of ignorance. This article reads as though it's the uppity, perfectionist, mythologizing gays who are holding themselves back and it's up to the pragmatic straights to get them their rights, which is simply not true. Mr. Appiah's presentation of Andrew Cuomo is that he, and he alone, simply decided one day to fight for marriage equality, ignoring the long history of gay activism and pride in America and dismissing Cuomo's actions being a result of said activism putting pressure on elected officials.
This is best explained by the "savior" narrative, a entirely valid line of criticism that Mr. Appiah, knowingly or not, is playing into here. It presents narratives, fictional or historical, in which marginalized groups are entirely without agency and require the aid of a benevolent "savior" to bring about their salvation. His veneration for men like Leo Abse, as great as they were, erases and ignores the communities he fought to protect.
I'm a recent college graduate and a bisexual man, I'm happy my generation is thinking differently than what is presented in this article.
18
@Matt
"Allies are expected to respect that knowledge and experience and not speak or act from a place of ignorance."
- And this is the fundamental issue with how it is often practiced. When you want an ally, you need trust - you need to have a meaningful dialogue where you both trust that you want the same outcomes and will work together for them. What a true allyship does not do is demand unquestioning, unthinking loyalty. Even those who do not live the particular experience of a particular minority group have valuable thoughts and opinions to offer. The idea that they should sit down and shut up is censorship. Minority groups have been oppressed historically and still are, yet progress will not happen with thought oppression going the other way. Without a respectful two way dialogue there is nothing.
26
@P
Exactly.
And it's not anyone's experience that's being thrust on our "allies,"but a tiresome ideology hatched by gender studies departments.
4
@Matt
Sometime marginalized groups ARE almost entirely without agency in society - chattel slavery is an example. Are you suggesting that enslaved people were supposed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps?
5
I strongly agree with so much of this piece, but it has one glaring omission. Little of this change would have been possible without the million daily acts of coming out by individual LGBT people. That is a form of activism, and since allies can't really do it for us, it has necessarily been a kind of partial self-deliverance. Those acts have undermined stereotypes and changed attitudes dramatically. We know that opinions are strongly correlated with whether a person has a friend or relative who is gay or trans. Prof. Appiah even mentioned that the Earl of Arran had a gay older brother who had committed suicide.
46
@Stephen Clark Thank you for making that observation. Since our daughter came out about 30 years ago it became clear to us how much treating her choice as a problem unfairly marginalized all who are somehow different from the mainstream. We long since quit being "discreet" (i.e., closeted) about her. We're immensely grateful for her and grateful that she can live openly and lovingly with her wife.
Also important: when we let a person's sexual orientation define our feelings about them we are missing all the rest of the person, and cheating ourselves. Truth be told, we're also revealing an unpleasant truth about ourselves!
12
One of the common problems with "allies" is that they seem to assume that the problems of social or legal inequality are not their problems but are instead problems faced only by the "marginalized." Were they to recognize that these things create problems for the country as a whole, problems they live with as well, then some combination of patriotism and/or self-interest would drive them as much as any guilt they might feel for their so-called privilege.
4
Mr. Appiah makes good observations regarding who accomplishes certain kinds of social progress, and what is the nature of their work. But we should also distinguish between rights (and other legal and law-protected arrangements) on the one hand, and dignity on the other. It was their dignity that the participants in the Stonewall uprising were keen on defending; it's less clear that they had any explicit legislative aim.
One must add to that as well, that while we LGBTQ people have now enjoyed a great deal of progress with regard to our rights, it remains true that we are still subject to wounding indignities from our neighbors and fellow citizens. Not only that, but given the current political and judicial régimes, those indignities are getting worse. So let's not confuse the kinds of contribution made by Leo Abse and the Stonewall activists, nor oppose them in pointless competition.
16
I doubt that I'm the only reader of the Times who finds Mr. Appiah thoughtful and original in his approach to both political and moral issues. But let me personally say thank you to him, as well as to the now-unsung effective heroes he profiles here.
82
Thought provoking essay. Reminds me of the work of Bill Moyer (not Moyers) who wrote powerfully about movement dynamics. Moyer offers a broader view of movements and how all of us can be a part of change.
4
Hooray, Dr. Appiah, well written and true.
If we are going to trot out some evergreen cliches ("...never let the perfect be the enemy of the good..."), I would have liked to see another: "politics is the art of the possible."
Good people need to acknowledge that we must work together always to move in the right direction, even if we know we will never make a perfect world. And we will disagree, perhaps bitterly, on some things. If we can only preserve optimism, humor, and "keep on keeping on," we can accomplish something, together, whether one is on the inside or the outside.
24
This is a wonderful article.
Unless I am mistaken, it is also a benevolently underhanded rebuke to those today who maintain that only members of a group may speak for or about them.
On the other hand, I am not sure what is meant by "perception of the moral universe." That's a peculiarly vague phrase for a philosopher to use as "cementing" alliances.
27
@Steve
Who else would have the right to explain the oppression experienced by a group of people other than themselves? Just take an L and accept you can't know everything.
How will we make progress against the biggest threat to humanity, the climate crisis?
Do we have any time left for wait for the slow progress of legislation? Yes, we need legislation. But in the meantime, in my opinion, we need to resist, to join the schoolchildren in the streets and to demonstrate for change. We can also simplify our consumptive patterns and educate others. I'm currently writing my school district asking them to do a sustainability audit.
Make some noise! There is no Cavalry coming over the hill for us. We need to be our own cavalry.
10
Thank you, Mr. Appiah. What's most important when learning history is that it be true, not that it give us a heroic narrative. Sometimes those purposes overlap; sometimes, as you point out, it's more complicated.
Facts don't care what we think of them. It's important that we get them right.
(P.S. I'm a gay man.)
47
Too often, we look for a certain narrative to explain social justice.
We look for heroes who fit a mold to emerge.
The truth is that progress is too complex for any formula, and heroics are often performed unsung.
That’s not to detract from anyone’s pride, only to say that change happens in much more mundane ways than befit telling a story.
16
Excellent essay on the complexities of building social and political movements and the interaction with real or symbolic events. Timing can be everything. Stonewall, thanks to the media, was something of both. But no oppressed group "self-delivers." Rebellions and other uprisings are often crushed brutally. It takes many allies and cooperation and strategizing to liberate oppressed groups, especially when that oppression is written into law and tradition. As the author demonstrates, LGBT groups owe a lot to their straight allies. Together they forged a freer, greater society. Kudos to the Times for publsihing this!
29
This piece is long overdue. Americans, particularly liberal Americans vastly overestimate the worth of flashy demonstrations and vastly underestimate the importance of voting for members of the state assembly. And activists are, in fact, stronger together. Don’t purge your party in the hopes that more people will come in to fill the gap. You’ll just end up with a smaller party.
92
One of the things that Stonewall did is foment coming out. The early activists were like the first water buffaloes crossing the crocodile infested river. The first ones paid a severe price, but once the flood gates opened the crocodiles couldn't catch all of them. The simple act of letting other people know your truth has made a huge, huge difference -- probably the biggest. If a little myth making was required to get people to come out, well, who doesn't like a good myth?
21
@Michael Thomas...
As someone who came out in 1975 when it was neither easy nor safe to do so... I thank you for your comment.
As it presents an idea which seems to be virtually unknown in the Millennial LGBTQ community.
They seem to think that they themselves are responsible for their safe and easy out Gay lives.
We understood that the priority was that everyone had to come out... now... otherwise nothing like same-sex marriage or the desegregation of the Military would ever be possible.
I have a friend who I have known since we were 5 years old who refused to come out of his closet for almost 6O years.
His reason was simply personal avarice and greed... he just wasn't going to come out until he possessed absolutely everything that he could possibly desire.
He simply wasn't willing to contribute to the LGBTQ community until then.
The tragic thing is that so many of us who were willing to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons... would end up disappearing during the onset of the AIDS epidemic.
They led us right up to the promised land... but were unable to enter it with us.
7
A good reminder that it takes a village on any issue. Still, I think we need milestones and heroes, with the understanding that there are 1000 quiet heroes for every public one.
22
Thank you for this wonderful, well-written article. Stonewall had made it to my high school US history textbook, but we (LGBT folks like me) seemed invisible until then, except for Oscar Wilde. I remember learning about groups like the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine society on my own. (The same high school English teacher who included Wilde’s biography when we read Dorian Gray skipped over any life details when read E.M. Forster.)
This article’s discussion about curriculum for the abolition movement makes me wonder what I would have been taught had I not grown up in the Land of Lincoln. It’s important to learn/remember/know history as it actually happened, or as close to it as we can get. That may not line up with current political agendas, but hey—those who fought for the rights of minorities didn’t fit with the agenda didn’t fit with the political agendas that were current in their day, either.
25
A thoughtful reflection. I was not aware of the role Leo Abse played in Britain . But in the U.S. there was no Leo Abse and social progress occurred somewhat differently. Stonewall may be a myth- but that myth was a result of gay activists working very deliberately to create it through the commemoration of Stonewall riots. In other words, the construction of an origin myth is an agentic ("self-delivering") tactic. I would say that this is the point of Armstrong and Crage's brilliant analysis.
21
It is touching to be reminded of so many heterosexual normative people who joined in pursuing this moral arc, especially early in the movement, without being intimidated by their potential stigmatization as sexually nonconformist, themselves. These are notable examples of principled courage before and after Stonewall.
60
This is the most thought provoking writing that I've come upon in the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
81
Nicely put, a lot of practical truth packed into a short article. One friendly amendment: perhaps the commemorative impulse is a kind of retroactive amends. We confer agency and dignity on people who were deprived of both for a very long time. It's not accurate exactly (in many cases) but it nevertheless feels appropriate. Accurate history requires the full story but symbolic history maybe does not.
34
@Cal Prof I know you mean well, but your invocation of "symbolic history" is no different from Kellyanne Conway's invocation of "alternative facts".
1
@Cal Prof Isn't 'Accurate history' what historians aspire to and 'symbolic history' literary fiction?
3
Fantastic article. That reform is more achievable than revolution, that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good and that lasting change requires compromises with people you don’t agree with is a crucial message.
122
June 22, 2019
When truth is strong and acceptable the myth ('S) fade away.
Stonewall's success is America's winning the path for indeed benevolence to , if you will, social reality for integration and not interrogation of a segment of its citizenry. The days of the Stonewall brought to solidarity a truer America that understood the privacy of rights to live and love with unconditional truth for America. And there is only pride and generosity for hope and good will in how we as citizens share our national identity in joys; while destroying wayward myths that just are gone and for the better - and as long as we all accept the grace we inherit in the home of the brave and the free -
3