Everybody wants to pretend they were a part of the fight for rights before it was cool. It’s bullshit.
Yesterday an immigrant trans woman of color, Jennicet Gutiérrez, heckled President Obama about the plight of trans women in immigration detention at a Pride reception. He responded by telling her to be quiet, and a room full of LGB leaders cheered him on.
Sure, heckling is rude. It’s a goddamn uncomfortable experience when someone calls you out — at your own cocktail party, no less — about the mistreatment of trans women you’re imprisoning.
We’d all like to think that we’re on the right side of history. That when it mattered, we did what was right. But for most of us, we didn’t. We got on the right side of history when it became obvious which side that was, just like everybody else. We look back and pat ourselves on the back for what has been achieved and never look forward to what still needs to be done. We imagine ourselves alongside those heroes who put everything on the line, cheering them on or joining in, never imagining that the people we are choosing to be now are the exact kind people that they were fighting against then.
So it sticks in the craw when President Obama pats himself on the back for being such a supportive fellow, using his position and power to have a cocktail party to celebrate whoever it is who runs the big gay parade these days. Because he is exactly that person we are fighting: he’s with the program enough to stand alongside gay people and say “I support you!” and he’s with the program enough to wrap himself in a rainbow flag, but when he was challenged about what he personally could do to stop our oppression he shut that down and a room full of “community leaders” cheered him on.
There should be no such thing in this world as an uninhibited celebration of the freedom that has already been achieved, because there is no such thing as being finished. Those who act like there is have drawn their line in the sand as if to say “I’m glad it got this far, but no further”.
Jennicet being in that room was an aberration. If the powers that be had a whiff of a notion that she would call out the President like this she never would have been let in. To attend a White House reception uncritically and without such intent is surely the grandest acceptance of the status quo that one could concoct. I say shame on every other attendee for lending their worthless credibility to the notion that this man is a progressive. I would accuse them of allowing themselves to be used for pinkwashing, but it’s worse than that. They are wholeheartedly for the status quo, and wholeheartedly a part of the system that must now be opposed.
I urge you to do some introspection. Do not uncritically cheer companies which fly the rainbow flag or treat Pride like a party, not a protest. Do not stand idly by as the police and the carceral system brutalise black people, people of color, immigrants, queers, trans people, disabled people. And for the love of god do not go to a White House reception dedicated to how great you are and cheer on the most powerful man in the world when someone suggests there’s still work to be done.
