Open Letter: Resisting the Racist Blame Game Post Prop 8
Similarly, proposition B, which would have mandated that the city set aside part of its budget for affordable housing was defeated by SF voters. We live in a city with a history of racist schemes of redevelopment and displacement: SOMA in the 60s, Justin Herman’s redevelopment of the Fillmore, illegal evictions in the Mission in the 90s, contemporary cuts to county welfare, and most recently, the gentrification of the Bayview—to name a few examples. And yet, San Francisco voters have failed to stand up for working families’ ability to live affordably in this city—a city where remaining working class communities of color face major threats of displacement.
Despite the fact that white LGBT people often play complicated roles in the gentrification of the city and displacement of communities of color, I saw no media reports released on November 5th scrutinizing the voting trends of white LGBT San Franciscans on Propositions B, N, K, 5, 6, or 9, as juxtaposed to the numerous articles scrutinizing the voting habits of Black and Latino voters on Prop 8. And despite the overwhelmingly negative outcome of several important local and state propositions, outcry among the wider LGBT community seems to have been reserved solely for the passage of Proposition 8.
As a young, queer woman living in San Francisco, I feel very strongly that affordability is vital to the creativity and well being of the city’s LGBT community. And as a white person living in the Mission, I have to think and act critically in regards to the complicated role I play in the gentrification of this neighborhood and the larger schemes of displacement within this city. I love my queer life and love living in this city. I get to witness the ways of living and congregating, making new families, new cultures, and envisioning new worlds that are possible living around so many other brilliant and creative queer people. While I would like to lend my support and compassion to people who lost the right to marry this week, I also question the logic that tells me that my only struggle as an LGBT person centers around my right to marry. While I sign petitions to support marriage as a civil right, I would like to see LGBT Californians take a serious look at the fact that housing, healthcare, employment, and freedom from police harassment and incarceration are also civil and human rights.
I would like to see LGBT Californians talk not only about how marriage rights could affect their ability to receive their partners’ health benefits, but about universal healthcare. I would like to hear us talk not just about how a lack of marriage rights separates couples where one member lacks citizenship, but connect this to struggles for immigrant rights. I would like to hear LGBT people not only talk about how their families are discriminated against, but link their struggles to those of the many California families where children are being raised by people other than their parents due to the mass incarceration of parents with children.
The passing of Proposition 8 is a sad day and indicative of the work that lies ahead. As we heal from these blows, I would like to challenge us to consider how our struggles are bound up with struggles for racial and economic justice, and how our fight for civil rights, and the health of our communities could be strengthened by taking these connections more seriously. Above all, I would like to challenge us to resist racist media schemes that, during our moment of need and an even greater moment of possibility, are attempting to pit LGBT people and their supporters against communities of color in California.
I apologize for the hasty construction of this, but time is of the essence. I welcome your thoughts.
In struggle,
Adele Carpenter
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