Whose Community Is It Anyway?: White Privilege in the LGBT Community
By Guest Contributor Chris MacDonald-Dennis, originally posted at The Pink Pink Elephant
“But you all have the same issues we do! I mean, why are we even dividing ourselves, race doesn’t matter—we are all gay.”
Fifteen years ago, a white gay male friend said this to me after I asked him how responsive the LGBT group he ran focused on issues affecting people of color. He truly did not understand that LGBT people of color might have unique needs or that we may have different priorities than the white LGBT community. Since that conversation, I have worked diligently in the LGBT community to help my white brothers and sisters understand the privileges they enjoy as white people.
White privilege is a difficult concept for many whites to understand. As Peggy McIntosh contends in her seminal piece “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, Whites are not taught to recognize how their status as white people confers on them many privileges. Hopefully, this piece will try to break the layers of denial that whites have about their privilege and that work to protect, prevent awareness about, and entrench that privilege.
White privilege is a set of advantages that white people benefit from on a daily basis not afforded to people of color. White privilege can exist without white people’s conscious knowledge of its presence and it helps to maintain the racial hierarchy in this country. The biggest problem with white privilege is the invisibility it maintains to those who benefit from it most. The inability to recognize that many of the advantages whites hold are a direct result of the disadvantages of other people, contributes to the unwillingness of white people, even those who are not overtly racist, to recognize their part in maintaining and benefiting from white supremacy.
White privilege teaches whites that only one’s own standards and opinions are accurate to the exclusion of all other standards and opinions. Because Whites generally view their beliefs and actions as normative and neutral, they fail to identify Whiteness as a racial identity and do not realize they are racialized as well. Though Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, average, and ideal, their perspective is not “objective” or neutral. By not confronting their privilege, Whites as the racially dominant group maintain that dominance.
Whiteness in the LGBT community is everywhere, from what we see, what we experience, and more importantly, what we desire. Media images in television and film promote a monolithic image of the ‘gay community’ as being overwhelmingly upper-middle class if not simply rich, male and white. Even the most cursory glance through gay publications highlights the scarcity of images of people of color. If we are represented, it seems that we only exist to serve the needs of the largely gay white population seeking an ‘authentic’ experience of some kind, either through sex, music or travel. To the white LGBT community, our existence as LGBT people of color, is merely an afterthought, an inconvenient fact that is thought about in the most insignificant and patronizing way.
In the LGBT political world, this shows up as White people thinking that the issues of importance to them are the only ones that matter. Many White LGBT folk do not realize that LGBT people of color have different perspectives and may think we as a community should focus on other issues. White privilege obscures the fact that LGBT people of color may frame a particular issue in a different way. Moreover, people of color who are attracted to the same sex may not even use the terms “gay”, “lesbian” or “bisexual.” However, the white framing of our issues is the only one allowed in our political discourse. The voices of LGBT people of color are generally not included unless the white LGBT group wants to reach out to communities of color. If LGBT people are included, they are often only done so as tokens and only if they agree with the white LGBT narrative.
We must continue to grapple with the ways invisible whiteness and white privilege permeate the LGBT community because they undermine our movement. Recently, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, released a report aimed at gaining a deeper understanding about the complexities at the intersection of race, sexual orientation and gender identity. I applaud HRC for this study and the subsequent blog conversations and online town halls they are holding. I hope, though, that HRC discusses white privilege as a part of this work. If they do not, the work will be incomplete. Paula Rothenberg, a professor who specializes in studying whiteness, reminds us that white privilege is the other side of the racial oppression coin. HRC, and other groups that are attempting to be more inclusive, cannot truly look at why people of color are not involved in the larger movement if they do not examine white privilege. It’s time for white LGBT folk to challenge their own privilege, listen to all voices and take on the issues that matter to all of us.
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Racialicious Note: Image taken from the UC Berkeley 4th Annual Queer People of Colour Conference
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Alos wrote:
“Though Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, average, and ideal, their perspective is not “objective” or neutral.”
Name one non-white, non-western country that does this.
Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 10:10 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:
@Chris MacDen: EXCELLENT piece. I hope we can see more of your work here in the future!
@Alos: South Africa. Hm. I’m really not sure how your comment was supposed to further the dialogue. Perhaps you could elaborate?
Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 10:54 am ¶
Invasian wrote:
Nice.
This is an important cross-cultural issue that needs to be explored more deeply.
Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 11:19 am ¶
Harlowmonkey wrote:
Great post! It’s something I have often brought up in conversations too. I will be linking to your piece for your thoughtful analysis.
Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 3:04 pm ¶
MoonCat wrote:
@Alos
Japan. I’m really curious (not being snarky or mean or intentionally rude), where are you going with this? I want to hear/read.
Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 3:17 pm ¶
SciAngie wrote:
This is a topic I would like to learn more about. In addition to reading about the experiences of LGBTQ people of color, it would be interesting to hear about LGBTQ people with little to no economic resources. I realize I’ve been normalized to thinking of only those who are well off, a la Queer eye
Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 3:31 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
Hm. I’m going to attribute my lack of awareness on this to the fact that though I do count myself as part of the LGBT community, I don’t identify with any label of sexual orientation, so I often don’t look for gay, bi, lesbian, queer, trans. With that, now that my brain is working, I will say that I often find White people in the LGBT community portrayed as fairly well off, and POC members homeless, struggling with family, addiction, acceptance, homelessness, all in all, really terrible things. And as I’m thinking, I would definitely say that a lot of that can be contributed to white privilege; despite the stigma and bigotry aimed at the LGBT community, white members still have that bred knowledge, skill, and ability to be able to advance themselves. And not to really go there, but a White gay man can hide his sexuality; a black man, gay or not, can’t hide his race. So that sort of speaks for itself.
All that said, it’s great to see that there are people addressing the issues that LGBT people of color face. Also, there’s a lot of promise here because despite it all, there is a lot of openness and unity within the community, which can only be a positive thing.
Posted 23 Sep 2009 at 12:51 am ¶
Jess wrote:
@Alos: Japan. cosign with MoonCat.
The Japanese have a whole hierarchy of culture/non-Japanese-ness as well.
In fact, for a rather long time — (1910-1945) the Japanese engaged in a colonial project not at all unlike that of the Europeans (who they were quite explicit about emulating in this regard).
It’s easy to assume there’s some weird genetic white-thing that makes white people racist. But that isn’t the case. It’s just that countries in Europe were more likely to be in a position to impose their will on others. A similar phenomenon, pre-European colonization, can be seen in just about every other civilized group. (You think the rival cities to Tenochtitlan just gave tribute out of a sense of kindness? That the Aztecs were all about inter-ethnic equality? Um, no).
Of course, in one sense, talking about racism that way makes a little less sense as the whole concept of “race” as we think of it is relatively recent, even in Europe.
(Think about the fact that the Yugoslavians all speak pretty much the same language and were willing to kill each other over differences that would likely be absolutely invisible to you as a non-Yugoslavian. The Rwandans were similar, and the Cossacks 100 years ago — it’s a long. long list, and few peoples on this planet ever avoided this particular pathology).
Posted 23 Sep 2009 at 9:46 am ¶
Joyce wrote:
Excellent piece. This is why I avoid the white LGBT community like the plague.
Posted 23 Sep 2009 at 11:34 am ¶
g531 wrote:
Thank you for this post.
Posted 23 Sep 2009 at 12:30 pm ¶
mk wrote:
Great piece, thank you. Dan Savage drives me kind of insane in this regard (though he strikes me as speaking/writing as though the queer community is made up even *more* narrowly of just white gay class-privileged men).
Posted 23 Sep 2009 at 8:49 pm ¶
kenda wrote:
Great piece, especially the 2nd to last paragraph. Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how much framing inhibits productive conversations between POC & white LGBTs. It’s hard for me to say since I’m not really a part of the community, but I’m nonetheless intrigued by the dichotomy.
Posted 24 Sep 2009 at 4:10 pm ¶
Zahra wrote:
Nice to see this here. I’d love to see more on the topic.
Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 3:15 pm ¶
RLS wrote:
Oh, dear. I could go on for days. Like the poster above said, Dan Savage drives me crazy too, not only for the ugly racism he displayed (and then wiped) from his site right after Prop 8 passed and everyone was so quick to blame the blacks, but also because he was the public face of gays on every news show afterward when it came time to talk about it. Black gays were then, as usual, invisible, and people like him have a lot to do with it. There is a white male power structure within the LGBT community, and it exists to uphold itself as the bearer of normality and desirability over all others. LGBT people of color do feel marginalized and unwelcome in many spaces. But, on a hopeful note, I feel that starting to change. I think media representation is hugely important, and as gays become more and more represented, I see my LGBT brothers and sisters of color represented more, too. I can only hope this is the start of a tidal wave of a trend. I really do think this community can only win when we do the honest work towards breaking down our gender, class, and racial divides. That rich white male gay media power structure has convinced everyone that they are the norm, which makes it harder for the average person to relate. Until we present ourselves as a diverse group of people with common goals and interests, it’s a bunch of rich white guys whining about getting married.
Posted 26 Sep 2009 at 10:43 pm ¶