One of the things that gets on my last nerve is when I hear peeps in the African American GLBT community gripe about how mainstream organization in our community aren't inclusive. One of the organizations that's been in the cross hairs of this crowd is the NAACP. The iconic civil rights organization is now beginning its second century of work after celebrating it's 100th anniversary on February 12. It also has a dynamic young leader in Benjamin T. Jealous.
These peeps will whip out a laundry list of complaints about this organization not being inclusive or that organization being seemingly hostile to our interests, but when you ask them if they are members of that organization or what they've personally done to change it, they'll make excuse after excuse to justify why they aren't.
The point is, you peeps who are complaining about the NAACP for example, need to be part of the solution instead of bitching about the problem.
Have you taken the time out of your busy party or pageant schedule to actually attend a local NAACP meeting to articulate your concerns?
More importantly, have you and a group of like minded friends joined the NAACP? If your answer is no, then you may want to consider it. That's a more constructive way to tackle the problem of these iconic organizations not being cognizant of our problems, and at the same time they'd appreciate the infusion of new members as well.
If you truly feel that the organization has been less than responsive to African-American SGL and transgender people's issues, then the way to correct that problem is to actually join the organization, do the work and get yourself in a leadership position to help change the policies.
In fairness--and I'm not necessarily speaking on the NAACP here but organizations in general--there are some groups that make it clear that it has no intentions of changing and it's destined to follow its own myopic agenda: GLAAD and the HRC especially come to mind.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I do agree that bitching isn't enough. Take action, whether it's joining the organization and exacting change from within (if they are open to change) or starting your own organization or doing your own community service.
But yes, do something. You can't complain when you do absolutely nothing.
Dennis,
ReplyDeleteYou're right in the fact that some orgs are lost causes, but for the ones that aren't too far gone in that direction, having us get involved in them and doing the work will create the goodwill and one on one educational opportunities that will possibly open them up to supporting our community.