Melissa Harris-Perry was witty, smart, and incisive in a post election talk that dealt as much with LGBT inequalities as with racial injustice. Her talk at the Princeton Public Library on Wednesday, November 3 packed the community room. It was the culmination of three events there, arranged by Princeton Friends Meeting and co-sponsored by Not in Our Town, in a series that celebrated the life of civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin
Who gets to be righteously angry about the breach of the social contract of the United States, a contract that makes certain promises to U.S. citizens? Not the Tea Party, suggested Harris-Perry. If there are going to be complaints about the quality of life in our communities, about schools that fail children, about 10 percent unemployment, about the instability of the housing market, about environmental degradation – all those conditions have long been par for the course in minority — black and brown – communities. The majority’s response to vulnerable and marginalized communities has been “act nicer, work harder, and you will get want you want.”
The minority community, in our democracy, gets to sit at the table. For Democrats worried about losing the House of Representatives, this is a solace. Minorities get a say. Unfortunately that isn’t true for all minorities in all situations. As Harris-Perry said, “If you don’t get to renegotiate your contract, you are a subject, not a citizen.”
Presidents need Kings, she said, showing a picture of President Lyndon Baines Johnson with the man who helped him renegotiate the nation’s social contract, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But advisors like King also need their own advisors. She cited Ella Baker, who insisted that young people must speak for themselves. Fanny Lou Hamer, who educated King about rural poverty and economic justice versus urban segregation. James Bevel, who insisted on consistent pacifism and edged King to speak out against the Vietnam War. And Bayard Rustin, the subject of the talk, who urged King to commit to non-violence in every aspect.
Harris-Perry listed three steps that are necessary for fulfillment of the social contract: recognition, respectability, redistribution. In illustrating the requirement to be respectable, she compared a question from the Tale of Desperaux to one from W. E. B. Du Bois, How does it feel to be a problem? In the children’s book, it was “What does it mean when your name is a slur?”
Among her startling observations and responses to questions was her comment on President Obama’s emphasis on strong black fathers. She noted that, if Obama had had a strong black father, he would never have become president. It was his access to white privilege that came to him through his white grandmother that lined his path to the White House.
Barbara,
I think that you summarized the event very well. Some of the points that also stuck out to me include:
When Bayard Rustin was speaking about leaving his name off of the Speaking Truth to Power document how he sang “Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen” and “There is a Balm in Gilead”. These two songs are very prominant in my faith walk today so I felt an instant connection upon hearing that he chose those two to communicate his message.
What does it mean to be a minority in a majority take all society and how the filibuster was put into place to keep the majority from taking complete control of the government. She spoke about last Tuesday’s mid-term elections and while there are now no African Americans in the Senate, we did elect them most ‘out’ LGBT candidates in history but that did not make the news. This was compared to 2008 when America elected its first black president while at the very same time we said no to Prop 8 which would move us closer to giving LGBT couples equal rights. This leads to the question does the civil rights movement rely on and or need the gay agenda? Do LGBT issues rely on the women’s movement to survive? What is the ‘problem’ that must be solved, why are we denying certain groups their rights because they are causing us problems? They are on the outside of the fringe of society and therefore are a problem not to be discussed and dealt with.
Professor Harris-Perry reinforced within me how important it is that I be seen and that I be seen accurately. She said that “the closet is not a privilege”. We want gay people to conform to our sense of “normal” and we are having difficulty seeing through difference. Shaming others is our refusal to recognize them for who they are. She ended the evening with Audre Lorde a gay black woman who posed the question…”who said it was simple? And has the following line in her poem that describes her life as being “Bound by color as well as her bed.” That summed it up in a complex nutshell.
Thank you Professor Harris-Perry Very well done!