A note on racism and the response of white folks in the queer community

I’ve been wanting to make a post like this for years, but have been leery to do so. I’ve always felt the need to censor myself when it comes to issues on race and religion.

For the record…for those of you who don’t know me, I’m whitebread trailer trash. I make no effort to hide the fact that I was raised on welfare, and for a short time was on welfare myself.

I’m a member of a few queer sites, and a few that aren’t predominately queer, but have a large amount of queer users. I was talking to a friend today thru IM- we both frequent the same sites. She asked me why POC feel the need to create threads/groups/communities for them on such sites.

Apparently, she doesn’t get the racism that is rampant in a lot of queer communities.  Perhaps she just doesn’t see it.  I think it’s possible that the reason why she can’t/chooses not to see it is because it’s never been properly addressed.  From my experience, when such matters are addressed, it’s usually at a conference out of town.  You’d think that people would bring back some progessive ideas to their prospective queer communities on how to combat racism.

We just don’t see non-whites as queer.  Why?  Because most people can’t seperate the individual from the culture.  We see people of colour as being part of a group.  A white trans person is just a trans person…but a black person who is trans is a black trans person.

The feeling I got from the queer community when I first stumbled (quite literally) into it was this:  We welcome everyone with open arms, as long as you’re not different.  As long as you fit the notion of what we deem “queer”  is; you have a place here.

Now, I understand why people who don’t have white skin choose to branch off in the queer community.  Certain cultural needs cannot be fulfilled within mainstream (white) queer communities.  The need for comradarie as well serves as a foundation for such groups to thrive and grow.

The person who inspired this blog entry truly thinks it’s self-segregation.  I on the other hand think that it’s a great thing.  Non-white queers no longer have to leave behind a part of their identity to fit in with the queer community.

I’ve been thinking what we as white folks can do to change this.  The conclusion I came to is more simple than you may think.  Just admit there’s bigotry in the queer community.  Talk about it.  Don’t be afraid to ask people of colour what you can do.  Don’t be afraid to be part of the solution.

~ by Linc on February 10, 2006.