Proud to Be Gay and Proud to Be White

As a lesbian, I am supposed to be a band in Jesse Jackson’s rainbow. And for most of my life, I believed the left’s rhetoric about identity politics, voted Democrat, and supported the liberal agenda.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I attributed the racial conflicts I experienced to black oppression — when blacks called me “blondie” and pushed me around, they were venting legitimate frustration, given their history as victims of the system. When Watts burned, I rationalized: Years of police brutality had caused the riots, not the blacks themselves. Even as late as the 1980s I was still buying it.

I can think of three events that finally pushed me out of the rainbow. The first was President Clinton’s speech about the demographic future of America in which he rejoiced at the impending demise of the white majority. Although I rejected my own reaction at the time as racist, the words that came to my mind were “traitor to his race.”

The second was a job I nearly lost out on because I was white. The man who hired me told me he had been instructed to hire a “person of color.” To his credit, he disobeyed his supervisor and hired the most qualified candidate. A friend wasn’t so lucky. During a job interview she was told, without apology, that only blacks would be hired.

And third was the O.J. Simpson verdict.

As a lesbian, I can count on one hand the number of times I have been verbally harassed because I am gay. As a white person it has been an entirely different story. I have white lesbian friends who have been raped by black men; white gay male friends who have been beaten up by Hispanic gangs (in one case my friend died); and numerous straight white friends whose “quality of life” has been reduced by blacks and other people of color.

I am still uneasy with many aspects of the movement as I try to reconcile being a proud gay person with being a proud white person. But when push comes to shove, my guess is that race trumps sexual identity.